Epic: Intel ruins PC gaming

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Eeezee

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2005
9,922
0
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Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Originally posted by: Thraxen The people here can't make up their minds what the hell they want. Just go over to the SCII thread and look at all the whiney bitching about how the game doesn't look good enough. So when it comes to console bashing or a new PC game, suddenly graphics become a key bullet point. But when Epic says that IGP sucks, suddenly graphics aren't so important and devs simply need to make scalable engines.

There are many people active in the PC Gaming subforum, I would imagine with such a sizable number of people here that one could find varying viewpoints about any particular aspect of PC Gaming. Finding individual posters backing conflicting view points in separate threads would be better grounds for hypocrisy.

The people in America can't make up their minds what the hell they want. Do they all want a Republican president or Democrat president? I went to a Young Republican's meeting and they all seemed to be really keen on getting more Republicans into office. But right down the street there was a Young Democrat's meeting and they really wanted mroe Democrats! Why can't these people just make up their mind???
 

AzN

Banned
Nov 26, 2001
4,112
2
0
Originally posted by: RandomFool
I think the point is that PC games either have to code for the lowest common denominator or ignore a large portion of thier userbase. I pretty much stopped playing PC games because I didn't have money to upgrade and my PC couldn't run the newer stuff very well. Consoles don't have that problem. I'd love to see Intel release a competent IGP.

Not true. You can turn down the detail level on a GPU. A console will get crappier as PC technology moves forward.

 

jjones

Lifer
Oct 9, 2001
15,424
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Originally posted by: Throckmorton
Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante
Originally posted by: jjones
Actually, the true culprit is the PC industry as a whole. Face it, the average PC user doesn't need anything but integrated graphics to run their PC.

But what if you could buy a gaming card and just push it into a premade slot on your PC. No opening the case, no need to have a tech do it for you. The PC came with a slot accessible on the outside of the computer that you just take off the cover and plug in your new gaming card. How easy would it be for the average schmuck to game on their PC then?

It's amazing how behind the times the typical computer build is. Everything thing on the computer should be modular, snap in, and easily handled by the most ignorant of PC users. Able to be done without ever cracking the case. It's not hard to build a computer, but it's way harder than it needs to be considering how far we've come at this stage of the game.

Why is the computer still being built from the inside out? Why do I have to open the case and mess with cables if the only thing I'm doing is replacing a hard drive? All I should have to do is push the hard drive into a slot accessible on the outside of the case. The basic computer construction has not changed in more than 20 years. This is sad.

Wow, that's a really good idea. You could actually have a very slim case, with the motherboard being the front face with some plastic stuff over it. Then you can just plug stuff into the right slots, all pre-wired. You could even just stick a processor into the front.

imagine how easy it would be for your average idiot to wreck it by spilling something, knocking the card, etc. the case provides protection for all of the components.

I disagree. If everything is in a rectangular shaped slot (like PCMCIA, Expresscard, etc), it will be safe, even from spills.

What isn't safe is to have to open your case, pull cards and crap out, etc etc. Every time you work inside your case, you risk scratching your motherboard with a screwdriver, hitting a capacitor with your hand, bending a hard drive pin, breaking the poorly designed SATA connectors, discharge static etc.

When I dismantled my system to move to a new case, I dropped a thumbscrew on my motherboard. Then when it wouldn't boot up, I was afraid that the thumbscrew damaged a teeny tiny trace on the motherboard, which definately possible. It turned out to be the hard drive boot order set up in the BIOS, but there I have no way of knowing whether I did damage the mobo.

Then the problem is, even if you do cause damage to your hardware, it's not necessarily apparent. My HP laptop manual even warns about static damage, and says that even if the system works, there could be invisible errors. Why should, for example, a RAM stick even have the possibility of damage this way? Encase it in metal or plastic. Remember those old Seagate hard drives with the Seashield? All hardware should be like that.

