[GameGPU] ARK: Survival Evolved, GameWorks

[IndyColtsFan]

^This^, whats up with the graphics forums lately? We need some more games to come out so people can spend more time playing and less time complaining about graphics settings.

That being said, how is this game? I was thinking about giving it a go but I'm not sure if its worth buying to play multiplayer by myself.

Any input on actual gameplay or is everyone here so enamored with sliders and tickboxes they don't actually play games?:biggrin:

The game is absolutely beautiful, but as far as the survival genre goes, I think I prefer other games. Movement in Ark just seems kind of "clumsy" to me and I am not a fan of the interface.

 

[Silverforce11]

You lambasted a game citing Gameworks as the issue and it turns out it doesn't even have it. Bro, you're jumping on them AMD crosses now for no good reason.

https://developer.nvidia.com/gameworks-physx-overview

There's a huge variety of PhysX (beyond simple physics) as part of GameWorks. Do a burnout in Project Cars for a lot of PhysX smoke/particles and fps drops to single digits.. unless you're using an NV GPU.

They have plans to add more GameWorks to this already horribly optimized game. Good luck with that. Another Project Cars in the works.

Besides this, having NV logos everywhere and your game runs like donkey is a no longer a coincidence due to the % of titles which exhibited this phenomenon.

 

[railven]

Here's another amazing contribution to the "GameWorks Effect*":

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/ar...scusses-nvidia-gameworks-future-game-features

*Neutering AMD & Kepler.

970 ~23% faster than 780Ti, 980 ~48% faster!

Surely there cannot be constant "bugs" (Witcher 3 anyone?) in GameWorks titles that neuters Kepler so badly..

Now, that's just on Medium, the game looks visually crap but runs like ass/donkey, anything below 970 is basically unplayable (better upgrade Kepler owners!).

On High:

On Ultra (still looks meh):

1080p. Jesus.

https://developer.nvidia.com/gameworks-physx-overview

There's a huge variety of PhysX (beyond simple physics) as part of GameWorks. Do a burnout in Project Cars for a lot of PhysX smoke/particles and fps drops to single digits.. unless you're using an NV GPU.

They have plans to add more GameWorks to this already horribly optimized game. Good luck with that. Another Project Cars in the works.

Besides this, having NV logos everywhere and your game runs like donkey is a no longer a coincidence due to the % of titles which exhibited this phenomenon.

First Post was full of FUD. This thread should be closed.

 

[Silverforce11]

https://developer.nvidia.com/gameworks-physx-overview

NV disagrees with your Railven.

 

[AtenRa]

Really i dont understand, first why the developer will release an Alpha and get all this negative commentary, and secondly why people would pay to play an Alpha.

I mean, if the dev wants to release the Alpha for evaluation then by all means do it for free and invite everyone. But gamers paying for playing an Alpha ??? wtf

 

[railven]

Really i dont understand, first why the developer will release an Alpha and get all this negative commentary, and secondly why people would pay to play an Alpha.

I mean, if the dev wants to release the Alpha for evaluation then by all means do it for free and invite everyone. But gamers paying for playing an Alpha ??? wtf

It's the new trend in gaming! Steam Access! Be the beta tester! Or in this case, the Alpha tester!!!

You can be the real McCoy Hipster and say "I played it before it had LOOT!"

(I'm just teasing the concept, not trying to insult people that fund/back these operations.)

 

[Sabrewings]

People can hate on early access if they want, but I had a blissful two years of Kerbal Space Program before it ever hit release and I paid a much cheaper price for it too. Not all games are worth it, but some are.

 

[railven]

People can hate on early access if they want, but I had a blissful two years of Kerbal Space Program before it ever hit release and I paid a much cheaper price for it too. Not all games are worth it, but some are.

From following a few projects closely, it seems the grand majority are not worth it.

There is also the few projects that never finished and basically left early adopters hanging. Steam/Valve themselves aren't doing a good enough job screening projects either.

 

[Sabrewings]

From following a few projects closely, it seems the grand majority are not worth it.

There is also the few projects that never finished and basically left early adopters hanging. Steam/Valve themselves aren't doing a good enough job screening projects either.

I've been burned a couple times myself, but the benefits outweigh the costs. Without early access amazing indie games like KSP wouldn't be made. Not every worthwhile indie game has a kickstarter of Star Citizen proportions.

FWIW, the indie games I've played in early access have never been as buggy as some of the AAA titles recently.

 

[RussianSensation]

The game is absolutely beautiful, but as far as the survival genre goes, I think I prefer other games. Movement in Ark just seems kind of "clumsy" to me and I am not a fan of the interface.

On what system Titan X Tri-SLI? It looks very poor on an i7 4790K + Asus Matrix 780Ti OC. I can't imagine how the game looks beautiful on your rig with "only" a 780. I say only in this case not to demean your card but because of how dramatic the performance drops are on a 780Ti OC due to how unoptimized the game is.

- Shadows are poor, and disappear in the distance objects/dinosaurs.
- Textures are horrible
- Vegetation floats and grass appears to be floating above the ground
- Global illumination is lacking to non-existent
- Vegetation is not dynamic at all, as you move past various vegetation it doesn't react to the player
- Dinosaurs have low polygon count

Despite all that, it runs like crap on a 4790K + 780Ti OC.

CPU scaling is broken.

Crysis 3 - FX8350 = 105 fps / 71 fps minimum
ARK Survival - FX8350 = 54 fps / 32 fps minimum

GPU optimization is broken.

HD7970 = 18 fps

HD7970 = 47 fps (almost 3X faster)

Alternatively, GTX660Ti gets 43 fps in Crysis 3 in VHQ but GTX980Ti gets 44 fps in ARK Survival at 1080P HQ.

Crysis 3 graphics look miles better.

It's going to get a miracle for this game to improve graphically and performance wise. Even if their CPU optimizations improve 50-100% and GPU optimizations improve 3X, it still looks worse than Crysis 3 so in conclusion it would still be poorly optimized mess.

I am sure the game is fun but from a technical optimization stand-point, as of now, it's an F.

On GameGPU, the game got 1/5 optimization rating and graphics were rated 2.5/5 based on user feedback.

 

[RussianSensation]

From following a few projects closely, it seems the grand majority are not worth it.

ARK Survival is a hit though.

