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Unreal Creator Proclaims PCs are Not For Gaming
An anonymous reader writes "TG Daily is running an interesting interview with EPIC founder and Unreal creator Tim Sweeney. Sweeney is anyway very clear about his views on the gaming industry, but it is surprising how sharply he criticizes the PC industry for transforming the PC into a useless gaming machine. He's especially unhappy with Intel, which he says has integrated graphics chipsets that 'just don't work'."
There aren't many GOOD pc games coming out lately. So, if the manufacturers drop the ball on hardware ... it doesn't REALLY matter, because the software developers aren't doing much better either.
... they're focusing on consoles because there is more money in consoles!
I don't think that it is a downward spiral, either - software companies aren't focusing on consoles because the PC hardware isn't great
I'd say that PC have decided that their PC's are certainly not for YOUR game.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
without the ads. http://www.tgdaily.com/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36390&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=118
i915 works fine for me; runs compiz and plays video without blinking. It's a bit lacking in other areas... but PCs aren't supposed to be game machines now, are they?
He's not saying that the PC is not a gaming platform, or that it shouldn't be. He's saying that there are 'high-end' PCs that can play games, and 'low-end' PCs that can't, and the gap between them is large and transparent to the average consumer (who doesn't realize that buying a PC with "Integrated Extreme Graphics" is the same thing as buying a PC that "can't play modern games").
I really believe the last bastion of PC gaming lies in real time strategy games, a genre that essentially requires at least a mouse. I guess many die hards would say the same about first person shooters, but I am comfortable playing with either a mouse or controller, and ever since Halo came out back in 2001, the FPS scene has been migrating to the consoles at a pretty quick rate. The PC will always have Counterstrike, but when it gets pretty popular console games such as Gears of War a year after their console release, you can tell that times have changed.
But yeah, real time strategy games, I don't think we'll ever a decent port of say Starcraft 2 to the consoles, but I suppose if anyone can pull it off, Blizzard can.
I'm not really sure if PC games losing to consoles is entirely a bad thing, I think people are just fed up with trying to keep their system up to date with hardware, nasty CD protection schemes that kill their drives, and console ports that can play just as well and in the comfort of their living room.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
U+F8FF
Of course integrated graphics aren't for gaming. that's what a dedicated video card is for. If you want to use your PC for gaming (Which I do, casually.. with dual geForce 8600GTSs) you have to add on.. it's a simple procedure as everyone here is probably aware. but integrated graphics are VERY useful for office environments where they don't NEED 3d performance. wow.
Stability?
How often does a game console crash? PC?
For me being able to care for my own system is important also. If it breaks I like being able to choose if I upgrade or replace. Being in control is important that's why I like Gentoo.
Price?
From my research to get a console, which only plays games. It would cost me 300+ $ (American) to buy new.
To buy a PC which does more then just play games. It would cost me 500+ to buy new. (A bit more then basic) I built my own power gameing system for 1500$.
Gameplay?
For me I learned games on the PC I know the mouse/keyboard Human Interface Device (HID). I've not played many console game systems, I know they have custom controllers for the HID. The only console I tried that was intuitive to me in the least was the WII.
PC's have more buttons and button combinations. Plus they come with full keyboard, note: consoles now can have keyboards also.
you are better off getting a Sony Playstation or a Nintendo Wii, about the only games i play on a PC are not video intensive (solitare/freecell, mahjongg, etc)..
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Interesting thoughts - I don't know that "every PC needs a graphics card" so much as the marketing needs to distinguish more clearly between gaming PCs and web browser/word processor/etc. PCs. If you don't want to play games, you shouldn't have to buy the hardware for it, but if you do want to, you should be able to know what you're getting without doing research. It can be frustrating to try to find a computer to do what you want these days.
If PCs aren't for gaming, then how can smaller game developers get their foot in the door with the console makers?
(after reading the article) False alarm. There is still a market for PC games with low-end graphics. From the article:
So I don't see the point of the article.
I fully agree with the sentiment. In the good old days, you had to be creative to get the most out of the hardware you had, and gameplay was at the centre (or center) of attention. These days it is all about how many frames per second you can push from your graphics card and cpu.
A system is only 'dead' when the major games retailers stop stocking the titles, or have a tiny rack of titles in a dark corner. Last time I looked, PC games were doing fine.
Dreamcast, dead! PC doing fine, even the PS2 is doing fine!
What may have changed is the type of PC owner and the massive installed base that just doesn't give a hoot about 3D games. But I guess he doesn't care about them, leave that to the people selling card, tile and puzzle games.
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
and stop having an anuerism everytime someone tries to add a mouse, I'd pretty much stop using my PC to game with.
I will NEVER use a joystick to play an FPS. Period. It's inferior. Period. A good mouser can beat the best joysticker everytime, given a level playing field (and before you start, it's almost NEVER a level playing field - so don't tell me how good you are on a console. The target areas are programmatically larger. The AI is dumbed down. Etc, etc. These are facts - look it up)
If you even START to suggest adding a mouse option to consoles, the kiddies starting pitching a fit and immediately begin insulting your mother. It's pathetic - the fear of having their asses handed to them in combat is funny. I really enjoy my 360 - but not having a mouse as an OPTION prevents access to a lot of what is cool on it.
Until that time, the PC platform will remain strong. Consoles need a mouse. It's just silly they don't have them. If M$/$ony will EVER gets some balls and support a mouse, I think you'll see the PC side take a huge hit. I'd rather play on my 65" HD.
EK
I used to be a complete hater when it came to keyboard and mouse fanboys. But even since my friends and I started playing UT2K4 together about a month ago (yeah I know it's an old game shut up), I have seen the truth. FPS's are meant for the mouse. Until a console fully supports this, I will refuse to believe that PC gaming is dead.
The point of the article is for his company to slag off a pklatform it has recently failed on, so the investors think they are still doing well.
I bought a Nintendo wii, just for wii sports, but will always be a PC gamer. the idea that the games available to me have to be pre-approved by men in suits from sony, Nintendo or Microsoft is just stupid. In the immediate future we have Spore and The Sims 3 coming up, and I certainly haven't finished with COD 4 or Sins of a solar Empire yet either.
The PC will always be the ultimate games machine. Ultimate flexibility, ultimate storage space, moddability, processor power, memory.
This guy should just shut the fuck up.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
What he is saying is that the PCs are no longer a common platform. There are games for low-end PCs and games for high-end PCs, but not ones that scale to both. From TFA:
...we would just have to design two completely different games. One for low-end and one for high-end.
That is actually happening on PCs: You have really low-end games with little hardware requirements, like Maple Story. That is a $100 million-a-year business. Kids are addicted to those games, they pay real money to buy [virtual] items within the game and the game.
In other words, PCs are good for games, but you need to know what your PC will run!
From the perspective of type of resources "modern" games require, he's right. But large portions of the gaming industry seem to have lost sight of the fact that games do not need to be pretty, only fun. They are games after all.
In the last six months I've logged more hours playing Mahjong on my N810 than I have playing UT3, EVE Online and Half Life 2 mods combined.
So from a wider perspective he's not only wrong, but lost sight of what is important in a game. Not that I don't personally think that UT3 is fun as hell, I actually bought that one. But some perspective on his part would be beneficial to him and his customers.
Question everything
If you're a gamer and not using a PC then it pretty much has to be a console. Yes, those horrid locked-down computers with hardware enforcement of encryption and code-signing that prevent you from doing anything unless jointly and expressly permitted by the manufacturer and the government. You may say you don't care because it doesn't harm your game experience - but what's next? "Oh e-mail is no good on a PC because you can't stop people sending things you don't like." "Oh word-processing is no good on a PC because you can't revoke documents with bad content." Anything that deprecates general-purpose computing worries me a lot.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
this article and interview are NOT about mouses and joysticks. this article and interview are NOT about PC vs. Console.
