Because it offers a lesser experience for the most part. If you can deal with the small niggles of PC gaming then you will have the the best gaming experience available.
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Why is PC gaming still considered difficult with too much tinkering?
- Thread starter Fess
- Start date
Because it offers a lesser experience for the most part. If you can deal with the small niggles of PC gaming then you will have the the best gaming experience available.
Yeah, as someone who runs support for a gaming company, believe me, things don't "just work" on PC, even for those with brand-new, high-end rigs. In fact, those cases tend to be the hardest since the expectation for those is that their $2000+ PC should run anything you throw at it, but there can still be a myriad of factors that can affect performance or the game even running at all, even for new, modern games.
Personally, I've been building my own PCs since around 1990, so I've been through some of the worst that PC hardware and software has had to offer, and find modern PCs to be pretty simple. I wish they would standardize the connectors for LEDs, PC speaker, etc. instead of all the tiny +/- pins, but besides that, the hardest part is probably cable management... and making sure you don't lift things by the wrong part. Seen so many videos where people are lifting/moving motherboards by the heatsinks, etc.
Personally, I've been building my own PCs since around 1990, so I've been through some of the worst that PC hardware and software has had to offer, and find modern PCs to be pretty simple. I wish they would standardize the connectors for LEDs, PC speaker, etc. instead of all the tiny +/- pins, but besides that, the hardest part is probably cable management... and making sure you don't lift things by the wrong part. Seen so many videos where people are lifting/moving motherboards by the heatsinks, etc.
Tathanen
Get Inside Her!
But what if I define the "best gaming experience available" as one without those "small niggles"? It really comes down to what parts of the experience one places the most value on.
jonscrambler
Member
dude it's a Surface Book, it's as powerful as a tablet maybe 1/4 as powerful as today's consoles, I would expect it can run very basic games but that's it.
Well of course PC gaming has its benefits including a bigger library of games. My point was just that as options become closer to equal people will lean towards convience sometimes even picking a technically worse option.
I just mean in terms of things like resolution, framerate, peripherals input lag and the like.
PC offers the optimal gameplay experiences, you get what you pay for.
PC also has genres that don't really come to console, you can't really say that the other way round.
You're thinking of surface pro. Surface book is close to high end laptops.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
edit: whoa I thought an old post was new
how'd that happen
how'd that happen
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
I just don't feel like dealing with Windows bullshit, drivers, sliders, boxes to tick, and all that nonsense.
I just want to insert a disc (or cartridge) and play a game.
When I was younger and had all the free time in the world I loved tinkering with my PC's hardware and software settings, but these days between work, sleep, and keeping up a social life, I just want things to be easy.
I just want to insert a disc (or cartridge) and play a game.
When I was younger and had all the free time in the world I loved tinkering with my PC's hardware and software settings, but these days between work, sleep, and keeping up a social life, I just want things to be easy.
jonscrambler
Member
high end laptop with like a Intel HD graphics 520? with 1 GB graphics memory? you would expect it to run games like Overwatch well?
JayhawkerStL
Banned
PC gamers lie about the simplicity of PC gaming all the time. Maybe not willfully, but spend any time in forums dedicated to PC games and building PCs and you see a much different story.
Just try starting thread about building a PC and watch the PC heads spends pages and pages arguing about parts and potential problems.
More than that, the ability to tweak and upgrade changes the way I view gaming. I end up thinking more about performance than gameplay. It seriously sucked the fun out of gaming for me. Had I not gone back to console gaming, I would have quit altogether.
Just try starting thread about building a PC and watch the PC heads spends pages and pages arguing about parts and potential problems.
More than that, the ability to tweak and upgrade changes the way I view gaming. I end up thinking more about performance than gameplay. It seriously sucked the fun out of gaming for me. Had I not gone back to console gaming, I would have quit altogether.
Unneeded hostility.
I doubt they purposely lie, they probaly just don't know or forget how much more knowledgeable they are compared to the average consumer.
And the bolded bit is a weird mentality to me, if that was a problem could you not just ignore it and play the game at recommended settings? Use some will power
Huge Succeeded
Banned
yeah, you're telling me. That's why I edited it out before you responded.
