What's really been killing PC gaming?
Magnulus
Think about it.
These guys directly benefit from PC gamers buying their obscenely priced
high end cards and chips. Yet the money they throw into supporting the PC
gaming community? Paltry. In fact, they are double dipping. They also
get money off licensing their technology to consoles.. So they can do the
high margin stuff on PC's, and low margin stuff on consoles. In short, you
guys are NVidia and ATI's R&D teams. Feel special?
Second, graphics card companies have sold the general public on the idea
that PC gaming is nothing more than about the graphics. Gameplay is
irrelevent. The PC first person shooter genre is filled with this. It's
full of graphics whores. People that wouldn't know gameplay if it smacked
them upside the head. So the PC as a gaming platform has just withered and
dumbed down to the point that most sane people say "bah, PC gaming... that's
for geeks with no life who jerk off to graphics of mountains and trees".
No wonder nobody wants to play these kinds of games. And yet that's all
publishers want to make, because aside from the graphics bit, they are dead
simple. Get some big silent "hero" with no face, or at least no expression.
Give him lots of guns. Have him mow down hordes of enemies. Rinse and
repeat ad nauseam. Guaranteed to sell. Hell, you don't have to worry
about plots, scripting, gameplay, or any of those other annoying things you
actually have to pay an artist for. All you need is polygons. With John
Carmack's help, soon enough that too will be generated recursively on the
fly from genetic algorithms, so all those starving artists will just have to
stick with ramen, those leftist no-goodnick commies (kick sand in face for
gratuitous effect).
They've even snagged you suckers into buying consoles (can't afford our
super shmancy graphics- buy a console! Just tell all your friends how CLOSE
TO A PC the graphics looked. Oh, and be sure to remind the how much harder
it was to play with than a mouse and keyboard. Spin it into a positive." -
*Halo* anybody?)
Andrew
<Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> The graphics card/chip companies.
Please add IMO or a variation thereof to your posts. They are not
facts, stop pretending you are the all knowing gaming guru speaking
for everyone, you are fast becoming a rival to Steamf***wit.
--
Andrew, contact via interpleb.blogspot.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.
Briarroot
>
> What's really been killing PC gaming?
>
Not one damn thing. PC gaming is healthy and thriving. Thanks for your
time.
Mean_Chlorine
> The graphics card/chip companies.
>
> Think about it.
I have, and you're full of shit. That same bullshit argument has been
forwarded since BEFORE the first voodoo card. Wasn't true then, isn't
true now.
Magnulus
"Mean_Chlorine" <mike_no...@NOSPAMyahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:af7pt1lhjftucvab7...@4ax.com...
> I have, and you're full of shit. That same bullshit argument has been
> forwarded since BEFORE the first voodoo card. Wasn't true then, isn't
> true now.
Oh yeah, what's all this shit about needing a Geforce 7800 to play a game
like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion? My GeForce 6600 is less than a year old. If
I can't play the game with a decent framerate (30 fps would be fine) with a
1 year old graphics card, what the fuck is going on? I'll tell you what is
going on. FUD and trying to peddle graphics cards on gamers. I don't know
wheather you actually need a 7800 or not, but the graphics companies would
sure like you to think you needed a new graphics card. After a few years of
declining prices on graphics cards, they are headed up again, way up.
Graphics card companies are leeches. It especially sucks when they break
features or compatability in their drivers with a new release. I can't
believe some people fork over hundreds of dollars for the privilege of being
raped like that.
Tim O
You're dangerously close to becoming Steam Killer.
Jonah Falcon
"Magnulus" <Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:Ks0Df.5912$eY5....@bignews7.bellsouth.net...
> The graphics card/chip companies.
Nah. I'd guess the E3 booth babes were killing PC gaming.
Shawk
FEAR, Q4, HL2, D3, COD2, AOEIII etc can all be played on a 9800Pro and an
AMD XP2800 with good detail and acceptable framerates. You dont NEED the
cards that you are berating to play those games at an acceptable framerate.
Next gen games will make the 9800Pro struggle I'm sure (same as Quake 2 made
my original Voodoo struggle) but by then it will be more than showing it's
age anyway.
BTW, correct me if I'm wrong (I'm no graphics whore with figures to hand)
but I believe your vanilla 6600 wasn't even mid range a year ago. The
6600GT was the 9800Pro-beater. You bought a card that was not comparable to
a card a couple of years older than it and you're complaining it wont play
'next' gen games?
McGrandpa
"Magnulus" <Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:eN1Df.9983$vp6....@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
>
and a lot of us have with all the time since "3D" games started taking off
(lets start with Wolfenstein3D), it should be clear that the world of
personal computers has grown tremendously as a whole. Technology has
increased, and so has the use of it and the numbers of people using it.
That entire sentence is a gross understatement. Those increases have been
just about exponential. Compared to the other major factors, one thing
about it hasn't increased nearly as much: end user cost. When someting
new comes out, it usually costs more, right? The operating systems,
productivity applications, and entertainment hasn't really increased in user
cost at all. The market is also now greatly diversified, both in software
and hardware. There seemingly are more varieties of genres of games now
than there were GAMES in the day Wolfenstein 3D was released. The scene
'matured' a bit over the next few years, though at slower pace than today.
Enter 3Dfx and the Monster Voodoo 3D accelerator. Software rendering just
got replaced, and every "enthusiast" out there just had to have one. By
that days standard, they were expensive. They also were the only 3D
accelerator available to the public for gaming. Another year. 3D now has
a few more game titles, and a few more 3D accelerators. The pace of
advancement is picking up. We had more technology advances available to us
in one year than in the entire ten before it. There have been surges and
spikes, up and down, in all of this with the hardware and software alike
over the last twenty years. And everything except end user costs have just
about gone ballistic. I paid almost $300 USD for a Viper V770Ultra on my
45th birthday. The card had been out for over a year when I bought it. The
GeForce 256 DDR was out already, when I got that V770Ultra. I wasn't
keeping up with the bleeeeeding cutting edge. I was following a good ways
behind it actually. On my 50th birthday, I bought myself a 6800 128 meg,
when it was fresh, for $300 USD! I'm now 51, and i *AM* attempting to get
on the bleeeeeeding cutting edge...once. I have been chasing down a
7800GTX for more than a month, and getting a PCI-e motherboard to go with
it. I originally wanted the GTX 512, but that's turned into vaporware.
You are a quick acting, smart and very LUCKY bastige if you actually got one
for any price. The GTX 256 that I had to special order is being trucked in
and should be in MY hands tomorrow. Price got inflated along the way, it's
$550 USD. I thought about an ATI X1900XTX 512meg card too. Till I learned
of the three week waiting list I'd be put at the bottom of. That card, just
released, is only $650 USD at an 'averaged prices' chain retailer. "IN
STOCK" means 4 to 6 weeks delivery I guess. If you're going to ride the
bleeeeeding cutting edge, you gotta be quick, standing in the right spot
with ready cash. Or you're gonna wait a while to bleed :) This speaks to
a trend that every segment of our end of the hardware industry has settled
into. It has matured into. The 'enthusiast' products are for a niche group
that is relatively very small. The 'enthusiast' products now will cost the
end user top dollar from beginning of the run to the end. nVidia and ATI
are smart enough businesses to gauge the market and produce approximately
enough to satisfy demand at a profitable price point. For every sector.
Enthusiast, average user, business user, professional user, power user,
casual user. Sound cards, video cards, motherboards, CPU's, RAM. Even
power supplies and cases for cryin out loud are divvied up to satisfy
several levels of users.
What you are seeing is normal, really. There is SO much available now, and
so MANY people to supply for. It's really just common sense that dictated
the "levels and pricing" in our PC industry now. It's the ages old supply
and demand.
