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[Jebusman]

Last Friday I literally spent 2 hours trying to play Forza Horizon 3 on the PC

I mean this is more of a testament to how shitty the Windows Store experience has been from Microsoft when it comes to gaming.

I'm not going to sit here and act like I've "never" had problems on the PC, but it's definitely not a daily, weekly, or even sometimes monthly affair. I had a fair bit more problems back in early 2000s, but nowadays it's pretty smooth sailing.

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

Gotta love how on pc you need to "get an optimal result" but on console you can just sit back and relax.

Do you imagine if most PC games had an "auto" level for graphics? Heck do you imagine if some would even have dynamic resolution for a target performance?

Crazy stuff.

Because auto-level always works so well ...

 

[pinballsummer]

I do see the options. Doesn't explain why anyone will bother to even go into the menu unless they run into issue the first time they boot up the game. And even if so, its just a few tweaks and not touch all of the available options.

Two reasons.

1. Most games don't 'run perfectly out of the box'. That's why these settings are available. Why do you think GeForce comes out with a massive guides for most AAA games.
2. If you don't care about adjusting settings to make a game look and play the best it possibly can on your PC - why not just use a console?

 

[GHG]

Do I activate Beast Mode or not? How do I know without going to GAF is a game is Pro patched or not?

Do I set the game for performance or quality if the game has options? If it has options, how do I know what's best? Do I setup quality if I dont have a 4K set? Does the game downsample to 1080p if I set quality or am I just wasting precious performance?

Don't even get me started if you have HDR and have to setup the TV. RGB range? Deep color? Does my TV have HDR enable for the HDMI port that my PS4 is running on?

Come on.



I dont even know if this is for real. You might need to think about your career, maybe you don't like what you do for a living.

Eh, at least when I game on my consoles I can do so using wireless controllers while dancing around the living room jumping on beanbags.

On the PC I'm have to play hunched over my desk using a keyboard and mouse. That's if I can even get time to game after spending hours modding and tweaking .ini files.

I use sublime text for work and then I've got to use it again in my leisure time to even play a game. It's nightmare fuel.

 

[shandy706]

I do see the options. Doesn't explain why anyone will bother to even go into the menu unless they run into issue the first time they boot up the game. And even if so, its just a few tweaks and not touch all of the available options.

Usually I just go Ultra, Ultra, Ultra, Ultra, etc...turn res to 4k, and see how it runs, lol. That crap starts at much lower defaults sometimes.

Then I tweak. I don't think I've spent more than 10 minutes on settings unless the game has problems.

Presets are pretty easy to flip between now-days at least. It's not always a cakewalk though.

Eh, at least when I game on my consoles I can do so using wireless controllers while dancing around the living room jumping on beanbags.

On the PC I'm have to play hunched over my desk using a keyboard and mouse. That's if I can even get time to game after spending hours modding and tweaking .ini files.

I use sublime text for work and then I've got to use it again in my leisure time to even play a game. It's nightmare fuel.

LOL...

Can't tell if this is genuine or parody.

Really?

 

[Double Donut]

Because the fact is that no matter how easy PC gaming gets, it is still more complex than console gaming.

Going through files, weird crashes, random glitches and odd bugs you'll pretty much never encounter on a console (for example, I saw one person here have a super weird problem with Halo 5 PC where all the trees had messed up textures. What the fuck?).

Call me lazy or stupid, but fuck, I don't want to deal with any of that. No way no how.

Even if console gaming isn't truly "put disc in and play" like it used to, I can still pretty much expect that my console games will work perfectly once the disc is installed and ready to play. And that's awesome.

 

[Skronk]

PC games crash way more often than console games and it's totally understandable considering they have to work with lots of different hardware variations.

Controller syncing can be annoying too. It's definitely worth the hassle but I can 100% understand why people don't want to deal with that shit.

 

[Corpekata]

Eh, at least when I game on my consoles I can do so using wireless controllers while dancing around the living room jumping on beanbags.

On the PC I'm have to play hunched over my desk using a keyboard and mouse. That's if I can even get time to game after spending hours modding and tweaking .ini files.

I use sublime text for work and then I've got to use it again in my leisure time to even play a game. It's nightmare fuel.

Can't tell if this is genuine or parody.

 

[MikeyB]

I think part of the disagreement arises from a difference in perspective for the same events. What seems dead simple to someone with some experience and knowledge may be an obstacle of unknown proportions to someone else.

