265: Punching the Baby Seal of PC Gaming

[The Last Nomad]

Yeah I agree 100%...

Sure I could read a manual everytime shit don't work. It might get it to work with a little bit of effort each time. But I don't have to do that with consoles. It runs smoothly everytime.

There is something really comforting about buying a game knowing it will work perfectly on your machine without worrying about minimum specs and numbers.

 

[Lunar Shadow]

Shit, man. What the hell have you done to your residential computers to make them so damn terrible? And hey, if the Sims 3 expansion packs lag you, then you CAN NOT get away with saying you have above-average computer specs. You have old hardware, certainly old software, and it sounds like you've gone and screwed something up deeper than all of that. I understand that you'd get frustrated if this happened to you, but please, never generalize PCs as buggy and crashy. It just aint true.
Hell, anybody's PC crashes more than his 360 red-rings, it's waaaay past time for a replacement. I mean whoa.

Computer's a year old. Maybe not even. Crysis, which as noted does work most of the time, rocks it at a very high resolution -- smoother than gooseshit on a glass window.

When I open Photoshop CS4, it's "blink-and-it's-ready."

System's not old, nor is it clunky.

Perhaps my PC is a rara avis in terms of PC games. Though it appears not.

-- Chuck

To put in more freindly terms than the poster above perhaps there is something systemic in your desktop/ laptop that makes running high level games a problem for them. If they are both dell then it might be a cooling issue. I've had them with my slightly older Del Dimensions and i know quite a few laptops take a shit and die in the cooling department when you attempt some serious 3D.

There is also the question of hardware. Not to make this into a tech thread but a specs/ model description could go a long way into getting to the root of your problem (it does sound like a problem, i know the artcile was spiced up for effect but this simply isn't normal) becuase i've played Crysis on 4 different PCs i have owned at one time or another and it's been stable as a rock.

The reason many PC gamers build their own systems is that you do get the best results with them. Everything is unser your control and therefore you are more familiar with the system if and when things crop up. Not to sound like a raving elitist but i wouldn't buy pre-built for gaming under any circumstances and i frankly wouldn't take a piss in a dell XPS. Cheap PSUs, insuficient cooling, BIOS and hardware lockouts and manufactuers software are unwelcome risks you take even with a top end dell and all can contruibute to lock-ups or crashes whilst gaming. To go back to my experiences with Dell i've had two faulty disk drives, cooling issues, a faulty motherboard, a broken IDE cable and at one point i had to clear the CMOS every time i wanted the bugger to post. I've ended up gutting the thing and adding in mostly my own hardware, only the processor, one of the drives and the case remain.

Software to can be a massive pain but it can be fixable. C-Cleaner, NTREGOPT, Defraggler and regular cleans and defrags are a necessary evil to keep a system working smoothly and at top capacity. Just like keeping a highly tuned car things can be on a knife edge (and as i described having a Dell does not help)

Honestly I would piss in it, just to short the fucker out and bury it in a shallow grave. After having a Dell for nearly a decade I have grown to hate their computers. HP at least redeemed themselves by having a bitchin laptop for fairly cheap.

 

[ScorpSt]

Yeah I agree 100%...

Sure I could read a manual everytime shit don't work. It might get it to work with a little bit of effort each time. But I don't have to do that with consoles. It runs smoothly everytime.

There is something really comforting about buying a game knowing it will work perfectly on your machine without worrying about minimum specs and numbers.

I get that, I really do. Comfort is nice. But there's a sense of personal achievement when you manage to get a game to work with your current set-up. Everyone has their own personal tastes, and that's why there are so many different platforms. Wii, 360, PS3, DS, PSP, PC, and even iPhone. They are all a part of what we call Gamers.

Ok, I know that sounds really corny, but I'm trying to make it clear that I have no fanboyism, and even though I call myself a PC gamer, I still like and play on Consoles. I just prefer using my fingers to my thumbs over a long period of time.

 

[Catalyst6]

I must say, I adore PC gaming. The moment that I got my gaming laptop I was converted forever. I haven't been on my PS3 for... Gods, it must be months.