What you are is upset because you can't get what you want to have for a
price you can or are willing to pay. I think that's a perfectly normal
situation too, Magnalus. I used to do that too. I gave it up for a lost
cause many years ago. The first complete PC (clone) I owned was a '286 at
12 mHz with 2 megs of ram and a 20 *MEG* hard drive with a VGA video card.
I got it with DOS and one application for just under $2,000 USD. That was
NOT a top shelf current system either. This past year, I built a fairly
top shelf rig with much more current hardware for just under $2000 USD
complete, with half that cost in the CPU alone. Those 1986 dollars were a
lot harder for me to come by than those 2005 dollars too man! That 1986
VGA card was an ATI VGA Wonder 1.0 512K ISA 16 bit card for $269 USD. THIS
year, I'm actually trying to push the envelope a little bit, will upgrade
this past years system with just a new vid card, power supply, motherboard
and ram... and will spend likely $1200 USD doing just that stuff. The lions
share of that will be the video card.
Taking twenty years of inflation into account, I think we end users are
getting the sweet on the cheap today! No, you're not going to ride the
bleeeeeeding cutting edge on the cheap. Especially not today. Not unless
someone makes a mistake and you capitalize on it. But generally speaking,
we end users are definitely benefitting in a huge way. Relax a bit, don't
get your blood pressure up, and just enjoy the cool stuff you do have and
can get!
McG.
Magnulus
"McGrandpa" <McGran...@NOThotmail.com> wrote in message
news:mo3Df.8031$jO....@tornado.texas.rr.com...
>both in software and hardware. There seemingly are more varieties of
>genres of games now than there were GAMES in the day Wolfenstein 3D was
>released.
Well, you are a Grandpa and presumeably not born yesterday, but neither
was I (I'll be 30 next month). And it seems to me that several home
computer gaming genres have pretty much been hobbled or lost in that time
being. PC used to have platform games, fighting games, sports games, and at
one time was known for racing games. Now racing games are considered more
"console games", ditto with sports games, and the fighting games and
platformers are a dead genre on PC. Even adventure games are getting more
popular on consoles than the PC.
> The scene 'matured' a bit over the next few years, though at slower pace
> than today. Enter 3Dfx and the Monster Voodoo 3D accelerator.
I did not have a 3D accelerator until December 1999. I simply did not
play any true 3D games until then. I played Outlaws and Dark Forces, but
that was about it. I was more into strategy games, and the 3D cards were
confusing and expensive.
> What you are is upset because you can't get what you want to have for a
> price you can or are willing to pay.
Not at all. I have a fairly "high end" gaming rig. Athlon X2 3800 dual
core, GeForce 6600 GT. And still, there are no games on PC that remotely
interest me. I want another Deus Ex or System Shock 2 type experience, and
I will never see that kind of game on the PC again. Because it's over, the
PC is dying, you will never again see big budget games like that. You'ld
probably have better luck finding those kinds of experiences on consoles now
days, where it's harder to pirate games and the hardware is less a pain to
develope.
The only genres that really still perk my interest on PC are strategy
games, and maybe RPG's. Anything with a smaller budget might be able to
survive on a PC.
Michael Vondung
> Think about it.
I play more than I actually have time, so as far as I am concerned, PC
gaming is happily alive.
M.
chainbreaker
> On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 05:09:29 -0500, "Magnulus"
> <Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>> The graphics card/chip companies.
>
> Please add IMO or a variation thereof to your posts.
Jesus H., that's a given, or are you such a mental midget you have to have
it spelled out for you?
--
chainbreaker-who's another for allowing himself to be baited enough to point
it out (and who really enjoys talking in the third person about
himself--makes him feel . . . regal)
chainbreaker
Good to see you're still around, MV--you've been even farther under the
radar than me lately. :-)
--
chainbreaker
Magnulus
"Shawk" <sh...@clara.co.uk.3guesses> wrote in message
news:113854024...@lotis.uk.clara.net...
> BTW, correct me if I'm wrong (I'm no graphics whore with figures to hand)
> but I believe your vanilla 6600 wasn't even mid range a year ago. The
> 6600GT was the 9800Pro-beater.
I have a 6600 GT. It's the silent pipe model, no fan.
Well, of course the graphics companies are not the main cause, but it is
something to consider. Games should be about gameplay, not about being
technology demoes. Tech demoes don't really attract new games. You know,
most people don't necessarily think that pixel shaders and stuff are good
graphics. Most people are looking at the artistry of a scene, not the
technical details. It's a forest through the trees thing- PC gamers focus
on trees, ordinary people focus on the forest. This is what the PC is
missing out on vs. the console- on the consoles games that only focus on
graphics usually flop with reviewers and don't necessarily sell well. On
the PC on the other hand, we are used to getting tech demoes disguised as
games.
Another cause is simply put: piracy. It's killing PC gaming more than
consoles, which have encryptions to prevent piracy. On the PC the ESA did a
study and compared a game that sold over a million units on consoles and
only 100,000 units on the PC. They used a spoof file that was a fake of the
game, and they put it on a peer-to-peer network. The game spoof got over 10
MILLION downloads. If only 1 percent of those people actually bought the
game, sales of the PC game would have doubled. Piracy doesn't affect game
prices, but it does put studios like Looking Glass or Troika out of
business, because it directly cuts into their bottom lines. Want to know
why there will be no System Shock 3 on the PC? Because it's just not worth
it, all thanks to piracy.
CelesteB
Hey, you're back...I always miss you and chainbreaker when you don't
post :)
Celeste
"Born to Rune" - T. Prachett
CelesteB
wrote:
I just posted in the rpg group mentioning the same thing. I was
worried the two of you had abandoned the newgroups. I like reading
posts from both of you.
Kahn
<Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
Sometimes, I too get frustrated when I see the graphics card vendors
coming out with something every six months that makes its predecessor
obsolete.
But at the same time, I am thankful that GPU technology is still
constantly doubling. The technology has not hit the ceiling that CPU
technology has.
When CPUs were doubling in speed every year or 18 months, it was
frustrating because your $5000 PC was always woefully obsolete a few
months later. The same thing has been happening with video card
technology over the last decade or so, and in some ways that is just
as exciting as it is frustrating.
There will come a day when GPU technology has been pushed close to the
ceiling, like CPU technology, and then the challenge for vendors
becomes raising the ceiling another couple of centimeters so that
product development has room to grow (by "raising the ceiling", I am
speaking figuratively here, talking about overcoming heat issues,
manufacturing obstacles, and so forth). When this raising of the
ceiling process begins, the release cycle for a product drops
dramatically as will cost. The overall cost of GPU technology will
drop significantly at all but the very highest end, where vendors will
continue to seek profit margins on "premium" or "extreme" editions of
their product, where some gamers will pay an extra 40-100% in price to
squeak out an extra 5% increase in frames per second.
With regard to PC vs. console game sales, the pendulum will always
swing in each direction. Right now, a game console has been released
(XBOX 360) which (to my knowledge) has a better graphics subsystem
than is currently available on a PC. This generates a lot of
excitement, and even many PC gamers are rushing out to pick up this
console because its the latest and greatest. The PS3, if its not
astronomically priced, will surely generate similar interest when it
becomes available. But 18 to 24 months after they have been on the
market, PC video card technology will have leapfrogged them, with
better games emerging on the PC. If you look at the time period from
mid 2004-late 2005, you see a lot of great releases on the PC.. Just a
few: HL2, WOW, Guild Wars, FEAR, Civ IV, AOE3 all great games in their
genre with nothing available on consoles that can directly compete.
These games are generally above what could be accomplished with an
original XBOX or PS2. I think what you are perceiving as a permanent
decline in PC gaming is really just the temporary effects of
excitement that is generated when a new console comes out.
Personally I'm not concerned. Every console game I've ever seen that
I wanted to play has eventually come out for the PC, usually with much
better control options.
