This is not your typicall post. I was looking at the specs of the 360 vs a Gaming PC and the differences are quite diffetrent in terms of requirements. The 360 only has 512 of gddr3 at 700MHz. It can play games like Fallout 3 which looks just as good on the 360 as it does with a really good PC that requires something 3 to 4 gigs of ram to get the same output. My question is there a linux or win32 based homebrew operating system that you could simply boot into with all needed drivers and such to run a game without the OS still running in the background. basically it will only be used for playing games not surfing the web or anything else. Almost making it a "PC CONSOLE". Is this possible. If it is then it would make a PC that is not as powerfull still be able to run the top of the line games. Is this a ridiculous idea or is it possible? Thanks Pit
If you think that, you may as well get the console. There is a BIG quality difference between the two. The 360 is also more poweful than you give it credit for, it is about the same line as a low-end gaming PC, and that's exactly how it runs games as well, at low settings.
I'm not saying the 360 is not powerfull but it does take less hardware to run a game on a pc that looks as good. If you have 4g of ram and you run winxp 32 you are only using 3.25 of the 4 to begin with then xp requires 256 minimum but will use 512 if the resources are there. The 360 on the other hand is able to put almost all of its resources into the game itself. I'm just saying it would benefit all of the pc gamers if there were something like this. Not every game comes out on a console.
There is no point in trying to get a pc to use that little of its resources. Ram is very cheap right now so it would be easier to get 4gb of ram than to try and lower windows resource usage. You would be better of just buying a cheap dual core 4gb ram and a 4850. That will play games much better than the 360. cpu http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116072 gpu http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121272 ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231219 case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042 mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128372 psu http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703018 hdd http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136149 dvd http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136152 total = $565 after shipping This a very simple computer that will do a good job of playing games and will look much better than a 360.
your joking right? that power supply would barely power that video card alone if that was all that was running on it, no way is it going to power a full system. your argument that a pc will play games better than a 360 is a joke as well i hope. 360 is made dedicated to gaming, not for anything but that. pc's are made for a broad range of things so its going to be hard to get a computer to run games as well as a 360. and a 4850 isnt going to cut it. especially not with an e5200. sure the e5200 could be overclocked, but the video card cant be overclocked enough to make it some kind of super computer. sli gtx 260's would be about as low as you could go to get performance close enough to replicate an xbox 360, and even then it wouldnt really be comparable.
Hi Mike, I havent seen you around in a while. Any way. Here is a link to the power consumption of a 4850 http://techreport.com/articles.x/14967/10 At load it is only 236 watts and that is with an old 65nm 130 TDP quad core. The power supply I suggested will do just fine. The cpu i listed is not the best but it is still plenty fast for most games. You dont need a quad core at 4ghz to play a game, a simple dual core overclocked to 3ghz will be more than enough for casual gaming. Your kidding right? The 360 came out over 4 years ago and the gpu it has is faster than two current high end video cards? Even something like a 8800gt will produce a much better image than a 360. So a 4850 will have no problem beating a 360.
236 out of 370. then your powering motherboard, hard drive, optical drive and fans. and that case has 5 fans in it. thats a lot to be drawn from that power supply. as far as image quality you cant compare the two. they have found a way to run crysis on a ps2, but still cant on a computer. you have to remember that there is a lot more to games than graphics. you also have to worry about the physics which is usually what a computer struggles with on a single video card.
236 is the total power consumption including hard drivers optical drives and fans. I would like to see crysis run on a ps2, can you provide a link? What you have to remember is that consoles are actually just computers. So what makes you think a console can handle physics better than a decent gaming pc?
