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Why don't console games have more graphics options?

mcjmetroid

Member
I know PC games are always going to have more options than console games that's always a given considering the many combinations of hardware possible. Console game graphic settings are often limited to "film grain" on or off etc. Simple toggles.

However why not let them have more? On PC if you have a 10 year old card you can still play most new games at 60fps with a massive hit in graphical settings and Resolution. Consoles now tend to have a bit of a choice between 30 and 60 but that will probably stop once the cross gen games disappear. Why not let a console user adjust resolution and at least a preset graphic detail setting so they can hit that 60fps?

Is there a quality test that needs to be passed from Sony etc that prevents them from putting in options like 30fps or 60fps in each game just in case a user breaks the game by accident?

I mean if there is a " revert to default settings" clearly placed on the screen then it should be fine right.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
I know PC games are always going to have more options than console games that's always a given considering the many combinations of hardware possible. Console game graphic settings are often limited to "film grain" on or off etc. Simple toggles.

However why not let them have more? On PC if you have a 10 year old card you can still play most new games at 60fps with a massive hit in graphical settings and Resolution. Consoles now tend to have a bit of a choice between 30 and 60 but that will probably stop once the cross gen games disappear. Why not let a console user adjust resolution and at least a preset graphic detail setting so they can hit that 60fps?

Is there a quality test that needs to be passed from Sony etc that prevents them from putting in options like 30fps or 60fps in each game just in case a user breaks the game by accident?

I mean if there is a " revert to default settings" clearly placed on the screen then it should be fine right.

Consoles are a closed system so it's easier for support and development to ship a baseline (or what seems to be become the norm a couple of presets) for one specific device. But as we get further into the generation I would expect a lot of 'performance' modes to disappear as well as the demand of the hardware is increased.

Also it's probably the worst time to do it, with dynamic scaling also being prevalent as well. I doubt even if there is a large userbase who goes and even changes things like motion blur, CA, camera shake so I'm guessing it would be lost on a lot of people as well.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Because most console gamers get confused with graphics options.
I've had this talk with some console gamers about PC vs consoles, and one of the issues that they talk about, is that PC games are too complicated.
At one point I even found a few people that said they didn't like to have an option of performance and quality in console games.
 
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lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
because its hard for developers to optimize, i mean console is different unlike PC.
 

martino

Member
Consoles are a closed system so it's easier for support and development to ship a baseline (or what seems to be become the norm a couple of presets) for one specific device. But as we get further into the generation I would expect a lot of 'performance' modes to disappear as well as the demand of the hardware is increased.

Also it's probably the worst time to do it, with dynamic scaling also being prevalent as well. I doubt even if there is a large userbase who goes and even changes things like motion blur, CA, camera shake so I'm guessing it would be lost on a lot of people as well.
And this doesn't excuse why they put option to disable effects for example....
Even more when a pc version do it.
It can will only make the experience more stable in this case.
I'm all in for developers to push their vision by default.
But options and adapting how things are displayed is a strength of the media.
Options people not caring will never see can't hurt
 
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Notabueno

Banned
That's the worst idea I've heard in a long time.

Console have been the superior gaming experience for a long-time specifically (amongst other aspect), because you don't have or need "options" since you're getting the best, most optimised version of the game possible on the specific console (unless it's CP2077) thanks to it being standard. It's playable in it's best state out of the box (or download).

In fact that's a huge step-back that PS4/PS5 have different options which is a testimony of how much unoptimised compromised their games have to target, which is an indicator that you're not playing the best version of the game in any cases.

If anything, it's PC that should have less options, in fact that's exactly what the best PC games or ports have, the better optimised and smooth they are, the least options they have because devs did their work. I've often said how the fact that CP2077 has so many options on PC is a testimony at how much of a crap mess it is.
 
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Rykan

Member
I don't know why you would think that the choice between performance modes will disappear once cross gen games stop being a thing considering that all current gen exclusive games have these options as well.