Right. Look at your typical CD or DVD drive. Slot accessible from the outside. The only reason you need to crack the case is to screw it in place and plug in the cables. A standardized fastening system for mounting and removing the drive, and a cableless installation method would allow any idiot to replace or install a new drive. The same type of thing could be done with hard drives, gaming cards and power supplies. In fact, just think how great it would be for hard drives especially, considering how much media we're putting on them nowadays. I'd love to be able to swap out drives so easily.

For a would-be gamer or casual gamer, this type of system would make gaming on the PC much easier to deal with.
 
Oct 4, 2004
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You don't buy a PS2 and expect it to be ready for Gran Turismo 5.
You don't buy an Xbox and expect it to play Halo 3.
You don't freaking buy a $500 computer off-the-shelf and expect it to run games. These $400 machines aren't even marketed as 'gaming machines.'

The consumer is stupid. Computer builders have to keep the price-of-entry as low as possible. A low-end computer is expected to play DVDs, surf the Internet, run MS Word and allow you to sync your cellphone/PMP to it and play Solitaire. Anyone with even a casual 'try three demos a year, buy one game' interest in gaming knows that gaming is near impossible with integrated graphics. Even a $100 GPU can bring you into the gaming world.

Since we all love to pull statistics out of our asses, I'd venture that the vast majority of the owners of the '60% of computers with non-workable graphic processors' are already aware of their computers' limitations. These people should probably learn to read the game's packaging and invest in at least HD 2600/Geforce 8600 class hardware. If they haven't already, they are not gamers and they are not - and nor will ever be - Epic's customers.

Well, I'm pretty sure that 60% doesn't give a sh!t to Epic's games either.

My sentiments exactly.

What do I do if I own a computer without a IEEE1394 port? Do I cancel my plans to buy a particular HDV/DV video camera (that only syncs using Firewire) or do I buy a PCI-to-IEEE1394 expansion card? Same logic applies here. If Sweeney is right, Canon/Sony/JVC etc. should be livid with all budget motherboard manufacturers for 'curbing their sales' by not including Firewire ports on their budget offerings.
 

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
33,056
12,449
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Originally posted by: theprodigalrebel
My sentiments exactly.

What do I do if I own a computer without a IEEE1394 port? Do I cancel my plans to buy a particular HDV/DV video camera (that only syncs using Firewire) or do I buy a PCI-to-IEEE1394 expansion card? Same logic applies here. If Sweeney is right, Canon/Sony/JVC etc. should be livid with all budget motherboard manufacturers for 'curbing their sales' by not including Firewire ports on their budget offerings.

how many laptops have expansion slots for an extra video card?
 

PhatoseAlpha

Platinum Member
Apr 10, 2005
2,131
21
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You've got a chicken and egg scenario going on there. Non gamers aren't going to become gamers unless they can try the hobby, at the very least. No one invests the kind of money PC gaming requires without already liking it. But anyone who isn't already in the hobby doesn't have sufficient knowledge to get into the hobby, because the entry level, mass marketed hardware will not cut it and they have no way of knowing not to buy it. The only reason they would have to know all that stuff is because they were a gamer doing research......which they'll never get to be, because they never even get to try it, because the hardware they will buy sucks.

Where are the new PC gamers going to come from?
 

StrangerGuy

Diamond Member
May 9, 2004
8,443
124
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Originally posted by: Azn
Originally posted by: RandomFool
I think the point is that PC games either have to code for the lowest common denominator or ignore a large portion of thier userbase. I pretty much stopped playing PC games because I didn't have money to upgrade and my PC couldn't run the newer stuff very well. Consoles don't have that problem. I'd love to see Intel release a competent IGP.

Not true. You can turn down the detail level on a GPU. A console will get crappier as PC technology moves forward.

Well, I'm certainly won't call a console "crappy" on the visual side since the graphics improve over time without a single change in the hardware.

How about some PC games that look worse than their predecessors even with better hardware? That is crappy.