It's not easy to make new PC games outside of most of the best selling PC games best sellers are staples such as BF franchise, Blizzard games, WOW/MMOs, GTA, etc. and the AAA console ports like Unity or Batman games. The minute a PC developer steps outside of that, they are risking major failure vs. the cost it took to develop the game.

Even the Witcher 3 hardly sold on the PC vs. consoles, which means for most indie developers, they have no chance without thinking outside the box and/or doing Early Access funding/sales:

"The Witcher 3 – Out Of Its 4 Million Sold Copies, 1.3 Million Were From The PC Version"

vs.

"Ark: Survival Evolved sells one million copies in less than a month"

On one hand, it could be argued that this is a huge positive for indie developers trying to break in when a game like Ark was able to sell 1 million copies in 1 month but on the other hand the sales of TW3 vs. ARK on the PC highlight a far more alarming trend --> Even the best AAA games on the PC that cost tens of millions to make hardly sell if they don't fit into the mainstream of the Battlefields/Assassin's Creeds/Batmans/Starcraft/Diablo/GTA themes. That would explain why so many AAA developers are so risk averse and also why major studios love GameWorks since they want to spend as little as possible on PC game development and when NV sends their programmers/engineers to do most of the work in exchange for co-marketing, they are loving it!

However, this ARK game is so far gone optimization wise, it probably needs an engine overhaul to fix or in literal terms the entire team at Epic who made UE4 to teach them how to code/design in UE4.

 

[railven]

ARK Survival is a hit though.

It's no most of the best selling PC games best sellers are staples such as BF franchise, Blizzard games, WOW/MMOs, GTA, etc. and the AAA console ports like Unity or Batman games. The minute a PC developer steps outside of that, they are risking major failure vs. the cost it took to develop the game.

Even the Witcher 3 hardly sold on the PC vs. consoles, which means for most indie developers, they have no chance without thinking outside the box and/or doing Early Access funding/sales:

"The Witcher 3 – Out Of Its 4 Million Sold Copies, 1.3 Million Were From The PC Version"

vs.

"Ark: Survival Evolved sells one million copies in less than a month"

On one hand, it could be argued that this is a huge positive for indie developers trying to break in when a game like Ark was able to sell 1 million copies in 1 month but on the other hand the sales of TW3 vs. ARK on the PC highlight a far more alarming trend --> Even the best AAA games on the PC that cost tens of millions to make hardly sell if they don't fit into the mainstream of the Battlefields/Assassin's Creeds/Batmans/Starcraft/Diablo/GTA themes. That would explain why so many AAA developers are so risk averse and also why major studios love GameWorks since they want to spend as little as possible on PC game development and when NV sends their programmers/engineers to do most of the work in exchange for co-marketing, they are loving it!

However, this ARK game is so far gone optimization wise, it probably needs an engine overhaul to fix or in literal terms the entire team at Epic who made UE4 to teach them how to code/design in UE4.

You think to factor in multiple things, and can't really compare ARK to Witcher 3. For starters, Witcher 3 was in a promo give away and I got my copy from Ebay for $18.

On top of that ARK was featured during the Steam Sale as $25, Witcher 3 hasn't hit that price point through first sales channels. At least not that I've seen.

And if you haven't been following Witcher seems its a bugged out mess and people are getting tired of waiting for fixes. You thought the PC version with Greenworks was a mess, consoles are struggling to hit 20 FPS in some scenarios and patches continue to make things worse.


Anyways, ARK is catching a lot of positive word of mouth (because whether you think it's technically viable, it is fun to play - least the lets play my girlfriend and I watch before hitting the bars are always entertaining). The success of some indie titles such as Ark and Kerbal open the flood doors for shovelware and people looking to make a quick buck. Just look at Journey of Light. The "hardest puzzle game you ever played" with 8 levels. Turns out it's possibly only 1 level and the creator made it intentionally unsolvable until you unlock clues that require you play 2 hours of the game. Guess what happens after two hours. You forfeit a steam refund. Steam got enough complaints and you can now get a uncontested refund.

Again, Steam/Valve are not doing a good enough job screening projects.

 

[RussianSensation]

You think to factor in multiple things, and can't really compare ARK to Witcher 3. For starters, Witcher 3 was in a promo give away and I got my copy from Ebay for $18.

I am pretty sure every TW3 coupon bundled with NV cards is counted in the total. You think CDPR just gave the $60 away to NV? That actually makes sales of TW3 on the PC seem awful since the game was being given away with new GPUs and it still just hit 1.3 million in sales during that period! Awful, simply awful.

On top of that ARK was featured during the Steam Sale as $25, Witcher 3 hasn't hit that price point through first sales channels. At least not that I've seen.

Ya, that's a fair point about pricing but TW3 was one of the most anticipated games on the PC for years, and despite how broken it was, it was still in way better shape than early access ARK is. Yet it sold just 1.3M on the PC and 2.7M on consoles in the same time-frame. It'll be interesting to see what lifetime to date sales will be in regard to the split. Looks like CDPR was right that they could have never made this game if it was a PC exclusive since the finances don't make sense as PC sales alone wouldn't sustain the cost of developing it.

And if you haven't been following Witcher seems its a bugged out mess and people are getting tired of waiting for fixes. You thought the PC version with Greenworks was a mess, consoles are struggling to hit 20 FPS in some scenarios and patches continue to make things worse.

Yes, it had issues but they are constantly being fixed. Even on launch, TW3 ran soooooooo much better than ARK still does. Look at the performance and graphics of TW3 during the first 4 weeks of release.

Anyways, ARK is catching a lot of positive word of mouth (because whether you think it's technically viable, it is fun to play - least the lets play my girlfriend and I watch before hitting the bars are always entertaining).

My comments were strictly from a technical perspective. I didn't say the game isn't fun.

The success of some indie titles such as Ark and Kerbal open the flood doors for shovelware and people looking to make a quick buck.

Ok but another way to look at it is these studios might have more $ from these games to make even better games in the future. I'd rather have more competition from indie developers than for them to not have the opportunity to make games at all.

Again, Steam/Valve are not doing a good enough job screening projects.

