I used to love tinkering with the settings in games just to gain the most of my system, but these days that is not an option anymore. No time and it's a bit cumbersome when I have media center pc's and file servers that require my attention a lot more. Now those are pretty unstable for the average user.
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PC gaming will never be taken seriously until it fixes the bs
- Thread starter Scrabble
- Start date
well, imo it should be tolerated, that's the nature of an open platform.
what do you want to do? close and standardize the pc?
you'll get consoles then.
we need an open platform in gaming to drive innovation and ideas,
what do we have left when pc is closed?
android? heh
I find it funny that some of you guys can write pages of text every day on a gaming forum and yet you aren't willing to put up with slightly more complex set ups and tinkering in order to play those games. If you really can't put down that kind of time, then guess what, it's time to stop being a hardcore gamer altogether. Maybe stick to mobile gaming or something. After all, all games are just time wasters in the end.
Not to mention you have to put up with the same shit with consoles too these days. Regular updates, patches, and mandatory installs are all common features of console gaming these days. How many people remember when PSN was totally down for a month and you had to change your passwords because Sony stored all confidential information in the clear? That was worse than just about any PC gaming problem I ever experienced. Console gaming aren't immune to outright disasters either.
Not to mention you have to put up with the same shit with consoles too these days. Regular updates, patches, and mandatory installs are all common features of console gaming these days. How many people remember when PSN was totally down for a month and you had to change your passwords because Sony stored all confidential information in the clear? That was worse than just about any PC gaming problem I ever experienced. Console gaming aren't immune to outright disasters either.
The premise of this thread is insane. Does a platform have to be considered 'serious' only when the CoD crowd endorses it? Are consoles not taken seriously because the Moba crowd ignores them? I'm going out on a limb here and saying the last truly 'hardcore' focused games are on PC (and 3DS to an extent), cerebral games that reward creative thinking and have deep mechanics. As a gamer on an enthusiast forum, that shit should be taken seriously, not the latest CoD or cinematic movie game iteration.
Everything you're describing is pretty much a small issue to me, especially what you get in return. And there's benefits like when my 360 red ringed I had no option but to send it back to Microsoft alongside a two week wait, while when my GPU died I swapped it out later that day.
Everything you're describing is pretty much a small issue to me, especially what you get in return. And there's benefits like when my 360 red ringed I had no option but to send it back to Microsoft alongside a two week wait, while when my GPU died I swapped it out later that day.
Austriacus
Member
There are big game companies that only release their games on PC. Why the fuck do i have to keep mentioning Blizzard. Holy shit this whole thing is ridiculous.
BadAss2961
Member
I imagine this has been said several times already, but when you have people of all kinds of different hardware and software setups, some are bound to have issues that others don't. For this reason, PC gaming will never be quite as simple as console gaming. At least not in the foreseeable future.
CharmingCharlie
Member
Has anyone harped back to the good old days of trying to force the mouse driver into extended memory just so you could have all 640k available to get a game running ?
PC gaming today is a breeze compared to what it used to be. I haven't had to fiddle with ini files or disable a keyboard driver (WTF ?) to get a game running. I have found 90% of the time it is just a case of buy game from steam, download game from steam and play game.
Now having said that there are always going to be some problems with some games on some hardware. The PC platform is a an amazingly complicated ecosystem there is no other platform like it. There are hundreds of companies all supply thousands of PC parts for people to choose from. If you actually think for a second it is nigh on a bloody miracle that you can slap a CPU from Intel onto a motherboard from Asus using RAM from Kingston and use a GPU from Gigabyte to run games from a harddisc made by Seagate. As such there will always be some "teething" troubles with some games on the PC platform, it is unavoidable.
PC gaming today is a breeze compared to what it used to be. I haven't had to fiddle with ini files or disable a keyboard driver (WTF ?) to get a game running. I have found 90% of the time it is just a case of buy game from steam, download game from steam and play game.