These options are here to stay. While we probably won't see full graphics customization, I do believe you'll be able to pick between a graphics mode and s frame rate mode from here on out.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
And this doesn't excuse why they put option to disable effects for example....
Even more when a pc version do it.
It can will only make the experience more stable in this case.
I'm all in for developers to push their vision by default.
But options and adapting how things are displayed is a strength of the media.
Options people not caring will never see can't hurt
That turns into developers seeing less and less incentive to really optimise an default and let people optimise the game experience for them which they have trained the PC user base to do (and to be fair it is needed there as there is user replaceable HW and very varied specs).
Options people not caring will never see can't hurt
You start adding mini maps and waypoints that can also be disabled for hardcore players? You then see games optimised to rely on those and not optimised to help the player as much through environment clues as much. Something there as default option or sometimes as an option can still tarnish things.
 
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That's the worst idea I've heard in a long time.

Console have been the superior gaming experience for a long-time specifically (amongst other aspect), because you don't have or need "options" since you're getting the best, most optimised version of the game possible on the specific console (unless it's CP2077) thanks to it being standard. It's playable in it's best state out of the box (or download).

In fact that's a huge step-back that PS4/PS5 have different options which is a testimony of how much unoptimised compromised their games have to target, which is an indicator that you're not playing the best version of the game in any cases.

If anything, it's PC that should have less options, in fact that's exactly what the best PC games or ports have, the better optimised and smooth they are, the least options they have because devs did their work. I've often said how the fact that CP2077 has so many options on PC is a testimony at how much of a crap mess it is.
This has been the worst take in the history of takes, maybe ever.
 

Jimmy_liv

Member
Because most console gamers get confused with graphics options.
I've had this talk with some console gamers about PC vs consoles, and one of the issues that they talk about, is that PC games are too complicated.
At one point I even found a few people that said they didn't like to have an option of performance and quality in console games.
I'm not sure if confused is the right work but I am a former pc gamer and I just enjoy not having to think about it. I just switch on and play without being fussed with it. I'm not a fan of performance and gfx modes either. Sometimes I'm torn between how I want to play and I'd be happier if the devs just put the game out how they wanted it to be played.
 

martino

Member
That turns into developers seeing less and less incentive to really optimise an default
Maybe what is not clear is the few and kind of effects i have in mind here : Chromatic aberration, image grain, vignette or all the kind of blur.
And i see your speculative fear but i don't see where it's coming from...the few games doing that don't really back it

That's the worst idea I've heard in a long time.

Console have been the superior gaming experience for a long-time specifically (amongst other aspect), because you don't have or need "options" since you're getting the best, most optimised version of the game possible on the specific console (unless it's CP2077) thanks to it being standard. It's playable in it's best state out of the box (or download).

In fact that's a huge step-back that PS4/PS5 have different options which is a testimony of how much unoptimised compromised their games have to target, which is an indicator that you're not playing the best version of the game in any cases.

If anything, it's PC that should have less options, in fact that's exactly what the best PC games or ports have, the better optimised and smooth they are, the least options they have because devs did their work. I've often said how the fact that CP2077 has so many options on PC is a testimony at how much of a crap mess it is.
i don't use the laugh reaction to mock posts but more when they are funny but this merit an exception.
 
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mansoor1980

Member
dont do this to consoles
no-god.gif
 

lils

Member
Console have been the superior gaming experience for a long-time specifically (amongst other aspect), because you don't have or need "options"

yeah, i just hate being able to customise the experience to my liking by turning off crappy effects like motion blur, chromatic aberration, depth of field and film grain. i love making my games look worse for no reason
 

Shut0wen

Member
Because most console gamers get confused with graphics options.
I've had this talk with some console gamers about PC vs consoles, and one of the issues that they talk about, is that PC games are too complicated.
At one point I even found a few people that said they didn't like to have an option of performance and quality in console games.
Really? I mean dont get me wrong there is alot of options for most pc games but if a console gamer was confused surely theyd pic medium or high or low or whatever they prefer, im a console ganer and my room mate had a pretty good pc and when i seen the graphics options it wasnt hard at all choosing what to enable and disable, personally i found the only hard thing about pc games was if you wanted to add mods and knowing what mod order to but said game and such
 

Elog

Member
Graphical options come at a performance cost but allows for varied fidelity depending on hardware set-up. I.e., it does not make sense on a console with the exception if e.g. perfornance mode and fidelity mode.
 
