PC or Console: Which is better? (2020)

PC or console? Let's be honest: this dilemma will never, never end. Console gamers will continue to claim their exclusives and play on the remote from the comfort of their sofa while those on PC will talk about their high resolutions, vast market and free connectivity.

Although the rivalry of both sides is staunch, what is clear is that the one who can try to navigate between the two worlds and accepts the best that each of them has to offer. Which brings us to the inevitable question: which is better?

Generations vs. updates

Custom has made us distinguish technological advances according to the progress of gaming platforms since back in the '80s. Back then they were cataloged for generations and it is something that we experience collectively since the big brands tend to try to bring their products to the market with dates more or less close to each other.

In the West, consoles like Play Station and Nintendo 64 started a war for graphic progress, mechanics and gameplay that continues to this day. Wherever Play Station 2 (2000) appeared, it was made by XBox (2001) and Game Cube (2001). Play Station 3 vs Xbox 360. The same situation occurred in the world of portable consoles (GameBoy vs Atari Lynx in 1989). At the end of the twentieth century, the concept of the game was associated with the leisure that needed a specific device while the computer was a working tool. With the collapse of the desktop PC, Opjee and the appearance of laptops, young people began to have more access to this platform where there was also room for specific games. This is where the paths of gaming began to divide.

PC in gaming

For many, the answer is clear: the computer is and always will be the platform where we can enjoy the best graphics, best dedicated online servers and the widest variety of catalogs. If something comes out for the console (unless it is exclusive), it will also come out for the PC, even if it is a bit seedy on Port, sometimes. And, if not, at the time. Let them tell Quantic Dream and its break from exclusivity with Sony in 2018. So let's see, what does the PC offer that the console does not give us?

The main distinction is that in the gaming PC world, generations do not exist. Players are not aware of which is the next chosen graphics engine or how good it looks. The quality of the graphics, performance and resolution became entirely dependent on the user and his team. The real difference between playing the same game on two computers with the same components came to be as trivial as the use of an Nvidia or AMD graphics card.

We all know that games are developed by the computer in the studios and each one uses a graph for its elaboration for some reasons or others, generally related to the game engine they work with. Traditionally, there are companies that choose Nvidia and others employ AMD. The result is that performance and rendering may be slightly better in one or the other, with the Nvidia Hairworks in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt being a good example. Want to see every last hair of Geralt de Rivia's white hair moving in the wind? Sorry, only with Nvidia. AMD eats the snot.

This may sound unfair, but it is always good to remember that competition is the way to progress. It is in the PC world that more models of new processors, RAM memory sets and graphics are launched on the market. Every year there is a new arsenal with which (if we wanted) we can update our team to have the best of the best. And the console? Well, between PS2 and PS3 nothing more or less happened than ... six years! Even more important is the fact that when the console is launched on the market, nowadays the PC has been able to “move” for a long time what the “new generation” has achieved as new. Basically the PC is always ahead and there is nothing that consoles can do about it.

Consoles in gaming

You get home, make some dinner, jump on the couch, turn on your trusted console and ... Home, sweet home! Something that makes gamers very proud is the comfort factor. The controls of the same have evolved towards an ergonomics with which a desktop mouse has it raw to compete, but wherever comfort is gained there is also less precision. Aiming assistance exists on console because a mouse is not the same as a controller, and those who play in competitive online mode know what it is to face an opponent armed with a mouse and keyboard.

The passing of the years has created a niche of players very faithful to the domestic platforms. They are easy to install, require no maintenance, and cost less than a mounted PC to move the exact same game. Generally this is a question where all the consoleros tend to coincide, but as the saying goes: "The devil is in the details" . Yes, you are playing Metro Exodus on your Play Station 4 at 1080p, but what is its visual quality?

The main problem with these platforms is the port or export of the game to work on them . This can be seen in factors such as volumetric, shadow, ambient occlusion, anti-alising and post-processing among other factors. The consoles would sweat and blood to move some graphics originally in Ultra HD to stable 60FPS, needing to go through a process that causes a visual drop but trying to preserve the stability of frames per second to guarantee a good gaming experience.

One of the factors that help this downgrade go unnoticed is the distance at which we play from our television if we compare it to that of a PC monitor. The relationship between resolution and inches has always been very close in the world of screens. The vast majority of us have a good-sized television in the living room to which we can connect our console, and with the times running that television will be 60Hz with 1080p. Some of you may have 4K screens, but remember that there are no native console games for that resolution.: These are also a port or a rescaling that PC lovers notice leagues. While we may not see Artyom's skin pores in Metro Exodus, what is certain is that from the sofa we probably weren't going to look equally.