Now having said that there are always going to be some problems with some games on some hardware. The PC platform is a an amazingly complicated ecosystem there is no other platform like it. There are hundreds of companies all supply thousands of PC parts for people to choose from. If you actually think for a second it is nigh on a bloody miracle that you can slap a CPU from Intel onto a motherboard from Asus using RAM from Kingston and use a GPU from Gigabyte to run games from a harddisc made by Seagate. As such there will always be some "teething" troubles with some games on the PC platform, it is unavoidable.
I've been gaming on pc for almost two decades now, and it's a lot - a lot - better than it once was. Memory management in DOS was something you could legitimately state as scaring people away for being too daunting. Compare that to, say, installing a new driver to make a new game work properly, and you see how far we've come. IRQ interrupts? Man, you don't even want to know. Sound card standards, ISA ports, VESA, blargh... when people complain of pc gaming being too difficult these days I can't help but scoff.
You don't know what difficult is.
Things have gotten so much better and will continue to do so. There will always be that element of tinkering to get things going or making a game look better, and some people see that as a strength of the platform, not a weakness. If you can't handle it, there are always the consoles.
You don't know what difficult is.
Things have gotten so much better and will continue to do so. There will always be that element of tinkering to get things going or making a game look better, and some people see that as a strength of the platform, not a weakness. If you can't handle it, there are always the consoles.
Too true I remember having to use bootdisk to make dos based games easier. What we do now is nothing in comparison to what old pcs or what pc like consoles required to play things right.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
It's been such a struggle to be a PC gamer. First, I had to connect my computer to my TV with a HDMI cable. Then I had to plug in a controller. Totally unlike the console experience where I had to plug in a HDMI cable and then plug in a controller.
Gully State
Member
Core 2 quad with a 5850. I can't remember the last time I spent more than a couple of min tweaking settings on initial load up. The subsequent faster load ups(delete those unskippable adverts that start console versions) and better performance more than makes up for the min I spent dictating settings initially. Do I get the absolute most out of my hardware? No..but I get magnitudes better than console performance for minimal effort. Heck, I haven't even updated my graphics drivers since last year.
I love threads like these.. console gamers love to over exaggerate shit so much its insane. Price, upgrading and tinkering.. top things they blow way out of proportion. Yet I spend less money on PC thanks to great deals, I rarely upgrade (maybe every 4 years) and tinkering is mostly a choice rather than a need. I love tinkering but its usually when I want to customize something. Its great I have the damn choice unlike console gaming.
Wtf when did you have to download a .dll file btw?! lol
Wtf when did you have to download a .dll file btw?! lol
Dudebros wouldn't get a PC, period. Because a. It's not a cool system to them and b. The games are too complicated.
All they need is Madden and COD and they're set.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
It was 2003. I was a young man, more a boy, truth be told. It was autumn, with all that season implies. The game? Its name is lost to to the ether. But I remember the search well.
That's the same case for me. Meanwhile I see console users asking for v-sync toggles and frame-rate locks for their games in others threads. More options are better than less options.
I'm with you mate. I'm still living with it 'coz I want good frame rates and stuff, but the moment I have to get my keyboard out when I'm already in bed holding a controller just sucks.
Valve can only do so much to bring the benefits of consoles to PC. Devs have to make their games properly.
I don't think The Walking Dead ever ran for me without bug fixing it myself. Hotline Miami was terrible at launch and even the newer build now still required me to run a certain buried file.
It disgusted me that Walking Dead won all these awards despite never working. Around GOTY time it wasn't even released in Australia for 360 and I believe that version sucked too. Even the disc version was busted!
Valve can only do so much to bring the benefits of consoles to PC. Devs have to make their games properly.
I don't think The Walking Dead ever ran for me without bug fixing it myself. Hotline Miami was terrible at launch and even the newer build now still required me to run a certain buried file.