It is quite common for such a question. To the answer: I highly doubt it. Most if not all current hyped games run on DX10 / GL. Unless the OS itself has those embedded, and also has a low memory footprint, there would be no suitable OSes for you need, nor have I heard of any. You are better off just cutting the bloat off of current OSes (ie. Vista, XP, W7). Like the others and you said, for a PC to run like a console for gaming, it'd need to be better. As the parts for a PC come from everywhere, the OS itself won't be as optimized and efficient as such an OS of a console. Compare the original XBOX to its PC counterpart. I doubt the PC version could even run Halo @ like 320 x 240 @ lowest resolutions. (exag.). compared to the bright and beautiful XBOX running its HALO. The game aspect is the same as the OS aspect too. The game is also optimized for the specific hardware, contrary to the PC. As, (??) said, the PC is used for a number of broader line of tasks. We can see nowadays, that consoles, too, can do the same. PS3 is a great example. Comparing a console to a PC is nearly meaningless; if you want to graphics of a better - than - now console, then wait for the next generation, or pump a big ass PC. The 360 itself is a piece of art, for such a 4 year old console. I'm not quite sure of the origin of the GPU in the console, but theoreticaly, I believe, it should be able to bypass that of a PS3. As many of you know. SPs vs Pipes. I guess like a nudered 7800gtx and some R520... Seemingly, the G70 is quite powerful already. Meaning, the 360 should be quite powerful graphically for its kin. Let's compare for instance a PS2 to a PC of its equivalence. (not good comparison, but for consulting purposes only). GT4, one of the best graphic games for its console. ---> Lets compare that to, hmmmm... how about good old LFS. They look similar, but I probably guess a high end Geforce 5 Series would be able to pump it out accordingly. (LFS was not supposed to be graphically enhancedd in the first place - DX8 =D). I guess that'd mean 2 years later, 3 years later (not sure of the roadmap of such ancient graphic cards). If we compare (if the growth of graphics is linear - M's Law?/ - I'm not sure if it states that growth in PCs are linear...?) to the 360, probably a GPU of 07' or 08' would be able to meet / surpass it. - A GPU from from the 8800 lines... probably. Its quite a pain in the ass to compare apples to pears. The console and the gaming PC are for more or less, different audiences. There only so few console games that utilize KBM, which is my fav for a FPS fan (can't say I'm good at thenm though). It is like comparing, in such a case, the DFGT to the G25. Two different audiences. And people are saying the DFGT sucks even though it is newer. For heaven sakes, two different audiences. GPUs? CPUs? Most of the time, the higher ends come out first (exc. 9 Series of Geforce Line for example). EDIT; THink of it this way. You are running a, hmmm, a CS:S Server (non dedic.), and you are running CS:S just playing. Which one would be faster? The non - dedic one would be slower, - like a PC. It has to run background apps, with the addition of a power eating OS, and inefficient game. -/- The PC has to do way more, in addition to bad efficiencies in the environment which it runs on, and the task that it is currently running.
common sense makes me think that. they make physics cards for a reason, so that your computer can better handle games that use physics.
ThePit: Once again, there is more in an xbox than you think. It has a triple-core CPU and a relatively powerful graphics adapter. The main problem is that the hardware in an xbox 360 is nothing like the hardware that goes in a PC, so it can't be directly compared. Saying 'a PC needs moe hardware to do the same job' is irrelevant. Saying a PC needs more expensive hardware is true. However, look at all the things a PC can do that an xbox can't. Apart from the Power supply, Krj's build is good. That PSU WOULD handle that system, but it would be absolutely deafening. PCP&C Silencer units are among the loudest on the market, even louder than the console itself... Remember, the Xbox 360 runs games between low and medium detail at 1280x720. To do that with most games, all you need is an HD4670, which is a $70 card that uses next to no power. The HD4850 ensures you can play games BETTER than a console, in most cases a lot better. The only game that really needs a CPU more powerful than the E5200 is Crysis (not on consoles, too demanding) or GTA4, because it's a terrible port. I lol'ed. No they didn't. Mike, they made Physics cards, then went out of business, and were bought out by nvidia. Interestingly enough, nvidia implement it in all their modern graphics cards, and yet, ATI don't, and ATI cards still sell. Conclusion? PhysX is not needed for PhysICS.
I think you guys have got off subject here. I am simply asking is some could make a OS for gaming only. It would still have the drivers and would still internet for downloading updates and drivers but that would be it. It would make a pc a console because in a nutshell that is all the 360 is, is a dedicated computer for gaming. I would like to see it done. Its like using Ubuntu and XP. Ubuntu blows it out of the water in terms of performance but it does not run alot of the win32 apps. Essentialy it is perfect for gaming except the fact that it does not run most games. Thats the type of comparison I am trying to make. Make a OS like Ubuntu without the fancy gui's and make it just run the games on your Hdd. I like all of the replies though. Keep them coming.