This article and interview ARE about how the overwhelming majority of PCs sold in the US do not come remotely close to being able to run current game software. It is almost a plea to Intel to stop making integrated graphics chips, because they suck at running games. If 90% of the PCs sold can't run the software you write and publish, then you aren't going to be a big fan of PC gaming at the moment.
Yes, we know, if you're posting here you can build your own PC, upgrade your graphics card every six months, and use your mouse and keyboard to headshot Osama Bin Laden in his cave from orbit. That doesn't change the fact that you are a part of a minority, and can expect that other game publishers will begin thinking of bailing out on the PC as a platform.
There are many examples of games with "dated" graphics that sell in high volumes.
Full Tilt
I like Tim, I especially liked his presentation on programming languages in games, but his comments about 64-bit Vista seem rather out of touch.
Yeah? It'd also have cleaned up all the "legacy" software people are using. Like iTunes. Not to mention all the actual legacy software like kids educational software, drivers for old hardware, etc. I also don't know why he thinks this would have cleaned up viruses and spyware. These guys adapt fast and the extra anti-patch systems in 64 Vista aren't all that strong.
I just bought a new motherboard with integrated Intel GMA3100 graphics. I ended up buying a low end Nvidia 8400 for 40 EUROS because it sucked so much. The Intel can barely run Google Earth. It runs Quake3 worse than a 6 year old Geforce. The 8400 runs ET:QW at 30 fps @ 1680x1050, medium-low settings with shadows disabled. That's not £300, just £30, and it's capable of running recent games decently.
/. still can't display the EURO sign, what the fuck is wrong with you people? *
So yeah, the guy's right, Intel's graphics adaptors are terrible. I don't know about the X3xxx series, they're supposed to be much better, but I wouldn't count on it.
* OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE
If M$/$ony will EVER gets some balls and support a mouse
Hmm?
Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3 can be played with mouse and keyboard just fine.
"Until that time, the PC platform will remain strong. Consoles need a mouse. It's just silly they don't have them. If M$/$ony will EVER gets some balls and support a mouse, I think you'll see the PC side take a huge hit. I'd rather play on my 65" HD."
Unreal Tournament 3 on the PS3 supports a Keyboard and Mouse.
You can plug a mouse into the PS3 and at the very least the OS responds to it. I'm not sure how many titles do, though... but is sure ain't Sony's fault for not supporting a mouse.
Perception is the thin dividing line between reality and fiction.
I'd like to see how far anyone would get with a joystick in, say, rocket arena, or ETQW ;)
Which would be consistent with the rest of the article: With the consoles, end users are guaranteed to use "the gear that the developers do".
[1] Yes, I know Windows Mobile isn't marketed as a video gaming platform, but until some sort of Xboy comes out, it's the only one Microsoft has.
That's sorta true. . . but not so much. . .
By the time you finish upgrading your computer, you've spent enough money that it might have made more sense to by a medium-spec next gen machine, instead of trying to upgrade your last-gen machine to high-spec (for that generation). Because the medium spec machine will likely be more powerful than the high-spec last-gen machine. Or, you have, really, bought a new computer, one part at a time, anyhow, and probably spent $400-$600, at least, to do it.
If 90% of all PC's sold can't play 90% of the games sold, who's fault is this? Is it the hardware manufacturers that sell people PCs at a reasonable price, or the game manufacturers who target hardware only found in 10% of PCs? Even if only 1/9th of all the people buying low-end PCs wanted to buy games, that would still double the target market (and that is assuming that all of the people buying "capable" machines want to buy games).
Games manufacturers could easily start to target the 90% instead if they wanted to increase their market. Even an Intel GMA 950 (which is in an awful lot of PCs and laptops) should be capable of playing 3D games if the graphics are scaled down properly.
Personally I think a lot of games manufacturers are pissing away the chance for a large increase in their sales, by being way too '1337'. They want to show off their game, and they want to make it look super slick, which is fair enough... but don't come complaining if this rules the game out for a large part of the market.
Shocking.
But Its clear that when Tim Sweeney talks about games and I talk about games we are not talking about the same thing.
Unreal sucks; Its not fun; and only the creeps with super expensive systems ever want to play it at lan parties.
Why the hell do EA men and Sweeney make the crapiest games and then complain about the gaming market?
If Unreal is the apogee of games then the computer really is a useless machine - but I'll stick to my Dwarf Fortress and Starcraft, reveling in my self defined glory, disdainful of anything geared to run with dual core machines.
The PC should never have been used for gaming. It took kludge on top of kludge to make it work, and the end product is so far from its roots as a general-purpose computational device that it is barely recognizable.
And those jaw bones should have been left the hell alone, too. You can barely recognize them, either, and in their current form, they are NO GOOD FOR CHEWING!
Why can't people leave well enough alone?
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Yes I'm aware of that, however pretty much no game supports it. The support is half-hearted at best and is basically non-support.
And, yeah, it is Sony's (and MS's) fault. Say 'ok you can plug in a mouse' is not 'You must also support a mouse'.
There aren't many GOOD pc games coming out lately. So, if the manufacturers drop the ball on hardware ... it doesn't REALLY matter, because the software developers aren't doing much better either.
Then again crappy integrated graphics is not going to help much. I wanted to do some non-gaming 3D and I wa lucky to get some of the 3D working on one computer. This was a month old Dell Latitude using an integrated Intel chipset. Before I went the unoffical route the provided Dell driver could barely do OpenGL 1.0, and then with the official driver it could do OpenGL 1.5, but performance sucked big time. This is why if I choose a computer I make sure it has at least an ATI or Nvidia chipset, but unfortunately not everybody understands the importance here.
There is only so much a programmer can do if the hardware just doesn't support what they want to do.
I have spoken to a number of games developers and one advantage for them with consoles, is that they are relatively easy to develop for, since they aren't a moving target which it comes to configuration.
If you are spending a $1000 USD on a computer then it better have the ability to do OpenGL 2.0 well-ish.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
What you're saying makes a lot of sense, especially given the fact that the computer mouse and keyboard was designed specifically to ergonomically play First Person Shooters and game controllers were designed to type letters and open folders.
Yup...
When asked about his future career, Sweeney indicated intention of opening a beauty parlour chain near the main offices of major PC manufacturers: - They certainly deserve the best, - he said. - And my hands are itching for work.
Okay, so now you're suggesting that the console-makers should FORCE the developers to include mouse/keyboard support? You're encouraging full content-control of that level??
Do you even know where you're posting, dude? Because you may be lost.
In other news, owners of local race tracks have called on car manufacturers to stop making affordable family cars, stating that these cars are simply too slow to make full use of the exitement offered by thier unique and challenging courses.
They day that add a mouse to the console is the day I stop playing games on consoles. If I wanted to sit at a desk and play video games, I would *BUY A FUCKING PC*. You keyboard/mouse snobs just stay the Hell off my console. You stay at your desk with your beloved mouse/PC and I'll lay on the couch with my beloved controller/console and we'll get along just fine.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
> criticizes the PC industry for transforming the PC into a useless gaming machine
Humorously ambiguous sentence
I personally think that the PC, particularly under Windows XP, is a terrible gaming platform. I find myself cringing every time people complain about how bad Linux/Mac are for games, as opposed to the great and wonderful Windows. Here's a little list of annoyances I can think of off the top of my head right now:
* The need to install a game on your hard disk. Why can my Gamecube run any game within seconds of plopping the CD in and turning it on? (...and it's not like I can legitimately run the game without the original CD anyway.)
* The horribly slow and ugly process of switching from the Windows desktop to full screen. First the screen flickers. Then the screen turns black. Then the desktop shows up for a second, "magnified" (because the resolution is lower). Then more blackness. Finally, the game shows up. Hard disk grinding throughout this time. Reverse this process when the game is over.
* Occasionally some stupid popup (like an instant message or a warning about my swap space running low) will force the game out of full-screen mode and back to the desktop. This cuts you out of the action for at least 30 seconds, as the disk grinds its way to swap everything back in and the resolution change as described above occurs yet again.
* The occasional background process causes the game to stutter or jump slightly every once in a while.
