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Kotaku PC Guy Is At It Again.
- Thread starter Kintaro
- Start date
Gully State
Member
I really don't understand how difficult it is to pick hardware at this point. If you're too lazy to look at benchmarks, you could easily just go to a site like Tomshardware, pick out their best component of the month articles and just pick your parts from there. They even break it down by budget range.
All Razer has done is scare the shit out of somebody who thinks that a top of the line laptop costs that.
No wonder people look at the PC gamers as being the master race, I feel sorry for any first time PC gamer who splurges on that razer laptop thinking they are future proofed for years.
Razer should have brought out a mid-ranged, decent priced desktop or HTPC, maybe with 3D glasses and a 3D monitor and called it a day.
No wonder people look at the PC gamers as being the master race, I feel sorry for any first time PC gamer who splurges on that razer laptop thinking they are future proofed for years.
Razer should have brought out a mid-ranged, decent priced desktop or HTPC, maybe with 3D glasses and a 3D monitor and called it a day.
Castor Krieg
Banned
oneils said:
It was in his previous article. TL,DR version of that was: "Razer trying to be Apple; kk, great thing for PC gaming; price kinda bad, great thing nevertheless"
jim-jam bongs
Member
The op-ed was about the reactions to his review of a $3000 PC, do try to pay attention old chap.oneils said:
It's really not hard at all considering 99% of games are developed with the console in mind meaning cheaper parts on PC will do the trick in most games unless they're crappy, unoptimized ports which wouldn't matter then since it'd run shitty no matter what hardware you have.Gully State said:
That's why the BF3 thread is filled with spec talk because it's the one game that's a true PC game that will require some beefier hardware to max out so graphics whores are going nuts with speculating how it will run. In this generation of gaming, it's mostly been about easily running PC games since they're made with the consoles in mind making it easy to run as long as it's optimized.
It isn't. Because DirectX is still an abstraction build upon even more layers of abstraction.Sethos said:
There is a reason it exists but if we're talking speed in 2011, that is not it.
He is basically echoing what John Carmack said in his keynote a few week backs with that if a console choose the specs that a modern PC has right now and lock them, then get rid of all the all the abstractions, it would kick the PC's ass on a big scale.
Carmack isn't alone in saying that it would be cool to get more access directly to the hardware. It's a common request by developers.
So the sentiment expressed in the article is completely understandable. It's just presented in a way to insult the enthusiast hardware tinkerer. It's like opening an article about racial tension in the US with racial slurs.
Typographenia
Member
Book him, boys.DennisK4 said:
We'll make sure he never sees the light of his monitor ever again.
pillarofdawn
Banned
The day that happens I go to tabletop gaming all together lolProjectjustice said:
I'm sure an overpriced, underpowered laptop will do wonders towards solving this problem, right? Herp derp.
Actually, this idiot's opinion has some merit (although I'm sure he is not aware of it). I can agree that there needs to be some kind of "block" modular solution to building up a PC. I get this is prohibitive design-wise due to the need and dependance on fans and cables and shitloads of connectors, but it still surprises me that no one has successfully tackled the problem of just plugging in and out computer parts exactly like lego blocks.
I feel pretty comfortable doing basic computer building myself (swapping ram, connecting cards, adding HDDs, etc.) and I think it is simple enough most people can do it as well, but I know a lot of people that, while they can afford it (they already buy expensive computers) simply can't be bothered to do them themselves.
jim-jam bongs
Member
My current PC case makes installing and removing hardware easier than making LEGO. Real talk.
Edit: Billy I keeel chu
Edit: Billy I keeel chu
Projectjustice
Banned
Smision said:
Good point, forgot about the backlog. Ill be joining you!
pillarofdawn
Banned
Also the tinkerers out there such as myself are the ones pushing innovation in the industry by demanding more out of our pc's and games. If no one was forced to innovate the market would become stagnant and we would see call of duty 15 on the xbox360 (kidding). But if one side of an industry is innovating, it forces the other side to innovate as well in order to compete.
jim-jam bongs
Member
A point which is in no way backed up by the article, so you'll have to do it yourself. Please explain in detail what you are arguing.oneils said:
Castor Krieg
Banned
Billychu said:
It is. My power unit died two months ago, first time in my life. Opened a case, looked at all the cables, bought new one, connected the new power unit the same way. Fucking rocket science for Kotaku!
oneils said:
The price is the only point you can't really disagree on unless you're a vegetable. It's no surprise that it's the one thing he gets right.
The problem is that for three large you get a product that hurts the standardization of PC gaming hardware even more than your standard overpriced laptop. It literally does the exact opposite of what he claims it does.
PC gaming hardware is not approaching a dead end. It has been getting progressively better for more than a decade in terms of value proposition. It's products like this joke from Razer that deal any kind of damage to that progression.
bandresen said:
But what you're saying is developers want more access, that isn't more standardization. DirectX is a common goal for both hardware developers and game developers alike to develop for and support. You don't even have OpenGL popping up in games these days anymore, so it's as standard as it gets. How effective DirectX is should be for a completely different topic.
There's a lot more choice when it comes to hardware yes but anything you buy will work with the games and other software you need. So it's not a bad type of choice.
