people aren't buying game consoles to write email on either... so what is the fucking point here?
that there isn't a single platform good for gaming?
If the PC platform isn't viable because NON-GAMERS can't play EXTREMELY TAXING 3D GAMES... and the CONSOLE is viable because (this part I don't get) NON-GAMERS are somehow compelled to buy the things?
If gaming hardware is going to become part of an integrated solution then stores like Best Buy, et al, need to stop selling shit hardware.
It takes more than just a GPU to make a computer a reliable gaming system. Gaming is probably the most demanding use of retail PCs that is anywhere close to common. Which means OEM computers need to stop having shit PSUs, shit MBs, shit RAM. You don't need performance parts, but you do need reliable parts. Most of the stability issues that aren't completely in the realm of user stupidity can be traced to cheap components. Particularly the power supply.
So an identifiable standard has to be established when it comes to what manufacturers can be used in a PC that is 'Gaming Ready (tm)'. Otherwise, it'll never happen because people like me will never buy a computer that isn't self-built.
This is what MS has already tried to do. The Vista Experience Index is supposed to distill a PC's gaming powerinto a single number rating, allowing an at-a-glance answer to the oft-asked "Can my computer run this?"
Except no hardware companies use it. GPU makers have no idea what CPU you have, and vice versa, so they can't list that buying card X or chip Y will give you a certain VEI score.
And no software companies use it. Even at the official Microsoft Games for Windows site, VEIs aren't listed in the system requirements - including for Vista-required games Halo 2 and Shadowrun.
The score doesn't really work all that well as an indicator. Graphics cards are far more important than processor speed for most 3D games, but it'll typically give you a low score if your processor isn't up to par. At the same time I've seen references (not first hand, so YMMV) to how it can over-estimate the capabilities of low end cards, especially if they're of the correct "generation".
All in all, there's no simple way of telling how well a game's going to run on your system, even if you meet the "recommended" spec that can pretty much mean anything in terms of performance. The VEI is pretty much useless.
I think they had the right idea with the Games for Windows initiative but I don't think they were ambitious enough with it, or at least didn't try hard enough to keep everyone to standards. Some stuff like making sure everyone has native widescreen support was a good move. But then you've got things like how some games list their savegames from the "game" menu, whilst others don't. Some save their user information in the users profile, some elsewhere. VEI doesn't tell you much of anything. Vista can easily check for software updates on Word or your hardware drivers, but you can't set it to automatically notify you if there's an update for your game, at least as far as I've seen. None of them deal breakers but I can't help but feel they could have implemented it better. Especially when it comes to Live.
MS's attempt to bring Live to the PC, I'd characterise them as schizophrenic if anything. They needed to give the users at least the bare minimum expected online capability, but they also needed to make sure there was reason to pay for Gold. So bare minimum is pretty much what we got, at least that's my experience with Gears of War. No ranked matches, no private games, no friend invites, they just decided you needed to pay for those arbitrary distinctions. Doesn't kill the multiplayer but it's irritating and for no good reason other than as a "Gold" threshhold.
Steam on the other hand has been kicking MS's but at every turn, even going so far as releasing their dev tools for free use by companies so that they can make their games Steam compatible. End result being that Steam is becoming more ubiquitous amongst the PC community whilst Live is limited to a few titles.
people aren't buying game consoles to write email on either... so what is the fucking point here?
that there isn't a single platform good for gaming?
If the PC platform isn't viable because NON-GAMERS can't play EXTREMELY TAXING 3D GAMES... and the CONSOLE is viable because (this part I don't get) NON-GAMERS are somehow compelled to buy the things?
I didn't mention the words "viable", nor did I draw a distinction between gamer and non-gamer - and I didn't say that non-gamers are compelled to buy consoles.
The PC platform isn't viable for a lot of game developers because a lot of people don't have the option of even trying out their titles without hardware purchases - despite a worldwide hardware market of hundreds of millions, even developers like Valve who go the extra mile for low-end support can't count on everyone as a potential sale.
Consoles do not have this problem, as developers are assured of a single baseline spec that they can target and be assured that every single person in their install base is a potential sale.
I don't understand the problem with this line of reasoning, or why you seem to find it offensive - it certainly wasn't my intent to offend you. :...:
The only ones left in the PC space are those who can cater to every machine out there with casual, 2d-based titles like Bejeweled, and those who have a strong history of PC development.
Crap, I better tell Ironclad and Stardock quick! CD Projekt too. And GSC. And maybe Introversion, and then...
Actually, don't you think you're being even a leeetle disingenuous with this statement? Even just a teensy, tiny bit?
Well, whatever, I'm heading back to the Witcher.
OT, but the Witcher's intro is awesome. Went on for ages but I was glued to the screen the whole time.
However questionable his reasons for complaining are, it doesn't change the fact that there are some big problems with PC gaming, like piracy and the ubiquity of shitty integrated graphics in retail stores. I think most of the interview is pretty fair, really.
If you cannot bother to research something you are shoving more than twenty dollars into, you deserve naught but death.
I thought he made a lot of good points. This interview had nothing to do with UT3.
I know plenty of people that bought a "great PC" at Best Buy and then were surprised when it couldn't play Portal. All he is really saying here is that integrated graphics cards suck.
Really, you should be able to research a graphics card on the internet, what kind of retard just buys vital fucking hardware the day he walks in?
Jizzy-Chrizzy peons, I can jot down figures from PCGamer's annual free guide to PC building in under a minute, there is no fucking excuse for your outstanding amount of :effort?:
Anyone who fails to understand that Valve is the fucking Body, Mind, and Soul of PC Gaming, is really out of touch
Seriously, I really fail to understand how anyone who is stupid enough to buy a PC for the purpose of gaming, without doing any research, whatso-fucking-ever has any right to open their mouths regarding this topic.
Ohhhh, Mainstream Gamers, note that I have colored that as the shade of complete and utter shit.
Because obviously someone playing solitaire in their spare time is obviously THE SALVATION OF THE MARKET.
PC Gaming is not dead, diseased, ailing, or suffering anything other than the existence of butthurt failures.
The only ones left in the PC space are those who can cater to every machine out there with casual, 2d-based titles like Bejeweled, and those who have a strong history of PC development.
Crap, I better tell Ironclad and Stardock quick! CD Projekt too. And GSC. And maybe Introversion, and then...
Actually, don't you think you're being even a leeetle disingenuous with this statement? Even just a teensy, tiny bit?
Well, whatever, I'm heading back to the Witcher.
OT, but the Witcher's intro is awesome. Went on for ages but I was glued to the screen the whole time.
Hah, you got me! I forgot to mention smaller devs and, well, Eastern Europe. A point to you, good sir. :oops:
The only ones left in the PC space are those who can cater to every machine out there with casual, 2d-based titles like Bejeweled, and those who have a strong history of PC development.
Crap, I better tell Ironclad and Stardock quick! CD Projekt too. And GSC. And maybe Introversion, and then...
Actually, don't you think you're being even a leeetle disingenuous with this statement? Even just a teensy, tiny bit?
Well, whatever, I'm heading back to the Witcher.