I also want to point out that your concerns regarding your 6600 card
should not be limited to the gaming industry. The Windows Vista, the
successor to WinXP, is very 3D graphics intensive and will likely
require a card faster than what you have for any sort of reasonable
performance. Here's at least one article that believes so:
Kroagnon
"Briarroot" <woo...@iwon.com> wrote in message
news:11tp73q...@corp.supernews.com...
He has a point. A years ago a high end video card cost $300. Now it's $500,
even $600? WTF. How can the masses afford to pay those prices? I certainly
can't justify it. Those price points are totally unrealistic.
That being said, so far (at least in my own experience) I've never
encounterd a game I couldn't play with settings at max or at worst, turned
down a bit and I buy a $300 card every year or two.
We are definitely not getting much video card for our money any more.
Kroagnon
> Another cause is simply put: piracy. It's killing PC gaming more than
> consoles, which have encryptions to prevent piracy. On the PC the ESA did
> a study and compared a game that sold over a million units on consoles and
> only 100,000 units on the PC. They used a spoof file that was a fake of
> the game, and they put it on a peer-to-peer network. The game spoof got
> over 10 MILLION downloads. If only 1 percent of those people actually
> bought the game, sales of the PC game would have doubled. Piracy doesn't
> affect game prices, but it does put studios like Looking Glass or Troika
> out of business, because it directly cuts into their bottom lines. Want
> to know why there will be no System Shock 3 on the PC? Because it's just
> not worth it, all thanks to piracy.
Once again you are talking bullshit. The ESA and BSA have no credibility in
this matter. Their "estimates" are based on a false premise: that every
single copy of software pirated would have been bought at full price if the
user was unable to pirate it. And that is simply not true - home users
would never spend full price on stuff like Office or Photoshop if they
couldn't pirate it, they would simply use the lower cost or free
alternatives. The same is true for crap games. The BSA / ESA artificially
inflates their figures by adding these to their "loss of revenue" numbers
either intentionally or unintentionally; my bet's on the former so they can
play the sympathy card. While there certainly is a percentage of lost
revenue to people who can afford buy it but decide to pirate it instead, it
is nowhere near the number they are claiming.
I hear the same crap from the music and movie industries. Just because three
special interest lobby groups are bleating in unison does not make it any
less untrue.
Maybe it only sold 100,000 copies because the game was crap? Console gamers
are definitely head over heels stupid compared to PC gamers. How many of
those "10 million" (likely inflated propaganda numbers) copied were actually
played through? Perhaps these details would invalidate your arguments, must
be why you omitted them.
pigdos
memory adapter was grossly expensive (maybe over a grand). The greatest
bang-for-buck video card I EVER got was my old PCI Voodoo 3/2000 (which
replaced my Matrox Mystake). Everyone noticed the difference in games like
Half Life and even Xwing-Alliance immediately (as compared to software
rendering). To some degree I agree w/Mag though, top tier video card prices
are f'ing outrageous now.
--
Doug
"McGrandpa" <McGran...@NOThotmail.com> wrote in message
news:mo3Df.8031$jO....@tornado.texas.rr.com...
>
Mean_Chlorine
>I can't play the game with a decent framerate (30 fps would be fine) with a
>1 year old...
...low-end/budget...
>...graphics card, what the fuck is going on?
Evolution? Shitty port? Crappy engine? Inaccurate rumors?
>I'll tell you what is
>going on. FUD and trying to peddle graphics cards on gamers. I don't know
>wheather you actually need a 7800 or not, but the graphics companies would
>sure like you to think you needed a new graphics card. After a few years of
>declining prices on graphics cards, they are headed up again, way up.
For the very top end.
> Graphics card companies are leeches. It especially sucks when they break
>features or compatability in their drivers with a new release. I can't
>believe some people fork over hundreds of dollars for the privilege of being
>raped like that.
So, basically your argument is that you've got an aging budget
graphics card, and therefore future PC games should not push the
envelope.
And you're basing that argument on the rumored requirements an
unreleased game allegedly will need to run at an undisclosed
resolution and unknown settings.
See where I'm going with this?
McGrandpa
"pigdos" <N...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:DP6Df.15179$_S7....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
>I remember reading somewhere that the original ISA IBM EGA card w/the extra
>memory adapter was grossly expensive (maybe over a grand). The greatest
>bang-for-buck video card I EVER got was my old PCI Voodoo 3/2000 (which
>replaced my Matrox Mystake). Everyone noticed the difference in games like
>Half Life and even Xwing-Alliance immediately (as compared to software
>rendering). To some degree I agree w/Mag though, top tier video card prices
>are f'ing outrageous now.
I've seen companies pay a couple grand for a video card to do drafting. I
suppose you could say 'top tier' for *consumer* level cards. My point was
the prices aren't so outrageous at all, considering the circumstances.
$300-400 USD is the norm now, and was twenty years ago. Think about it.
I'll have to dig up my receipt for my old Voodoo2 12 meg card. I think it
was a tad over $300. The bad thing is that if you want to keep up, you have
to keep paying.
McG.
McGrandpa
>
> "McGrandpa" <McGran...@NOThotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:mo3Df.8031$jO....@tornado.texas.rr.com...
>>both in software and hardware. There seemingly are more varieties of
>>genres of games now than there were GAMES in the day Wolfenstein 3D was
>>released.
>
> Well, you are a Grandpa and presumeably not born yesterday, but neither
> was I (I'll be 30 next month). And it seems to me that several home
> computer gaming genres have pretty much been hobbled or lost in that time
> being.
As with all things "human" there is an ebb and flow to this, just like the
tides. Those things you think lost will return, when people are ready for
them.
PC used to have platform games, fighting games, sports games, and at
> one time was known for racing games. Now racing games are considered more
> "console games", ditto with sports games, and the fighting games and
> platformers are a dead genre on PC. Even adventure games are getting more
> popular on consoles than the PC.
>
>> The scene 'matured' a bit over the next few years, though at slower pace
>> than today. Enter 3Dfx and the Monster Voodoo 3D accelerator.
>
> I did not have a 3D accelerator until December 1999. I simply did not
> play any true 3D games until then. I played Outlaws and Dark Forces, but
> that was about it. I was more into strategy games, and the 3D cards were
> confusing and expensive.
>
>> What you are is upset because you can't get what you want to have for a
>> price you can or are willing to pay.
>
> Not at all. I have a fairly "high end" gaming rig. Athlon X2 3800
> dual core, GeForce 6600 GT. And still, there are no games on PC that
> remotely interest me. I want another Deus Ex or System Shock 2 type
> experience, and I will never see that kind of game on the PC again.
> Because it's over, the PC is dying, you will never again see big budget
> games like that. You'ld probably have better luck finding those kinds of
> experiences on consoles now days, where it's harder to pirate games and
> the hardware is less a pain to develope.
There is one constant with humanity: things change. All empires rise and
fall. You've seen the rise of some things, and seen the decline of some.
Something else will come in its place, guaranteed.
>
> The only genres that really still perk my interest on PC are strategy
> games, and maybe RPG's. Anything with a smaller budget might be able to
> survive on a PC.
I don't care for any strat, and like one rpg, Morrowind. Oblivion is next
:) stick around a while, things will change.
McG.
>
>
Bill
I'm not sure what is killing PC games (and one only has to go to Electronics
Boutique and compare PC shelf space to console shelf space - pick any one-
to what it was 10 or more years ago to see it)
Fact is, one can buy an HP dual processor (top end) PC for about $1000,
don't need the best video cards or sound cards to get good game play. I buy
a new PC every 24 months and I don't have problems with the off the shelf
HP, and I'm buying consoles as often as I buy my son the latest in all of
them.
Now, I just spent over half that price for the X-Box 360, with some of the
added options, but not all the options. For the difference in price, and
all the other things a PC gives that an X-Box 360 doesn't (including the PC
doesn't tie up the TV) I can't understand why folks are not buying the PC's.
Oh well, I will continue to believe the PC is the better gaming platform,
even as it seems to be loosing the battle. Hope I get proven wrong!
