Poll: Has anyone else noticed

[sweetylnumb]

Lately every-time i start a game (on PC, obviously..) it's not compatible with my monitor so i have to go to the files and change start-up resolution, or a windows patch interferes with the cinematics so i have to track it done and remove it, or my operating system (windows 7) cant even run the freaking game so i need to download weird patches, or i might not even be able to play the game at all. Every-time this happens i have to track down a solution and implement it myself, and assuming it actually works, I've wasted quite a bit of time fixing a game i payed for.

Now, of course its great that we CAN fix most (-.-) of these issues, but i feel like i'm being taken advantage of here, because all these different game companies just seem to ASSUME that i can fix it myself and they skirt any responsibility for the problems in their own games. Recently i haven't encountered a single game that works properly the first time, and it's frankly getting ridiculous.

Don't these companies have a responsibility to ensure that their games actually work for everyone their game can reach?(legally obviously). And what about the games i CANT fix because i'm either a) not tech savvy enough or b) the problem is unfix-able. In that case i've just payed good money for a game that doesn't work, and assuming i can get a refund, i've still been dicked around and wasted my money all because the componey hasn't bothered fixing thier game or hasn't bothered telling me that i can't run it if i have windows 7 (or whatever.)

Has anyone else encountered this problem? what do you think about it?

 

[TehCookie]

As powerful and customizable as PCs are, that's one of the reasons I like my PS3 more (along with exclusives). I end up spending more time fixing the game than actually playing it since by the time I can play the game I'm already sick of dealing with it.

The part that really annoyed me is when I finally get it to run and Steam decides it didn't like what I did and erased all the changes and put the game back to it's unplayable state. If I spend the time to fix it I at least want it to stay fixed. Or even with Steam screwing up mods. I know the update will break them so I told it not to update, but it does it anyways. Why does it pretend to give me a choice and ignore it?

 

[sweetylnumb]

As powerful and customizable as PCs are, that's one of the reasons I like my PS3 more (along with exclusives). I end up spending more time fixing the game than actually playing it since by the time I can play the game I'm already sick of dealing with it.

The part that really annoyed me is when I finally get it to run and Steam decides it didn't like what I did and erased all the changes and put the game back to it's unplayable state. If I spend the time to fix it I at least want it to stay fixed. Or even with Steam screwing up mods. I know the update will break them so I told it not to update, but it does it anyways. Why does it pretend to give me a choice and ignore it?

NOT to mention that whenever you tab out of 9/10 games it freezes becuase god forbid you might want to change the son or check facebook or whatever -.- but yeah i get your point about consoles there. Reliability and decent exclusives *grrr* unfourtantly i only have enough money for a PC OR a console and i also have to use a computer for other things so :/

 

[oplinger]

well, speaking from experience, it sounds to me like you're playing an older game. Resolution problems tend to be a big issue with early games for...technical reasons I don't care to go in to.

I've dealt with all kinds of problems getting games to work on PC, but I've never had a newer game just not work for me in some capacity, barring minor setting tweaks so it runs smoothly anyway. Older games however I actually find it really fun to tweak them and see how they interact with new hardware, and the technical aspect of why they don't work interests me to a certain extent as well.

It's an art though, not a science. You get good at fixing technical problems the more you run into them.

 

[sweetylnumb]

well, speaking from experience, it sounds to me like you're playing an older game. Resolution problems tend to be a big issue with early games for...technical reasons I don't care to go in to.

I've dealt with all kinds of problems getting games to work on PC, but I've never had a newer game just not work for me in some capacity, barring minor setting tweaks so it runs smoothly anyway. Older games however I actually find it really fun to tweak them and see how they interact with new hardware, and the technical aspect of why they don't work interests me to a certain extent as well.

It's an art though, not a science. You get good at fixing technical problems the more you run into them.

Oh i'm getting used to it. I'm just finding it incredibly annoying that i have to. I'm not the fricking tech department over here. I'm reluctant to buy crysis 1 becuase its well documented as having problems with windows 7 :/ i mean they do want our money right? So they should keep their games usable

 

[oplinger]

well, speaking from experience, it sounds to me like you're playing an older game. Resolution problems tend to be a big issue with early games for...technical reasons I don't care to go in to.

I've dealt with all kinds of problems getting games to work on PC, but I've never had a newer game just not work for me in some capacity, barring minor setting tweaks so it runs smoothly anyway. Older games however I actually find it really fun to tweak them and see how they interact with new hardware, and the technical aspect of why they don't work interests me to a certain extent as well.

