The OP is blaming M$ for things that aren't their fault and not their problem to solve and misses the easiest explaination for why his wish list isn't being fulfilled: Hardware variations in end-user clients.
Every Xbox/360/PS2 is the same, but who the hell knows what's in the buyer's PC? Is it an l337 p1mp rig or a Packard-Bell with Intel Extreme graphics? Are the drivers up to date? Who's to say that this PC is even online to DL the latest patches? If you can't assume a certain set of abilities, then you have to assume that nothing advanced is present. Not everyone has a DVD-ROM drive, but everyone does have a CD-ROM drive, so bingo, we get our games on six CDs. Bleah.
EAX vs. A3D has everything to do with lazy devs. I bought a Monster Sound 300 (Vortex 2) halfway thru Half-Life and the difference even on stereo speakers was stunning. BUT...when the SB Live was launched with EAX, I saw that what Creative was doing was providing easy to ladle into levels canned effects that were quicker to place than what Vortex required. Allow generic integrated chips to emulate EAX and EAX2 and BAM!, game over for Vortex. This is the same reason that no more than a few games will ever use the expensive X-RAM or whatever it's called on the X-Fi cards to cache sounds, because <1% of X-Fi cards will include that piece.
As for a common game matching interface, what's wrong with Gamespy? Xbox Live is "outside" of all the games it supports. You find your game and buddies and then join the game in your console. If anything, Gamespy is even better because it can launch countless titles without requiring the play disc to be installed. A built-in server browser for each game is fine with me as long as the damn thing works and filters properly. If I'm in the mood to play HL2DM or CS:S, I can just launch those and get at it.
Bitching about missing USB headphone support and the like is more of the same blame-Microsoft for everything mentality. I just bought a Logitech M518 mouse and it works OK OOTB with the standard mouse driver, but you need to put the Logitech driver on to get all the doodads to work. Why does Microsoft need to supply this? Force-feedback mice? What for? Especially with wireless optical mice being so common. How do you retard the movement of an optical mouse across a surface?
Every Xbox/360/PS2 is the same, but who the hell knows what's in the buyer's PC? Is it an l337 p1mp rig or a Packard-Bell with Intel Extreme graphics? Are the drivers up to date? Who's to say that this PC is even online to DL the latest patches? If you can't assume a certain set of abilities, then you have to assume that nothing advanced is present. Not everyone has a DVD-ROM drive, but everyone does have a CD-ROM drive, so bingo, we get our games on six CDs. Bleah.
EAX vs. A3D has everything to do with lazy devs. I bought a Monster Sound 300 (Vortex 2) halfway thru Half-Life and the difference even on stereo speakers was stunning. BUT...when the SB Live was launched with EAX, I saw that what Creative was doing was providing easy to ladle into levels canned effects that were quicker to place than what Vortex required. Allow generic integrated chips to emulate EAX and EAX2 and BAM!, game over for Vortex. This is the same reason that no more than a few games will ever use the expensive X-RAM or whatever it's called on the X-Fi cards to cache sounds, because <1% of X-Fi cards will include that piece.
As for a common game matching interface, what's wrong with Gamespy? Xbox Live is "outside" of all the games it supports. You find your game and buddies and then join the game in your console. If anything, Gamespy is even better because it can launch countless titles without requiring the play disc to be installed. A built-in server browser for each game is fine with me as long as the damn thing works and filters properly. If I'm in the mood to play HL2DM or CS:S, I can just launch those and get at it.
Bitching about missing USB headphone support and the like is more of the same blame-Microsoft for everything mentality. I just bought a Logitech M518 mouse and it works OK OOTB with the standard mouse driver, but you need to put the Logitech driver on to get all the doodads to work. Why does Microsoft need to supply this? Force-feedback mice? What for? Especially with wireless optical mice being so common. How do you retard the movement of an optical mouse across a surface?
Originally posted by: Brentx
I can't stand not having a keyboard and mouse. Nothing can beat that combo.
I do have to agree with the whole EAX thing, Creative sucks for having that monopoly, but sooner or later another company will come along to challenge it. Give it another few years.
I don't exactley get what is wrong with the Directx system, like the OP has a problem with. Directx does it's job great. Obviously it's the best thing we have out there at the current time, unless you want to go to OpenGL, which is crappy compared the Directx.
I also think the price points are about the same between the console and PC too. A good gamin PC yo uwill upgrade about every 2-3 years on a 1500 budget. However to get the HD content on consoles you have to purchase an HDTV, which will run you about 3 grand for a nice one. Plus, console you have to worry about controllers, and now batteries, and of course, the loading times.
I know I will always stick to my PC for gaming, no matter what.
