SLI Consoles

[TylerDurden]

This is a rant.

IMO :

Someone told me that Consoles and PC's are becoming ever so close to each other.....

Ahem...

This was said to me, after i had said that consoles are a waste of money, and PC's are the way to go....

Well..

lets imagine a world where Consoles are neck and neck with PC's. ...

what would you call them ? PC CONSOLES ?

what's the point ?

I think its a bunch of stuff.

Even if a console was as good as a SLI PC, people would laff and upgrade. Leaving console gamers to wait for the next best thing. Seeing how consoles are like E-machines, and can not be upgraded. On board sound, video, blah blah blah.

So how is the xbox going to eat your money next year?

I can almost bet that Microsoft will team up with Nvidia, and introduce SLI consoles, in which you can have two of the same xbox, but with more power.....



in a few years 4 way SLI video cards will be a everyday thing, meaning that someone could buy 4 low end cards, turning their system into a beast. and not have to upgrade for a long time. While a console gamer has bought two or more consoles during that time. Maybe.


my point is this..

Consoles are a waste of money, i'm sad i ever bought a xbox, and there is no way that consoles will ever be anything close to a PC.

This isn't no fucking star wars, and darth x box wont be saying "now iam the master" to obe PC won. Because games can not be made on consoles, and consoles can not design consoles.

ps..

if one were to upgrade their 360, the only thing they could do is replace the ram, with better ram. Not MORE ram, BETTER ram. This isn't easy to do, and really has no point. If you were to put more ram in your console, no games would use it, making it pointless.


the reason i made this thread was pretty much because this :

i was at gamestop, and this guy that works there, had the nerve to try and tell me that consoles are better then PC's, and that the games on PC's don't come close to consoles.

This is coming from a guy who has a fucking DDR4 pin on his shirt.

he also went on to say how consoles have taken over the gaming world, and that no one really even plays PC games anymore ? what a fgt.

i told him to ring up my copy of Orange box, and stop talking.

ahem ....

[jow]

Well. I mean, he's right. Console games amount for the overwhelming majority of software sales. Does that make PC gaming dead? Nay fucking way. the MMORPG phenomenon, casual gaming and the success of digital distribution platforms like Steam make PC gaming relevant and important.

Is PC gaming an console gaming on a narrowing path that drive the two ever closer with each innovation on either side? Yes.

Will one "die" and the other "live"? Probably not. The suggestion is that at some point we will have more consolidation in our media devices. I suppose that means that the format of a "PC" will survive, but most likely in a more technically uniform manner, like consoles. Most likely doing far more tasks than a console does right now - like a PC.

Look no further than Steam, Xbox Live, X-Fire and Games for Windows for evidence of the trends at work, here.

[TylerDurden]

i just want to know if SLI consoles sound cool or not lol

sega sorta did that. sorta.

[jow]

I guess I missed the point in there somehow.

[WHEATLEY007]

Tyler - your whole argument is a bit stoopid really. Its pretty incoherent to be honest. You start of with an imaginary Consoles are equal to PCs world, make a pointless, one sided argument that brings nothing to the argument that’s been pointlessly going on since time began, or at least since I was last in a school play-ground, and top it off with a moan about some moron Saturday staffer at a games shop.

Will people be posting this stuff when I’m old and infirm, in a hospital bed, with my family paying their last respects to me before I take the long sleep?

I hope not.

Sorry mate, its not you - its the argument.

[TylerDurden]

thats bull shit, wheat.


If you think SLI consoles are so FUCKING lame, then why don't you help me out. <--lol

Today when i came to TMH, i wanted people to have posted their thoughts on hardware. If hooking two consoles together, like some video cards, or some old school sega gear is no where in sight, then what ?

maybe, being able to upgrade your console with better hardware ?? Upgradable consoles ?

i just don't see it, however buying a second console doesn't seem that crazy.
you'll do it in about 3 years anyway, son. Why not now, and have the power of two instead of one ?

ps.
iam in no way saying a xbox360 can be hooked to another one, and create SLI. However, WHAT IF .... .... ...

[DarkPenfold]

I have to agree that the basic argument is bunk.