* I've rarely ever seen a 3D, or even a 2D game on the PC that has consistent smooth moving animation and scrolling at the refresh rate of the monitor with no tearing - things that are a given in almost any console game. That is, it should be that FPS == refresh rate, and refreshes occur while screen is not updating.
* When quitting a game, very often all windows that were previously open are now confined to the upper-left corner within bounds equal to the size of the game's full-screen resolution.
* Sometimes the same goes for all desktop icons. So what if you've spent time arranging them in a particular way? They're all bunched up in a 320x200 corner now, sorry.
* No matter how good your hardware, a game will always give you the impression that something needs upgrading (see the stuttering phenomenon mentioned above).
In my experience the Mac is much better in most of these respects. I've never tried gaming under Linux or Vista, and I do realize some of these points may have been fixed in Vista.
Wish I had some points for you.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Wake me up when a real computer game like Wolfpack Empire or Nethack shows up on the console. Note both games have text graphics. You can play them on equipment that people would pay you to take off their hands. The point I'm making here is that there's more to games than graphics. Sweeny is focused on the wrong thing as I see it. For example, while the WoW graphics grab people, it's the multiplayer environment that keeps bringing people back to pay that monthly fee.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems that both the PS3 and Xbox 360 are computers:
http://playstation.about.com/od/ps3/a/PS3SpecsDetails_3.htm
http://xbox.about.com/od/xbox2/a/xbox360specs.htm
The PS3 and Xbox 360 are computers that are specifically designed for gaming - while the computers that you purchase from Dell, Gateway, etc. are intended for many other functions. So the point of this article is that computers that aren't designed for gaming aren't very good at gaming? Slow news day.
Oh I forgot something I love about PC games... mods.
Oblivion is cool on the xbox, but the wealth of mods take it to a new level on the PC.
Oh and yes I agree that fps only works on PC. Thats why I spent countless hours (days, months) playing Goldeneye on the N64....
Well, buying a console means playing on your TV. Game graphics appearing on the TV of the average consumer will make you cry for 320x240 on a PC monitor. There is an equally large gap between people who have six foot HD TV screens and the average consumer.
Even though I think there are too many generalizations on this topic, I'm going to join in...
Games that require more thought and consideration than they do fast-twitch muscle and hand-eye coordination are still perfect for the PC. They may not be the biggest sellers but, they also require far less graphic muscle yet often require as much or more CPU muscle. I cannot imagine trying to play games that require actual thinking and complex interaction on a console (well, maybe if it had a good keyboard and mouse to use as game controllers). But I believe that text-oriented games (along the lines of Jeopardy, Trivial Pursuit, possibly even Scrabble and Monopoly) would be reduced to boring and moronic multiple choice things. On the other hand, if the same kind of effort was put into language processing for those games as is put into increasing frame rate a tiny bit on others, they could be quite enjoyable for people more coordinated in thought than in finger twitches. And then there's always chess. How is a multi-core PC less suitable for a chess program than an XBox or Playstation or Nintendo? Do shiny, realistic looking pieces make the game play better?
The companies building PC games optimized for next year's (or some year after that) graphic hardware (like ID once was) are obviously only targeting people with the thickest wallets (and people willing to slog along with poor performance/limited features). They aren't planning on selling many copies when the hardware finally becomes affordable because, by then, their game is often obsolete. So naturally they will declare the PC a bad platform for them, because, with their lead times, they're hoping to have their software ready for the best stuff available when it hits the market. But even if they succeed, few people can (or will) afford to get it until the prices come down -- which typically happens when something new has supplanted it. On the other hand, with the game platforms, they have a relatively static target that starts better than PC hardware, but slowly falls farther and farther behind the PC's leading edge until, after several years, a new, improved model is finally issued.
So it seems to me that a more honest statement isn't that the PC is bad for gaming or that the hardware sucks or any of that stuff. Instead, it should be said that due to the immense difficulty of crafting good (or at least reasonablly performing) code for all the possible variations, the PC is not an economically viable platform for graphics-intensive games to pursue. I believe that it is all about profits, and that is not to say good or bad, just what is. The largest computer "game" companies aren't about making good games, they are about making games that will sell as many copies as possible to the fast-twitch crowd, because they're the ones most likely to blow $50 (each) on game after game. The companies don't (in general) ever want a truly good game, because one of those would be endlessly replayable and that would cut into their bottom line!
I really agree with Tim here. This was the perfect opportunity to transition to 64bit. Most compatibility issues with Vista are Vista related, not 64 bit related. This would have given us more access to memory beyond 2GB and accelerated 64bit application development and might have even given me a reason to go with Vista. If you are breaking a lot of drivers and programs anyway, why not got 64bit at the same time and gain some benefit in the process. Heck Apple managed to swap to a whole new CPU architecture with minimal pain. You need to have stones to move forward.
But by giving everyone a choice again and all the OEMs pushing 32bit, there is practically no movement to 64bit and practically no new capabilities exercised, no 64 bit games. etc..
Another thing is MS should have upped the minimum HW requirements for Vista. 64bit processor 1Gig memory and graphics capable of at least running the interface. That is how bad Intel Integrated is. It can't even run Vistas bloated interface (hence lawsuit). No surprise it can't run games.
There should be some kind of game certification as well and the bar needs to be high enough that Intel Integrated fails even the minimum standard.
It needs to be made absolutely clear than standard integrated graphics are incapable of running games.
Blaming Intel and integrated graphics for the decline of PC gaming is a cop out. These game companies have been operating under the principle that a game with better graphics is a better game. Instead of creating new an innovative was to game on a PC, they enhance the graphics of an old game and call it a new game. Don't blame Intel if your game does not work on their GPU platform and you are using the latest, cutting edge, extensions and expecting the latest amounts of video ram. The fact that some of these companies are listing specific graphics cards as system requirements should indicate that there is a problem. At that point you are limiting your audience on your own. If you want a big audience, you should target machines with integrated graphics and then find ways to scale up when there is more power instead of targeting the latest and greatest and then complaining that you can't scale back to make it work. By promoting the idea that better graphics equals better game, they entered into a stupid race and they can only blame themselves.
What did everyone had at home? Televisions.
What do you need to use a console? Televisions.
When everybody has a computer at home, wouldn't it be natural for consoles to connect to the computer and use it's display? Wouldn't it also follow that, having connected to the computer you could also use it's peripherals?
At the same time, aren't graphic cards concentrating more and more of the power needed to run a modern game?
So, on one side we'll have consoles that lack display (as now) but also controls and sound, and graphic cards concentrating almost all the power to run a cutting edge game.
What differentiates those two pieces of hardware?
I have a family, bills to pay, etc. I simply can't justify spending premium dollars just to play high end PC games. I still play Half-Life (not 2) and its derivatives... the first version of Day of Defeat, Counter-Strike, etc. Picked up the gamepack disc at a Wal Mart for around 10 bucks years ago, and still play them online quite a bit.
One thing I've noticed is that low end gamers are not going into that good night. There are large numbers of us, and we keep things fresh with new mods and maps for older games. I'm seeing more people on the free QIII clone Open Arena as well.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
First of all, there are a LOT of people with gaming computers... hundreds of them pass through our BF2 server everyday. Which leads me to that game, and the two before it, as well as CS Source (go take a look there are 5 thousand playing right now) and all the mods for these two games, Unreal tourney is not one of the good PC games... its always just been a quake clone for skill less kids to play. I think at this point I have 14 games I play online on this computer and there is no lack of players for any of them. Second, console controllers suck. They just plain don't work for FPS games and barely work for RTS games, aren't upgradable, and tend to die off quickly (especially 360) and the cost of them is MORE than a decent gaming rig, $700 for a console? $200 for a video card that makes most games playable if you not an idiot. There are those of us that spend THOUSANDS on our computer hardware every year, and this douche is bad mouthing his meal ticket? I won't buy another game on this engine or from this company again (none of them were any good anyway)
Saturation
Oh wait was I supposed to say something witty here?!?
