official Official PC vs. The World

[spaceelf]

the thing about dx9 is though, is it has lots of eyecandy and runs very well on even older hardware. where as dx10 doesn't really add much eyecandy at all, and the eye candy in dx11 adds quite the performance hit on even current high end hardware, for the most part.

i think devs are more interested in dx11 than dx10 for a few reasons even if they don't play to use it for eyecandy first and foremost, as i understand it has some optimizations that make dx9 eyecandy run better on lower end hardware.

DX10 always seemed to be a major improvement in accuracy to me. Lots of special effects looked way better in DX10 mode...and most developers were focusing on dx9 so didn't really use its full potential.

DX11 has a lot more visible changes as far as endusers are concerned. Tesselation certainly has a performance hit, but the multithreaded rendering has a performance gain. And not many devs that use DX11 are even using tesselation.

[Richard Hammond]

KB + Mouse..

Nothing else really matters when talking about PC gaming. I mean PC gaming sucks because of the hardware requirements, and the fact that you have to keep updating every 6 months or so just to keep up with the latest and greatest games. You are limited to a monitor size. 99% of the people out there do not use a monitor bigger than 22" but have at least a 32" television. The higher res you get in a game on PC the more latest hardware is needed to keep up. Install size sucks. Most PC games are 8 gigs or more now. Some are as large as 20gigs now. The only other plus side to PC gaming that I can think of is the ability to release patches much faster. Since you do not have to go through the console companies to release your patches, they can directly host them on their site and in turn you can get a fix for a game almost immediately after it is found/fixed.

I dont upgrade every 6 months, i had a 3 year old core 2 machine that still played the latest games, ok so i couldnt put the IQ settings to max but it was still a better experience than playing the same games on console.

[Buio]

I find it kind of funny how Microsoft is copying Nintendo to try and reach a bigger casual group of gamers with their new Kinect. Also how they just gave up on PC gaming and threw everything they had at consoles instead to try and grab a bigger market, because they failed doing so with PC gaming (believing that the platform isn't made for casual gaming and whatnot).

Anyhow, Zynga's new Cityville has broken records on it's launch, reaching over 26 million users in just 12 days. It just shows you how good the PC can be when it comes to casual gaming if the platform (in this case Facebook) is there for games.

http://venturebeat.com/2010/12/15/fastest-growing-game-in-history-zyngas-cityville-hits-26m-daily-players-in-12-days/

Also Zynga has had over 260 million active players when it was at its biggest this past spring. Zynga, the makers of Farmville and other Facebook games are raking in money at the moment.

And Steam is just growing and growing, becoming a great platform for more hardcore PC gamers. So Steam and Facebook kind of prove the PC is far from dead when it comes to both casual and hardcore gaming.

I kind of laugh at Microsoft, they missed everything again. The PC gaming platform was here to take, they just didn't get it.

(this topic is kind of a rant, as an anti-"PC Gaming is dead" topic)

[Darrian]

Zynga definitely has some great casual games. They can be fun and extremely addictive. Zynga is also a bunch of greedy ********ers and you can easily end up spending much more than you would for a well developed traditional game that spent months or years in development by much more talented people. I usually play their games until it gets to the point where you are forced to spend money to progress reasonably in the game and then I drop them.

[Lee G. Veteran]

Buio, with your topic title in mind, "PC is the best casual platform, not consoles", I've decided to merge the thread into the pinned "Official PC vs. The World" thread.

Threads merged.

[treemonster]

Zynga definitely has some great casual games. They can be fun and extremely addictive. Zynga is also a bunch of greedy ********ers and you can easily end up spending much more than you would for a well developed traditional game that spent months or years in development by much more talented people. I usually play their games until it gets to the point where you are forced to spend money to progress reasonably in the game and then I drop them.

that's pretty much how the f2p subgenre of the mmo genre works. they get your foot in the door with the free start up cost and then reel you in witht he addictive grind and then pretty much force you buy stuff to get any further, adn there are many people who are willing to pay far more than the standard p2p mmo fee of $15 a month on these kinds of games in very short period of time.

and in teh case of zynga games they have fb users spamming their friends with invite requests daily to add new players to the potential customer base which far surpasses the marketting ability of absolutely any other game company in terms of reach. i know i've had to block every new fb game request on fb or my friends keep sending them.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

That reminds me of a presentation I once saw about casual gaming and Facebook. I'll link it here as soon as I find it. Anyway, the casual market is definitely growing by the day. And developers are learning to take advantage of the "short time/short attention span" of casual gamers. Think about it, not everyone has the time to play games like Civilization or Halo. More and more people are looking for the quick fix. Do X and see result Y immediately. Also, I might be wrong about this but over 100 million people play games on Facebook. That's more than the number of Wii systems sold to date (or more than X360 + PS3 combined).

It's a win-win situation for most developers. The cost of developing a casual game isn't as big as, say, a game like Mass Effect 2 or Call of Duty: Black Ops.

[spaceelf]

That reminds me of a presentation I once saw about casual gaming and Facebook. I'll link it here as soon as I find it. Anyway, the casual market is definitely growing by the day. And developers are learning to take advantage of the "short time/short attention span" of casual gamers. Think about it, not everyone has the time to play games like Civilization or Halo. More and more people are looking for the quick fix. Do X and see result Y immediately. Also, I might be wrong about this but over 100 million people play games on Facebook. That's more than the number of Wii systems sold to date (or more than X360 + PS3 combined).

It's a win-win situation for most developers. The cost of developing a casual game isn't as big as, say, a game like Mass Effect 2 or Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Is this really a plus for PC gaming though? Casual games could be made on any platform with minimal effort. That they'd follow the largest possible install base isn't exactly a brainburner.

I just saw a thing about PC games released in 2010. There were apparently tons of them. Most of them I wouldn't waste $5 on.