To illustrate, an anecdote:
While mostly a PS4 gamer, I have a Mac mini that I occasionally use for Steam titles. I love Terraria and when I installed it, noticed it was hitching and running slow on default settings. Two minutes of searching identified the issue and I fixed it. It was one single setting that I probably could have identified through a few minutes of trial and error. Didn't even remember doing it until this thread.

When my sister was visiting and saw Terraria, she was interested. So, I set her up with a Steam account and gifted her the game. A week later, I check her activity and she has some ridiculously small amount of time on Terraria. Turns out she hit the same issue, couldn't figure it out, didn't know where to start, and decided that it wasn't worth the trouble. Having to identify which setting to change was just too out of her comfort zone. She's not dumb, she just didn't see setting up a game as something worth spending more than a cpuple of minutes on.

That problem would likely not have arisen on consoles.

 

[Shari]

Because auto-level always works so well ...

Games on consoles don't always work so well, case in point, Prey. Since you're ok to accepting performance whatever it is as long as you dont have to tinker, I dont see why you complain for.

Eh, at least when I game on my consoles I can do so using wireless controllers while dancing around the living room jumping on beanbags.

On the PC I'm have to play hunched over my desk using a keyboard and mouse. That's if I can even get time to game after spending hours modding and tweaking .ini files.

I use sublime text for work and then I've got to use it again in my leisure time to even play a game. It's nightmare fuel.

Ok, this is the level I need AT LEAST to understand this is sarcasm.

The level has been raised so much that it's hard to tell what's serious and what's sarcasm. You got me there.

 

[Widge]

Do I activate Beast Mode or not? How do I know without going to GAF is a game is Pro patched or not?

Do I set the game for performance or quality if the game has options? If it has options, how do I know what's best? Do I setup quality if I dont have a 4K set? Does the game downsample to 1080p if I set quality or am I just wasting precious performance?

Don't even get me started if you have HDR and have to setup the TV. RGB range? Deep color? Does my TV have HDR enable for the HDMI port that my PS4 is running on?

Come on.
.

None of these will have that much of a detrimental impact to the game if you just go in with whatever you plump for off the top of my head. The layman can just blunder in and get on with things.

My dad would have been going in on 640x480 Oblivion if he let it detect settings from his hardware. Thank god he doesn't like Fallout as he would have had a right trial with its lack of support for Win7 and later. Good job he fell out of love with Final Fantasy at XII because he would have found XIII a right trauma. I mean there are loads of absolute dead stops in PC gaming if you are not inclined to spend the time getting used to it. Which a majority of us here are and we should understand that a majority elsewhere are not.

The concept of PC being a worse platform for userbases than a console is valid.

 

[pinballsummer]

Again - I'm a PC gamer and wouldn't have it any other way.

All of the tinkering is well worth it. I'm just saying... there is tinkering involved. Maybe not for you - but to deny the average PC gamer 'ever has to tinker with anything' is blasphemy.

 

[Pakkidis]

Console will ALWAYS be easier than PC, that shouldn't be a question but I have had very few problems on PC. Over 90% of games I have played on Steam have worked with no problems.

There are the very few that cause problems but still playable with a few tweaks.

 

[Sjefen]

There is a reason there is PC games performance treads on Gaf

 

[GHG]

There is a reason there is PC games performance treads on Gaf

What's the reason for digital foundry threads then?

 

[Grief.exe]

Eh, at least when I game on my consoles I can do so using wireless controllers while dancing around the living room jumping on beanbags.

On the PC I'm have to play hunched over my desk using a keyboard and mouse. That's if I can even get time to game after spending hours modding and tweaking .ini files.

I use sublime text for work and then I've got to use it again in my leisure time to even play a game. It's nightmare fuel.

Every single gaf thread about PC gaming.

 

[pinballsummer]

I guess OP has never read through one of those performance threads because his PC is like Apple: 'it just works'.

 

[Patch13]

I won't, but surely at the point you were looking at custom built liquid cooling using special bespoke tools that took a substantial lead period to complete you must have realised that you are venturing deep into specialist enthusiast territory?

Isn't that the point of PC gaming, though?