Blah blah blah we don't want to target what consumers actually buy whine whine whine.
I'll be over here with my affordable computers not buying your products.
Tim Sweeney: Shut up. UT3 sucks, and blaming the PC for it will get you nowhere.
"The PC players absolutely curb stomped the dreamcast players until they were drowning in the blood pouring out their eyes.. "
...
Please do not let Jack Thompson hear this
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
I agree that a joystick is inferior, but so is a mouse.
Try a trackball, it'll kick your ass at games.
I love all these people posting that the mouse is the ultimate game control device who act as if they've studied and critiqued every device imaginable for the role. You ask, "ever tried a trackball?" and the answer is no, even though trackballs are cheap, available, and work better for games. Just admit you like the mouse out of habit.
(If you HAVE used a trackball and rejected it, I apologize, but the vast majority of gamers have not.)
Comment of the year
The high end game industry lives in its own (un)reality.
How the hell is it Intel and the PC's manufacturer's fault for integrated graphics, when most PC's are for business use, where they, at best, play card games on. People won't pay for power they don't need.
The market for insanely fast, high-end games seems to have shrunk in favour of casual games, MMOs, and "gameplay" games. Instead of working on graphics engines, the hotspot for innovation seems to be game play and game experience. Examples abound: Wii Sports, Bio Shock, Mass Effect, World in Conflict, the endless stream of "war games" like Gears of War and Call of Duty, etc.
None of these games can be played with Integrated graphics; WoW will run max ~10-15 fps on X3100 Integrated graphics, and will probably degrade without aftermarket cooling. Almost all sales people at Best Buy or even at the Apple Store are very clear about what models are meant for games, and which ones aren't. Yet Tim claims that poor, blind, customers are being sold PC's that won't play games. I guess he's never heard of a "2 week return policy"?
I think Doom 3 killed the market -- after that experience, people don't want to buy the same old 10 year old game with new graphics and some minor gameplay improvements.
For example, if you improve the graphics (a bit) AND the gameplay AND change the setting or genre, you may have a winner... The current graphics champ, Crysis, has done fairly well, selling 1 million through the end of January, despite early reports that it was flunking as bad as UT3. Gears of War 2 is hotly anticipated and I bet will slam UT3's sales despite being on the same engine. I haven't heard what UT3's sales are, last I saw it was 1.2 million for PS3 + PC combined, which seems to indicate PC sales sucked.
-Stu
I've played FPS on both consoles and PCs. Obviously, with the mouse and keyboard combo you have a greater degree of control over the gaming experience - however using the joystick also presents another challenge that I enjoy. Who cares as long as you're having fun? That's the point of games, they're fun!
"And get the hell out of my yard!" You tell 'em gramps!
It's not like you ever use mice to play games! Heaven forbid that we need them for RTSes!!
-Aegis Runestone-
But still crap overall. The major problem is that they use system RAM. Graphics is very RAM bandwidth intensive and the system RAM just can't provide that. Part of the problem is that you are fighting for access to it with the CPU, but the other part is that it is just slow by graphics standards. I mean consider that the brand spanking new high end RAM for a motherboard is DDR3-1333. That's 1333MHz in RAM speak (meaning 1333 million transfers per clock). Most people don't have that, even with high end systems since it is brand new. Most are DDR2-667 or DDR-800 which are, of course 667MHz and 800MHz. Ok, now compare that to a high end graphics card. These days they have RAM in the 1800-2000MHz range. What's more, they have a very large memory controller (or rather a lot of parallel 64-bit controller), between 256-bit and 384-bit on today's high end.
The upshot of it is a high end motherboard might have a theoretical max 10GB/sec of memory bandwidth, a high end graphics card can have as much as 10 times that (the 8800 Ultra has a theoretical max of 103GB/sec).
Now if you talk more realistic systems like where you'd actually be using integrated graphics, it isn't even that high. You have a system with DDR2-533 and, well, that's 4.2GB/sec peak and remember that's shared with the CPU. Even the cheap 8400 has more than that (6.4GB/sec peak) and, of course, that is all dedicated for it, no sharing.
So while the Intel chips themselves aren't all that bad (they aren't great either, don't get me wrong), they are just going to be permanently crippled with regards to games so long as they are sharing slower system memory. Doing graphics operations on lots of pixels just demands lots of memory bandwidth. Doesn't go over so well when the bandwidth is low, and you have to fight with the CPU for access to it.
I have a socket 939 board with a 1950 pro.
I don't have any problems playing the latest games with this setup. This rig could be built for probably $350.
The problem I see is for those that demand insanely high resolutions. While this may matter to some people, I can live without it.
this reminds me of my parents first computer.
"Ok here's the ONE GAME your allowed to play on it, but it's a Business Machine"
That lasted maybe a week before I found out how to install stuff.
PC Gaming might die off from where it was, but it'll never be completely dead. As long as some dude can program Pong in his basement, PC Gaming will live on in one way or another. That's good enough for me.
Considering my most played games over the last year were an online session of Dungeons and Dragons between my friends, real-life sessions with them using online material, World of Warcraft and Portal, I'm not too worried. And those were just the games that cost me money. Looking over the millions of free flash games, text-based games, online board games, etc...
Of course, half of these games "don't count" because they aren't the kind of "consumer game" they are mentioning. Unfortunately for them, I'm spending the same quantity of time (seconds, minutes, etc...) on these games then I am their games.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Bla, bla, bla, bla, ...
Try to play any competitive game online and try to beat a PC user.
Yes, they may cost too much, but in the end this is the price of high-end hardware.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
And this argument has been waged for the last thirty years. Tim Sweeney is equivalent of the dirty guy standing next to a 45gallon drum with a bible in one hand, and a crucifix in the other.
Team, there is only one reason that gfx cards are so expensive. Wait for it.. wait for it.... because people will pay for it. The manufacturers of these fine products attempt to find the price in which they can sell the most amount of units for the highest price. It would follow that if less people were willing to pay that price, then it also might follow that the companies might also lower the price.
but heck, I'm no economist.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
Wouldn't an optical mouse be better? The ones with a roller ball are really outdated. Unless you meant a trackball?
So you want to give up user mods / maps and pay for On line play that you get free on the pc. Give up user maps / mods and other addons and pay for map packs with M$ taking it's cut on the xbox at lest the ps3 has free on line play and you can setup your own store with other having to have sony a cut of the sales.
On the box 360 games have to be cut down as well as there is no HD in the base system and you can only use dvds. ps3 games use a bigger disk.
You just proved my point. They created the "hardcore gamer" audience and are now complaining that not all computers are made up to these specs. To insist that every computer have top-o-the-line graphics, as suggested in the article, is ridiculous. Most people will never need that kind of power and therefore should not have to pay for it and the extra electricity it consumes(especially when it comes to notebooks) with the heat that follows. Also, the claim that you must have amazing graphics for good reviews is not true in general. The problem is that games try to offer graphics as a new feature and when they do not deliver, only have unoriginal bland gameplay to fall back on. A game like "World of Warcraft" does not need to push the limits of graphics because people enjoy it mostly for its gameplay. So, if game studios want to cater to the "hardcore gamer" market, they should not complain when they realize that most computers can't handle their games.
Apple needs a good headless system as well for gameing and other pro uses as well.
The $2200 mac pro with sever parts and a mid-range video card is high in price and you have to pay more to get a better video card.
The imacs have weak video and laptop parts that make gameing no that good on them.
The mini is over priced and under powered for it's price.
Apple should take the mini and drop the price down to the g4mini price and come out with a desktop with a DESKTOP Ram, HD, CPU, DVDRW, and pci-e slots at least 1 x16 and 1x4 + maybe a few x1 slots at todays low end mini price point. With BOT cpu, hd, ram, video, blue ray and room for at least 2 hd's.
"Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3 can be played with mouse and keyboard just fine."
This is true, but also kind of useless. I want to have competitive gameplay when I play online without fighting the interface.
