Support NeoGAF

[Senua]

only on gaf do we get topics like this

buncha wackos

 

[Aesius]

You're doing it wrong. I play RDR2 at 3440x1440 and 90+ FPS. It's GLORIOUS.

 

[JeremyEtcetera]

Games never look as good as I expect. Combine that with performance never being as good as I think it will be, even when playing old games, and I just feel let down.

I'm thinking I may as well just stick just to console gaming, as it doesn't feel like it's worth the premium I paid for my computer (RTX 3080 and R9 5900X).

It's because 99% of PC games have no choice but to follow console life cycles. So you're right.

But no one will admit that you're right because it means admitting that their large investment into PC gaming was futile just to tick slightly higher graphical boxes...which is why I don't mind having a gaming PC.

I admit it.

 

[Sleepwalker]

True. But I think the price tag on this stuff has overinflated my expectations. Doesn't really feel like it's worth 2x the premium of a console (and that's just for the graphics card).

I think I'm just having buyer's regret, from having spent >$2k on my PC and >$700 on my monitor.

Just start mining ethereum and make it all back.

 

[DonJuanSchlong]

Just upgraded from Audeze LCD2C with AAA THX 789 amp to the LCDX and Monolith THX 887 amp. And I don't even have buyers remorse, while you went from dropping frames and low resolution, to having a beast ass PC. You have no room to complain OP.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I love PC gaming. I love using a mouse and keyboard. I love playing games that run at low resolutions and 30 fps on consoles at 4K and 60 fps on my PC. But yeah it's a money pit and it's not for everyone. That's why consoles and phones are a thing.

 

[kiphalfton]

Just start mining ethereum and make it all back.

I considered that, but then I got spooked away from doing so as I saw people mentioning something about taxes. I will admit I looked into mining for all of 5 minutes, so excuse me if that is BS nonsense.

 

[nkarafo]

PCs are not like in the 90's anymore where you had games originally made for them. Now all games are made with consoles in mind and PCs are getting ports. Excluding strategy games ofc.

But it's still worth it though. You are still getting better graphics/fps than consoles so usually, you get to play the best ports.

 

[BusierDonkey]

Performance improvement /dollar spent is not a straight line graph in any industry. When you start getting into the top-end stuff the prices go up more steeply with less total benefit the higher you go. It's always been this way. That's just the gamer-oriented PC stuff. The really high-end PC stuff is productivity equipment, it's hardware designed to make you money. Rendering, compiling, editing, etc. Productivity equipment always has a higher price tag because the manufacturers know what it's intended end-use is. If it can make you money it's price will be higher. It's also always been this way.

 

[Kokoloko85]

Im a console gamer but those specs should do more than enough. You should be happy with performance and looks. Maybe its your monitor?

To me its about the games, PC games don’t offer the latest Nintendo or Playstation games.

Assassins creed at 120fps 4k etc Or the latest God of War Ragnarok or Fire emblem..... I prefer the console games and will take less performance on the multiplatform games compared to PC games. Its not like theres loads of AAA PC exclusives.

Plus I cant afford a high end PC lol. If you can afford, get them all and enjoy the best of all worlds

 

[Guilty_AI]

It's because 99% of PC games have no choice but to follow console life cycles. So you're right.

But no one will admit that you're right because it means admitting that their large investment into PC gaming was futile just to tick slightly higher graphical boxes...which is why I don't mind having a gaming PC.

I admit it.

Its not really a bad thing though since it extends the life of your build.
That said, there are plenty of games that have no care for the consoles and are built with PC platform in mind.

 

[Nyxir]

This is why I don't understand how someone buy/upgrade their PC at the beginning of a generation. The value proposition is at its worst.

Then again. GPU prices are getting out of hand. Thanks to the semi monopoly in the last decade.

 

[Shai-Tan]

It's because 99% of PC games have no choice but to follow console life cycles. So you're right.

But no one will admit that you're right because it means admitting that their large investment into PC gaming was futile just to tick slightly higher graphical boxes...which is why I don't mind having a gaming PC.

I admit it.

games do actually look better in native 4K though. You just have to care. even older games like The Witcher 3 look pretty nice in 4K w/mods.

 

[Phase]

The freedom of PC gaming is actually keeping my love of gaming alive. Modding games and niche communities thriving everywhere.