That's a fair point but as the end consumer we are the ones who vote with out wallet what sells. But still, think about this: a large AAA development studio is going to see how TW3 bombed on the PC in terms of sales despite incredible reviews/scores (94 meta critic, 9.2 user score avg). Then they are going to see ARK survival hit 1 million in 1 month and they are going to have no clue as to what game they need to make to succeed on the PC. Why because outside of the traditional Battlefields, Assassin's Creeds, Batmans, Splinter Cells, Tomb Raiders, Borderlands, GTAs, etc. almost else nothing sells well on the PC. By selling well I mean when taking into account the cost to develop a game vs. return on that investment. So what is this big AAA studio going to make? Oh, another Splinter Cell, another Tomb Raider, another BF, another Batman, another AC, over and over and over. No wonder the AAA scene on the PC is mostly regurgitation of the same.

I am pleasantly surprised we even got a game like Dishonored or Bioshock back in the days.

To make matters worse, with just 1 game, an entire decade of PhysX hype got wiped out ..... in a console game! Crackdown on Xbox One embarrasses PhysX on the PC. You know when developers are pushing the coolest things on a console game, that's when it's becoming clear as mud the PC is just there to get extra $ from AAA console ports but it's not a target platform for 90% of AAA developers.

It's no wonder we are starting to see the most exciting action on the PC on the indie scene; and that's where indie games like ARK come in. If you want AAA quality new experiences, you have to own a console nowadays. The irony is that the PCs are so much more powerful than XB1/PS4 but AAA developers don't care and sales of TW3 are proof why that is. Even Project CARS, one of the most hyped racing games that started on the PC bombed on the PC. The risk of developing a new experience/franchise on the PC is far too great for most AAA firms today. Watch Dogs is yet another proof of that. If it wasn't for consoles, Watch Dogs franchise wouldn't even get a sequel if it was a PC exclusive.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

It's not Valves job as a store/middleman to screen projects, it's your job to be a discerning consumer, a lot of the games on steam which turn out to be an awful mess are ones that are green lit by the community anyway.

ARK is a perfect example of the team looking very professional through good trailers of a nice looking and potentially epic game, but the actual game being a buggy mess which runs like complete arse. But then it's early access so as long as they fix that up before launch I don't have a huge problem with it.

I don't expect the performance issues to be solved even if they make a boat load of profit from the game, they're too severe for mere optimisation to help, this is one of those circumstances where they need a major overhaul which simply wont be worth the investment.

 

[railven]

I am pretty sure every TW3 coupon bundles with NV cards is counted in the total. You think CDPR just gave the $60 away to NV? That actually makes sales of TW3 on the PC seem awful since the game was being given away wit new GPUs and it still just hit 1.3 million in sales during that period! Awful, simply awful.

I would assume like consoles, bundles are not counted in sales due to private agreements made between the parties.

And don't be ridiculous, no one implied it was free. But you can bet your ass NV didn't pay $60 per key.

Ya, that's a fair point about pricing but TW3 was one of the most anticipated games on the PC for years, and despite how broken it was, it was still in way better shape than early access ARK is. Yet it sold just 1.3M on the PC and 2.7M on consoles in the same time-frame. It'll be interesting to see what lifetime to date sales will be in regard to the split. Looks like CDPR was right that they could have never made this game if it was a PC exclusive since the finances don't make sense as PC sales alone wouldn't sustain the cost of developing it.

And Witcher 3 came out day and day on consoles. So some of it's sales got cannibalized. And they were right? Witcher 1 and 2 sold strong on PC before they ever got a console version. Unless you're going to start taking the word of Crytek as gospel too "consoles are the future!" [paraphrase]

Yes, it had issues but they are constantly being fixed. Even on launch, TW3 ran soooooooo much better than ARK still does. Look at the performance and graphics of TW3 during the first 4 weeks of release.

YOu should go revisit it, because they aren't being fixed and are actually getting worse.

My comments were strictly from a technical perspective. I didn't say the game isn't fun.

But you are citing sales and acting like "huh? the game is a mess compared to x and y, how is it selling so well" answer - it's fun.

Ok but another way to look at it is these studios might have more $ from these games to make even better games in the future. I'd rather have more competition from indie developers than for them to not have the opportunity to make games at all.

But then you go and throw a fit if Nvidia sponsors development? Indie devs have been making games for YEARS without the help of public funds. Some of the biggest franchises started off as MODS.

Remember, the part about fun you wanted to ignore. A fun game regardless how technically inferior it is is going to generate interest. So you can't just ignore the fun factor and focus on technical features. You can shout as much as you want how Ryse is GOREOUS, the game is boring and it sales reflected that (and here you got Crytek not paying employees for MONTHS because they can't sell their GORGEOUS game.) Have you checked the sales on 1886? Because that game also bombed.

That's a fair point. But still, think about this: a large AAA development studio is going to see how TW3 bombed on the PC in terms of sales despite incredible reviews/scores (94 meta critic, 9.2 user score avg). Then they are going to see ARK survival hit 1 million in 1 month and they are going to have no clue as to what game they need to make to succeed on the PC. Why because outside of the traditional Battlefields, Assassin's Creeds, Batmans, Splinter Cells, Tomb Raiders, Borderlands, GTAs, etc. almost else nothing sells well on the PC. By selling well I mean when taking into account the cost to develop a game vs. return on that investment. So what is this big AAA studio going to make? Oh, another Splinter Cell, another Tomb Raider, another BF, another Batman, another AC, over and over and over. No wonder the AAA scene on the PC is mostly regurgitation of the same.

You are confusing two markets that are completely different. First of all ARK is open world survival MMO style. Do you want me to list of the number of games that have failed in that genre? Because as a heavy MMO player I can name over 20. AAA publishers (not studios/devs) care only about profits. That is why they milk their franchises. Have you looked at niche studios? Atlus? From Software? Even SEGA is making a nice little hole for itself.

Nope, you keep citing "Tomb Raider" which also failed to meet sales expectations. Or how beautiful Ryse was that almost cratered Crytek. How about The Order 1886 that failed sales forecast and got sub par reviews. AAA don't dictate the market.

I am pleasantly surprised we even got a game like Dishonored or Bioshock back in the days.

Why?

To make matters worse, with just 1 game, an entire decade of PhysX hype got wiped out ..... in a console game! Crackdown on Xbox One embarrasses PhysX on the PC. You know when developers are pushing the coolest things on a console game, that's when it's becoming clear as mud the PC is just there to get extra $ from AAA console ports but it's not a target platform for 90% of AAA developers.

Yeah, that tech demo is pretty cool. Too bad it's using how many severs? And if you disconnect it does what? Oh right, nothing. But "it embarrassed PhysX" - no, it didn't.