Write one. There's no such thing at the moment, who knows you might make money? I personally like having an OS where I can run a game, then minimise, go on the net, search for help/hints, or run Skype voice calls at the same time, along with the means to send files to each other whilst we talk.
Just to give a little clarity at how game consoles actually perform, the vast majority of the top tier games for the 360/PS3 aren't even rendered at 1280x720. They are rendered below 720P and upscaled to a 720P signal through a scalar chip or software. You get what you pay for, and it holds true for this situation. While consoles technological power is good enough to be enjoyable tech-wise they will never be able to compete with PC systems which cost notably more. (Until you start to factor in increase console game prices and online costs anyways). To the OP there is no way to specialize a PC for only gaming as it tends to be one of the most demanding tasks for the machine. The bulk of its cost is going to be with the CPU/GPU as they do all the grunt work. That being said you don't have to buy a top of the line machine or high end machine to get an experience greater or equal to consoles. Remember the technology inside the 360 is several years old now, and the PS3 is only one year newer (albeit still very much maturing on software side of it). It's hard to tell if you're trying to decide whether to go console or PC, or if you have an older PC you're trying to make the most out of. You can most always run top of the line games on a PC, but depending on your setup you might just not be able to run them on max settings.
Most are rendered at 720p for the 360, and 640p for the PS3 (1280x720 and 1024x600 respectively). THey are upscaled to either 1280x720 or 1920x1080. A select few games do run at 1920x1080 straight off, but VERY few do.
If you're interested in this sort of thing here is a thread from the forums that started the ball rolling on the whole "sub-HD" discovery. http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=46241 Games of note: 360: Call of Duty 4 (screenshot) = 1024x600 (2xAA) Halo 3 = 1152x640 (no AA) Gears of War 2 = 1280x720 (2xAA, certain edges unaffected) Grand Theft Auto IV = 1280x720 (2xAA) Fable II = 1120x720 (blur filter, 2xMSAA possibly) PS3: Call of Duty 4 = 1024x600 (2x AA) Grand Theft Auto IV = 1152x640 (no AA) GT5 Prologue (demo) = 1080p mode is 1280x1080 (2xAA) in-game while the garage/pit/showrooms are 1920x1080 with no AA. 720p mode is 1280x720 (4xAA) Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot = 1024x768 (2xAA, temporal) Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction = 1280x704 (2xAA, centered on 720p output) Resistance 2 = 1280x720 (2xAA - GDC09 slides) Uncharted: Drake's Fortune = 1280x720 (2xAA) etc..etc..etc.. In my mind it takes a special kind of crazy to be the type of person to stare at an image for an hour and count pixels. The vast majority of fullHD games are the DD titles, with the PS3 having a handful of retail fullHD games.
You sure the console GTA4 has AA? It's not even an option for the PC version? (But then again, it'd be too demanding for most PCs)
Only on the 360 version and it's only 2x. From what it seems they didn't really do any conversion for the PC version as the game recommends 4GB of video memory for high settings, it's unbelievable.
The game is odd, as most of the graphics are actually rendered by the Processor, not the graphics card at all, consequently a Quad core is basically mandatory to run the game with any settings off the floor. The graphical requirement is also steep, however, and you can hack the options to let you bypass the video memory requirement limiter, but it puts it in system RAM instead. I managed to pull (or try and pull) nearly 6GB of RAM usage playing GTA4, 3.3GB of it just from the game.
Let me add my own 2 cents to the discussion. Consoles render everything at a limited resolution. Anything like HD is upscaled from lower resolutions and, consequently, the image quality suffers. The Xbox 360 is better at this though because it actually uses small amounts of AA. Obviously, the PS3 still suffers from the terrible jaggies inherited from it's older brother the PS2. A PC renders all games at full resolution. Most with high levels of AA and much higher settings than the consoles can manage. And, most of the time, they still get better framerates. And get this, there are ZERO jaggies in 95% of my games. Show me a console that can render games at 1920 x 1200 w/ 4xAA and I'll show you a talking rock... Also, LMFAO @ Crysis on any console, especially the PS2.
