Stalker: Clear Sky To Be Released Exclusively On Steam... ..

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:56:22 GMT, riku <riku.DeleteThis@none.invalid.com> wrote:

>On Sat, 09 Feb 2008 12:38:11 +0100, Benjamin Gawert <bgawert.DeleteThis@gmx.de>
>wrote:
>
>>Well, I do find it surprising that the game wasn't made with reduced
>>details in at least these fps-critical situations to avoid stuttering
>>(and the stuttering was really heavy. In EP1, there is room flooded with
>>water, a (closed) door on the one side and a switch that opens the door
>>on the other side. In the middle there is a segment of a metal walkway
>>and a electrical distributor who starts spreading sparks after the
>>switch has been thrown to on. And as soon as these sparks appear the
>>frame rate goes down to slideshow level). I mean, the gfx is average at
>>best (HL² looked much better on my PC then EP1 does on the PS3).
>
>It can partly also be that the PS3 port is a bit rushed, and the
>developers didn't have experience with the hw or not time to get
>acquainted with it.
>
>That normal in console world: the earl(ish) games are piss-poor job,
>and when the developers become more familiar with the unit, they start
>doing more respectable job with it. Some early PS2 games didn't use
>part of the chipset fittingly simply because the programmers were not
>familiar enough with the system yet. That's a bit like if PC game
>developers would do all the 3D graphics processing on the CPU for
>awhile whenever a new 3D card or Windows version appears.
>
>This increase in programming quality from piss-poor to ok is then
>later used as a "proof" by console enthusiasts how, "unlike PC
>developers", console developers really get to know the system. "PC
>game developers are lazy". This is of course not completely true, as
>in the PC world there are no similar switches to a completely new
>programming environment like there is whenever a new console appears,
>and the programmers are completely lost in the beginning.

Isn't there an equivalent on the consoles to the environment on the PC though,
where the programmer writes to the API, not worrying about how the hardware
works?