a) UT3 was released at a really bad fucking time
b) UT3 was not hyped/marketed nearly enough and completely flew under the radar of most gamers
c) UT3 was only "pretty good" when compared to all of the other games released in Q4 2007, including other multiplayer-focused PC shooters like CoD4 and TF2
In other words it's their own damn fault and the fault of their publisher that UT3 did poorly on the PC. PC gaming is not dying. It's just got a few bruises from poor treatment by assholes like these guys, and pirates (see Iron Lore closing down thread).
This first post is pretty much what anyone could say about it.
Non CC Style, for example, Total War. Starcraft is very much in vein of C&C, and incidentally, is not PC exclusive
Also, the above post. Just because their game didn't do well doesn't mean that all games aren't doing well. If its weren't for PA, I wouldn't even know there was a UT3.
When WoW first came out it didn't run on that wide a range of machines. I remember my one year old computer (at the time) having frame rate problems, and having to dial down some settings a lot, stuff like that.
I'll grant that at least it ran on my one-year-old computer, as opposed to a few other games at the time, but I wouldn't say that Blizzard paid an unusual amount of attention to making it run on a wide range of machines.
Fact is, it's kind of an old game now.
Thats an issue with RAM, though, not video cards. Its an MMO, and needs at least a gig of RAM to run well.
Sweeney's comments are being mischaracterised to a ridiculous extent in this thread. The "PCs are good for anything, just not games" comment is a distillate of his previous two responses, and in no way a blanket repudiation stemming from sour grapes over UT3. Sweeney spends his time on engine development, not specific game development.
The flippant tone of the topic doesn't characterise his sentiments, either - so let's boil down the relevant statements to bullet points:
- Retail stores are selling PCs with shitty, shitty capabilities that are completely inadequate for gaming
- Right now is that you cannot go and design a game for a high end PC and downscale it to mainstream PCs (the performance difference between high-end and low-end PC is something like 100x)
- The problem is a lot worse than it used to be - 10 years ago, the difference was a mere 10x. There is no way to scale down a game down by a factor of 100.
Because of manufacturers shipping shitty integrated GPUs and retailers pushing anaemic machines all across the board, PCs as they are today are bad for games. He's not saying LOL KBAM SUCKS or FUCK YOU GUYS FOR NOT BUYING UT3 - he's saying Intel and Best Buy are totally cockblocking PC game developers and that we can blame them for the constraining the potential market penetration of high-powered titles.
I'm not sure if this has been pointed out but the mainstream, off-the-shelf computers that everyone talks about that supposedly can't game, are less than $200 away from an 8800GT which will transform virtually any new desktop into a high-end gaming rig.
All it would take to solve this problem would be for Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia and AMD to get together and agree to come up with a more consumer-friendly strategy for selling videocards.
Anyways I won't miss Epic. Gears of War wasn't that good, and UT3 was a disappointment.
I'm not sure if this has been pointed out but the mainstream, off-the-shelf computers that everyone talks about that supposedly can't game, are less than $200 away from an 8800GT which will transform virtually any new desktop into a high-end gaming rig.
Unless it doesn't have a PCI-E slot. Which, believe me, can be a problem, depending on how low-end a machine we're talking about.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Epic's revealed that console is the main focus for the next version of its Unreal Engine.
Version 4 of the technology "will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft's successor for the Xbox 360, Sony's successor for the PlayStation 3 - and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also", Epic's Tim Sweeney has told TG Daily.
Epic's revealed that console is the main focus for the next version of its Unreal Engine.
Version 4 of the technology "will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft's successor for the Xbox 360, Sony's successor for the PlayStation 3 - and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also", Epic's Tim Sweeney has told TG Daily.
"PCs will follow after that", he added.
I think it's being blown up all out of proportion. Gears was the UE3 showpony and we didn't get a PC UE3 title till RoboBlitz. Considering that consoles are a bigger market for licensing as well as Epic themselves, this isn't so much a shocking revelation as it is Sweeney spelling out what we knew was going to happen. :whistle:
Epic's revealed that console is the main focus for the next version of its Unreal Engine.
Version 4 of the technology "will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft's successor for the Xbox 360, Sony's successor for the PlayStation 3 - and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also", Epic's Tim Sweeney has told TG Daily.
"PCs will follow after that", he added.
We've.... we've just been talking about that for two pages now.
