The Trials and Perils of Returning to PC

[wildpeaks]

Why was I not informed?!

Add it to your wishlist, that way Valve will send you an email when it's on sale

Edit: errr nevermind, someone already posted the same reply almost word for word. Ah I wish the forums had a way to delete your own messages

 

[Reyold]

I've felt for a while that PC gaming is where it's at nowadays. A strong enough PC can do pretty everything a console does, including playing console games themselves, if you've got a good emulator.

If you ask me, there's not much reason to get a console anymore.

I was a Nintendo kid who moved to PC in between the gamecube/Wii era. I eventually got a PS3, but that collects dust now since I mainly use WiiU or PC for everything. PC just offers more games at better prices with the ability to improve them or add to them with mods if I felt like my game could stand a slight upgrade.

Hey, our stories are kinda similar. Was a Nintendo fanboy for years, finally got myself a PS3, and then migrated to a PC/console mix.

I still use my consoles, but I prefer to identify myself as a PC gamer, since it's likely only a matter of time before I no longer have need for the consoles.

 

[Church185]

The old console experience of popping in something and having it playable in seconds... In order to truely compete that will need to make a comeback soon. First, though, wild tangent's patents need to expire. [http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/2013/07/25/the-advent-of-web-3d/]

At least on the PS4 it isn't as bad as all that [http://kotaku.com/installing-xbox-one-games-takes-way-too-long-1471191836]. I haven't run into a game yet where I was bothered by the install time.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Would both of you be willing to put together a $400 "console killer" for me? I have yet to find anyone on this forum who can prove that it is possible. PCs are no doubt more powerful. but from what I can see, console is still the best at power vs. cost.

Alright. Here's the thing.

There are plenty of good 500$ PC builds that will perform just as well as a console. A good build was linked above that would do the trick.

But the thing with PCs is that the gaming component "sweet spot" is at the 700-800$ mark. Going cheaper forces you to get less for your money as the price/performance of budget parts just isn't very good. Also you have to give up things like a large 1tb hardrive or a decent motherboard.

In general, if you're going into PC gaming I'd recommend you save up for an extremely good 700$ build over a meh-ish 500$ build.

 

[Church185]

Ofc I don't say something like that without evidence.

http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1skamc/peasant_told_me_to_make_a_pc_equivlent_to_the_ps4/

Here you go.

First off his prices are wrong. The RAM he listed cost $68.00 on Newegg with a coupon (79.99 normally), while he is claiming they cost $46.75. He doesn't include an operating system, an input device, a way to connect to the internet, or case cooling throwing usability for your average consumer right out the window. The build he listed won't be able to run BF4 with the same graphical power as the PS4 or record game footage at the same time. And to top it all off, it still costs more. Any other sources?

 

[Grace_Omega]

I don't know, I think there's one major advantage consoles still have over PCs besides cost- ease of use.

When I made my own new PC two years ago most everything went well, except that the graphics card I bought for some reason didn't fit properly in my case with the result that I had to bend the metal frame that sits flush with the back of the case to make it fit. It works now, but the card is loose and if I have to take out the HDMI cable for any reason there's a chance that the card will come out along with it and I'll have to open up the PC and re-seat it. I actually have it secured with masking tape at the moment to get it to stay in securely. Needless to say this is not a problem I've ever had with a console.

Now you might say that buying a PC pre-made would solve this problem. Funny story: my brother recently spent quite a lot of money getting a big powerful gaming PC made and send from another country. The GPU didn't work. So he sent it back, with considerable hassle, and got a replacement.... which also didn't work. We tried it in my PC to eliminate the possibility that the motherboard was broken, so it looks like he just happened to get two duds in a row.

I know at this point people are probably going to bring up the mass Xbox 360 failure and I know, I went through four of the things myself before finally just giving up and deciding to ditch the platform. But that caused such a shitstorm precisely because nothing like it had happened before. Generally speaking you buy a console, take it out of the box, plug it in and it just works from there on out. PCs, due to the fact that they're not standardized and are made up of many components manufactured by different people, just have a lot more scope for hassle and things going wrong.

