Gaming TV PCs

[meester]

I owned an Xbox (the original one), Nintendo 64, and a Wii.

But I'm thinking of building a GTX 750/750 TI gaming PC to go in the living room.

In many ways it makes sense in that there's a 42" Panasonic 3D TV, and a nice set of 5.1 hi-fi speakers + 5.1 AV receiver. OTOH, I'm not sure on the 'sitting seven feet away on a sofa' thing, as PC gaming for me is hunched over a desk, bashing on keyboards.

Do modern PC games work in this scenario?

Does anyone have a build for a GTX 750 (TI) living room gaming (mini-ITX?) box including peripherals (not sure what to go for here, as I've only ever had keyboard/mouse for gaming)

 

[Ken g6]

You want to control your gaming PC like a gaming console? That can be arranged.

 

[meester]

Well I don't necessarily want to. I was more wondering how well it works with the typical PC gaming line-up.

Obviously console games are designed to work at 10 feet, I'm not sure how that plays with PC games.

I was thinking of building a mini-itx gaming PC for my son (ahem), rather than getting him a new console. Cheaper games. But yeah I dunno if the real-time strategy or whatever works well on game pads.

 

[XavierMace]

They don't. But does your play strategy games even? Wireless keyboard and mouse might be an option for those games.

 

[meester]

My son is 12 going on 13. He doesn't play strategy games, but maybe that's because he's never tried. I don't think a mouse and keyboard would be too comfortable on the sofa.

I guess TV gaming tends to make games more casual, and less time-consuming in one session. So that's probably a good thing.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

as PC gaming for me is hunched over a desk, bashing on keyboards.

pretty much this. Sure a wireless KB and mouse or trackpad will work but it's still casual paced games that would be used so what's the point?

 

[guidinggod]

Don't play RTS, but I do play CS:GO on my htpc > avr > tv setup and it works pretty well with a logitech wireless mouse/kb. I switch to an xbox/pc wireless controller for Fifa soccer. Its not competitive gaming, sure, but just lots of fun on the big screen with surround sound and everything pretty much works seamlessly.

 

[Cerb]

Do modern PC games work in this scenario?

Most, yes. Games less suited to "casual" play will either be really easy with a mouse and keyboard, or really hard with a gamepad. But there's a lot of space in between. Most games that also come out on the XB360 or XBOne will have built in controller support, so you can get an XBox controller that works on the PC, and go to town. FI, I recently played Metro: LL (been sitting in my library, but I didn't like the IQ/performance trade-offs w/ my old hardware), and the hardest difficulty would have been practically impossible for me with a gamepad, while it was moderately challenging with a mouse (after ditching mouse accel, and getting a decent FOV set, anyway). Of the 4 difficulty levels, the 2nd I could definitely have managed through with gamepad, with similar actual difficulty that I faced with the higher setting and a mouse.

If you come across problems with axis/button mapping, get Xpadder. There's a learning curve, but it's awesome (I could not get Pinnacle Profiler, another common program for such mapping, to ever work on modern OSes).

While RTS might be a challenge, turn-based or single-player strategy, especially sim games, like Tropico, or Civilization, should be quite playable, even if they might need a little controller mapping done (obviously there's time and effort involved in doing that, but don't necessary ignore games that don't directly support controllers just because they don't).

You'll have to research the games a bit more than usual, but there will be extremely few new games that will not work with a controller either out of the box, or with mere minutes of configuration. For example, Divinity:OS lacks gamepad support, but has no mechanics that would prevent it, and you can find quite a few different controller mappings some people use for it. A little effort, sure, but, "oh, that game has no built in controller support, woe is me," is a good way to miss out on good games, if you're not at a desk w/ a mouse and KB .

For the greater distance, a narrower FOV, which is common for shooters on consoles, may be appropriate, for PC titles with a PC-friendly FOV.

 

[mfenn]

Many games today are designed with gamepad support in mind. Big budget games because they cannot survive on PC sales alone, and indie games because cross platform toolkits are now the norm as well as MS and Sony being much easier to work with.

There are definitely exceptions, but you might be surprised by the breadth of support. Steam is also nice in this regard because one of the standard things on the store page is what level of controller support is present.