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Is a new PC a better choice than a next gen console?

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Sounds about right. Especially if bf4 specs are similar to bf3 as dice says.

They're not yet commenting on whether or to what degree there'll be a performance/quality decrease on the same spec from BF3->BF4. Which suggests to me there will be a tradeoff.

I don't think it's at all clear that a mid-range PC of today will play next-gen games as well in 2018 as it does today, or as a console will. That's a bit of a shot in the dark. The advantage of a console is that it can guarantee to be play those games in 5, 6, 7 years, and to the same standard as every other console of the same type. It can be hoped that a PC of a certain spec will hold up better over time this gen than last, but it can't be guaranteed.
 

Tain

Member
Every single game? Sure about that? I've played Yoshis island, Banjo Tooie and Paper Mario without noticing any audio lag, screen tearing or display lag. Paper Mario had some messed up sprites but that was it

It's pretty much guaranteed. The console games will often make use of their own kind of buffering/vsync/whatever you want to call it when running on the original hardware, and this is reflected in emulation. Vsync always adds lag, and when you turn vsync on in an emulator like MAME or whatever you're stacking the lag you get from vsync with any lag that might have been present in the original hardware. If you don't use vsync, you'll always see some kind of screen tearing due to the difference between the original hardware's refresh rate and your current PC refresh rate. Almost all emulators render audio to some buffer that gets played back, too, so even with NES games you'll often get something like 30-50ms of audio lag.

The screen tearing thing is night and day to me. The lag is definitely harder to notice, especially in slower games, to the point where most people wouldn't care about it.
 

louiedog

Member
This thread is a mess of misinformation and hyperbole. It's literally the worst thread in the history of the Internet. I recommend anyone who came in looking for answers ignore everything being posted.
 
Such as what, RTS? RTS is not a genre that sells many copies, so it's not a "Gaping Hole" by ANY means. Plus, more and more games are being reworked to use a controller like we're seeing with Diablo 3, I'm sure the RTS genre will be cracked eventually as well..

StarCraft 2 sold 6 million copies alone. The Total War franchise sold 2 Million copies last year when Sega didn't even release a new full game. It's a healthy genre.
 

Gustav

Banned
there is a huge gaping hole in console libraries due to the limitations of a catch-all control scheme; many games simply cannot be played in any kind of effective way from 8 feet away with two thumbsticks.

it's moronic to consider a platform's inability to facilitate these titles as some kind of advantage.

You know what's even more moronic? Balancing a keyboard and a touchpad on your knees while trying to get Battlefield 3 to launch.
I am smart enough to not buy Rome:Total War for my "Steambox" but it's baffeling that it's too hard for devs to make games that work prefectly fine with a controller start without the use of keyboard and mouse.
 

Tain

Member
lol, "RTS not a gaping hole by any means"

hell, how about the vast majority of the entire "strategy" side of the genre tree
 
Such as what, RTS? RTS is not a genre that sells many copies, so it's not a "Gaping Hole" by ANY means. Plus, more and more games are being reworked to use a controller like we're seeing with Diablo 3, I'm sure the RTS genre will be cracked eventually as well.


Having a standardized input method for ALL GAMES and ALL ASPECTS OF THE OS that works ergonomically while on a couch is a HUGE advantage. It's a big reason why many people (including me) won't even consider a PC.

We call that bastardized.
 

erick

Banned
A game running on a card with lower VRAM will just have settings that lower the VRAM usage, like lower res textures or lower res effect buffers.

That was my original point. Take the GTX 680 2GB for example. Despite having many times more rendering power than the GPU in the PS4, if faced with a 3GB vRAM dataset, it will do one of the following:

a) stutter unplayably or crash
b) play games just fine and at a very good fps ... at *significantly* reduced IQ compared to consoles (which you have to configure by hand or hope that the GeForce Experience does it for you automagically). Basically medium settings for textures, medium view distance, medium number of unique objects/actors in a given scene etc - stuff that drives up vRAM usage.

Of course you can comfort yourself with applying 16x FXAA, epic post-processing effects, better fps and/or higher resolution - stuff that makes use of rendering power. But you will still be playing at only medium settings with a high end GPU. Hence come autumn the aftermarket value of those GPUs will hit the floor, as people start moving over to 3GB or 4GB mid range or high-end cards that can better accommodate these loads.
 