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winjer

Gold Member
Really? I mean dont get me wrong there is alot of options for most pc games but if a console gamer was confused surely theyd pic medium or high or low or whatever they prefer, im a console ganer and my room mate had a pretty good pc and when i seen the graphics options it wasnt hard at all choosing what to enable and disable, personally i found the only hard thing about pc games was if you wanted to add mods and knowing what mod order to but said game and such

Yes, and even when I tried to make the argument that there are presets like, low, medium, high, very high, ultra.
And that you just pick one and be done, they said it was to much. They didn't know what to choose.
So they prefer consoles, because there are no options.
And like I said, a few even said they don't like this new wave of games having an option for performance or quality.

I honestly don't understand this kind of reasoning, where being able to choose something, is regarded as being a bad thing.
 
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Kokoloko85

Member
They’ e just started to have more options with performance mode, RT modes etc.
Lets keep that going before asking for more
 

yamaci17

Member
Yes, and even when I tried to make the argument that there are presets like, low, medium, high, very high ultra.
And that you just pick one and be done, they said it was to much. They didn't know what to choose.
So they prefer consoles, because there are no options.
And like I said, a few even said they don't like this new wave of games having an option dor performance or quality.

I honestly don't understand this kind of reasoning, where being able to choose something, is regarded as being a bad thing.
thats because setting rdr 2 to low murders game's graphics. it clearly does not look like how it looks like on a ps4 (which has specially optimized custom settings). setting everything to medium does not cut it either .it still looks way off compared to ps4/one x/pro.

only at high preset that rdr2 resembles the image quality that consoles have, and then you have performance issues. whether you like it or not, you have to use custom settings that can be found online. its certainly a bit of hassle, not great, but you have to do it. otherwise game simply does not run fine on hardware or it looks worse than consoles at medium and below, which is what some of people here are saying: these consoles already comes packed with best optimized settings that deliver optimum performance/quality. if you've a limited hardware on pc, you either have to resort to incredibly worse graphics and good framerate, or kind of okayish graphics and bad framerate. if you want to middleground, you have to do custom tinkering which involves reducing problematic settings and such

IF these games had "console presets" like horizon zero dawn did however, it would be more convenient. sadly we dont have that either (and I'd use such presets in a heartbeat, just like I did in HZ:D).

these presets are not granular, and that is something I hate.

in cyberpunk "high" preset disables contact shadows. why the hell it does that? and ps4 and all consoles have contact shadows enabled. why the hell? unless you pick ultra, you don't get contact shadows enabled. if you are a person that casually sets medium or high preset, you will be playing without Contact Shadows.

so what does contact shadows does? its a niche setting that improves some in-door cutscenes by creating additional shadows. this setting is enabled for all console versions regardless of how weak they are. because its an essential setting that improves such scenes by quite a margin and its not even resource intensive. yet "high" preset disables it on PC...

this is how Judy looks like in that iconic introduction scene with CONTACT SHADOWS off (at high preset). even if you put everything to ultra and then disable contact shadows, it will look like this

W9lhNU7.jpg


and this is how it looks like with contact shadows. much more realistic and fine tuned

rDVoalI.jpg



i was "mildly" surprised when i saw this "particular" setting was enabled across all consoles... why? bcoz its pretty much free and improves such scenes;



as you can see its enabled on a ps4 slim. ps4 slim mostly runs low-med settings, but it has critical settings on (again, i know ps4 and stuff runs the game like crap. this is just one example i noticed over the years. this probably applies to many other games as well)

so if you play at high preset and not ultra, you practically get a worse image quality in this particular scene compared to ps4 if you don't know what contact shadows does
 
