What makes a PC port "crappy"?

[SUPA FRANKY]

As long as it runs well with good FPS , and looks as good as it should. Minimal bugs and such.

I know most people will say it must have Anti Aliasing, HD Texture Downloads, FOV SLider, bu as long as what the criteria I have above is filled, then I couldn't be happier.

What do you mean by "looks as good as it should"? What do you base that on? For me if it looks as good as it did on the console, I'm happy with it.

If its a Hg profile Triple AAA game, it should look just like that, as in as good as possible. No scaling down. If its sprite based, hen the sprites should look as crisp as it can.

But mostly, as long as it looks decent enough, runs well, and has minimal bugs, then I'm happy.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

Well, GTA4 was a terrible port because it ran terribly on even the most powerful of hardware. In 2012 with a new system, a quad core CPU, a GTX 480, 8GB RAM, I was lucky to be running the game in certain spots at 40FPS.

I say if the game runs bad on powerful hardware, even at lowered settings, it's a bad port. And don't get me wrong, I know with PCs there are limitless possibilities of hardware combinations, so it's hard to optimize a multi-platform game to fit all those possibilities, like with what happened with Far Cry 3. I had issues running it, but many of my friends didn't (and on lesser hardware at that). But when a game is proven to run way below what's expected on virtually all types of systems, there's a problem. This is something I hope is fixed with next gen since PS4 and Nextbox are using a PC architecture.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Dark Souls...trying to play that with a keyboard and mouse is like the ultimate in torture. However if played with an xbox pad or similar it's sublime.

I forgive them though because they were nice enough to port it in the first place.

I have a wired xbox controller I use with my pc for some games so it doesn't bother me much.

 

[lacktheknack]

I have four criteria:

"Does it turn on?"

"Does it STAY on?"

"Does it run at a decent FPS on a computer with many times the power of the original console?"

"Does it have at least a "Change Resolution" option?"

So far, Dark Souls has failed at the first and second ones, Saints Row 2 fails at the third one, and Bully fails at the fourth. Don't emulate those games.

 

[Zanderinfal]

What makes a PC Port crappy? Well, I'll make a list below...

-Often screen tearing and graphical errors/glitches that aren't supposed to happen (While I'm at it, this includes sound errors as well)

-Low fps, meaning fps is locked to 30 and/or drops to well below 60 often enough to take away from the smoothness of gameplay regardless of system specs

-Poorly handled controls that cannot be rebinded or only semi so

-HUD does not scale properly to screen resolution, making the HUD or UI take up a great ammount of space on larger resolution monitors

-Random crashing or instabillity

-No dedicated server browsing, only "Quick Match" set up

-DRM, period.

-No from of quick-saving (Sometimes this point means nothing because quicksaving wouldn't work in said game, but most of the time this applies)

-Limited screen resolutions or worse, static resolutions on all textures regardless of monitor resolution

- A weak options screen with very few options

... and other things of that sort. None others really jump to mind at the moment, but I think that is quite a sutible list.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

See RAGE for bad port.

Texture pop ins are fucking off putting. Low FOV is annoying (though not a deal breaker). Mouse acceleration is again annoying though not a deal breaker.

Low quality textures in places don't really bug me all that much until they become prevalent. I think it was King Cailan's tent from Dragon Age: Origins that bugged me the most. The texture is PS1 graphics for christ's sake, and it's something you have to go and look at.

I had to go and look for a HD patch after seeing that travesty.

Re-bindable keys is very nice but a key layout is something you get used to in about 10 minutes.

I don't think that "work better with a controller" games are immediately bad ports. They would be if the K+M controls were unplayable though.

 

[GodzillaGuy92]

For me, a PC port needs to fit three criteria, based primarily on things I lack and thus need the game's help to counterbalance. First, I don't yet have a controller, so the game needs at least decent keyboard and mouse controls. Simple enough, but ironic in that, second, I don't yet have a mouse, and making due with my trackpad poses some interesting control issues. Therefore, fully rebindable keys are an absolute must - especially for first-person games - if the controls are any more complex than, say, Minecraft. Third and perhaps most importantly of all, I don't yet have a computer more advanced than a standard, not-gaming-oriented laptop, which leads to frequent performance problems even on a lot of older titles. I care very little whether a game has 1080p, anti-aliasing, or motion blur, but if those things are in there, they've gotta be customizable (if only so I can turn virtually everything but the texture quality to the lowest possible setting), preferably as extensively as possible.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

The most horrible PC port I remember is Resident Evil 4. It was basically Resident Evil 4 on some kind of Xbox emulator, no mouse support, no system options and no explanation of which button's which, so in the middle of QTE you would get X button shown on the screen and you won't remember what key on the keyboard corresponds to that.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Controls, visual sliders and uncapped framerates are most important. Locking FPS at 30 because that's what it was on the console is a bad idea. It effectively limits how much of your GPU you can actually use in some cases, bottlenecked resources that might actually result in worse performance than if it was uncapped.