Bill
"Magnulus" <Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:Ks0Df.5912$eY5....@bignews7.bellsouth.net...
Briarroot
You've just reinforced my point. If PC gaming were dying
there would be no market for high-end video cards; but in
fact, there is a *huge* demand.
> We are definitely not getting much video card for our money any more.
I'd argue the opposite. Video card capabilities have
increased exponentially, while their prices have only
increased incrementally. It's true that one does not really
need a state-of-the-art card to play most games, as you
yourself pointed out, yet the newest cards continue to sell
like hotcakes. Why? Because PC gamers (*lots* of PC
gamers) demand them, that's why.
Those who feel they must stay abreast of the curve may hate
the fact that each new GPU technology advancement occurs
mere months after the last one, and that in order to stay
current they must upgrade constantly, but this demand for
high-end video cards clearly demonstrates that the games
that support them are very popular.
Magnulus is confused. He thinks that just because *he's*
bored, so must we all be. Does his misapprehension really
require any further exploration? I don't think so.
Shawk
>
> "Shawk" <sh...@clara.co.uk.3guesses> wrote in message
> news:113854024...@lotis.uk.clara.net...
>> BTW, correct me if I'm wrong (I'm no graphics whore with figures to hand)
>> but I believe your vanilla 6600 wasn't even mid range a year ago. The
>> 6600GT was the 9800Pro-beater.
>
> I have a 6600 GT. It's the silent pipe model, no fan.
A better card than you first indicated.
> Well, of course the graphics companies are not the main cause, but it is
> something to consider. Games should be about gameplay, not about being
> technology demoes. Tech demoes don't really attract new games. You
> know, most people don't necessarily think that pixel shaders and stuff are
> good graphics. Most people are looking at the artistry of a scene, not
> the technical details. It's a forest through the trees thing- PC gamers
> focus on trees, ordinary people focus on the forest. This is what the PC
> is missing out on vs. the console- on the consoles games that only focus
> on graphics usually flop with reviewers and don't necessarily sell well.
> On the PC on the other hand, we are used to getting tech demoes disguised
> as games.
'Technology demos' help pay for the technology and can be a good thing for
gameplay.
Some examples - knowing you are being stalked because you can see the shadow
of the stalker (or vice versa), being able to knock out lights to put you at
an advantage, knowing there is something behind and to the left of you
because of positional audio, being able to interact with your environment
and hide in foliage or throw something to distract an opponent or maybe
stack things to reach a high window or smash something to make an escape or
use physics to solve a puzzle. There are many more. All have added to
gameplay over the last few years. You cannot deny that.
> Another cause is simply put: piracy. It's killing PC gaming more than
> consoles, which have encryptions to prevent piracy. On the PC the ESA did
> a study and compared a game that sold over a million units on consoles and
> only 100,000 units on the PC. They used a spoof file that was a fake of
> the game, and they put it on a peer-to-peer network. The game spoof got
> over 10 MILLION downloads. If only 1 percent of those people actually
> bought the game, sales of the PC game would have doubled. Piracy doesn't
> affect game prices, but it does put studios like Looking Glass or Troika
> out of business, because it directly cuts into their bottom lines. Want
> to know why there will be no System Shock 3 on the PC? Because it's just
> not worth it, all thanks to piracy.
I take with a very large pinch of salt any stats from people with a vested
interest, especially on piracy. Yes it goes on, yes it is costing the
game/music/movie industries money but I dont believe it's as much as is
claimed. For one not all the people that d-loaded D3 (as an example) would
have bought it anyway. Some folk I know personally that d-loaded D3 did so
because it was released at different dates in different parts of the World
and they wanted to play it as soon as it was released. They played a pirate
copy for a week until their copy (pre-ordered) arrived and they loaded that.
Perhaps this is a plus point for Steam (cue nutters) and world-wide,
synchronised digital d-loads?
Like the music industry the games industry needs to change to keep up with
technology and the changing buying habits of consumers. Album sales slumped
int the USA but not through piracy. Legal digital downloads of music have
soared - single track d-loads up by 150% and album d-loads up by 194%.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2006-01-04-music-sales-main_x.htm?csp=N009
As an aside you should also know that the P2P networks are absolutely full
of copies of PS2 games. Encrytion means nothing. Get your PS2 console
'chipped' and you can play copies no problem...
Brad Wardell
"Kroagnon" <kroa...@kroagnon.com> wrote in message
news:43dcf604$0$28823$9a6e...@unlimited.newshosting.com...
What games require these high end video cards? AOE 3, Half-Life 2,
Battlefield 2, etc. work fine on my ATI 9800.
Brad
--
Brad Wardell
Project Manager: Galactic Civilizations II (www.galciv2.com)
Stardock - http://www.stardock.com
>
>
Jeremy Reaban
> The graphics card/chip companies.
>
> Think about it.
I would blame them for a different reason - crappy video drivers.
Nvidia can't be bothered to put out drivers that work properly with the Sims
2, which is only the most popular PC game around.
They also spent lots of time not fixing a similar problem with another
popular game, Guild Wars. Took them about a year to fix the problem.
When 1 out of 2 companies can't get of their asses to fix problems with
their drivers with some of the most popular games around, then it's a
problem.
Mean_Chlorine
>They also spent lots of time not fixing a similar problem with another
>popular game, Guild Wars. Took them about a year to fix the problem.
Huh?
What problem was that? Which card?
Andrew
<mike_no...@NOSPAMyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>They also spent lots of time not fixing a similar problem with another
>>popular game, Guild Wars. Took them about a year to fix the problem.
>
>Huh?
>What problem was that? Which card?
Yup, that one was news to me too, it works fine on my ATI and NVidia
cards.
--
Andrew, contact via interpleb.blogspot.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.
Jonah Falcon
"Briarroot" <woo...@iwon.com> wrote in message
news:11tp73q...@corp.supernews.com...
> Magnulus wrote:
>>
>> What's really been killing PC gaming?
Video killed the radio star.
John Lewis
<McGran...@NOThotmail.com> wrote:
>
>"pigdos" <N...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
>news:DP6Df.15179$_S7....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
>>I remember reading somewhere that the original ISA IBM EGA card w/the extra
>>memory adapter was grossly expensive (maybe over a grand). The greatest
>>bang-for-buck video card I EVER got was my old PCI Voodoo 3/2000 (which
>>replaced my Matrox Mystake). Everyone noticed the difference in games like
>>Half Life and even Xwing-Alliance immediately (as compared to software
>>rendering). To some degree I agree w/Mag though, top tier video card prices
>>are f'ing outrageous now.
>
>I've seen companies pay a couple grand for a video card to do drafting. I
>suppose you could say 'top tier' for *consumer* level cards. My point was
>the prices aren't so outrageous at all, considering the circumstances.
>$300-400 USD is the norm now, and was twenty years ago. Think about it.
>I'll have to dig up my receipt for my old Voodoo2 12 meg card.
Yep. I paid ~ $250 for my Voodoo1 card and $299 for my Voodoo
2...........which in today's $$ is more like $350 and $425. So a
7800GTX comes in about the same price.
John Lewis
Mark Morrison
> These guys directly benefit from PC gamers buying their obscenely priced
>high end cards and chips.
True, but I think you'll find that the majority of gamers go for
affordablility, over extreme performance - hence the huge selection of
'mid-range' cards, over the much more limited 'high end cards'.
And blaming card makers for their highend cards is unfair - it's
driven by supply/demand - if there wasn't a market for expensive, high
performance cards, no-one would be selling them.
--
Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes !
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses !
And what's with all the carrots ?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway ?
Bunnies ! Bunnies ! It must be BUNNIES !
chainbreaker
Heh, hasn't really been much to talk about lately, outside of stirring up
the odd minor crapstorm (crapshower? crapsprinkle?) here and there.