I'm not sure if this has been pointed out but the mainstream, off-the-shelf computers that everyone talks about that supposedly can't game, are less than $200 away from an 8800GT which will transform virtually any new desktop into a high-end gaming rig.
Unless it doesn't have a PCI-E slot. Which, believe me, can be a problem, depending on how low-end a machine we're talking about.
Pretty much all Intel motherboards today have PCI-Express slots.
Azio on
0
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
When WoW first came out it didn't run on that wide a range of machines. I remember my one year old computer (at the time) having frame rate problems, and having to dial down some settings a lot, stuff like that.
I'll grant that at least it ran on my one-year-old computer, as opposed to a few other games at the time, but I wouldn't say that Blizzard paid an unusual amount of attention to making it run on a wide range of machines.
Fact is, it's kind of an old game now.
I played WoW for a long time on my laptop that was bought, ohh, around August '04. It was a mid range gaming laptop from Dell and ran WoW just fine (My desktop monitor fritzed and I didn't bother replacing it for a while). I mean, I had everything down to its minimums, but if I could raid MC on that thing, a new $500 computer (At WoW's release) would do it too, let along an aging gaming rig. Like the one I had from May of '02. WoW ran at 40+ FPS on medium settings.
Blizzard ALWAYS specs their games to run on mid-range hardware. Warcraft III was the same. As will be Starcraft II.
I'm not sure if this has been pointed out but the mainstream, off-the-shelf computers that everyone talks about that supposedly can't game, are less than $200 away from an 8800GT which will transform virtually any new desktop into a high-end gaming rig.
Unless it doesn't have a PCI-E slot. Which, believe me, can be a problem, depending on how low-end a machine we're talking about.
Pretty much all Intel motherboards today have PCI-Express slots.
Also unless it's a very cheap off-the-shelf computer that's equipped with a half-gig of RAM and a slow-ass Sempron/Celeron, which oddly enough is still enough computer for Joe Facebookchecker out there.
I'm not sure if this has been pointed out but the mainstream, off-the-shelf computers that everyone talks about that supposedly can't game, are less than $200 away from an 8800GT which will transform virtually any new desktop into a high-end gaming rig.
Unless it doesn't have a PCI-E slot. Which, believe me, can be a problem, depending on how low-end a machine we're talking about.
Pretty much all Intel motherboards today have PCI-Express slots.
Also unless it's a very cheap off-the-shelf computer that's equipped with a half-gig of RAM and a slow-ass Sempron/Celeron, which oddly enough is still enough computer for Joe Facebookchecker out there.
Okay, so the absolute bottom of the barrel garbage is not gaming capable. Who cares? The vast majority of the machines you can buy off the shelf these days are fucking dual-cores with a gig or more. We're talking $500 computers here, which can be easily upgraded to run the most demanding games available. All I'm saying is that you don't have to build your own machine to game anymore, you don't need a diploma in IT to figure out that "dual core + a gig of RAM + a half-decent video card = gaming", and it doesn't even have to cost more than $800 or so. Computers are dirt cheap in 2008.
Azio on
0
augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure if this has been pointed out but the mainstream, off-the-shelf computers that everyone talks about that supposedly can't game, are less than $200 away from an 8800GT which will transform virtually any new desktop into a high-end gaming rig.
Unless it doesn't have a PCI-E slot. Which, believe me, can be a problem, depending on how low-end a machine we're talking about.
Pretty much all Intel motherboards today have PCI-Express slots.
Also unless it's a very cheap off-the-shelf computer that's equipped with a half-gig of RAM and a slow-ass Sempron/Celeron, which oddly enough is still enough computer for Joe Facebookchecker out there.
Okay, so the absolute bottom of the barrel garbage is not gaming capable. Who cares? The vast majority of the machines you can buy off the shelf these days are fucking dual-cores with a gig or more. We're talking $500 computers here, which can be easily upgraded to run the most demanding games available. All I'm saying is that you don't have to build your own machine to game anymore, and it doesn't even have to cost more than $800 or so. Computers are dirt cheap in 2008.
That's true, but it still doesn't eliminate the issue of people not having a clue what video card to buy and being scared to open up their computer and plug things in.