When I'm gaming on my PC, I'm either playing some early access game or Kickstarter beta, messing around with emulators, trying to get something to run on Linux, messing about with gyroscope aiming in games not designed for gyroscope aiming, or otherwise trying to do something interesting, usually on strange hardware that I got a deal on (note: I have usually regretted getting the deal on said hardware). Spending 1000+ spacebucks on a box and just playing the latest First Person Stealth Shooter Thing with slightly nicer graphics seems ... wasteful?

I own consoles for when I want to hand a second controller to a friend and have fun; I own PCs for when I want to back a Kickstarter and try something out before it's all boring and polished and finished. The former is easy; the latter is a headache, but interesting.

All this talk about treating a PC like a console is confusing and strange.

 

[Jan Arcade]

Isn't this a living room Gaming discussion?

 

[Jebusman]

Again - I'm a PC gamer and wouldn't have it any other way.

All of the tinkering is well worth it. I'm just saying... there is tinkering involved. Maybe not for you - but to deny the average PC gamer 'ever has to tinker with anything' is blasphemy.

Here's where I think you're tripping up.

The "average" PC gamer is what I would consider the LoL, Hearthstone, COD (and formerly WoW) crowd. If we want to go even further, it's the Candy Crush esque crowd.

The one game only crowd, who buy a PC, turn it on, install game, let autoconfig handle it, and just play video games.

I would bet you that the level of tinkering these people do on a regular basis is slim to none.

 

[NeonBlack]

What's the reason for digital foundry threads then?

To see all the frame rate dips I don't care about and can't fix.

 

[Zia]

Steam, Windows and GeForce Experience do all of my "tinkering" and "driver voodoo" for me.

I just launch and play games as one would do on a console, except with better visuals and performance. This works just fine.

 

[fantomena]

What's the reason for digital foundry threads then?

Both are for masturbation.

 

[Shari]

None of these will have that much of a detrimental impact to the game if you just go in with whatever you plump for off the top of my head. The layman can just blunder in and get on with things.

My dad would have been going in on 640x480 Oblivion if he let it detect settings from his hardware. Thank god he doesn't like Fallout as he would have had a right trial with its lack of support for Win7 and later. Good job he fell out of love with Final Fantasy at XII because he would have found XIII a right trauma. I mean there are loads of absolute dead stops in PC gaming if you are not inclined to spend the time getting used to it. Which a majority of us here are and we should understand that a majority elsewhere are not.

The concept of PC being a worse platform for userbases than a console is valid.

The layman can also go with basic settings on PC recent games and jump in.

If you need to go to 10 year old games to prove that autosettings weren't very good back then feel free, in the meantime you can play oblivion on ps4/One , or Fallout.

 

[Zafir]

Buying a pre-built PC is relatively easy, sure. If you aren't an enthusiast though, the problem lies in troubleshooting after the fact. Unlike consoles where you have one or two configurations for a platform, you're looking at a myriad of different variables such as hardware parts, firmware, drivers, software etc which all have the potential to conflict with each other. Not to mention, if you aren't that knowledgeable with computers, you could be spending ages trying to figure out what is conflicting, error messages aren't always the most forthcoming things - you sometimes have to delve into dump files or error logs.

It's not hard to see why someone would just stick with a console, even if I don't necessarily do so myself.

 

[Abilidebob]

On the PC I'm have to play hunched over my desk using a keyboard and mouse. That's if I can even get time to game after spending hours modding and tweaking .ini files.

I use sublime text for work and then I've got to use it again in my leisure time to even play a game. It's nightmare fuel.

Use Notepad++

 

[LordRaptor]

Isn't that the point of PC gaming, though?

The only liquid cooled gaming system I have owned in my life was my JP Dreamcast

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

Games on consoles don't always work so well, case in point, Prey. Since you're ok to accepting performance whatever it is as long as you dont have to tinker, I dont see why you complain for.

That's beside the point. This thread is about usability and accessibility and not the possibilities of enhancing your games.

I already agreed with you that PC is the better (only) platform to mod and custom-enhance your games.

But when it comes down to "easy to use" consoles are the way to go. And yes, you can have problems on consoles, too. But all those problems - like hardware-errors/connection problems/account-problems - are also on PC + a trillion more.

 

[JimboJones]

Because the fact is that no matter how easy PC gaming gets, it is still more complex than console gaming.

Going through files, weird crashes, random glitches and odd bugs you'll pretty much never encounter on a console (for example, I saw one person here have a super weird problem with Halo 5 PC where all the trees had messed up textures. What the fuck?).