Come on Russian, you're acting like a console fanboy. You are promoting a tech that involves an always online connection to even function versus one that is client based. Wow.

It's no wonder we are starting to see the most exciting action on the PC on the indie scene; and that's where games like ARK come in. If you want AAA quality new experiences, you have to own a console nowadays. The irony is that the PCs are so much more powerful than XB1/PS4 but AAA developers don't care and sales of TW3 are proof why that is. Even Project CARS, one of the most hyped racing games that started on the PC bombed on the PC.

WTF are you talking about? You're comparing a fabled Sony dev (and I use fabled because I still don't understand how they got such a strong cult following) to a team that had to scale back their original design due to pressure from MSFT AND SONY?

Do you even play games? Because I'm starting to think you don't.

 

[railven]

It's not Valves job as a store/middleman to screen projects, it's your job to be a discerning consumer, a lot of the games on steam which turn out to be an awful mess are ones that are green lit by the community anyway.

Yes, it is. If a dev puts a game out on Steam, Valve should perform a type of validation. The story of Journey of Light makes Valve look like idiots because they essentially participated in false advertisement. Read the whole page description for the game. Valve yanked sales for a reason. It's because they are the gatekeepers of their domain.

ARK is a perfect example of the team looking very professional through good trailers of a nice looking and potentially epic game, but the actual game being a buggy mess which runs like complete arse. But then it's early access so as long as they fix that up before launch I don't have a huge problem with it.

And a strong community presence. WHich is what a lot of PC gamers desire. They want vocal and present devs, which is why some games get a huge following. Example: Might No. 9. Once the community manager got toxic with the community, the game started to loose steam and support.

I don't expect the performance issues to be solved even if they make a boat load of profit from the game, they're too severe for mere optimisation to help, this is one of those circumstances where they need a major overhaul which simply wont be worth the investment.

That is very likely. I fear the solution is gonna be a huge downgrade on the already limited visuals.

 

[Carfax83]

Wow, this is a troll thread if there ever was one :sneaky:

The irony is that the PCs are so much more powerful than XB1/PS4 but AAA developers don't care and sales of TW3 are proof why that is. Even Project CARS, one of the most hyped racing games that started on the PC bombed on the PC. The risk of developing a new experience/franchise on the PC is far too great for most AAA firms today. Watch Dogs is yet another proof of that. If it wasn't for consoles, Watch Dogs franchise wouldn't even get a sequel if it was a PC exclusive.

What a load of nonsense RS, but I remember you also once said that the PS4 would be more powerful than a GTX Titan or some such due to "coding to the metal," so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

You obviously don't understand the AAA market at all (many are subsidized by Sony and Microsoft for instance), nor do you seem to understand that the PC sales market has a different sales model than the console market and cannot be compared directly.

Take the Witcher 3 for instance. Approximately 1/3 of all sales were on PC (that 4 million figure was only for the first month by the way), but because there is no licensing costs for the PC platform, and CDPR owns GoG, CDPR actually made a lot more money on the PC version than the console versions.

With the consoles, Microsoft and Sony get a cut, plus all the publishers and distributors like Best Buy and Gamestop since the vast majority of console sales are hard copies.

With the PC it's the opposite since most sales are digital, and so CDPR see much higher profitability, especially on GoG..

Another thing as well is that console sales are front loaded, meaning most of the sales will occur in the first month or two after launch. With the PC, the sales cycle is FAR longer, potentially generating sales for many years..

 

[RussianSensation]

I would assume like consoles, bundles are not counted in sales due to private agreements made between the parties.

What? Game sales are always counted even if they are sold in a bundle. Think about how so many bundled Nintendo, Sony, MS games reach astronomical sales. You think AC Black Flag and Unity got as high as they did because none of those PS4/XB1 bundles were counted? Sure....

And don't be ridiculous, no one implied it was free. But you can bet your ass NV didn't pay $60 per key.

You missed the point - I wasn't discussing profits, but unit sales. Despite TW3 being given away for free to consumers with NV cards, it still sold just 1.3M copies, this is arguably the RPG of the year on the PC. Those sales are disappointing thus far. I hope they reach 3-4M lifetime on the PC and it could happen once they start dropping the price.

And Witcher 3 came out day and day on consoles. So some of it's sales got cannibalized. And they were right? Witcher 1 and 2 sold strong on PC before they ever got a console version.

You aren't focusing on the themes though -- when ARK survival sells 1M and TW3 sells 1.3M, AAA game studios are unlikely to take on risky PC game projects, think outside the box and invest tens of millions of dollars into a new exclusive PC AAA franchise. They might do it after they make tens of millions of dollars on sales of staples like Unity, COD, Starcraft 2, etc. Until then it's going to be Indie developers mostly innovating on the PC.

Unless you're going to start taking the word of Crytek as gospel too "consoles are the future!" [paraphrase]

I never said consoles are the future and PC gaming is dead.

YOu should go revisit it, because they aren't being fixed and are actually getting worse.

In the worst state, TW3 still runs 2-3X better than ARK and looks better too. So you didn't prove anything here.

But you are citing sales and acting like "huh? the game is a mess compared to x and y, how is it selling so well" answer - it's fun.

That's not the main point. The main point is none of the major AAA studios made such a game which means ARK's success is basically a fluke. That means without knowing exactly what PC gamers want, AAA game studios are unlikely to make revolutionary PC games with next gen graphics, physics, unless they can allocate the cost across consoles too but if they do that, the console version will inevitably hold the PC version back. That's exactly what's been happening in PC gaming since XB1/PS4 came out. This is the most consolized time in PC gaming ever, worse than Xbox 360/PS3 generation. At least during that time we had PC games that looked miles better than anything on those consoles and cross-platform AAA games looked soooooooo much better on the PC vs. 360/PS3 than now where PC games look barely better than the console versions of the same games. GTA V is a pleasant exception but these are rare cases. I hope it changes in 2016-2018.

But then you go and throw a fit if Nvidia sponsors development? Indie devs have been making games for YEARS without the help of public funds. Some of the biggest franchises started off as MODS.

Every time I talk about this game, I specifically go out of my way to point out how broken the CPU/GPU optimizations are wrt to this UE4 game engine. When did I blame / throw a fit that the game is a fully borken mess ONLY because of NV's sponsorship? But the fact that it's broken to start with and it has GW (a notoriously broken/unoptimized game development program), leaves little to no hope that this game will ever look great and run well simultaneously.