Also, those $500 computers may not have a power supply sufficient to run a 8800 series card; I hear the G92 core is more efficient, but they're still pretty power hungry compared to an integrated graphics solution.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
I'm not sure if this has been pointed out but the mainstream, off-the-shelf computers that everyone talks about that supposedly can't game, are less than $200 away from an 8800GT which will transform virtually any new desktop into a high-end gaming rig.
Unless it doesn't have a PCI-E slot. Which, believe me, can be a problem, depending on how low-end a machine we're talking about.
Pretty much all Intel motherboards today have PCI-Express slots.
Also unless it's a very cheap off-the-shelf computer that's equipped with a half-gig of RAM and a slow-ass Sempron/Celeron, which oddly enough is still enough computer for Joe Facebookchecker out there.
Okay, so the absolute bottom of the barrel garbage is not gaming capable. Who cares? The vast majority of the machines you can buy off the shelf these days are fucking dual-cores with a gig or more. We're talking $500 computers here, which can be easily upgraded to run the most demanding games available. All I'm saying is that you don't have to build your own machine to game anymore, and it doesn't even have to cost more than $800 or so. Computers are dirt cheap in 2008.
That's true, but it still doesn't eliminate the issue of people not having a clue what video card to buy and being scared to open up their computer and plug things in.
Also, those $500 computers may not have a power supply sufficient to run a 8800 series card; I hear the G92 core is more efficient, but they're still pretty power hungry compared to an integrated graphics solution.
OremLK scores a point by pointing out power supply restrictions. Azio loses all points for begging the question.
Console - I buy game for console, it works right out the box
PC - I buy game, spend 20 minutes tweaking it to run properly, oh wait... I'm Joe Smoe.. the fuck is Anti Alias? Tri linear wha? The hell...?
If you don't think the average person thinks like that, sorry they do. Just remember how many people don't even realize you have to plug in component cables or go to the 360s options just to get it to display in HD. Hell, my brother didn't know that and he's a damn surgeon. Has nothing to do with intelligence, just people who aren't as in love with this stuff like us just don't know. You make games for them, NOT us. Well, you can make games for us but you'd go out of business really quickly.
Console - I buy game for console, it works right out the box
PC - I buy game, spend 20 minutes tweaking it to run properly, oh wait... I'm Joe Smoe.. the fuck is Anti Alias? Tri linear wha? The hell...?
If you don't think the average person thinks like that, sorry they do. Just remember how many people don't even realize you have to plug in component cables or go to the 360s options just to get it to display in HD. Hell, my brother didn't know that and he's a damn surgeon. Has nothing to do with intelligence, just people who aren't as in love with this stuff like us just don't know. You make games for them, NOT us. Well, you can make games for us but you'd go out of business really quickly.
Most PC games these days work immediately after install (if you meet the system requirements, of course, and yes, I know that's a big "if") and most also include a variety of ways to set your graphics options depending on how advanced of a user you are; usually, they include a one-button check that automatically detects your hardware and sets the graphics to an appropriate level of detail. They usually also include some basic, overall "Low, Medium, High" settings in self-explanatory, general categories. Then if you're really into tweaking things, they include clearly labeled Advanced menus (which Joe Schmoe wouldn't even click on) which contain settings like Antialiasing and Ansitropic Filtering and so on.
If you spend more than 5 minutes messing with the graphics settings, even if you're an advanced user who likes to tweak every little detail (like me), you're doing something horribly wrong. Twenty minutes? Almost never happens.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
PC gaming development requires EXTENSIVE Q&A and testing. There are so many different hardware configurations and developers have to ensure that their game works for those configurations. The amount of time sunk into this process is phenomenal.
With a game console, that process is totally eliminated. You know exactly what your system specs are and you know exactly what you need to work within.
PC gaming is insanely expensive and most people just simply can't afford to be upgrading simply so they can play a new game. I buy my console and I know it's going to work for every game I buy... but, even if my computer falls within the specs for a game, there's no telling that I'll get a decent enough performance to enjoy the game.
My computer can run The Witcher, for example... but I can't play it with high settings and sometimes the performance increases the games difficulty in an unnatural way. I like the game, but I had to stop playing it because I wasn't getting the full experience.
I can't afford to be dropping $2000 for an amazing rig so that I can play games. I really want to, and I have been saving, but other financial obligations take precedence. However, I do need a new rig because I am an animator and work with 3D software and my computer just doesn't cut it for render times. This however isn't the norm, a lot of people don't need high end computers for their work.