--
chainbreaker
mattchu
Andrew wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 05:09:29 -0500, "Magnulus"
> facts, stop pretending you are the all knowing gaming guru speaking
> for everyone, you are fast becoming a rival to Steamf***wit.
That would weaken his hypothesis and its presentation. It's assumed
that it's his opinion unless he were to quote some figure within the
industry. The IMO is not needed here IMO. <g>
--
Best Regards, mattchu
np:
mma...@my-deja.com
> He has a point. A years ago a high end video card cost $300. Now it's $500,
The masses don't buy high-end video cards, they buy low-end video
cards. Then gamers by mid-range video cards. Only fanatics and
professionals (e.g. CAD designers, 3D animators) buy the high-end
cards.
> I certainly
> can't justify it. Those price points are totally unrealistic.
If people are buying, then the prices are realistic. I believe modern
high-end chips have many more transistors than modern CPUs: so why
shouldn't prices be higher than CPU prices? Particularly when they may
have 512MB of very fast RAM on the card too?
Mark
Ken Rice
says...
> The graphics card/chip companies.
>clip
Success has killed PC gaming.
The success of online games has killed PC gaming. All the "new" games being
released are online games. Where are the off-line, stand alone games?
All the successfull PC game companies have been bought out by mega-corporations
run by MBAs. They produce games based on what the lastest best sellers are.
This has led to lots of similar online games.
The stand-alone PC game is fast becoming history. Only the shareware authors
are producing inovative games anymore. And I'm not sure there are many of those
around.
The last three RPGs I bought were Temple of Elemental Evil in 2003 and Dungeon
Siege: Legends of Aranna and Siege Of Avalon in 2004. The last shareware title
was the Avernum series in 2002.
It has been over a year since I bought an RPG.
And it has nothing to do with graphics cards.
--
Ken Rice -=:=- kennrice (AT) erols (DOT) com
http://users.erols.com/kennrice - Lego Compatible Flex Track,
Civil War Round Table of DC & Concentration Camp made of Lego bricks
http://members.tripod.com/~kennrice
Maps of Ultima 7 Parts 1 & 2, Prophecy of the Shadow, Savage Empire,
Crusaders of Dark Savant & Others.
Andrew MacPherson
> I hear the same crap from the music and movie industries.
Agreed. "Piracy" is as old as civilisation and a proportion of people are
always thieving scumbags who'd rather chew off their own arms than part
with cash for something they can find cheaper off the back of the
proverbial lorry.
We have a similar thing at work. We lose a fortune in high end razor
blades... they just walk off the shelf no matter how hard you try to stop
it. But would those thieves *ever* pay so much for premium razor blades if
they couldn't steal them? Absolutely not. They'd grow a beard ;-)
Andrew McP
Magnulus
> Once again you are talking bullshit. The ESA and BSA have no credibility
> in this matter. Their "estimates" are based on a false premise: that every
> single copy of software pirated would have been bought at full price if
> the user was unable to pirate it.
But if only a tiny fraction of the people who download games bought them,
it would double sales of many PC games, that's the ESA's arguement. Of
course not every person who obtains something illegally would buy it
legitimately. That doesn't mean it's right to steal or that theft doesn't
hurt the IP industries.
Look, I have known some people who pirate (they are NOT my friends). They
do it on almost EVERY game, no matter what mantra you hear. Even if they
were forced to buy fewer games, they would still be buying a game once in a
while.
This is why Valve is interested in Steam, or why IGN/Gamespy Direct 2
Drive and other online distribution and Massively Multiplayer games are
becomming popular with developers. Because they simply are not as
vulnerable to piracy as just plopping their code onto a CD with the barest
of copy protection. But they love consoles even more for the same
reasons, only moreso.
> The BSA / ESA artificially inflates their figures by adding these to
> their "loss of revenue" numbers either intentionally or unintentionally;
Maybe so, but for PC games you cannot afford to lose many sales. With
consoles they don't care about piracy as much for two reasons: it is harder
to pirate in first place and also piracy is drop in the bucket compared to
the sales a publisher can expect.
>
> Maybe it only sold 100,000 copies because the game was crap?
So games like Chronicles of Riddick are crap?
Piracy doesn't hurt games like The Sims too much. But it will totally
stop a developer from ever doing a game like Thief or Deus Ex again on a PC.
>Console gamers are definitely head over heels stupid compared to PC gamers.
Are you serious? How the hell are they stupid just because they play in
front of a TV instead of a desk?
rlsuth
"Brad Wardell" <bwar...@stardock.com> wrote in message
news:ps2dnUagDZJEqkDe...@comcast.com...
>
> What games require these high end video cards? AOE 3, Half-Life 2,
> Battlefield 2, etc. work fine on my ATI 9800.
>
> Brad
> --
How about FEAR and QUAKE 4? These are the two that I have trouble with
(NVidia 6800 Ultra) and to a lesser extent, Far Cry.
Brad Wardell
"rlsuth" <rls...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:192dnVK9zqTTPkDe...@comcast.com...
But is that the video card maker's fault or the game developer's fault?
rlsuth
> > (NVidia 6800 Ultra) and to a lesser extent, Far Cry.
>
> But is that the video card maker's fault or the game developer's fault?
>
> Brad
> --
No, you have me there, I have no idea. I just expect it to work. Maybe game
developers and hardware manufacturers should work together more closely?
Zyan
>> How about FEAR and QUAKE 4? These are the two that I have trouble with
>> (NVidia 6800 Ultra) and to a lesser extent, Far Cry.
>
> But is that the video card maker's fault or the game developer's fault?
Nobody's fault? It could be gamers' demand? Anybody has any sales figures
of games with high graphics performance requirement comparing to games with
"not so high" graphics performance requirement? This way we can see if it
is really due to market demand that game developers churned out games such
as FEAR and QUAKE4 or that the game developers are just developing something
they want to play, market demand be damned.
Michael Vondung
> Good to see you're still around, MV--you've been even farther under the
> radar than me lately. :-)
I've made the mistake of reopening my WoW account, and well, it's been
soaking up most of my spare time. Knowing myself, it's just a matter of
time until my interest decreases again, but right now there's new content
that I enjoy, and since my old group is still around, I had an easy way
back into the high-end game content of WoW (without a group, the game is
sheer boredom). We just killed one of the dragon world bosses for the very
first time on our server -- probably merely days before another group would
have managed that, but we beat them! Okay, I'm straying ... ;)
Also, there really aren't many new releases right now that interest me. I'm
waiting for Oblivion, but seeing how that one was postponed to Q2
(surprise, surprise), the waiting for "something meaty" will just continue.
Oh, and I had bought Guild Wars ... unfortunately, I couldn't get friendly
with it. The first two or three hours were fun, but then it felt like a bad
clone of D2, minus most everything I enjoyed about D2. WoW at least has
well-written quest desription and there is actually a vast background
story. But hey, at least I tried it, just to find that you were right. ;)
Hope all is well with you! :)
M.
Michael Vondung
> Hey, you're back...I always miss you and chainbreaker when you don't
> post :)
Aww, that made me feel nice, thank you! :) Sorry for not having been around
much. Got back into WoW, which is an ultimate timesink (yes, I regret it
sometimes!), and paired with an increased workload, there's not been much
time for anything else. I've downloaded new articles, skimmed posts, but
never got around to posting. I promise I'll be better!
Have you found any (newer) games that you enjoy? I'm a bit out of the loop,
but there's nothing on my game dealer's "new titles" list that has caught
my attention yet. It's great for my budget *grin*, but yeah, only WoW and
work is a little "thin". and I'd not mind some fresh gaming excitement.
M.
Nostromo
+0100, Anno Domini:
You turning into a disgruntled, jaded ol bastage like CB then MV? ;-p
For the record, GW is in many ways far better than D2 ever was. Just not in
the ways you'd like it to be, if that makes sense. If you've only just
piddled around in pre-sear or just made it into post-sear, then you ain't
seen nuthin yet! The game doesn't even begin to get interesting (PvE that
is) until you hit 12/13th lvl & get to the Shiverpeaks imo. But, maybe I'm
just jaded in a different way from you two, so who knows?