 

[JimboJones]

Bought thimbleweed park on switch, enjoying the game but thought "hey this would work well with gyro, for mouse like support" well after searching guess it doesn't support it, and the official forum has developer actually saying gyro would be hard to implement because nintendo does not have an easy to use api (ok so there is a cost involved seems reasonable) but then says it wouldn't work well (bizarre).

On PC i just enable support for Steam/PS4/Switch controller and hey ho, gyro support and it work well. That's the kind of stuff I like on PC.

I love the ease of use on console too but:
Developers are not infallible, there "vision" can suck.
Red tape can cause a lot of very simple fixes to get held up in limbo.

 

[JeremyEtcetera]

Its not really a bad thing though since it extends the life of your build.
That said, there are plenty of games that have no care for the consoles and are built with PC platform in mind.

I agree with your statement except for the fact that there are 'plenty of games' that are based outside of console life cycles. Each generation there's only a small handful.

games do actually look better in native 4K though. You just have to care. even older games like The Witcher 3 look pretty nice in 4K w/mods.

I know and that applies to me and you, but to the average person it isn't worth the larger investment. It's just a shinier polish on a game that isn't allowed to go above and beyond the console generation it's set for. Give it about 10-15 years and you'll be seeing people looking back and seeing that it didn't look at great as they remember.

 

[kiphalfton]

The freedom of PC gaming is actually keeping my love of gaming alive. Modding games and niche communities thriving everywhere.

How many games have mods though? As is the case with Gamepass PC games, you can't even mod them at all AFAIK.

 

[Guilty_AI]

I agree with your statement except for the fact that there are 'plenty of games' that are based outside of console life cycles. Each generation there's only a small handful.

Eh, Euro/American Truck Simulator, Arma 3, M&B2, Baldurs Gate 3, FS2020, pretty much the entire RTS genre, Factorio/Satisfactory, Starbase, even some that get console ports like Disco Elysium and Pillars of Eternity....
They were clearly designed aiming PC platforms, either because they were CPU heavy, just hardware heavy in general, rely on online communities, or simply were aiming to be played with a monitor+M&K.

 

[Shifty1897]

Sell us that 3080 OP if you don't love it. I'd give it a good home.

 

[JeremyEtcetera]

Eh, Euro/American Truck Simulator, Arma 3, M&B2, Baldurs Gate 3, FS2020, pretty much the entire RTS genre, Factorio/Satisfactory, Starbase, even some that get console ports like Disco Elysium and Pillars of Etternity....
They were clearly designed aiming PC platforms, either because they were CPU heavy, just hardware heavy in general, or simply were aiming to be played with a monitor+M&K.

My original point was that you were to put those games against the entire library of their generation, the ratio would equate to around 1 to 5 percent. The ratio is even worse if you were to put it to the entire library of steam. That's a drop in the ocean and if it were 20% or up then that would be a big enough dent to matter. OP will be fine with consoles.

 

[Sleepwalker]

I considered that, but then I got spooked away from doing so as I saw people mentioning something about taxes. I will admit I looked into mining for all of 5 minutes, so excuse me if that is BS nonsense.

Only taxable event when you sell it for USD, mining as an activity is not taxed, you only get taxed when converting into fiat and you can choose when to do so so it fits your taxes as best as possible.

 

[Phase]

How many games have mods though? As is the case with Gamepass PC games, you can't even mod them at all AFAIK.

I don't support Gamepass, so I wouldn't know. Most of the games I put significant amount of time into have mods (minus the online mp's).

 

[Goro Majima]

Doesn't really fit the OP's issue but this feels like the worst time to get into PC gaming since 2006ish and it's all because of this endless GPU shortage.

Graphics cards getting a surprise $75-150 bump at the beginning of the year due to tariffs really didn't help much.

Although it's a problem for all gamers right now. Can't buy last gen consoles and you can't buy current gen consoles. Basically if it's not a Switch, you're not easily getting hardware right now.

 

[Rathalos]

I feel the complete opposite. Gaming on my RTX 3080 and 10700KF @ 5.1GHz is an absolute dream. I could never downgrade to a console at this point.