Simply put, it's too expensive and stores do push shitty, overpriced computers on unsuspecting customers.
that doesn't fix the fact that most people don't want to even deal with that, let alone install a game (PS3 is threading bad waters with this). There is a small number of people who buy PCs these days with the idea of wanting to play high-end games on them. Hell, the only reason my PC is high-end is because I work on videogames and 3D renders, not because of games.
Unless your game HAS to be made on the PC, you might as well not make it on the PC.
also, you can easily spend more than 20 minutes tweaking graphic settings on games. You spend like 2 minutes tweaking, play, tweak some more, play, tweak again, play and that process can reach 20 minutes. I go back and forth like that and it can easily take 20 minutes if the game has to dump files out of memory and put them back in due to the settings.
It's funny cause back in the day if a game came out on PC and console, I'd get the console version and so would most people. These days, it seems that has switched. I'd buy UT3 on a console before a PC (double time for Gears).
I can't afford to be dropping $2000 for an amazing rig so that I can play games.
This is a big fallacy that keeps getting propagated, so I want to make a big statement about it right here (which is why I'm using a big font):
A solid, fast, and reliable gaming rig can be built for under $600, not including a monitor, mouse, or keyboard.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
0
augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
edited March 2008
Honestly, I think that there are nobs and dials that allow you to tweak the game - instead of being sure that no one else is getting better graphics that you - makes people crazy.
Hell CPUs, hard drives, and DVD drives are so cheap these days that you can come damn close to getting away with a $400 video card and still come in under $600... granted, by skimping on all the other components, but still.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
I can't afford to be dropping $2000 for an amazing rig so that I can play games.
This is a big fallacy that keeps getting propagated, so I want to make a big statement about it right here (which is why I'm using a big font):
A solid, fast, and reliable gaming rig can be built for under $600, not including a monitor, mouse, or keyboard.
Really? Can you PM me the parts? Cause I've got Ram, and everything that you described and I've been trying my hardest to build a PC that doesn't blow ass, runs portal at around 40 frames, and is under 600 dollars.
No seriously, I need a new computer. I have my left over hard drives and ram. I sorta want something that won't blow up in six months though.
I can't afford to be dropping $2000 for an amazing rig so that I can play games.
This is a big fallacy that keeps getting propagated, so I want to make a big statement about it right here (which is why I'm using a big font):
A solid, fast, and reliable gaming rig can be built for under $600, not including a monitor, mouse, or keyboard.
this is still a fallacy because one is going to need a good monitor and then I don't believe you can make a good gaming PC under 600 that's going to out do a 360 or PS3 (which comes with a damn blu-ray player).
A good motherboard is like 150-180, good videocard is like 200-250, big enough HD will run you like 100, 2 gigs of ram is like 120 or so, and you still haven't bought a good PSU which can run you 100+ for a reliable one.
A) You're posting on this forum; unless you're on a notebook or someone else's computer, you already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Consoles require a TV themselves, and if you want to play modern ones to their full potential, an expensive HDTV is required.
I'll post a list of parts for a decent gaming computer under $600 in a few minutes.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
A) You're posting on this forum; unless you're on a notebook or someone else's computer, you already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Consoles require a TV themselves, and if you want to play modern ones to their full potential, an expensive HDTV is required.
I'll post a list of parts for a decent gaming computer under $600 in a few minutes.
Or you could just get a VGA or HDMI cable for your console and use your computer monitor at HD resolution. While top end PCs do out-class consoles, I somehow doubt a $600 box today is going to match the visual quality of either the PS3 or the 360 - and even if it did, the consoles would have more games, while being cheaper than $600.
Toss in a couple $1.50 cables (IDE and SATA) and you should be all set, for under $600 even with shipping. Obviously you could make some tradeoffs if you wanted; get a slightly worse video card in exchange for an Intel Core 2 Duo + appropriate motherboard, take out a gig of memory in exchange for a bigger HDD, whatever. But I think you get the idea.
@ihd: The computer above would not only match a PS3 or 360 in visual quality, it would exceed it. This machine would be more than sufficient to run Crysis at High settings, perhaps Very High, depending on resolution. Also, the PC has far more games than any console, due to its massive back catalog and huge selection of indie and freeware games.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Toss in a couple $1.50 cables (IDE and SATA) and you should be all set, for under $600 even with shipping. Obviously you could make some tradeoffs if you wanted; get a slightly worse video card in exchange for an Intel Core 2 Duo + appropriate motherboard, take out a gig of memory in exchange for a bigger HDD, whatever. But I think you get the idea.