It's an art though, not a science. You get good at fixing technical problems the more you run into them.

Oh i'm getting used to it. I'm just finding it incredibly annoying that i have to. I'm not the fricking tech department over here. I'm reluctant to buy crysis 1 becuase its well documented as having problems with windows 7 :/ i mean they do want our money right? So they should keep their games usable

It has problems on widnows 7? Only issues I know of for Crysis 1 was that steam only gave out the 32-bit version, and -that- had issues on 64-bit OSes. The retail version installs both 32-bit and 64-bit. Steam also may have fixed their issue.

it wasn't the fault of Crytek

Strangely enough, a lot of problems seem to just be fixed by running the game in compatibility mode with XP, turning off visual themes, and desktop composition in properties. 90% of the time that makes the game run fine with windows 7.

 

[The Madman]

Right now I've been struggling to get Saints Row 2 working and failing miserably, in the end having just thrown my hands in the air and said "Screw it, I'll wait for Saints Row 4". So yeah, it happens.

Not really a big problem for me however. I know given any real time or effort I could get Saints Row 2 working, just as I could get any other number of games running going all the way back to the 1980's. That's the advantage of the PC: This impossibly huge library of games at your fingertips. Unfortunately your fingertips might have to do some googling and searching every now and then to get said game working, but the mere fact this one mighty machine can do all these things occasionally seems like magic to me. I can't very well play NES games on an Xbox, bar some re-release shenanigans, yet on my computer I could run every game ever made on the NES, SNES, and any number of other consoles as well as the old PC only catalogue AND a giant library of the latest and greatest all while also watching videos, creating videos, reading, writing, browsing the internet, and all sorts of other stuff.

Love it! Totally worth the occasional frustration.

 

[sweetylnumb]

well, speaking from experience, it sounds to me like you're playing an older game. Resolution problems tend to be a big issue with early games for...technical reasons I don't care to go in to.

I've dealt with all kinds of problems getting games to work on PC, but I've never had a newer game just not work for me in some capacity, barring minor setting tweaks so it runs smoothly anyway. Older games however I actually find it really fun to tweak them and see how they interact with new hardware, and the technical aspect of why they don't work interests me to a certain extent as well.

It's an art though, not a science. You get good at fixing technical problems the more you run into them.

Oh i'm getting used to it. I'm just finding it incredibly annoying that i have to. I'm not the fricking tech department over here. I'm reluctant to buy crysis 1 becuase its well documented as having problems with windows 7 :/ i mean they do want our money right? So they should keep their games usable

It has problems on widnows 7? Only issues I know of for Crysis 1 was that steam only gave out the 32-bit version, and -that- had issues on 64-bit OSes. The retail version installs both 32-bit and 64-bit. Steam also may have fixed their issue.

it wasn't the fault of Crytek

Strangely enough, a lot of problems seem to just be fixed by running the game in compatibility mode with XP, turning off visual themes, and desktop composition in properties. 90% of the time that makes the game run fine with windows 7.

Yeah i think that was the issue in retrospect. I hope your right. On another note, do i need to play crysis 1 before crysis 2 you reckon?

 

[oplinger]

well, speaking from experience, it sounds to me like you're playing an older game. Resolution problems tend to be a big issue with early games for...technical reasons I don't care to go in to.

I've dealt with all kinds of problems getting games to work on PC, but I've never had a newer game just not work for me in some capacity, barring minor setting tweaks so it runs smoothly anyway. Older games however I actually find it really fun to tweak them and see how they interact with new hardware, and the technical aspect of why they don't work interests me to a certain extent as well.

It's an art though, not a science. You get good at fixing technical problems the more you run into them.

Oh i'm getting used to it. I'm just finding it incredibly annoying that i have to. I'm not the fricking tech department over here. I'm reluctant to buy crysis 1 becuase its well documented as having problems with windows 7 :/ i mean they do want our money right? So they should keep their games usable

It has problems on widnows 7? Only issues I know of for Crysis 1 was that steam only gave out the 32-bit version, and -that- had issues on 64-bit OSes. The retail version installs both 32-bit and 64-bit. Steam also may have fixed their issue.

it wasn't the fault of Crytek

Strangely enough, a lot of problems seem to just be fixed by running the game in compatibility mode with XP, turning off visual themes, and desktop composition in properties. 90% of the time that makes the game run fine with windows 7.

