"The Death of PC Gaming"

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: Ronin
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/739/739688p1.html

While it's nothing new to have a Linux OS running on a console, given the hardware that's comprised in the PS3, it should prove interesting this time around.

Wow- that might actually end up as a great path to take. Thanks for the link Ronin.

And here I thought you were calling me some kind of cowardly animal or something....

Edit- so a keyboard and mouse hook up to the PS3 then? (I know I said I'd never buy one but....)

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: the Chase
Yeah that Midrange Buyer's Guide is great for people that don't mind chugging along at 19-30 fps in Fear with that 7600GS and 1 gig of ram at "low" 1280x960 resolutions.

If you had made it to page 4, you'd see they recommended a X1900 GT for a midrange upgrade. How well does that do in Fear?

 

[the Chase]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/fear_6.html - not that great- playable I guess. But again more $. And what about that 1 gig of ram. Chug a Chug a Chug....

 

[Ronin]

PS3 has USB, Wireless, and Bluetooth capability. Headphones, headsets, keyboards, mice, etc...all should work (I know for a fact that USB keyboards work).

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: the Chase
In other news- http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4630 - that's what I was afraid of....

Afraid of what? That MS would still keep on supporting and still issue patches for XP for years to come ensuring that it remains a viable platform even after Vista is released?

Originally posted by: the Chase
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/fear_6.html - not that great- playable I guess. But again more $. And what about that 1 gig of ram. Chug a Chug a Chug....

So, you're talking about a game that isn't even out yet. Yes, there is a group of gamers that buy games on release day, but there are also many, many gamers that don't. They don't for a number of reasons... One being that they don't yet have good enough hardware to play, they next being becasue they want to wait until the game is a tad bit lcheaper than $50-60, and the final reason is becasue they know that a lot of games are just overblown crap and they want wait and see how the earlier adoptors like it.

The point is that just because it is cost prohibitive to play the latest FPS with eye candy at high resolutions, doesn't mean that PC gaming is dead. There are a lot of players playing older games and what about all the PC MMO's out there? There are millions of people playing World of Warcraft with less than state of the art hardware... I know someone who plays on a 9700Pro, another that uses a 6600GT, and I've got it installed on my wife's PC with an FX 5900 and it runs just fine (it's playable, not necessarily enjoyable, on my Powerbook with a 5200Go). One of the biggest criticisms against WoW is video game addiction... This is just one game, what about the Sims, Myst series, or other PC games that have almost cult-like followings? Doesn't sound like PC gaming is anywhere close to "dead" to me.

 

[NoStateofMind]

Communist = Console Gaming

Democracy = PC Gaming


Think about it.....

 

[new22003]

You obviously had your mind made up before posting here. No amount of facts or logic will change it. :thumbsup:

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: new22003
You obviously had your mind made up before posting here. No amount of facts or logic will change it. :thumbsup:

You are wise, young one.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon
Communist = Console Gaming

Democracy = PC Gaming


Think about it.....

Gotta agree with that...although PC gaming is expensive...I can't get away from it completely.

 

[the Chase]

No, actually I'm drooling all over the G80 and that's not out yet either. That was going to be a mandatory purchase for me as I'm sick of my x1800XT slowdowns in BF2 whenever someone pops a smoke grenade. But at what point do you question a certain path you're traveling?

@ nitromullet. I wouldn't call delaying a major support patch for over 2 years so you can work on another project as "continued support". MS is going to try to spur Vista adoption any way they can. Ending or endlessly delaying support for XP will help speed that along.

And yes the tilte of the article at overclockers is kind of misleading as to the meat of the subject matter. I think a lot of peeps here are just lumping this whole thread into the console taking over the world (yawn) thing when it's more about the new games/OS that are going to force a level of upgrading to play these games ENJOYABLY that may have a lot of people (me anyway) rethink on how much time, money and effort they want to expend on "Chasing" the latest gaming performance. (Now you guys know how I came to my AT name "the Chase".) Kind of ironic that I'm going on about hardware upgrades actually.....

 

[Swampthing]

I kinda agree with the original article, the current trend that we're on for PC gaming is freaking ludicrous. Vista is ridiculous, the activation scheme is intrustive to the extreme and the OS itself is bloated crap and the system requirements of it are absolutely insane.