I thought that poster made the post I just responded to, well after I made a lengthy post @ him which explained point-by-point how his arguments in this thread haven't made any sense. Of course, turned out it was an older post than I thought, and I made myself look like a jackass.
Wanna make one thing clear tho, if it weren't an older post than I thought, then I sure wouldn't have edited my response out, because that hostility would have been warranted, as far as I give a shit.
Close to high end laptops lol.
Most expensive version runs a 965M 2gb. $2400 for the cheapest version that has that card.
For that kind of money you can go for a 1080 on a laptop or you can build a ludicrous desktop computer including accesories.
That said that should be good enough to run some games.
Doesn't matter because his stuff is not a HW problem, wonder how many of his problems would be fixed by refreshing W10 and getting specific drivers for his card.
Y'know sometimes instead of making my own soup, I just buy the stuff in a can. I'm getting inferior soup, but it's more convenient. There's also some types of soup I could only get if I make it myself, but it's too much trouble/I don't care for those kinds of soup anyway.
Perhaps a bit of a ridiculous metaphor (maybe some people don't realize how easy it is to make soup hehe), but as gtj mentioned people regularly choose the convenient option over the best option. If you want to be angry at that then, that's fine but it's a fight you can't win.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
These days, it seems like soup in a can is loaded with salt.
Upper midrange is close to high end. I didn't say it was high end (which 1080 one would be).
GeordieMark
Member
I agree, and I'm pretty certain it's because the advice is coming from the enthusiast crowd. To them tweaking a few settings or stress testing an OC is no big deal. It's typical 'geek' behaviour in that they think of the best tech solution rather than what is best for that particular user.
I get that and I'm not angry in the slightest, but I was responding to this quote below. I did bold it but maybe I wasn't clear enough.
th4tguy
Member
I've never had to run hours of memory tests on my consoles to figure out why Borderlands 2 crashes every 10 minutes.
Edit: took a few days of testing to figure out I had a bad stick of ram that only caused issues for me when playing a game like Borderlands 2. No idea why it was the only thing that showed the problem, but yeah....
I've had at least one major issue per PC I've owned that required just as much tinkering and investigation to fix.
Edit: took a few days of testing to figure out I had a bad stick of ram that only caused issues for me when playing a game like Borderlands 2. No idea why it was the only thing that showed the problem, but yeah....
I've had at least one major issue per PC I've owned that required just as much tinkering and investigation to fix.
Pretty much this. There are a good number of people who, when you start describing how easy something is by telling them about how you just undo all the screws and cables, will immediately be like "that's not easy". They don't want a thing they ever have to open or tinker with, and are willing to sacrifice some amount of quality to get that.
Jeronimo Jones
Member
Some of us have actually had to do the tweaking. I haven't seriously tried to game on PC since the late 90s/early 00s but it wasn't nearly as easy back then as it sounds like it is now. Some people have had mixed or bad experiences with pc hardware, tried consoles, and never went back.
I remember tracking down and installing a Voodoo 2 card myself in high school with average results (it was a budget pc to begin with) and did (and still do) most of the pc troubleshooting in my family. I remember all the tweaking to get things to run well or at all. When I went to college I didn't keep up with many pc hardware advances and instead focused on console gaming. I have not had a need to seriously get into pc gaming since.
I remember tracking down and installing a Voodoo 2 card myself in high school with average results (it was a budget pc to begin with) and did (and still do) most of the pc troubleshooting in my family. I remember all the tweaking to get things to run well or at all. When I went to college I didn't keep up with many pc hardware advances and instead focused on console gaming. I have not had a need to seriously get into pc gaming since.
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
My only real question about this whole thread and others like it is why are others so concerned about how I play my videogames? There's this contingent of PC Gamers out there that act like if I don't want to own a PC or play PC Games I'm somehow stupid, uninformed, or just ignorant. Why do these people care so much?