Although that same computer came to mind while reading this. I have a M17x from Alienware, which is a fantastic laptop that is everything that I could ever want and more... except that at entirely random times the computer will hit a lag spike and freeze for 4-5 mins. It could be sitting on the desktop, I could be word processing, I could be gaming, the context doesn't matter. It just stops. Dammit, this is supposed to WORK!

 

[tscook]

I'm sorry you're missing out on the only form of vidya gaming that matters.

 

[Asehujiko]

Punching the Baby Seal of PC Gaming

You see that cute little baby seal? Chuck Wendig wants to punch that seal in the mouth because Crysis locked up on him. Again.

Read Full Article

Boxed games with GFWL on it are highly unstable and pre-built rigs with no build date given suck for playing hardware intensive games. What happened here is entirely your own fault.

 

[The Last Nomad]

Yeah I agree 100%...

Sure I could read a manual everytime shit don't work. It might get it to work with a little bit of effort each time. But I don't have to do that with consoles. It runs smoothly everytime.

There is something really comforting about buying a game knowing it will work perfectly on your machine without worrying about minimum specs and numbers.

I get that, I really do. Comfort is nice. But there's a sense of personal achievement when you manage to get a game to work with your current set-up. Everyone has their own personal tastes, and that's why there are so many different platforms. Wii, 360, PS3, DS, PSP, PC, and even iPhone. They are all a part of what we call Gamers.

Ok, I know that sounds really corny, but I'm trying to make it clear that I have no fanboyism, and even though I call myself a PC gamer, I still like and play on Consoles. I just prefer using my fingers to my thumbs over a long period of time.

Yeah, I know the kind of feeling of achievment you mean. But I just don't really get that from setting up a computer to play games. Its like putting a jigsaw together... where I would really prefer to make the jigsaw myself.
But the PC I use is a family PC, so as such I don't suppose I could mess around with it to suit my personal tastes when everyone in my family uses it.

And like you said, everyone has their own personal tastes when it comes to gaming.

 

[Jacob.pederson]

Ditto on the Tandy 1000 SX! That thing had a smoking sound chip. I agree with you on everything btw; however, sometimes I don't want to play a game, I want to MAKE a game play I want to make it do things its devs never intended, such as run with 16x anti-aliasing, in stereoscopic 3d, play it with a snes controller via USB, or replace all the textures or heck, the entire rendering engine! . . . I want CONTROL That's why my steam/cardboard box collection is around even with my console collections.

And another thing . . . I can still boot Homeworld 2 and Starcraft 1 on my modern windows 7 pc. I can't seem to get my SNES games into my 360 though

 

[Le_Lisra]

"Crysis crashes about 25 percent of the time - for a PC game, not a bad ratio."

Are you shitting me?

I have about 40 games for my aging pc (that I build together myself with no hardware knowledge besides "does this shit fit on this random motehrboard?") and almost all of them work 95% of the time.

Exceptions have been the STALKER games (which I love), Morrowind (which I love) and Mass Effect (which I had an affair with, until it refused to go on).

Yeah a PC has problems. I bought a HD 3650 AGP recently, because it is an insanely powerful card for its price.. but the AGP port is FUCKED. With 5mins more research I would have known, but I only research the mhz. My bad. That's how it works.

I really, really can't fathom all the whining. Yes it breaks, crashes and howls at us, but that's what PCs do. I will remain loyal until they are obsolete.

The only time I wanted to punch a seal had to do with Windows ME. I can never, ever speak about that.

"I don't have time to build a PC."

It's not up to me to question that, heavens know, but.. really? You have time to play games. That means you have time to build a PC. Isn't it more like "I don't want to build a PC!"? Which is fair enough in its own right, mind..

 

[Something Amyss]

This is what led me to wash my hands of PC gaming years ago. Of course, I was never into MMOs, RTS, and so on, so it's an easy shift to stick with.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I borrowed the game from a friend of mine, ran the crack available on many other sites, and it ran perfectly first time, every time

probably because the crack bypasses all the drm bullshit that causes 99% of the problems

reason to use pc over 360, mouse control and mods

don't like the stupid hacking minigame, a mod bypasses it, don't think the food sanitizer should weigh as much, mod it, more, better variety of mutants, want your plasma guns to leave cool green skeletons when they melt someone? mod for that

bethesda games particularly are a bunch of great ideas but a lot of lame gameplay, modding makes them 10x more playable and enjoyable

 

[Echo136]

Its the eternal dance we dance, sir. PC gaming is a *****, but I personally believe its worth it.