Yeah i think that was the issue in retrospect. I hope your right. On another note, do i need to play crysis 1 before crysis 2 you reckon?

Not really, Crysis 2 follows after the events of Crysis 1, but the plot points besides "OH LORD ALIENS" are basically ignored. I will note though that I haven't beaten 2. It's just not as fun as 1.

---

...To add more to this thread, and something unrelated to Crysis, I'm gonna share a story that happened to me recently.

So, I own the PC version of Resident Evil 1, because it's completely uncensored and such. And I'm on an older Resident Evil game kick. (I'm playing Code Veronica right now) So I decided it'd be cool to play that again. I install it with no issues. Can't play it. So i'm like okay, this game is pretty old (Like Direct X 4 or something) let's try...compatibility mode with windows 98. Didn't work. So I googled it, found out most people just get the PS1 version. No one cared about the PC version of this game like, at all.

So I was like okay, it was made in 1996, so the game may run under DOS. No such luck. This was becoming a giant pain in my ass just to play resident evil, so getting frustrated I decided, fine, I'll pull out all the stops here.

To get RE1 to run on PC with modern hardware (which does not resemble 1996 hardware at all) you have to run the game with the software renderer, which runs all effects through the CPU, you have to set your computer to 16 bit color, and run it in compatibility mode for windows 95. So it worked, I got to play RE1 right? ... No. my CPU is much faster than a 1996 CPU, so I have to play the game at hyper speed. I need a third party app to kill my CPU to run it smoothly. On top of that it crashes in the very beginning with the first zombie.

it also looks like this:

Spoiler

Only it's twice as big, and not as blurry. It hurt me. It hurt me a lot.

So, if you ever want to complain again about not getting a game to work on your PC because it's too much work. Take a deep breath, smile, and tell yourself that it's not Resident Evil on the PC.

 

[TehCookie]

NOT to mention that whenever you tab out of 9/10 games it freezes becuase god forbid you might want to change the son or check facebook or whatever -.- but yeah i get your point about consoles there. Reliability and decent exclusives *grrr* unfourtantly i only have enough money for a PC OR a console and i also have to use a computer for other things so :/

Best way I've found is bring up task manager and switch to your game before you click the window prevents a lot of games from freezing. Though it still depends on how powerful your computer is. I don't know how or why it works for me, but you could give it a try.

I don't know your financial situation, but both PCs and consoles are cheaper when you're late to the party. Then you also have a huge selection of old cheap titles as well

 

[Summerstorm]

Hm, barely have any problems.

Only problem i have is with a bug in Games for Windows Live/Windows 7/my Router-DSL-Modem which prevents me from playing Street-Fighter IV and Batman: Arkham City - (Curses... foiled again)

Otherwise i had little to no problems i can remember the last years. And i am an avid gamer; Dosbox games, Emulators, new old, free games, garage-made little projects or AAA-Title... everything works and worked.

Now let me go into "nostalgia-mode": Man, i remember the time where i had to fiddle with keyboard, mouse and soundcard drivers, switching, unloading stuff... just so i could get 2kb more EMS or XMS memory... because games refused to start until their demands were met.

You have 580 kb free main memory... this game requires 585 kb... GRAH

Or the: Change the IRQ of the soundcard, because the game itself had hardcoded settings. IRQ 7 or bust *g*

THAT was annoying

 

[sweetylnumb]

Hm, barely have any problems.

Only problem i have is with a bug in Games for Windows Live/Windows 7/my Router-DSL-Modem which prevents me from playing Street-Fighter IV and Batman: Arkham City - (Curses... foiled again)

Otherwise i had little to no problems i can remember the last years. And i am an avid gamer; Dosbox games, Emulators, new old, free games, garage-made little projects or AAA-Title... everything works and worked.

Now let me go into "nostalgia-mode": Man, i remember the time where i had to fiddle with keyboard, mouse and soundcard drivers, switching, unloading stuff... just so i could get 2kb more EMS or XMS memory... because games refused to start until their demands were met.

You have 580 kb free main memory... this game requires 585 kb... GRAH

Or the: Change the IRQ of the soundcard, because the game itself had hardcoded settings. IRQ 7 or bust *g*

THAT was annoying

How adorable. Reminds me of when i i got my TB harddrive and thought "i'll never fill this up" OH MY SWEET INNOCENCE THOSE WHERE THE DAYS

 

[Phrozenflame500]

The larger and more complex a system is, the more prone to failure it is.