On PC I can at least fix the problems or consult someone who knows how while consoles are just nope.
yeah, the kinda games I like usually show up on PC first and consoles if it manages to become a runaway success
Fess
Member
For me it was the other way around, dealing with bad performance in game after game with no chance for me to fix it sucked the fun out of console gaming for me.
Driveclub was the beginning of the fall for me, AAA exclusive racer for the most powerful console running at 30fps, barely anyone complained about it and just raved about the graphics in still pics and rain effect gifs. I just started nope my way out of most console gaming at that point.
Uncharted 4 running at 60fps at first then downgraded to 30fps for the visual punch was another more recent blow. Forza Horizon 3 is a third one, bought it about a week ago after the Hot Wheels expansion was about to arrive.
Awesome awesome games, all of them. But still, honestly now, 30fps is kind of 1995, isn't it?
Works fine for some games but fast games most definitely get hurt by it.
Can't wait to get to play FH3 on my PC later on after upgrading to W10!
PC takes a little more effort if something goes wrong or whatever, but by and large it's more plug and play then it's ever been. Programs like GeForce Experience can auto set settings for you. You don't necessarily have to mess with that stuff if you don't want.
On the other hand the notion of consoles being plug and play is outdated.
On the other hand the notion of consoles being plug and play is outdated.
Not true at all. Many console gamers make ignorant statements based on stereotypes of PC gaming. Then a PC gamer corrects them in a sometimes slightly patronizing manner (it's hard not after the thousandth time) and precedes to get called a PC fanboy.
No one says you must play on PC but please don't make statements which were probably true in 1998.
What I'm getting at, and to the question in the thread title, it's not that PC gaming is some super complex thing most people can't figure out with a little effort. But it does require more effort than consoles and any amount of tinkering is too much tinkering for most people.
It's easy to see the benefits of PC gaming but since I already have a console anyway for exclusives I can't be bothered most of the time.
10/10
People are intimidated by the build process, and assume you need to be a technical guru to get one built.
A few months ago I convinced two of my friends to get gaming laptops when there was a ridiculous sale on one. A few weeks in, one of them drunkenly hit their laptop screen and broke it. He ordered a screen replacement for $60 and I linked him a tutorial on how to change it himself. That experience led him to being less intimidated by the build process and he's now sniping deals on parts for a rig.
An interesting observation is that these two guys work blue collar jobs, and could be stereotyped as "dudebros". Meanwhile, my two other engineering friends (electrical engineer and mechanical engineer) are 100% opposed to jumping on the PC wagon. They're content with the Xbox One and have zero interest in PC gaming because "I can just plug and play".
A few months ago I convinced two of my friends to get gaming laptops when there was a ridiculous sale on one. A few weeks in, one of them drunkenly hit their laptop screen and broke it. He ordered a screen replacement for $60 and I linked him a tutorial on how to change it himself. That experience led him to being less intimidated by the build process and he's now sniping deals on parts for a rig.
An interesting observation is that these two guys work blue collar jobs, and could be stereotyped as "dudebros". Meanwhile, my two other engineering friends (electrical engineer and mechanical engineer) are 100% opposed to jumping on the PC wagon. They're content with the Xbox One and have zero interest in PC gaming because "I can just plug and play".
Twice now my Win 10 store has decided that it can no longer download the necessary digital licenses so that I can play my PC version of FH3. I tried every solution online and was able to fix it once. The second time nothing worked. Microsoft's fix was for me to reformat and re-install Win10. Nope.
Tathanen
Get Inside Her!
I have no expectation of running most modern games "well" (though I suspect you are underselling the Book here), but you'll notice that the issues I'm having have nothing to do with "power," it's just a bunch of glitchy flaky PC crap.
Perhaps my issues would indeed be improved by, as one poster suggested, refreshing Win10 and messing around with drivers (though I suspect not, for some of them). But therein is the exact issue I have: boy what a pain in the ass that'd be, and it falls right within the kind of things PC gaming will often ask of you that console gaming will not.
Yup the windows store is terrible, no arguments there.
Rellik
Member
He's definitely not underselling.
