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How To Make PC Gaming Better
New submitter RMingin writes "Bruno Ferreira at Tech Report has a number of suggestions that he feels could improve PC gaming. Some are quite thought-provoking. For example: 'When technology advanced [in the '90s], the industry came up with a certification specification to ensure punters didn't miss out—and consequently spent more on better PCs. That spec was called MPC, short for Multimedia Personal Computer. The first version of the MPC spec said, in simple terms: Thy computer shalt be blessed with a sound card and speakers.
Thou shalt be provided a CD-ROM drive in which to receive silver discs. Thy processor shalt not be completely crap. At the time, this spec meant a lot—and, to be honest, I think it worked marvelously. We need something like that again. People wanted MPC, everyone sold the better hardware, and everyone was happy. Let the powers that be come up with a new baseline specification. Call it MPC-HD or whatever acronym the marketing Nazgûl want to give it. I'm fine with whatever, as long as it gets the job done.' He also calls for an end to the unintuitive model numbers for GPUs and CPUs, and more consistent driver support."
Port everything over to Linux so we can ditch Wine and Windows.
Someone had to say it.
It's called Tablet App Gaming. Thy computer shalt have no native input device save the screen. You shall not have full control of the device. Some of your data must needs live in the cloud.
Stop thinking every title needs to be a triple AAA title with millions of dollars in cost, that has to sell a large amount of copies to turn a profit.
Stop putting crappy DRM on your software, since that only hurts your customers.
Stop making crappy consoles ports.
And quit fucking blaming everything on piracy.
Be seeing you...
Those who finds model numbers unintuitive usually asks one of their geek friends to build a PC for them, those who don't even bother looking at model number but rather look up the benchmarks don't care about the model numbers.
The real issue with PC gaming is that a lot of games these days are shitty console ports with atrocious controls, awful camera and graphics that are still stuck on xbox360/ps3 level which are already outdated by just about any discrete video card, and there's no incentive for companies to change their "make console game -> port to pc to milk" agenda.
There's nothing wrong with it. In fact, it's miles better than any console. An I5/I7 paired with a midrange graphics card blows them out of the water. The problem isn't the hardware, it's the software writers who write for consoles and then port that back to PCs... Case in point, Skyrim, which has about the most awful interface ever inflcited on the keyboard & mouse using public ever. More first-person shooters that all look the same. No innovation any more. No, the problem is the game companies and their crap.
I've been using computers since the late 80s, and I don't recall this term at all. I do remember people talking about "Multimedia PCs", which must be the verbal expression of that (just saying the letters MPC seems odd - makes me think of the MCP from Tron). But I don't recall it being a big deal... at least not as a home user in middle school and high school, building my own computers (and some for friends). Maybe it was a bigger deal among the major brands at the time?
Anyways, as a professional who helps folks figure out what they need in a computer today, I don't see how this would be all that helpful. Maybe as a guide for those who know nothing about specs, have no interest in learning, and are buying from a source where they cannot get decent advice... but there is such a wide range of specs and performance these days that a simple label would have a hard time encapsulating enough info. All modern computers (save some servers) have audio, some level of 3D performance, etc - and while not all have optical drives that isn't always a big deal, since the advent of Steam and similar services.
On the other hand, if you want to ensure decent game performance then you have wildly different specs to aim for depending on the game, the resolution the user will be running, the quality and FPS settings that they consider reasonable, and future-proofing. I don't think that can all be covered by one arbitrary standard, personally.
William George
The upcoming Steambox will hopefully be the new benchmark for software. It would be nice if they'd release a certification badge upon release that other hardware makers could use. I agree 100% with the comment about GPU/CPU naming conventions. They are even worse than cell phones. If there's one thing we can learn from the iPhone, let it be simple names.
You have (and shall) never hear the term "console port".
The main problem with a LOT of PC games, nowadays, is they've been dumbed down, and lots of features stripped out or simply never done (or done right) in the first place. Simply to make it easier to share code-bases between a console port and the PC game.
DCUO is a prime example of this.
It's so incredibly limited, and the controls for the game absolutely SUCK. Why? Because they designed it with a controller in mind. They limited the game's models and costume options because most consoles just couldn't handle the sheer variety a full-blown costume/model system would have given them.
As a result, you have a console fighter game masquerading as a PC MMO. And it does NEITHER well.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
That happened 30 years ago with consoles. Japanese console manufacturers figured they would corner the market if they adopted a standard console system called MSX. It would be extensible enough for the systems to be used as home computers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX
Didn't last simply because each manufacturer used the standard as a base level and added their own custom features - extra sound channels, larger screen resolutions, more cartridge memory, extra peripherals like light pens, light guns.
In the end games designed on one system wouldn't run on others, and the system become forgotten.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
#1. Make all games use OpenGL or some other newly invented standard that is cross platform.
#2. Have congress declare that "virtual goods" or whatever you want to call them are no more than poker chips. Selling items in game is probably the most detrimental change in the history of gaming as it leads to developers intentionally making the game un-fun and grindy so you'll sink real money to obtain imaginary items to make your play easier. Also... they really are poker chips... it's wrong that they are sold to children.
#3. Games that are online and can not work without the servers provided by the publisher should be required by law to provide service for a certain period of time after you buy the game. A certain portion of the proceeds of the sale of the game should go into a 3rd party account to pay for the continued operation of the servers even if the original producers of the game go out of business. At least someone buying the game could be guaranteed a certain about of play before it just stopped working all together. But better yet, hopefully producers of games would not want to have to put money into a trust and instead would open up the server platform to the players.
...also, 2013 will be the year of Desktop Linux. Suuure...
Ironically 2013 is the year of Android that is the point, and Windows gets relegated to second place. It kind of makes your statement a little sad. Personally I look forward to the gains on the Linux Desktop from Microsofts Monopoly getting broken.