Graphics: what changes between PC and console

If there is something that does not change in the aesthetic aspect of the games, it is the graphic sections that to a greater or lesser extent have a presence in our games. In order to go into depth on the aspects that change between console and PC and how these affect its performance, FPS stability and maximum resolutions, we are going to discuss some of them.

Ambient occlusion

Atmospheric lighting or lighting with specific light sources are regulated in this section, as well as its refraction on all types of surfaces.

Anti-Aliasing

Basically it defines the rendering quality of the objects and how sharp the edges of the objects are. It is the section that consumes the most resources since after rendering it performs a blur on the edges to make the dreaded "saw teeth" disappear or soften them in higher resolutions. Currently, there are many variants of this post-processing graphic process, some are standard and others exclusively create companies for their components:

FXAA (Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing): the rendering of the objects has less definition and the silhouettes are more blurred but in return the consumption of resources is less.
SMAA (Enhanced Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing): filter based on FXAA, improving results but with slightly higher consumption.
MSAA (Multisampling Anti-Aliasing): The rendering software samples the textures and colors present in the pixels near the edges of the objects and adds intermediate points to smooth the transition. It is the fastest Anti-Aliasing system.
QSAA (Quincunx Super Anti-Aliasing): more refined version of the MSAA, adding more transition points and smoothing.
SSAA (Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing): the image is rendered at a higher resolution than our screen and subsequently reduced to the final size. This Anti-Aliasing method is applied not only to the edges of objects, but to their entire surface. Of the four presented it is the most complete.
CSAA (Coverage Sampling Anti-Aliasing): Original post-processing of Nvidia's GeForce 8 series. It works like an MSAA but extracting a larger number of samples for rendering.
EQAA (Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing - Exclusive to AMD Radeon HD 6900 series. Essentially identical to CSAA.
TXAA (Tempral Anti-Aliasing): post-processing developed by Nvidia . Take the MSAA system as a reference but reduce your consumption and better optimize the results.
CMAA (Conservative Morphological Anti-Aliasing): a rendering system developed by Intel, it is a midpoint between FXAA and SMAA.

What type of Anti-Aliasing is best for us? It all depends on the capacity of our PC. The factors that define this basic premise are dictated by our processing and graphics card mainly, with RAM being the next most relevant component.

FXAA: it is for low-end PCs that are more office-oriented than gaming-oriented.
MSAA: computers with intermediate components for multipurpose use.
SSAA: For gaming PCs equipped with the latest processors and graphics.

Rendering software (API)

It becomes the program used to carry out the rendering process. Currently, we have DirectX and Vulkan competing with each other. DirectX is something like the industry standard. In the PC world, it has a greater presence than Vulkan, the latter being much more widespread on mobile systems such as Android.

Shallow depth of field

Set the definition and blur regarding the proximity of the elements present on our screen. A very wide depth of field requires more effort from the graphics engine, so in video games, it is used as a resource to establish the rendering of elements and conserve resources.

Particles and volumetric

Two factors that are affected by issues such as rendering and physics. This is where we can group environmental or animation effects like smoke, fog, snow, rain or sparks. These are usually the first losses that we experience in a reduction of graphics since they are high-end aesthetic aspects that can consume a good amount of resources.

Refresh rate

This point no longer depends on our game platform but on the monitor or screen we use.

The refresh rate consists of the number of times per second that the information on the screen is rewritten.

The current standard starts from 60Hz, but it is already common to find models of 80, 120, 140 or even 240Hz.

A higher refresh rate on our monitor allows us to appreciate more fluid movements since there are more frames per second.

How does this affect us?

Well basically in the relationship between the number of FPS that our console or PC can generate compared to what we see on the screen

Having a 60Hz monitor with a processor capable of generating more than 100 FPS per second on our PC is a waste.

TVs instead have a current standard of 60Hz, which is the maximum FPS that consoles can move in the best circumstances.

Shading and shadow quality

3D objects cast shadows in space. The size and shape of these is defined by the position of the light point and once established we have the option of increasing their quality. This defines the sharpness of the shadows cast by all objects, presence or not of saw teeth on their edges and contrast.

Tessellation

It is a process that divides the main polygons into smaller ones. This helps smooth curved shapes and reliefs for 3D models. The quality and detail of this process varies from game to game and can best be appreciated in smaller 3D models.

Filter and texture quality

Increases the visible details in the textures from all angles generating a greater sense of relief on surfaces of all kinds (earth, fabrics with ornaments, wood ...). Wherever the filter increases detail, the quality of textures can be regulated to a greater or lesser extent. This can increase the required resources and decrease performance.

