BF3 Simulator tested by Andy Mcnab

  Ok all ye' faithful readers, second blog entry of the day... I came across this video some months ago and thought "Sweet baby Jesus......I so want that crap"...watch and you'll understand. Here is the link to the full video where you can see how they build the "monster": Full 17 minutes video

BF3 engine was designed for the next generation consoles (PS4/Xbox720)

Frostbite 2, the engine that powers Battlefield 3 and the upcoming Medal of Honor Warfighter, was designed from the outset to run on the powerful hardware that next generation consoles will bring, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720, according to Patric Soderlund.

Soderlund, who was recently promoted from DICE to EA as the head of their EA Games label, told Gamasutra regarding the high system requirements of the Frotsbite 2 engine:

“Frostbite 2 was built for the next generation. That’s how we started it. We had that in mind and we said, ‘We’re going to have to build something that can scale’. It doesn’t mean that what you see in Battlefield 3 is the end state. That’s the beginning; that’s where we start and then we go forward”

Battlefield 3 has received numerous awards and lots of recognition for its visuals, physics, and other technologies. Soderlund also mentioned that Medal of Honor Warfighter was originally built on the Unreal Engine 3, but when developers saw the possibilities of Frostbite 2, they switched over. EA recently opened a new studio in Sweden to continue working on the engine. So far, three upcoming EA games use the new engine; Need For Speed: The Run, Command & Conquer Generals 2, and MoH Warfighter.

Console (PS3, Xbox360) Vs. PC

Okay, so I just read an article on some lost BF3 blog about Armored Kill and it's features. What made me write this blog entry was the fact that once I concluded reading, I went to the comments section, just to find out that despite the DLC stuff they were supposed to be talking about, they were actually throwing "crap" at each other depending on what platform (console or PC) they choose to play BF3 on. DAAAAAAMN!!!! I thought us Battlefield players had more important shit to kill time with, like... talking about close quarters, which in my humble opinion, is just a CoD face lift Battlefield style. Things like that (close quarters) are the things that really determine where our favorite gaming franchise will go in the future. But again no means to worry, DICE came out with Armored Kill, huge maps, tons of vehicles (6 new, including AC-130 gunship..... ooooh yeah baby) and a new game mode (not revealed yet). So ok, enough advertising and into the matter.

Console vs. PC


 This topic is like the "tabu" no gaming company will openly talk about, maybe because even the developer teams are divided in this matter. Since the beginning of videogaming consoles have had the unquestionable dominance of the market. Up until 1984, when Apple Computers came out with the Apple Macintosh, the first "PC" with mouse and GUI. Of course, before that there where some "computers" for gaming, but usually ran on cassettes and took ages just to load the start screen, and when that happened you just didn't wan't to play more or were asleep already LOL.


 In the 80's we saw how a flourishing electronics and entertainment industry started to launch products such as the Nintendo 8bit, Atari 8bit, Sega Master System, etc... All running graphic processors faster than the ones present in the latest PC's of that decade (*the 286, 386 and 486 processors*).

 The 90's started with not much difference, except that Sega launched the first 16bit console named "GENESIS". Now i'm not going to say it was a giant leap, but big enough to give us titles such as "Sonic the hedgehog" or "Gunstar Heroes" with a graphic quality and detail we did not see till that day. Nintendo, on it's behalf, came out with the "Super Nintendo", a pretty decent platform, although for some reason, as it always happens with Nintendo (for the exception of the Nes 8bit) it didn't sell many units. PC's were improving at a very accelerated pace with the introduction of the Intel processors on Windows Pc's and the PowerPC processor on the Macs. In less that 5 years personal computers had a graphic processing capability beyond the consoles "imagination". Sega strived to survive by launching first, and I believe as a test run, a CD reading unit designed to link with the Sega Genesis granting the 16bit console the graphic capacity of 32bits; and second by launching in the mid 90's the Sega Saturn, the first CD disk console to be made. But due to lack of sells and titles developed for the console SEGA went out of the business of producing consoles (not before making another futile attempt in '97 with the Sega Dreamcast), for the more "friendly" market of game developing. So with nintendo stuck in the 16bit Super Nintendo, and Sega agonizing and praying for Nintendo not to buy them, Sony decided it was their time to jump in with the Playstation 64bit in 1996. This was the "giant leap", not because it used CD's, but it used Carbon CD's which gave the game developers the capacity of storing a lot more information on the disc than the regular digital disc. This translated in much more detailed graphic enviroments, faster movement, and what was better, a wide variety of uses, because it did not only read games (Sega Saturn), it could also be used to play music CD's. . So it isn't wild to say that Playstation was the first fully integrated entertainment system. Plus, now you could save your sessions on something they called the "Memory Card", not having to start all over from the beginning every time you turned on the console and slipped the game in (which in my case stopped me many times from actually playing).

