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Forums - PC - Fun Topic. Which are better for Gaming? PC's or Consoles?

Alby_da_Wolf on 13 September 2009
ZenfoldorVGI said:
Alby_da_Wolf said:
For some genres, like RPGs ,RTS' and FPS, and for some features, like mods, tweaks, patches, games price, etc, PC is the best, in the past it was also for the possibility to save games anywhere, if the developer didn't decide otherwise.
OTOH consoles are more imediate and hassle free, they give immediate fun. Neither can replace the other.
About PC being more expensive and so balancing cheaper games than console ones, well, if you need a PC anyway, configuring it with a better GPU isn't very expensive, if you aren't a maniac that always needs the latest liquid nitrogen cooled monster graphics cards. Being a PC retrogamer, I feel fine with Radeon HD3300 onboard graphics, its several times more powerful than my old Radeon 9250, it requires even less power and building my current PC with it cost me even less than adding a separate low-end card, but if I added a mid-range card,I'd have spent less than $100 more.

There are many games that are CPU heavy, not GPU heavy. Like WoW and GTAIV. You can't upgrade your CPU, so if yours isn't up to snuff, you need to buy a whole new computer.

That's why, when you build a computer, you shouldn't buy the cheapest shit you can find that will play crysis. Crysis is a GPU game. There are PCs that play crysis on Very High at 40fps, yet still catch slowdown on WoW at 1080p with the draw distance all the way up, because it's CPU heavy.

When you build a gaming computer, you should spare no expense on the CPU. Otherwise, you will not be able to play soon to be released CPU heavy games.

I never go for the fastest CPU, but  I never buy the cheapest one too, indeed, when I built my last PC I bought the fastest 45W Athlon I could get, the Athon64 X2 5050e back then, and I built a silent and cheap, but not underpowered PC. I would have done the same also for not gaming purposes, as I wanted a PC that was cheap and low-power consuming enough, but that wasn't slow manipulating photos, videos, etc.

About games, I hate bugged ones, so I wouldn't buy the latest immediately even if they were cheap, except a few exceptions.

And this Summer I thanked God I had a fresher (and quieter too) PC and I got an LCD 19" I saw on offer at IperCoop, so expelling a lot of Watts less than before...

 

Edit: CPU is not so stressed, but I can agree that getting the slowest available isn't a good idea, fast obsolescence is guaranteed that way, when less than $50 more than the cheapest  usually get a good enough one.



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Senlis on 13 September 2009

@ZenfoldorVGI

I have to stop arguing soon and do something productive. If I don't pass this test coming up, I'll never make it past Major.

A) Yes, you can mod your consoles to add things like cooling. Also, the hardware in consoles tend to be very reliable (if it wasn't for the heat issue). I think Nintendo makes the consoles that have the highest reliability, and that is especially true this generation where they used modern technology, but with less power. Means less heat and stress on the physical circuits.

Still easier to obtain and replace parts on a PC.

B) Honestly, I like motion controls. I like motion or KB/M for FPS games (no joystick). KB/M for RTS. Motion/joystick for just about everything else. The stylus (DS) works exceptionally well for TBS (turn based strategy).

C) It is my opinion that if consoles failed (I can't imagine a scenario where they would), a large portion of the gaming community would play games on the PC. The casuals would play games on the PC, as it was the casual platform way before the Wii started doing it (in the form of flash games). Many 'hardcore' console players are people who also play PC gaming or used to play PC gaming. In short, I don't think the gaming industry would fail just because there are no consoles. If anything, an alternative would arise like specialized PCs, and that is where consoles are heading anyway.

I like PC gaming and console gaming (mainly old school and Wii). I think you will find that many PC gamers also play the Wii, because it offers them a different style of gaming, and the XBOX360/PS3 doesn't.

Many people call PC gamers 'elitist'. I think that is because they are. They like to spend the time to get exactly the parts they want and tweak their OS and hardware just right to squeeze the most performance out of their games. It's fun. I use the word 'they' so you don't think I think too highly of myself.




 

noname2200 on 13 September 2009
Final-Fan said:
I'd rather not get bogged down in the overall war, gentlemen, but I saw a few things noname2200 said that I have a burning need to argue:

"If you want, I can direct you to threads where people point out how to assemble a great gaming PC for less than what an HD console will cost you. Actually, ask Shio: he probably has a few dozen of those bookmarked."

Considering the 360 is now selling for $200, that's an ... interesting claim.


Heh, fully granted that I overlooked the Arcade SKU (although that IS a unit that lacks a hard drive, and thus locks you out of XBLA goodies).