Vertical Sync

The famous V-Sync helps the frames per second generated by our console or PC to be played according to the refresh rate of the television or monitor. Activating this option is highly recommended since it helps to avoid graphic problems such as screen tearing, those stripes that appear when we move the camera and some areas of the screen do not show the new position at the same speed.

The V-Sync creates a bottleneck in the images that are sent to the monitor to create an artificial FPS cap adapted to what it can generate and thus not waste visual performance. If your PC is not very powerful it can lower your performance a lot, in which case it would be better to have it disabled. Instead, it is recommended to activate it if you have a high-performance graphic and the FPS of the games exceed the Hz of the screen.

performance

Now that we have seen what some of the issues that are most affected by the graphics engine and processor used among other issues do, it is time to compare how each platform deals with the delicate issue of maintaining high graphics quality without fry the chips.

In general, the graphics can be classified as low, medium, high and ultra quality. Each of them can regulate visual aspects of the aforementioned by giving priority to one over the other, and we can even decide ourselves what to activate or not manually.

This visual section is that it takes most of the performance of the computer and to which all possible resources are dedicated. However, not only does the game look great, it must also run smoothly.

What graphics options consume the most CPU?

Scaled resolution: Playing in 1080p, 2K or 4K can have a huge impact on our team given the increased rendering scale.
Shades and their quality: level of detail, quantity and definition are key in the resources dedicated to them.
Drawing distance: The visible depth of field that the motor must generate can usually be reduced without an impact greater than blurring at long distances.
Particles and volumetric: effects of fog, snow or dust that visually fill the stage can play tricks on poorly prepared teams.
Quality of the effects: flashes or magic in combat, the complexity of the shape and lighting of the fire ...
Reflection quality: especially noticeable in water, polished surfaces and glass. They usually combine shadow properties.
Quality of the textures: the higher the definition, the more the load necessary to display them correctly,
Anti-Aliasing: The more advanced the process and the greater the number of render layers, the more CPU consumption and the possibility of affecting the FPS.

To reduce resources while still seeing the game as "pretty" we can start by reducing the quality of the shadows and drawing distance. These issues, as well as the quality of reflections and particles, are small details that can go much more unnoticed than aspects such as texturing and Anti-Aliasing.

Now, in terms of performance, how is the world of consoles doing in matters of frames per second and resolutions? Let's see it.

Play Station and XBox

Everything on the consoles is tailor-made exclusively for them. From your processor, motherboard and graphics card. Leading companies in PC components and hardware (AMD, Intel and Nvidia) compete for their title in the graphic and generational section, providing more cores and teraflops.

The interesting thing here is not only to observe how similar the processors and graphics of both platforms are in essence, but also to assess issues such as the resolution and stability of FPS .

GRAPHIC SPECIFICATIONS PS4 and XBox One

Playstation 4

Xbox One

CPU

AMD Jaguar, 800 Mhz (8 cores)

AMD Jaguar, 1.75 GHz (8 cores)

GPU

AMD Radeon custom (1152 shaders, 800 MHz)
1.84 TeraFlops
AMD Radeon custom (768 shaders, 853 MHz)
1.84 TeraFlops

Play Station 4 and XBox One

Resolution: 720p to 1080p and 1440p on an HD TV. For 4K models the console performs a scaling that tries to simulate this resolution.
FPS: Stable 30 FPS in 1080p (with spikes), up to 30 FPS in 4K. Specific games can run at 60 FPS in both resolutions.

Once the foundations of both companies were established in the so-called generational leap , the improvements to the original models arrived:

GRAPHIC SPECIFICATIONS PS4 Pro and XBox One X

Play Station 4 Pro

XBox One X

CPU

AMD Jaguar, 800 Mhz (8 cores).

Jaguar Evolved, 2.3GHz (8 cores).

GPU

AMD Radeon custom
4.2 TeraFlops
AMD Radeon custom
6 TeraFlops

Play Station 4 Pro and XBox One X

Resolution: 1080p on an HD TV. For 4K models, the console performs a scaling that tries to simulate this resolution and allows a native resolution of 2160p in certain games.
FPS: 720p at 60 FPS stable, up to 60 FPS in 1080p, up to 60 FPS in 4K. All this also depends on specific games.

The adaptation that many studies have made for their games on the Play Station 4 Pro and XBox One X compared to their predecessors is diverse. There are those that bet on higher graphic quality and keep the frames per second and others that decide otherwise. Then we find beautiful games at 4K with 30 FPS of performance and others in 1080p but 60 FPS quite stable. 4K at 60 FPS is something like a unicorn, but there are games that reach it even if it is not completely stable.