And this is to say nothing of the games. I've frequently spent hours or even days trying to get a new game running, wrestling with the sorts of technical issues, driver mis-matches, bugs and hardware incompatibilities that frankly make Yahtzee's issues with console games seem like peanuts. And keep in mind I'm a fairly tech-savvy person who knows her way around a computer fairly well; I can imagine an ordinary consumer just might not want to have to deal with this bullshit.

Look, before anyone jumps at me, I love PC gaming, I do most of my gaming on PC, I agree that the platform has some wonderful advantages over consoles, but I think it's a bit disingenuous of us to throw up our hands and plaintively ask why, *oh why*, would anyone ever want to own a console over a PC when the two most probable answers are staring us all right in the face: a) they're cheaper and b) they're a lot easier to use.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

First off his prices are wrong. The RAM he listed cost $68.00 on Newegg with a coupon (79.99 normally)

Yeah he listed prices when they were on sale. The build should come up to about 450$ normally.

He doesn't include an operating system, an input device, a way to connect to the internet, or case cooling throwing usability for your average consumer right out the window.

He includes Linux + a Windows emulator as his OS. Not great admittedly, but you can get cheap windows keys online for about 20$.

His motherboard has onboard Ethernet, so wired connection. No wireless, but adapters only cost about 10$.

No need for any case cooling other then stock unless overclocking.

The build he listed won't be able to run BF4 with the same graphical power as the PS4 or record game footage at the same time. And to top it all off, it still costs more. Any other sources?

It's really hard to find Battlefield 4 benchmarks for this card. But <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrvniwbeVWM>this shows Battlefield 4 being played at 50fps 720p on the highest settings (even with 4x MSAA!) while recording. Should easily hit 1080p 60fps on mid settings.

 

[RandV80]

Being a little bit older than Yahtzee he kind of touches on why I've always been a bit at odds with the Xbox. I grew up on consoles, enjoying the childish arcade-y fun games and JRPG's. Note that these games were generally made by Japanese developers. Then when I graduated high school, I got my very own PC which opened up a new branch of gaming with the more mature & complex games found on the PC, typically made by Western developers. Just because I picked up PC gaming didn't mean I abandoned console gaming though, I still played both and had a nice balance in the early 90's/early 2000's. Personally that was my ideal gaming ecosystem, which I was quite happy with.

Then Microsoft had to come along, not being content with being the dominant platform on PC made the Xbox for the living room. Western PC developers started becoming console developers, lowering the maturity and complexity of the games to compensate for the more casual living room environment, and Japanese developers started getting their asses kicked and their style of gaming started to decline, and sort of hybrid system emerged

I can't say with 100% certainty if this was for the best, after all the gaming industry saw it's greatest growth with Xbox/Playstation being the dominant platforms, but for me personally a massive chunk of the industry while extremely successful just became dead weight. Still though I know my niche and can still find my places, and the PC/Wii combo did me good last gen. Would have been nice to have more than two good JRPG's (Xenoblade, Last Story) on my console though...

 

[Church185]

Alright. Here's the thing.

There are plenty of good 500$ PC builds that will perform just as well as a console. A good build was linked above that would do the trick.

But the thing with PCs is that the gaming component "sweet spot" is at the 700-800$ mark. Going cheaper forces you to get less for your money as the price/performance of budget parts just isn't very good. Also you have to give up things like a large 1tb hardrive or a decent motherboard.

In general, if you're going into PC gaming I'd recommend you save up for an extremely good 700$ build over a meh-ish 500$ build.

But that is exactly the point I am trying to make. There is no doubt that PCs are more powerful, but there will always be a market for consoles as long as you can get a decent machine for cheaper than a good PC.

 

[FallenMessiah88]

Remember when some people claimed that PC gaming was dead? Turned out they were wrong.

As such, I urge people to not jump to conclusions. Calm down and play nice.

One of the best posts I've seen on this thread. Console gaming has certainly picked up some bad habits, but calling it dead is probably going to far.

Time will see if consoles will adapt to the change in markets. They might do well, (I.E. find what they can offer and push that, like Steam did for PC's) or they might fall apart (See gaming arcades and coin op).

Thanks.

And yes, I agree completely with your post. The new console generation has only just started. Let's wait and see how things develop before we declare anything "dead".