Call me lazy or stupid, but fuck, I don't want to deal with any of that. No way no how.

Even if console gaming isn't truly "put disc in and play" like it used to, I can still pretty much expect that my console games will work perfectly once the disc is installed and ready to play. And that's awesome.

I've had loads of bugs , glitches and crashes on consoles before. Difference on PC is at least you can attempt a fix versus just putting up with it on consoles (or waiting to be blessed with a patch from the developer). That's the only reason it's simple, you simply have no options.

 

[Abilidebob]

There is a reason there is PC games performance treads on Gaf

Aaaaaaaaand here it is, again.
I sincerely should make a bingo chart.

I guess OP has never read through one of those performance threads because his PC is like Apple: 'it just works'.

And they keep coming!

I've had loads of bugs , glitches and crashes on consoles before. Difference on PC is at least you can attempt a fix for versus just putting up with it on consoles. That's the only reason it's simple, you simply have no options.

Maybe that's the way for more developers to come to PC. Deny your user the ability to fix your game/tinker with settings. Users will come flocking to the PC.
Now that I think about it, that's what Microsoft is trying to do with UWP, such insight those bastards.

 

[richiek]

The funny thing is AAA console gaming has become more and more like PC gaming with its dozens of complex graphics settings and new console updates every few years (PS4 Pro, Xbox Scorpio).

 

[GHG]

Use Notepad++

That's poverty, we all know the script kiddies are on visual studio code these days.

To see all the frame rate dips I don't care about and can't fix.

Ok let's imagine you did care about them for s second. Wouldn't it be nice to at least be able to fix them?

 

[Shari]

That's beside the point. This thread is about usability and accessibility and not the possibilities of enhancing your games.

I already agreed with you that PC is the better (only) platform to mod and custom-enhance your games.

But when it comes down to "easy to use" consoles are the way to go. And yes, you can have problems on consoles, too. But all those problems - like hardware-errors/connection problems/account-problems - are also on PC + a trillion more.

It is not, again you can have worse performance than you could on a PC but that doesn't mean that the default performance is going to be any worse than with a console. Again, if you want to accept the out-of-the-box like you would (have to) on a console you can do that and be just fine. Games are not irremediably broken on PC on first launch, whatever GAF has led you to believe.

That's poverty, we all know the script kiddies are on visual studio code these days.

To be fair, it's getting pretty good.

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

The funny thing is AAA console gaming has become more and more like PC gaming with its dozens of complex graphics settings and new console updates every few years (PS4 Pro, Xbox Scorpio).

It's not even close to PC-gaming. And what "dozens" of complex graphics settings?

 

[Duxxy3]

I think part of the disagreement arises from a difference in perspective for the same events. What seems dead simple to someone with some experience and knowledge may be an obstacle of unknown proportions to someone else.

To illustrate, an anecdote:
While mostly a PS4 gamer, I have a Mac mini that I occasionally use for Steam titles. I love Terraria and when I installed it, noticed it was hitching and running slow on default settings. Two minutes of searching identified the issue and I fixed it. It was one single setting that I probably could have identified through a few minutes of trial and error. Didn't even remember doing it until this thread.

When my sister was visiting and saw Terraria, she was interested. So, I set her up with a Steam account and gifted her the game. A week later, I check her activity and she has some ridiculously small amount of time on Terraria. Turns out she hit the same issue, couldn't figure it out, didn't know where to start, and decided that it wasn't worth the trouble. Having to identify which setting to change was just too out of her comfort zone. She's not dumb, she just didn't see setting up a game as something worth spending more than a cpuple of minutes on.

That problem would likely not have arisen on consoles.

Reminds me of my dad. I've bought him a lot of games over the years, but he only plays Black Ops 2. I check his games on steam and he does try out the games, but only for a little while. I asked him about a few games and he essentially said that the games were running poorly, so he stopped and went back to Black Ops 2.

I got him an XB1 S for Christmas. He uses that when he doesn't want to play Black Ops 2. Sure the games look worse on that console, compared to what his PC is capable of, but he doesn't have to do any tinkering. Not even a little. The games just work.

 

[pinballsummer]

Aaaaaaaaand here it is, again.
I sincerely should make a bingo chart.



And they keep coming!

...I don't get it? People are just bringing up proof that 'tinkering' is pretty damn common when it comes to playing new AAA PC games. Whether you have old hardware or brand new hardware, alike.