Kade

Member
Such as what, RTS? RTS is not a genre that sells many copies, so it's not a "Gaping Hole" by ANY means. Plus, more and more games are being reworked to use a controller like we're seeing with Diablo 3, I'm sure the RTS genre will be cracked eventually as well.

RTS has already been cracked by removing complexity. Keyboard to controller is no different than controller to touchscreen so while genres have technically been brought over, they are more than often not the optimal input method. Just because it works, doesn't mean it's good. The same also applies for games better with a controller than a keyboard and mouse which thanks to the nature of the PC isn't really a problem since both are supported. Can't say the same for consoles.
 

ghst

thanks for the laugh
StarCraft 2 sold 6 million copies alone. The Total War franchise sold 2 Million copies last year when Sega didn't even release a new full game. It's a healthy genre.

he's not debating, he's just trying to frame the debate in such a way that it shifts the argument to grounds of traditional console advantage.

ignoring the sheer eclecticism which the lack of a drilled in single standard promotes (eclecticism which has birthed the single most popular game in the world right now); the guy frames the whole thing in terms of a single genre's absolute sales: "it's just one type of game and who cares, it doesn't sell much anyway, plus there's ways of getting around it".

while you can correct the outright factual inaccuracies in what he's saying, it's more constructive to just call it out as the scrambling exercise in hand waving that it is.

Yep.

Was hoping Steambox will make a proper push in this regard. Where the hell is that thing, anyway?

the top five games on steam right now are dota 2, football manager, TF2, counter-strike and Civ 5. three of which are impossible with a controller, the other two put you at a huge competitive advantage to the point where playing with a one is an exercise in masochistic frustration.

so don't get your hopes of for steam to suddenly impose limiting draconian standards on input devices to the detriment of the vast majority of the userbase.
 

Duallusion

Member
Having a standardized input method for ALL GAMES and ALL ASPECTS OF THE OS that works ergonomically while on a couch is a HUGE advantage. It's a big reason why many people (including me) won't even consider a PC.

Yep.

Was hoping Steambox will make a proper push in this regard. Where the hell is that thing, anyway?
 

Ghost

Chili Con Carnage!
The best game of 2001 was Deus Ex, though...

The data shows that review scores favor console games--which makes sense. Most gaming journalists seem to own and work primarily on Macs, most of them seem to prioritize and play console games, and so on and so forth. There's a pretty significant bias against PC gaming--I'm not talking about a deliberate interest in censuring PC games, I'm saying that the media's tastes tend to be specific towards consoles and away from PC games.

I don't care about, say, Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy or The Legend of Zelda or what have you, but most gaming journalists grew up with those games, placing a great deal of value on them. I don't. I couldn't care less about them, in fact.

So... it's hard to say the console market can bring the PC market to its knees in quality when the best they've got to offer are games I think are subjectively (and in some ways, objectively) worthless.


I probably would have put Deus Ex on the 2001 list if it had come up when I searched, I must have already gotten to 10 before I saw it, sorry about that.

Lists are totally subjective and yeah, 'to it's knees' is probably hyperbole on my part but I don't think it can be argued that if you only owned a PC in 2001 you missed out on a hell of a lot of important games, many more than you did if you only owned a PC in 2012. And that's my point/question, will the next generation of consoles be powerful enough, or different enough, to make 2014/15 years when most of the important games are console exclusive? or has the market/technology architecture changed to the point where outside of first party exclusives, console games that don't exist on PC (and work great) are few and far between?


The majority seem to think the latter.
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
Build a nice PC, buy a 360 wireless controller/adapter, hook it up to your TV and get much better looking games than this gen and marginally better looking games than next gen. Then buy a price reduced next gen system for the exclusives later in the generation.
 

wizzbang

Banned
Not even close, the PC always shines at the end of a console cycle, it did it last time, it's done it this time.

Considering the huge upswing in smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart TV's and if anything the idea of a desktop becoming even more niche - look to see the PC really ease off in the coming years. It's never going to go away but right now it's at PC peak again.
 

Mononoke

Banned
A new PC is technically better. But Consoles will always have its exclusives. Personally, 90% of the games that come to consoles in a given year are 3rd party. And thus will be on PC, and at much higher quality. When people compare the cost of a PC to Console, I think it's kind of silly. First off, while a gaming PC will be twice as expensive as a console, it's still a PC. Almost every gamer has a stand alone PC in their room (or one that there family uses. Although more so than any other time, more individuals have their own PC or laptop). And when you figure that cost in, most people will pay $400-500 for a pre-made PC/laptop (some college students will go $1000 for apple products).