[threetonesun]

Pros:

- Wider variety of games. Although Xbox Acade and the PSN get some of the indie games now, there are still a ton of strategy games that will never make it to consoles.

- Games aren't tied to a console. If I buy a game on Steam, I can play it as long as I have a computer. As someone who likes to buy and sell consoles, it makes me very hesitant to buy games through their download services.

- Mouse + keyboard for FPS / RPGs.

- I built my last gaming rig 2 years ago for $500 (when the Xbox was $299 and the PS3 was $399). It has served as an excellent machine for gaming, but it's also a computer.

- Modability. Even if it's not as widespread as it was 5 years ago, you can still do some cool stuff on a PC that you can't do on a console. Two recent games that I've enjoyed, Torchlight and SC2, are perfect examples of that.

- Portability. Especially through Steam. I have a Windows PC and a Macbook, I can play a number of good games on either of them, with the save games in the cloud. That's pretty awesome, if you ask me.

- Personally, I think online gaming is still better on a PC than an Xbox. I know some people have 900 friends on Live (I don't), and prefer that service more, so I can put this down as a personal thing.

Cons:

- Game support is sketchy sometimes, as I learned during the latest Steam sales, having to install a number of outside software that sometimes didn't work.

- Aging hardware can be hit or miss on running new games at high quality, while a console can run all games at middling quality without concern.

- Isn't easy to hook up to a TV for games and still use as a PC since they're in separate rooms.

[lalalawawawa]

Why I prefer it? Because I do, so f you. :laugh:

I couldn't care less how and why they bash it. You don't see PC fanbois these days, you see PC users and gamers. ;)

[spaceelf]

It was extremely hard to love the PC platform after the XP/Vista schizm. Now that that's healed, you've definately got PC fans again.

I like my 360 but I rarely load it up except for Kinect these days.

[Buio]

Game sales down 2010, except PC sales that were up 3%. Counting new boxed games only.

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_110113.html

I guess SC2 and Cataclysm helps a lot of course.

[Lezard]

Because PC games are just plain better for "Lefties."

God those console controllers are so uncomfortable, Rather hold the mouse on the left and use I,J,K,L,M than use a console controller and just rage :angry:

Another great thing about the PC is STEAM, but I am beginning to hate DLC, on the PC when one could easily mod it.

[Buio]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-01-meat-boy-dev-attacks-microsoft-support-quick-take

Thankfully for Team Meat, there was a happy ending. The Steam launch went much more smoothly, with PC sales easily outstripping those on Xbox 360.

(despite it being 1 month XBox 360 Live exclusive)

[Chosen One]

keyboard+mouse, what really else is there :)

[Buio]

Indie game Cthulhu Saves the World makes more revenue on PC in less than one week compared to a whole year and half on XBox Live.

http://zeboyd.com/2011/07/18/zeboyd-games-revenue-from-steam-exceeds-1yr-xblig-revenue/

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/07/20/zeboyd-pc-sales-leave-xblig-in-the-dust/

RPS review of the retro 16-bit indie RPG

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/07/13/wot-i-think-cthulhu-saves-the-world/

[medhunter]

But games like Fifa 2011 have a very different game play on PC without the original controllers. So, gameplay with KB+Mouse is crippled and irrational.

This could be the only cause that elicit the need for a console

[paganinio]

Everyone already owns a PC and can have unlimited fun on it already.

/Thread.

But games like Fifa 2011 have a very different game play on PC without the original controllers. So, gameplay with KB+Mouse is crippled and irrational.

This could be the only cause that elicit the need for a console

Nobody is forcing you to play Fifa 2011 so your argument is flawed. (Wait, I'm not sure what your argument is so I take that back.) There are tons of PC games/ports that work wonderfully with gamepads. Gears of War, Halo, Tony Hawk, Assassin's Creed and if you're into soccer there's Pro Evolution.

As to reasons that justify the need for a console, I think the existence of Zelda, Super Mario Galaxy, Perfect Dark, Metroid Prime and Metal Gear Solid 4 are more than enough, no? It's the quality of games that I miss the most on consoles. When you turn on a console and TV, you just play it without worrying about hard drive usage, graphic settings, crashes and stuff like that. It's a much more relaxed experience.

[Buio]

Nvidia believes PC gaming will surpass console in revenue in a few years.

http://techgage.com/article/nvidia_talks_pc_gaming_trends/

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Nvidia believes PC gaming will surpass console in revenue in a few years.

http://techgage.com/..._gaming_trends/

I think that would happen if companies like Microsoft and Sony decided to stop working on the next generation of consoles. Of course, that won't happen.

The graph that shows the power of NVIDIA's GPU in relation to console GPUs is pretty interesting. It illustrates just how much more powerful current video cards are.

[WastedJoker]

[Athlonite]

:laugh: HI I'm a PC gamer nuf said :woot:

[Buio]

EA boss says "The fastest growing platform for video games today is the PC" in a interview.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/07/23/its-alive-its-alive-its-alive-pc-gaming/

Now if he could only get the NHL guys at EA to do a PC version so I can finally play an up to date hockey game on my PC. See an learn from 2K studios and their NBA-series (which is available on PC).

[phunkymunky]

because my xbox 360 cannot compete with my gaming machine for performance, range of games, modability of games and the mouse/keyboard controls!

this beats the 360 hands down:

CPU: Intel Core i7 2600K

MOBO: Gigabyte Z68XP UD3

GPU: Gigabyte SOC Geforce GTX 670 2GB

RAM: 2 x 8GB G.Skill 1600MHz DDR3

HDD1: Intel 520 120GB SSD

HDD2: WD 2TB 5400RPM for dumping ground

[CG-88]

<snip>

And it's fun to build rigs :D