It disgusted me that Walking Dead won all these awards despite never working. Around GOTY time it wasn't even released in Australia for 360 and I believe that version sucked too. Even the disc version was busted!
If turning a PC into a console means mainly shootang games like CoD, Killzone and Halo saturate the market and force out other genres, then fuck that.
Give me stuff with actual depth, like the trend is now.
All versions sucked technically, with stuttering issues, freezes and deleted game saves. At least you had the option to fix it on PC.
TGO
Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Call Of Duty
Actually I'd love more dudebros buying PCs because it might make playing Counter-Strike GO, Call Of Duty Ghosts and Battlefield 4 with a controller a little more even.
Grampa Simpson
Banned
I am so hopeful for SteamOS. It seems like it could really be a nice way for self-assembled hardware to become *nice* for PC gaming.
A kernel, and a standard set of libraries included. Stick to a single kernel version and a specific set of options, and only upgrade that every 2-3 years.
All games should statically compile past this. They shouldn't have a complex dependency chain.
Let it be an easily breakable walled garden, but make it possible to work without doing so. Make "desktop" a downloadable title and have that set up a launchable XFCE. Include a browser (Chrome and Firefox?) and Libreoffice or similar with that. That and a Terminal are all I need to work 99% of the time. I guess add VLC on top of that for those that like to work from their desks.
Add XBMC as an installable (I bet the XBMC people would even make an official version), and all that plus the other Steam bits and pieces, and you really can end up with a very simple OS (2gig maybe?) that supports just enough to get games up and running.
ChromeOS almost had it, but it's still just a little bit too walled for the likes of me.
Ghost_Protocol
Member
I love this post so much. It's exactly why I don't play games on the PC unless there is an enormous, experience-changing difference between it and the console version (etc. Dark Souls DSfix).
NullPointer
Member
Where are all these warnings and asterisks and AT YOUR OWN RISK signs and portends you're talking about? Crossfire has always been sold as a performance enhancement for games.
From day one it was a way for me to get 3 HDMI connections and a performance boost in supported games.
And yes, it should just work.
Edit: Also, looking back in time it was exactly that crossfire setup that was recommended to me from PC GAF, who I asked in advance of buying my rig. There were no warnings or tales of woe in that thread either.
Steam box is never happening. Steam machines are NOT the same.
I love how he says he has to do these things regularly?!?
Seriously I cannot think of any of things things he mentioned where I had to do it regularly.
Ive never had to do this ever..
I feel like the only game Ive done this in the past 10 years was Dark Souls which was the developers fault not PC gaming.. plus its great I had that option. You dont "have" to use that fix. It still runs and looks better than the console version.
I swear this shit is always off by default and usually is a single button in the options of most games..
Honestly cant think of this ever happening to me..
This isnt just a PC problem.. and honestly is the number one thing I check for in reviews. You cant handle developers being lazy no matter what the platform is. Just dont buy their damn games.
Probably the only thing I agree with yet.. it almost never ever effects me. Usually its just the idea that its there that bugs me, yet I never notice it. Even GFWL, never gave me an issue but yeah I am glad its gone still.
Anyways yeah I just feel like you and many others are over exaggerating with this stuff..
I've never run into any of those issues and my PC is my main platform. I'm not saying they don't exist (especially if you're using a shitty laptop or prebuilt Dell), but it's not always the case. As in stands now PC gaming is more convenient than gaming on my consoles.
It's a big step in that direction, it's down to how Valve handles their software and what partners they get.
What are you saying? That's pretty much the typical difference between multiplatform games on consoles and on PC: higher frame-rate and higher resolution. Dark Souls is far from the only PC version of a game to do this. That's a terrible example of "experience-changing" unless you value image quality and fps to a great degree, in which case you would be playing lots of games on PC... I'm really confused lol
What does this even mean? Steam box is Steam Machines.. its just a better name due to obviously not being a single device. Which honestly is exactly what they said from day one people just kept acting like it was some console when really it is a PC with a unique console like OS.