Remember, the part about fun you wanted to ignore. A fun game regardless how technically inferior it is is going to generate interest. So you can't just ignore the fun factor and focus on technical features. [/qoute]

I never ignored fun, but since this is a technical section, we are in the VC&G forum so why would I discuss gameplay? That's what the PC Games section is for.

You can shout as much as you want how Ryse is GOREOUS, the game is boring and it sales reflected that (and here you got Crytek not paying employees for MONTHS because they can't sell their GORGEOUS game.) Have you checked the sales on 1886? Because that game also bombed.

Ya, so what. We are discussing technical merits. Both the Order 1886 and Ryse are way better optimized and run way better than ARK. From a technical perspective, ARK is a failure as of now.

Minecraft sold like hotcakes but it's an ugly looking game with primitive physics. What's your point that it's better than Crysis 3 as a technical game engine/game?

You are confusing two markets that are completely different. First of all ARK is open world survival MMO style. Do you want me to list of the number of games that have failed in that genre? Because as a heavy MMO player I can name over 20. AAA publishers (not studios/devs) care only about profits. That is why they milk their franchises. Have you looked at niche studios? Atlus? From Software? Even SEGA is making a nice little hole for itself.

So you are saying because ARK is an MMO, it's perfectly reasonable that in its early access broken state it sold 1M copies but a contender for GOTY (TW3) sold 1.3M in a similar time frame on the PC?

I guess I am shocked because I don't play MMOs as I find 0 interest in that genre so to me it's shocking TW3 sold 1.3M on the PC and an Early Access MMO sells 1M and runs like garbage on an i7 4790K + 780Ti OC or even 980Ti barely approaching 30 fps!

Nope, you keep citing "Tomb Raider" which also failed to meet sales expectations.

What a horrible example. Sales expectations of whom? Idiot analysts or Square Enix management incompetent forecasters?

It's like saying Apple is doomed because instead of selling 100M iPhone 6s they sold just 50-75M.

Tomb Raider sold 8.5 million copies.

Square Enix just set completely unrealistic expectations for selling 5-6 million Tomb Raider around launch. This is probably the most successful Tomb Raider game of all time and one of the best reboots of any franchise, and they think 8.5M is a disappointment? All that tells me is that they forecast was ludicrous, not that the game failed to meet expectations.

You should know better.
http://www.pcgamer.com/tomb-raider-reboot-has-sold-85-million-copies/

Or how beautiful Ryse was that almost cratered Crytek. How about The Order 1886 that failed sales forecast and got sub par reviews. AAA don't dictate the market.

Both of those companies share a common issue - they sold most of their titles exclusively on too few platforms. If Crytek started selling their games on consoles from day 1 and if The Order 1886 went multi-platform, both of those studios would be better off. But I don't know why you want to bring gameplay into the technical discussion as that doesn't show anything. TW3 has great gameplay and good graphics, the game is huge and its sales thus far have bombed.

Either way, your argument that TW3 deserves poor sales since it was broken is weak. Batman AK was far more broken than TW3 and yet it outsold TW3 in early stages.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/batman-arkham-knights-first-week-sales-higher-than/1100-6428482/

Point is unless the franchise is as mainstream as possible and isn't a well established franchise, it more often than not doesn't sell well. But that means that AAA studios are going to be more reluctant to make games like ARK survival since they don't want to take many risks.

Why?
Yeah, that tech demo is pretty cool. Too bad it's using how many severs? And if you disconnect it does what? Oh right, nothing. But "it embarrassed PhysX" - no, it didn't.

Any AAA studio could have done the same 10-15 years ago on the PC. Did they? No. NV could have made the most advanced PhysX game using the power of the cloud and their GPUs but nope, never happened.

Come on Russian, you're acting like a console fanboy. You are promoting a tech that involves an always online connection to even function versus one that is client based. Wow.

No, not a console fanboy but I am just seeing more innovation in the AAA scene on consoles than on PC. Where PC shines in terms of innovation is the indie scene. As far as AAA PC games, it's more of the same.

WTF are you talking about? You're comparing a fabled Sony dev (and I use fabled because I still don't understand how they got such a strong cult following) to a team that had to scale back their original design due to pressure from MSFT AND SONY?

Do you even play games? Because I'm starting to think you don't.

Sorry I guess I am more excited about Rare Replay, Forza 6, Last Guardian, Uncharted 4, streaming Xbox ONE games from the consoles to a PC, Halo 5, etc. than anything that's happening in the AAA PC scene. You are free to disagree.

What a load of nonsense RS, but I remember you also once said that the PS4 would be more powerful than a GTX Titan or some such due to "coding to the metal," so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Is that a joke? Please pull up that quote. I've estimated the GPU in PS4 to be roughly HD7970M and it did end up fairly close with 1152 shaders. I think you are confusing my comments how future games on the PC will require hardware far more powerful than the Titan but they will still run on PS4 at reduced settings considering the consoles will probably last until 2019. That in no way shape or form at all means that PS4 is more powerful than the Titan. You are either confusing me with someone else or are just pulling stuff out of thin air.

You obviously don't understand the AAA market at all (many are subsidized by Sony and Microsoft for instance), nor do you seem to understand that the PC sales market has a different sales model than the console market and cannot be compared directly.

So you are saying TW3 selling 1.3M copies vs. 2.7M on consoles is not a failure? Project CARS bombing on the PC is not a failure? You provided no rebuttal to my comments instead just said I don't get AAA PC gaming market.

Take the Witcher 3 for instance. Approximately 1/3 of all sales were on PC (that 4 million figure was only for the first month by the way), but because there is no licensing costs for the PC platform, and CDPR owns GoG, CDPR actually made a lot more money on the PC version than the console versions.

That actually goes hand-in-hand with my comments above. They sell on the PC because might as well since we already made the game for consoles. Go back to any interviews with CDPR and they admitted the game would not be possible if it was made specifically for the PC. Could they have made TW3 only for consoles? Yup cuz it sold 2.7M copies which is enough to make decent $. The other way doesn't work. But here is the harsh reality despite the current gen consoles only having < 40M install base vs. > 150 million+ PC gamers, TW3 still sold 1.3M. You are defending that?