 

[DoPo]

-If the game has quick time events, actual keyboard controls on screen not random icons (see AssCreed1, it had a fist and some other things and when you're supposed to quickly hit the button or die it gets frustrating. At least I think it was AC1.)

I don't think AC 1 had QTEs, at least I don't remeber it having them, however I do distinctly recall AC 2, which I played immediately after 1 and that had the very annoying "images instead of buttons" thing. It was even more infuriating since I knew what the image was - as in, normally you'd see the 4 buttons with the corresponding icons on the top right, so if I was using a controller I'd actually know which button corresponds to what on the controller - a head is X or whatever. But since with a keyboard and mouse the controls in no way resemble the setup you see all the time, seeing a head takes at least a second to be translated into whatever button it is. And most of the time, I just went "OK, a head must do this action, and this action is bound to this button" - i.e., having to do two rounds...and missing the prompt due to that way too often. Brotherhood fixed this annoying design choice.

-Finally controls that are responsive with a keyboard/mouse setup, whilst preferably not reusing buttons for the same action. A use key that opens doors and interacts with things is fine, but having the same button for jump, heal, shout and breakdance gets fiddly and really irritating when there are buttons either side of the key not being used or able to be mapped. Obvious exaggeration aside at least give each function it's own optional mappable key, like Red Orchestra 2 has the same key for cover, heal and pick up stuff, however you can rebind each to it's separate key if you wish. That games not a port but it shows how stuff should be done.

Amen, especially on the button overloading. I've got a keyboard with, like, a hundred keys plus half a dozen on my mouse - I think I can spare having "run", "get into cover" and "get out of cover" on different buttons. And that was the majority of my deaths in Mass Effect 2, thanks, space key!

But somewhat following from these two, and this is not limited to ports but all games - make the friggin' game look up my config options damn it! It's totally possible and not hard - people some times like to rebind keys, or maybe the default mapping doesn't make much sense. But when on screen prompts keep referring to the default button it just drives me up the wall. "Now press E to do whatever" - stop feeding me false information! The very least that should be done is mentioning that it's the default key binding - if it says "Press the Do Something button (default E)" then I can at least know I remapped it and I'll probably know to what.

 

[5ilver]

Camera- pretty self-explanatory.

Controls- Not all of us have controllers. If I had a controller, I would be playing the game on a console, wouldn't I?

FoV sliders (and lack thereof) - First person shooters are the worst at this.


Those are the main ones. I don't mind the bad graphics etc.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Camera- pretty self-explanatory.

Controls- Not all of us have controllers. If I had a controller, I would be playing the game on a console, wouldn't I?

FoV sliders (and lack thereof) - First person shooters are the worst at this.


Those are the main ones. I don't mind the bad graphics etc.

I've gamed on PC for a long time and I've always had a gamepad handy for when M+K controls just aren't working. Like racing games.

You can pick them up quite cheap, I think. I just use a PS3 controller with some software I picked up somewhere

 

[Rylee Fox]

Hey I'm back and just read the entire thread. I do agree with a lot of what was said.

If a game runs at a terribly low fps regardless of specs its pretty bad. I'm used to consoles since I only started on PC a couple of years ago so I don't have any issue with 30 fps myself, but that game darn well better not go lower than that.

I understand the complaint about the controls somewhat. The main controls on a pc are indeed keyboard and mouse, so you would kind of expect to be able to use them well enough for the game to be playable with them, even if a controller works better. I do completely agree that if there is a prompt onscreen to press something, it should definitely show the proper keyboard key instead of a controller one. Exception being if you are actually using a controller to play. It can switch prompts depending on what you are using, I prefer that.

As for keybinds, I tend to not bother with them really and use the default controls. Though I have encountered games where the default keyboard controls didn't seem to make much sense (such as having one key do a ton of things as I read above) and keybinds certainly would be nice.

FOV slider, I read a comment about it being needed in Borderlands 1. I've played that game and done a lot in it but never had any issues with the FOV so I don't get the problem there. I do remember being annoyed with Sonic 4 Ep 1 for having the screen too zoomed in however so I know where you are coming from.

 

[CCountZero]

Is using a controller with your PC really that bad?

Depends what you use it for.