 

[Church185]

Yeah he listed prices when they were on sale. The build should come up to about 450$ normally.

If you look at the reddit page again, he posted that a couple of hours ago. Surely the sale price hasn't changed that quickly...

He includes Linux + a Windows emulator as his OS. Not great admittedly, but you can get cheap windows keys online for about 20$.

I realize that he included Wine, but that kind of user experience is a terrible way to try and coax someone into using a PC for gaming. I can't seem to find a system builder key for Windows for less than $80 [http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=window+7+system+builder&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=31556476277&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1916739021957879669&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_7e3z02ugg1_b].

His motherboard has onboard Ethernet, so wired connection. No wireless, but adapters only cost about 10$.

I didn't realize the MOBO had ethernet, which is serviceable, but the PS4 is quite portable with its built in WIFI.

It's really hard to find Battlefield 4 benchmarks for this card. But <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrvniwbeVWM>this shows Battlefield 4 being played at 50fps 720p on the highest settings (even with 4x MSAA!). Should easily hit 1080p 60fps on mid settings.

But Battlefield 4 isn't mid settings on the PS4, it is high (not ultra) settings, meaning this build is underpowered. So, you could play a game in a lesser state, with a lesser user experience, for a higher price. Not to mention this build will definitely need more money sunk into it in the next couple years. I'm not bashing PC, it's a great platform. It has tons of unique games, backwards compatibility, and if you really put the money into it, the power is unbelievable. But consoles are still pretty decent, cheap machines.

 

[EXos]

Ofc I don't say something like that without evidence.

http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1skamc/peasant_told_me_to_make_a_pc_equivlent_to_the_ps4/

Here you go.

First off his prices are wrong. The RAM he listed cost $68.00 on Newegg with a coupon (79.99 normally), while he is claiming they cost $46.75. He doesn't include an operating system, an input device, a way to connect to the internet, or case cooling throwing usability for your average consumer right out the window. The build he listed won't be able to run BF4 with the same graphical power as the PS4 or record game footage at the same time. And to top it all off, it still costs more. Any other sources?

Prices must have gone up so that's $22,- more. But we can get the PSU for $15 less.
The case has a fan in the back. The video card has a fan. The PSU has a fan. You get a fan with the CPU. So that's enough airflow for a small case like that.
A way to connect to the internet; the UTP/RJ45 input is on the motherboard (it's the square thingy with two lights).
The OS is the Linux he linked at the bottom of the list + whine to run windows)
And this is more than enough to run BF4 on 900P and boost it up to 1080 on low/medium settings just like a PS4.

As for recording game footage you can't do that either with a PS4 without a HDMI splitter and a PC to record it because you the PS4 is protected against that.
PS. you can't record with the PS4 you can only stream.

The input devices you have a point. But a keyboard and a gamepad shouldn't put you back a lot.
I'm sure you can get a cheap combo with the money you save buying games.

So there you have a PC that can beat a PS4.
(Not listing a monitor because really you're going to hook this up to a TV.)

-Edit-

But Battlefield 4 isn't mid settings on the PS4, it is high (not ultra) settings, meaning this build is underpowered. So, you could play a game in a lesser state, with a lesser user experience, for a higher price. Not to mention this build will definitely need more money sunk into it in the next couple years. I'm not bashing PC, it's a great platform. It has tons of unique games, backwards compatibility, and if you really put the money into it, the power is unbelievable. But consoles are still pretty decent, cheap machines.

Actually not it's not high settings. Anything without AA is a medium setting. the 900p up-scaling makes it a low setting and the 30 Fps it barely makes reduces the strain on the GPU even more.
And get 10 AAA titles and you'll have a minimal of $200 to put into the machine.

The PS2 was a amazing cheap machine, the PS3 was an incredible machine for it's price. (same with the Xboxes). This generation isn't.
CD project is already saying that the witcher 3 is maxing both of them to their limits.

-edit 2-

Here is the reference.

http://www.game-debate.com/news/?news=8605&game=The%20Witcher%20III&title=The%20Witcher%203%20Pushing%20Next%20Gen%20Consoles%20To%20Their%20Limits

 

[Phrozenflame500]

If you look at the reddit page again, he posted that a couple of hours ago. Surely the sale price hasn't changed that quickly...