Adding a mouse/keyboard to a ps3 solves only one of the above. The problem then arises that you'll be kicking everyone else's ass as the majority of your 'competition' will be using a gamepad. You might revel in your kicking butt at first, but I'd imagine it would get boring in short order.
1. Can't lean back in the recliner and game with a mouse.
2. Mice aren't ergonomic, they just aren't.
3. The mouse+keyboard control scheme is simply artifical. Either you are controlling a killing machine who can turn on a dime and change view points by dozens of degrees of arc every second without disorientation, or you are working up to some truly epic carpal tunnel.
Innovative game-elements always start on the PC then migrate onto the console world in forms of new games implementing the idea. -Multiplayer -Physics -User-created content and even gets more abstract than that with things like drivable vehicles in FPS'. And we all know the real reason why we don't want PC gaming to die, its been with us since the beginning, modifiable (supported and unsupported) and copyable.
I don't see how he can be complaining about prices for a new computer when the price for a new console is more. Every 4 years or so consoles play catch up with graphics that computer hardware has. How about instead of dishing out $400-$500 or more for a console, you spend that on a new graphics card. More or less, getting a new graphics card is like getting the new console.
Here is an opposing viewpoint from Doug Lombardi.
I tend to agree that PC gaming is not going away. PC game programming definitely has it's challenges. The console programmer is programming for known hardware so he can optimize much more easily than a PC game programmer who has to deal with unknown graphics capabilities, cpu speed, memory size, monitor resolution, etc. Good graphics APIs help, but do not take the problem away. OTOH, once you have programmed for this variability, you have a more portable game. When I buy a new PC, I don't mind paying a few hundred more for discrete graphics card (I don't buy consoles anyway), and I enjoy loading all my old games onto it and knowing they'll (usually) still work. Sometimes I even find that some group has created a modified version of the game that improves the experience on faster hardware (like open GL versions of doom or descent). Also, user created content (maps, characters, campaigns, etc) is an area where PC games outshine their console counterparts.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Damn, you never know how good you have it until you look back at the old days. Let's see how this comment would've played out almost 20 years ago or so.
'Have you even tried to play Castle Wolfenstein? It takes far more PC than most people have. and that same problem plagued ID on it's last 2 releases for almost 2 years. Hell I know people that STILL dont have a pc capable of running Wolfenstein at any playable speeds. Gaming companies are killing themselves. They are selling games that require a 40MHz 386, 4 MB RAM, and a $500.00 co-processor chip. While the world is happy as hell with their 3 year old 286 6 MHz running that $45.00 ISA CGA card.
you cant sell a crapload of games that runs on hardware that most people dont have.'
Ah, you see, this argument is not new my friend, I've been through the upgrade wringer again and again, and like most dedicated PC gamers, I don't bitch about it. Why? Because we like what we like. I want state of the art. A console is locked into what it comes with - which is usually pretty advanced at first, but becomes stale quickly. I find myself upgrading every year or two without fail and that's ok for me. The games that are making it to the PC (Orange Box, Sins of a Solar Empire, Bioshock), are terrific to play - and yes, I still want my mouse.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Sure I couldn't play oblivion with all of the graphic settings on high when it was released, but then nobody could.
My computer is virtually silent and crashes significantly less than the current console machines. In the end does it still cost more? Yes, of course, but I also get a lot more work done with it than I would a console beyond gaming. But the whole you're obsolete in 6 months argument is simply bullshit...the incremental increases in video technology that occur in 6 months do not lay waste to your current computer setup and make it impossible to play new games...
and if your computer is unstable then maybe you should learn something about putting together a computer and maintaining it properly.
Just because you're not using absolute cutting edge hardware doesn't mean you can't play Assassin's Creed when it's released on a PC...and in many cases I can still play new games with higher graphic quality and response than the consoles.
Is the day they allow mouse and keyboard input on xbox360 and ps3 FPS's period.
In Unreal, there are actually competitive games that are sorted according to which type of interface people are using. So you can specify if you want to only fight gamepad users, or only keyboard/mouse users, or a mixed bag.
The AI is dumbed down. Etc, etc. These are facts - look it up
I have, and the AI in Halo, a console shooter, is some of the most sophisticated of any FPS. You can see this by viewing technical talks about the AI, or by just playing the game. They are leaps and bounds ahead of nearly every other FPS, console OR PC.
The problem is that while gamers are quite happy to dish out 300-400 or more (my bro always had 2 of each gen of console so thats 600-700) every 6 years, on buying a new console, they don't realize they should do the same with a PC and then complain that games are getting harder to run. For £600 you can build a system capable of playing most midlevel games (*i did this before the dollar crashed so £600 is maybe $800), if i could install windows on it, it would still play current games fairly well. If i spent £600 to upgrade id be able to play current gen games too.
Perhaps they should start marketing generations for pc games!
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
He made the same basic argument a few years ago with the original Xbox launch of "Oddworld III: Fish in Wheelchairs"
"Xbox is the future, consoles are the thing, PCs aren't the right platform, blahblahblah." Then he announced that the game was going to be Xbox only.
Spit right in the faces of those of us who had supported his first two games, and were drooling over the trailers of Scrabs stampeding across the plains for the upcoming title.
The game was critically acclaimed, but by that point, I didn't care. The Xbox club was nothing compared to PCs, and that was back in the day when anyone could play pc games, you just needed a CDrom and almost any video card., and I certainly wasn't going to buy an Xbox for one game, so I lost out.
Turned out well for him too. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000884458
It does not say 50% more content, it says that "Almost a 50% new game," and from what I can see it could very well mean "we are dumbing it down because console don't have a mouse. We need to rework it fully to be adapted to a joystick"
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I remember back in the day when FPSes didn't even support a mouse. You just had to use the arrow keys (could not remap them to WASD) and in multiplayer you just had to fire in someone's general direction and it kind of auto-aimed for you.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Not all games are RTS or FPS. Mouse support is not needed for every game. For my good old platformers and RPGs, I much prefer the game pad.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
:)
:)
I know its a preference thing, but I rejected a trackball after having tried for a good two months. I bought myself a ~$60 logitech trackball, and now the poor thing just sits on the shelf.
I just couldn't do it; which is fun, because most of the time I don't even play FPSs; just RTSs. I kept getting my ass handed to me in CS and TF2, so I went back to my mouse.
Maybe I'm incompetent. I'm not the best FPSer, anyways
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Which doesn't change the fact the hit areas are enlarged or whatever. My point isn't that every games is dumbed down in the same way - or if you perfer another point of view, they harden it for the PCs (Gears of War actually discussed this as it was too easy on the PC to begin iwth).
And dude - easy on the Halo fanboi stuff. I'm not saying the consoles do not have a smart AI. I'm saying if you compare the PC and consoles versions of a game, SOMETHING wil have been adjusted as it will either be too hard on the console or too easy on the PC.
EK
Well...it is true that many cheap GPUs (integrated or otherwise) are marketed with words like "extreme", "Turbo" or such. But then again this is inevitable:
In a market that is not completely regulated, you will always have a few vendors who try to get more business with such weasel words. It is up to the customer to do a bit of research before buying.
I agree that the Vista Certified thing is similar. Only in this case, it is not some Joe Blow fly-by-night hardware pusher but one of the largest corporations in the field who does the misleading advertising.
C - the footgun of programming languages
1. Never said remove the joystick. Would like an option for either - I certainly agree on the recliner 8) 2. So what. 3. So what. Recliner thing is great - No idea what the point of 2 and 3 are.
When Windows95 came out developers loved it. I am not talking about the operating system but the fact it finally forced users to use more than 2-4 megs of ram and with a 256k ram video card and to more modern systems that were fully 32-bit with at least 16-32 megs of ram.
... not my laptop. Serious gamers will ask for more powerful GPU's. Unfortunately their market is little Johnny whose parents want to save money and not invest in a higher end GPU for just games.