I hereby invoke a new law! I call it Nostromo's law, similar to Godwin's
law, it states thusly: anyone invoking a comparison between GW & D2 will be
assumed to have not played GW nearly enough to have a valid opinion & will
thus automatically lose the argument or all credibility in relation to GW
henceforth! >8^D
--
A killfile is a friend for life.
Replace 'spamfree' with the other word for 'maze' to reply via email.
Nostromo
-0500, Anno Domini:
> The graphics card/chip companies.
>
> Think about it.
What killin PC gaming is you constantly starting threads about the death of
PC gaming. And it's only killin it for you, not anyone else. Think about it.
Or join the elite few fucktards in my (& a few others' it would seem)
killfile. Have a nice day. And if you see the *real* Magnulus, can you bring
him back pls?
Michael Vondung
> Nobody's fault? It could be gamers' demand?
Nobody's "at fault", I agree, it's just "progress". Technology advances and
so do requirements of games. Some genres, like FPS, have a "spearhead"
function, but other genres follow. By 1995 standards, today's games with
"mediocre" graphics would have been mind-boggling wonders of the
entertainment industry. Fans of such "spearhead" genres, or people who just
want to be on top of things, are probably quite willing to pay the higher
prices for state-of-the-art hardware. Personally, I'm quite happy being in
the "middle field", and so I won't buy cards for $600 or games that require
them. I'll contiue to upgrade my computer/card roughly every three years,
and so far, that's been working well.
On a side note, WoW has five millions of subscribers, and they probably
sold many more units than that. Graphically, WoW is a relatively low-end
game, and I don't see any downsides for the developer. They probably sold
more units than they had with a more advanced graphics engine. Actually,
the same applies to just about all of Blizzard's titles.
M.
Xocyll
entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:
>
>"rlsuth" <rls...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:192dnVK9zqTTPkDe...@comcast.com...
>>
>> "Brad Wardell" <bwar...@stardock.com> wrote in message
>> news:ps2dnUagDZJEqkDe...@comcast.com...
>>>
>>> What games require these high end video cards? AOE 3, Half-Life 2,
>>> Battlefield 2, etc. work fine on my ATI 9800.
>>>
>>> Brad
>>> --
>>
>>
>>
>> How about FEAR and QUAKE 4? These are the two that I have trouble with
>> (NVidia 6800 Ultra) and to a lesser extent, Far Cry.
>
>But is that the video card maker's fault or the game developer's fault?
Both.
The video card makers try to keep ahead of any level of game graphics
and the game companies try to make the games' graphics scalable past the
ability of the current cards.
Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
Magnulus
"Shawk" <sh...@clara.co.uk.3guesses> wrote in message
> Like the music industry the games industry needs to change to keep up with
> technology and the changing buying habits of consumers. Album sales
> slumped int the USA but not through piracy.
Actually piracy was a large cause of the slump. When Napster was shut
down and the RIA started attacking the pirates and thieves on the peer to
peer networks, the decline in sales started to ntabilize. Napster was hip
with the digerati, that doesn't mean it was legitimate or that it wasn't
hurting.
But my bro. has a good point about iPods. An iPod can hold 10,000 songs.
A song on Apple's store costs a dollar. That means you need 10,000 dollars
to fill up an iPod. Yet there are some folks that have come darn close to
that, and yet these same people are not six digit incomes.
>
> As an aside you should also know that the P2P networks are absolutely full
> of copies of PS2 games. Encrytion means nothing. Get your PS2 console
> 'chipped' and you can play copies no problem...
In the US "chipping" violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. It is
a Federal crime punishable by ten years in prison. Consequently the risks
to having your Xbox/PS2 or whatever chipped are much higher.
Xocyll
entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:
>news:Ks0Df.5912$eY5....@bignews7.bellsouth.net...
>> The graphics card/chip companies.
>>
>> Think about it.
><snip>
>
>I would blame them for a different reason - crappy video drivers.
>
>Nvidia can't be bothered to put out drivers that work properly with the Sims
>2, which is only the most popular PC game around.
>
>They also spent lots of time not fixing a similar problem with another
>popular game, Guild Wars. Took them about a year to fix the problem.
Uh what problem was this, since i've been playing Guild Wars for quite
some time and haven't experienced any graphics problems in that time.
Magnulus
"Jeremy Reaban" <trance...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:11tqe5a...@news.supernews.com...
>
> I would blame them for a different reason - crappy video drivers.
>
> Nvidia can't be bothered to put out drivers that work properly with the
> Sims 2, which is only the most popular PC game around.
Oh yeah, that's just retarded. Sims 2 is practically the #1 PC game. No
excuse not to work with it. Another source of frustration.
Direct X was suppossed to make it all easier for developers to make PC
games that just worked, what went wrong?
Yeah yeah consoles will only be ahead technologically for a year or so.
That's not my point . Consoles are just so much more simple to use, and they
have ALOT of games for them that are no longer available on PC. Me, I love
a fighting game once in a while, and the PC no longer has many good racing
games left that are actually fun, and no space sims or "light" flight sims.
But consoles have them all. And with XBox Live you got the multiplayer too.
PC will always have a place for me for turn-based strategy and traditional
type games, but I fail to see any real compelling PC action games comming
out on the PC. The PC action gaming market is even more dumbed down than
the consoles.
Jeremy Clark
Jonah Falcon wrote:
> "Magnulus" <Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:Ks0Df.5912$eY5....@bignews7.bellsouth.net...
> > The graphics card/chip companies.
>
Booth Babes are just as prevalent for console games as they are PC
games. :)
Magnulus
<mma...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1138587380....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> If people are buying, then the prices are realistic. I believe modern
> high-end chips have many more transistors than modern CPUs: so why
> shouldn't prices be higher than CPU prices? Particularly when they may
> have 512MB of very fast RAM on the card too?
Umm.. because you can buy an XBox 360 for less mony than a high-end
Geforce 7800?
And besides, many consoles games look better even running "worse"
technology. The original XBox has what, 4 year old graphics technology?
And yet there are games for it like Dead or Alive Ultimate that have HDR and
bloom effects, something most PC games still don't have.
Magnulus
Radeon 9700 Pro plays alot of current games just fine, too, assuming you are
willing to crank down the resolution.
Andrew
<bwar...@stardock.com> wrote:
>> How about FEAR and QUAKE 4? These are the two that I have trouble with
>> (NVidia 6800 Ultra) and to a lesser extent, Far Cry.
>
>But is that the video card maker's fault or the game developer's fault?
Developers I would say. Valve showed you could make a game that looks
very good on high end hardware, but also scale down to be perfectly
playable and reasonable looking on an older card.
FEAR didn't get considered for buying from me as the demo ran very
poorly on my 6600GT, which while I know it is a mid range card, is
probably more powerful than the majority of gamers have and the
developers must be crazy to eliminate such a large target audience.
--
Andrew, contact via interpleb.blogspot.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.
Andrew
<Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Umm.. because you can buy an XBox 360 for less mony than a high-end
>Geforce 7800?
The cost of which is subsidised by MS as the 360 hardware is sold at a
loss.
MS aren't about to subsidise every high end video card sale.
Andrew
<Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> But my bro. has a good point about iPods. An iPod can hold 10,000 songs.
>A song on Apple's store costs a dollar. That means you need 10,000 dollars
>to fill up an iPod. Yet there are some folks that have come darn close to
>that, and yet these same people are not six digit incomes.
I don't get the point you are trying to make, are you using that as an
excuse for music piracy? So if you go back a couple of years when
iPod's had 2GB or whatever it was then the cost of downloading a track
was fine. Now the capacity of an iPod has gone up, it should be
cheaper to buy tracks to fill it? That is a leftfield comment, even by
your standards.