And this PC/laptop is used daily for pretty much everything. You depend on it. Then you consider these same people that own a PC/Laptop will turn around and pay $400-500 for a console. So really, building your own PC is just about consolidating your gaming hobby into a tool you already would need. Ironically, it becomes more of the "one box, for all entertainment" that the Xbox One is trying to be.

So price wise, and quality wise, I would even argue PC has consoles beat. But it all comes back to exclusives. You just have to look at what both systems are offering, and see if it's worth missing out on. Honestly, if you aren't that excited about the games being offered on both consoles initially, I would say build a PC, then get a PS4 of Xbox One in a year or two when more exclusives are out that interest you. There is no rush at all to go out and buy one.
 

C-Sword

Member
I've been wondering about that as well, but the difference is I've never been a PC gamer. I'm leaning towards a gaming laptop like the Asus ROG, but I can only afford a tower right now.
 

Mononoke

Banned
I've been wondering about that as well, but the difference is I've never been a PC gamer. I'm leaning towards a gaming laptop like the Asus ROG, but I can only afford a tower right now.

You can build something much stronger than an Asus Rog if you do so in Tower form.
 

coldfoot

Banned
StarCraft 2 sold 6 million copies alone. The Total War franchise sold 2 Million copies last year when Sega didn't even release a new full game. It's a healthy genre.
8 millon copies in 3 years is not a healthy amount of sales for an entire genre, considering one of them has been anticipated for 10 years.
 
I've been wondering about that as well, but the difference is I've never been a PC gamer. I'm leaning towards a gaming laptop like the Asus ROG, but I can only afford a tower right now.

Go for the tower unless you really need portability. Gaming laptops are loud, expensive, have shitty battery life and most of all, can't be upgraded in the future.
 

Sentenza

Member
I've been wondering about that as well, but the difference is I've never been a PC gamer. I'm leaning towards a gaming laptop like the Asus ROG, but I can only afford a tower right now.
Unless you seriously *need* the mobility a laptop offers, I seriously discourage it as a gaming platform.
A desktop system will always be better in dozens of ways, first and foremost cost and ergonomics.

8 millon copies in 3 years is not a healthy amount of sales for an entire genre, considering one of them has been anticipated for 10 years.
...What?

goal1.jpg
 

schuey7

Member
For those who are ok with no first party games I absolutely feel that going PC only is a very viable option as the cheaper games work out better in the long run.I mean in India the price difference can be as much as 2000 rupees per game and considering an xbox is 16000 here I could make it back up in just 8 games.Hell with the steam sale and Humble bundle type deals this could be a no brainer if you are strapped for cash.
 
8 millon copies in 3 years is not a healthy amount of sales for an entire genre, considering one of them has been anticipated for 10 years.

Those were examples of numbers that I am aware of. They do not represent the total genre sales for the last 3 years. I'm not sure how you would have possibly come to that conclusion but the thread is turning ugly, so I'll bow out.
 

Timeaisis

Member
I know we're not supposed to be talking about your tastes, but I find myself agreeing with your top 10 games of each year list with like a 90% success rate. Just thought I'd share that you have an excellent taste in games. But, on to the point....

Yes, I think PC gaming can absolutely disrupt console sales. I've always dabbled in both, because there's always something you can't get on the other. That being said, PS4 and Xbone seem to me just like cheap mid-range gaming rigs. They don't really have a lot going for them other than that (maybe Kinect, I guess). That, and they don't seem to be bringing the exclusives as much as they used to.

Because of this, games are going multiplatform on PC as well. While I don' think this is going to kill console gaming in any meaningful way, I do think that PC will have continue to have a larger stake in the games market as it has been growing to. Steam and digital distribution being a strong component of that, as well as indie titles.

I don't think console gaming is going to die, but I do think their going to find a slightly different place in the market. Nintendo is obviously choosing not to compete with any of them, which I think is the right idea. They have a separate experience that you can't get on PC/XB/PS. But I do think the big three are going to be struggling for consumers, because there isn't a huge difference between them right at the moment. Except that if you have money, PC gaming is better.
 

schuey7

Member
Go for the tower unless you really need portability. Gaming laptops are loud, expensive, have shitty battery life and most of all, can't be upgraded in the future.