PCs are much less hassle than they used to be. Trust me, as someone that had to make DOS configs and micro manage my memory just to boot a game let alone keep it running, the era of steam has been a godsend. But, they are hardly as casual friendly as consoles are. And that's with consoles themselves having become a lot more complicated.
Just enjoy what you enjoy and stop overthinking this preference shit.
Just enjoy what you enjoy and stop overthinking this preference shit.
Taliban Stan
Member
Having to re-install your operating system to get a game to install (not even run, just to install it) is a good answer to the question of Why is PC gaming still considered difficult with too much tinkering?
secretanchitman
Member
If people are okay with doing some research on their computer and games, looking up fixes for issues, and changing settings, then PC gaming is totally fine. Its much easier than it was many years ago.
That being said, most people dont care about any of that stuff. They just want a console that you put in the disc, wait for a patch and play which is what streamlined/locked down PCs are.
Other issues are very real however:
-drivers/OS issues
-Windows can randomly just lock up or auto-update by itself
-Windows 10 Store, uPlay
-DRM can be annoying on older titles
-games not running well even if hardware meets requirements
-crap PC ports at launch (MKX, Batman: Arkham Knight, BF4, FFXIV and SimCity to name a few)
-controllers may not work in certain games
-console exclusives that arent on PC
Personally, each platform has their pros and cons but I will never get tired of both PC and console gaming.
That being said, most people dont care about any of that stuff. They just want a console that you put in the disc, wait for a patch and play which is what streamlined/locked down PCs are.
Other issues are very real however:
-drivers/OS issues
-Windows can randomly just lock up or auto-update by itself
-Windows 10 Store, uPlay
-DRM can be annoying on older titles
-games not running well even if hardware meets requirements
-crap PC ports at launch (MKX, Batman: Arkham Knight, BF4, FFXIV and SimCity to name a few)
-controllers may not work in certain games
-console exclusives that arent on PC
Personally, each platform has their pros and cons but I will never get tired of both PC and console gaming.
Lol you should never have to do that.
It's really a shame too because the "Play Anywhere" thing is pretty attractive IMO. I really like the idea of being able to buy once and then choose to play via Xbox in the comfort of my living room, or jump on the PC if I want the higher-end experience.
Missed opportunity to get people like me to consider a digital buy.
shadowsdarknes
Member
It's still sometimes inconvenient.
Not a ton, but sometimes, yes.
Sometimes my DS4 doesn't automatically play on a game.
Or sometimes old PC games that don't support 1080p send my whole screen resolution to something very low after I close the game out. I'd prefer not to have to fix that.
Not a ton, but sometimes, yes.
Sometimes my DS4 doesn't automatically play on a game.
Or sometimes old PC games that don't support 1080p send my whole screen resolution to something very low after I close the game out. I'd prefer not to have to fix that.
Yes, you should never have to do that. Once you do, for a modern game, you get called out by PC gamers for "using arguments from 1998".
Huge Succeeded
Banned
Have you had to reformat your computer before because Windows Installer wouldn't run?
because if so I bring your internet safety habits into question.
This kind of thing always comes up in these threads.
If your PC experience isn't as good as mine then it's your fault.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
No, don't be silly. I conceded on page two three that there's mad reasons why people think PC gaming is difficult and console gaming isn't. Valid reasons. Understandable reasons.
If you read the above chain of posts carefully, you'll see that I wasn't responding to someone's 'PC experience', I was responding to a rhetorical statement that rang false to my ears.
I didn't really mean to single you out specifically. I've seen a number of statements in this thread that fit the framework of that post.
Point is he likely didn't need to do that.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
I feel ya. I need to take a break from this thread for a bit lol, I'mma get banned in a PC thread one day.
perfectsil
Member
How do they survive updating console firmware?
Installer not running was an anecdotal example of support requests on forums. I can't imagine what would you have to do, to mess that up. I could easily imagine messing up registries for example, that windows installer would be unable to install the game. Windows technology for writing installers is not that great. And reinstalling is probably the fastest fix.
And yet, the same thing is happening with consoles now. Xbox One, One S, Scorpio, PS4, Pro, HDR tv, 4K tv.