I have a 60GB iPod with over 5,500 tracks, 99.9% of which are ripped
from CD's I own, the rest bought on iTunes, and I am certainly not on
a six digit income. There will be another bunch of tracks put on there
when I grab the bull by the horns and get round to transferring my
vinyl to MP3. I welcome being able to buy a individual track from an
album for 79p (UK) without having to buy a whole CD.
Andrew
<Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Direct X was suppossed to make it all easier for developers to make PC
>games that just worked, what went wrong?
I have been PC gaming since the good old days of DOS and have seen
umpteen games I have had to frig around with for hours to get working.
In the last 3 years I think I have seen maybe two games/demo's that
didn't work straight away and were sorted out by an updated graphic
card driver within a couple of days. I don't know what it is like for
developers, but speaking from a gamers point of view, it is far easier
these days.
chainbreaker
> Also, there really aren't many new releases right now that interest
> me. I'm waiting for Oblivion, but seeing how that one was postponed
> to Q2 (surprise, surprise), the waiting for "something meaty" will
> just continue. Oh, and I had bought Guild Wars ... unfortunately, I
> couldn't get friendly with it. The first two or three hours were fun,
> but then it felt like a bad clone of D2, minus most everything I
> enjoyed about D2. WoW at least has well-written quest desription and
> there is actually a vast background story. But hey, at least I tried
> it, just to find that you were right. ;)
>
> Hope all is well with you! :)
>
> M.
OK, other than the insidious Arthur continuing to creep along. (That's
"Arthur-itis" in case the moniker makes no sense to you.)
I'm mildly surprised GW continues to be as popular as it seems to be.
Either there's a helluva demand for a non-pay online game, or I've become
completely ignorant as to what constitutes a really good game--or both.
However, something that I've been pointedly ignoring is how said "Arthur" is
probably affecting my ability to do about anything requiring more than the
mental capacity and concentration of a slug. Being on edge all the time
anyway just amplifies the effect of certain, ah, "shortcomings" as I see
them, perhaps much more than they should.
Ah well, crap happens.
What WoW server are you on? The chances I'll re-up are slim and slimmer,
but if I do, it'd be nice to find a familiar face.
--
chainbreaker
adsci
WOMEN really killing PC Gaming. not the graphicscard companies.
have you ever tried to play with joy when a woman (to who you have a
romantic relationship) is around?
*sighs*
Magnulus wrote:
> The graphics card/chip companies.
>
> Think about it.
>
> These guys directly benefit from PC gamers buying their obscenely priced
> high end cards and chips. Yet the money they throw into supporting the PC
> gaming community? Paltry. In fact, they are double dipping. They also
> get money off licensing their technology to consoles.. So they can do the
> high margin stuff on PC's, and low margin stuff on consoles. In short, you
> guys are NVidia and ATI's R&D teams. Feel special?
>
> Second, graphics card companies have sold the general public on the idea
> that PC gaming is nothing more than about the graphics. Gameplay is
> irrelevent. The PC first person shooter genre is filled with this. It's
> full of graphics whores. People that wouldn't know gameplay if it smacked
> them upside the head. So the PC as a gaming platform has just withered and
> dumbed down to the point that most sane people say "bah, PC gaming... that's
> for geeks with no life who jerk off to graphics of mountains and trees".
> No wonder nobody wants to play these kinds of games. And yet that's all
> publishers want to make, because aside from the graphics bit, they are dead
> simple. Get some big silent "hero" with no face, or at least no expression.
> Give him lots of guns. Have him mow down hordes of enemies. Rinse and
> repeat ad nauseam. Guaranteed to sell. Hell, you don't have to worry
> about plots, scripting, gameplay, or any of those other annoying things you
> actually have to pay an artist for. All you need is polygons. With John
> Carmack's help, soon enough that too will be generated recursively on the
> fly from genetic algorithms, so all those starving artists will just have to
> stick with ramen, those leftist no-goodnick commies (kick sand in face for
> gratuitous effect).
>
> They've even snagged you suckers into buying consoles (can't afford our
> super shmancy graphics- buy a console! Just tell all your friends how CLOSE
> TO A PC the graphics looked. Oh, and be sure to remind the how much harder
> it was to play with than a mouse and keyboard. Spin it into a positive." -
> *Halo* anybody?)
>
>
mike_no...@yahoo.co.uk
> Success has killed PC gaming.
>
> The success of online games has killed PC gaming. All the "new" games being
> released are online games. Where are the off-line, stand alone games?
They're being pirated to hell & back. The thing with the very
successful on-line games is that they're not possible (or at least
Pretty Damn Hard) to pirate.
Bizarrely, single-player off-line gaming is alive and well on console
and many of the same games which do so poorly on PC do well there (e.g.
Riddick). And it just so happens that consoles require a hardware
dongle to pirate games - in the form of a $1000 computer plus internet
access - making the threshold for pirates much higher than on PC.
Mean_Chlorine
>>>They also spent lots of time not fixing a similar problem with another
>>>popular game, Guild Wars. Took them about a year to fix the problem.
>>
>>Huh?
>>What problem was that? Which card?
>
>Yup, that one was news to me too, it works fine on my ATI and NVidia
>cards.
Same story here, and I've had it since the week after release. I'm not
saying there isn't a problem, just that I've not heard about it.
Mean_Chlorine
>have you ever tried to play with joy when a woman (to who you have a
>romantic relationship) is around?
Can't be done. The best you can do under those circumstances is to
play with guilt. Or, possibly, with mouse.
Mean_Chlorine
>I'm mildly surprised GW continues to be as popular as it seems to be.
>Either there's a helluva demand for a non-pay online game, or I've become
>completely ignorant as to what constitutes a really good game--or both.
Different tastes I guess. I'm personally convinced I could not play
WoW even IF a demo was available to us europeans.
Mean_Chlorine
>I hereby invoke a new law! I call it Nostromo's law, similar to Godwin's
>law, it states thusly: anyone invoking a comparison between GW & D2 will be
>assumed to have not played GW nearly enough to have a valid opinion & will
>thus automatically lose the argument or all credibility in relation to GW
>henceforth! >8^D
Seconded. And I played D2 to hell and back. Well, at least half.
Knight37
> no. you're wrong.
>
> WOMEN really killing PC Gaming. not the graphicscard companies.
>
> have you ever tried to play with joy when a woman (to who you have a
> romantic relationship) is around?
Magnalus has never experienced this, so that's why he think's it's the
video cards.
--
Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com
Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.
Grackle
news:43dde428$1...@news.arcor-ip.de...
> no. you're wrong.
>
> WOMEN really killing PC Gaming. not the graphicscard companies.
>
> have you ever tried to play with joy when a woman (to who you have a
> romantic relationship) is around?
>
Why would you want to play with Joy when your girlfriend/wife is around?
You should find a place where you and Joy can be alone.
Magnulus
"Andrew" <spamtrap@localhost.> wrote in message
news:tgrrt19ku5bomjao1...@4ax.com...
> The cost of which is subsidised by MS as the 360 hardware is sold at a
> loss.
>
> MS aren't about to subsidise every high end video card sale.
> --
It only costs MS 525 dollars to build an XBox 360. The subsidy is quite
small. You want a top end graphics card, it is going to cost you 400-500
dollars. And if you want a dual core processor, well, that's at least
another 250 dollars. So the XBox is a real bargain.
Tim
> (NVidia 6800 Ultra) and to a lesser extent, Far Cry.
>
>
Really? I played all of those on my ATI 9600 Pro - not at high settings of
course, but all were playable.
g28401
the game, but 1: To really play it you need a GeForce 6800, and 2:
There is no plot. At all. The singleplayer is a rip-off of the multi.
A lot of games "pretend" to have a plot but don't. It is really sad.