This cannot be overstated but for the price of a midrange gaming laptop you can get a kickass desktop pc.Plus I feel that the gaming laptops are shit at mobility which is the point of a laptop.
 

coldfoot

Banned
the top five games on steam right now are dota 2, football manager, TF2, counter-strike and Civ 5
Which one of those genres are impossible with a controller? We have MOBA, Shooters, and non-realtime Strategy games on consoles. Even have football management sims, the PSP even had football manager at the time.
 

Tain

Member
coldfoot said:
Having a standardized input method for ALL GAMES and ALL ASPECTS OF THE OS that works ergonomically while on a couch is a HUGE advantage. It's a big reason why many people (including me) won't even consider a PC.

I can understand where this is coming from. On the developer's end, there are obvious benefits for building to a fixed platform where you know exactly what the performance will be, what the control options will be, and can even know (or control!) things like the physical size of the screen, the speakers the user is listening through, even the fucking chair they are sitting in (~glorious arcades~). You can build your game entirely around these things. On the user's end things wind up being pretty easy and convenient (except for needing to own special hardware in the first place, lol), but that's less important to me.

Not that any of this takes away from the benefits that come from being able to buy hardware WAY more advanced than what the software is designed for, of course. It's just the upsides to fixed hardware, not why fixed hardware is better.
 
the top five games on steam right now are dota 2, football manager, TF2, counter-strike and Civ 5. three of which are impossible with a controller, the other two put you at a huge competitive advantage to the point where playing with a one is an exercise in masochistic frustration.

so don't get your hopes of for steam to suddenly impose limiting draconian standards on input devices to the detriment of the vast majority of the userbase.
Actually, Civ V would work fine with a controller. It's a turn-based strategy game. They even had one on consoles that I vaguely remember reading about it being pretty good. I've never played Football Manager so I've no idea about that. DotA 2 obviously couldn't. TF2 and Counterstrike and any other FPS is fine with a controller, tens of millions of people play shooters (even competitive ones) with a controller and have a lot of fun. Calling it masochistic frustration is gross hyperbole.

do people ever stop to think about how horribly sycophantic they come across? i keep seeing the same few titles trotted out by console gamers and i'm not sure if it's a victory of marketing or a failure of the human condition.

you'll occasionally see a PC person mention some big PC titles in rebuttal, but rarely do you see whole threads where every third post is name dropping dota, total war, arma or any other myriad titles which are limited to PC only. given the complete eclectic depth of the PC library, it seems trivial ram a single title down someone's throat; PC caters for every taste and it's more important to open up a person to its possibilities than impose your own idea of the platform on then.

it'd like going to a film festival with a loud haler and screaming "oh yeah, but have you got olympus has fallen!?".
You don't see people name-dropping Arma and TW because barely anyone here plays them. They sell to the same 1 or 2 million people. I don't know if it's the uncharacteristic typos (on a phone, perhaps?) but these posts were more condescending than usual. Rather than reading in awe of your god-tier poster status, I feel hurt and belittled. What happened to the ghst that made me dizzy with laughter & delight...
 

Grief.exe

Member
I've been wondering about that as well, but the difference is I've never been a PC gamer. I'm leaning towards a gaming laptop like the Asus ROG, but I can only afford a tower right now.

Learn to build your own, don't just pickup a prebuilt from Alienware, Best Buy, or Microcenter. Prebuilts are a borderline scam.

You don't see people name-dropping Arma and TW because barely anyone here plays them. They sell to the same 1 or 2 million people. I don't know if it's the uncharacteristic typos (on a phone, perhaps?) but these posts were more condescending than usual. Rather than reading in awe of your god-tier poster status, I feel hurt and belittled.

Total War Series sold 2 million last year without a new game. Those were just legacy sales alone.
 

Applecot

Member
I've been a long time PC-goer. I switched to consoles (at the end of the PS3 cycle) and I'm pretty much a convert.
If it's of any use I'll list my reasons:

1) Exclusives caught my eye
2) PS+ feels like really good value
3) Drivers annoy the crap out of me (mainly ATI CF drivers)
4) I have a history of building very expensive PCs at very high prices
5) Before my PS3 I owned a Genesis; the rediscovery of local multiplayer to play with friends and siblings was great fun
6) This was the kicker for the most part, IQ and framerates were not much of an issue for me on the PS3 cross platform games

I would consider points 2+4 countered off the fact steam sales = $2 games. Even at a budget end PC (by my standards) I would be spending a minimum $2000 on my PC to keep up with a singular console cycle.