 

[Patch13]

The only liquid cooled gaming system I have owned in my life was my JP Dreamcast

I was more talking about the

venturing deep into specialist enthusiast territory?

part, in general. If you're not doing something at least a little strange, whether it be liquid cooling, or fancy control setups, or weird operating systems, then it seems odd to me to want to game on a PC. They're expensive and relatively inefficient, compared to consoles, in terms of the ratio of raw hardware power in to pretty graphics out.

 

[Lister]

As I mentioned upthread, the posts in this types of threads always come form the same place.

It's never from gamers who actually wanted to play on PC but found getitng into it difficult. BEcause, for christ sakes there's a "Make me a PC" thread on this very forums that is on the front page at least 3 times a day. All the effort required for a Gaffer is to make a post there with budget and the game she woudl like ot play.

DONE. That simple.

So no, the replies aren't from people who wanted to get into PC gaming and actually found it "too complex". They are from fanboys who aren't interested in PC gaming and feel the need to trash the platform at every opportunity with ridiculous assertions and angry fanboy name calling.

 

[Shari]

...I don't get it? People are just bringing up proof that 'tinkering' is pretty damn common when it comes to playing new AAA PC games. Whether you have old hardware or brand new hardware, alike.

I think you need to revisit the concept of "proof". You might be getting brainwashed by those that spread FAKE NEWS.

Sad!

As I mentioned upthread, the posts in this types of threads always come form the same place.

It's never from gamers who actually wanted to play on PC but found getitng into it difficult. BEcause, for christ sakes there's a "Make me a PC" thread on this very forums that is on the front page at least 3 times a day. All the effort required for a Gaffer is to make a post there with budget and the game she woudl like ot play.

DONE. That simple.

So no, the replies aren't from people who wanted to get into PC gaming and actually found it "too complex". They are from fanboys who aren't interested in PC gaming and fele the need to trash the paltform at every opportunity with ridiculous assertions and angry fanboy name calling.

Hey you dont need to come so harsh in here. We're just friends having fun. Here, have a beer and tinker a little.

 

[LordKasual]

Just bought Dragon Quest Heroes II on Steam

Fullscreen crashes 100% of the time on my laptop

It literally does not run ever on my desktop

 

[jroc74]

people are scared of what they don't know

For the same reason people believe you eat like 8 spiders a year in your sleep.

Well...
They say that stuff out of ignorance.
I would ignore it If I were you, but that circle jerk really brought a stigma to PC's.

Not trying to be agressive here.

Cant explain it any better than this.

I wouldnt call myself a PC gamer, last time I really did PC gaming was years ago. And I know its not as hard now vs years ago. Things have gotten alot easier.

During these past 4 years I haven't "fiddled" with any driver or patches, I've just bought the games on Steam and everything has just worked with zero tinkering. The fiddling is taken care of by Steam without me knowing about it..

Yup. I know this and I havent really run too many games on Steam. Steam vs GoG for example, Steam does most if not all the work for you.

 

[LordRaptor]

I was more talking about the part, in general. If you're not doing something at least a little strange, whether it be liquid cooling, or fancy control setups, or weird operating systems, then it seems odd to me to want to game on a PC. They're expensive and relatively inefficient, compared to consoles, in terms of the ratio of raw hardware power in to pretty graphics out.

I think you misunderstood my point, which was really that that poster was scared off buying a Pc because he was looking at a page that was offering customised liquid cooling systems that had a month and a half lead time and required specilist tools to assemble - which is deeply off the beaten path of "Pc gaming"

 

[Widge]

The layman can also go with basic settings on PC recent games and jump in.

If you need to go to 10 year old games to prove that autosettings weren't very good back then feel free, in the meantime you can play oblivion on ps4/One , or Fallout.

I mean can you think of any user types where PC is a bad choice, a worse choice than a console? That is the crux of everything being talked about here. Or would you just tell absolutely everyone to go with PC off the bat?

 

[Abilidebob]

...I don't get it? People are just bringing up proof that 'tinkering' is pretty damn common when it comes to playing new AAA PC games. Whether you have old hardware or brand new hardware, alike.

Pretty much every time there is a console vs PC gaming discussion going on there are a bunch if people saying that PC gaming require too much work compared to consoles.

Having a bunch of settings to tinker =/= being required to tinker with a bunch of settings.