Agreed with you Crafty, PC gaming is becoming a joke for me for the very reasons you listed in the OP.
Barely any Rockstar game works for me the way i want it unless i am downloading cracks to fix my legitimate purchases, editing .ini files or having to gimp my game or system to run said game.
What pisses me off Valve actually still allows games to be sold in broken states all the time. It makes me wish they took on Sonys and Microsofts level of console QC and approval process when putting games on their service.
Barely any Rockstar game works for me the way i want it unless i am downloading cracks to fix my legitimate purchases, editing .ini files or having to gimp my game or system to run said game.
What pisses me off Valve actually still allows games to be sold in broken states all the time. It makes me wish they took on Sonys and Microsofts level of console QC and approval process when putting games on their service.
The Linux kernel has a policy of not breaking userspace, no reason not to keep it pretty up to date.
Fuck that. The best things about PC games is that they're extremely ambitious, even at the expense of polish and bugs. We never would have gotten Stalker, ArmA, Europa Universalis III or X3 etc if we had that rigid system on the platform. It'll just be another step towards homogenizing games like what the consoles are striving towards.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I agree with OP. I had to hack into the GUI interface using a Linux shell that I routed through the network server hosted in Nicaragua just to get Doom 3 to run.
MoGamesXNA
Unconfirmed Member
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grandwizard
Member
The advantages and customization of PC gaming comes at a price. It's up to you whether it's worth it to lose some simplicity to gain a far improved and tailored experience.
The idea that they are not 'taken seriously' is laughable though. Some of the biggest games today are PC only.
The idea that they are not 'taken seriously' is laughable though. Some of the biggest games today are PC only.
TyphoonStruggle
Member
I got horrible hitching and freeze-ups on walking dead PS3 version. There's nothing I can do about it. I should start making generalizations too... (console gaming will never be taken seriously until it fixes this closed system bs.)
Funny and all that, but looking at the types of replies here I'm sure those people will miss the sarcasm.
It's like when my 360 started freezing and acting up I had to wait a few weeks for the Microsoft 'engineers' to fix it, meanwhile my dieing GPU was fixed by me in an hour. Closed platforms also come with a price.
Nah, it ran slow so she was obviously out of shape and not the business.
Okay, please get my copy of Tiny and Big to work on my new PC by hitting the "Play" button. I must be doing it wrong.
yeah, this!
why do people want to close the system?
as I've said, we need an open platform,
you kill an open platform and you end up losing a ton of innovation and ideas.
I can also ask the same about consoles. Is a closed system so bad? I'm pretty tired of the shitting on both sides, as someone who games on both PC and consoles like you. Also the elitism and defensive insults brought out by some people in this thread is fucking sad.
I have no stake in whether it's taken seriously or becomes mainstream. I'd be happy if it never didThose people can have consoles lol.
I for one at least got what the OP was trying to convey, if haphazardly and not without overexaggerating and causing a lot of people to put up their guard.
EDIT: although OP, I disagree that PC gaming is not taken seriously. At least in the MMO realm.
I think the irony of this thread is that I've had to do far more of this dumb editing and updating to my PS3 games than I've ever had to do for my PC games in a long, long time, unless we're talking about emulation or games from 10+ years ago (though the fact that I can play games from 10+ years ago is what makes me a for-life PC gamer).
As for PC gaming not being taken seriously, PC gaming is the biggest market for videogames, and to me makes that argument silly. If it's not being taken seriously, there sure are a lot of really dumb people out there. Or maybe there's actually a lot of money in the PC gaming market and it's taken very seriously. Just a thought.
As for PC gaming not being taken seriously, PC gaming is the biggest market for videogames, and to me makes that argument silly. If it's not being taken seriously, there sure are a lot of really dumb people out there. Or maybe there's actually a lot of money in the PC gaming market and it's taken very seriously. Just a thought.