Obviously: Crytek devs confirm that consoles are weaker than high-end PCs

Yes this news seems obvious, but it’s also telling.

*Heavy sarcasm alert* Did you know that the Xbox One and PS4 are actually less powerful than a master-race PC? Unbelievably, it’s true! Two of Crytek’s lead engineers, Nicolas Schulz and Theodor Mader spoke up at SIGGRAPH, saying how higher-end PCs are considerably more powerful than current-generation consoles.

During their talk, which was focused on the development of Xbox One fighter Ryse: Son of Rome (download the full presentation here), the duo let us know exactly what they thought of console hardware. This choice snippet says it all.

In relation to rendering challenges: “Console hardware [is] considerably less powerful than high-end PCs at launch​. Adding just more (effects, higher resolution etc.)is not an option on weaker hardware”.

DSO Gaming dug into the slideshow as well, saying that Ryse was a 900p/30fps game because the Xbox One could not handle the added effects. ESRAM (dedicated, super-fast GPU RAM) is also an issue, and because the Xbox One only has 32MB ESRAM, Crytek could not add MSAA (responsible for a smooth level of anti-aliasing) to Ryse at launch.

SSAA (Super-sampling anti-aliasing) was present on the Xbox One version of Ryse, but only in the cut-scenes. Crytek assures us that it will make an appearance in the PC version. Dig into the full slideshow, which is damn technical, if you really want to get to the nuts and bolts of it.