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PS4 vs PC – How much does GPU performance really matter?

• Egon Kilin
• October 26th, 2014

There are already plenty of PS4 vs Xbox One debates revolving around their performance and how one is seemingly better than the other. However, there is one machine out there that has the potential to leave both consoles in the dust when it comes to performance, but somehow no one seems all that impressed with it anymore. Currently everybody’s going crazy if a game manages to run at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second and yet the PC has been doing that for years and is capable of offering even better resolution and fps with the right components. One of the components that helps any platform offer better performance is the GPU and many PCs today have graphics cards that are way ahead of those featured on both the PS4 and the Xbox One. But does this it even matter?

It certainly doesn’t seem to be very important for many games and interestingly enough, some developers are also of the opinion. Pete Bottomley is a Game Designer at White Paper Games who worked on a first person adventure title that was released on PC via Steam earlier this year. The game in question goes by the name of Ether One and the developer is currently working on bringing it to the PS4 as well. Now that he has some experience working on both platforms, Bottomley agreed to share some of his thoughts regarding the PS4’s GPU compared to those found on the PC.

“I honestly don’t know too much about the hardware side of things. My guess would be that since GPU’s are constantly being released and updated for PC’s, it’s only natural that they will outperform a PS4 at some point. I don’t think that really matters though,” the Game Designer told Gaming Bolt. Bottomley gave The Last of Us as en example of a very impressive game that was developed using the hardware of a last generation console. “If you look at what Naughty Dog did with The Last of Us at the end of the PS3 generation it goes to show just how much you can squeeze out of a system with very clever people on your team!”

So while powerful hardware definitely helps when developing a game, there are many more aspects that need to be taken into consideration. His example is actually pretty spot on as Naughty Dog managed to create an excellent title using hardware that is no longer impressive by today’s standards. As for the question “does GPU performance really matter?”, the answer is still yes, but ultimately the team responsible for developing the game is more important than the hardware.