Is PC gaming on the way out?

[Lynn_Bodoni]

@D_Odds

I hear solitaire with real playing cards is fascinating. Really, Lynn, that post sounds worse than a complaint that your VCR is still flashing 12:00.

I do actually know how to set a VCR. And my microwave. And other electronics…and I was able to figure most of them out without reading the instructions. As for solitaire, I prefer the Goodsol program, because the cats can’t knock the cards off the screen.

@Justin_Bailey

The Dashboard is the start screen your Xbox 360 shows after you power it up. The fact that you don’t know that means you never bothered to ask the rep after he started talking about it as MS is very proud of the 360’s dashboard.

I actually asked the rep several times, but he was too busy telling me that I needed to go check out my controller on one of my friend’s XBoxes. After about the third or fourth time I asked, he did answer me. My point is, MS decided to use a term other than the obvious one…why should they call it a dashboard rather than a start screen? Programs should be intuitive if at all possible.

@Gorsnak

To edit an .ini file, you open it up in notepad and edit it as you would any other text file. For example, you might change the line in the file that says “PLAYINTROMOVIE=TRUE” to “PLAYINTROMOVIE=FALSE” because you’re tired of having to watch the intro movie.

Hey, that’s within my skill set! Thanks. Usually tapping the space bar skips the movie, too.

[Kinthalis]

@Gorsnak

To edit an .ini file, you open it up in notepad and edit it as you would any other text file. For example, you might change the line in the file that says “PLAYINTROMOVIE=TRUE” to “PLAYINTROMOVIE=FALSE” because you’re tired of having to watch the intro movie.

This alone has made PC gaming worth it for me I hate intro movies after they play for the first time.

The amount of money I’ve saved gaming on PC vs console, the amount of time I’ve saved on load times that are sometimes as much as 100 times as long (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2sF3iS81Nk), and the enjoyment I’ve gotten from free to play games, and user created content in games like Skyrim have made my gaming experience that much richer.

[Gorsnak]

@Lynn_Bodoni

Hey, that’s within my skill set! Thanks. Usually tapping the space bar skips the movie, too.

Well, it was just an example. Usually if you need to edit an .ini file to play a game, you’ll be changing a more substantial setting. But all you need to know is what the value you’re changing is called, and what you’re supposed to set it to. And back up the default file with a different filename before you start messing with things!

[Justin_Bailey]

@Lynn_Bodoni

I actually asked the rep several times, but he was too busy telling me that I needed to go check out my controller on one of my friend’s XBoxes. After about the third or fourth time I asked, he did answer me. My point is, MS decided to use a term other than the obvious one…why should they call it a dashboard rather than a start screen? Programs should be intuitive if at all possible.

MS uses the word “Dashboard” to refer to the start screen in the Xbox 360 system help multiple times.

[Jophiel]

@Lynn_Bodoni

Bottom line, when I want to play a game, I don’t want to have to sit down, do research, ask questions on a message board or wait for a CSR to apologize and then engage me in active listening. I just want to put the game disk or cart in the console or computer and play the game.

This is how pretty much everyone wants to play a game. And, for the vast majority of people, it works this way.

What I appreciate is that, when it doesn’t work this way, I have options beyond “Live with it” and “Hope this gets patched someday” which pretty much sums up what you can do on a console. It’s not just massive “You can never play this” style bugs – when I was playing things like Oblivion, Skyrim and Dragon Age and reading the Wikis, I’d regularly see comments like
"(PC/360/PS3) Bug Alert! Occasionally when you reach Lord Whosits, he will not respond to your request for more help. This is due to flag not being set when you spoke to the monk. PC users may enter console and type =quest_set_flag_02aa_1228427 to correct this.

(PC/360/PS3) When passing through the zone into the fortress, some people report that their Staff of Awesome Power glitches into a turkey leg. PC users may enter console and type =item_quer_desc#1227893 to revert it."

Do I WANT to do that? Of course not. Am I damn happy I don’t have to pray my last save point will be far enough back that the bug won’t be part of it? Hell yes, I am. That was my point. The games work correctly in nearly every instance for me and, when they don’t, I can do something about it besides rage at my screen.