With the consoles, Microsoft and Sony get a cut, plus all the publishers and distributors like Best Buy and Gamestop since the vast majority of console sales are hard copies. With the PC it's the opposite since most sales are digital, and so CDPR see much higher profitability, especially on GoG..

No one is arguing profits/profitability. We are discussing unit sales. However, if you want to go that route, most of the best selling PC games are cookie cutter AAA console ports, Blizzard titles, Battlefields, Borderlands, staple franchisees. If you take away the billions AK, Batman, BF title, it's not looking that great.

Another thing as well is that console sales are front loaded, meaning most of the sales will occur in the first month or two after launch. With the PC, the sales cycle is FAR longer, potentially generating sales for many years..

I already said it'll be interesting to see the total lifetime TW3 sales.

Wow, this is a troll thread if there ever was one :sneaky:

Well if you and railven are ready to drop $650 on new GPUs annually, I guess poor optimization of many PC games isn't a problem but is encouraged since it encourages upgrading. I guess it's everyone else' fault for not following your footsteps and expecting a 2015 game to run well on a $650 graphics card at 1080P:

i7 4790K + GTX980 Ti at 1080P - 20-25 fps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-g36VzZdDQ

If ONLY this was the best looking PC game of all time! I guess it's not the developer's fault for not knowing how to optimize a game but our fault for not buying $650+ GPUs every 12 months.

I guess I shouldn't be at all surprised given how you defended AC Unity, one of the worst GPU optimized games on the PC released in the last 2 years. I guess when the next AC runs like garbage on 980 SLI, no problem, just get $1300 980Ti SLI. Problem solved. Brilliant!

The irony is compared to ARK, Unity suddenly looks like the best optimized PC games of all time.

vs.

But ya just like you defended Unity since day 1, let's discount 95% of all PC gamers that find ARK yet another unoptimized turd in its current state.

 

[Carfax83]

Is that a joke? Please pull up that quote. I've estimated the GPU in PS4 to be roughly HD7970M and it did end up fairly close with 1152 shaders. I think you are confusing my comments how future games on the PC will require hardware far more powerful than the Titan but they will still run on PS4 at reduced settings considering the consoles will probably last until 2019. That in no way shape or form at all means that PS4 is more powerful than the Titan. You are either confusing me with someone else or are just pulling stuff out of thin air.

This is the comment..

That's why I don't think even the Titan can last over PS4's useful life and cards like HD7950/GTX660Ti have no hope whatsoever. Once developers learn to use 6-7GB of PS4's memory and fully take advantage of coding to the metal for PS4's 1st party titles, current generation of cards in the $250-300 range will take a complete slideshow dump by the time we have 2016-2017 games. Trying to future proof for PS4's next gen games with current gen GPUs is for the laughs. Better start saving your money for Volta. This is especially true since developers will now make games on the PC and port them over to PS4/XB1 which means they can go all out and just turn down setting for the console versions if required. We should see a massive increase in LOD and visuals on the PC in the next 3-4 years.

I'll reply to your other statements later when I have more time.

 

[3DVagabond]

It's not Valves job as a store/middleman to screen projects, it's your job to be a discerning consumer, a lot of the games on steam which turn out to be an awful mess are ones that are green lit by the community anyway.

ARK is a perfect example of the team looking very professional through good trailers of a nice looking and potentially epic game, but the actual game being a buggy mess which runs like complete arse. But then it's early access so as long as they fix that up before launch I don't have a huge problem with it.

I don't expect the performance issues to be solved even if they make a boat load of profit from the game, they're too severe for mere optimisation to help, this is one of those circumstances where they need a major overhaul which simply wont be worth the investment.

I guess it depends on where you live. Some places the law is the person who sold it to you is responsible for the quality/functionality of the item.

 

[RussianSensation]

This is the comment...

Let's go over it again since you are taking the quote out of context in the overall discussion that revolved around that time (June 2013):

[/quote] "That's why I don't think even the Titan can last over PS4's useful life and cards like HD7950/GTX660Ti have no hope whatsoever. [/quote]

1. Do you think PC gamers will keep using the Titan to play PC games in the year 2019-2020, nevermind HD7950/660Ti providing a good experience?

2. The comments on the Titan also took into account the price it commanded at launch. In other words, I was arguing that it was better to upgrade GPUs more often than buy a Titan and keep it throughout the useful life of PS4. But even if the Titan does last throughout the PS4 generation to November 2019, do you honestly think it'll provide a great gaming experience? Most PC gamers do not want an experience similar to consoles but above it. That's why it was a waste of $ back then to buy a GTX780/Titan to "future-proof" over the current PS4 generation.

HD7950/660Ti are already struggling and it's only summer 2015.

Once developers learn to use 6-7GB of PS4's memory and fully take advantage of coding to the metal for PS4's 1st party titles, current generation of cards in the $250-300 range will take a complete slideshow dump by the time we have 2016-2017 games.

Comment made on June 13, 2013. Without doing too much research, I am going to say a $250-300 card at that time was at best an HD7950/GTX660Ti. HD7950 already struggles in 2015 games at 1080P. So yes, I still stand by my statement that in 2016-2017 an HD7950/GTX660Ti will be obsolete for PC gaming in the eyes of most PC gamers. They'll work for older games or casual gaming at low to medium settings, which is fine for many people playing LoL, DOTA 2, etc. It's already happening as many PC gamers have jumped ship from these cards. The comment on 6-7GB of memory is obviously incorrect on my part since at that time we didn't know that 3GB+ was used by the OS. That was only released later so.

However, at no point I am actually stating that PS4 is more powerful than the Titan under the hood.

Trying to future proof for PS4's next gen games with current gen [June 2013] GPUs is for the laughs. Better start saving your money for Volta. This is especially true since developers will now make games on the PC and port them over to PS4/XB1 which means they can go all out and just turn down setting for the console versions if required. We should see a massive increase in LOD and visuals on the PC in the next 3-4 years."

All of the above is true. I remember you defending the Titan/780's $650 pricing and that's the relevance of my comment in that thread. I continued to tell you that it's better to just buy a $250 GPU and buy a next gen GPU in the future for PC games coming out in 3-4 years after November 2013. Thus far, I am 100% correct and future-proofing with any GPU in June-November 2013 was a total waste of $, while the Titan's performance can be had in a $200-$240 R9 290 and it's only August 2015. Just 2.5 years passed since GTX780/Titan came out in 2013 and that level of performance can be had in the $200-250 range easily.