I thought Carmack was hoping that video card manufacturers play along with each other a bit more so that developers could access all of the different kinds of video hardware at a lower level, not so developers would only games for one specific GPU.
or am i totally missing marks here
or am i totally missing marks here
Castor Krieg
Banned
I don't get his point about standarization. Does he actually want to FORCE a config on PC gamers? Because that's the only way to do it. WTF, the nerve. That's exactly the reason people play on PC - they don't want 30FPS locked, 2xMSAA, pop-in textures, 30 seconds load times, etc. People are buying superior hardware for superior experience.
it's not, we live in a fingerless mitten society and pc gaming is now something of a technology counter culture, a rebuttal to the endless mass market drive for reduced complexity at the expense of functionality. it's a hobbyist pursuit that through its idiosyncratic virtues, has not only sustained itself through the slings and arrows of multi generational console war, but began a spearheading resurgence right at the time that kotakus of this world wrote it off for dead. now it is again at the vanguard of the industry in every sense, while consoles are only becoming more conservative in their attempts to smear their singular branding across as many demographics as possible.Gully State said:
at a time when anyone with the slightest insight is aware of the gouging, sniping, depressing toilet bowl that the console market has become, people are seeking out pc gaming to rekindle their optimism and sense of adventure.
FieryBalrog
Member
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.130.0.html
This is what I used to help me buy a laptop last year.
There are hundreds of the fucking things, and the benchmarks aren't a straightfoward linear "goodness" rating. Then you have to do price comparisons, you have to look at impact on battery life, you have to weigh many of other factors. You might have to cross-check the info versus other sites. And this is just for a laptop that is non-modular.
I'm now in the process of designing a desktop PC for myself with a budget. Luckily, I'm just asking other more knowledgeable people to make decisions for me.
And I don't own a single console, I do all my gaming on PC or DS.
This is what I used to help me buy a laptop last year.
There are hundreds of the fucking things, and the benchmarks aren't a straightfoward linear "goodness" rating. Then you have to do price comparisons, you have to look at impact on battery life, you have to weigh many of other factors. You might have to cross-check the info versus other sites. And this is just for a laptop that is non-modular.
I'm now in the process of designing a desktop PC for myself with a budget. Luckily, I'm just asking other more knowledgeable people to make decisions for me.
And I don't own a single console, I do all my gaming on PC or DS.
oneils
Member
jim-jam bongs said:
Joel Johnson said:
That is the real point he is trying to make. The razer blade tries to do this, but yes at 3K not a lot of people are going to bite. He is just pointing out that this is the future of pc gaming.
You may not agree, fine. However, from what I've seen some very heavy hitters in PC game development are asking/wishing for this. They just aren't using the same provocative language.
jim-jam bongs
Member
If the writer had cited Carmack he might have more credibility. The reality is that it reads like a pile of supposition by someone who doesn't follow the industry outside the press releases in his inbox every morning.
SneakyStephan
Banned
As long as that shit gets linked to here and everywhere else and people keep clicking the link then yes they will continue to get paid.Painraze said:
Can we just get it over with and add these yoyos to the banned site list instead of dignifying their existance over and over?
oneils said:
Please tell me, what does the Razer blade standardize? It's just another random ass laptop with a huge price-tag. So because Razer only releases a bunch of cheap flimsy plastic accessory and decide to make a laptop, because they only have one in their line-up, it's suddenly a standard? They just spat in the ocean and asked for people to get excited about it.
oneils said:
The Razer Blade does not try to do this. That is the fucking point. It does not do that whatsoever because not only does not not afford one single developer any advantage that a standardized subset of hardware would because it still requires gaming software that is made for the entire PC gaming space, it actually adds a layer of segregation through the fucking keyboard that is unique to the damn thing.
Would be great if it would only be one or two abstraction layers.Durante said:
How do you explain that John Carmack said that this is a huge inhibition for him?
Why does RAGE look as god on consoles as on PC? He told of the benchmark that can be used to stress his engine and if you have to walk backwards into a city and then turn around very quickly and the PC being twice as fast as the console to load the textures.
If this twice as fast what you would expect if you looked at the raw specs?
The difference between RAGE and Hard Reset (PC only game) is not as visible as the difference between a PS2 and a PS3 game even though the hardware is equally outdated to each other as current consoles are to PC.
jim-jam bongs
Member
oneils said:
And again, that reads like fanciful supposition by someone who doesn't even know the current state of standardisation so why the fuck does he think he's qualified to talk about the future? Of course standardisation is the future because it started decades ago.
Wallach said:
My man
FieryBalrog
Member
I don't think anyone is defending the Razor laptop. Rather I think people are trying to extract the modicum of sense from the man's post to have a larger discussion about standardization because everyone knows his gushing orgasms about the Razor laptop are utterly embarassing.
Castor Krieg
Banned
oneils said:
No, it is not. It is the future of console gaming, and always was. He is butthurt that his console games look more and more like shit compared to games made for PC first. Thus, he wants to turn a PC into another console.
Yes, companies would surely have incentive to make better things in the absence of competition. Also, I think his second point about gaming expanding to audiences who would prefer more casual, low-tech fare accounts for the direction PC gaming is taking rather than the first.
Casual gamers prefer bite-sized content; software developers want to appeal to casual gamers and scaled down development costs are more palatable than $20m+ AAA titles in the current economy.
The most advanced hardware in the world will do nothing for cash-strapped developers if it doesn't turn a profit. Same reason the arcades went to console, the market changed, and developers responded.
Casual gamers prefer bite-sized content; software developers want to appeal to casual gamers and scaled down development costs are more palatable than $20m+ AAA titles in the current economy.
The most advanced hardware in the world will do nothing for cash-strapped developers if it doesn't turn a profit. Same reason the arcades went to console, the market changed, and developers responded.
Sethos said:
DirectX is not the only way to standardize something. And DX is very deliberately removed from the hardware.Joel Johnson said:
What is requested is a standard interface to the raw hardware itself.
You can call it access as well, that doesn't change his point. It would be purely a semantics argument.