OT, but the Witcher's intro is awesome. Went on for ages but I was glued to the screen the whole time.
Hah, you got me! I forgot to mention smaller devs and, well, Eastern Europe. A point to you, good sir. :oops:
It's just that there's plenty of room in the PC industry for a dev who knows what they're doing. I take every opportunity I get to tout Ironclad because I genuinely feel that they know what they're doing.
Theoretically they should have had no chance. First time developer with no name to speak of, niche game, not even publishing in European stores where the bulk of PC gaming is, virtually no real advertising to speak of. But they still pulled it off.
They made good use of online distribution, catered to their fanbase who in turn did most of their advertising for them purely through word of mouth, deliberately designed their game so that it could run on as wide a range of hardware as possible, making good use of the art-style where they could and just plain cutting back on the shinies elsewhere, made and are making constant updates to the game, and not even including DRM in the game. I'll say that last one again, there is no DRM on the game. They saw it as an unnecessary expenditure of resources for a system that doesn't work and that only hampers your legitimate, paying customers. It's that kind of crazy sense that other companies seem to completely ignore that wins over the fanbase even harder.
They pulled it off because they were smart about how they did it. I'm not going to deny that the PC market is difficult to break into, but I don't realistically feel it's harder than the console market in any really significant way. You just need to be intelligent about how you go about it and know your market. One thing I will say about the PC market in its favour as well is that as long as you keep those factors in mind it typically takes a lot less units shipped to break even compared to say, on the PS3.
While integrated graphics being pretty much worthless and the store bought PCs being unable to run most high end games is one (rather large) part of the problem I can't help feeling like another part of the problem is that the minimum system requirements displayed on the back of the boxes of games are for the vast majority of games complete and utter lies. Surely this can't be helping.
-SPI- on
0
augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
However questionable his reasons for complaining are, it doesn't change the fact that there are some big problems with PC gaming, like piracy and the ubiquity of shitty integrated graphics in retail stores. I think most of the interview is pretty fair, really.
If you cannot bother to research something you are shoving more than twenty dollars into, you deserve naught but death.
I thought he made a lot of good points. This interview had nothing to do with UT3.
I know plenty of people that bought a "great PC" at Best Buy and then were surprised when it couldn't play Portal. All he is really saying here is that integrated graphics cards suck.
Really, you should be able to research a graphics card on the internet, what kind of retard just buys vital fucking hardware the day he walks in?
Jizzy-Chrizzy peons, I can jot down figures from PCGamer's annual free guide to PC building in under a minute, there is no fucking excuse for your outstanding amount of :effort?:
Anyone who fails to understand that Valve is the fucking Body, Mind, and Soul of PC Gaming, is really out of touch
Seriously, I really fail to understand how anyone who is stupid enough to buy a PC for the purpose of gaming, without doing any research, whatso-fucking-ever has any right to open their mouths regarding this topic.
Ohhhh, Mainstream Gamers, note that I have colored that as the shade of complete and utter shit.
Because obviously someone playing solitaire in their spare time is obviously THE SALVATION OF THE MARKET.
PC Gaming is not dead, diseased, ailing, or suffering anything other than the existence of butthurt failures.
Woah hoss. This isn't some sort of Valve vs. Epic thing, so I'm not even sure where that rant came from. All Sweeny and others are saying is that you sure as hell aren't going to make any new pc gamers with integrated graphics chips sitting in every desktop at Best Buy. Ensuring the niche stays niche. PC gaming sure isn't dying but compared to the growth on the console side, it could be doing a lot better.
Hell, etoychest writes about game professionally, and was confused and gassy when he tried to make his advance copy of GoW run on his brand spanking new pc. BACK TO THE CONSOLE.
people aren't buying game consoles to write email on either... so what is the fucking point here?
that there isn't a single platform good for gaming?
If the PC platform isn't viable because NON-GAMERS can't play EXTREMELY TAXING 3D GAMES... and the CONSOLE is viable because (this part I don't get) NON-GAMERS are somehow compelled to buy the things?
I didn't mention the words "viable", nor did I draw a distinction between gamer and non-gamer - and I didn't say that non-gamers are compelled to buy consoles.
The PC platform isn't viable for a lot of game developers because a lot of people don't have the option of even trying out their titles without hardware purchases - despite a worldwide hardware market of hundreds of millions, even developers like Valve who go the extra mile for low-end support can't count on everyone as a potential sale.
Consoles do not have this problem, as developers are assured of a single baseline spec that they can target and be assured that every single person in their install base is a potential sale.
I don't understand the problem with this line of reasoning, or why you seem to find it offensive - it certainly wasn't my intent to offend you. :...:
I wasn't really arguing with you, friend. You didn't offend me at all. I used an expletive just for the heck of it. FUCK - see? just cuz
My argument was more rhetorical...
I know and love the reason my XBOX 360 is for sure going to run COD4 the same as the next guy. My argument isn't for or against PC or console gaming.
The way I see it... Valve surveyed 1.3 million people, and there has to be a middle ground there somewhere that people can develop for.
I don't think the survey is biased at all. They are gamers... console purchasing people are gamers. It's the same thing. The difference is that (right now) consoles have more processing power than the average PC with Steam installed.
I mean, really, how hard would it to be a cheap, but not worthless graphics card in your average medium priced computer ($800+) these days. A GeForce 7600GT only costs about $100 these days and most games are at least playable with one.
Its crazy that I can make a rig running Crysis for 800 odd by browsing a back room and the big stores sell things for more that can't. Of course, like furniture, it's all in the price tag.
I always told myself that I was going to jump into the Unreal scene as soon as I built my computer and now that I am actually in the process of buying and building it... I guess, Quake it is for my twitch shooters!
You've got to not set a universal standard, but more easily group components of similar performance with some universal collation scheme.
So more consumers can easily build a PC capable of running games.
So, let's theorycraft this for a second:
You package Crysis, and instead of putting individual component names on the requirements section you just have like categories.
So for CPU you have category A, and for GPU you have category B or whatever. Something simple.
Then, the hardware manufacturers all agree between them on groupings for components.
So an equal performance athlon goes in the same group as an intel chip.
You make the groups pretty broad so you dont nitpick between them. You do the same for all kinds of components, the most obvious in need of this being gpus (a component in which a 7800 is better than an 8600 and that kind of bull)
Then someone can not only construct a gaming pc with ease, and by someone i mean anyone, by simply saying 'This game needs a level '3' computer, so lets buy all level 3 components for it.
For experienced PC gamers it makes no difference, but for the less attuned and uninformed market, which is vast, it will improve things.
The first barrier to entry to pc gaming for many is the technicals. specifications, numbers all kinds of abbreviations.
just simplify that shit. dont change a thing other than some words on the box and you will be able to tap a much larger market.
i dont know why companies dont do this.
its not setting a standard, competition is still there, its just grouping stuff of similar performance together with an indexing system of some kind.