I mean can you think of any user types where PC is a bad choice, a worse choice than a console? That is the crux of everything being talked about here. Or would you just tell absolutely everyone to go with PC off the bat?

There are some types of users that a console is better for them, that's obvious. Maybe they don't like the concept of having the ability to alter settings, maybe they don't like that most games are digital, maybe they only like company X or Y's games, and that's completely fine.
What's not fine is acting like their view on things (ANY OPTION IS BAD AND THAT'S TRUE FOR EVERYTHING) is an accepted and applicable truth for everyone. And, of course, I can see the same kind of zealotry out of some PC gamers here on this forum. Thing is, quite a few people ignore PC because of outdated, wrong views of the platform. And some of those spread their ignorance around, which just hurts the platform.

 

[Jebusman]

As I mentioned upthread, the posts in this types of threads always come form the same place.

It's never from gamers who actually wanted to play on PC but found getitng into it difficult. BEcause, for christ sakes there's a "Make me a PC" thread on this very forums that is on the front page at least 3 times a day. All the effort required for a Gaffer is to make a post there with budget and the game she woudl like ot play.

DONE. That simple.

So no, the replies aren't from people who wanted to get into PC gaming and actually found it "too complex". They are from fanboys who aren't interested in PC gaming and fele the need to trash the paltform at every opportunity with ridiculous assertions and angry fanboy name calling.

The fire that is the console proxy wars against the PC will burn forever.

For as long as there is more than a single option available to you, people will militantly fight to justify why "their" purchase is the superior one, no matter the spin of reality it will take.

As consoles transition to a more PC like atmosphere I wonder how long that'll last.

I wonder when the cutoff point of "You can make PS4 Pro only games" will finally arrive and really drive that point home to people.

 

[pixelpatr0n]

PROS:

I recently bought a new desktop rig about a year ago, 970 with a few extra bells and whistles. For the most part it's been great! I mean seeing games like Doom, Witcher 3, and even Rocket League running 60fps at high resolutions was super amazing! Overwatch, and Battlefront have been on rotation as well, and I can't imagine playing either of these games on a console, they just feel like PC games to me. As comfortable as I've become to playing FPS's on a console with a controller, FPS's will always feel more at home on a PC since I was introduced to the genre playing Quake 2 and the original Half-Life back in the day.

Bonus treats like Mad Max and a few PC exclusives like Tiny Barbarian, and Adventures of PiP have also been a blast.

The PC sales are ridiculous and if anything more of a nuisance due to the fact I've probably purchased a back catologue of titles I'll never realistically have time to consume. It's a good problem I guess, but it's borderline a con for me, I'll explain later....

My gaming PC is pretty awesome and I love firing it up and showing it off for friends and family who haven't seen the bleeding edge of where gaming graphics have gone. (Yes I understand my rig isn't truly bleeding edge anymore, nor was it ever....but for my audience it is.)

CONS:
All that said I've had my issues with it. Annoyed by the fact that I have to clog my PC with multiple gaming launchers, Steam, GOG, battle.net, and Orgin to name a few...do they make PC gaming convinent? Yes. Does it suck to keep all these different stores and launch hubs downloaded and updated? Yes. Does it suck to have my library scattered across these programs? Yes.

Then the troubleshooting issues. Downloading and installing these games for the most part has been easy. Yet not without issues.....

I love the PS4 controller and have had relative success using it vanilla with Steam and with the aid of DS4Windows. It's had it's fair share of hours tinkering though. And not always without issue. Like for instance I have to use it for some games, or emulators, but other times I have to remember to not launch it and just go vanilla. Witcher 3, I could never get all the right bindings for that game's complex button layouts. Headache for sure, alleviated by not using DS4Windows...but I didn't know that worked until one day I forgot to launch DS4Windows. I was surprised to see it working and with dual shock button prompts to boot! (When I first launched it at time of purchase, it didn't recognize it, must of received a patch.)

I bought Darksiders 1 and 2 during a sale and no matter what I tried I couldn't get Darksiders 1 to recognize my PS4 controller. Because DS1 is an older game it needed some files for first gen 360 controller, I tracked em down and eventually got it working but it was a few hours to get it figured out. Annoying, and more files clogging my PC.

I also have to remember to disconnect my controller every time I want to play Doom. It tries to be cool and recognize I have a controller connected and it wants to use that for the game and UI, even though I'd prefer to use mouse/keyboard. Tried different things to sort it, but only real solution for me without headaches was to be sure to disconnect my controller prior to launching the game.