 

[Guilty_AI]

My original point was that you were to put those games against the entire library of their generation, the ratio would equate to around 1 to 5 percent. The ratio is even worse if you were to put it to the entire library of steam. That's a drop in the ocean and if it were 20% or up then that would be a big enough dent to matter. OP will be fine with consoles.

Ratio hardly matters here though. Even if its just 1% of 3.000 games we're still talking about 30 games, which is a damn lot of them.

OP can do whatever he wants, different people have different needs, but to say PC libraries are completely reliant on console cycles is just untrue. Might be true for mainstream titles, but there are plenty of niches - both bigger and smaller ones - on the platform that don't seem too worried about consoles and just build their communities on PC.

 

[Shai-Tan]

I agree with your statement except for the fact that there are 'plenty of games' that are based outside of console life cycles. Each generation there's only a small handful.


I know and that applies to me and you, but to the average person it isn't worth the larger investment. It's just a shinier polish on a game that isn't allowed to go above and beyond the console generation it's set for. Give it about 10-15 years and you'll be seeing people looking back and seeing that it didn't look at great as they remember.

I already said myself that I would be ok only having a console if I didn’t care about mouse+keyboard (and mouse+keyboard games like Total Warhammer). The “in 10-15 years” frame is kind of weird though - like how many games won’t be locked 60 on consoles this gen? We’re playing the games now. If you care about smooth frame rates or 15% better visuals or want to do 120hz it might make sense to go pc (or upgrade to mid gen “pro” refresh console or whatever).

 

[zcaa0g]

Let me know when I can use a mouse and keyboard for any console game along with Virpil and VKB controllers and graphics not being gimped compared to a PC. Until then, uh.... no.

 

[Azurro]

Games never look as good as I expect. Combine that with performance never being as good as I think it will be, even when playing old games, and I just feel let down.

I'm thinking I may as well just stick just to console gaming, as it doesn't feel like it's worth the premium I paid for my computer (RTX 3080 and R9 5900X).

You are getting a lot of fire OP, but this is pretty much what I mean when I mention that PC gaming is tied down to what consoles (or even smartphones depending on how low the publisher is willing to get) can do. Pushing a slider to the right and making the clouds fluffier, the shadows a bit more defined do make games look better, but not to the degree that they look significantly different than a console to any meaningful degree.

At least your raytracing performance will be significantly better than anything XSX/PS5 can do, though again, it will be tied down to what they can do anyway.

 

[JeremyEtcetera]

Ratio hardly matters here though. Even if its just 1% of 3.000 games we're still talking about 30 games, which is a damn lot of them.

OP can do whatever he wants, different people have different needs, but to say PC libraries are completely reliant on console cycles is just untrue. Might be true for mainstream titles, but there are plenty of niches - both bigger and smaller ones - on the platform that don't seem too worried about consoles and just build their communities on PC.

Like you're pointing out, it's about perspective. To me 30 games(especially being mostly ones that aren't part of AAA companies) is minuscule when it comes to an overall number of games for a generation.

When I say PC libraries are reliant on console cycles, I'm speaking mainly in terms of graphical capabilities. You, rarely if ever, see a PC game at the beginning and middle of a new console cycle that looks like it was meant for the next console cycle. The last game I could think of that was that graphically taxing was the original Crysis, where there was no way you could reasonably run the original version on a 360 or PS3. It's because most of them usually set a standard for the console-equivalent GPUs and CPUs. It would be crazy and financially risky to not do that.

The “in 10-15 years” frame is kind of weird though - like how many games won’t be locked 60 on consoles this gen? We’re playing the games now. If you care about smooth frame rates or 15% better visuals or want to do 120hz it might make sense to go pc (or upgrade to mid gen “pro” refresh console or whatever).

Again, I'm talking graphically.

 

[MiguelItUp]

This has nothing to do with PC gaming and more so with the generation we're currently in, IMO. Consoles and PC look closer than ever. PC will generally have better resolution, performance, etc., but that all depends on the hardware at hand. Because better hardware equals better outcome/performance.

Some games look and perform noticeably better on PC. Though there are some situations where some people will notice it better than others, but that's neither here nor there. There are also moments where PC ports of classic games may not be the best port, but there are usually mods that make it as good as other ports, if not better.