I mean, even i get pissed off when buying components because while completel able to distinguish performance, why the fuck are they naming their cards and chipsets these stupid, counter intuitive names.
my 8800gtx means fuck all to non pc gamers. the difference between that and an 8800gts in name is one letter, and yet in performance it is a huge gulf.
that kind of annoyance being removed would help everyone.
its such a minor thing to do aswell. third party comparison sites have been doing it for decades, why dont all the main manufacturers, ati, intel nvidia etc, even ram providers, just all collaborate to make pc gaming easier to understand.
i think its gonna take some overlord to do such a thing. my best guess, microsoft will whip something up for a future incarnation of games for windows.
Does the game run in the first place? That is more the question I am asking. Stability has improved recently, sure.
What? If it didn't run, then it couldn't crash, I guess, but that's a pretty retarded interpretation. I game primarily on my PC. If the games didn't run, then I couldn't be gaming on it, now could I?
So what the games run, in your experience? You are not understanding this in the same sense I meant it. Can EVERYONE run EVERY game? No.
A computer monitor has higher resolution than a TV screen, okay. If you don't attempt to read any more into what I ACTUALLY wrote, than you would have to admit that a computer monitor is still smaller than most TVs, HD or not.
Sure, but how many people have a larger screen than about 32 or 37 inch? How many of those are HD? Very few, even today. So most consoles are running on a 480i television that you sit across the room to view. For $100 or so you can get 20"+ high quality LCDs. So yeah, they're smaller, but not to the degree you're making it out to be.
Once again, resolution isn't playing into this. I regret writing that in the first place now. The screen is smaller. That is all I mean. And I stated as much twice now.
This is the first product Nvidia has announced since the formation of their PC gaming alliance, that aims to revitalize PC gaming. Why would competitors form an alliance? To save the platform most of their business is tied up in. That says to me that PC gaming is not doing fine.
Tell that to the companies making $texas right now who are solely in the PC Market. Valve, Blizzard, etc. Hell, even EA refuses to abandon the PC market (How many consoles is Spore coming to? The DS? Hm.)
Valve & Blizzard - that's about it. There are some interesting independents out there now, as well. The hardware manufacturers have started doing a lot to standardize components, make things easier to understand, revitalize the hardware market, improve integrated graphics, and so on. They have recognized a problem and are working to fix it.
Or have a multi-core solution (X2, Core duo, LOL) with plenty of RAM (2GB for <$100 these days) and not have to have multiple draws on power operating for no good reason.
What?
All those things you said slow down a computer no longer do so on multi-core machines. In other words, your point is no longer relevant.
You mean with a multicore machine, I get infinite performance? Last I checked running iTunes, Firefox and HL2:Ep2 all at the time led to stuttering audio and occasionally pauses in HL2, despite my system's spec... and if I want to mix a song, I can only have Cubase open, otherwise performance goes in the shitter once I hit about 16 channels.
My 360 is my main source of movie playback because its the only device I have that'll play HD-DVDs, is an upscaling DVD player, and also can watch DivX movies via streaming from my network. I didn't suggest you replace your PC with a console. I suggested people just quit gaming on PCs, hook up their PC pheripherals to a dedicated gaming machine (console), and buy a cheaper PC for productivity, web surfing, etc. Just the money you save on not buying a medium or high end graphics card for your PC can get you a console that may offer a superior, more trouble free gaming experience.
A) It's great you are, but again, how many are? The adoption of technophiles is no indicator of actual market feasibility.
XBox 360 level graphics are achievable on graphics cards that are less than half the cost of an XBox premium.
[/QUOTE]
The device has a better, more straightforward implementation than most PCs and is connected to the bigger screen, so my movie watching experience is better on it. Also, to your point B there, once again, I wrote that you can get a 360 for less than a mid-to-high end graphics card - that's it. You can get 360 graphics out of a mid range card, for sure, but will you achieve the same frame rates (you most certainly will not at 1920x1080)? What about your processor? Is it fast enough? What is your hard drive's speed like? What about your RAM? How much memory do you have? Can it do 4xAA and remain playable?
With the approach I suggest, all these questions are answered out of sight, out of mind. You buy the console, and then you play games on it. Indy games from the internet, PC games, whatever games, you just go ahead and play them. I'm talking about a system that will facilitate a gaming experience first and foremost, with no compromises made for productivity. For that, you maintain a separate, cheaper computer. Is this really so crazy a concept? Are games simply better when you can segue immediately from an Excel spreadsheet, into Half Life, into Outlook Express to send an e-mail to mom, and then onto Firefox?
I just don't see how playing a game on a computer improves the experience.
You can buy an off the shelf Dell PC with intel integrated graphics, stick a $40 Radeon X1600 pro or a $50 GeForce 8500 in it and it'll be just fine for World of Warcraft, Team Fortress 2, Portal, Unreal Tournament 2004, eventually Starcraft 2.
Those games run at great framerates, in 1680x1050 no less, on my laptop. And it has a low-end GeForce 8400.
Even an Intel Integrated card can run games, as long as they don't require Hardware T&L. (For instance, the Asus Eee can play Half-Life 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004 and get near-playable framerates. : )
Texture quality doesn't really harm framerates anymore. With ATI and NVIDIA's turbowhatever features, even 128mb of onboard memory is enough to set textures in those games to their highest level.
The problem is mainly with pixel shaders.
Low-end cards have enough fill-rate for 1680x1050 at 60fps in games, but with shaders, it can fall all the way down to 640x480 at 40fps.
For instance, on a GeForce 8400:
Team Fortress 2:
DirectX8.0 mode (pretty much no shaders) runs great in 1680x1050
meanwhile, the default DirectX mode, which basically change the way maps are lit in a subtle way, runs okay in 800x600.
Bioshock runs at around 40fps in 640x480 shaders at low.
Unreal Tournament 3 is about the same.
Also, another thing:
I've noticed that, on my laptop, game options don't even make a difference anymore. The framerate is directly proportional to the fill-rate used and the shader quality.
Even on 128mb of dedicated video memory, setting the texture quality to high has absolutely no impact in Team Fortress 2.
In UT3, only going from 4 to 5 makes any difference in framerates. Otherwise it's directly proportional to the resolution.
So, my question is:
Does any video card exist, where UT3 is decently playable, and the first three notches in video quality actually makes a difference in framerates?
Does any video card exist, where Bioshock is decently playable, where you get a noticeable framerate benefit going from medium textures to low?
And yet, visually, it makes a world of difference.
It's developer freaking fault when they for pushing the graphic way too far. Just make a 3D game with $300-500 PC in mind. I don't mean it as minimum requirement setting, I mean $500 for recommended setting.
They set the bar for themselves way too high. I would totally buy No One Lives Forever 3 with the same graphic as NOLF 2. They didn't have to blow $1,232,234 just so I can see a wrinkle on some supporting character's clothes.
eaglearcher on
0
augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
edited March 2008
I guess one solution is for PC graphics to simply be like two generations behind consoles.
It's developer freaking fault when they for pushing the graphic way too far. Just make a 3D game with $300-500 PC in mind. I don't mean it as minimum requirement setting, I mean $500 for recommended setting.
They set the bar for themselves way too high. I would totally buy No One Lives Forever 3 with the same graphic as NOLF 2. They didn't have to blow $1,232,234 just so I can see a wrinkle on some supporting character's clothes.
