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[Divine Puncher]

PCs are for Photoshop, surfing the web, and porn. Playing games on a PC is not only an exercise in frustration, but a hobby that only a lonely old virgin can enjoy.
I'm not trolling, just expressing my opinion.

I *COULD* spend $200 on a Radeon 9800, but goddamn....it'll be obsolete in 6 months, and will probably choke while playing HL2.....

 

[Spectral Glider]

I played Far Cry pretty well on my sub $1000 computer.. that I built a year ago.

Same here.

I really think that you'll be going over the $1000 mark to play Far Cry, I never claimed that it would cost $1500, but I know that Far Cry is a pretty advanced game and needs a high end system.

That point doesn't matter as much cause the Xbox isn't going to deliver Far Cry at the highest settings either.

The big question is if the Xbox version will deliver a Far Cry that looks and runs as good (framerate wise) as the PC version on say middle of the road settings. If it does, then all is good.

But lets not also forget that there are many people who've already played through the game and most likely didn't pay $50 for it either. I picked it up like a month and a half ago for $29. But if you're more or less gaming PC-less, then a decent console port helps. These are the real arguments for and against the game.

 

[ghostface]

LOL!

Anyway, my PC sucks ass, so Xbox will be where I will play this game.

 

[dorio]

Why are the pc guys so threatenend by the xbox? If you like playing the game on a pc, good for you. No one cares.

 

[rastex]

Money is only 1 factor, another very important thing is TIME.

You buy a console from the store, come home, 10 minutes later it's hooked up ready to go. Pop in a game and in 25 seconds you're in.

PCs, to get them cheap you have to buy the parts separately, now looking for those good deals takes a few hours (at the very least). No thrifty PC-gamer will just buy any old device, they'll look up particular manufacturers compatibility, and a whole host of other things, usually the process takes a few days up to weeks. Then you actually get the parts, let's assume (incorrectly) that they all come in at the same time, you know have to assemble them. For a PC enthusiast this should take a small amount of time, maybe an hour or 2. For a non-PC enthusiast this can be impossible and that's not even considering the fact they may screw up one of the components. Now you have your hardware all put together, time to install. Installing Windows takes about 30 minutes to a few hours, then you have to update all your drivers, that takes another 30 minutes, then comes installing the game which takes another 5-30 minutes. Then you turn on the game...

"New patches are available please install"

another 5-10 minutes, upwards of hours depending on patch size and connection speed.

Run the game...

"Device Error: 30300348E"

Crap, wrong version of DirectX

another 5-30 minutes (depending on connection speed)

Run the game...

"Device Error: 320343084039F"

look on support forums, and find out the game is incompatible with your particular graphics card and motherboard configuration.


OR it does work, but you've already spent dozens of hours setting everything up. Then each time you get a new game you gotta go through the installation process all over again, hoping it'll work with your hardware all over again, getting new drivers all over again.

Money-wise, it's not that much more (it can be argued), let's say at least doubled. But timewise it's factors of 10 and even a 100 more time consuming to play PC games than it is console games. For the working adult whose time is a very precious commodity and want to play their games NOW, the PC is just an excersize in frustration.

I gaurantee the people who espouce playing games on their PCs fall into a very limited set of categories:
Students (from junior high to college)
IT workers
Programmers
Unemployed


(though the second and third aren't that much different from the forth, ho ho!)


I should add: If you're building your PC from scratch then it most likely won't come with an OS. So if you want to play games you'll be installing Windows which incurs another $100 cost (I think, I really have no idea what the hell Windows costs now).

 

[Mashing]

Hmmm... while I'm in the IT field I do have to comment that I've never encountered so much problems with games as you seem to state here. You're generalizing for the sake of an argument. I buy my components seperately, install them myself, install the OS and install any other software I see fit. My experience tells me that this is a smooth process more often than not. Also, I've never ONCE though... "Damn the PC shit sucks and takes forever... I should be playing my consoles!"

In fact I probably post on this forum more than I play my games, paticularly if I haven't bought anything new in a while.

 

[Pachinko]

I thought it looked pretty good for an XBOX port off of the best looking game available currently(from a technical standpoint when played on a computer capable of using the high graphics settings). Also it isn't finished so I'd think that some of the graphic hiccups like the flickering shadows will be fine tuned as well the framerate smoothed out a tad more if not fixed entirely.

 

[ghostface]

Money-wise, it's not that much more (it can be argued), let's say at least doubled. But timewise it's factors of 10 and even a 100 more time consuming to play PC games than it is console games. For the working adult whose time is a very precious commodity and want to play their games NOW, the PC is just an excersize in frustration.

Yes, because people have to go through your horribly exagerated description of assembling a computer EVERY TIME they want to play a game.

:welldeservedrolleyes

 

[arter_2]

who's supposed to be reirom in this thread ???

 

[MetaKnight]

who's supposed to be reirom in this thread ???

midas netal

king of roms

legend man

 

[The Shadow]

Eh. I consider myself a PC gamer and I don't mind doing the occasional PC upgrade now and then but the PC apologists in this thread and many other "PC port" threads are starting to get on my nerves.