The PC market bought into the SLI/CrossFire concept in the first place because of the nature of the audience. The most hardcore - and therefore vocal - of PC gamers are motivated by having a beefy rig, and dual vid cards were first marketed as the Next Big Thing in Graphics. However, I've yet to see a decent in-game case where buying two completely identical cards and running them in tandem produces twice the performance.
But at the end of the day, the hardcore PC gamer expects to update their graphics card every 2 years or so, and the rest of the system either incrementally or in one go every 3-4 years. Console owners typically just want to buy a box that sets up in minutes (no faffing with drivers) and will play games well for the next 5 years.

The whole idea behind console gaming is that you have a standard platform across your entire market. As a console manufacturer, when you start to fragment that market into Haves and Have-Nots based on hardware add-ons like a dual console setup (or, say, Sega 32X or MegaCD), you stand to exploit the Haves and make the Have-Nots feel sidelined, alienating both camps.
If the only difference is that the dual-console setup has better performance, for literally twice the price of a regular machine, your market penetration will be virtually nil; on the other hand, if you develop a game that requires its buyers to have the additional kit (like the Nintendo 64 RAM Pak, only ten times the cost - there's a reason that only DK64 needed the add-on*), you'll be unlikely to make back the tens of millions of dollars it costs to produce a title nowadays.

My final summary - market fragmentation is a bad thing. As an example of this, IMHO Microsoft's worst 360-flavoured mistake was making the hard-drive optional; the cheapest model should've had a 10gb drive at least.
Games like Mass Effect would benefit greatly if the dev teams could rely on a gamer owning a hard drive, as the Unreal Engine's LOD textures & models really harm the storytelling in certain places - you can be halfway through a conversation and still be seeing background textures pop into existence. But at the same time, if you make the hard drive mandatory then you'll exclude the large number of people who just bought a Core unit, potentially crippling your sales base.

(* Yeah, I know Pefect Dark used it too - but PD was playable without it; DK64 wouldn't run at all without the extra memory.)

[WHEATLEY007]

Point well put.

'SLI' consoles are not completely unheard of though. The SNES had 2 graph chips if I remember corretly - one for the super cool Mode 7 effects.

Did'nt the Jaguar have two cpu's nicknamed tom & jerry ?

Not truw SLI, but thats as close as you'll get.

Also, SLI is IMO a waste of time. There always seems to be a card about that can give the average SLI set up a run for its money. IMO if you've got SLI, you are either minted (or dad is) or you dont have other things to spend your money on....... girlfreind, socialising, car, home, investments, education etc.
Just cos you can see an extra few fps in Crysis cos you spent 4x £300 on 4way SLI, dont mean that your gonna be better at the game, gonna enjoy it more than me, and it'll no way help you get laid.
- But thats just my opinion. - and I'm older than you so you have to listen to me. :D :shifty:

[blackguy32]

(* Yeah, I know Pefect Dark used it too - but PD was playable without it; DK64 wouldn't run at all without the extra memory.)

It might as well not have been. If I remember correctly, over half of the game was cut and the remaining half was butchered heavily since I believe they cut down on the screen size. Grr.... that was a game that tried to do too much with what little hardware they had.

[jow]

and it'll no way help you get laid.


Wrong, if one of you guys rocks some 4 way SLI, I'll suck yo' dick.

[TylerDurden]

You are thinking, and speaking of Crossfire !

SLI can't be a waste.
I swear to all of you, SLI is real, it works, and with out it, i can't play crysis or cod4.

you need to understand, you can buy a $200.00 video card that wont play crysis. Add another one, and now you can play crysis pretty damn well.

SLI stuff is not a lot of money dude, for $100 you get the motherboard that will do SLI. Then you get a CPU for $250, that is core 2 quad, and can be over clocked to 4ghz, then a few video cards for $200. Thats it. you can get a 4 gig kit of SLI ram for $98.00, that has cas 4 timings. SLI comes in many different price ranges, and i'm sorry but it's not just a few FPS you notice, it's the whole game.

Crossfire is a waste of money, not SLI. AMD and ATI basically got tricked, and kicked out of the loop.

crossfire doesn't even work btw. You are thinking of crossfire !




The level of PC games are going up. far cry 2 anyone ?

tU7lyFmgeFg


There always seems to be a card about that can give the average SLI set up a run for its money.