Point being to play next gen PC games in 3-4 years from PS4/XB1 launch (that would mean November 2016-2017), a gamer trying to future-proof for those games with a June-November 2013 GPU would have been been wasting $.

--------

Anyway going back to ARK survival, I will revisit this game once it launches to see just how far the performance has improved. That way we have a better overall picture of how well the developer managed to optimize the final game.

 

[SimianR]

The game does run like complete crap right now. You can run the game in SM4 (shader model 4) which really speeds things up but you lose out on a lot of nice effects and the game looks pretty dated. Apparently a Directx 12 patch is coming in a few weeks and the devs have said they expect to see some performance gains there, but I'm being not expecting any miracles.

 

[3DVagabond]

I don't know why people even care, no one really buys AMD cards anymore for serious gaming. I remember people in this VERY thread saying how great TrueAudio was going to be amazing and change gaming.

Don't blame Nvidia, or the Devs. Blame AMD for not adapting to the gaming world.

Trueaudio is for VR.

 

[SimianR]

I don't know why people even care, no one really buys AMD cards anymore for serious gaming. I remember people in this VERY thread saying how great TrueAudio was going to be amazing and change gaming.

Don't blame Nvidia, or the Devs. Blame AMD for not adapting to the gaming world.

Plenty of people still buy AMD cards for "serious" gaming. I'm not sure how anyone can make a statement like that with a straight face. It really just comes off as blatant trolling.

 

[railven]

What? Game sales are always counted even if they are sold in a bundle. Think about how so many bundled Nintendo, Sony, MS games reach astronomical sales. You think AC Black Flag and Unity got as high as they did because none of those PS4/XB1 bundles were counted? Sure....

Because Nintendo bragged they sold 80+ million copies of Nintenodo Wii Sports. Your own source refutes you, but hey why read what you link.

As CD Projekt RED noted today, almost 700 thousand gamers worldwide have gone with GOG Galaxy. According to the company, 693,000 gamers worldwide are owners of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on GOG Galaxy, whereas 613,000 PC gamers have chosen a different PC platform. This basically means that the game has sold 1.3 million copies on the PC.

Unless you're now going to argue Steam and the GTX 960/970/970m/980/980m bundles only accounted for 613K "sales". Want to try again?

You missed the point - I wasn't discussing profits, but unit sales. Despite TW3 being given away for free to consumers with NV cards, it still sold just 1.3M copies, this is arguably the RPG of the year on the PC. Those sales are disappointing thus far. I hope they reach 3-4M lifetime on the PC and it could happen once they start dropping the price.

You don't get that bundle sales cannibalize PC sales? Again, I bought my copy for $18. I can only fathom how many people bought a copy NOT through a first sale channel. But if you want to guess, by all means.

You aren't focusing on the themes though -- when ARK survival sells 1M and TW3 sells 1.3M, AAA game studios are unlikely to take on risky PC game projects, think outside the box and invest tens of millions of dollars into a new exclusive PC AAA franchise. They might do it after they make tens of millions of dollars on sales of staples like Unity, COD, Starcraft 2, etc. Until then it's going to be Indie developers mostly innovating on the PC.

You fail to grasp the previous points I made, and at this point it is pointless arguing it. You think 600K sales came from bundles+Steam. You're out of your mind.

I never said consoles are the future and PC gaming is dead.

I never said you did, but that was the excuse CDR gave for dumbing down Witcher 3. They claimed if not for consoles they wouldn't be able to fund making Witcher 3, yet prior to consoles - The Witcher 1 and 2 were a huge success (in which CDPR reported profits) and they're the owners of GOG. They could have funded The Witcher 3 without issue.

Just like Crytek could have developed Crysis 2 with DX11 native code from the start.

But both catered to the console crowd and both ended with egg on their face and a back lash from the PC crowd on top of it.

In the worst state, TW3 still runs 2-3X better than ARK and looks better too. So you didn't prove anything here.

Have you revisited The Witcher 3 on consoles yet? You must really love that cinematic 24 FPS feel then, here I'll do you a solid:
The Witcher 3 v1.05 PS4
http://www.gamersyde.com/hqstream_the_witcher_3_wild_hunt_the_swamps_ps4_1_05-35065_en.html
The Witcher 3 v1.08 PS4
http://www.gamersyde.com/hqstream_the_witcher_3_wild_hunt_stress_test_1_08-35296_en.html
Dat performance drop!

Enjoy.

That's not the main point. The main point is none of the major AAA studios made such a game which means ARK's success is basically a fluke. That means without knowing exactly what PC gamers want, AAA game studios are unlikely to make revolutionary PC games with next gen graphics, physics, unless they can allocate the cost across consoles too but if they do that, the console version will inevitably hold the PC version back. That's exactly what's been happening in PC gaming since XB1/PS4 came out. This is the most consolized time in PC gaming ever, worse than Xbox 360/PS3 generation. At least during that time we had PC games that looked miles better than anything on those consoles and cross-platform AAA games looked soooooooo much better on the PC vs. 360/PS3 than now where PC games look barely better than the console versions of the same games. GTA V is a pleasant exception but these are rare cases. I hope it changes in 2016-2018.

Of course ARK is a fluke. Just like Minecraft was a fluke. Just like for a split second RUST was AMAZING!!!

This is the most consolized generation? Did you forget Gen 7th? At least this Gen Nvidia is TRYING to do more than just add PhysX, but then we get this thread. And you abandoning PC to play on Xbox 360.

Every time I talk about this game, I specifically go out of my way to point out how broken the CPU/GPU optimizations are wrt to this UE4 game engine. When did I blame / throw a fit that the game is a fully borken mess ONLY because of NV's sponsorship? But the fact that it's broken to start with and it has GW (a notoriously broken/unoptimized game development program), leaves little to no hope that this game will ever look great and run well simultaneously.

But you use indie games and compare it to AAA games. That isn't a fair comparison. I've called you out on it twice now. "Unity and Crysis 3 are stellar!" budget for those games, millions. "Look at this UE4 games LOL" Links Alpha of ARK and some indie title no one here probably remembers.

That doesn't prove jack. It only tells us millions of dollars and experienced coders > indie devs with new tools and little resources.

I never ignored fun, but since this is a technical section, we are in the VC&G forum so why would I discuss gameplay? That's what the PC Games section is for.