PS5 and XBox Series X "Scarlet"

We have talked about consoles dating back to 2013 , but with the change of a decade, the following versions of Play Station and XBox are already on the horizon. However, what we have left is to wait what technical specifications they present and what is their comparison to a graphic model on PC .

GRAPHIC SPECIFICATIONS PS5 and XBox Scarlet

Play Station 5

XBox Series X "Scarlet"

CPU

AMD Ryzen (8 cores), 3rd generation

Custom amd

GPU

Navi

Zen 2 and Navi

Due to the early of this article we are lacking more precise details of both platforms. In the case of Play Station 5 it has been confirmed that it will be compatible with 8K and will include native 4K (although it probably depends on the games). With XBox Series X "Scarlet" on the other hand the same situation occurs only adding the data to offer up to 120 FPS with variable refresh rate, although we assume that this also depends not only on the monitor but also on the games.

More interesting issues to mention is the backward compatibility with games from previous generations (PS4 and XBox One) as well as functionalities in the cloud or, of course, compatibility with augmented reality (in the case of PS5). The next question of interest is then: which GPUs are comparable to the next generation on consoles?

While the consoles are already talking about 60 stable FPS, native 4K and 8k resolutions, on PC it turns out that the equivalent in the case of Play Station 5 is an AMD Radeon RX 5700 (2020) or Nvidia GTX 1080 (2016). The latter is not said by us but by Nvidia's own CEO, Jensen Huang.

PC and laptop

The issue of gaming in the PC world is that AMD and Nvidia bring new versions of graphics cards to the market that have already improved the benefits of the aforementioned. Whether for lower consumption, better performance or more video power. Downgrade does not exist on PC. Your performance will depend exclusively on the components of our team and this leads us to the great advantage of the section: we can change them at our whim.

Choosing a good PC to play can be a real ordeal, especially when you are completely unaware of the world of components and budgets. This is the reason why many people opt for console. It's easy, it will work in your living room and you save yourself documenting. It is also possible to buy pre-assembled gaming computers, but generally this is not recommended if you have the possibility of assembling them piece by piece.

Resolution

There is no game that is not currently made for 1080p resolution . This is the standard of the moment and on PC it coexists along with other resolutions such as 2K or ultra wide. Also for a few years we have among us 4K, a resolution four times higher than 1080p and that is now struggling to stabilize its FPS.

PC or console: other key factors

Apart from the graphic aspects compared on all platforms, there are also issues that should be kept in mind when we are considering buying a console or assembling a PC to pieces. Here are some key aspects to consider.

Catalogs and exclusivity

You will all have seen the Steam memes when the summer or Christmas offers arrive, and that is something that is generalized in the world of desktop gaming. Obviously this situation is not exclusive to the PC and the consoles also have a good list of exclusive games on specific platforms.

These exclusive catalogs are for many users a compelling reason with which to justify the purchase of one platform or another, especially when it comes to Triple-A releases that it is possible that only in a long time (or never) they will reach PC. Play Station and XBox are the companies that we usually have in mind when talking about exclusive games, but on computers, there are also interesting things. We can often find small developer studios that create games designed just for this platform in a similar way to mobile formats.

Due to these factors, it can be a great idea to take a look at future releases and their availability on PC or console, and even which one will be the one to take the exclusive.

PC or console: the budget issue

Having a computer at home is something that apparently became widespread from the 1990s onward. Online shopping, office tasks and entertainment could be combined on this device for quite a long time until the smartphone market proved to be equally capable of managing many of these activities.

The truth is that although many of us have desktop computers or laptops, a basic computer does not support gameplay as it is. We can invest 500 euros in a basic computer (buying aside its screen, keyboard, mouse and speakers) but it will not be the same as a Play Station 5. Whether we want it or not, the budget makes a difference in this department.

It is here where the user who wants the computer to play is distinguished from the one who uses it for more daily activities and is not so demanding about what his PC can or cannot do. A gaming computer is not just little lights and a spectacular chassis. They carry dedicated graphics, higher RAM consumption, good ventilation ... We also have additional expenses in peripherals such as the screen if we want resolutions above 1080p or high refresh rates. Do you see where I'm going?

The console is a self-sufficient device for gaming. Yes, we will need an internet connection for updates and also a paid service to enjoy online game modes on the servers, but nothing further. When we buy it they bring their own remote control and we already have a television as well. A single device. A single cable.