It was a joke. I didn’t have the energy to come up with another ficitious retailor. It’s only mean if your mom actually sells shitty keyboards and mice.
Ah, OK. I was like “wtf is he going on about here?”
I don’t know about for ‘less’ than a console, but definitely within range of the price of a console. You’re simply not going to make a gaming PC for under $ 200.
Otherwise SenorBeef is right though. The PC as a gaming platform is much more robust than a console, and I have both PC and consoles.
There are some notable exceptions. Though granted, not necessary ones.
I bought a GTX285 and had cats piss into my computer and destroy it, God was I so mad, but yes the video card was the bottleneck. I used to play TF2 with two incidences of Eve Online idling in the background, my browser running along with iTunes.
How in the hell did that happen? Did you have the case open with sand littered about inside it?
As someone who lives in a household with 3 dogs and a cat this does not seem at all that unlikely to me.
I’m not an expert, and I haven’t had a computer built in years.
However even back when I has an AMD athlon that was about 1200Mhz, the GeForce2 Titanium and 1Gb of RAM I still was able to play games like Counterstrike and Team Fortress easily. Those parts are like 7 years old now.
Does it really cost much to build a good gaming PC, especially if you buy used? The processor, RAM and video card are the main things. And technology that was cutting edge a year ago is $100 now. A used PC made up of parts that were top of the line in early 2008 may only run $300 now.
Its not like PCs were shit back in 2007/2008 or anything.
Just to clarify, we keep our computers up on desks and tables and largely inaccessible to the animals, but cats, in particular, can be agile and sly little bastards. 
And just to contribute the thread a little bit though I hate getting into these arguments… It seems to me that consoles taking over the gaming market is largely due to their accessibility and little to do with the PC’s strengths or weaknesses. Most of what SB has said in this thread is true but to the average gamer, none of it really matters. SB, you are far overestimating the intelligence of the average gamer. That’s the only weak link in your argument I think.
My PC sits on the floor out in the open for better air circulation. I am always worried that one of my dogs (Saint Bernards) will slobber over the top. It has one of those cases with a top mounted 20mm fan (Antec Twelve Hundred)…
:smack: Which is why I’ve said a zillion times that I was saying if you have a decent modern pc, the marginal cost of upgrading it to a gaming system is less than a console.
I could build a quality system for under $450 though, and that’s barely more expensive, and has the extra utility of being a faster general purpose PC than you’ve got.
I don’t really know what the used market is like, but I’d imagine you can snag some good deals. Systems depreciate so quickly, and as you said, 2007/2008 stuff isn’t horrible. But you could build something new that would be a very good all around system for under $450, as I detailed a few posts ago.
I have an antec 900, and I’ve accidentally spilled/dripped ice cream into the fan while it was running. No apparent damage…
others have already addressed the point about technical merits. it’s not just graphics, it’s also about mods and more. the freedom to tweak the game or to play it vanilla out of the box.
back to a ‘control’ example with the gamepad, a difference is having a 3D shooter where it would be important to look straight up or down for enemies. it’s not just accuracy, keyboard-and-mouse users with a height advantage will slaughter gamepad users. so what happens? (nevermind that they won’t face each other) the 3D shooter would be designed with a restricted vertical axis. about as useful as a side scroller in 3D.
Yes, enjoyment of a game depends much more on substance and style than its technical merits, but there’s no reason to sacrifice one for the other. games designed for consoles are welcomed when it adds variety to a gamer’s library, but watching a genre better suited to keyboard and mouse dumbed down to suit gamepads…
consoles are a good thing, PCs too. it’s when games are forced to fit across all platforms that’s bad.
No, it’s a gaming case with lots of exhaust vents. They pissed on top and leaked in through the vent at the top.
I seriously doubt that considering I built my PC about six months ago. Intel Core Duo 3 GHz with 4 gigs of RAM. E-SATA HDD, and well it USED to have a GTX285 with 1Gig of RAM. The video card alone would cost at least 2/3 of your budget unless you found a really amazing deal. Of course the video card isn’t essential.