In the days of the PS1, I actually had what people back then called a GamePad, and I used it for all driving, and some flying games. Worked like a charm. It actually looked a lot like the original full-size Xbox controller, but it also had motion control.

These days, I've got myself an X360-style Pad that also air cools your hands as you use it. Very comfy, keeps me from sweating after prolonged use.

With that said, I believe it to be an incontestable fact the Mouse and Keyboard combination allows for far greater precision, as well as more options.
Since the days of the Xbox and PS2, PC games have been forced into a console-like scheme, by way of things like putting the Vault Over and the Sprint command onto the same button, and making it context-sensitive, for example.

And for the most part, I'm actually not too fussed about that. I can live with it, and while I hear a lot of people say things like:
"Oh no, Shepard vaulted over this thing, instead of taking cover behind it",
or "FUCK, now Ezio jumped this way instead of that way, I didn't ask for this",
I can't take it seriously when they blame it on the control scheme, because I use the same damn system and it never happens to me.

But then I sit down and boot up ArmA 2 or the ArmA 3 Alpha, and I start to see why I want the keyboard. ArmA 3 has three bloody types of Prone, Crouch and Stand, as well as variable movement speeds that will impact your accuracy and stamina loss, etc. etc., and that is bloody awesome. And good damn luck doing that when limited to a controller. It just won't work.

ArmA 3 might be an extreme example though. I'll grant you that. Most games don't need three different levels of Crouch. I don't think I have to provide any other examples though.

The bottom line. Most of the people who play on a PC do so because we like the freedom it provides. We like having options, and in most cases, we do. And it gets even worse when some of us remember the days of using a SEGA, or a GameBoy. We moved onto a PC, saw the buttons and went wild with imaginations of what could be achieved with the keyboard, and now we're seeing options previously relegated to separate commands get merged in on each other, which for some people leads to the game being harder to control? That's bullshit. And everybody knows it. Talk about a step backwards.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Well for me, the big thing about a PC port is I can play the damn thing with a keyboard and mouse. This is the sole reason I haven't played Dark Souls. If I'm going to play something on a PC, then I'm certainly not going to want to use a fucking controller. There is a reason why I stopped playing consoles, after all.

It should also not contain PC-exclusive bugs, though that is more of a given. The ability to change your key bindings is also important, since the keyboard allows for many different personal styles and preferences. As for things like graphic quality and textures, meh, I really couldn't care less about having better graphics than the console versions, even if the PC can handle much superior quality. Graphics just aren't as important as the others things to me.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

FOV slider, I read a comment about it being needed in Borderlands 1. I've played that game and done a lot in it but never had any issues with the FOV so I don't get the problem there. I do remember being annoyed with Sonic 4 Ep 1 for having the screen too zoomed in however so I know where you are coming from.

The thing with FOV is that, for a lot of people, it isn't really an issue. Personally, I notice changes in FOV, but it isn't really a big deal for me, and I can play just fine at lower FOVs. However, a lot of people can get physically ill if the FOV is too low, making them unable to play the game. An FOV slider is a necessity for pc games, especially first-person ones.

 

[Doom972]

Bad optimization: Some PC ports take way more resources than they should - making a game that looks 4 years old take the resources of a game from the future. It's the result of lazy porting.

Lack of configurable settings: In order to get the best experience for your PC, it's useful to have different settings (mainly graphical ones) that you can configure to suit your needs and taste (for example, many people don't want motion blur regardless of performance).

Bad controls: I can and often do use an X-box 360 gamepad, but some games - even ports, can work much better with good mouse support. For example: Being able to navigate in-game menus with a mouse is preferable to having to do it with either a controller or the keyboard. Another example of bad controls is the over-streamlining in modern games that puts too many actions on one single button.

 

[sagitel]

the biggest thing in it for me is that the game doesnt acknowledge that im using a pc. i dont use a controller myself (and im not planning to get one) and the game just goes around saying push X to do something and im what the hell is X in pc? i just want the game to say push space to jump not push X to jump. then there is the thing that in everything and every different UI controls change. (greatest example Dark Souls) example: Y in game is say space and in menus is enter. that totally drives me crazy.

No bugs, that's important.
Proper acknowledgement that PC gamers more or less use keyboard and mouse. Seriously, have you seen the UI of Skyrim and Assassin's Creed 3? Absolutely atrocious. Sure it works well with a controller, probably even marvelously but it's a complete chore navigating it with keyboard and mouse.

what do you mean skyrim has crappy UI? im not being sarcastic seriously the UI in skyUI is really bad in my opinion.
i myself never had problem with the UI.