And if you haven't noticed, my opinion may be a bit biased towards PC's
My problem with directX is that there was once a time when it was more than just a graphics API. In fact, EAX used to layer itself on top of directsound (it probably still does?). When aureal died, creative was all alone. EAX used to be an open standard, but they took everything about EAX 2 and made it proprietary. Since EAX was the only real reverb standard out there, MS forgot about directsound and let creative have the monopoly. And it is very unlikely that any company can enter the market now. Theyd have to create their own standard, and no developers are going to program for two sound standards. There are plenty of other sound cards out there, but the max they can do is EAX2, which is YEARS old.
There was a force feedback mouse made back in the day by logitech. It was actually pretty fun to play with, and a few games used it. But it was proprietary. Developers arent going to waste their time programming for a mouse that only a few people had. And because the games arent there, people werent going to buy the mice. If microsoft had made force feedback support in direct input, any company could make a force feedback mouse that applied to the standard, and developers would have more of a reason to do it.
Mics are truely the saddest in my eyes. Firstly, the technology is just too far behind without a seperate mic/voice channel. We should be using bluetooth ones by now. But each developer has to come up with their own scheme. And the obvious problem as before - not enough people have the mics or want to bother with the hassle of attaching a wire to the back of their computer, or a speaker if they have a port. Unless everyone has a mic, no one bothers talking. Because noones talking, no one is putting their mics in. The only exception Ive seen is counterstrike.
Id personally never play a fps or rts with anything other than a KB and mouse, but its only a matter of time before theyll let you do such a thing on consoles and perhaps the new revolution controller can eclipse even that old combo.
And don't get me started on patching, incompatibilites, bugs, ridiculous piracy protection etc. Just because I know how to deal with it doesnt mean I want to or should have to.
I used bad wording in the OP. I don't mean to say PC gaming is dying in the sense that it is going to dissapear. Only that there was once a time when the newest technologies started on the PC before trickling down to consoles. PC was doing online before consoles even had network ports. And now, integrated services like xbox live have improved so much over the older formula of pick a server that its being left behind.
Unless something gives, PC games are going to end up even more of a fringe than they are becoming now, and when the developer of the primary platform PC games are programmed on makes their own consoles, that isnt too suprising anymore.
Well, it was actually 6 games, but Star Rangers 2, Earth 2160, King Kong, Trackmania Sunrise, Mount & Blade, and Silent Storm. Some of these are old, some new. I'm preordering DDO at the end of this week. Star Wars Empires at War comes out today, then Galciv 2 comes out next week.
Only video games I get are the ones that can be modded for more fun. Such as custom levels skins and scripts. The xbox and PS2 are so worried about you stealing games they could care less about adding these options for users (we cant let the user edit installed files ect).
I've been gaming with voice communication on the PC for a year solid. I did before that, but this past year has been 100% voice com. Civ4, CS, WoW, everything has been done through voice communication over Ventrilo. It's so natural to me that I can't comprehend this "mic's havn't taken off on the pc" concept at all.
I surely understand the problem with hardware variation, but the problem is that it isnt being mitigated by the single only company that can feasibly do anything about it. And that company is microsoft. Games run on windows. DirectX is the standard. Anything they put into directX can be supported by any company willing to build the hardware, rather than messy proprietary schemes. I remember back when DX3D wasnt even a standard, and you had to choose between directx, opengl, and glide. Developers hated that. As soon as DX3D was mature enough, people stopped caring about the rest.
If games can require ridiculous cpu and gfx cards, they can certainly require a dvd-rom drive, at least a periodic connection to the net (HL2 for instance), and the fact that we have essentially two graphics providers and one sound provider and there still isnt a better way to update drivers than manually downloading them from the site and installing them is just absurd.
I wouldnt call it laziness. Id call it resource management. They only have the time and resources for so much, and I dont blame them for a second for not caring about proprietary standards. If the X-RAM was a standard supported by directX and not creative, it would see much wider support.
Because you have to load the game EVERY TIME you change servers, and PC games arent exactly the fastest loading, especially when most require you to have the disc in the drive to do a check for no other purpose other than to be a pain in the ass to the people who actually paid for the game. If the server is full by the minute or two the game is ready to connect (happens quite often), you get to do it all over again. What a fantastic solution.
Again, I'm not saying microsoft needs to provide DRIVERS or SOFTWARE. What they need to provide, are APIs. A FULL set of APIs with advanced technology, not just advanced graphics and barebones APIs for the rest.
i hope it does die...so that posts like this will go away! long live <insert whatever console here>
It still only works if everyone is pre-organized to do it. You have to launch an outside program (ventrilo), connect to an outside server, and everyone else you want to talk to has to do the same. That isnt going to fly for casual gamers, only clans and guilds.