[Achren]

@Justin_Bailey

MS uses the word “Dashboard” to refer to the start screen in the Xbox 360 system help multiple times.

Even tumblr uses ‘dashboard’.

[Hoopy_Frood]

@Justin_Bailey

The Dashboard is the start screen your Xbox 360 shows after you power it up. The fact that you don’t know that means you never bothered to ask the rep after he started talking about it as MS is very proud of the 360’s dashboard.

@Lynn_Bodoni

I actually asked the rep several times, but he was too busy telling me that I needed to go check out my controller on one of my friend’s XBoxes. After about the third or fourth time I asked, he did answer me. My point is, MS decided to use a term other than the obvious one…why should they call it a dashboard rather than a start screen? Programs should be intuitive if at all possible.

@Justin_Bailey

MS uses the word “Dashboard” to refer to the start screen in the Xbox 360 system help multiple times.

Or, you know, there is this amazing new invention called a “manual” that’s shipped with practically every piece of electronics and/or user interface out there that explains such basic concepts as this. Some people, on rare occasions, have even been known to read the thing.

[Lynn_Bodoni]

Hell, reading the manual is what I do first. However, this doesn’t help when the manual uses terms that I’m not familiar with. I tried reading the manual when I first had problems. Didn’t help.

[Airk]

@Kinthalis

This makes no sense. Are you playing Borderlands 2 on your PS2?

It makes perfect sense, because most people wouldn’t update their PCs otherwise - or at least, not with the frequency that gaming will inflict. Games are pretty much the major driver of PC updates in my experience.

Implying this is a common occurrence. And as I mentioned updating takes place in the background.

While downloads can occur in the background, video driver updates cannot and do not.

Heard of sleep mode?

Yeah. I’ve yet to encounter a machine on which it worked reliably. Seriously. I’ve had 4 laptops (all from work, and generally clean installs) none of which could be counted on to recover cleanly from going into “hibernate”. Did it work sometimes? Yup. Often enough that I’d use it? Nope.

And updating issues are a constant source of consternation to console gamers, if forum boards are anything to go off of.

Why yes, internet forums are the perfect place to find people complaining about just about anything.

Sleep mode. And lol? 5 minutes? I just timed my PC at 15 seconds. That’s faster than the xbox 360.

If you want me to believe that your PC goes through post and starts windows in 15 seconds, I’m going to need a video. And then specs, because I’d love one, but I’ve never seen it. One of the major selling points people keep telling me about for stupid crap like the iPad is the fact that you don’t have to wait for it to start up. If PCs only took 15 seconds to boot, the world would be a better place.

Dell not going to support the PC you bought from them?

They still offer tech support without a monthly contract?

They can’t fiddle at all. And so they end up with games that have frame rate issues, look like @ss and run at sub-HD.

Oddly, I don’t think I’ve had frame rate issues on anything this console generation. It used to be common, but not so much anymore.

But again, your complaints about “look like ass” and “runs in sub-HD” are technophile stuff. Most plebes don’t even have a basis for comparison, and will never notice.

[Jophiel]

@Airk

If you want me to believe that your PC goes through post and starts windows in 15 seconds, I’m going to need a video. And then specs, because I’d love one, but I’ve never seen it. One of the major selling points people keep telling me about for stupid crap like the iPad is the fact that you don’t have to wait for it to start up. If PCs only took 15 seconds to boot, the world would be a better place.

Solid state drives.

[pilot141]

Yeah actually we talked about this in the Digital Game Sale thread as well, when discussing why people would want to install Steam games to anything other than the C: drive.

Other than space issues (two drives, one dedicated to games) a big reason was SSDs and how fast they are. If you have your OS and a game on an SSD you can go from a cold start to gaming as fast if not faster than a console.

[RickJay]

@Jophiel

Solid state drives.

But is it fifteen seconds from hitting the power button to up and running?