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Edgelord79

Gold Member
If anything, it's PC that should have less options, in fact that's exactly what the best PC games or ports have, the better optimised and smooth they are, the least options they have because devs did their work. I've often said how the fact that CP2077 has so many options on PC is a testimony at how much of a crap mess it is.
Geezus.
 

AMC124c41

Neo Member
If anything, this generation has given players more choices on console than ever before. I agree to offer the choice to turn of Motion Blur for example as some suffer from nausea because of it and at this point it might as well be an accessibility feature but as someone stated above, turning off some graphical features can really ruin the game's look such as the contact shadows in Cyberpunk. Personally, I'd like to see devs spend more time extracting everything from the console while offering a bit of wiggle room to change some things like quality/performance modes. Having a full suite of graphics options would make it extremely expensive and time consuming to implement and polish as well make the experience wildly different between users who are on the same hardware. The point of a console is to have static hardware and extract everything from it while the PC platform needs all those options to accommodate for the millions of hardware configurations.
This is coming from someone with a PS5 and a beefy gaming PC for context :)
 

BlackTron

Member
That's the worst idea I've heard in a long time.

Console have been the superior gaming experience for a long-time specifically (amongst other aspect), because you don't have or need "options" since you're getting the best, most optimised version of the game possible on the specific console (unless it's CP2077) thanks to it being standard. It's playable in it's best state out of the box (or download).

In fact that's a huge step-back that PS4/PS5 have different options which is a testimony of how much unoptimised compromised their games have to target, which is an indicator that you're not playing the best version of the game in any cases.

If anything, it's PC that should have less options, in fact that's exactly what the best PC games or ports have, the better optimised and smooth they are, the least options they have because devs did their work. I've often said how the fact that CP2077 has so many options on PC is a testimony at how much of a crap mess it is.

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read on GAF.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
If anything, it's PC that should have less options, in fact that's exactly what the best PC games or ports have, the better optimised and smooth they are, the least options they have because devs did their work. I've often said how the fact that CP2077 has so many options on PC is a testimony at how much of a crap mess it is.
x7m2z.jpg



...since you're getting the best, most optimised version of the game possible on the specific console.
LIES. DECEPTION.
Unless you consider optimised when a game keeps dipping from 30 fps to 20-15, or has terrible frame pacing issues.
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
On the topic, theres a surprisingly high amount of people who get confused by graphics options. There's also others who feel some type of FOMO when they don't play the game at the absolute highest settings, or get obsessed with tweaking.

All in all, i don't think its a good idea for a more casual public, or at least they should keep it simple as they already are doing.
 
Ahhh…. Ancient console tradition (in out dated Japanese accent)

Because it’s a closed system, every game that runs on each console is optimized to run and look the best it can for each console. Over the last few years they started with the performance/quality options for the first time in console history. In my opinion I think that’s enough in the console space.
 

Fredrik

Member
On the topic, theres a surprisingly high amount of people who get confused by graphics options. There's also others who feel some type of FOMO when they don't play the game at the absolute highest settings, or get obsessed with tweaking.

All in all, i don't think its a good idea for a more casual public, or at least they should keep it simple as they already are doing.
They can have default settings with the normal console settings and have an advanced settings menu for those who want to tweak things.
 
consoles aren't powerful enough to have too many options. developers need to squeeze out every last bit of performance so even doing something like increasing FOV or adjusting post-fx could mean that the game will suffer poor performance.

also it's too confusing for some people and they just accept whatever they are given. if someone cares about having extra settings/performance then they wouldn't have a console in the first place. these machines are designed for casual players who don't care about performance/visuals. they just want to plug something in and go play without any effort or thinking.
 
