Disregarding framerates for a minute, here you can see 3 PC games running on their maximum settings at as similar a resolution possible side-by-side with Xbox 360' s best looking games so far. Only Lost Coast holds it' s own and that' s a tech demo.

Quake 4 vs Gears of War



Far Cry vs Gears of War



Half Life 2: Lost Coast (HDR + enhanced textures tech demo) vs Gears of War



I' m pretty sure that Gears of War comes out ahead both visually and technically. The PC games aren' t exactly cutting edge but hey, i didn' t choose to show my friends those games and compare them to Gears of War on my HD projector and then come talk shit about it here. Anybody with eyes should be able to see that Gears of war is the nicer looking game. I mean, it runs at 30fps sure, but Epic did hit 60 and then simply added more eye candy (like the dust blowing around and the wind in the outdoor areas) because their aim was to make the nicest looking game the possibly could.



While i was at it i figured i' d take a quick look at what kind of differences HDR actually makes. From the PC versions of the games; on the left without, and on the right with HDR applied. The difference is most noticible in Oblivion but the differences between Half Life 2 proper and the Lost Coast tech demo are huge. The performance impact for having HDR on is usually between 10 and 20fps for my machine running a 7900. If you were running a 7800 though the performance hit doubles etc etc etc...

Oblivion



Far Cry



Half Life 2: Lost Coast





EDIT: Accidently made everything itallic