That said, PC gaming has been slowly dying for years, it's absolutely definately in decline. PC games used to be in the front of the stores now they are in the back and the console games are up front. Console games outsell PC games as well and we're starting to see console games first that are then poorly and cheaply ported to the pc leading to a crappy game.

PC gaming is definately in decline but the day it dies is teh day i stop gaming. I freaking HATE console games. I hate their stupid contrived save systems, their stupid unlocks etc.

I just won't play console games, they are mostly geared towards 12-18 year old male audience and at 35, those types of games just dont' interest me.

 

[ronnn]

Heck everytime someone starts to grow up and finds gaming less thrilling than some other pursuits..... They blame their computer.

 

[josh6079]

I know that these ATI, Nvidia, Intel, AMD, Samsung, NEC, etc. engineers like to game on PC's. Every computer dork remembers the time when they first started learning about computers and how to put them together and eventually, gaming on them. It is something that they want to see stay around as much as we do.

Consoles are forever going to be competeing for the gaming population, but eventually that gaming population grows up and gets more money than mommy's and daddy's spare change. PC gamers can and will spend more money on their machines than consoles will on theirs, that's why they can afford to have less people doing it. 1 PC gamer's rig-spending equals about 2 or 3 console gamer's console-spendings.

It's not going anywhere and the games are only going to get better looking and more in-depth. Sit back, relax.

 

[the Chase]

Found the 2 gig vs. 4 gig benchmarks in Vista - http://www.bcchardware.com/index.php?op...om_content&task=view&id=3135&Itemid=40 - I don't really want to buy 4 gigs of memory....But it will frustrate the crap out of me to know I'm running this much slower because of having "only" 2 gigs of memory. Heck I have only 1 gig now...

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: the Chase
Found the 2 gig vs. 4 gig benchmarks in Vista - http://www.bcchardware.com/index.php?op...om_content&task=view&id=3135&Itemid=40 - I don't really want to buy 4 gigs of memory....But it will frustrate the crap out of me to know I'm running this much slower because of having "only" 2 gigs of memory. Heck I have only 1 gig now...

My guess would be that the Superfetch feature of Vista still needs a bit of tuning. Also, that author is an idiot as he keeps complaining about how Vista will take up more RAM if you go up to 4GB. The OS should be using more RAM if it's available, otherwise it's just wasted.

From my own anecdotal experiences with XP and 2GB of RAM, I find that even if I am multitasking like crazy and manage to go over 2GB commit charge, my subjective performance remains about the same. You are only going to be working with so much data on an interactive basis at a time that the OS is able to hide most of the latency if it is working correctly.

 

[the Chase]

Well i'm not entirely sure of his testing procedures, but I think he just measured the fps of these games with the different memory sizes. Vista might need a bit of tuning yet, but regardless of how much memory it did use or is suppose to use- the end result is the same- a quite clear difference in performance for 2 gig and 4 gig systems under Vista as it now stands.

 

[Slammy1]

Originally posted by: Swampthing
I kinda agree with the original article, the current trend that we're on for PC gaming is freaking ludicrous. Vista is ridiculous, the activation scheme is intrustive to the extreme and the OS itself is bloated crap and the system requirements of it are absolutely insane.

That said, PC gaming has been slowly dying for years, it's absolutely definately in decline. PC games used to be in the front of the stores now they are in the back and the console games are up front. Console games outsell PC games as well and we're starting to see console games first that are then poorly and cheaply ported to the pc leading to a crappy game.

PC gaming is definately in decline but the day it dies is teh day i stop gaming. I freaking HATE console games. I hate their stupid contrived save systems, their stupid unlocks etc.

I just won't play console games, they are mostly geared towards 12-18 year old male audience and at 35, those types of games just dont' interest me.

I was going to make a similar post. Maybe it is just age causing it, but gaming has been moving towards the gee-whiz factor since like BG2; every game I've bought since then just makes me think ported console game. There was a time when games were designed around utilizing the strengths of a PC rather than the prowess of the video card. You want all the eye candy and gee-whiz factor, buy a console which is a good video card sitting on top of a weak processor and be impressed with the realism of the explosions. So many titles just seem contrivances to shuttle you between graphic events, and a disproportionate amount of time is spent in development of graphics engine over gaming rules.