@ihd: The computer above would not only match a PS3 or 360 in visual quality, it would exceed it. This machine would be more than sufficient to run Crysis at High settings, perhaps Very High, depending on resolution. Also, the PC has far more games than any console, due to its massive back catalog and huge selection of indie and freeware games.
That's actually a pretty decent rig. Damn NVIDIA and their 8800GT poking holes in my arguments! :x
Though strictly speaking, doesn't the 8800GT choke a little on Crysis maxed at 1920x1200?
Mentioning the PC's back catalog is kind of depressing, imo. Don't get me wrong - having been raised on the stuff, I've got a soft spot for the classics myself - but offering up PC past glories in the face of new and cutting-edge stuff on consoles feels slightly disingenuous to me.
Toss in a couple $1.50 cables (IDE and SATA) and you should be all set, for under $600 even with shipping. Obviously you could make some tradeoffs if you wanted; get a slightly worse video card in exchange for an Intel Core 2 Duo + appropriate motherboard, take out a gig of memory in exchange for a bigger HDD, whatever. But I think you get the idea.
@ihd: The computer above would not only match a PS3 or 360 in visual quality, it would exceed it. This machine would be more than sufficient to run Crysis at High settings, perhaps Very High, depending on resolution. Also, the PC has far more games than any console, due to its massive back catalog and huge selection of indie and freeware games.
That's actually a pretty decent rig. Damn NVIDIA and their 8800GT poking holes in my arguments! :x
Though strictly speaking, doesn't the 8800GT choke a little on Crysis maxed at 1920x1200?
Mentioning the PC's back catalog is kind of depressing, imo. Don't get me wrong - having been raised on the stuff, I've got a soft spot for the classics myself - but offering up PC past glories in the face of new and cutting-edge stuff on consoles feels slightly disingenuous to me.
Yeah, but you have to remember that the PC gets most console multiplatforms, plus plenty of good exclusives (mainly strategy games, western RPGs, and MMOs) itself.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Toss in a couple $1.50 cables (IDE and SATA) and you should be all set, for under $600 even with shipping. Obviously you could make some tradeoffs if you wanted; get a slightly worse video card in exchange for an Intel Core 2 Duo + appropriate motherboard, take out a gig of memory in exchange for a bigger HDD, whatever. But I think you get the idea.
@ihd: The computer above would not only match a PS3 or 360 in visual quality, it would exceed it. This machine would be more than sufficient to run Crysis at High settings, perhaps Very High, depending on resolution. Also, the PC has far more games than any console, due to its massive back catalog and huge selection of indie and freeware games.
That's actually a pretty decent rig. Damn NVIDIA and their 8800GT poking holes in my arguments! :x
Though strictly speaking, doesn't the 8800GT choke a little on Crysis maxed at 1920x1200?
Mentioning the PC's back catalog is kind of depressing, imo. Don't get me wrong - having been raised on the stuff, I've got a soft spot for the classics myself - but offering up PC past glories in the face of new and cutting-edge stuff on consoles feels slightly disingenuous to me.
Yeah, but you have to remember that the PC gets most console multiplatforms, plus plenty of good exclusives (mainly strategy games, western RPGs, and MMOs) itself.
Don't you hear a lot of complaining about shoddy ports with ridiculously high reqs and features compromised for initial console release, though? :?:
I don't know, personally I've found most of the ones come over from the 360 to be more than playable, due to the fact that the architecture and development environment is so similar.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Posts
This first post is pretty much what anyone could say about it.
Wish epic folks knew that common sense.
Non CC Style, for example, Total War. Starcraft is very much in vein of C&C, and incidentally, is not PC exclusive
Also, the above post. Just because their game didn't do well doesn't mean that all games aren't doing well. If its weren't for PA, I wouldn't even know there was a UT3.
Thats an issue with RAM, though, not video cards. Its an MMO, and needs at least a gig of RAM to run well.
