A lot of gamers are anxiously waiting for the next-generation consoles, but did you know that current high-end PCs might be more powerful than both X720 and PS4. Of course you did, as this is something we’ve covered in the past. High-end PCs are currently way ahead of anything you can imagine, and let’s not forget that by the time X720 and PS4 hits streets, Nvidia and AMD will have unleashed even more powerful GPUs.
But what about the gaming industry, you say, and why isn’t anyone supporting your opinion? Well, Chris Roberts, creator of the Wing Commander series and Star Citizen, went public and stated what we’ve been saying this whole time; top-end PCs are more powerful than the upcoming next-generation consoles.
Speaking with Ars Technica, Roberts revealed that Star Citizen is only possible on the PC platform:
“What I was showing you can’t do on a current generation console. You can do most of it on a next generation console, but I can promise you a top-end PC now is already more powerful than what a next generation console is going to be.”
Roberts added that consoles are limited by their RAM capacity:
“You can’t do that much with 512MB [of RAM on a console], so that constrains a lot of your game design. If I’m building a PC game, I’m going ‘Yeah, you need 4GB on your machine.’ Of course you’re not going to get all 4GB because Windows is a hungry beast, but you’re getting a lot more than 512MB so it kinds of open up what you can do, what you can fit in memory at the same time, and it changes your level of ambition.”
Roberts concluded that Star Citizen will benefit from more RAM, but will also be playable to systems with lower amounts. Obviously PC gamers will have to lower settings, something that is not possible for console games (and that explains why PC systems with lower specs will be able to run Star Citizen):
“It’ll be kind of like Wing Commander used to be. If you had the extra memory, if you had the 386, it was a better experience, but you could still play it on a 286.”
Star Citizen is planned for a 2014 release, so we have a long way until this bad boy hits stores!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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