Huh, you're right. That's really weird, wonder how he got that. Anyways, here's a <a href=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2ikEr>PCpartpicker link for pretty much exactly the same build at 450$.

I realize that he included Wine, but that kind of user experience is a terrible way to try and coax someone into using a PC for gaming. I can't seem to find a system builder key for Windows for less than $80 [http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=window+7+system+builder&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=31556476277&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1916739021957879669&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_7e3z02ugg1_b].

<a href=http://www.reddit.com/r/softwareswap>r/SoftwareSwap has you covered! Not to mention that when SteamOS comes out you'll have a console OS analogue that is completely free.

I didn't realize the MOBO had ethernet, which is serviceable, but the PS4 is quite portable with its built in WIFI.

As I said, <a href=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704059>wireless adapters are cheap.

But Battlefield 4 isn't mid settings on the PS4, it is high (not ultra) settings, meaning this build is underpowered. So, you could play a game in a lesser state, with a lesser user experience, for a higher price. Not to mention this build will definitely need more money sunk into it in the next couple years. I'm not bashing PC, it's a great platform. It has tons of unique games, backwards compatibility, and if you really put the money into it, the power is unbelievable. But consoles are still pretty decent, cheap machines.

Actually, the PS4 does run Battlefield 4 on mid settings with 60fps... at 900p. Boo. And it really won't need that much money sunk into it, maybe if you want to since a better GPU will be dirt cheap in a couple of years (chalk another one up to PC), but it should easily run games until the end of this gen.

 

[Nemusus]

Sooo... basically what you're saying is, "Console gaming is dead."

Man, how things change, eh?

I doubt console gaming will actually die in this generation, or even the next couple down the line. As someone said above, consoles are what made gaming more mainstream, and even now, the community on sites like the Escapist are more hardcore about gaming than most gamers. While we're more inclined to read articles like this, a whole lot of people still find the PC way too daunting to play with or just want to play from the couch without having to lug the PC halfway across the house or whatever. It's this larger market that is going to keep console gaming ticking over, and its this market that is responsible for launch success of the next gen (now current I guess)consoles being a success at launch.

I honestly don't see this market making the jump to PC in the next few years, is all I'm saying.

 

[Toadfish1]

And I'm sure the fact that you failed to mention the Ps4 at fucking all won't undercut each and every one of the supposed faults you are claiming are endemic of "consoles".

Here, I'll just pop in my copy of Assassins Creed 4 to show how long the injstall time is, and then I'll - huh, the thing installed before I managed to finish my sentence. Weird.

 

[Madman123456]

I'd say the faith in gaming as a whole is waning. On the console side, nintendo strikes me as a company where i get to play more and worry less about being conned.
The PC side has very little to offer. No returning games, so i'd recommend buying only games that are dirt cheap so if they do turn out to be bad you haven't lost much.
I dunno, "update" your PC so that it can run some "recent" titles and buy some older games. Scour the steam sales, if you have a machine that can run "Just cause 2" you're set up pretty nicely.
I don't see the market jump over to PC. it might, at least partially but many people will want to avoid jumping from one crook to the next.

 

[Snotnarok]

What's going to have to happen to consoles is more collaborative, there's no sides when making a PC, you buy your parts, make your device and play games on it, so I sorta see companies having to come together in ways to make consoles, there may likely be separate units made by different companies but unlikely to see exclusives, but rather studios just putting out games with requirements. Basically a simplistic PC, the most ideal would be using modular upgrades but that's unlikely...

I think that will be a big headache to many who swear by brand and company for whatever reason, I never understood why people chose to label themselves by the device they play on

 

[Phrozenflame500]

(a) that offers only 60% of the performance power of the Ps4,

60% is a bit much, but <a href=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2ilV2>here's a better build with a better GPU and 1tb of storage.

(b) its still more expensive,

Still cheaper then an X1. And you don't need PS+/XBL.

(c) you didn't include a screen.

You didn't include the TV with the price of your console.

Trolling fail.

How eloquent of you.