Raw with Jay: Graphics vs Gameplay

05/14/21 • 17 min

Arrggh! A Video Game Podcast from The Waffling Taylors

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Graphics vs Gameplay

Graphics or gameplay, which is "more important" (hopefully you can hear the bunny quotes there)? Is a shiny veneer more important than an engrossing gameplay mechanic? Can't we just have both? What if we have neither? All of these questions, and more, will not be answered in this episode of Raw with Jay.

Series Intro

This is The Waffling Taylors Raw with Jay, a series of shorter episodes of indefinite length. These episodes will cover shorter topics which don't really fit well within the scope of the show, or topics that I want to cover in my own way. That's not to say that we won't cover these topics in the main show, but I'd like to take a whack at them here, first.

Anyway, let's get to it.

Graphics vs Gameplay

Firstly, this episode/rant/whatever was inspired by a tweet from Twitter user PlaySushiUK. Those who have heard our bonus episode with the folks behind lock-on - there'll be a link directly to it, in the show notes - will recognise PlayShushiUK as Jason Maddison, one of the folks behind the upcoming gaming journal.

It just feels like all I see is this exercise in mental masturbation and dick waving to try and prove a point as to which chosen console of yours can achieve this and that in terms of performance. What about story, mechanics, animation, collision detection, trigger events, etc?
- Jason Maddison

He was referring to a tweet by another user who had posited that:

It's bizarre nowadays, that alot of people I see who play a game are highlighting 4K, 60 fps, graphics, better textures, any technical jargon you can throw basically instead of talking about gameplay, story, characters, music first. There are some who do but we're in the minority
- Akira

Check the show notes for links to those tweets, by the way. And if you're not already following Jason, then you really should be.

This is another example of an age old argument which goes back to the playground at school - unless you're a long-in-the-tooth gaming journo (and by that I mean from the 80s, at the least). Remember when I brought this up in the previous [Raw with Jay on Gatekeeping?

And it's an argument which worked back in the day because each console had a completely different architecture and completely different graphics hardware. This meant that the games which were ported to different consoles naturally had a different graphical experience - go look into the differences between the original Resident Evil on the PlayStation vs the Sega Saturn version, for instance.

But since modern consoles are, effectively, PCs running Unix-like operating systems, that argument has been nullified. I mean, let's take a look at the PS5 vs Xbox Series X graphics hardware for instance:

In the white corner, sporting black trunks with white stripes is the PS5; weighing in with a Custom AMD RDNA 2 with 36 CUs @ variable frequency up to 2.23 GHz. And in the black corner, sporting white trunks with white stripes...

Seriously, the official brand colour guidelines even use the same colour pallet, THAT'S how similar they are

... Is the Xbox Series X; weighing in with a Custom AMD Radeon RDNA 2 architecture with 52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz

Let's take a look at some of those terms because we don't want to get lost in alphabet soup.

First, both GPUs are created by the same company: AMD, with them both being the AMD Radeon RDNA 2 architecture. But even that argument is nullified by the fact that both are custom designs, so they don't match anything on the PC market.

Both GPUs sport a number of CUs - or compute units; technically

and mean technically

the more of these you have, the more things you can compute. But with the PS5 having fewer but faster CUs than the Xbox, they almost even out.

Full Show Notes

A full transcript of this "raw with Jay" episode is available over in the full show notes - because there are loa...

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page.

Don't forget to check the chapters tab in your podcatcher. This is a thing we're doing now, so keep an eye open for those.

Graphics vs Gameplay

Series Intro

Anyway, let's get to it.

Graphics vs Gameplay

He was referring to a tweet by another user who had posited that:

Check the show notes for links to those tweets, by the way. And if you're not already following Jason, then you really should be.

Seriously, the official brand colour guidelines even use the same colour pallet, THAT'S how similar they are

... Is the Xbox Series X; weighing in with a Custom AMD Radeon RDNA 2 architecture with 52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz

Let's take a look at some of those terms because we don't want to get lost in alphabet soup.

Both GPUs sport a number of CUs - or compute units; technically

and mean technically

the more of these you have, the more things you can compute. But with the PS5 having fewer but faster CUs than the Xbox, they almost even out.

Full Show Notes

A full transcript of this "raw with Jay" episode is available over in the full show notes - because there are loa...

Previous Episode

The Look Back - April 2021

This is a new type of shorter episode that we'll be putting out each month, called "THE LOOK BACK!". In these, we'll be looking back at the previous month's episodes and giving you a rundown of them. That way, if you somehow missed one, you can get the low down on what you missed. Pretty handy eh?

We'd still recommend that you check out the podcast proper. And if you haven't already, then look for us on your podcatcher of choice and subscribe. It's 100% free to do so, you know.

Episode 111 - Raw with Jay: Let's Ditch the Gatekeepers

This past month - April 2021 - we put out four brand new episodes. The first episode was a Raw with Jay about gatekeepers. You can think of the Raw with Jay episodes as either a series of rants, or things that I want to cover outside of the rest of the show. There's nothing stopping us coming back to them, but I want to take a whack at them first.

This episode was all about why I think gatekeepers exist in the gaming space, where I think they came from, and just how stupid the whole idea of gatekeeping really is. Pro tip: it all goes back to when we were kids. Also, who cares about how, where, or why you play. Let's just all play together. Right?

Episode 112 - Wonderfully Dizzy With Philip Oliver

Next was an interview with Philip Oliver (one of the creators of Dizzy) and one half of The Oliver Twins - a legendary UK games development team. Both Philip and his twin brother have around 40 years of game development experience, EACH. And they were at the helm of some of the best games of each decade.

A game about an egg, or so it may seem, from eventual success with games spanning decades to the humble beginnings in their childhood bedrooms. Philip takes us through his journey in game development from the 80s up to the 2020s.

One of my favourite parts of the episode was when Philip dropped the bomb that, back in their peak, both he and his brother were creating new games at the breakneck speed of one per month.

Episode 113 - Parasite Eve - Let's Learn About Wigglies

Then we released another "Waffling Taylors goes to the Movies" episode; this time with a twist.

WHAT A TWIST
- Russel

We focussed on a movie of a book, which itself was the basis for a game (the book that is, not the movie) : Parasite Eve.

We've done seven of these movie episodes now, and we're planning on doing a _lot_ more. We'll be slowly iterating towards what I think is the only good video game movie, but I'm keeping the name of that one close to my chest.

Unlike when we recorded our Resident Evil Apocalypse episode, we didn't commit the cardinal sin for movie discussions - we kept the episode well under the length of the movie, coming in at 50-odd minutes shorter than the movie itself.

But for the Parasite Eve episode, we managed to go into as much detail as the Resident Evil Apocalypse episode without going over the running time of the film - probably because there isn't that much happening in this film, to be fair. We even found the time to talk about the nu-wave of Japanese Horror of the 90s and early 2000s - which I expanded on in the show notes.

Episode 114 - Alien vs Predator with Jane Whittaker

After we had a lot of fun interviewing Jane Whittaker. Jane was one of the folks who worked on Alien vs Predator for the Atari Jaguar. We talked about what Jane had been playing, what they would take with them to the Thunder Plains.

Wrapping Up

So that's what we put out in April. Keep an eye open for more of these retrospective episodes each month, that way you'll know about the episodes that you've missed.

Music Credits

All music included in this episode is fully licensed and remains copyright of their creators/publishers. The music used was (in order of appearance):