The point of the console is that it's not customisable so that gamers could get 5 years of gaming on a single platform. Thus all the software, ideally, tries to optimise games to a given hardware, and rarelly is there a need for graphical options.
 

Topher

Gold Member
The nearly limitless configurations of PC mean developers cannot have one or two modes and expect consistent results. PC gamers need to be able customize games to their hardware and the desired results (resolution, fps, etc.). The fact that consoles have static hardware mean this isn't really necessary. A couple of different modes for quality or performance work fine.

That's the worst idea I've heard in a long time.

Console have been the superior gaming experience for a long-time specifically (amongst other aspect), because you don't have or need "options" since you're getting the best, most optimised version of the game possible on the specific console (unless it's CP2077) thanks to it being standard. It's playable in it's best state out of the box (or download).

In fact that's a huge step-back that PS4/PS5 have different options which is a testimony of how much unoptimised compromised their games have to target, which is an indicator that you're not playing the best version of the game in any cases.

If anything, it's PC that should have less options, in fact that's exactly what the best PC games or ports have, the better optimised and smooth they are, the least options they have because devs did their work. I've often said how the fact that CP2077 has so many options on PC is a testimony at how much of a crap mess it is.

Having graphical options is not about mitigating "unoptimized" versions of games. As I said above, it is primarily about customizing to one's hardware and desired results. If I have a GTX 1080 and want to play a new AAA game in 4K then I'll probably have to tune the settings a bit to get there. Same if I want 120 fps. PC gaming, for many, is about a customized experience. Not one or two modes predetermined by the developer. To many PC gamers, it is this ability to customize that provides the "superior gaming experience" so stating such is the case for consoles as if it were the consensus is simply wrong.
 
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Fbh

Member
Because it goes against the more streamlined philosophy of consoles and developers will no longer be able to provide consistent results. I also wouldn't be surprised if working with a set (or a couple of variables) of predefined settings allows devs to better optimize games.

I think given the target audience and use of console, the current way games are made with a couple of preset "performance" and "visual" modes is great.
 

Fredrik

Member
if someone cares about having extra settings/performance then they wouldn't have a console in the first place. these machines are designed for casual players who don't care about performance/visuals
The DF Face-off threads tell another story…
Honestly, few PC gamers care about the tiny differences talked about in those threads. This generation people are talking about decimal avg fps differences. 59.7 vs 59.3 = Another one!

Just have the usual console settings as the default settings and add the regular PC settings under an advanced settings menu. Let people lower the resolution or the shadow res or whatever to stabilize the framerate instead of having a rocky fps that can only be fixed with a $2K VRR TV or crying on Twitter in hope for the devs to release a patch.
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
They can have default settings with the normal console settings and have an advanced settings menu for those who want to tweak things.
its a possibility. It'd be unnecessary if developers are already implementing performance modes, but its true those will only work so far as devs know what the fuck they're doing.

I still remember how Nier Automata on PC had a hidden setting requiring a mod to access that drastically improved performance with no visual quality loss.
 
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KAL2006

Banned
I think every game should have atleast had a hidden menu that allows you to increase framerate to 120fps cap as well as an option to add 4K Dynamic resolution cap.

This way all games would be future proof without needing to wait for a patch. So when PS6 comes out majority of the games should be able to run 4K/120
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Theres literally nothing that stops you from playing with default settings, this would just be advanced settings for those of us who like more options.
You never had ocd/looked for perfection?
The fact that the options exist, means I will go looking and comparing. So I effectively play more on console.
Well to be hones, it is not too bad nowadays. On cp I can just crank everything to ultra (3080) and on ps5 it's just 30 vs 60fps so perfectly fine for me.

For options on consoles to make any sense, I would need to have full msi afterburner overlay with fps and % cpu/gpu usage. What's the point of eyeing detailed options otehrwise
 
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