The problem is that a $300-500 PC these days would have trouble running any 3D game at all, due to the fact that integrated graphics suck huge amounts of ass, and the most common ones, those manufactured by Intel, sometimes have trouble even running 2D casual games like Bejeweled without freaking out and/or crashing.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
You guys are pretty naive if you think he's just whining because UT3 didn't do well. Everything he says in this interview is pretty much true. The amount of shit going on in PC creation now for the high end games is ludicrous, not to mention more expensive than ever before. Tri-SLI, Quad-core crap. Instead of improving the architecture, companies are suckering you into buying more of the same shit for minimal performance gain. You need all these right parts and drivers and everything to get games working, and even then it's common for them not to work or work poorly.
Consoles are now for gaming. The games on consoles are pushing technology forward while retaining the simplicity of games on PC's in the 90's early 00's. The PC is great for everything else, but gaming is just too big of a pain in the ass for people. Not to mention the price.
I don't think Crysis can be held up as an example for anything, good or bad. It was made with the soul intention of humbling geeks PC's, something I don't think was a good idea anyway. I am willing to bet your 8800GTX plays damn near everything else just fine.
I don't think the issue is that it plays everything else fine but more that its super gay that 10 months after spending a shit ton of money a game can may his card cry.
I mean really, that is pretty gay.
Greg USN on
FFXIV Petra Ironheart Infinity Mog 21 and over Free Company Sargatanas Server. Recruitment currently closed.
You guys are pretty naive if you think he's just whining because UT3 didn't do well. Everything he says in this interview is pretty much true. The amount of shit going on in PC creation now for the high end games is ludicrous, not to mention more expensive than ever before. Tri-SLI, Quad-core crap. Instead of improving the architecture, companies are suckering you into buying more of the same shit for minimal performance gain. You need all these right parts and drivers and everything to get games working, and even then it's common for them not to work or work poorly.
Consoles are now for gaming. The games on consoles are pushing technology forward while retaining the simplicity of games on PC's in the 90's early 00's. The PC is great for everything else, but gaming is just too big of a pain in the ass for people. Not to mention the price.
Yeah, I agree with this.
I can't think of a good reason anyone would want to publish a hardcore, PC exclusive game. The sales numbers just aren't there. Why that is, is up for debate, and like Sweeney seems to be saying, maybe Intel is a big part of that.
Maybe its also that people aren't interested in taking in the amount of knowledge you need to make sure any given game will run on your rig. I know that I don't want to fight my drivers, operating system and hardware every time I want to play a game, and I'm sure most people choose not to when they can just throw a disc into the tray or disc eater slot thing of their chosen console and have their game ready to play by the time they sit on their couch.
But I don't understand why people would say or insinuate that piracy isn't a major issue in terms of what is killing PC gaming. If its easy and consequence free to steal something instead of pay for it, people are going to steal. For every one person who works in a call center, is living on ramen, drives a 1998 Ford Escort and is pirating software because they can't afford to buy it, there's probably a hundred people who are pirating the same thing who absolutely could afford it.
I guess in some people's eyes, Epic's boys have been making a few gaffs, but what they've been saying lately makes perfect sense to me. They don't need to do damage control, they need to make sure their products are profitable. Voicing their concerns with the industry is a good way to help correct its course.
Intel Integrated video cards perform just fine, in the sense that they are more than fast enough to fill the screen at a good framerate, at an acceptable resolution, with plenty of polygons and textures.
As an example, your average macbook air can play Quake3 in 1024x768 at 80fps.
Basically, any game that doesn't use shaders everywhere is at least decently playable.
Combine it with the fact that it's dirt cheap, uses very little power, and is the absolute worst you can get in a new PC, and it's not too bad.
The GeForce 6150 and Radeon Xpress cards are better, and can play any game that doesn't use too many shaders at good resolutions and good detail levels.
Low-end cards like the Radeon X1300 and the GeForce 8400, found in a typical entertainment laptop, can play just about any game. Most games that don't use too many shaders can run fine at the laptop's highest available resolution, and shader heavy games will still be smooth if you lower the details enough.
And you can get a desktop video card for dirt cheap: $40 for a radeon X1600 pro, which will play just about any game out there at decent settings. Alternatively, $50 for a GeForce 8500.
And, gaming PCs aside, the only bottleneck is the video card. Every new computer has a Core 2 Duo and at least 1gb of ram, which is more than enough for anything out there.
And there's a very small difference between low-end Core 2 Duo and high-end Core 2 Quads: it starts off at 1.4ghz minimum, and stops at around 2.8ghz. Sure, that's a factor of two, but in the world of games, that's very small: if the CPU was the only limiting factor, a game running at 90fps on a high-end gaming PC would still end up running at 45fps on a low-end PC. And that's at the same level of detail.
When you compare it to consoles, it's absolutely not a problem: your average core 2 duo is about as fast as the processor on an XBox 360 or the cell on a Playstation 3 for games.
RAM is another issue: with 1gb of ram, Windows Vista, a few programs running in the background, and a video card leeching off some of it, you can end up with pretty much nothing left for your game. But that's the worst case scenario.
A typical laptop with 1gb, windows XP and dedicated video memory will leave you with more than enough memory for your games. (As in, more than video game consoles have, AFTER taking the OS into account.)
The amount of video memory on cards has never been a major problem. Card manufacturers tend to put too much ram on those things, since most people equate video ram with video card speed. Because it's the only thing in common between all the cards, and it's written in big letters on every box.
Low-end cards have 128mb, over ten times what a Wii has. Plus, there's turbocache and hypermemory, which dynamically allocates ram when it's beneficial.
And, texture size scales extremely well: just shrink textures at load times.
The _big_ problem is, low-end cards are terrible at shaders.
There's a huge gap between games that don't use shaders and games that use shaders everywhere.
And there's a huge gap between shader performance in low end cards and shader performance in high end cards:
While a GeForce 8400 can barely play UT3 in 640x480 at jerky framerates, hardware sites are already reaching the highest possible framerate (63fps) in huge resolutions with everything maxed with only $320 worth of SLI'd GeForce 9600's.
And yet, that same GeForce 8400 can play Team Fortress 2 at 1680x1050 in DX8 mode, everything at high and get 60+ fps easily.
edit:
Also, another major problem:
It's basically impossible to scale down the quality of a shader. Either it's there, or it's not. Or, it uses an entirely different algorithm.
It's especially important when you're basing your entire lighting model on them, like in UT3: you can't just make map versions without, because there's so many things to change, and it would look completely different.
That's why it runs like crap on low-end video cards, and that's why it's level of detail sliders don't do crap: if the video card handles the massive shaders everywhere, it can handle the textures and polygon count of the higher detail levels with no problem at all. And even the low-end cards can handle up to the fourth of the five notches without any impact on performance (and the fifth notch barely changes anything).
The 8400 really isn't as bad on UT3 as you make out. It'll run it fine in mid details at 1024*600 and UT3 actually doesn't look that bad.