But with your reaction, I simply think PC gaming maybe just isn't for you, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I was a console fan until about 13/14 years old when my family got our first computer, then I just juggled both. Exclusives on PC, and exclusives on console. After time I think I just accepted the fact that I dug PC gaming a bit more in the end. 20 years and some change later that's still me, and nothing has really changed.

 

[Shai-Tan]

Like you're pointing out, it's about perspective. To me 30 games(especially being mostly ones that aren't part of AAA companies) is minuscule when it comes to an overall number of games for a generation.

When I say PC libraries are reliant on console cycles, I'm speaking mainly in terms of graphical capabilities. You, rarely if ever, see a PC game at the beginning and middle of a new console cycle that looks like it was meant for the next console cycle. The last game I could think of that was that graphically taxing was the original Crysis, where there was no way you could reasonably run the original version on a 360 or PS3. It's because most of them usually set a standard for the console-equivalent GPUs and CPUs. It would be crazy and financially risky to not do that.


Again, I'm talking graphically.

Cyberpunk 2077 w/RTX looks nice. So does Metro Exodus. Setting aside that it will be a few years before anyone can run Cyberpunk well maxed. I don’t know what you expect when 90+% of pc right now are console spec or lower. Console isn’t holding it back as much as that.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Consoles are apart of the pc family now.

 

[JeremyEtcetera]

Cyberpunk 2077 w/RTX looks nice. So does Metro Exodus. Setting aside that it will be a few years before anyone can run Cyberpunk well maxed. I don’t know what you expect when 90+% of pc right now are console spec or lower. Console isn’t holding it back as much as that.

You're not getting my point. It's not about 'consoles holding back' anything. I'm literally stating that consoles graphical specs are being set as the standard each gen.

What I'm saying is that you're NOT going to find anything that looks like it was meant for Playstation 6 until 5-8 years from now when this gen starts to wrap up. At best what you'll find the next few years will look slightly better and shinier than what the current gen console can do. That's my point.

 

[Phase]

Consoles are apart of the pc family now.

 

[Sejan]

I think we are at a point graphically where the average gamer wouldn’t appreciate the graphical upgrades that PC offers nearly enough to justify the costs. Many of the improvements offered are things that are pretty easy to overlook when they aren’t an option. For example, I don’t think most people would notice the limitations of screen space reflections compared to ray traced reflections if they weren’t given direct comparisons.

Graphical improvements are increasingly a game of diminishing returns and those returns may not justify the price tag required.

 

[_Justinian_]

Ohhhh I get it. This entire thread is some kind of April Fool's joke, right? ...right??

 

[Arun1910]

I don't feel that way at all.

I love my PC. I like tweaking my settings to get a balance between FPS and Graphics.

I do think that the new consoles however have bridged the gap immensely. The Series X and PS5 in terms of power in relation to cost is amazing.

 

[Merkades]

While I definitely like the high end graphics and high frame rates, what I really like is mods, options and emulation. The Borderlands 3 Redux mod is shaping up nicely, and I still play Grim Dawn thanks to Reborn and DoM. You also have non content type mod like .ini files, Reshade, and SpecialK. I removed all that nasty blur from Outriders before the devs eventually added those options, which is the next point, too many console games are still "this is how we made it and how you will play it". I hate DoF and MB, film grain and anything that lowers image quality, most PC games let you turn them off. And Emulation is what it is: Awesome.

Still won't give up my consoles, not until every game I want is available on PC. Anyways, to each their own.

 

[Kenpachii]

If you just play console games and like the limited experience, Then just buy a console and be done with it.

I prefer PC for even console games because of the simple way it gives me full control over the game like mods, settings i can change, visuals i can change. keyboard mouse. while sitting on discord, and watching a movie / youtubing / reading forums on a second and 3rd screen. its basically my entire media center. And that's just console games. Outside of that there is a metric ton of other content on PC to do, like emulation / PC games etc.

I would say, get a second and 3rd screen and start using that, while u play for example a mmo and u will never go back to consoles after u get used to that. It just feels like its a toy at that point.

 

[Pejo]

Mods and backing up your catalogue of games on a single platform via ripping discs and emulators automatically makes it the best place to play for me personally. I don't think that next gen I'll even buy a console anymore. There's just an obscenely massive library from all previous consoles that can be played with a single machine. What's not to love? You have more control over your experience than anywhere else, you can undo censorship, you can do custom servers for online games that are now shut down. It's the best of all worlds.