If you keep up with the new cards, you'll see that there is no one card that will give a SLI set a "run for its money"

Nvidia is fucking with everything by telling people the new card coming out next week is the shit. People drop everything, and wait to buy it. IN THE MEAN TIME, sites like newegg drop the prices of their cards, 100 dollars at a time, so people like myself can get their hands on the best of the best. THEN this new card comes out, and guess what.. it is NO better then the 8 series.

its a great time to be building a computer.

please please please believe me sirs.

this is why i am SO into SLI right now. Because Nvidia knows there are too rich of people out there in this world, that only want that beefed up rig to show off, and know NOTHING about hardware, little do these people know, you don't have to spend 500 dollars on that new mobo, get the 186 dollar one that is the same.

I swear to all of you, this is how it is. The market is on its head right now !


There always seems to be a card about that can give the average SLI set up a run for its money.

If you keep up with the new cards, you'll see that there is no one card that will give a SLI set a "run for its money"

Nvidia is fucking with everything by telling people the new card coming out next week is the shit. People drop everything, and wait to buy it. IN THE MEAN TIME, sites like newegg drop the prices of their cards, 100 dollars at a time, so people like myself can get their hands on the best of the best. THEN this new card comes out, and guess what.. it is NO better then the 8 series.

its a great time to be building a computer.

please please please believe me sirs.

this is why i am SO into SLI right now. Because Nvidia knows there are too rich of people out there in this world, that only want that beefed up rig to show off, and know NOTHING about hardware, little do these people know, you don't have to spend 500 dollars on that new mobo, get the 186 dollar one that is the same.

I swear to all of you, this is how it is. The market is on its head right now !

is one 9900 better then a 2 way, or 3 way sli card set up ?

No one knows because there arent any performance figures out. Some people are speculating that because there isnt a planned "GX2" 9900 board, that one 9900GTX/Ultra will out perform a 9800GX2 dual GPU or an SLI 9800GTX.

Thats about as much info as anyone is going to be able to tell you at this time.

I would wait the couple of months to July and see how the 9900s compare to the 8800s and 9800s. If there is a huge difference like some speculate then go for the 9900. If they arent that great, the 9900s will still push down the price of the 9800s and 8800s, so you will be able to get those for a much cheaper price then you can right now.

It will be a real buyers market come July IMO.

[WHEATLEY007]

I swear to all of you, SLI is real, it works, and with out it, i can't play crysis or cod4. Thats crap. I've only got one 8600GT and I can play Cod4, with everything on max and never get under 50fps.


you need to understand, you can buy a $200.00 video card that wont play crysis. Add another one, and now you can play crysis pretty damn well. Then thats $400. Why not just pay $300 and have a card that 'plays Chrisis pretty damn well' & have $100 in your pocket towards whatever upgrade you must have. From what I understand, there's hardly a card out at the mo that can play the game at max without wanting to keel over and die.



and it'll no way help you get laid.

Wrong, if one of you guys rocks some 4 way SLI, I'll suck yo' dick.

Ha - thats foreplay mate - not getting laid.

My point. The worst thing people did for each other (the pc buying public) was to post their rigs in there signatures on forums. Its just dick waving and considering the way we live these days; needing the latest tech, better than the other persons - and it meant that everyone went about feeling like they had less of a machine that the next person and 'we all gotta get that next upgrade'. Its like the modded car brigade, pointlessly spending money on getting crap to get that last couple of BHP out of a crap family car, that realy makes little difference to their lives. You are never going to have a top-end rig, cos the moment you buy your card, your ram, your mobo, your flat-screeen, the next month they will release another, bigger, faster, brighter version/upgrade cos somewhere, someplace someone has just got paid and wants to be told that the thing they buy, is better than the last one - even though the difference is marginal.

[TylerDurden]

wow.

i really wanted to talk about hardware, but now my thread is in ashes, because people nit pick at my every god damn word, and now it seems everything is just POINTLESS. I guess it's because i'm fucking stupid. More then likely had something to do with me bashing consoles. Someone just fucking close the thread.

[The Good King Bad]

wow.

i really wanted to talk about hardware, but now my thread is in ashes, because people nit pick at my every god damn word, and now it seems everything is just POINTLESS. I guess it's because i'm fucking stupid. More then likely had something to do with me bashing consoles. Someone just fucking close the thread.