Rook on
0
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
edited March 2008
I think it's fair to want simplicity as a consumer: I can like playing games without liking electrical engineering or navigating the arcane pathways of my 'rig.' We certainly don't require that someone who wants good gas mileage build their own car, or replace engine parts on a regular basis. We also don't require that someone who wants to be able to watch HBO manually tune his satellite.
Basically, it would be pretty handy if it were clear to the casual consumer whether a game could run on a particular system, or what range of games would run on it. Not every computer needs to be able to run games--my dad isn't about to pick up a copy of Civ 4. But it would have been nice to know ahead of time that it would run like complete ass on my computer, or to know when buying my computer what sorts of games I could expect to play.
One answer is to do a bunch of research, sure. But honestly, fuck that. It's not the sort of thing that I find interesting, and I have a life to live.
Edit: Really, I just find it objectionable to assert that people who aren't interested in gaining in-depth knowledge of their machines don't deserve a decent gaming experience. That's just silly elitism.
The problem is that a $300-500 PC these days would have trouble running any 3D game at all, due to the fact that integrated graphics suck huge amounts of ass, and the most common ones, those manufactured by Intel, sometimes have trouble even running 2D casual games like Bejeweled without freaking out and/or crashing.
Who said anything about integrated graphics. ATI Radeon 9800 was good enough for HL2.
The 8400 really isn't as bad on UT3 as you make out. It'll run it fine in mid details at 1024*600 and UT3 actually doesn't look that bad.
To be honest, I've only tried the demo.
Also, I have a GeForce Quadro NVS 140m, which is not quite the same. (I'm running Windows XP, and I'm using the desktop drivers from LaptopVideo2Go. I'm not sure I was using them when I was trying out UT3 though.)
So you're probably right.
I'm a framerate whore though, so I tend to lower details until I get a stable 60+ fps :P
The problem is that a $300-500 PC these days would have trouble running any 3D game at all, due to the fact that integrated graphics suck huge amounts of ass, and the most common ones, those manufactured by Intel, sometimes have trouble even running 2D casual games like Bejeweled without freaking out and/or crashing.
Who said anything about integrated graphics. ATI Radeon 9800 was good enough for TF2 with five minute voodoo.
Edit: Really, I just find it objectionable to assert that people who buy a Yugo and act depressed when they are maimed horribly can actually complain. That's just silly.
Seriously, how hard is it to ask PA if your rig will run a game, or ask what is a good laptop to stay in the game for five years is.
the easiest way to compare video card performance with consoles is to look at the system requirements of multiplatform games.
The original XBox has Halo, Psychonauts, Unreal Tournament 2003
Those games run fine, at medium/high on an ancient Radeon 8500.
Similarly, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (XBox, PS2) ran fine, although at medium/low detail on the same Radeon 8500.
In other words: those games should run at least at low detail levels on integrated graphics hardware, and at high detail at high resolutions with low-end dedicated graphics hardware.
XBox 360 and PS3 games...
Well, they are shader heavy. As such, integrated hardware won't run them at all, and low-end dedicated video cards will run them at very low detail settings.
But mid-end hardware will run them fine.
edit: to put it simply:
You could make a game that scales down to Wii level graphics, and integrated graphics will handle it just fine.
But using shaders extensively like UT3 or Bioshock does will make the requirements sky rocket to mid-end graphics cards to play at decent settings. (but it'll be at least playable on low-end cards at low settings)
Edit: Really, I just find it objectionable to assert that people who buy a Yugo and act depressed when they are maimed horribly can actually complain. That's just silly.
Seriously, how hard is it to ask PA if your rig will run a game, or ask what is a good laptop to stay in the game for five years is.
Not everyone is a member of PA. The average home user will trust the sales guy when they say that this PC will meet your needs.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do your research before spending what is a substantial amount of money on a machine. However, the process could still be made a lot simpler and less obscure than it currently is.
Edit: Really, I just find it objectionable to assert that people who buy a Yugo and act depressed when they are maimed horribly can actually complain. That's just silly.
Seriously, how hard is it to ask PA if your rig will run a game, or ask what is a good laptop to stay in the game for five years is.
Not everyone is a member of PA. The average home user will trust the sales guy when they say that this PC will meet your needs.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do your research before spending what is a substantial amount of money on a machine. However, the process could still be made a lot simpler and less obscure than it currently is.
There's also the fact that for a casual user with a steady income, $500-$1000 isn't such a substanstial amount that they're going to dedicate a ton of time to researching it. Esepcially since, at the end of the day, my dad isn't actually served that much by an increased knowledge of computing. Hours spent researching are worth money, too. Putting in 40-50 hours of work to build a new machine increases the cost substantially.
Edit: Really, I just find it objectionable to assert that people who buy a Yugo and act depressed when they are maimed horribly can actually complain. That's just silly.
Seriously, how hard is it to ask PA if your rig will run a game, or ask what is a good laptop to stay in the game for five years is.
Not everyone is a member of PA. The average home user will trust the sales guy when they say that this PC will meet your needs.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do your research before spending what is a substantial amount of money on a machine. However, the process could still be made a lot simpler and less obscure than it currently is.
There's also the fact that for a casual user with a steady income, $500-$1000 isn't such a substanstial amount that they're going to dedicate a ton of time to researching it. Esepcially since, at the end of the day, my dad isn't actually served that much by an increased knowledge of computing. Hours spent researching are worth money, too. Putting in 40-50 hours of work to build a new machine increases the cost substantially.
Well, 40-50 hours is a bit of an exageration don't you think? Even if you're starting off from scratch and can't ask for help it's usually about as difficult as buying a PC magazine off the shelf, there are usually plenty of articles year round on what to look for.
If I don't know something about a topic, I ask someone who does. That's my research and how it works for a lot of people. If I were to guess, if your dad needs help with his computer he comes to you right?
And personally, I'd consider $500 + to be a substantial amount of money, but I guess that's all relative. Either way I still believe the process needn't be as obscure to the new person as it currently is.
My boss built his first computer - a gaming rig - about a year and a half ago. He's net-savvy enough to use online companies for his purchases and his research. It still took him about a week to fully piece together what was then a top of the line machine (with some help from his kids - both professional computer technicians). He paid about $1400 or so all told.
Since then, he's had to replace the RAM twice, the MB three times, the CPU once due to parts failing and the cascading failures that followed.
Even when the machine runs well (and it has for the last 10 months), he's been plagued with driver and DRM issues on numerous games. CoD4 wouldn't even install until he removed ARMA replaced the DVD Drive, and installed a stack of firmware updates. Crysis' patches broke his game. Same with Frontlines. Blazing Angels won't recognise either his gamepad or his joystick, and he doesn't care enough to troubleshoot it. These are just a few examples. Sometimes, I think he might be the unluckiest person in the world when it comes to computers, but then the last gaming rig I built ate fans and physically fried a $250 dollar graphics card nine months after I bought it.
My first dedicated gaming computer was built in 1995. It ran all of the games I bought for it quite well right up until it died of old age in 2001.
Posts
people aren't buying game consoles to write email on either... so what is the fucking point here?
that there isn't a single platform good for gaming?
If the PC platform isn't viable because NON-GAMERS can't play EXTREMELY TAXING 3D GAMES... and the CONSOLE is viable because (this part I don't get) NON-GAMERS are somehow compelled to buy the things?