 

[hououinkyouma00]

Hmm, I've been a pc gamer for nearly 2 decades now - others who haven't would think PC gaming has been disappointing as typically consoles always used to play catch up.

Before the best looking games and features were always specifically on PC. Enter Xbox, suddenly this began to change.

Material Shaded water in Elder Scrolls Morrowind was groundbreaking in 2002 if you had the hardware, far superior on PC but still very pleasant on Xbox.

Still PC had games that wouldn't come to consoles for another 2 generations. Battlefield for instance was doing 128 man MP maps with modded settings and 64 player
maps standard and the graphics/draw distance/objects on screen blew away every other game that came before it. And the ported 7vs7 BF and variants that came afterwards
to console have forever since paled in comparison.

Half Life 2 came out and again was absolutely stunning, a technical marvel on PC. Ported to consoles and they suddenly began to show their age.

As a PC gamer you're expected to know PC's

A. have the best of the best. Best graphics, best framerates, best hardware.

B. Aware that in most cases Keyboard and Mouse is far and away the superior way to play

C. Aware that Multiplayer Gaming still reigns Supreme on PC. If you don't enjoy Keyboard And Mouse Multiplayer you shouldn't consider yourself a PC gamer anyways.

D. Aware that Modding support is still best when consumed on PC.

E. Realize that eventually, one day - another game will release on PC that consoles can't hope to run efficiently without great losses in visual acuity. Some would consider
Star Citizen one of those games already. I don't personally but if you haven't made this realization, that PC's are wholly underutilized currently and have been for about a decade
you probably weren't a legitimate PC gamer to begin with.

Posts like these are the exact opposite of what it should be. You can keep your gate keeping attitude. PC gaming should be about freedom of choice not oh if you aren’t a mouse and keyboard gamer then you aren’t a PC gamer bullshit.

 

[Nhranaghacon]

Posts like these are the exact opposite of what it should be. You can keep your gate keeping attitude. PC gaming should be about freedom of choice not oh if you aren’t a mouse and keyboard gamer then you aren’t a PC gamer bullshit.

If you adhere to using a controller to play most First Person Shooters, Adventure or Strategies games - or really nearly any game on PC - aside from perhaps Racing/Flight Stick Games... as PC also offers superior Steering Wheel/Flight Stick apparatuses to even consoles - you are not only playing at a disadvantage if you utilize PC's for online gaming when playing with a controller - your are playing at sub optimal efficiency that is in fact alien to native standard control schemes on PC. There is a reason users most countless minutes configuring their controller experience - as it is an alien non native PC gaming control scheme and far from efficient.

There is a reason controller aficionados cant keep up with keyboard and mouse users in serious online forays. Even sub-skilled PC players routinely trounce experts without exception, who prefer gamepads.

 

[hououinkyouma00]

If you adhere to using a controller to play most First Person Shooters, Adventure or Strategies games - or really nearly any game on PC - aside from perhaps Racing/Flight Stick Games... as PC also offers superior Steering Wheel/Flight Stick apparatuses to even consoles - you are not only playing at a disadvantage if you utilize PC's for online gaming when playing with a controller - your are playing at sub optimal efficiency that is in fact alien to native standard control schemes on PC. There is a reason users most countless minutes configuring their controller experience - as it is an alien non native PC gaming control scheme and far from efficient.

There is a reason controller aficionados cant keep up with keyboard and mouse users in serious online forays. Even sub-skilled PC players routinely trounce experts without exception, who prefer gamepads.

It’s all about what game you play but to put out a blanket statement that you can’t be a true pc gamer and use a controller is elitist bullshit.

Yeah you aren’t going to use a controller in CSGO, but a controller can be plenty useable in COD, or Halo both of which have big PC followings.

The post just reeked of the elitist attitude that some pc people seem to have and I think it is detrimental to the community.

 

[TheUsual]

I just upgraded to a G Sync monitor. That has been a game changer for me. There's no turning back.

 

[Durask]

I considered that, but then I got spooked away from doing so as I saw people mentioning something about taxes. I will admit I looked into mining for all of 5 minutes, so excuse me if that is BS nonsense.