My SSD loads Windows in nine, ten seconds, max. But the BIOS takes 15 seconds or so to start up. It’s just as fast as my PS3, but still, it isn’t down to 15 flat yet.

Indeed, if anything the PS3 is much slower altogether. Starting up it might be about the same, but switching games is vastly more inconvenient than on the PC.

[Kinthalis]

I just timed it. From cold start 22 seconds. A restart was faster at 17 seconds or so. And yes, I’m running an SSD. Newer BIOS tend to be faster at booting up. Regardless, no where near 5 minutes to boot up. That’s a ridiculous number. Even my slow as molasses PC at work doesn’t take 5 minutes to boot up. But I’ve probably saved months of actual time over console gamers in load times alone this generation.

Some things are worth the investment in time involved in understanding them. The PC offers a gaming experience superior to any console one. It is more versatile, more customizable, more immersive.

It’s why it’s so damn successful across the entire planet without Microsoft or Sony or Nintendo or any other mega corporation spending billions on marketing it. No one is on TV telling you to BUY A GAMING PC! EVERYONE ELSE IS! YOU NEED OT BE COOL! GIVE US MONEY!

Without that noise consoles wouldn’t exist, as I said earlier in the thread, it goes to show just how awesome PC gaming is.

[Jophiel]

@RickJay

But is it fifteen seconds from hitting the power button to up and running?

Quibbles over seconds aside (I suppose it’ll depend on your BIOS and start-up programs), the main point was that “It takes five minutes to turn on a computer” isn’t an accurate critique.

[Justin_Bailey]

@Kinthalis

It’s why it’s so damn successful across the entire planet without Microsoft or Sony or Nintendo or any other mega corporation spending billions on marketing it. No one is on TV telling you to BUY A GAMING PC! EVERYONE ELSE IS! YOU NEED OT BE COOL! GIVE US MONEY!

Without that noise consoles wouldn’t exist

Hogwash, and you know it. A console was a superior gaming machine for decades. It didn’t get that way through a brainwashed populace, it got that way because it was just better in every conceivable way.

And even today, this argument isn’t the slam dunk you pretend it is. As far as I’m concerned, both platforms are equal. There is no superior anymore.

[SenorBeef]

Okay, I didn’t really want to get involved in this since it’s just the same thing over and over, but I have a hard time abiding nonsense.

You’re saying that consoles in decades past have been superior in every conceivable way, but that current PCs are equal?

So at some point, in the recent past, it’s PCs that have made up the gap? How in the world do you think that works, when it was consoles that just became shitty locked-in PCs? The hardware on an xbox 360 is the same stuff as a shitty old PC - it uses a PC cpu, a pc graphics card, pc memory, PC coding libraries, the whole bit.

Independently developed console hardware has gone away, and instead they just try to copy PC gaming technology. They just cripple it and dumb it down and ruin it in the process.

Unless you’re saying the current generation of consoles are the worst ever, having massively reduced their quality by becoming more like PCs, your statements make no sense.

[Johnny_Bravo]

@Airk

If you want me to believe that your PC goes through post and starts windows in 15 seconds, I’m going to need a video. And then specs, because I’d love one, but I’ve never seen it. One of the major selling points people keep telling me about for stupid crap like the iPad is the fact that you don’t have to wait for it to start up. If PCs only took 15 seconds to boot, the world would be a better place.

You’re behind the times - SSDs make this more than possible.

A quick YouTube search gives me this year old video of a computer booting Windows 7 in about 10 seconds:

10 Second Windows 7 Ultimate Boot - Dell XPS 8300 - I5 2300 - 6GB - 128GB SSD - GTX 460

[Dave_Hartwick]

@Justin_Bailey

And even today, this argument isn’t the slam dunk you pretend it is. As far as I’m concerned, both platforms are equal. There is no superior anymore.

I’d say that arguments can be made for both, but not that they could be considered equal. The genres I’m most interested in do best on PC so it’s my preference and has always been; for me, the PC is superior to consoles. Used to be that you could get decent strategy ports for consoles but that doesn’t seem to be the case now.