Now you've got me curious though. Let me see what I can do at that price range. It'll certainly be over $200, but I don't think it'll be $300.

"[PC has a used market in the form of] Ebay, craigslist."

PC's used market is miniscule and frail in comparison to what the consoles have, and the move to Steam and similar services only serves to further cripple it.

It's certainly smaller due to a lack of Gamestop, but I've personally never had a problem finding whichever used PC game I wanted after a bit of poking around. That's really all I want from the second-hand market, and I suspect most feel the same.

"8. Local multiplayer is the non-PC term for 'LAN party'."

Maybe I have an outsider's misunderstanding of this, but aren't LAN parties orders of magnitude harder to execute -- since everyone has to bring their own PCs and hook them up etc. -- compared to simply going over to the house of a friend with a console and more than one controller? (Of course, get enough people together and you need a 'console LAN party' ...)

It's harder, sure, but orders of magnitude so? Not really. My friends and I have never had any problems getting one going when we were so inclined. To use an imperfect analogy, the console version would be like microwaving a TV Dinner, while the PC version is boiling your own pasta; it's more involved by comparison, but it's still not a big deal.

"[On HDD upgrades:] if you're lucky, the manufacturer will let you buy a slightly bigger hard drive at vastly inflated prices"

True of the 360 -- unless you're willing to dig into the proprietary case, no doubt voiding the warranty -- but COMPLETELY FALSE of the PS3.

Touche; I was thinking of the 360.



Mudface on 13 September 2009
noname2200 said:

"[PC has a used market in the form of] Ebay, craigslist."

PC's used market is miniscule and frail in comparison to what the consoles have, and the move to Steam and similar services only serves to further cripple it.

It's certainly smaller due to a lack of Gamestop, but I've personally never had a problem finding whichever used PC game I wanted after a bit of poking around. That's really all I want from the second-hand market, and I suspect most feel the same.

That's what I was thinking. You should easily be able to find anything you want on EBay or Amazon. The publishers tried their best to kill it off with the limited activations crap (no doubt in preparation for something similar on the consoles), but most have shied away from that and there are tools to reclaim your activations on most. In any case, the future's digital and Steam, GOG and Impulse provide enough extra to compensate for the drawback of not being able to sell your games on at the moment. For the future, I'd be surprised if they didn't introduce a mechanism whereby you could sell on your old games, with percentages of the sale going to the developers.



Pristine20 on 13 September 2009

consoles and it's not even close



"Dr. Tenma, according to you, lives are equal. That's why I live today. But you must have realised it by now...the only thing people are equal in is death"---Johann Liebert (MONSTER)

"WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives"---Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler

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Pristine20 on 13 September 2009
ZenfoldorVGI said:

Everytime I try to walk away, they suck me back in.

Just a note:

The control argument is moot. Console games are beginning, and have the ability to in some cases, use a mouse and keyboard(just as the PC recently began using the console controller). The control issue is not insurmountable and will obviously be addressed in the future, and the problems that are being outlined here when referencing PC gaming, are insurmountable, and have being addressed for the last 10 years, to no avail.

In fact, with the inception of the motion controller, I would imagine the inferior control scheme could become a pro-console argument as early as next generation, when it comes to compatibility with games.

PC gaming has 2 arguments. Graphics, and user created mods. Both of which are difficult to obtain on consoles at this time, due to the nature of console uniform hardware, but both are inferiorities that are guaranteed to improve in the future.

You have two talking points here:

1. Graphics

2. User Created Mods

Console talking points vs HDPC gaming:

1. Used market

2. First party exclusives(explination:highly funded console exclusive innovations in software and hardware cross compatible across multiple games(trophies, Wii-Mote, PS-Eye, Balance board, LBP, Mario, Zelda, Killzone, Uncharted, Fable 2, Gears 2, Alan Wake, ect). There is no one dumping that kind of money into PC exclusive development, simply because there is no major interest to PC gamings sustained success, like MS, Sony, and Nintendo share in their IP consoles. Even Crytek has pulled a XIII on PC gaming, which is the final pillar.)

3. Technical barriers to entry

4. Entrance price

5. Convenience aka Plug and Play vs Hareware requirements/physical installation

6. Glitches/incompatibility due to nonuniform hardware/software

7. DRM and negative effects on expensive PC systems due to piracy

8. Local multiplayer

With the control argument being subjective, I don't see how anyone could consider PC gaming superior without resorting to library breadth, which extends mostly to past releases and roms, meaning the current releases, which are the important releases, are falling on the side of the console at this time. That said, library quality is also subjective.