It really all depends on the circumstances. I didn’t know they’d pissed in it and tried to turn it on and the piss landed RIGHT ON the accessory power connectors that PCI-Express cards with SLI support have. A nice tiny little crispy acrid smoke and that was it.
Which, had you continued to read, I already conceded and addressed. In summary: they’re practically irrelevant for me.
No, we shouldn’t “nevermind” that PC and Console games don’t face off against one another as that practically undermines your entire point.
This seems contradictory. May I remind you that mouse and keyboard are not objectively better in any category but precision. I don’t find them as comfortable to use, so I really couldn’t give two shits about the increased accuracy if it comes at the expense of my enjoyment.
And I really am curious how you feel shooters are being dumbed down? I honestly don’t enjoy shooters much at all these days, and that’s partially by design of how little they’ve seemingly changed across both console and PC.
Emulation isn’t illegal. Pirating games is, but that isn’t necessary for emulation. Especially of the systems that use CDs/DVDs. And you can pirate quite easily on the consoles as well. Hell you don’t even need a hardware mod for the Wii. Just a copy of Twilight Princess and 20 minutes of installing software.
Emulation is a huge benefit of PC gaming. I own a PS2 and I still run all my PS1/2 games through emulation. You can run them at higher resolutions, fast forward through the cutscenes and use a wireless controller. Win, win, win.
Not true, I have a laptop that’s worse than that and I’ve played Oblivion on it. Fallout 3 would probably work too. Probably not Dragon Age though.
And speed. Turning 180° with a stick can take a while. As can just flipping back and forth to get a good look at your surroundings.
It’s not just shooters. Oblivion’s UI was terrible and a large part of that is due to consoleitis. So much of the UI was just enormous. And often didn’t take proper advantage of the keyboard. Like the inability to choose dialogue choices with the keyboard.
Or in Fallout 3 how holstering your weapon requires holding the reload button for a few seconds. Clearly so that they could fit the function on a console controller. The flashlight was the same way.
Nearly every game that comes out for both console and PC has an atrocious UI. And often weaker controls than average.
I can’t blame it on the consoles or the console gamers though. The blame is on the developers. The game should be tweaked to fit all the platforms it’s on properly. If they can’t be bothered to do a proper PC version then they shouldn’t be releasing it on PC at all.
While I know that “emulation” isn’t illegal, let’s be honest here, “emulation” is PC gamer speak for “I totally have every NES game on my computer and I didn’t pay a single cent for any of them!”
And just to head the argument off at the pass, that was the way the poster I was replying to was using it.
Indeed, but I had figured this was covered under the “precision” category already.
I certainly agree that the blame is on the developers–it is rather telling that both your examples are from the same developer, which lends that point credence.
With that said, when I think "dumb-downed’ I was thinking more from a gameplay perspective, instead of a UI perspective. If UI is indeed what shijinn meant, then sure–some developers clearly half-ass their PC ports with respect to their audience.
The enormous utility of emulation shouldn’t be shrugged off just because it can be, hell is, used for piracy.
Well it’s not just the UI. The UI is the most noticeable part though. Or maybe not most noticeable but easiest to quantify. Platforming sections in a 3d game are less likely to contain complex jumps that require spinning your facing between them quickly and accurately. And less likely to have enemies in higher locations. Enemies in console ports are typically easier to hit/don’t move as fast as they probably would were it a straight up PC game. Some degree of auto aim is often included that wouldn’t be there else wise. Tooltips are usually less descriptive in console games(albeit I’m not sure why there’s no good reason for it). Difficult areas in console games and PC ports of them also seem to be typically more scripted/obvious than in straight up PC games. There’s just a general feel to console games that everything is a bit more simple than if it were in a PC game. It’s difficult to explain because it’s just too subtle. But it’s nearly always there.
I didn’t read the intervening posts nor the original thread, but this site (www.tomshardware.com) has been doing gaming builds for different budgets for like 15 years now. Usually, they do 3 a year, with a $500 budget build, then 1000, then 1500/2000.