PC fans tend to gloss over issues that, in my opinion, are legit. Alessan was doing it earlier, like claiming that a basic desktop can play “any game available on Steam today” and that all that you need to turn your PC into a console-type experience is an HDMI cable. Nonsense, in my experience. Sure, you could maybe get every game Steam offers to play on a mediocre PC if you’re an expert. I downloaded Civ IV Complete last week off Gamersgate and it won’t work at all, I guess because of Win 7. Maybe I’ll get it working, maybe I won’t-- this is not a terribly old game. My stepson tells me that he can’t get Crysis (from Steam) working on his laptop anymore. And there are some other, non-digitally distributed games I’ve tried installing recently that won’t play. Unfortunately, I’m one of those primitive types who don’t like buying games twice because I don’t feel like looking for the disc.

As for making my PC into a living room system, it’s going to take a little more than a cable if I want more than video + sound.

SenorBeef, I disagree with you as well. I played Skyrim on the Xbox and it wasn’t ruined, crippled, or dumbed down. It had longer load times, true, but nothing like what I’ve seen Kinthalis suggest. It also lacked mods, but I’ve never been that big on them. The main thing is, it ran fine on the Xbox but there was no way in hell it would’ve run on our old PC. At that point it was XBox or nothing because I wasn’t ready to shell out on a new PC.

And IMO, consoles were, at least in the past, superior for some genres, namely sports, arcade, and fighting games. Depending on your taste, you might throw RPGs in there, too, if only because some good ones were unavailable on PC solely due to licensing.

On the whole I’d say hardline types on both sides of the console vs PC divide could be missing out. I still even play the Wii now and again. Often with my 4 y/o, true, but she loves it.

Incidentally, a SSD costs about US$200, is that about right? Coincidentally, that’s the list price for an Xbox 360.

[SenorBeef]

@Dave_Hartwick

SenorBeef, I disagree with you as well. I played Skyrim on the Xbox and it wasn’t ruined, crippled, or dumbed down.

Of course it was. You picked a horrible example, since Bethesda games in particular are so vastly superior on PC, but even just generally. Just the fact that the game is limited to 2004 technology means it’s dumbed down and crippled. The world has to fit into about 400mb of memory at any given time. Do you have any idea how restrictive that is? The average PC game hasn’t been under that sort of limitation since the late 90s. Everything has to be designed to be able to fit into that little memory footprint - the size and level of detail in the world, the complexity of the AI, the physics, a hundred other things. That’s just the memory - the crippled half-geforce 7800 the ps3 runs is so amazingly behind current video card technology that any game that’s designed to run on it will lack all sorts of modern advancements.

A brand new game developed for the Atari 2600 would be dumbed down and crippled compared to what the game could be based on the technology available to gaming. Is the xbox 360 much different? It’s 10 year old technology instead of 30 year old, but it’s still far behind what we could be doing if we used the technology available to us.

And IMO, consoles were, at least in the past, superior for some genres, namely sports, arcade, and fighting games.

People say this because gamepads are generally better for those games. The dichotomy that some games are better for KB/M and some are better for gamepad, therefore some are better on PC and some are better on console is bullshit, because PC can use gamepads or any other controller type out there.

Incidentally, a SSD costs about US$200, is that about right? Coincidentally, that’s the list price for an Xbox 360.

Flash memory has gotten amazingly cheaper recently - a good quality 128gb drive can be had for $100, one big enough to hold windows and some programs and games can be had for half that.

[Jophiel]

@Dave_Hartwick

SenorBeef, I disagree with you as well. I played Skyrim on the Xbox and it wasn’t ruined, crippled, or dumbed down. It had longer load times, true, but nothing like what I’ve seen Kinthalis suggest. It also lacked mods, but I’ve never been that big on them.

The fact that you claim not to care about mods doesn’t make them go away. The PC version of Skyrim has better graphics (and even better still with the official HD mod) and a ton more versatility than the console versions. I can do literally hundreds of things on my PC version that my kid can’t do on his PS3 version – how is that NOT “crippled or dumbed down”?