Vista is requiring serious GPU performance. Enough to run wow at least. THe problem is there are many old 910 chipsets like my old laptop that are for work and ubuntu, not gaming.
Maybe more effects in Aero for Windows 7 will force more hardware makers to upgrade their video.
Pc's are great game machines. Its just most users cough business users don't care about 3d graphics and need a browser and word processor machine and thats it.
Sorry but a ps3 or wii can not run wow, LOTR, or half life like a true pc can. I own a wii but for internet gaming I chose a pc with with my 7600GT nvidia card.
http://saveie6.com/
PC's are for WORK, not games.
Now, quit screwing around online and get back to work!
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If the console say, came with a mouse and some sort of layout controller (ala a nostromo for instance) then there would be more defacto support. I am not saying force the devs ( and whatever on content control - the devs are currently 'forced' to a standard controller) to be forced - if a mouse/keyboard was a standard part of the consoles it would take care of itself.
And yah, sometimes I don't know why I bother to post here *smile*.
EK
I agree. I have used Logitech trackballs (trackman) since around 1994. I use them exclusively at home but do not object to using a mouse at work. However I wouldn't game with anything else.
If games trend toward consoles (with no option for using a mouse/trackball) I will just stop gaming.
The more I know, the more I know I don't know.
In short, perhaps the reason you prefer the game pad for RPGs is simply that it's all most RPGs have ever provided, so you've never really thought about what other interfaces there could be. This is why more support for a wider variety of input devices, including pointing devices as well as joystick/gamepad style things, could only be a good thing for console gaming.
It is really simple. Your PC upgrade should correlate to console upgrades. No game designers today will seriously out pace the fixed characteristics of consoles. If you look at the "next generation" of consoles and build your system to out pace them (which is easy and cheap to do) -- you won't be disappointed for the next three years.
On the other hand, if you upgrade your PC 6 months or a year before the next gen consoles are released, guess what happens? Within a year all game developers are building towards the new spec, and you are left in the dust. The consoles are, no one can doubt, a driving force of the game development industry, but that doesn't mean the PC is ever going to be out of the picture.
Wow. It's not every day that I'm left speechless by something you write, twitter.
is the biggest problem of the PC gaming industry. Maybe it's just me, but those same hardcore gamers that are the demographics for shiny graphics games, are the same people who pirate games without thinking twice.
People mention that console games are pirated as well but the fact are that:
1)Pirating PC games is so much easier, many times it even gives a better experience than the actual original purchase.
2)The majority of console gamer are not computer savvy and the thought of opening their console and voiding the warranty makes them shiver up their spine and give up the idea of free games. Apart for that, to get free games for the console they will have to either download huge isos or go and purchase them in the local pirate HQ. All this just too complicated to non technical console owners.
Fact: Windows is a pain in the ass. THAT has got to be more of a hindrance to PC gaming than what kind of 3d power Intel ships for cheap.
And this isn't the voice of some Macnix fanboy. I have more Win machines than anything else. I know what I am doing. And every time I build or upgrade one, I am amazed at what a god damn circus it is.
The last time there was a TF2 patch, the game didn't work right until I reinstalled DirectX. Of course before I figured that out there were an hour's worth of other dead ends. I have never had to reinstall DirectX after updating a game. Oh, it didn't happen to you, with an identical system? I believe you. That is part of the magic!
Windows is, to be charitable, quirky. I feel like Windows pushes me down the stairs, but I lie and tell my friends I slipped in the shower because I like the software and the mouse/keyboard too much.
Tim Sweeney is waaayyyyyyy off his rocker.
First and foremost, Epic has not released anything revolutionary since the first Unreal. My hunch is Tim's pissed off at the PC because it exposes many flaws in their software, whereas the consoles are an obscure, isolated environment that doesn't lend itself to such easy criticism.
I'll be blunt, when Gears and UT3 were released, I was disappointed by both. Here's a company that supposedly makes game engines, you know, like id Software. Their latest and greatest engine can't even give my PC a decent workout, in my book that means it's already obsolete. It looks and feels dated, compared to other current games. Contrast with the original Quake, Doom 3 and Crysis, which all pushed the hardware beyond its limits and defined the upper crust of 3D engines, a benchmark against which all others would be compared.
I'm sure UT3 looks great on an HDTV, when compared to other console games, but the fact that it can't even saturate a year-old gaming rig on its maximum settings is simply pathetic. What does the UT3 engine offer that's better than the competition ?
My money's on Carmack.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Can you name a single top-tier player in the FPS genre on PC that uses a trackball? If trackballs are that much better they should have some representation in proffessional gaming.
"I have a dual-CPU setup, dual-quad cores for a total of eight cores, and 16 GB of memory."
Every programmer writes code that performs acceptable well on their PC.
When we give programmers average PC's instead of "god boxes" we will see smaller, faster programs that run well on average PC hardware.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Before I ever got into Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior here) type RPGs, I was introduced to the genre with things like Pool of Radiance and other TSR gold box titles, not to mentions things like Ultima.
I have played both types of RPG quite extensively, and yet I still prefer the simpler console gameplay where you can just sit back with a controller and used simplified menus than the more complex interface driven RPGs. Not to mention it seems like the Japanese seem to have a better grip on what makes an epic story vs the US' obsession with non-linear and very interactive driven games.
I'd say both are almost from a seperate genre, the Console RPG and the PC RPG.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
if the average PC buyer could be bothered to know half as much about the computer they're buying as they do about a car they'd like to buy, they'd know that integrated graphics from intel is worthless for gaming. People are getting ripped off frankly. I've built a $850 PC with a later days single core AMD 64 CPU and a nvidia 7900 gs that can handle most of the latest games just fine at 1600*1200. The problem is people thinking they have to have $2000 machines to game on. you just don't.
Why can't they just put validation stickers on underpowered Intel hardware, saying it's -Capable? It's what MS does for Vista :)
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
For someone to say something like "Integrated Graphics just don't work" indicates that they don't understand how PC's are used in the general world. The vast majority of PC's sold will never see a 3D game of any kind. They will be used for simple business/office uses. For such a PC, anything more than a very basic integrated chipset is overkill. Intel understands this, and they cater well to that market. Apparently, Epic does not.
I purchased a new computer about a year and a half ago. It is an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26 Ghz with a GeForce 7900 GS. My main gaming use on it is World of Warcraft, and I get a smooth 60 FPS at maximum settings. I had downloaded the UT3 demo (as I had gotten a lot of enjoyment out of UT2004), but while the game ran fine and had great graphics, I found it to be not as fun as its predecessor (the lack of Onslaught mode was a deal-breaker to me).
I may at some point upgrade the graphics card, but probably never to the latest and greatest. The fact is that as long as it runs WoW and Starcraft 2 (when it comes out), I'll be happy. I'm more likely to simply replace the entire machine 5 to 10 years down the line than make major upgrades to it. In short, I wanted a machine with some gaming capability, but I have no need or desire for the "latest and greatest" in gaming hardware.
As a side note, I recently upgraded my wife's computer by installing a Geforce 5500 and adding a GB of ram (up from the aforementioned Intel integrated graphics and 256 MB of RAM). The purpose of that upgrade was to make it so it would run WoW. It is playable at about 20 FPS with settings on low, which is fine with me. I don't forsee ever upgrading that machine again.
Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
I gotta agree with you. And also, game companies seem to have figured it out now, too.
I bought Call of Duty 3 for my Wii 'cause I was so excited to try the FPS interface with a Wii. Kind of disappointing. Then I just recently got a copy of Medal of Honor: Heroes 2, and it's almost night and day.
The controls are pretty similar, but MoH:H2 makes much, much, better use of the wii's capabilities.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
GOD, do I hope you're being sarcastic. Trackballs are terrible input devices for everything except for Missle Command.
The PC Game industry makes more $$$ per year than Hollywood using the 10% he claims. His complaint is that he can't get beyond that 10%, but the problem is that most people aren't hardcore gamers. They want a cheap reliable graphics that does 2D in windows and maybe some 3D aero glass and don't care a whit about gaming performance at the time of purchase. Then when their child who is an aspiring hard core gamers tries to play Crysis they get upset that it can't run it.