The score doesn't really work all that well as an indicator. Graphics cards are far more important than processor speed for most 3D games, but it'll typically give you a low score if your processor isn't up to par. At the same time I've seen references (not first hand, so YMMV) to how it can over-estimate the capabilities of low end cards, especially if they're of the correct "generation".
All in all, there's no simple way of telling how well a game's going to run on your system, even if you meet the "recommended" spec that can pretty much mean anything in terms of performance. The VEI is pretty much useless.
I think they had the right idea with the Games for Windows initiative but I don't think they were ambitious enough with it, or at least didn't try hard enough to keep everyone to standards. Some stuff like making sure everyone has native widescreen support was a good move. But then you've got things like how some games list their savegames from the "game" menu, whilst others don't. Some save their user information in the users profile, some elsewhere. VEI doesn't tell you much of anything. Vista can easily check for software updates on Word or your hardware drivers, but you can't set it to automatically notify you if there's an update for your game, at least as far as I've seen. None of them deal breakers but I can't help but feel they could have implemented it better. Especially when it comes to Live.
MS's attempt to bring Live to the PC, I'd characterise them as schizophrenic if anything. They needed to give the users at least the bare minimum expected online capability, but they also needed to make sure there was reason to pay for Gold. So bare minimum is pretty much what we got, at least that's my experience with Gears of War. No ranked matches, no private games, no friend invites, they just decided you needed to pay for those arbitrary distinctions. Doesn't kill the multiplayer but it's irritating and for no good reason other than as a "Gold" threshhold.
Steam on the other hand has been kicking MS's but at every turn, even going so far as releasing their dev tools for free use by companies so that they can make their games Steam compatible. End result being that Steam is becoming more ubiquitous amongst the PC community whilst Live is limited to a few titles.
It is (or was the last time I checked) the latest built-in graphics card on motherboards using Nvidia Nforce chipsets.
Or: It sucks. But at least it's not Intel graphics.
Hah, fair enough. I sure hope those motherboards have PCI Express slots! <_<
I didn't mention the words "viable", nor did I draw a distinction between gamer and non-gamer - and I didn't say that non-gamers are compelled to buy consoles.
The PC platform isn't viable for a lot of game developers because a lot of people don't have the option of even trying out their titles without hardware purchases - despite a worldwide hardware market of hundreds of millions, even developers like Valve who go the extra mile for low-end support can't count on everyone as a potential sale.
Consoles do not have this problem, as developers are assured of a single baseline spec that they can target and be assured that every single person in their install base is a potential sale.
I don't understand the problem with this line of reasoning, or why you seem to find it offensive - it certainly wasn't my intent to offend you. :...:
Crap, I better tell Ironclad and Stardock quick! CD Projekt too. And GSC. And maybe Introversion, and then...
Actually, don't you think you're being even a leeetle disingenuous with this statement? Even just a teensy, tiny bit?
Well, whatever, I'm heading back to the Witcher.
OT, but the Witcher's intro is awesome. Went on for ages but I was glued to the screen the whole time.
If you cannot bother to research something you are shoving more than twenty dollars into, you deserve naught but death.
Really, you should be able to research a graphics card on the internet, what kind of retard just buys vital fucking hardware the day he walks in?
Jizzy-Chrizzy peons, I can jot down figures from PCGamer's annual free guide to PC building in under a minute, there is no fucking excuse for your outstanding amount of :effort?:
Anyone who fails to understand that Valve is the fucking Body, Mind, and Soul of PC Gaming, is really out of touch
Seriously, I really fail to understand how anyone who is stupid enough to buy a PC for the purpose of gaming, without doing any research, whatso-fucking-ever has any right to open their mouths regarding this topic.
Ohhhh, Mainstream Gamers, note that I have colored that as the shade of complete and utter shit.
Because obviously someone playing solitaire in their spare time is obviously THE SALVATION OF THE MARKET.
PC Gaming is not dead, diseased, ailing, or suffering anything other than the existence of butthurt failures.
Hah, you got me! I forgot to mention smaller devs and, well, Eastern Europe. A point to you, good sir. :oops:
It's just that there's plenty of room in the PC industry for a dev who knows what they're doing. I take every opportunity I get to tout Ironclad because I genuinely feel that they know what they're doing.
Theoretically they should have had no chance. First time developer with no name to speak of, niche game, not even publishing in European stores where the bulk of PC gaming is, virtually no real advertising to speak of. But they still pulled it off.
They made good use of online distribution, catered to their fanbase who in turn did most of their advertising for them purely through word of mouth, deliberately designed their game so that it could run on as wide a range of hardware as possible, making good use of the art-style where they could and just plain cutting back on the shinies elsewhere, made and are making constant updates to the game, and not even including DRM in the game. I'll say that last one again, there is no DRM on the game. They saw it as an unnecessary expenditure of resources for a system that doesn't work and that only hampers your legitimate, paying customers. It's that kind of crazy sense that other companies seem to completely ignore that wins over the fanbase even harder.
They pulled it off because they were smart about how they did it. I'm not going to deny that the PC market is difficult to break into, but I don't realistically feel it's harder than the console market in any really significant way. You just need to be intelligent about how you go about it and know your market. One thing I will say about the PC market in its favour as well is that as long as you keep those factors in mind it typically takes a lot less units shipped to break even compared to say, on the PS3.
Woah hoss. This isn't some sort of Valve vs. Epic thing, so I'm not even sure where that rant came from. All Sweeny and others are saying is that you sure as hell aren't going to make any new pc gamers with integrated graphics chips sitting in every desktop at Best Buy. Ensuring the niche stays niche. PC gaming sure isn't dying but compared to the growth on the console side, it could be doing a lot better.
Hell, etoychest writes about game professionally, and was confused and gassy when he tried to make his advance copy of GoW run on his brand spanking new pc. BACK TO THE CONSOLE.
My argument was more rhetorical...
I know and love the reason my XBOX 360 is for sure going to run COD4 the same as the next guy. My argument isn't for or against PC or console gaming.
The way I see it... Valve surveyed 1.3 million people, and there has to be a middle ground there somewhere that people can develop for.
I don't think the survey is biased at all. They are gamers... console purchasing people are gamers. It's the same thing. The difference is that (right now) consoles have more processing power than the average PC with Steam installed.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=8048946
The same thing they did with batteries.
You've got to not set a universal standard, but more easily group components of similar performance with some universal collation scheme.
So more consumers can easily build a PC capable of running games.
So, let's theorycraft this for a second:
You package Crysis, and instead of putting individual component names on the requirements section you just have like categories.
So for CPU you have category A, and for GPU you have category B or whatever. Something simple.
Then, the hardware manufacturers all agree between them on groupings for components.
So an equal performance athlon goes in the same group as an intel chip.
You make the groups pretty broad so you dont nitpick between them. You do the same for all kinds of components, the most obvious in need of this being gpus (a component in which a 7800 is better than an 8600 and that kind of bull)
Then someone can not only construct a gaming pc with ease, and by someone i mean anyone, by simply saying 'This game needs a level '3' computer, so lets buy all level 3 components for it.