Personal computers where advancing at a similar, if not faster rate. It was popular in the mid-late 90's to play games like Age of Empires, Half-Life , Quake & Unreal Tournament (amongst many, many, and i mean MANY others); it was so damn popular that console manufacturers (even Sony) where having a hard time mainly because of the lack of innovation in the graphic engines, due to shorter processing capacity from the console processors. Around those days Nintendo also put out their new console Nintendo 64 (64bit, duh). Resisting the tendency of using digital discs (stupidly but hey, whatever floats your boat), Nintendo made the last bet for cartridge consoles. Although an amazing R&D job was done, the Nintendo 64 was short lived, again because of lack of developers developing games for the platform, and being more "attractive" a disc console than the traditional cartridge.

THE 21st CENTURY A NEW MILLENIUM


 At the beginning of the new millenium (12 years ago, for you stoners xD) Pc's seemed to dominate not only the "office" market, but also the gaming and home entertainment market. At this time Sony had finished the development of their new product, Playstation 2. Now... what can they possibly come out with to better the situation?... damnnnn, they did hit the jackpot. Ok so, if you ever owned a PS2 you probably (if not surely) never noticed the really big step they took. They completly reinvented the gaming console. How?, well, simply by making it a "small" computer. Wow, now that was a radical new concept. You see, for the last 15 to 20 years, consoles have limited themselves to simply "play the disc/cartridge", but now you could go MULTIPLAYER only needing a minimum of 56k of connection to the internet, while many of the most popular PC games required a 1Mb connection, just to run smoothly. Well you could not only play smoothly online with a PS2 and a 56k uplink, but you could also video record (eye toy) and even better, it had a DVD reader built-in. Now that's what i call improvement, full integration, because why would i need 3 machines (console, dvd player, hi-fi stereo) when i can simply have one for less than half the price of buying all the others.














 So seeing this formula worked exceptionally well for Sony, Microsoft said... "Hey, we are good (fairly decent in my opinion) in making Pc software, let's make a console", and that is how around the first half of the 00's decade Microsoft launched the Xbox, marking the slow but constant agony of Pc's in the gaming market.

 Since 2005, the gaming industry has provided us with two of the most impressive pieces of entertainment technology they have ever created: Playstation 3 & Xbox360. Two consoles, same concept, "integration". These "puppies"are more computers than actual consoles, I've even heard some people call them "smart consoles" or simply "THE entertainment system", and believe me, both suit them perfectly.
















CONCLUSION


 Yes, Pc's have much more powerful hardware; yes, they SOMETIMES have nicer graphics; yes, you can use them for a lot of stuff. But that's the thing, they aren't meant for exclusively gaming,  although neither are the new consoles (PS3/Xbox360), lets try to think of it in a PRAGMATIC way:
 
    Let's say I am a Pc gamer (which you can tell i am not lol) and i'm playing BF3 on my super PC... suddenly... BLUE SCREEN....SHIEEET!!!!!, what happened?.... i take it to repair and they tell me i have a virus... how did i get it?, gee it must have been the bizarre porn i was watching last night...


What i mean to say with this example is that, if i just let the Pc to do what it is meant to do... "work"... (yeah right, lol) and had a console for gaming/entertainment, i wouldn't get my ass bored off until they fixed my Pc because i could still go turn on my PS3/Xbox360 and entertain myself... even with "work" (LOL, yeah PS3/Xbox360 have internet browsers built-in so you can surf the net for...."work"). So may the consoles be for gaming/entertainment and the Pc's for.....yeah whatever floats your boat.


* If you own a 286, 386 or 486 computer you must know that you can sell it to NASA, yes, NASA, because it is the technology the space shuttle uses (ironic huh), so go to the garage and brush the dust off the old dinosaur xD.

P.S.: Yes i know i didn't mention the Nintendo Game Cube nor the Wii, but c'mon, not to be mean but let's be honest... it's Nintendo, they still believe in the world of pixies and fairies.... xD

Welcome to the new DEVILS blog. Here you can be updated on clan news & events, and also read about strategies, tactics and all things related to the games we play (BC2, BF3, Dust 514*).

* Still not out but will be soon, hopefully.