The problem isn't necessarily Intel, it's box labeling. Instead of trying to sell copies to people that can't play it maybe they should make their boxes a little more clear and sacrifice the sales of the games to those who can't play the game.
You can choose what kind of gaming experience you want (and can afford) with a PC. Can't do that with a console. Gotta spend $600 for the latest and greatest or you get NOTHING. With a PC, you can spend $60 for something adequate, or spend $600 for the latest and greatest... your choice.
Um, where you getting those numbers for? My nintendo wii was ~300 bucks, my copy of Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 was ~60 bucks.
Where did you find a PC that can play any sort of FPS game released in 2007 for $300?
Now, that said, I think that the interface, especially for FPS, is an appalling POS on every single console game ever made in history, except for the Wii. And the wii interface for FPS is virtually identical to a PC interface of keyboard and mouse. So yeah, overall, I still rate the PC as a better platform overall.
Hell, for a standard of comparison, I was just looking at a LAPTOP with an intel core 2 duo, 2 gigs ram, and a NVIDA 8600 card for $850 cdn. Compare how much more I can do with that than say, a PS3 for $600 bucks, and the PC wins hands down...
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
For years I've been telling people at work not to change screen resolution, just use whatever the current desktop resolution is. This is especially true for LCDs.
But do they listen? Noooo...
No sig today...
Didn't know that, that's a step in the right direction. I wonder though how few fellow mouse/keyboard jockeys are.
There is only one reason why certain people in the games industry want to push consoles over PC's for mainstream gaming - control. They see PC gamers having fun modifying their games, downloading other's modifications for free, and they want a way make us bend over and pay money for it. This is most feasible on a closed console platform. The same goes for online multiplayer servers. No way in hell am I going to pay Microsoft a subscription for the 'privilege' of accessing someone else's hosted server.
It's not as comfortable as a controller, that's so what. I feel, as I would assume the GP does, that using a mouse hinders my enjoyment of game rather than enhancing it. I'm fine with your mouse/keyboard love, but you folks really should be a little more open-minded. Some of us prioritize comfort over precision.
The majority of PCs won't play our games. Waaaahh!
Answer: Try writing some reasonable games.
No sig today...
I just can't sympathize with this.
If it's important that your game offer some support to Timmy and his underpowered bargin-pc then flag him. When I put my PC into safe mode and I have to revert to all the retarded minimal setting I have a desktop that even Microsoft doesn't want me to interperate as the Windows experience. What do they do? The plaster notices all over my desktop.
I understand the value in supporting even the lowliest hardware feasible. You will inevitably have users who don't read/understand/care about the requirements and punishing them with pedantic requirements isn't exactly the most business friendly thing to do.
However acknowledging the problem then simply pointing fingers makes it sound like you, as a developer, are unable to provide your own reasonable solution. But it seems quite simple: write reasonable hardware requirements and when a game does have to fall back to support unsupported configurations..
clearly warn the user.
As a user myself I can guarantee that enough of us are intelligent enough to know that when our software warns us that it's running in a lower resolution mode on an underpowered and unsupported configuration we will not run out and tell every one who will listen that your games graphics suck. We will be thankful that the game works at all.
If you don't let us know you can expect what you've already been seeing.
If you don't remind us you can expect what you've already been seeing.
We're lazy and opinionated by we're not that stupid.
Quack, quack.
I own 2 consoles, and plan to buy a wii eventually. I've found a problem with consoles vs PCs.
My favorite game at the moment is Morrowind. I play it on the PC with both expansion packs. If I want to play it on the console, I have to buy an Xbox. But I own a PS2 (and a Dreamcast but that's ancient history). I recently bought Oblivion for the PC, but if I wanted it for the console, I'd have to purchase a PS3. I'm planning on purchasing NWN 1 and 2 in the near future, but they're only available on MAC and PC, AFAIK.
Some consoles get exclusive rights to have a game just on there system. I only need one PC to play games, but I'd need many console systems to play the games I'd like to. The PC gaming platform isn't going anywhere soon.
If power usage is the problem, design the system to detect switching to Directx, and switch from integrated to add-on card.
Better yet, design the real card to scale its power consumption according to its needs. They did the same thing for CPU's ages ago.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
The guy is clearly either misinformed or an idiot.
Quote:
Sweeney: There are many overpriced computers out there. It's like sports cars. They are everywhere, everybody writes about them, but there are only a few who can afford them. There isn't a great amount of people that will spend large amounts of money on that.
****
When gaming computers first came out - back in the Apple IIe and Amiga and so on era - the 8 and 16 bit computers of old, the average computer adjusted for inflation was an order or two higher magnitude in cost to today's machine.
$800-$1000 will buy you a superb PC for gaming. That much adjusted for inflation, barely bought you a pair of floppy drive two decades ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II
Quote:
The original retail price of the computer was US$1298 (with 4 KB of RAM) and US$2638 (with the maximum 48 KB of RAM).
http://apple2history.org/history/ah09.html
Quote:
The drive mechanism was improved to better read half-tracks on disks (which some copy-protected software used), and at $795 was priced to be less expensive than buying two of the older Disk II drives with a controller card.
$800-$1000 for a good gaming machine is dirt cheap and lots of people DO pay that much. Just look at how many people buy pricey components from NewEgg.
My PC is wiping it's ass with all the 'next gen' consoles. Crysis is fucking awesome and makes the consoles look like toys. OK, so you need a $200 Geforce 8800, it's still a cheaper upgrade for anyone who has a pc than buying a $500 PS3. Sure not every pc can play the latest games, but that is the genius of the pc market, there are pc's for all functions and prices. It's the console market that is dead. Since the horrible Wii is the 'winner', a rehashed last gen gimmicky piece of crap.
"But the fact remains that a console is neither the environment for competitive gaming nor does it have the input methods for it."
Never heard of the Nintendo Championships, have you? Judging by your UID it's certainly not before your time. It was back in the late '80s when that competition was held, but it was competitive and it was FIERCE.
But then again, the way you talk suggests that you're the type that only thinks FPS/RTS gaming is competition.
"If you want your shit to run faster and are willing to take instability as a price, YOU CAN. Can't do that on a console, you're stuck with what they give you."
Bullshit. I've overclocked both my Super Nintendo and my SEGA Genesis (and the add-on 32X cart) and I learned how to do so from the Slashdot story linked here: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/30/1425233 Maybe *NOW* they've got you locked, but I seriously DOUBT that. If man can make it, man can tinker with it, period. Can you say MODCHIP?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Thank you for proving my point.
See, the hatred is irrational. No one is suggesting take away the joystick controllers. I'd just like to see more options. Yet, you see how they are - this post is typical of what you will see if you post a mouse suggestion on a PS3/X360 forum. (It's actually fun to flamebait them - they start kicking and screaming)
Lol no we wouldn't get along at all - you sound like an asshole. At the very least, you have a problem.
EK
This just sounds like Sweeney can't be bothered to make his next engine scalable. For God sake, even Source can scale back to, what, DX6? I can run HL2:Ep2 on an Intel Integrated chipset. Granted, it's not the high life of graphical amzingness next to UT3 etc. but this just sounds like a giant excuse to break away from low end machines - which _are_ reachable, but he just doesn't want to do it; it's extra work. And doing anything to break from low specs is understandable, because those machines are the vile "death spot" of PC gaming, but sinking to the level of claiming that it's impossible or "requires 2 separate games" is just rubbish.
From the unreal creator I expected more, or at least something that actually makes sense.
First off not sure which marketing people hes talking about, I have not seen a single advert on TV or pretty much anywhere for 3 way SLI. This is like a strawman, its like hes saying 'Oh so they think we need 20Gig of RAM and 50 graphics cards well we dont!' No one ever said you do, and indeed to play any game today, even Crysis, you dont.