So a game that runs on a $149 console looks inferior to a PC that has a video card that easily costs that much alone, if not more. WELL NO SHIT SHERLOCK! Of course it's going to look better.

I already have Far Cry for the PC and I don't regret buying the PC version although I've since uninstalled it because my modest 1.3ghz PC w/ Radeon 8500 doesn't run it very well. I'll likely reinstall it when I upgrade but it's really not hard to see the value in getting a much cheaper console and playing that version, albeit with a graphical hit and a control pad instead of a mouse/keyboard. Your PC isn't going to burst into flames or cry if people choose the console version over the PC version so I don't see the reason for all the defensiveness.

Now, I think the only time I'd bitch and moan about a console/PC port would be when the PC version takes a severe blow because of the limitations due to the console. I'm speaking pretty much exclusively of Deus Ex 2. Otherwise, I really don't see how it's such a big deal if someone picks the console version over the PC version. This isn't a "Right or Wrong" issue here, contrary to how some of you see this. It's more like a "Special Edition vs. Value Edition" thing. People who pick the value edition aren't stupid. They've just decided to forgo some of the nicer things in the Special Edition and they've saved some money by doing so. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[FightyF]

2400+ -- $67
Asus Mobo -- $50
512mb ddr266 -- $78
9800 Pro -- $220
WD 120gb 8mb -- $89
Case/PSU -- paid $30, but let's say $50
Lite-on DVDRW -- $70

$624 w/o monitor, and the HDD size and presence of a DVD burner didn't affect my performance with the game.

I'm assuming the soundcard and the network adapter are on the MB. The soundcard, does it support surround sound? I'll take your word for it (the game playing smooth on this type of rig), but I've read many complaints from people that their high end setups don't work well with the game, so I'll attribute that to configuration issues.

I'm looking at getting a new PC, but gonna spend some money on getting a good soundcard (RME-Audio or M-Audio). That alone will jack it up to around $1300 US.

 

[Oni Jazar]

Another common fallacy among PC players is that you have to upgrade every year or 6 months to play the latest games. I've been doing quite well with my XP 1900/512MB RAM/Ti4400 for a damn long time (about two years? I forget) and it still plays every game I can throw at it quite adequately I might add.

 

[Hitokage]

The problem that console gamers have speaking about PC gaming is that it's a completely different mindset. With consoles you get a set hardware spec and games all use as much of it as possible, but with PCs your hardware spec is a moving target... and PC games are written for it. You don't have to enable every graphic feature in a PC game, and neither do you need the absolute latest in anything. Furthermore, unless you use your PC STRICTLY FOR GAMING ONLY lumping the entire cost and comparing it to a console is fallacious. The only thing it takes to convert a PC already robust enough to run Windows XP is a new videocard, on which you should really spend $100-200, not $400-500 like people who have money to burn... and even there you're going to be set for a while as long as you don't insist that every option be enabled. Hell, my current PC has an AthlonXP 1500(the lowest) and my last PC was a K6-II 400mhz, and the only case I had of having trouble playing a game was with UT... as the K6 had shitty floating point.

...and I'm one who has little money to throw around. I have a lot of games that cost me only 10 or 20 dollars, and even though I was recently convinced to buy UT2k4... my secondhand geforce 3 didn't have problems running it. The earlier claim that HL2 would break the 9800Pro is bullshit, considering the 9600 and the 9800 are its prime targets and Valve is keeping their minimum requirements low. Anyway, as I've said in another thread, I use my PC for most everything, so being able to consolidate costs into a single unit really helps. Last night I ran some figures on what it would cost for me to get the best sub-Athlon64 mobo/cpu/mem combo... $300 if I stuck with 512mb ram, $400 for a gig... but really... while it would definitely be nice to have, I just don't need it. That's really what most upgrades are, niceties, not necessities. Buy a computer, then accept the fact that the games you buy will run at a level fitting for the system and not their maximum, and you can make it last for several years easily.

Oh, and for future reference, here's the magic sequence to get games running right:

Install Windows
Run windows update to get all patches and DirectX
Install drivers
Install games and applications.

 

[rastex]

You know, other than Far Cry and UT2k4, what PC games look better than the best console games? I'm not saying what PC games look better than their console counterparts, but the best looking PC games there are. I'm truly curious to see if you took the top 10 looking console games and compared them to the top 10 looking PC games that are OUT NOW, then at what point (if any) would the equivalently placed console game actually look better than the PC one.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

While rastex's bit was exaggerated and a bit overgeneralized, I understand his point. Fixed cost and convenience is one of the primary reasons why so many people play consoles.

On topic:
Far Cry Instincts looks mighty fine for the 'BOX. I find it impressive that they're able to do so much on such a comparatively weaker platform compared to the spec-needy PC game.

 

[CrimsonSkies]

Awesome video. Renting this one for sure.