For the PC side, I'm not a mod crazy person but games like Skyrim I went PC. Tomb raider, I loved the TresFX hair so I went PC for that too.

More for the PS4 side, the combination of Vita remote play and already having PS+ makes me quite keen on getting the PS4.
 

Dorfdepp

Neo Member
I'll upgrade my PC next year and I'll buy a PS4 in 2015+. The times where i wanted to play many games day one are long gone. So waiting till the PS4 gets some decent exclusive is the only right choice for me.

And I'll be damned if i miss out on the Oculus Rift, aka real next gen gaming.
 

C-Sword

Member
Let's say I don't want to build a PC myself, cause I'm not tech savy, which one would you guys recommend? I'd say my budget is $800. Preferably one with a HDMI output and can be bought at retail stores.
 

manueldelalas

Time Traveler
I've been a long time PC-goer. I switched to consoles (at the end of the PS3 cycle) and I'm pretty much a convert.
If it's of any use I'll list my reasons:

1) Exclusives caught my eye
2) PS+ feels like really good value
3) Drivers annoy the crap out of me (mainly ATI CF drivers)
4) I have a history of building very expensive PCs at very high prices
5) Before my PS3 I owned a Genesis; the rediscovery of local multiplayer to play with friends and siblings was great fun
6) This was the kicker for the most part, IQ and framerates were not much of an issue for me on the PS3 cross platform games

I would consider points 2+4 countered off the fact steam sales = $2 games. Even at a budget end PC (by my standards) I would be spending a minimum $2000 on my PC to keep up with a singular console cycle.

For the PC side, I'm not a mod crazy person but games like Skyrim I went PC. Tomb raider, I loved the TresFX hair so I went PC for that too.

More for the PS4 side, the combination of Vita remote play and already having PS+ makes me quite keen on getting the PS4.
Why do you have different standards on PC and consoles? What makes the difference?

You can build a full PC at $800 that will play all of current games, and most next gen games in moderate or high settings, at better resolution than consoles and better framerate...
 

owasog

Member
And you know, porting between console and PC has never ever been so easy as it will be this coming gen. A few quirks aside, the new consoles are based on standard PC architectures.
What I do see coming this autumn is massive changes in the Steam Harware Survey charts as people upgrade their specs for the coming goodness.
I very much doubt that. 2014 will be the year of the cross-gen games. People with mainstream cards will just lower their settings a bit.

It's only when games start looking like 'Dark Scorcerer' that things start to get interesting. Then people will have a reason to buy new cards. Until then, I expect a stagnant Steam Hardware Survey.

(I'm amazed the Geforce 9600 is still in the top 10 Nvidia cards!!!)
 
Let's say I don't want to build a PC myself, cause I'm not tech savy, which one would you guys recommend? I'd say my budget is $800. Preferably one with a HDMI output and can be bought at retail stores.

A pre-made? If you really don't want to put it together then get a case which has the motherboard and power supply already installed for you, maybe even the CPU too. Those would be the most difficult parts to put together. You can get a combo like that at Newegg. At the very least get individual GPU, HDD, RAM, and DVD drive. It's very easy to setup, I'm an idiot and put mine in a little over an hour and that's with every part being individual. What I just described would take you like 30 minutes.
 

coldfoot

Banned
...Which, coming at no upfront cost, is bad thing because...?
The original point was RTS not being seen as a big genre and most gamers being OK with missing it on consoles. This is not the 90's anymore, RTS's are becoming a niche genre, most people don't care about them to spend $60 at launch. I'm sure the 637K copies of a flawed console RTS such as Halo Wars generated far more revenue in a month, but in the console space, it's seen as a game that did not sell that well.

That was my point, the overwhelming majority thinks it's no big deal to miss RTS's in exchange for being able to sit and play on the couch.
 

Grief.exe

Member
Let's say I don't want to build a PC myself, cause I'm not tech savy, which one would you guys recommend? I'd say my budget is $800. Preferably one with a HDMI output and can be bought at retail stores.

I can't recommend buying a prebuilt, they use cheap parts, short warranties, and bad performance.

Check out the thread that was linked, and have someone pick out some parts to fit your budget. Bring them to a local business and have them assemble one for you.
 
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