For experienced PC gamers it makes no difference, but for the less attuned and uninformed market, which is vast, it will improve things.
The first barrier to entry to pc gaming for many is the technicals. specifications, numbers all kinds of abbreviations.
just simplify that shit. dont change a thing other than some words on the box and you will be able to tap a much larger market.
i dont know why companies dont do this.
its not setting a standard, competition is still there, its just grouping stuff of similar performance together with an indexing system of some kind.
I mean, even i get pissed off when buying components because while completel able to distinguish performance, why the fuck are they naming their cards and chipsets these stupid, counter intuitive names.
my 8800gtx means fuck all to non pc gamers. the difference between that and an 8800gts in name is one letter, and yet in performance it is a huge gulf.
that kind of annoyance being removed would help everyone.
its such a minor thing to do aswell. third party comparison sites have been doing it for decades, why dont all the main manufacturers, ati, intel nvidia etc, even ram providers, just all collaborate to make pc gaming easier to understand.
i think its gonna take some overlord to do such a thing. my best guess, microsoft will whip something up for a future incarnation of games for windows.
So what the games run, in your experience? You are not understanding this in the same sense I meant it. Can EVERYONE run EVERY game? No.
Once again, resolution isn't playing into this. I regret writing that in the first place now. The screen is smaller. That is all I mean. And I stated as much twice now.
Valve & Blizzard - that's about it. There are some interesting independents out there now, as well. The hardware manufacturers have started doing a lot to standardize components, make things easier to understand, revitalize the hardware market, improve integrated graphics, and so on. They have recognized a problem and are working to fix it.
You mean with a multicore machine, I get infinite performance? Last I checked running iTunes, Firefox and HL2:Ep2 all at the time led to stuttering audio and occasionally pauses in HL2, despite my system's spec... and if I want to mix a song, I can only have Cubase open, otherwise performance goes in the shitter once I hit about 16 channels.
[/QUOTE]
The device has a better, more straightforward implementation than most PCs and is connected to the bigger screen, so my movie watching experience is better on it. Also, to your point B there, once again, I wrote that you can get a 360 for less than a mid-to-high end graphics card - that's it. You can get 360 graphics out of a mid range card, for sure, but will you achieve the same frame rates (you most certainly will not at 1920x1080)? What about your processor? Is it fast enough? What is your hard drive's speed like? What about your RAM? How much memory do you have? Can it do 4xAA and remain playable?
With the approach I suggest, all these questions are answered out of sight, out of mind. You buy the console, and then you play games on it. Indy games from the internet, PC games, whatever games, you just go ahead and play them. I'm talking about a system that will facilitate a gaming experience first and foremost, with no compromises made for productivity. For that, you maintain a separate, cheaper computer. Is this really so crazy a concept? Are games simply better when you can segue immediately from an Excel spreadsheet, into Half Life, into Outlook Express to send an e-mail to mom, and then onto Firefox?
I just don't see how playing a game on a computer improves the experience.
Those games run at great framerates, in 1680x1050 no less, on my laptop. And it has a low-end GeForce 8400.
Even an Intel Integrated card can run games, as long as they don't require Hardware T&L. (For instance, the Asus Eee can play Half-Life 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004 and get near-playable framerates. : )
Texture quality doesn't really harm framerates anymore. With ATI and NVIDIA's turbowhatever features, even 128mb of onboard memory is enough to set textures in those games to their highest level.
The problem is mainly with pixel shaders.
Low-end cards have enough fill-rate for 1680x1050 at 60fps in games, but with shaders, it can fall all the way down to 640x480 at 40fps.
For instance, on a GeForce 8400:
Team Fortress 2:
DirectX8.0 mode (pretty much no shaders) runs great in 1680x1050
meanwhile, the default DirectX mode, which basically change the way maps are lit in a subtle way, runs okay in 800x600.
Bioshock runs at around 40fps in 640x480 shaders at low.
Unreal Tournament 3 is about the same.
Also, another thing:
I've noticed that, on my laptop, game options don't even make a difference anymore. The framerate is directly proportional to the fill-rate used and the shader quality.
Even on 128mb of dedicated video memory, setting the texture quality to high has absolutely no impact in Team Fortress 2.
In UT3, only going from 4 to 5 makes any difference in framerates. Otherwise it's directly proportional to the resolution.
So, my question is:
Does any video card exist, where UT3 is decently playable, and the first three notches in video quality actually makes a difference in framerates?
Does any video card exist, where Bioshock is decently playable, where you get a noticeable framerate benefit going from medium textures to low?
And yet, visually, it makes a world of difference.
They set the bar for themselves way too high. I would totally buy No One Lives Forever 3 with the same graphic as NOLF 2. They didn't have to blow $1,232,234 just so I can see a wrinkle on some supporting character's clothes.
Sort of... for some people... maybe.
yeah except that 9v batteries have been around unchanged for years, whereas PC hardware is refreshed and upgraded in 12 month cycles
The problem is that a $300-500 PC these days would have trouble running any 3D game at all, due to the fact that integrated graphics suck huge amounts of ass, and the most common ones, those manufactured by Intel, sometimes have trouble even running 2D casual games like Bejeweled without freaking out and/or crashing.
Consoles are now for gaming. The games on consoles are pushing technology forward while retaining the simplicity of games on PC's in the 90's early 00's. The PC is great for everything else, but gaming is just too big of a pain in the ass for people. Not to mention the price.
I don't think the issue is that it plays everything else fine but more that its super gay that 10 months after spending a shit ton of money a game can may his card cry.
I mean really, that is pretty gay.
Infinity Mog 21 and over Free Company Sargatanas Server. Recruitment currently closed.
Yeah, I agree with this.
I can't think of a good reason anyone would want to publish a hardcore, PC exclusive game. The sales numbers just aren't there. Why that is, is up for debate, and like Sweeney seems to be saying, maybe Intel is a big part of that.
Maybe its also that people aren't interested in taking in the amount of knowledge you need to make sure any given game will run on your rig. I know that I don't want to fight my drivers, operating system and hardware every time I want to play a game, and I'm sure most people choose not to when they can just throw a disc into the tray or disc eater slot thing of their chosen console and have their game ready to play by the time they sit on their couch.
But I don't understand why people would say or insinuate that piracy isn't a major issue in terms of what is killing PC gaming. If its easy and consequence free to steal something instead of pay for it, people are going to steal. For every one person who works in a call center, is living on ramen, drives a 1998 Ford Escort and is pirating software because they can't afford to buy it, there's probably a hundred people who are pirating the same thing who absolutely could afford it.
I guess in some people's eyes, Epic's boys have been making a few gaffs, but what they've been saying lately makes perfect sense to me. They don't need to do damage control, they need to make sure their products are profitable. Voicing their concerns with the industry is a good way to help correct its course.
As an example, your average macbook air can play Quake3 in 1024x768 at 80fps.
Basically, any game that doesn't use shaders everywhere is at least decently playable.
Combine it with the fact that it's dirt cheap, uses very little power, and is the absolute worst you can get in a new PC, and it's not too bad.