 

[teh_pwn]

lol, I play Far Cry at 1600x1200 will full effects smoothly. And it's not grainy and plants 20 feet away don't magically appear. I can snipe from 3000 feet and zoom out and the plants are still there.

And what if you don't feel like spending $1500-$2000 for a good gaming PC?

Or how about building an awesome one for $1200 from newegg.com?

Likewise, anyone that thinks spending upwards of $1,000 to play video games is a fucking idiot.

No, I'm paying that much for games, movies, internet access, DVD audio, TV, video capture, music, work, etc.

Btw, there is nothing on consoles that can give me the experience that Call of Duty, Rise of Nations, Warcraft III, Half Life 2 the way a PC can. Call of Duty sound like I'm there. The audio is f*cking fantastic.

If you could find one, a $1000 gaming PC would be an extremely low end gaming PC.

$1000 could get medium end for custom builders which is about the same as very high end for Dell consumers (but you'd pay $3000 with them)..

If you insist on prebuilt, then you can still find a great pc for under $1000. Cyberpower PCs

Maybe if you do bargain bin shopping for pieces at tradeshows and on the internet you can slap something together for close to that and have a low end gaming PC.

Err....RIGHT....I think I'll "slap" together extremely high quality parts for a low cost at newegg.com to build a high end PC anyday.

I hope you realize Dell/Sony/Hp and others use the crappiest of hardware components. They use foxconn mobos with extremely limited BIOS with value RAM, integrate video trash and integrated audio for about 5 times the cost of their worth. And they give you like 10 Watt 2 speaker sets. Ewwwww.......

Here's my system, which is pretty high end. REAL high end, not that crap Dell will feed you:


ASUS P4R800-V Deluxe $104
Pentium 4 3.2 GHz Nortwood with 800 FSB and HT $277
Corsair XMS 1024 MB of PC3200 at Dual Channel with 2-3-3-6 T1 Timings $258
Audigy 2 ZS Sound Card $88
Aspire X-alien case, with room for 5 internal HDD, 5 optical bays, 2 floppy/zip bays, 6 fans and a 420 Watt PSU $81
Klipsch 5.1 Ultras, which bitch slap most high end theater systems $344
I've got a DVD drive and CDRW from an older machine, but these would cost about $50 total
I have a 17" Sony G220 CRT, which still has awesome image quality and pwns most LCDs without DVI input (especially for games because it does 100 fps). Todays cost $220
Windows XP Pro with SP1 $136
(Sapphire) Ati 9800 Pro 128 MB onboard $199 (got it during blow out sale 2 months ago)
Old keyboard and mouse, could replace with much better ones for $40
160 GB Seagate Barracuda 8MB cache 7200 RPM SATA150 $120

Yes, it is a total of $1718, but most of my components are best of the best. Klipsch 5.1 Ultras are THE best computers speakers out there. 9800 Pro was the best video card 2 months ago, and has shown no signs of slowing down.

I don't plan buying new speakers until at least 2010. They are that awesome.

But I could easily get a $1000 PC that would run far cry fast. An AMD XP 2500+ overclocked to 3200+ speeds (not comparibly to my processor, but it's 533 FSB predecessor), drop the speakers, get value RAM, and I'm down to $1000 already.

 

[Hitokage]

Whoops, your computer is already obsolete thanks to the Athlon64 and X800.

APPARENTLY HE MUST RUN OUT AND BUY A NEW ONE.

Seriously though, some of the parts mentioned as "best of the best" do make me chuckle.

 

[teh_pwn]

No, not all of my stuff is the best of the best. My speakers are though.

AMD 64 is a joke right now. No OS supports it for the 64 bit technology.

The Pentium 4 3.2 Nortwood beats AMD's FX 53 Socket 939 at handling RAM speed, and is only about 5-10% slower in processing speed for games. It also costs $600 less and doesn't require expensive registered RAM. Intel handles applications much faster, especially with multitasking. IMO, it's better for those reasons.


The X800 has the same core as the 9800 Pro. It's just 1.5 times faster. Seeing how nothing requires that speed at the highest settings, it's not worth $400 at this point.


Why do people act act like PC gamers HAVE to upgrade frequently? Why? Do we have to be able to play at the highest specs all the time?

But console gamers can keep their games at the same level of detail at 640X480 for 5 years? That makes no sense whatsoever.


"I *COULD* spend $200 on a Radeon 9800, but goddamn....it'll be obsolete in 6 months, and will probably choke while playing HL2....."

Benchmarks with it were at 60 fps in like alpha at 1024x768. No code optimization at that point, but then again, they game has had a facelift since then. But again, why do you have to have the highest settings on while console gamers are stuck at 640X480? Why can't PC gamers play at that res. I guarantee that HL2 will play fluid at that setting with a 9800 pro.


"Why are the pc guys so threatenend by the xbox? If you like playing the game on a pc, good for you. No one cares."

Not threatened by xbox at all. I plan on getting one for conker 2. I just find it annoying that people praise PC ports, and claim that a low end PC would cost at least $1000, when that's a flat out lie.