I've been a PC gamer forever. LTTP is one of my favorite games of all time, but so is Ocarina of Time, and the SNES is no longer relevant. My current PC runs Crysis on very high.

The common argument comes down to PC entheusiast pretending better graphics = better game. However, PC gaming isn't uniform, and neither are graphics, so we often get a "PC game potential vs Console game uniform hardware result." In essence, you gain a lot more benefit from uniform hardware on consoles, than you gain from increased graphical performance on PC.

Right now, PC gaming has greater potential for graphics and content, but that is a tradeoff, and the sheer amount of negatives inherent to HD-PC gaming will likely relegate it to the back of the line in many eyes, this generation.

Uniform hardware is a boon for all developers, and is vastly undervalued by pro PC users. Non-uniform hardware sucks for game developers, and it sucks for gamers. Video setting options attempt to address this issue, and they do to some extent, but non-uniform hardware causes a number of technical issues not limited to the video settings and this is viewed as a major headache, and the cause of a number of issues with every PC game ever released.

wow, gotta give it to Zen for this post.



"Dr. Tenma, according to you, lives are equal. That's why I live today. But you must have realised it by now...the only thing people are equal in is death"---Johann Liebert (MONSTER)

"WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives"---Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler

vlad321 on 13 September 2009

@Zenfolder

Ok, since we seem not to be caring about the money developers can make. You can pirate games on the PC for free. How can you beat that? When you rent and buy used games you still pay something, how do you beat free?



Tag(thx fkusumot) - "Yet again I completely fail to see your point..."

HD vs Wii, PC vs HD: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93374

Why Regenerating Health is a crap game mechanic: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=3986420

gamrReview's broken review scores: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4170835

 

ZenfoldorVGI on 13 September 2009
vlad321 said:
@Zenfolder

Ok, since we seem not to be caring about the money developers can make. You can pirate games on the PC for free. How can you beat that? When you rent and buy used games you still pay something, how do you beat free?

I hesitate to mention pirating as a positive for PC gaming, yet it probably is the reason a lot of people prefer it.



I don't need your console war.
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor.
You're power hungry, spinnin' stories, and bein' graphics whores.
I don't need your console war.

NO NO, NO NO NO.

ZenfoldorVGI on 13 September 2009
shio said:
ZenfoldorVGI said:
shio said:
 

CPU is the least required component for upgrade. CPU can last for ages, especially since Multi-core CPUs established themselves (since Core 2 Duos came)

Dual core processors are becoming insufficient for maxing the latest CPU heavy games.

Anyone trying to build a mainstream rig or better right now, would be silly to go cheap on the CPU and pick up a dual core.

Quad-core is the only smart thing to do, and in that instance, you don't need to play it cheap, because your older games will potentially only run off one of those cores.

What the hell is with this "maxing the latest games" crap? Do you realise that nowadaymany console games have graphics so oudated that are only around the "low settings" of the PC versions? If you want to maximize everything you shouldn't even be buying consoles.

CPU heavy games are less than 1% of the PC's game releases each year. Less than 1%! You can count them with your fingers

You only need to buy a good CPU at the time of your buy. A good CPU, not overpriced, not top-of-the-line, just a good one. That's more than enough.

Again, resorting to the "better graphics = better game" argument. Again, it is a valid argument for PC gaming, however, ignoring the many faults of the platform is pure omission.

As I've said. You have graphics, and you have user created mods. Those are the talking points.

As for having a PC with a cheap CPU just to say that it's possible, again, it's possible, but so is eating cow dung. It shouldn't be done, and your PC will be obsolete when you build it. Your console won't be obsolete until another one is released.

When building a gaming PC, you should splurge on any non-replaceable parts. Obviously.



I don't need your console war.
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor.
You're power hungry, spinnin' stories, and bein' graphics whores.
I don't need your console war.

NO NO, NO NO NO.

vlad321 on 13 September 2009
ZenfoldorVGI said:
vlad321 said:
@Zenfolder

Ok, since we seem not to be caring about the money developers can make. You can pirate games on the PC for free. How can you beat that? When you rent and buy used games you still pay something, how do you beat free?

I hesitate to mention pirating as a positive for PC gaming, yet it probably is the reason a lot of people prefer it.

You mentioned used market. What's the difference between the two?



Tag(thx fkusumot) - "Yet again I completely fail to see your point..."

HD vs Wii, PC vs HD: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93374

Why Regenerating Health is a crap game mechanic: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=3986420

gamrReview's broken review scores: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4170835