Yea but the codec quality is insane
and ventrilo is an awesome program (the benefits of specialized programs!). We've had an internet radio dj on our Ventrilo server streaming a show across / I've played music / etc. Also, the nice thing about an external program is I now have backwards compatability. I can go play Quake1 with friends and have voice communication. I'm not relying on some new technology and hoping each developer puts it in their games.
Originally posted by: skace
Yea but the codec quality is insane
Also, the nice thing about an external program is I now have backwards compatability. I can go play Quake1 with friends and have voice communication. I'm not relying on some new technology and hoping each developer puts it in their games.
I don't question the quality or effectiveness of the actual program. Ive used it myself a few times, and it does work quite well. And it is often desirable to have only specific people on your channel etc. And while the little kiddies irritate me, there is absolutely something special about going on xbox live, knowing that when you talk, everyone can hear you and talk back, and when they do, it goes right into your ear, and feels right in so many ways.
Backwards compatibility is a concern, but of course, there is always ventrilo for that. But in order for pc games to recreate the experience that xbox live can as far as mics go, whether or not you like it or agree with it, microsoft is the only company that has the real capability to do anything about it.
Oh, it is not a matter of whether I agree with it, the only question is how far I think the PC is from it. The Directplay Voice chat has been part of the DirectX suite for a long, long time and is most likely what Xbox live uses. The only thing the PC lacks is a tool that runs in the background and connects to a massive server that tracks what game server you are on and connects you with the other people on that server.
Or well, I should say it lacks that function if you don't already have http://www.xfire.com/
His problem is that it has only been the graphical components (Direct3D) of it that have seen significant improvement. DirectSound (and DirectSound3D), DirectShow and DirectPlay have effectively been frozen, save for minor improvements, for a long time mostly due to Creative's monopoly in the sound market and the dampening of innovation that usually accompanies such a monopoly.
How so?
OK, Devil's Advocate argument: If M$ had been agressively and constantly updated the DX standard as you wish they had, would you be here crying that "PC gaming is dying and it's Microsoft's fault because they keep screwing with the DX standard! Don't they know what a standard is?!??
I suspect you would.
I suspect you would.
Chaotic42
Lifer
- Jun 15, 2001
- 34,587
- 1,748
- 126
Do you *really* want everyone to have a microphone? I can't imagine what kind of nightmare that would be.
Games in general are less interesting now than they used to be. Military simulations, the kinds of games that I really enjoy, are almost dead. Forgive me, but I can only kill so many monsters while walking down hallways. There are only two PC games that I ever play single player anymore and those are Falcon 4 (Which came out in 1998) and Silent Hunter 3. Other than that, I only play games to have somethign to do with my friends from the good old days while we talk on Teamspeak.
We need Black Isle and Microprose back.
Why would you suspect that? I have no intrinsic problem with microsoft as a company. I have a problem with the way they are handling this situation.
DX has always worked as a evolving standard in which new technologies are bolted on top of old technologies. It works great - look at HL2, it supports DX7 through 9 essentially perfectly. To my knowledge theyve never changed DX so drastically that it led to an incompatibility as such.
I regret using the words "PC gaming is dying" as it seems to have touched a nerve. But its slowly being relegated more and more to the fringes as the technology other than graphics isnt keeping up.
Thats what ignore commands are for. If everyone had a mic, you would at least know that the lines of communication are open by default, and its up to you who gets through to you.
Uh, I might be a little out of touch...but PC gaming has never been on the frontfront of entertainment. PC enthusiasts (enthusiasts...not just any plain Joe Schmoe who happen to own a PC) are still just a minority aren't they?
Only sporadically or recently has the mainstream nodded in our direction. A Mario movie back in the 80's...and only just now in the last few years has Hollywood exposed some other titles.
Sure, there are a lot of PC gamers out there, but relative to the whole... a small group?
It never has been on the forefront in terms of numbers and sales. Historically, it has been on the forefront of technology, though. That is its primary edge, and its losing it. It will *never* die completely, but the less people play games on the PC, the less goes into developing those games.
After playing HL2 for half a year and finishing it up over and over and playing the Deathmatch one till I couldn't find a game room where someone can budge me away form the top, I made my decesion and realized that this is as as good as it gets before sht starts coming down the drain, so I sold my PC gaming rig and retired from the gaming world, after HL2 it started to become harder for me to find a game that fits my style of games.
Best 3d games I have played til I stopped were :
Half-Life 1 & 2 along with all of the expansions
Medal of Honor Allied Assault wth all it's expansions
Battelfield 1942 and all it's expansions
The rest of the gamed that I have played just failed to keep me awake
Plus PC gaming costs are getting out of hand really.
Best 3d games I have played til I stopped were :
Half-Life 1 & 2 along with all of the expansions
Medal of Honor Allied Assault wth all it's expansions
Battelfield 1942 and all it's expansions
The rest of the gamed that I have played just failed to keep me awake
Plus PC gaming costs are getting out of hand really.