Designing for PCs is inherently more complex due to the different standards in hardware, software, settings, etc. Developers are completely incapable to catch each and every bug as it would require them to test it on literally every possible software/hardware configuration and even then that doesn't account for possible failures in the user's computer that can cause additional problems.

Personally though most modern titles work decently for me with only an occasional exception where I need to tweak my computer settings. Older games are a completely different story though.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Only things I've had genuine problems with recently have not been to do with actual games but the services necessary to use the games ie GFWL and Origin. It has been awhile since I've had a Steam problem that was to do with Steam.

 

[Kyrian007]

It doesn't really bother me. I've never really had a problem that a few minutes looking at a troubleshooting forum couldn't fix.

 

[Creator002]

Usually, I don't get many problems. The main thing I need to do is set the resolution to 1920x1080 and bump the graphics up. For some reason most games assume my computer isn't as powerful as it is. The only game I can think of that needed major tweaking was Fallout 3 and that was because it doesn't like quad core processors.
EDIT - Oh, and AFL Live. It kept disconnecting me from GFWL, so I couldn't hold a match with my friend. I called Microsoft and they told me to forward my ports (which, at the time, I was gob smacked since I had no idea what that meant). Calling Telstra (my ISP) was no help since, according to the tech rep, my router "had no settings." I had to figure out how to port forward all by myself from scratch. Now, I host servers for all my friends.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

To be honest, it's been so long since I had to fiddle with anything for a game to work I wouldn't be able to give you an example from the top of my head. That's one of the reason I like Steam and GoG, they make the games work 99.9% of the time.

 

[kasperbbs]

Doesn't really happen all that often, last game i had issues with was battlefield 3 and i spent an hour meddling with it to make it work, i felt rather silly when i finally figured out that i needed to install the latest directx. Other than that i don't really recall having issues with a game.

 

[NathLines]

well, speaking from experience, it sounds to me like you're playing an older game. Resolution problems tend to be a big issue with early games for...technical reasons I don't care to go in to.

I've dealt with all kinds of problems getting games to work on PC, but I've never had a newer game just not work for me in some capacity, barring minor setting tweaks so it runs smoothly anyway. Older games however I actually find it really fun to tweak them and see how they interact with new hardware, and the technical aspect of why they don't work interests me to a certain extent as well.

It's an art though, not a science. You get good at fixing technical problems the more you run into them.

Oh i'm getting used to it. I'm just finding it incredibly annoying that i have to. I'm not the fricking tech department over here. I'm reluctant to buy crysis 1 becuase its well documented as having problems with windows 7 :/ i mean they do want our money right? So they should keep their games usable

Ah, Crysis. I had fun with the last boss of that game. When I went into the area where the boss was, the game would always make me bluescreen after a set amount of time. Every second in that area made me lose some FPS and I had to learn how to perfectly beat the boss as fast as possible before I crashed. Fun times.

I never really have a lot of troubles with games. I read up a lot on games before I buy them, so I know if they're buggy or not, and avoid the games that aren't worth it. So I only really go into games that I have to fix myself when I want to.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Right now I've been struggling to get Saints Row 2 working and failing miserably, in the end having just thrown my hands in the air and said "Screw it, I'll wait for Saints Row 4". So yeah, it happens.

Not really a big problem for me however. I know given any real time or effort I could get Saints Row 2 working, just as I could get any other number of games running going all the way back to the 1980's. That's the advantage of the PC: This impossibly huge library of games at your fingertips. Unfortunately your fingertips might have to do some googling and searching every now and then to get said game working, but the mere fact this one mighty machine can do all these things occasionally seems like magic to me. I can't very well play NES games on an Xbox, bar some re-release shenanigans, yet on my computer I could run every game ever made on the NES, SNES, and any number of other consoles as well as the old PC only catalogue AND a giant library of the latest and greatest all while also watching videos, creating videos, reading, writing, browsing the internet, and all sorts of other stuff.

Love it! Totally worth the occasional frustration.

As far as I'm aware, Saint's Row 2 was an incredibly shitty port made by a team that either didn't care or weren't very experienced with making games for PC.

The only real problem with PC gaming, for me, are bad ports. Hopefully with the upcoming x86 architecture consoles, bad ports should be a hell of a lot less common.