The flippant tone of the topic doesn't characterise his sentiments, either - so let's boil down the relevant statements to bullet points:
- Retail stores are selling PCs with shitty, shitty capabilities that are completely inadequate for gaming
- Right now is that you cannot go and design a game for a high end PC and downscale it to mainstream PCs (the performance difference between high-end and low-end PC is something like 100x)
- The problem is a lot worse than it used to be - 10 years ago, the difference was a mere 10x. There is no way to scale down a game down by a factor of 100.
Because of manufacturers shipping shitty integrated GPUs and retailers pushing anaemic machines all across the board, PCs as they are today are bad for games. He's not saying LOL KBAM SUCKS or FUCK YOU GUYS FOR NOT BUYING UT3 - he's saying Intel and Best Buy are totally cockblocking PC game developers and that we can blame them for the constraining the potential market penetration of high-powered titles.
All it would take to solve this problem would be for Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia and AMD to get together and agree to come up with a more consumer-friendly strategy for selling videocards.
Anyways I won't miss Epic. Gears of War wasn't that good, and UT3 was a disappointment.
Unless it doesn't have a PCI-E slot. Which, believe me, can be a problem, depending on how low-end a machine we're talking about.
I think it's being blown up all out of proportion. Gears was the UE3 showpony and we didn't get a PC UE3 title till RoboBlitz. Considering that consoles are a bigger market for licensing as well as Epic themselves, this isn't so much a shocking revelation as it is Sweeney spelling out what we knew was going to happen. :whistle:
We've.... we've just been talking about that for two pages now.
I played WoW for a long time on my laptop that was bought, ohh, around August '04. It was a mid range gaming laptop from Dell and ran WoW just fine (My desktop monitor fritzed and I didn't bother replacing it for a while). I mean, I had everything down to its minimums, but if I could raid MC on that thing, a new $500 computer (At WoW's release) would do it too, let along an aging gaming rig. Like the one I had from May of '02. WoW ran at 40+ FPS on medium settings.
Blizzard ALWAYS specs their games to run on mid-range hardware. Warcraft III was the same. As will be Starcraft II.
because Live is the entire point of that console
Also unless it's a very cheap off-the-shelf computer that's equipped with a half-gig of RAM and a slow-ass Sempron/Celeron, which oddly enough is still enough computer for Joe Facebookchecker out there.
That's true, but it still doesn't eliminate the issue of people not having a clue what video card to buy and being scared to open up their computer and plug things in.
Also, those $500 computers may not have a power supply sufficient to run a 8800 series card; I hear the G92 core is more efficient, but they're still pretty power hungry compared to an integrated graphics solution.
OremLK scores a point by pointing out power supply restrictions. Azio loses all points for begging the question.
Console - I buy game for console, it works right out the box
PC - I buy game, spend 20 minutes tweaking it to run properly, oh wait... I'm Joe Smoe.. the fuck is Anti Alias? Tri linear wha? The hell...?
If you don't think the average person thinks like that, sorry they do. Just remember how many people don't even realize you have to plug in component cables or go to the 360s options just to get it to display in HD. Hell, my brother didn't know that and he's a damn surgeon. Has nothing to do with intelligence, just people who aren't as in love with this stuff like us just don't know. You make games for them, NOT us. Well, you can make games for us but you'd go out of business really quickly.
Most PC games these days work immediately after install (if you meet the system requirements, of course, and yes, I know that's a big "if") and most also include a variety of ways to set your graphics options depending on how advanced of a user you are; usually, they include a one-button check that automatically detects your hardware and sets the graphics to an appropriate level of detail. They usually also include some basic, overall "Low, Medium, High" settings in self-explanatory, general categories. Then if you're really into tweaking things, they include clearly labeled Advanced menus (which Joe Schmoe wouldn't even click on) which contain settings like Antialiasing and Ansitropic Filtering and so on.
If you spend more than 5 minutes messing with the graphics settings, even if you're an advanced user who likes to tweak every little detail (like me), you're doing something horribly wrong. Twenty minutes? Almost never happens.
PC gaming development requires EXTENSIVE Q&A and testing. There are so many different hardware configurations and developers have to ensure that their game works for those configurations. The amount of time sunk into this process is phenomenal.
With a game console, that process is totally eliminated. You know exactly what your system specs are and you know exactly what you need to work within.
PC gaming is insanely expensive and most people just simply can't afford to be upgrading simply so they can play a new game. I buy my console and I know it's going to work for every game I buy... but, even if my computer falls within the specs for a game, there's no telling that I'll get a decent enough performance to enjoy the game.
