AMD Says Xbox One and PS4 Will Be a Boon to PC Gamers

News
By Kevin Parrish
published

I heard this pitch behind closed doors with AMD during E3 back in June as the company talked about its upcoming Radeon cards, the new Never Settle Forever tiers and APUs residing in the new consoles. PC gaming will get a boost from the new generation of hardware because the platform will no longer be a second thought now that all three are basically on the same page. Sure, each platform will have their unique selling points (proprietary features), but from here on out, development shouldn't be such a pain in the… um, backside.

Matt Skynner, the company's Corporate Vice President and General Manager of AMD's Graphics Business Unit, reassured PC gamers in an interview with Forbes that the days of neglect are likely over. The PC gaming segment is alive, it's doing well, and growing. With the new generation, the architectures are similar, therefore development costs are reduced, and much easier to create multi-platform games than before.

"The new consoles too triggered a rush in game engine development," he said. "Anytime developers are spending new effort and new focus on designing new engines, then of course they're going to release PC games that feature these technologies."

"When consoles are first launched, games are first developed on console and then ported to PC," he added. "Because it's our architecture there, it's easier to port the games. And because they're first developed on our hardware, there should be a performance advantage. They should run better on our hardware. So if we can create that performance advantage on the PC, from a graphics point of view, then we can give our customers a better gaming experience and grow our market share."

He also talked about our hands-on of the Radeon HD 7990 in CrossFire after Forbes called the article "scathing." Chris wanted to find out how these massive cards coexist both acoustically and thermally within the same Cooler Master HAF X enclosure. With two retail cards installed and running Unigine's Heaven for three or four minutes, the GPUs were hitting the 102-degree protection point. Far Cry 3 crashed after heating up to 98 degrees. Even more, Chris also talked about a single 7990 card having frame pacing issues back in April.

"MAINGEAR proved that CrossFired 7990s is a perfectly viable option for enthusiast gamers," Skynner said. "It's a solution they've been shipping to the market for a while. With regards to performance, we've already released the AMD Catalyst 13.8 driver which addresses the frame pacing concerns outlined in that article. I think we've done an excellent job of addressing everything in that article. Today the 7990 is unequivocally the fastest video graphics card on the market."

The Q&A goes on to talk about the upcoming press event regarding the next-generation Radeon series, the Never Settle Forever bundle, the future of APUs and more. To read the full interview, head here.

Kevin Parrish
48 Comments Comment from the forums
  • rantoc
    It will defiantly be in the first 3-4 years or soo... how about after that when the PC is over 10x more powerful and the consoles are worn out performance wise... or how about 7-8 like now - When the consoles are the sole reason most games have poor quality ect?
    Reply
  • vmem
    on the software side, I think AMD drivers have already come a long way, and the improved optimizations from games being made for AMD's jaguar architecture can only further improve performance of AMD's single card solutions. as for frame-pacing etc etc, it is a problem that AMD has more or less been forced to acknowledge, and progress has been made and should continue in the coming months, years.

    As for hardware, AMD's problem has always been heat/power efficiency. tho unlike their battle with Intel on the CPU side, extra heat output for enthusiast class desktop GPUs is not a very significant problem. but when your dual-flagship card down throttles due to heat (7990 isn't the first time, think 6990 etc), it only creates a negative company image and leaves a bad taste for those dedicated AMD fans who shelled out $2k for a pair of 7990s at launch.

    Thus, I think the 23% die size shrink on 28nm for AMD's Hawaii chip makes a lot of sense. if they can match or get close to Titan's performance, but get their heat-output under control, it would eventually lead to one hell of a 9990 card; better company image, and the GPU crown. We know NV is unlikely to give us a dual Titan card, so as an AMD fan, I hope this is where they can pull ahead this round
    Reply
  • realibrad
    The main reason this generation of consoles will help PC games, is due to the fact that the consoles are now pretty much scaled down PCs. Making games for consoles came first, then they were ported and patched to work on PCs. Moving a game over to PCs will be much easier, because the hardware is closer than its ever been.
    Reply
  • asiaprime
    I'm reminded of nvidia not wanting to have hardware for the xb1/ps4 generation because it wasn't offered enough money. the point that games will be optimized for amd gpus, might be a good selling point for cards later, since they recognize the brand. poor planing on the nvidia front.

    I'm hoping to see more console only games come to pc. hopefully this new gen will give us that. but from a developer standpoint, you'd have to support a bunch of clueless 'gamers' that don't know their system specs. if I were running a developer, I would port it after I get the console numbers.
    Reply
  • deftonian
    I'll believe it when I see it. It's easy to talk big game but just because it's easier, doesn't mean the companies will spend the extra time to optimize PC versions. I really hope they prove me wrong but I guess you can call me bitter from the last 7 years of un-kept promises.
    Reply
  • slyu9213
    11564972 said:
    It will defiantly be in the first 3-4 years or soo... how about after that when the PC is over 10x more powerful and the consoles are worn out performance wise... or how about 7-8 like now - When the consoles are the sole reason most games have poor quality ect?

    It's not like performance of consoles will become stagnate in the upcoming 7-8 years. Console technology will increase along with PC to some extent.

    So don't worry about the future. As of now the Next-Gen console will be positive for PC gaming in the upcoming 2-4 years due to being based on same/similar architecture.

    Games look great on the Next-Gen consoles already. In 2-3 years Developers will be able to optimize their releases like how the Last of Us and Beyond Two Souls(?) so games will look better and run better. PC's hardware is better than the consoles and will get better every year. In a good situation that means we will be able to run games better at a higher resolution and with better graphics.
    Reply
  • cemerian
    according to mores law we get 2x performance every year and its been that way for ever, now my pc is already 2x faster or more than the so called nex-gen (lol) consoles, the most powerfull one you can build today is about 4-5 times as fast now take in consideration moores law and the pc will be closer to 20x faster than consoles in just 2 or 3 years
    Reply
  • chimera201
    "When consoles are first launched, games are first developed on console and then ported to PC,"

    Wrong. Do UnrealEngine, CryEngine, Source Engine,etc run on consoles? No they run on PCs and games are first developed on PCs first then the performance is fined tuned to that of the consoles, then this version of the game is ported to PC so console gamers won't cry about PC games being high quality.

    Why was and is the PC platform being neglected. It wasnt the difference in architecture between consoles and PC but it was the high rate of piracy on the PC platform. Eliminate piracy on PC and consoles will not exist.
    Reply
  • Avus
    Let's see if Ubisuck and Rockstar will have better PC ports in future.
    Reply
  • rmpumper
    11565067 said:
    I'm reminded of nvidia not wanting to have hardware for the xb1/ps4 generation because it wasn't offered enough money. the point that games will be optimized for amd gpus, might be a good selling point for cards later, since they recognize the brand. poor planing on the nvidia front.

    I'm hoping to see more console only games come to pc. hopefully this new gen will give us that. but from a developer standpoint, you'd have to support a bunch of clueless 'gamers' that don't know their system specs. if I were running a developer, I would port it after I get the console numbers.

    I doubt the console kids will know or care to know what kind of hardware their consoles are running, let alone purchase a gaming PC with AMD parts just because the consoles have something from the save company. In the end, the ones who provide better performance will sell more - like always.
    Reply