freedquaker said:
There is no question that the latest graphics on PCs will always outshine the consoles after 2-3 years on their lifetime. On the other hand, the console graphics usually look considerably better when they are first released before catchup of the PC and look better for a long time than the average PC (not the new/high end PCs). The problem with gaming on PC is not only about price, but lack of smoothness and stability of the consoles. When you buy a console, you know that every game for it will run from day 1 till the end of its life.
A top of the line PC will outperform a console at launch. A console's hardware is usually set in stone about 12 months before launch. PCs don't play by those rules. Look at the hardware that was available in November of 2006... It absolutely annihilates the PS3.
People forget something, who claim that a PC which is bought now will have a reasonable price and be much more powerful than the consoles. That's kind of true but confined to a very narrow outlook.
How is that confined to a narrow outlook? It's true. For $600, you can build a rig that will destroy any console out there.
Let's assume that you have bought a console on the same day as Xbox 360 was released back in 2005. You paid like $400 for 360 and like $800 for the PC (general purpose, gaming + other things, so the price is ok). And lets assume that the life of 360 is around 6-7 years. So I will be able to play all the games on it till 2011-12 with an almost perfectly smooth and stable experience. Let's see what's going to happen with the games on PC.
You'd still probably be playing that PC, though not Crysis and not any other top-shelf games on high settings. It's true, consoles do offer more stability and longterm benefits. Only the most ardent PC fanboys would argue that.
- Most games require huge installs, and many other tweaks, in order to start playing the game, you need to give extra effort and time.
PS3 games often require an install. It's been a long time since I've seen a game that didn't install and play, though obvious glitches with hardware do exist out there. I'm not denying that PCs are more complicated but I think you're playing it up a bit.
- You will have many problems on the way, some of them will be incompatible with your system due to some unknown freaking reason, system conflict, whatever.
Very rarely does that happen. But, it does, so I'll give you that. Again, the word "many" makes it sound like you have to driver-search and update for every game you buy. That's not the case.
- Let's just not forget the virus, spyware and other god darn problems!
Don't be an idiot and this isn't a problem. PERIOD.
- For the first few years, most games will work with few problems, but game will not run as smooth and as stable as on the consoles. Because of the million different type of PCs out there, your configuration is too specific to be optimised for.
No, you won't be optimized but many decent PCs can just outmuscle the optimization and run most games without significant problems (like, say, the horrid texture loading problems on PS3/360 UE3 games).
- After a couple of years, there will be a significant number of games that you either cannot run or can run on very low settings, losing a lot of the graphics, smoothnees and gameplay stability.
If you spend your money wisely, your PC will run almost any game for up to three years and beyond, barring a monster engine like Crytek releasing that pushes even the newest hardware.
- For the last few years, there will be only a handfull of games that are playable on your computer, some of them not even at optimal solutions.
True. PC gaming is more expensive overall, but then again, the machine is a multi-tasking monster and is often used for several other things, eating the additional cost.
- Your PC which was bought on the same day of the 360's release almost never outshined its competitor. The graphics on the PC usually had little or no improvement on its life cycle due to the lack of optimization for your hardware, but they could possibility get even worse as you'd play future games at lower settings etc. The console graphics have improved considerably on the other hand as game developers had better optimizations for the specific hardware.
I didn't see anything on the 360 until Gears of War that trumped Half-Life 2 on high and Valve doesn't produce processor-eating engines. They're actually somewhat mild, really. When did HL2 release? 2004 IIRC. Over a year before the 360...
- In Summary, PC graphics will outdo the console graphics only if you buy a new PC or make a hefty upgrade every one or two years.
Flat out untrue. If you spent $800 on a PC when the PS3 released, you'd still be able to play almost any game released (Mass Effect, CoD4, etc) on high settings and you'd probably be able to squeak out low/mid on Crysis, which still looks better than anything found on either HD console.
This myth that PCs have to be upgraded every twelve months really needs to die. It's on the level of "PS3 has no games" at this point.
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