Ya, so what. We are discussing technical merits. Both the Order 1886 and Ryse are way better optimized and run way better than ARK. From a technical perspective, ARK is a failure as of now.

Yerp, but I can't discuss why because see above.

Minecraft sold like hotcakes but it's an ugly looking game with primitive physics. What's your point that it's better than Crysis 3 as a technical game engine/game?

Sure, if that makes you feel better. You basically gag my response with a stupid "this isn't Gaming, stick to technical." So why even continue to ask?

So you are saying because ARK is an MMO, it's perfectly reasonable that in its early access broken state it sold 1M copies but a contender for GOTY (TW3) sold 1.3M in a similar time frame on the PC?

Back to this again.
1) you don't understand how bundles are NOT counted in sales. For all we know if the bundles are factored in The Witcher 3 "sold" over >3 million copies. Unfortunately, I can't find hard sales numbers for GTX 960/970/970m/980/980m, but I'd be willing to wager it was a hefty amount.
2) you're the one that continues to tie technical performance to sales performance and hide behind the sub forum name.
3) MMO style games are a HUGE genre on PC. But you can act like they aren't if it makes you feel better.

I guess I am shocked because I don't play MMOs as I find 0 interest in that genre so to me it's shocking TW3 sold 1.3M on the PC and an Early Access MMO sells 1M and runs like garbage on an i7 4790K + 780Ti OC or even 980Ti barely approaching 30 fps!

Yerp, perhaps you should I mean, the biggest PC revenue juggernauts for the last 3-4 years are MMOs/MOBAs/ and for some reason Team Fortress 2.

What a horrible example. Sales expectations of whom? Idiot analysts or Square Enix management incompetent forecasters?

It's like saying Apple is doomed because instead of selling 100M iPhone 6s they sold just 50-75M.

Tomb Raider sold 8.5 million copies.

"Check it out, the game that came out during a catalog drought on two brand new consoles and was slashed in price by HALF literally 6 weeks after release sold 8.5 million copies."

Wow, russian, wow. But you ignored the other part of the article when the GAME first came out on 3 platforms with competition (Uncharted 3 anyone) it floundered. It floundered so bad they restructured the companies.

"That doesn't matter, look 8.5 MILLION COPIES!"

Square Enix just set completely unrealistic expectations for selling 5-6 million Tomb Raider around launch. This is probably the most successful Tomb Raider game of all time and one of the best reboots of any franchise, and they think 8.5M is a disappointment? All that tells me is that they forecast was ludicrous, not that the game failed to meet expectations.

You should know better.
http://www.pcgamer.com/tomb-raider-reboot-has-sold-85-million-copies/

The re-release of a game sold 8.5 million copies. Next your going to say because the HD-release of Ico/Shadow of the Colossus sold more copies than the originals that the games weren't flops.

Okay, gotcha.

Both of those companies share a common issue - they sold most of their titles exclusively on too few platforms. If Crytek started selling their games on consoles from day 1 and if The Order 1886 went multi-platform, both of those studios would be better off. But I don't know why you want to bring gameplay into the technical discussion as that doesn't show anything. TW3 has great gameplay and good graphics, the game is huge and its sales thus far have bombed.

Because games, you might not be aware of this, SELL BASED ON FUN, NOT TECHNICAL MERITS. But because you seem to only focus on technical performance you ignore how a game like ARK can succeed. But you continue to use incorrect sales numbers for The Witcher 3 (ignoring a huge potential of units moved because I don't know) to try to prove a point that The Witcher 3 flopped on PC.

I said it in my first post "you have to factor in the bundles" your response "oh you think CDPR gave it to NV for free? LOL. You think those numbers weren't counted? LOL!"

Either way, your argument that TW3 deserves poor sales since it was broken is weak. Batman AK was far more broken than TW3 and yet it outsold TW3 in early stages.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/batman-arkham-knights-first-week-sales-higher-than/1100-6428482/

That wasn't my argument, that was yours. Citing how inferior ARK is technically and acting baffled by its success correlates that you don't understand what sells games. Word of mouth, fun, sales, genre, etc. "I don't play MMOs, they are irrelevant" yet they DOMINATE PC sales year after year - this tells you there is a huge audience for ANY kind of MMO. And if you don't believe me, pick a random MMO and look at it's launch numbers. They will be astronomical because "hey new MMO, lets check it out" and if the game has mustard it retains good revenue, if the game is terrible those sales basically flop. Here is another example:

WildStar Earnings per quarter:
Q2 2014: $25,57 million USD (28,048 bln KRW)
Q3 2014: $14,59 million USD (16,007 bln KRW)
Q4 2014: $5,004 million USD (5,491 bln KRW)

In less than a year a highly publicized MMO went from record highs to life support. That is how the MMO genre on PC works. ARK can be dead tomorrow.

But since you openly said you don't follow MMOs, I can understand why you're baffled how a game like ARK can succeed even though it's a technical disaster. But because you only want to argue technical performance you'll cover your ears and go "lalalalalala".

Point is unless the franchise is as mainstream as possible and isn't a well established franchise, it more often than not doesn't sell well. But that means that AAA studios are going to be more reluctant to make games like ARK survival since they don't want to take many risks.

Any AAA studio could have done the same 10-15 years ago on the PC. Did they? No. NV could have made the most advanced PhysX game using the power of the cloud and their GPUs but nope, never happened.

TIL: Russian thinks PC's (the platform) are a closed and highly controlled platform.

No, not a console fanboy but I am just seeing more innovation in the AAA scene on consoles than on PC. Where PC shines in terms of innovation is the indie scene. As far as AAA PC games, it's more of the same.

You're seeing Microsoft take, once again, an established PC technology and spreading it to their online servers. Because Microsoft has a HUGE cabal of servers they bragged about only to give gamers Drivatars. WOOOOOO! DAT INNOVATION!

Again, what do you think happens to Crackdown when the servers go down? Or when you disconnect? Is that a feature you want?

Sorry I guess I am more excited about Rare Replay, Forza 6, Last Guardian, Uncharted 4, streaming Xbox ONE games from the consoles to a PC, Halo 5, etc. than anything that's happening in the AAA PC scene. You are free to disagree.

Do you own a PS4? Xbox One? PS Vita? A 3DS? A Wii? Or even a Wii U? Just curious.

What platforms do you own?

Just answer that question, you can ignore the rest. This is getting too long anyways haha.