 

[Evil the White]

I'm gonna be honest; I only get stuff like this with old games, because I'm running on Windows 7. And it's a pain because they should work, but they don't. Just about everything released before 2008 has problems. So I have the reverse of your problem: my PC loves all the new shiney stuff, but can't stand the classics. I was so angry when I spent £5 on Beyong Good and Evil, just to find that it wouldn't work... well, I could have punched a baby seal, if there had been one there.

There's actually a easy workaround for that if you know someone with a XP computer install it on the XP computer, copy the program files install to your windows 7 machine and it works. If it works on Tie Fighter for Vista 64 then it'll work for you haha.

I'm really going to have to try that now. Thanks for the tip.

 

[poiuppx]

This, amongst other elements, sums up why I gave up on PC gaming a lonnnnng time ago in favor of consoles. No DRM stupidity, no compatability madness, no randomly deciding to quit-to-desktop, and no need to upgrade my rig every five or six months just to play the new releases. Doesn't mean PC gaming is bad... but it sure as hell means I have less headache and less wallet-ache as a result. PC gaming might not be dying, but with issues like these, it should at least see a doctor about that nasty cough.

 

[poiuppx]

Punching the Baby Seal of PC Gaming

You see that cute little baby seal? Chuck Wendig wants to punch that seal in the mouth because Crysis locked up on him. Again.

Read Full Article

Boxed games with GFWL on it are highly unstable and pre-built rigs with no build date given suck for playing hardware intensive games. What happened here is entirely your own fault.

I really don't get sentiments like this. If the system meets all requirements or supercedes them, it should work. That's the way it worked in the old days, and PC gaming seemed just fine back then. If it doesn't work after meeting or passing the desired specs, the failing is hardly on the part of the gamer. This sort of 'You didn't work at it hard enough/invest enough money in it/etc' line is the sort of thing that hurts PC gaming long term... most folks really would rather plug and play then have to take a roll of the dice with every game they buy, and every time they load said game up.

 

[Vkmies]

"Until Civ 5 comes out at leasts. Im only human." <-- Naturally. Aren't we all?

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Lo and behold, I'm not the only one who wants to punch a baby seal! I find myself on the exact same train of thought. It's why all my PC games are easy on the equipment, or old. There's very little to make me want to have to change things out, spend hundreds of dollars on some piece of hardware that will stop being supported in a half-week's time, and barter my soul for a working setting that isn't offered on a console, where all of those troubles are assuaged by simply putting in the disc, and picking up the controller. Sure, there may be an install time, but a relatively short install time is a minor tradeoff for something that immediately and reliably works for years to come.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Couldn't agree more. This is the exact reason why I NEVER like PC gaming.

 

[Blue Musician]

Id have to look later im at work right now. But im still running XP since vista was fairly new and not standard on computers when I got mine. But it still runs wow so im happy with it and my laptop can run pretty much anything.

Mmm, you bought it already built, isn't that right?
That normally isn't such an issue, but I always recommend building up your own computer, as it lets you customize it with your price range and normally it's cheaper than buying an already built one. But still it's no slouch either.

I tend to build my own computers, specially because the last time I bought one already built, it was lacking the Graphic Card socket.

HP actually has one on the market like that A desktop with built in graphics and missing the pci-e slot. There is space for it on the MB though, so you can solder one on if you want. but still, talk about doing anything for profit. Its just a damn plastic slot

Except that that thing STILL costs money, and also it wasn't an HP.

After all I love building computers...

 

[tkioz]

And this is exactly why I gave up on PC gaming for the most part (I use steam but I pretty much only buy older games that I really enjoyed back in the day that I can't get on a console, or indie stuff for $2 that I don't give a crap if it doesn't work), I like the author grew up working on PCs, hell it's my freaking job, I know a lot, I can troubleshoot, I can fix problems, but you know what? I'm sick to death of it, the very last thing I want to do when I come home is fix a freaking game after I've spent 8 hours fixing computers, I want it to bloody work, is that so much to ask?