What about taxes? I guess you are supposed to declare it, up to you whether to do it or not...

In any case, just install Nicehash and you'll pay off your PC in 6 months or so. Can't do that on a console.

 

[Optimus Lime]

I love PC gaming just as I love console gaming, but holy shit if the current culture of PC gaming hasn't taken the crown, year after year, as the single most insufferable gaming subculture on planet earth. The smugness dripping from PCMR types is just nauseating, especially considering most of them only started PC gaming in the last decade.

OP, PC gaming is as great or as annoying as you want it to be. And, don't let anyone fool you into telling you that in every imaginable use case, and every possible context in which you'll want to play games, a PC will be the superior option. If you want to be a hobbyist and you want to build systems, learn how they work, and really get into the hobby, where you try to figure out how to make the games that you want to play look as good as they possibly can, then a PC - and the financial and emotional investment that you make in it - is definitely worth it.

But, in 2021, if all you want is to kick back and play some games in your living room, a PS5 or XSX deliver a markedly improved experience over every console generation that has gone before. Smug idiots will inevitably tell you OMG JUST PLUG YOUR PC INTO THE TV, and will neglect to mention the massive gulf in the experience between Windows 10 running on a TV - with the myriad issues that this can create, and a console UI and hardware that is designed for those kinds of screens. The gap has closed more significantly this time than it has since the 360 days. So, if you want to stick to console gaming, do it, and don't let the PCMR mutants of GAF put you off. Right now, this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do - we aren't in 2012 with horribly compromised hardware and ridiculously low performing systems anymore.

 

[hououinkyouma00]

Games never look as good as I expect. Combine that with performance never being as good as I think it will be, even when playing old games, and I just feel let down.

I'm thinking I may as well just stick just to console gaming, as it doesn't feel like it's worth the premium I paid for my computer (RTX 3080 and R9 5900X).

You will get so much shit for this but I understand it.

PC gaming isn’t for everybody, and that is perfectly fine. It’s kind of like how a game or a genre isn’t for everybody. Play what you enjoy. If that is PC then great, if that is consoles then great.

I wonder if some of it comes from the amount of posts on forums like this where people talk about how much better everything looks on pc? It definitely does but some of that comes from stuff like ultra wide and gsync and stuff like that which you don’t necessarily have.

This Gen and the upcoming ones will have all diminishing returns which is why you see a lot of posts about next gen being disappointing as well.

I will also say this. Give it a honest try and not a knee jerk reaction and if you still don’t like it sell it. Don’t make yourself play somewhere you don’t enjoy. Hell with how fucked pc gaming prices are right now you can probably make some money on it right now.

 

[Magnific0giganticus]

You can do other stuff than game on your PC.

You can do other stuff than racing on a Super Car too, but you think that's what people buy them for?

 

[theclaw135]

The elitists are a relic of the past. Name all the games the past decade conceived, produced, and developed exclusively for high end PCs. Devoted games that completely refuse to make any concessions for lower end rigs, least of all consoles.

Consoles won't ever be more powerful, that's silly, but their real limitations today are imposed by DRM - not the hardware. A current gen console is obviously 100% capable of using keyboards and mice, or loading modded files from an HDD.

 

[Nhranaghacon]

It’s all about what game you play but to put out a blanket statement that you can’t be a true pc gamer and use a controller is elitist bullshit.

Yeah you aren’t going to use a controller in CSGO, but a controller can be plenty useable in COD, or Halo both of which have big PC followings.

The post just reeked of the elitist attitude that some pc people seem to have and I think it is detrimental to the community.

Controllers are an insufficient in nearly all cases on PC, and only effectively better in maybe.. at best 2 genres - none of which are first person.

I personally do not play side scrollers on PC. But even most modern side scrollers tailored for PC are better suited to keyboard and mouse.

Completely useable is no alternative to superior control systems. Otherwise Console players would often and as standard be matched against PC gamers.

As it stands now they are only matched against PC Gamers when they ask, and typically warned of skill deficiencies dependent and based purely on the fact that they are utilizing a gamepad.

There is no contest here, games tailored to play on PC (which are most) - and even those you cited - play best with Keyboard and Mouse unless a game is perhaps a lazy port. And even then, chances are it's
better to play with a Keyboard.