Look, man, I've got certain information, all right? Certain things have come to light. And, you know, has it ever occurred to you, that, instead of, uh, you know, running around, uh, uh, blaming me, you know, given the nature of all this new shit, you know, I-I-I-I... this could be a-a-a-a lot more, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, complex, I mean, it's not just, it might not be just such a simple... uh, you know?

[jow]

wow.

i really wanted to talk about hardware, but now my thread is in ashes, because people nit pick at my every god damn word, and now it seems everything is just POINTLESS. I guess it's because i'm fucking stupid. More then likely had something to do with me bashing consoles. Someone just fucking close the thread.

Look, man, I've got certain information, all right? Certain things have come to light. And, you know, has it ever occurred to you, that, instead of, uh, you know, running around, uh, uh, blaming me, you know, given the nature of all this new shit, you know, I-I-I-I... this could be a-a-a-a lot more, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, complex, I mean, it's not just, it might not be just such a simple... uh, you know?

I need to be a fucking moderator, so I could just lock this and say "The Dude Abides" and look all hilarious and awesome right now.

Fuck. Now I just look like a chump!

[Azevedo]

wow.

i really wanted to talk about hardware, but now my thread is in ashes, because people nit pick at my every god damn word, and now it seems everything is just POINTLESS. I guess it's because i'm fucking stupid. More then likely had something to do with me bashing consoles. Someone just fucking close the thread.

This is the most sense you have made in the thread as of yet.

[TylerDurden]

The next wave for the current consoles is having multi console set ups for triple head view

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPkdO3xYVAk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPkdO3xYVAk

4 Xbox360s, 4 copies of the game = 4 views (triple head with a rear view mirror!). you need 4 copies of the game though !

So you can imagine Sony will want to emulate this with GT5 etc, for racing sims this is great, plus the console manufacturer can get you to buy 3-4 consoles (which is still alot cheaper than buying a high end Sli PC). And you can imagine Sony and MS exec's rubbing there hands with glee with each household wanting to own 4 consoles...

The problem with upgradable parts for next gen consoles say a CPU or GPU cartridge that can be changed for the X4 or PS4. Is that devious people can make non "official" versions which allow cheats or piracy. Or blow up official consoles and MS and Sony get the bill and PR nightmare. Console makers have had this issue in the past so its safer to make games "Link" consoles for extra horsepower or views, than allow the user to upgrade the console.

So with the move to 3d screens (which both current consoles would struggle with), gesture OS (wii is kinda there lol). I would not be surprised if the next consoles and even the current ones start to encourage multi console set ups for extra features such as 3d display games, triple head etc etc.

The current consoles are mini PC's (well the PS3 and X360) They have optical drives, HHD, flash memory slots, wifi, bluetooth, broadband/Lan, web access, the PS3 can use external HHD's with ease and even a keyboard and mouse and install Linnux.

The penalty you pay for a very cheap "games pc/console from sony and MS" is much more expensive software no user upgrades to CPU, RAM or GPU. And that both pretty much run games only at 720 HD, very very few games titles actually run at 1080p

With triple head and 3d displays or 3d triple head! to become one of the next big things, Sony and MS can get round this by linking consoles for extra views. Monitors which are one display with 3 screens built in are starting to arrive for PC gaming this year I would suspect the racing fans on the consoles will want to join in. Forza 2 already proved this is possible.

[Burris]

SLI: The 3 bookshelf Honda Civic spoiler of gaming.

[TylerDurden]

lol

you gotta have 3 consoles,3 copys of the game, 3 screens and that doesn't even faze mo fuckas, people are doing this !

to play one game like that, is more money then an average sli rig.

[TylerDurden]

http://www.shadowflux.com/xbox.html

clustering is how you would do sli consoles.


http://www.xl-cluster.org/index.php

FOR ALL YOU XBOX 360 OWNERS, YOU HAVE TO CHECK THIS SITE OUT !

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/

(check out the water cooled 360)


You can link mobos together. Its called clustering. Some Duke professor and his students put together a bunch (several hundred) X-Boxes and created a super computer that could out perform those 90s Cray super computers for a fraction of the cost. (7 million as opposed to hundreds of millions)

i'm trying to figure out of this is true or not.