HOW LONG UNREAL ENGINE 3 FOR PC?

[TooEasy!]

I'm sure everyone has seen the incredible Unreal Engine 3 "Samaritan" demo and sources stated that the current hardware running the demo were 3 GTX 580's. Since hardware is readily available and newer products are due this year (HD 7000 series anyone?). When will Unreal give us PC gamers a game w/ this caliber of graphics? Many industry analyst say Microsoft or Sony won't have a next gen until 2014, that's entirely waaaaaaaaaayyyy too long to recieve a console port.

 

[WBurchnall]

The answer my friend, lies in Microsoft, Sony and to a lesser extent Nintendo's hands. A lot of PC games are ports of games originally built around consoles. That being said, as beautiful as the new Unreal engine looks, the current generation of consoles cannot get anywhere close to running it.

Developers and publishers appreciate profitability above the quality of the end product to an extent and want to sell their games to the largest audience possible. At the moment, creating a game for consoles + pc games is more profitable than pc gamers alone. Most developers would like to make PC exclusive titles simply b/c they could create some really awesome looking and unique games. They just can't afford to do so at the moment.

The only 'real' solution to this problem? Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to a lesser extent, releasing their new consoles that --might--be capable of running Unreal's new engine. That would allow developers and publishers to maximize profits by creating a game for PCs using this engine and still allow it to be sellable on consoles.

Sony/Microsoft are though to be releasing their next consoles in 2013-2014ish. Nintendo in 2012. Nintendo in a leaked slide promised to offer "next gen performance at current generation prices" meaning its going to be a 'budget' system released in 2012. Expect a $300.00 price tag perhaps if its 'current generation' prices. For $300.00, you'll see more powerful hardware than an xbox 360/ps3 likely but probably not powerful enough to run the Unreal 3 engine. At least, I personally dont think a PC could be built for $300.00 that would run that tech demo, so, I'd be hard pressed to see a console doing anything similar if Nintendo doesn't want to go the loss-leader route.

So your realistically looking at the earliest, 2013, to see a game using that new Unreal engine. You've seen what's possible today. Now, wait 2 years, perhaps 3 years, for it to arrive.

 

[TooEasy!]

Can't argue with that. I hope the APU push get us pass Directx 9 and can start enjoying many more DX 11 titles.

 

[teletran8]

It's rather funny though. They made tons of cash on Gears of War, Unreal 3 for consoles because they came out years ago, but now they have to suck it up and make low quality games or come back to PC. Serves them right for turning their backs on us PC guys. I remember I bought Unreal Tournament with my Pentium 3 Best Buy system back in the day, what a cool FPS game @ 1280x1024 on a Voddoo 3 AGP card back in the day Then I got Half Life DM and TF and it was all over for my PS1 and console gaming basically. GT5 is pretty cool on PS3 though along with the Skate games.

 

[trudude]

I refuse to buy a console. Period. All the devs that have left the PC in the dust are straight up jackasses in my book. I know they want to make these huge profits, but Jesus Christ don't forget who got you there.

 

[schenks]

That stuff is all already available in the latest builds of the UDK and the licensed UE3, so it's just a matter of having companies develop towards the tech. However, since it's only a recent push to licensors, you're talking probly 6-12 months before a realistic development cycle would even be completed under the assumption they implemented any of it.

 

[Lord_Exodia]

At best we can expect a quick CG movie looking like this in the near future. Don't expect to game with graphics that look like this for some time. That would take an ambitious and exclusive game to pc that will make console owners envious. Sad truth is the only developer we had that still did that for us was Crytek and they sold out so I'm sorry to say this has a snowballs chance in hell happening unless we are absolutely lucky and some developer steps up to blow pc gamers away. Just don't hold your breath for this to happen. It's fair to say 2014 for something like this when it's ported over from a next gen console in shitty fashion.

 

[suiken_2mieu]

Just saw this thing, watched an in depth explanation and feel like this wont be seen in consoles for the foreseeable future. It's going to be similar to DX11 in that, only PC users will be able to see the benefits and it will be more like an add in, in games.