I guess there's always HTPC to force my upgrading.

 

[sbuckler]

Blame vista for the death of gaming?

That would be the same o/s with more gaming support then any other - o/s core re-written so DX (and hence games) can run faster, new standardised ways of installing games, new standardised packaging to make it easier for newbies to buy games.

Yes vista does have higher h/w requirements (as every new o/s since the beginning has had) but the biggest requirement is it requires a proper 3d graphics card - so for the first time ever you might find pc's bought by joe bloggs actually have the graphical grunt to play some games!

 

[TanisHalfElven]

oh please. that article is so lame. most ofthe time the guys complaining about power requirements and we all know they'll be fixed as soo as thenext reshreshes come.

ps. you don't need to upgrade often.
1 gb ram is more than enough for many years as long as you only use low res textures. (oblivion at low res textures, at 1280x1028, take up only 300 mb ram)
a 6600gt level card (like mine) is enough to play any game today even at 1280x1028 (maybe not maxed out but still pretty)

a 300 buck computer can handle any game as long as you spend wisely.

 

[Aikouka]

Hot damn, look how much crap that guy's running in that Vista article. Would've been even better if he kind of you know... looked to see what was taking up the memory?

I am currently planning to buy Vista as an OEM OS if its offered by vendors when it's released next month. I welcome the changes, but I won't use Aero even if it's available. I prefer my simplistic Windows Classic look .

The original article that was posted... *sigh* it was just another post of some angry guy who read crap from places like The Inquirer and believed it. If you really hate upgrading that much, then don't do it. I will continue to upgrade my PC ever so often, so I can play my games and multi-task with ease.

My overall computing experience is of the upmost importance to me.

Also... Yellow Dog? Don't make me laugh. Although, I know I inevitably will laugh when you come back here complaining that you can't read the text on your wonderful 352x240 standard television and that you shouldn't have wasted your money when my old and long-since retired early 90's IBM monitor has a higher resolution. If you even try to tell me that it'll be fine... have you even tried outputting a computer to a standard TV? Ever try playing an XBOX 360 on a standard TV? (Note, that I suspect that the PS3 will take the same route as the XBOX 360 and simply render everything in HD and downscale/upscale accordingly. The downscaling for a standard TV is what causes the inability to read most text.)

If you've tried an XBOX 360 on a standard TV, you'll know why I currently run it on an extra 19" 8ms LCD using the $50 VGA cable .

 

[DAPUNISHER]

PC gaming to world- "The news of my death has been greatly exaggerated."

 

[michal1980]

theres alot of noobs in here.

M$ came out that you can upgrade your pc, They said your retail copy can only be transfered to 1 differenct pc.

If you change all your hardware, just call them up and they will re-activate it for you.

Again, ALOT of NOOBS in here.

They also said that the changes to even the same pc that will trigger re-activation will be much less. The most important will be the mobo, and the harddrive vista is installed on.

As for death of gaming...

Lets think about what you guys are talking about
4gbs, top of the line video card, and top of the line cpu.

What developer designs there game to only run on that?
answer: Only a stupid one. Most games will be targeted for on-board graphics with 512mbs of ram, with some cpu.
Vista will even give your pc a score card for preformance. AND will adjust game settings to match that performance. So that your highest end game will run on your lowest end crap.

Why? so that they can sell more copies of the game. Now if you want 400fps, at some resolution thats crazy high, with 32x aa, and AF, and all eye-candy at insane. They geuss what? you spend the cash to get it.

----------

As for windows Vista required more memory/cpu/harddrive space then windows xp...

What stupid tree did you fall off of that made you think an operating system thats 5-6 years newer. would require LESS memory, LESS CPU, LESS harddrive space?

Do you noobs think everything should run on a 486, with 4megs of ram, and a 400mb harddrive?

If you are getting that old that you cannot see that as technology advances you need more for the latest and best, then its time to watch matlock on your 1970s sony round tube tv, and change the channels with some pilars, while adjusting your rabbit ears. Because any more technology for you is dangerous.

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: michal1980
theres alot of noobs in here.

M$ came out that you can upgrade your pc, They said your retail copy can only be transfered to 1 differenct pc.

If you change all your hardware, just call them up and they will re-activate it for you.