My computer can run The Witcher, for example... but I can't play it with high settings and sometimes the performance increases the games difficulty in an unnatural way. I like the game, but I had to stop playing it because I wasn't getting the full experience.
I can't afford to be dropping $2000 for an amazing rig so that I can play games. I really want to, and I have been saving, but other financial obligations take precedence. However, I do need a new rig because I am an animator and work with 3D software and my computer just doesn't cut it for render times. This however isn't the norm, a lot of people don't need high end computers for their work.
Simply put, it's too expensive and stores do push shitty, overpriced computers on unsuspecting customers.
Unless your game HAS to be made on the PC, you might as well not make it on the PC.
also, you can easily spend more than 20 minutes tweaking graphic settings on games. You spend like 2 minutes tweaking, play, tweak some more, play, tweak again, play and that process can reach 20 minutes. I go back and forth like that and it can easily take 20 minutes if the game has to dump files out of memory and put them back in due to the settings.
It's funny cause back in the day if a game came out on PC and console, I'd get the console version and so would most people. These days, it seems that has switched. I'd buy UT3 on a console before a PC (double time for Gears).
This is a big fallacy that keeps getting propagated, so I want to make a big statement about it right here (which is why I'm using a big font):
A solid, fast, and reliable gaming rig can be built for under $600, not including a monitor, mouse, or keyboard.
Although it shouldn't.
Exactly or you can be like me..
Really? Can you PM me the parts? Cause I've got Ram, and everything that you described and I've been trying my hardest to build a PC that doesn't blow ass, runs portal at around 40 frames, and is under 600 dollars.
No seriously, I need a new computer. I have my left over hard drives and ram. I sorta want something that won't blow up in six months though.
this is still a fallacy because one is going to need a good monitor and then I don't believe you can make a good gaming PC under 600 that's going to out do a 360 or PS3 (which comes with a damn blu-ray player).
A good motherboard is like 150-180, good videocard is like 200-250, big enough HD will run you like 100, 2 gigs of ram is like 120 or so, and you still haven't bought a good PSU which can run you 100+ for a reliable one.
So basically under 600$ as long as you don't include the very components needed to use it.
Let's be honest here. Unless you already spent $_$ on a monitor, you're going to have to upgrade your current one.
I'll post a list of parts for a decent gaming computer under $600 in a few minutes.
Or you could just get a VGA or HDMI cable for your console and use your computer monitor at HD resolution. While top end PCs do out-class consoles, I somehow doubt a $600 box today is going to match the visual quality of either the PS3 or the 360 - and even if it did, the consoles would have more games, while being cheaper than $600.
Kingston 2gb DDR2 800
Antec Earthwatts 430 watts PSU (30 amps on the 12v, reliable name brand power supply)
PNY GeForce 8800GT 512mb
Biostar nForce 520 motherboard
Western Digital Caviar 80gb HDD
Rosewill cheap-o case
Lite-on 20x DVD burner
Toss in a couple $1.50 cables (IDE and SATA) and you should be all set, for under $600 even with shipping. Obviously you could make some tradeoffs if you wanted; get a slightly worse video card in exchange for an Intel Core 2 Duo + appropriate motherboard, take out a gig of memory in exchange for a bigger HDD, whatever. But I think you get the idea.
@ihd: The computer above would not only match a PS3 or 360 in visual quality, it would exceed it. This machine would be more than sufficient to run Crysis at High settings, perhaps Very High, depending on resolution. Also, the PC has far more games than any console, due to its massive back catalog and huge selection of indie and freeware games.
Nvidia struck gold with that. I have no doubt they sold a fuckton of em.
That's actually a pretty decent rig. Damn NVIDIA and their 8800GT poking holes in my arguments! :x
Though strictly speaking, doesn't the 8800GT choke a little on Crysis maxed at 1920x1200?
Mentioning the PC's back catalog is kind of depressing, imo. Don't get me wrong - having been raised on the stuff, I've got a soft spot for the classics myself - but offering up PC past glories in the face of new and cutting-edge stuff on consoles feels slightly disingenuous to me.
Yeah, but you have to remember that the PC gets most console multiplatforms, plus plenty of good exclusives (mainly strategy games, western RPGs, and MMOs) itself.
Don't you hear a lot of complaining about shoddy ports with ridiculously high reqs and features compromised for initial console release, though? :?: