This is NOT a thread about which is better.
Nor is it a thread exploring steriotypycal nerd culture.
It is a thread to discus common misconceptions that are often cited by people in arguments involving it.
This thread comes from someone who (as Yahtzee puts it) "is white enough to afford all the platforms".
Anyway, without further ado:
1. A gaming PC doesn't cost the earth- in the UK, ~£350 can buy a lower mid range PC. That's not the kind you get in schools which are just Toasters in a bigger case, it's the kind you can easily play games on medium with. A higher end Pc is about £7-800, and you'll be able to play most- if not all games- on high. The massive £2000 prices come from pre-built models and those that are on the bleeding edge with custom paint jobs, special (liquid) cooling and multiple graphics cards. Big retailers such as dell are also known for overpriced products. Also, computer components are more expensive here anyway, so don't just double the price to get the cost in dollars.
2. A gaming PC isn't upgraded every year- unless you're really desperate to stay on the cutting edge. A new GPU every 2-3 years, and/or cpu every 3-4 is fine, and even then you don't have to, you'll still be in the game.
3. It doesn't take an IT genius to do- granted, it's not as easy as consoles: just pop it in and it's done, but it's not as hard as people make it out to be. It didn't take me long at all to get my head around intel/amd cpus and motherboards and Ati/nvidia cards. After that, there are very few issues to worry about unless you buy hardware more than 3 years old. (ide drives, really old cpus etc..)
4. Software compatibility- is only really an issue if you don't run windows, and even then you can use wine. (I run Ubuntu and Vista hp, sp1)
5. Patches- A lot of games now come with automatic patching for the PC. If they don't, there are things like gameshadow or Xfire that do it for you. Remember that consoles patch their games and firmware too, it's just not as often.
6. Noise- Only a poorly cooled PC will make a lot of noise. Hell, my crappy Dell is drowned out by the 360 on the other side of the room.
7. Crysis- Crysis is a unique game, no other game taxes systems as hard as Crysis. Period. A PC that cannot run Crysis will most likely still be able to run all other games. With new hardware being released cheaply due to a sudden surge in competition, it isn't even that expensive to get a system capable of playing Crysis on high. For the record, if you want to do that, Crysis favours Nvidia graphics cards.
8. Complicatedness- Seriously, they are dead easy to use if all you want to use them for is gaming, work, and web. It's all double click -> go for almost every application. For commonly used things like accessing all your games or hopping on the internet, the interface is very simple. Just double click. Easy. All of this command-line code stuff comes from the lower level or more technical applications like networking and hard drive maintenance. Most people don't need them, and most never will.
And anyway, we all know a couple of computer geeks, don't we?
9. Viruses- Well really, come on now. Surf safe and so you don't get sick!
Nor is it a thread exploring steriotypycal nerd culture.
It is a thread to discus common misconceptions that are often cited by people in arguments involving it.
This thread comes from someone who (as Yahtzee puts it) "is white enough to afford all the platforms".
Anyway, without further ado:
1. A gaming PC doesn't cost the earth- in the UK, ~£350 can buy a lower mid range PC. That's not the kind you get in schools which are just Toasters in a bigger case, it's the kind you can easily play games on medium with. A higher end Pc is about £7-800, and you'll be able to play most- if not all games- on high. The massive £2000 prices come from pre-built models and those that are on the bleeding edge with custom paint jobs, special (liquid) cooling and multiple graphics cards. Big retailers such as dell are also known for overpriced products. Also, computer components are more expensive here anyway, so don't just double the price to get the cost in dollars.
2. A gaming PC isn't upgraded every year- unless you're really desperate to stay on the cutting edge. A new GPU every 2-3 years, and/or cpu every 3-4 is fine, and even then you don't have to, you'll still be in the game.
3. It doesn't take an IT genius to do- granted, it's not as easy as consoles: just pop it in and it's done, but it's not as hard as people make it out to be. It didn't take me long at all to get my head around intel/amd cpus and motherboards and Ati/nvidia cards. After that, there are very few issues to worry about unless you buy hardware more than 3 years old. (ide drives, really old cpus etc..)
4. Software compatibility- is only really an issue if you don't run windows, and even then you can use wine. (I run Ubuntu and Vista hp, sp1)
5. Patches- A lot of games now come with automatic patching for the PC. If they don't, there are things like gameshadow or Xfire that do it for you. Remember that consoles patch their games and firmware too, it's just not as often.
6. Noise- Only a poorly cooled PC will make a lot of noise. Hell, my crappy Dell is drowned out by the 360 on the other side of the room.
7. Crysis- Crysis is a unique game, no other game taxes systems as hard as Crysis. Period. A PC that cannot run Crysis will most likely still be able to run all other games. With new hardware being released cheaply due to a sudden surge in competition, it isn't even that expensive to get a system capable of playing Crysis on high. For the record, if you want to do that, Crysis favours Nvidia graphics cards.
8. Complicatedness- Seriously, they are dead easy to use if all you want to use them for is gaming, work, and web. It's all double click -> go for almost every application. For commonly used things like accessing all your games or hopping on the internet, the interface is very simple. Just double click. Easy. All of this command-line code stuff comes from the lower level or more technical applications like networking and hard drive maintenance. Most people don't need them, and most never will.
And anyway, we all know a couple of computer geeks, don't we?
9. Viruses- Well really, come on now. Surf safe and so you don't get sick!