 

[pxc]

Unreal Engine 3 has been out for years. The UE4 will likely be used on a PC game first as a demonstration of its features since it cannot run at full capability on current generation consoles. UE4 was developed on the PC, just like Epic's previous engines.

Games built around the Unreal Engine are somewhat unique when it comes to ports because a first-class implementation is available on the PC. The negative is that games targeted at consoles usually have gameplay mechanics and controls suited for consoles. Also, model detail and/or texture detail and level complexity may be lowered to run on the console's more limited resources.

Epic has many licensees and whoever decides to license the new engine can build a game around it. Unless one of those devs is already planning and/or building around that new engine, any games will not be out for a while. Top titles have long development cycles.

 

[cannondale06]

how in the heck did they get those stunning graphics from UE 3? and UE 4 is a console only engine last time I saw anything about it.

 

[pxc]

However, Rein later confirmed Unreal Engine 4 was coming to PC first, and clarified: "When Tim Sweeney was talking about Unreal Engine 4 [...] he mentioned something along the lines of it being exclusively for the next generation of consoles [...] what he meant was, it won't run on this generation of consoles."

The GDC 2011 tech demo might have been called UE3, but it looks similar to what Epic was done in the past with .5 releases, which preview new engine features before the next major release.

 

[ChuckLogan]

I hope this will be what we can expect from Nintendo's next system.

 

[450]

Then I got Half Life DM and TF and it was all over for my PS1 and console gaming basically.

PS1 did have some cool titles though. Good thing its able to be to emulated/upscaled on PS3!

But yeah, 320x240 vs 1280x1024 is no contest.

 

[butterfliesrpretty]

how in the heck did they get those stunning graphics from UE 3? and UE 4 is a console only engine last time I saw anything about it.

not sure where youre getting your info but the latest demo they showed that the op is talking about is the new engine you can use it now

 

[cannondale06]

not sure where youre getting your info but the latest demo they showed that the op is talking about is the new engine you can use it now

what? the demo was about many features being added to UE3. I was simply saying that its hard to believe they made UE3 look that good. the UE4 comment was just the last thing I ever heard about that engine.

 

[WBurchnall]

I hope this will be what we can expect from Nintendo's next system.

No, the tech demo had a ton of dx11 feature in it. ..... and Nintendo according to rumors is going for an R700 GPU which is dx10 or 10.1 based. I wish that's how Nintendo's next console would look!

 

[limitedaccess]

Some things about the tech demo though -

It was run on 3xGTX 580s, and I cannot find any resolution information but I highly doubt it was 2560x1440 or higher, likely 1920x1080 or lower. 3xGTX 580s is still considerably beyond the means of PC gamers wanting to run at 1920x1080. And set piece scenes are more controllable in terms of performance requirements then actual game play.

The demo was a scripted "set piece" type sequence. Regardless of hardware it is likely you will not have a game come close to being animated during actual game play sequences like that based on current techniques.

The cost to develop the art assets for 1 scene and basically 3.5 characters is very different for an entire game. Despite how people hate multiplatform games, one advantage of them is they allow for much higher game budgets then available for a PC only release. This is noticeable on some PC only releases where the engine is technically much more advanced and demanding, but the actual art content lags behind.

 

[Ryoohki360]

Well 3 sli is not really good it like 100%, 80%, 30% of gpu use. Chance that sli 680 would smoke that demo when its released

 

[ChronoDetector]

Seriously I wish gaming developers would develop the games on PC first, and then port it to consoles. Hate it while we'll stuck with DX9 with outdated graphics, wish it was the other way around.

 

[limitedaccess]

Well 3 sli is not really good it like 100%, 80%, 30% of gpu use. Chance that sli 680 would smoke that demo when its released

While that may be true, even 2xGTX 680s at 1920x1080 would be an extremely small fraction of the market. Even among PC focused/only games that push graphics like Crysis or Metro 2033, they are not released requiring that level of hardware (keep in mind when Crysis was released, the "standard" resolution was much lower then 1080p).

Think more of what would run on a single hypothetical GTX 670 even on the more extreme end.

 

[socK]

UDK has been updated for a while now with all those features, as in anyone can download it and go playing. The content isn't there but all the DX11 path is.

And they said they wanted to optimize it down to running on a single 580.