Second since the freaking voodoo 1 a graphics card has been a necessary addition to play modern games. If hes saying PC gaming is going in the wrong direction because computers dont come prefitted with modern graphics tech then hes saying its been going in the wrong direction for over a decade. In computing terms, since the dawn of time. Now theoretically you used to be able to scale down you PC without decent graphics, in reality it was virtually completely unplayable.
The fact he uses Unreal as an example is laughable, that game is still joked about in this house today for being absurdly hard to run on any of our computers. We still assume the starting sweep around the castle would jitter like crazy.
No gamer would sit on a PC without that additional card soon after the first ever ones were released. That includes for games like Unreal. (Which incidentally was the game I bought a brand new voodoo 2 for...)
Third his rubbish about every PC being a full on gaming platform... Out of all the PCs in use today a tiny, tiny fraction are ever required to play a game. _Tiny_. To make all PCs games platforms is patently absurd. Out of the dozens of people I know there are maybe 4 or 5 who would ever even notice that there graphics card had been taken out of there system if it had come with one. So, yeah, lets charge everyone a hundred more quid for useless technology to artificially boost a small industry. Good plan.
His idea of software rendering sounds like its equally as daft, I dont have the processor design knowledge but I do know that specifically designed processing units gain a vast speed boost, (The old maths co-processors boosted performance in there tasks by anything up to 100 fold, a similar value to what he refers to when describing the difference between a system with and without a graphics card.) and that the GPU is more complicated than your average CPU (You wont see GPU in a CPU ala the maths co-processor, its pretty much physically impossible.) How he expects CPU's to suddenly leap in power 100 fold so that it makes software rendering worthwhile I dont know. Even if you gave it a decade of development the people at Nvidia and AMD will be boosting there processors as well so the 100x gap will probably always be there unless Intel has some kind of fantastic CPU epiphany.
This is rambling, contradictory, nonsensical, rubbish. Mostly about the old PC is dying argument that gets trotted out every single month. (and quit comparing PCs to consoles, consoles are dedicated games machines, if there games industry wasnt a damn site bigger than the PC one they wouldnt be making them at all!) Funny thing, after years and years of the PC is dying PC gaming profits remain as good as ever. Oh would you look at that, Nvidia and AMD making record profits, even ignoring console sales. Must be because PC gaming is in its death throes... Its almost like these self proclaimed analysts are full of shit. (I dont care how much I enjoyed playing unreal, if your going to talk crap im going to bitch about it on some forums.)
I don't get the comments that say RTS games require a mouse, but FPSes are good with the Metroid3-style controls - the wiimote is a POINTER, so how can it not be used for RTSes? You even get 2 more independent axes in the nunchuck for map rotation/panning, as well the motion sensitivity if you can think of a way to control your game with it. A turn-based strategy game like Civ IV would make a great proof of concept/experiment for the idea.
I did not read this article as I already know it is bullcrap. The PC is where it's at. You don't see a huge gaming mod community on consoles. What you see is people modding the case it comes in. You don't get patches and updates or new units. Instead you get exactly what they sold you. It is never going to change, and as someone else pointed out FPS simply owns with a mouse. Using a console is so old skewl 007. It makes me dizzy just thinking about it. Go and peddle your console elsewhere. I haven't purchased one since the original playstation, and that isn't going to change until my newborn is ready to start playing. Then and only then will I break out with a console... so the noob can learn before he jumps on the pc. Top that off with the fact that consoles cost as much as a computer does! They are just really slow computers!
"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."
I own a Wii and PS2, play PS3 at friends from time to time, and have played a few 360 games. But like several of my friends with consoles, we can't wait for the game to get released on the PC so we can see just how cool they can be.
I also prefer to buy all games through Steam at this point... no scratched media, and when I upgrade my PC (which is ever 2-3 years), I just tell Steam to reinstall all my games, no muss, no fuss.
Rock Band is nice, but with the exception of specialized controls like that and Guitar Hero, I have always found it more fun to play on a PC.
This sig is the express property of someone.
Well there is a shock... a maker of a good game griping about the platform that made him millions. To me this makes as much sense as griping about being electrocuted because you beat your chest and stick forks in electrical sockets. If he has such a major issue with PC platforms, why don't he take his millions and make his own - Put your money where your mouth is!
Its like this - I have an old (2002 Dell Dimension 8200) PC and have no issue with what is out there for games... in fact it is a game of catch up for me. I think that people like this bum need to realize that not every gamer can feasibly afford the next level of technology. So why not stop whining about the problems with technology and why not do something about it... oh yeah, it is being done already... BY THE GAMERS THEMSELVES.
Microsoft and Intel would have been working together to make the PC a crap gaming platform....in order to force people to buy XBox. Anyone else see that coming years ago? I sure did. The PC could run *anyone's* games. For free. Bad and wrong in the eyes of the monopolists.
Only boring people are ever bored.
The big pc gaming studios such as epic an id are turning their focus on consoles.
I call this the "consoleing" of pc gaming, as more and more game engines are created for multi platform capability
this has a unforeseen bonus for the pc gamer. Newer machines based off the newer hardware such as nvidas 9600 gts and amds answer to this solution will have the pc running these games just as well if not better than the consoles.
of course this depends that the developers release decent pc ports unlike halo and shadowrun...
The downside of this is that pc gaming is coming more simplistic and more console like cause of it.
All this doom and gloom for the pc gaming industry actually has me excited as its mostly coming from these companies who are releasing these multi platform gaming engines .
It is with great hope that these companies leave pc gaming and continue to release these fps based engines on to consoles and let the console gamer gobble them up and let the console gamer think they have the superior gaming system .
For i am looking forward to the next wave of pc gaming what ever shape it may take, with the success of mmorpg's, galactic civ, track mania nations and lets not forget mods as they trully make pc gaming the uniquie experince it is today.
With these forces already in place and developers learning from them as they watch them grow in real time they are learning new gaming dynamics and additional ways to engage the user .
I am not sure what game will be the first to succeed at breaking open the new genre but maybe spore with its ability to implement other players content into your world .
or maybe a new racing game doing the same.
track mania nations has already proven this is popular with its user created tracks being raced by thousands .
the return of massive 4 x games like galactic civ and others have proven there is a desire for more in depth games.
the real conequences of in game investments like eve online has shown there are people willing to risk valuable time for virtual gain.
the success of world of warcraft should go with out mention.
but these are what i consider the bleeding edge they offer the intricacy that true pc gamers desire.
I like to think that pc gaming is the adult gaming system, the system for those who want more from their gaming experience
and as always pc gaming has delivered this
the pc gamer will be playing the latest and greatest that gaming has to offer just like we always have, ever since the beginning
example being spacewar developed back 1962 which led to orbitwar and and the rest is pc gaming history.
so let epic and id dismiss pc gaming let the indie developer raise the creative the new and unusal from the supposed ashes
its time for a change. its time for pc gaming to evolve once again . and let the others follow as they have always done.
Music the Paint dancefloor the canvas your body the brush
Since Apple went Intel, there aren't many big endian architectures around anymore. I can imagine people consider them even less now than they did seven years ago. Back then, it sucked, don't know how common the problem is these days.
But then, there's this 32 Bit vs. 64 Bit thing I sometimes find in other peoples' code. Like assuming a pointer's size to 32 Bit and doing voodoo stuff with pointer arithmetics. Annoying as hell, I tell you.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
Games that used more than two players on Sega Genesis and Super NES needed a hub. Game manuals included instructions on how to hook up controllers through a hub. How does USB differ?
My bottom line: For what platform should a smaller developer develop a video game designed to be played in an in-person social setting?
It's not like it's totally unprecedented... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Paint
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Exactly.
Just a really quick (probably biased and not sourced) point. World of Warcraft has 10 million subscribers. Wouldn't that mean for that game alone there's about 10 million "gaming" PC's out there? What about steam, their numbers weren't too shabby last time I heard either... Would this guy from epic question Wii as gaming platform, I mean doesn't it have heavily outdated graphics? I call bullshit on this one.