Again, ALOT of NOOBS in here.

They also said that the changes to even the same pc that will trigger re-activation will be much less. The most important will be the mobo, and the harddrive vista is installed on.

As for death of gaming...

Lets think about what you guys are talking about
4gbs, top of the line video card, and top of the line cpu.

What developer designs there game to only run on that?
answer: Only a stupid one. Most games will be targeted for on-board graphics with 512mbs of ram, with some cpu.
Vista will even give your pc a score card for preformance. AND will adjust game settings to match that performance. So that your highest end game will run on your lowest end crap.

Why? so that they can sell more copies of the game. Now if you want 400fps, at some resolution thats crazy high, with 32x aa, and AF, and all eye-candy at insane. They geuss what? you spend the cash to get it.

----------

As for windows Vista required more memory/cpu/harddrive space then windows xp...

What stupid tree did you fall off of that made you think an operating system thats 5-6 years newer. would require LESS memory, LESS CPU, LESS harddrive space?

Do you noobs think everything should run on a 486, with 4megs of ram, and a 400mb harddrive?

If you are getting that old that you cannot see that as technology advances you need more for the latest and best, then its time to watch matlock on your 1970s sony round tube tv, and change the channels with some pilars, while adjusting your rabbit ears. Because any more technology for you is dangerous.

Yeah hardware change= new computer= 1 transfer used= another mobo/HD change?= new copy of Vista.

And yeah there ARE a lot of nOObs in here.

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: the Chase
Found the 2 gig vs. 4 gig benchmarks in Vista - http://www.bcchardware.com/index.php?op...om_content&task=view&id=3135&Itemid=40 - I don't really want to buy 4 gigs of memory....But it will frustrate the crap out of me to know I'm running this much slower because of having "only" 2 gigs of memory. Heck I have only 1 gig now...

My guess would be that the Superfetch feature of Vista still needs a bit of tuning. Also, that author is an idiot as he keeps complaining about how Vista will take up more RAM if you go up to 4GB. The OS should be using more RAM if it's available, otherwise it's just wasted.

From my own anecdotal experiences with XP and 2GB of RAM, I find that even if I am multitasking like crazy and manage to go over 2GB commit charge, my subjective performance remains about the same. You are only going to be working with so much data on an interactive basis at a time that the OS is able to hide most of the latency if it is working correctly.

Thats on old build :! Vista RC2 runs much faster the version they used to benchmark.

 

[michal1980]

Originally posted by: the Chase

Originally posted by: michal1980
theres alot of noobs in here.

M$ came out that you can upgrade your pc, They said your retail copy can only be transfered to 1 differenct pc.

If you change all your hardware, just call them up and they will re-activate it for you.

Again, ALOT of NOOBS in here.

They also said that the changes to even the same pc that will trigger re-activation will be much less. The most important will be the mobo, and the harddrive vista is installed on.

As for death of gaming...

Lets think about what you guys are talking about
4gbs, top of the line video card, and top of the line cpu.

What developer designs there game to only run on that?
answer: Only a stupid one. Most games will be targeted for on-board graphics with 512mbs of ram, with some cpu.
Vista will even give your pc a score card for preformance. AND will adjust game settings to match that performance. So that your highest end game will run on your lowest end crap.

Why? so that they can sell more copies of the game. Now if you want 400fps, at some resolution thats crazy high, with 32x aa, and AF, and all eye-candy at insane. They geuss what? you spend the cash to get it.

----------

As for windows Vista required more memory/cpu/harddrive space then windows xp...

What stupid tree did you fall off of that made you think an operating system thats 5-6 years newer. would require LESS memory, LESS CPU, LESS harddrive space?

Do you noobs think everything should run on a 486, with 4megs of ram, and a 400mb harddrive?

If you are getting that old that you cannot see that as technology advances you need more for the latest and best, then its time to watch matlock on your 1970s sony round tube tv, and change the channels with some pilars, while adjusting your rabbit ears. Because any more technology for you is dangerous.

Yeah hardware change= new computer= 1 transfer used= another mobo/HD change?= new copy of Vista.

And yeah there ARE a lot of nOObs in here.

Ya grab a mirror..

another mobo/HD Change? Call M$ get new activation key. DONE. 5 mintues of your time.