The GeForce 6150 and Radeon Xpress cards are better, and can play any game that doesn't use too many shaders at good resolutions and good detail levels.
Low-end cards like the Radeon X1300 and the GeForce 8400, found in a typical entertainment laptop, can play just about any game. Most games that don't use too many shaders can run fine at the laptop's highest available resolution, and shader heavy games will still be smooth if you lower the details enough.
And you can get a desktop video card for dirt cheap: $40 for a radeon X1600 pro, which will play just about any game out there at decent settings. Alternatively, $50 for a GeForce 8500.
And, gaming PCs aside, the only bottleneck is the video card. Every new computer has a Core 2 Duo and at least 1gb of ram, which is more than enough for anything out there.
And there's a very small difference between low-end Core 2 Duo and high-end Core 2 Quads: it starts off at 1.4ghz minimum, and stops at around 2.8ghz. Sure, that's a factor of two, but in the world of games, that's very small: if the CPU was the only limiting factor, a game running at 90fps on a high-end gaming PC would still end up running at 45fps on a low-end PC. And that's at the same level of detail.
When you compare it to consoles, it's absolutely not a problem: your average core 2 duo is about as fast as the processor on an XBox 360 or the cell on a Playstation 3 for games.
RAM is another issue: with 1gb of ram, Windows Vista, a few programs running in the background, and a video card leeching off some of it, you can end up with pretty much nothing left for your game. But that's the worst case scenario.
A typical laptop with 1gb, windows XP and dedicated video memory will leave you with more than enough memory for your games. (As in, more than video game consoles have, AFTER taking the OS into account.)
The amount of video memory on cards has never been a major problem. Card manufacturers tend to put too much ram on those things, since most people equate video ram with video card speed. Because it's the only thing in common between all the cards, and it's written in big letters on every box.
Low-end cards have 128mb, over ten times what a Wii has. Plus, there's turbocache and hypermemory, which dynamically allocates ram when it's beneficial.
And, texture size scales extremely well: just shrink textures at load times.
The _big_ problem is, low-end cards are terrible at shaders.
There's a huge gap between games that don't use shaders and games that use shaders everywhere.
And there's a huge gap between shader performance in low end cards and shader performance in high end cards:
While a GeForce 8400 can barely play UT3 in 640x480 at jerky framerates, hardware sites are already reaching the highest possible framerate (63fps) in huge resolutions with everything maxed with only $320 worth of SLI'd GeForce 9600's.
And yet, that same GeForce 8400 can play Team Fortress 2 at 1680x1050 in DX8 mode, everything at high and get 60+ fps easily.
edit:
Also, another major problem:
It's basically impossible to scale down the quality of a shader. Either it's there, or it's not. Or, it uses an entirely different algorithm.
It's especially important when you're basing your entire lighting model on them, like in UT3: you can't just make map versions without, because there's so many things to change, and it would look completely different.
That's why it runs like crap on low-end video cards, and that's why it's level of detail sliders don't do crap: if the video card handles the massive shaders everywhere, it can handle the textures and polygon count of the higher detail levels with no problem at all. And even the low-end cards can handle up to the fourth of the five notches without any impact on performance (and the fifth notch barely changes anything).
How dare you speak of my father that way.
I challenge you to a duel.
Logicow just explained so much for me.
Basically, it would be pretty handy if it were clear to the casual consumer whether a game could run on a particular system, or what range of games would run on it. Not every computer needs to be able to run games--my dad isn't about to pick up a copy of Civ 4. But it would have been nice to know ahead of time that it would run like complete ass on my computer, or to know when buying my computer what sorts of games I could expect to play.
One answer is to do a bunch of research, sure. But honestly, fuck that. It's not the sort of thing that I find interesting, and I have a life to live.
Edit: Really, I just find it objectionable to assert that people who aren't interested in gaining in-depth knowledge of their machines don't deserve a decent gaming experience. That's just silly elitism.
To be honest, I've only tried the demo.
Also, I have a GeForce Quadro NVS 140m, which is not quite the same. (I'm running Windows XP, and I'm using the desktop drivers from LaptopVideo2Go. I'm not sure I was using them when I was trying out UT3 though.)
So you're probably right.
I'm a framerate whore though, so I tend to lower details until I get a stable 60+ fps :P
Seriously, how hard is it to ask PA if your rig will run a game, or ask what is a good laptop to stay in the game for five years is.
the easiest way to compare video card performance with consoles is to look at the system requirements of multiplatform games.
The original XBox has Halo, Psychonauts, Unreal Tournament 2003
Those games run fine, at medium/high on an ancient Radeon 8500.
Similarly, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (XBox, PS2) ran fine, although at medium/low detail on the same Radeon 8500.
In other words: those games should run at least at low detail levels on integrated graphics hardware, and at high detail at high resolutions with low-end dedicated graphics hardware.
XBox 360 and PS3 games...
Well, they are shader heavy. As such, integrated hardware won't run them at all, and low-end dedicated video cards will run them at very low detail settings.
But mid-end hardware will run them fine.
edit: to put it simply:
You could make a game that scales down to Wii level graphics, and integrated graphics will handle it just fine.
But using shaders extensively like UT3 or Bioshock does will make the requirements sky rocket to mid-end graphics cards to play at decent settings. (but it'll be at least playable on low-end cards at low settings)
Not everyone is a member of PA. The average home user will trust the sales guy when they say that this PC will meet your needs.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do your research before spending what is a substantial amount of money on a machine. However, the process could still be made a lot simpler and less obscure than it currently is.
There's also the fact that for a casual user with a steady income, $500-$1000 isn't such a substanstial amount that they're going to dedicate a ton of time to researching it. Esepcially since, at the end of the day, my dad isn't actually served that much by an increased knowledge of computing. Hours spent researching are worth money, too. Putting in 40-50 hours of work to build a new machine increases the cost substantially.
Well, 40-50 hours is a bit of an exageration don't you think? Even if you're starting off from scratch and can't ask for help it's usually about as difficult as buying a PC magazine off the shelf, there are usually plenty of articles year round on what to look for.
If I don't know something about a topic, I ask someone who does. That's my research and how it works for a lot of people. If I were to guess, if your dad needs help with his computer he comes to you right?
And personally, I'd consider $500 + to be a substantial amount of money, but I guess that's all relative. Either way I still believe the process needn't be as obscure to the new person as it currently is.
Since then, he's had to replace the RAM twice, the MB three times, the CPU once due to parts failing and the cascading failures that followed.
Even when the machine runs well (and it has for the last 10 months), he's been plagued with driver and DRM issues on numerous games. CoD4 wouldn't even install until he removed ARMA replaced the DVD Drive, and installed a stack of firmware updates. Crysis' patches broke his game. Same with Frontlines. Blazing Angels won't recognise either his gamepad or his joystick, and he doesn't care enough to troubleshoot it. These are just a few examples. Sometimes, I think he might be the unluckiest person in the world when it comes to computers, but then the last gaming rig I built ate fans and physically fried a $250 dollar graphics card nine months after I bought it.
My first dedicated gaming computer was built in 1995. It ran all of the games I bought for it quite well right up until it died of old age in 2001.