To properly play my PC games I have to remember which launcher has what game, decide if I have to connect or disconnect my controller for said game, launch DS4Windows, as well as double check my audio volume.

My wife uses my PC to workout and watch fitness videos. She's not super PC savvy and she'll often tweak the audio volumes on my rig without my knowledge prior to launching a game...the amount of times my headphones have been at ear shattering volume while injected into my skull have been numourous and aplenty. Not to mention the fact that adjusting audio volume in some games is a real pain in the ass as sometimes it's meant backing out of a live game or loosing a connection to a multiplayer session I had already started just to turn up, or turn down my headphones. 😖

One day I launched Doom and for whatever reason it was rendering on my second monitor and not my main. Took me forever to sort it out, as it was related to a Wacom update I did, I also couldn't get it to switch to proper resolution for some reason. I ended up wiping the game and fresh installing to fix it. Bazaaro for sure.

My game library on my PC is also becoming so overwhelming that sometimes I'll just cruise the Gaf, Imgr, or YouTube due to my inability to decide what to consume, and through which portal and setup. Sometimes I don't want to deal with it...so don't.☹️

So my PC gaming relationship is mixed bag, some great times for sure, amazing experiences, and plenty of wow moments. Not without it's fair share of headaches and issues to boot. It's just a lot to ask compared to console gaming, the tinkering, the cost, the overwhelming nature of it, and the lack of real life social engagement. I've had multiple times where I've been showing people my PC rig and even offered them opportunity to play it, but it's always just a bit awkward, they feel uncomfortable standing behind me while I sit and game at my PC and vice versa...it's just not the same as throwing a controller across the couch. Throw in a few people and it's even more weird. I can see why some folks are turned off from PC gaming, while it'll offer the most technologically advanced experiences, it comes with it's fair share of costs; it's just not for everybody.

 

[Fishook]

Been a PC gamer for 25 years, I have briefly flirted with consoles but they are not for me. I not have a major problem running the vast majority of games for the last 10 years.

I generally don't tinker and mess about with my rigs too much, and I am fortunate to not to be effected by micro stutter and such due to dodgy eyesight. I do tend to run mid/high end hardware these days.

It's not for everybody, if you only want to play AAA games I would recommend consoles any day of the week, I tried to go with a lesser pc (laptop) and a console, but lasted 6 mths. There too many pc centric game/genres I enjoy playing to make the full switch to consoles.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Last night, I spent a good four hours trying to get Quantum Break running. It kept crashing on startup with the generic message "QuantumBreak.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close." No error report, nothing. I eventually had to give up.

PC gaming is usually great and usually hassle free, but every once in a while it's not, and it can be really aggravating when that happens.

 

[Luminaire]

PC Gaming can wildly vary in the effort needed to put into it. It all depends on your skills, knowledge, and willingness to learn - and ultimately what you want out of it. Some people want a simple plug and play solution while others want more freedom and control.

I've had two extremely different situations with video cards in the past week. Putting my 1080ti into my current machine was a breeze. It took a few minutes and was up and running with the latest drivers in a handful of clicks. It was super smooth.

However, putting my old 970 into my sisters machine was a nightmare scenario. The board wasn't seeing the card, no video, it got power and the fans spun. I spent almost three hours researching the issue and trying things but no one had an answer that worked. I ended up needing to update the motherboard BIOS, swapping the card to a different PCI slot, and redoing all of the cabling to work around the new card placement.

It was an incredibly frustrating experience. While it's not indicative of the PC experience, I can see how people don't want to deal with potential issues and manual work that can arise. Some people should just understand it's not for everyone and realize there's no need to push it on them and try to convince it's super easy. While it may be easy for some of us, it can be a daunting nightmare for others. It's ok for people to play on console, y'know?

 

[pinballsummer]

Having a bunch of settings to tinker =/= being required to tinker with a bunch of settings.

Who said it was required? For some - yes, actually - it is. Didn't 80% of you have to tweak settings to get Watch Dogs 2 to be 'playable'?

I can honestly say, no - tweaking is almost never a requirement for me. But why wouldn't you want to tweak some settings to make your games play better? Isn't that one of the biggest appeals of PC gaming? Of course you don't HAVE to. But why wouldn't you? How is it not worth it?