People talk about Half-Life2 like it came out 10 years ago...
Oh yea, and as far as PC Gaming being on the forefront. I think you could make a solid argument that MMORPGs are the forefront of gaming and PCs are ALL. OVER. THEM. Everything from Guild Wars to WoW to RFO to DF, we've had nearly every iteration and evolution of the MMORPG genre. Not to mention, we've basically run the FPS genre into the ground while Consoles still look at them as new territory.
We get games such as Darwinia, Gunbound, Total Annihilation: Spring, Mount & Blade, truely unique experiences beyond your normal everyday rehash. If you want to look about pushing boundaries. Sure, the games I listed might not be beautiful (oh, the PC only has graphics going for it?) but they do add varying elements to the gaming world. Darwinia was a game that wouldn't have seen the light of day without Steam and, despite a very old style of graphics, looks great and delivers addictive gameplay. Gunbound utilizes an ingame shop that uses real money to support the entire environment of otherwise free gameplay. Total Annihilation: Spring takes a ~8 year old game and wraps it around recent computing power to allow for massive armies and first person perspectives, a level of modding not even understood in the console market. Mount and Blade, despite ugly graphics and an unfinished game (it is in beta) has some of the best melee and mounted combat ever developed in a game.
We have experiences such as Rome Total War and Civ4, epic AAA titles to a genre that console gamers barely ever see a release for.
I'm sorry, but it is one thing to say EAX is monopolizing sound and that Live makes voice comm easier than it is on the PC. But when we start talking games, the forefront is on the PC. Consoles trail behind, slowly picking up on our recent trends. Some of the best recent console games have simply been rehashes of age old series with a PC gaming twist, IE: Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4. And this is a GOOD thing, but surely does show how ahead of the game PCs are.
Oh yea, and as far as PC Gaming being on the forefront. I think you could make a solid argument that MMORPGs are the forefront of gaming and PCs are ALL. OVER. THEM. Everything from Guild Wars to WoW to RFO to DF, we've had nearly every iteration and evolution of the MMORPG genre. Not to mention, we've basically run the FPS genre into the ground while Consoles still look at them as new territory.
We get games such as Darwinia, Gunbound, Total Annihilation: Spring, Mount & Blade, truely unique experiences beyond your normal everyday rehash. If you want to look about pushing boundaries. Sure, the games I listed might not be beautiful (oh, the PC only has graphics going for it?) but they do add varying elements to the gaming world. Darwinia was a game that wouldn't have seen the light of day without Steam and, despite a very old style of graphics, looks great and delivers addictive gameplay. Gunbound utilizes an ingame shop that uses real money to support the entire environment of otherwise free gameplay. Total Annihilation: Spring takes a ~8 year old game and wraps it around recent computing power to allow for massive armies and first person perspectives, a level of modding not even understood in the console market. Mount and Blade, despite ugly graphics and an unfinished game (it is in beta) has some of the best melee and mounted combat ever developed in a game.
We have experiences such as Rome Total War and Civ4, epic AAA titles to a genre that console gamers barely ever see a release for.
I'm sorry, but it is one thing to say EAX is monopolizing sound and that Live makes voice comm easier than it is on the PC. But when we start talking games, the forefront is on the PC. Consoles trail behind, slowly picking up on our recent trends. Some of the best recent console games have simply been rehashes of age old series with a PC gaming twist, IE: Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4. And this is a GOOD thing, but surely does show how ahead of the game PCs are.
Fingolfin269
Lifer
- Feb 28, 2003
- 17,948
- 33
- 91
Wow, if the PC gaming companies had you marketing for them I would think all new titles are the best thing ever.
BTW, I haven't heard of half of the games you mentioned in there but they sound interesting. Perhaps that is part of the PCs problem. Where am I supposed to hear about Darwinia? Mount & Blade? It's not like I live under a rock or anything but I've
honestly never heard of that stuff.
Bateluer
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2001
- 27,730
- 8
- 0
I didn't read this entire thread, don't have the time. I don't believe PC gaming is dying, nor do I believe that MS is killing it. I do, however, believe that the genre is stagnant, because of consoles. These days, a lot of devs are trying to make their games as simple as possible, in order to emulate their console titles. Even titles that traditionally had strong story and character developments, such as RPGs, Adventures, and RTSs are merely excuses to splatter your opponent. The RPG genre today, in particular, disgusts me. Seems like almost every dev is trying to create the next Diablo 2, action RPGs with a fluff story and no character or plot development. Why don't they try emulate good RPG titles like Torment, Fallout, and Baldur's Gate? Its been years since these classics and there's been nothing that could touch them.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 21K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter