PC Regret?

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I'm a tweaker and I'll tweak something untill it's perfect, which leads to less game time for me if I PC gamed.

Wow I'm actually the same way. I can run most of my games on high settings but I'll get frame rate drops at so I find myself constantly changing stuff. Same with whatever control scheme it uses. The only way I'd be able to game on a PC alone would be a monster rig that doesn't question what I run on it

I'll mess around with the standard game settings first, which alone take a decent amount of time (dropping one thing, raising another to see if that works). Then, you have all that stuff you can tweak outside of the actual game settings, along with mods (which can have their own settings). Lastly, the one kind of sports game I love are baseball games, and it takes me at least a whole month of playing games to set my sliders so the game plays as realistic as possible. I'm glad EA doesn't make the best baseball game because those games have so many sliders and each slider has 100 different values (whereas MLB The Show has much fewer sliders with only 11 values per slider), trying to get MVP Baseball to play properly was hell; fucking pitch speed literally changed how hard you hit the ball so you had to adjust the hitting sliders based on your pitch speed.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

But that is mostly because we have higher standards, and lowering the bar down to what console gamers get is unacceptable. Keep in mind that "runs like ass" to a PC gamer is usually still better than what a console gamer gets.

These two sentence put me at ease a little bit. I'm not ready to abandon the PC, I think I just go a bit of a rough start. Steam sales are great and I've already sunk around 60 hours into Rome II with many other games that have been great. I think the sheer volume at which people complain got to me, and maybe some of that complaining isn't quite as truthful as I thought.

Is Rome 2 running acceptably at this point?

It's the only game that's burned me lately. Normally I research optimisation quality a little before purchase. I was excited enough for Rome 2 to get careless...

 

[Doom972]

Did you invest in a good graphics card (Nvidia GeForce GTX or better) and a quad-core CPU? If so, and new games still run poorly, it's either the game's fault (most likely in the case of the AssCreed games), or there's something wrong on your end.

You can make the game run better by overriding certain settings using the Nvidia Control Panel (or whatever AMD cards use if you have one of those). Settings like texture filtering quality, ambient occlusion and anti-aliasing can make a huge different in performance. Remember to disable V-Sync and motion-blur, as these always make games feel very sluggish. One last thing - don't use maximum resolution. Not every game needs to run on 1920x1080. I run most of my more recent games on 1600x900 (with GPU scaling enabled on the Nvidia Control Panel).

If anything (or everything) I said is unclear don't hesitate to ask. It can seem complicated at first but after a few months of PC gaming you'll know these things yourself.

As for the OT: No, I don't feel any regret for picking the PC as my platform of choice.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

These two sentence put me at ease a little bit. I'm not ready to abandon the PC, I think I just go a bit of a rough start. Steam sales are great and I've already sunk around 60 hours into Rome II with many other games that have been great. I think the sheer volume at which people complain got to me, and maybe some of that complaining isn't quite as truthful as I thought.

Is Rome 2 running acceptably at this point?
[/quote]

Yes CA have been really great about owning up to their terrible launch of Rome II and have been patching it ever since. It runs so much better now both on the campaign map and in battles and the game mechanics and unit stats have also been changed. They're still working on things but at this point it's hard to be upset anymore. It's just too much fun

Edit: I messed up the quoting but you get the idea

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I'll mess around with the standard game settings first, which alone take a decent amount of time (dropping one thing, raising another to see if that works). Then, you have all that stuff you can tweak outside of the actual game settings, along with mods (which can have their own settings). Lastly, the one kind of sports game I love are baseball games, and it takes me at least a whole month of playing games to set my sliders so the game plays as realistic as possible. I'm glad EA doesn't make the best baseball game because those games have so many sliders and each slider has 100 different values (whereas MLB The Show has much fewer sliders with only 11 values per slider), trying to get MVP Baseball to play properly was hell; fucking pitch speed literally changed how hard you hit the ball so you had to adjust the hitting sliders based on your pitch speed.

For me, its also what I mess with outside the game. I prefer to play on my tv with a controller partly cause the difference in resolution from 720p to 1080p is less noticeable so I can use less pixels and get more detail in the games. But also prefer to play with a ps3 controller using bluetooth which requires more tweaking with motion joy and if the game doesn't support X-input like the Cry of Fear mod, I'll map mouse and key bindings to the gamepad but this can take forever. Not to mention no matter what everyone says about being able to plug your pc into a tv and use a controller, Windows' user interface was designed for a desk, monitor, keyboard, and mouse no amount of tweaking will change that. Case in point, the desktop goes off the edge of the tv if your tv has an odd number of inches (like mine) so it requires dropping the resolution. Not to mention you can't read shit on it unless you change the text size which requires logging off and back on (and doing it again when you want to got back to using a monitor). And even though the xbox controller is Microsoft's own product, it can't be used to interface with the desktop so I can't just lay on my bed and casually do stuff without having to get up and reach for a keyboard and mouse. Hopefully Steam's controller and OS will fix that but I doubt I'll be giving up consoles for a while. Besides, a computer with a light OS designed to play games and be used on a tv with a controller, is basically a console

 

[DoctorObviously]

In the last five years, no game released this moment will actually work on your PC, or my PC, or any PC for that matter. You must wait about six months to a year, until about a hundred patches will be released, and maybe then a crap port will function on the PC. That is the only advantage consoles have over PC's right now and it's just because developers focus more on consoles.

 

[gorfias]

I think people should have a good PC hooked up to a monitor even if you are not a gamer. You need one for office apps, email, surfing, etc. Nowadays, you should spend about $600 on a system. If you are careful, you'll likely have a system that can keep up with consoles.

The PS4 is going to cost $400. After that, you have to worry about online fees and $60 a game.

With Download games, you might find yourself spending $1-10 on real games for PC.

I think console has it for ease of use and multiple players. I've never really tried to play with a number of people on a single PC. Consoles? Sports, racing, FPS split screen games.

I think everyone should own both.

I guess the next question is, is it worth it to spend up to thousands of dollars for graphic cards ($4K to quad SLI Titans). I wish I could afford it!!!

 

[DSK-]

I'm sorry to say this, but OP, that has been the case (in regards to console ports) for quite some time now. It's an established fact that the PC is considered a third class gaming machine, by the vast majority of developers.

You may buy a magnificent gaming machine that will last you well into future and past the latest generation of consoles, but it matters not if the games they release are piss-poorly optimised and run like ass.

*shrug*

 

[Something Amyss]

Why would you build a PC for those games?

For the shinies, apparently. Keep in mind he mentions the pretty pictures pretty clearly.

And honestly, that seems to be the whole thought process here.

Secondly, I wouldn't buy a desktop gaming PC just so I can play demanding games on med/high. If I'm gonna get one, it has to be good, otherwise what's the point, I might as well get a console.

Except 'medium' often looks better than a console. Hell, thanks to the age of the 360 and PS3 I have games that can be played on 'low' that look and play significantly better than console versions.

My computer is not a powerhouse, but it looks and plays better than a console. Even on the rare instance I have to scale it down to 'medium.'

I mean, if you only want the best, that's one thing. But if you're portraying the options as "ultra or console!" that's absurd.

Also, a PC can be upgraded if you really need shinier stuff down the line. A console is fixed hardware. I'm upgrading my processor over the course of Black Friday/Cyber Monday this year, and it being the weak point on my current build I should be good for a few years. Even if not, I can buy another one. Good luck upgrading a console in four years. Sure, you can add a new HDD (some models only) or external storage (also some models only), but you're limited to the processor, RAM, etc that the thing uses now.

If you're THAT concerned, I don't see why you'd ever go for a console on the basis of anything other than the games. But you didn't bring up the games themselves.

 

[laggyteabag]

Not at all, hell the PC might be a hassle, but looking at the XbOne and the PS4 right now, they have their own share of issues too, the only difference being that I can fix the machine myself without voiding the warranty.

Looking at the XbOne and the PS4's lineup, or at least the upcoming lineup, there are many games that I would like to play, but not nearly enough to make me regret switching to PC when I did. Will I get a console now? My god no! There is nothing on either console right now to even justify a purchase, but will I ever get one of the consoles? Sure, I don't see why not. A lot of people always seem to think that PC's and consoles are mutually exclusive, but that just isn't true, the only reason that I haven't invested now is because there is nothing that interests me, will that change later on down the line? We can only wait and find out.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

For me, its also what I mess with outside the game. I prefer to play on my tv with a controller partly cause the difference in resolution from 720p to 1080p is less noticeable so I can use less pixels and get more detail in the games. But also prefer to play with a ps3 controller using bluetooth which requires more tweaking with motion joy and if the game doesn't support X-input like the Cry of Fear mod, I'll map mouse and key bindings to the gamepad but this can take forever. Not to mention no matter what everyone says about being able to plug your pc into a tv and use a controller, Windows' user interface was designed for a desk, monitor, keyboard, and mouse no amount of tweaking will change that. Case in point, the desktop goes off the edge of the tv if your tv has an odd number of inches (like mine) so it requires dropping the resolution. Not to mention you can't read shit on it unless you change the text size which requires logging off and back on (and doing it again when you want to got back to using a monitor). And even though the xbox controller is Microsoft's own product, it can't be used to interface with the desktop so I can't just lay on my bed and casually do stuff without having to get up and reach for a keyboard and mouse. Hopefully Steam's controller and OS will fix that but I doubt I'll be giving up consoles for a while. Besides, a computer with a light OS designed to play games and be used on a tv with a controller, is basically a console

Yeah, you just run into so many problems (usually minor) with PC gaming. Yeah, you can most likely fix them all, but that requires googling and trying to find a thread where someone has the exact same issue as you, and most people don't know how to google correctly using quotes and whatnot so it'll take the average person even longer to find a fix or just live with it. I'm much happier playing on a console even if I get a graphically inferior version of the game because graphics don't really make the game and my experience is relatively the same.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

My only pc regret is getting tge G13 keypad.
But due to limited space, its essential I use it so I have enough desk for wrist support

 

[Mad World]

Battlefield 4 is getting more and more patches. It's still crashing, but by next patch, I'm sure it'll be fairly stable.

In Battlefield, the SSD makes a significant difference.

Also, Rivals really locks FPS at 30? Wow... that's nonsensical.

 

[RevRaptor]

Yea the pro PC crowd tends to sugar coat things a bit too much. I'm not really sure why they feel the need to endlessly over hype the PC and feel the need to justify their decision so vocally.

The PC is not under threat and we all know its somewhat obvious advantages by now. It would be really good if we could see some of the flaws of the pc get some more attention. I love gaming on the PC but it is not without its own unique issues and frustrations, issues that often don't plague consoles.

I like consoles they are simple if somewhat limited and are usually the easiest way to play games.
I like PC's too they are versatile but prone to complications and if the user is not familiar with how to deal with those compilations PC gaming may very well leave a bad taste in their mouth.

 

[Yuuki]

This video may be relevant:


Linus is about as much of a "PC guy" as anyone can get, yet he brings up both positives and negatives of PC vs consoles (and PC definitely has some negatives).

That said, for me the positives of PC vastly out-weigh the negatives, or having to play on consoles. PC Master Race is called that because one of the things we're good at is fixing our own problems - this isn't always possible if the developer has done a fucked-up job (like Need For Speed: Rivals) but it always works out fine in the end.

I don't consider something like NFS:Rivals a downside of playing on PC, more like a huge black mark on it's developers...it's only hurting their sales and reputation. TotalBiscuit's response was...expected [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDA37BmvNwM]

 

[Pink Gregory]

Personally, I'm not warming up (since 2-3 years ago) to the PC because of the hardware. Being an open platform is that reason.

Superior performance and customisability is incredibly important, but when games are concerned it's the most welcoming environment for new and creative development.

I'm sorry to say this, but OP, that has been the case (in regards to console ports) for quite some time now. It's an established fact that the PC is considered a third class gaming machine, by the vast majority of developers.

You may buy a magnificent gaming machine that will last you well into future and past the latest generation of consoles, but it matters not if the games they release are piss-poorly optimised and run like ass.

*shrug*

There is always the caveat that you can't make the game run any better than it was designed to.

 

[DSK-]

Personally, I'm not warming up (since 2-3 years ago) to the PC because of the hardware. Being an open platform is that reason.

Superior performance and customisability is incredibly important, but when games are concerned it's the most welcoming environment for new and creative development.

I'm sorry to say this, but OP, that has been the case (in regards to console ports) for quite some time now. It's an established fact that the PC is considered a third class gaming machine, by the vast majority of developers.

You may buy a magnificent gaming machine that will last you well into future and past the latest generation of consoles, but it matters not if the games they release are piss-poorly optimised and run like ass.

*shrug*

There is always the caveat that you can't make the game run any better than it was designed to.

I can't honestly agree with that. I've spent the entirety of my years of gaming trying to make stuff work on hardware that has often struggled, with great results up until the last couple of years. In fact, I still have a certain e-mail I was sent by a friend of mine in 2002 that had various suggested tweaks I was to put into the UT2003 and User ini files of Unreal Tournament 2003. Worked a treat if I recall.

You could always get away with just slightly sub-par components by tweaking the hell out of the ini files, but it's getting harder to do.

However, thinking about your comment another way, it depends on whose perspective that is; is it from a developer's or user's point of view? If modding tools are available, you can guarantee people will try and improve performance in a game. Skyrim is a fantastic example of this

 

[Vegosiux]

Regret going PC over console? Hell no, I need the PC for all other kinds of stuff anyway. And my backlog is about to create a singularity as it is, so there's no need to be adding console exclusives to it.

 

[Frankster]

I feel the same, spent an insane amount of money (for me) on a decent rig this year...

And I have had nothing but headaches getting things to run, theres like a 33% chance of any game i install having some problem and needing to spend hours surfing the net for a fix,if I even managed to fix it at all.

I guess it's worth it when you FINALLY get that modded skyrim game working, with the right combo of mods found after many hours of frustration and clenched teeth. But bloody hell, the payoff almost isn't worth it the hassle and in some cases the hassle is so much I just give up on the endeavour all together (trying to get mods to work on the new xcom was my most recent failure).