Jan Potocki
wrote:
I tested my macine with those too. ATI 9600 Pro (250 RAM but i don't
think games use this extra memory) Amd 3500+, 1gb RAM. All of them
play OK on highest settings for 1024 x 768 which is ok for my 17'
monitor.
Paul in Toronto
news:43dde428$1...@news.arcor-ip.de...
> WOMEN really killing PC Gaming. not the graphicscard companies.
>
> have you ever tried to play with joy when a woman (to who you have a
> romantic relationship) is around?
My girlfriend's a gamer. Once she gets into a game, nothing can pull her
away. You should've seen her when I sat her in front of "Shadows of
Undrentide." Five hours later... You get the idea. <grin>
Does your girlfriend know about Joy?
Jan Potocki
Don't forget that some of us use PC for other things too. Can man on
Xbox 360 program cell phone games (and others), build his own home
studio and make pro-quality music (add 150 bucks for budget pro audio
card), draw 3d animated movies, Build web pages and web applications,
Edit video, Use it like photo - lab, .... and so on and so on (and I
didn't mention office use).
COMPARE PRICES NOW!
Mean_Chlorine
>> MS aren't about to subsidise every high end video card sale.
> It only costs MS 525 dollars to build an XBox 360. The subsidy is quite
>small.
MS subsidizes each xbox unit with in the region of 100 dollars per
unit. I wouldn't say that's "quite small".
Toby Newman
> kroa...@kroagnon.com (Kroagnon) wrote:
>
>> I hear the same crap from the music and movie industries.
>
> Agreed. "Piracy" is as old as civilisation and a proportion of people are
> always thieving scumbags who'd rather chew off their own arms than part
> with cash for something they can find cheaper off the back of the
> proverbial lorry.
>
> We have a similar thing at work. We lose a fortune in high end razor
> blades... they just walk off the shelf no matter how hard you try to stop
> it. But would those thieves *ever* pay so much for premium razor blades if
> they couldn't steal them? Absolutely not. They'd grow a beard ;-)
You should plant poison-dipped razor blades on the shelves and swap them
with clean blades at the checkout. :)
--
-Toby, who...
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject
field to circumvent my email filters.
Ignore any mail delivery error.
Bateau
PC games in the night!
Magnulus
on a 4 year old PC, you don't need high end, and that's all the average
person does. Certainly most people with consoles also own a PC, they just
don't necessarily play games on the PC.
Kurt Montandon
<Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>The PC first person shooter genre is filled with this. It's
>full of graphics whores. People that wouldn't know gameplay if it smacked
>them upside the head. So the PC as a gaming platform has just withered and
>dumbed down to the point that most sane people say "bah, PC gaming... that's
>for geeks with no life who jerk off to graphics of mountains and trees".
>No wonder nobody wants to play these kinds of games. And yet that's all
>publishers want to make, because aside from the graphics bit, they are dead
>simple. Get some big silent "hero" with no face, or at least no expression.
>Give him lots of guns. Have him mow down hordes of enemies. Rinse and
>repeat ad nauseam. Guaranteed to sell. Hell, you don't have to worry
>about plots, scripting, gameplay, or any of those other annoying things you
>actually have to pay an artist for.
If you had a time machine, you could go back to 1995 and post this
exact paragraph.
And it would be just as meaningless.
> They've even snagged you suckers into buying consoles (can't afford our
>super shmancy graphics- buy a console! Just tell all your friends how CLOSE
>TO A PC the graphics looked. Oh, and be sure to remind the how much harder
>it was to play with than a mouse and keyboard. Spin it into a positive." -
This too.
--
Kurt Montandon
rlsuth
"Jan Potocki" <cvi...@yahoo.se> wrote in message
news:r43ut1lbonvqa9hmg...@4ax.com...
There must be something messed up with my PC then :( I've tried all the
different drivers around (and cleaned out the old drivers before adding new
ones) and I still get random freezes and/or stuttering.
rlsuth
"Toby Newman" <goo...@asktoby.com> wrote in message
news:slrndtue2m...@ID-171443.user.uni-berlin.de...
>
> You should plant poison-dipped razor blades on the shelves and swap them
> with clean blades at the checkout. :)
>
With a mind like yours, you know you're either foing to end up in jail one
day........or working for the government!
rlsuth
"Kurt Montandon" <kurtmo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:cetut15tkv2l808q9...@4ax.com...
>
> If you had a time machine, you could go back to 1995 and post this
> exact paragraph.
>
You think way too small. I'd go back 20 years and buy as much Microsoft
stock as I could.
Magnulus
of the games and scared people away. PC gaming rigs SHOULD be inexpensive
to get into. Otherwise they will never, never compete with consoles. If
you can't play PC games on that ubiquitous Dell computer, then PC gaming is
beyond useless.
I'm not sayign that games shouldn't ever demand more hardware, but games
like BF 2 or FEAR had absurdly high system requirements when they were
released.
Tim
>
>
> There must be something messed up with my PC then :( I've tried all the
> different drivers around (and cleaned out the old drivers before adding
> new
> ones) and I still get random freezes and/or stuttering.
>
>
What's your CPU?
Magnulus
(just about any console fighter, Tenchu, Ninja Gaiden, etc.). Pirates play
PC's, between Sid Meir and Monkey Island I'd say the PC has Pirates
cornered.
Pirates vs. Ninjas? Ninjas win. Ninjas always win.
Ergo, consoles kill PC gaming.
Knight37
What about Ninja Pirates? What about Teenage Pirate Ninja Mutant
Turtles?
BTW, this argument actually makes more sense than your original one
about video cards.
Ninjas are cool. And by cool, I mean totally sweet.
Knight37
rlsuth
Tim
>
>>
>> What's your CPU?
>>
>>
>
>
> AMD 64 3400+
>
>
Do you have a lot of background processes running, maybe there's a few you
can disable.
rlsuth
I've tried shutting down everything I can. The only other way to test out
the vid card, would be to put it into a completely different motherboard and
see if it has the same problems, but I don't have that luxury. I'll just
have to blunder along for a while yet and try these games again after I can
afford to upgrade.
TheSmokingGnu
> You think way too small. I'd go back 20 years and buy as much Microsoft
> stock as I could.
>
>
You sir, think too small. Google stock is currently around $430 a share.
Push the button, Max!
TheSmokingGnu
alexti
news:xvlDf.7799$s9....@bignews8.bellsouth.net:
> and the PC no longer has
> many good racing games left that are actually fun,
What is available outside of PC? AFAIK, there's only one top level racing
game for consoles - RBR, which is also available for PC. While on PC
there're definitely more contenders for the top spot (RBR might still be
the best though...) and they cover more various racing types.
Alex.
Magnulus
"alexti" <QQale...@videotron.few.useless.chars.ca> wrote in message
news:Xns975CB76D33B39sf...@24.70.95.211...
> What is available outside of PC? AFAIK, there's only one top level racing
> game for consoles - RBR, which is also available for PC. While on PC
> there're definitely more contenders for the top spot (RBR might still be
> the best though...) and they cover more various racing types.
Project Gotham Racing and Forza Motorsports are fun, though. And PGR is
fairly realistic and Forza is very realistic (or less so, depending on how
you want to play it). What more racers do you want? Motocross,
motorcycle, ATV racing, rally racing... the consoles pretty much have them
all covered.
Being fun is important, this is something increasingly the PC is missing
out on, the pure fun factor- it's becomming grudging work, like some kind of
competition. I like realistic racing (and also sometimes non-realistic
racing), but I also want it to be fun. Richard Burns Rally loses me on the
fun factor, it just isn't very exciting compared to Rallisport Challenge 2
or Colin McRae Rally.
Magnulus
David Johnston
<Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Ninja pirates don't exist. It is like oil and water.
>
>
Unless of course they are catgirls in space.
alexti
news:zfUDf.395$_i2....@bignews3.bellsouth.net:
I think that little can be said about moto-games, appropriate controllers
are just too exotic for any developer to put a serious effort into them.
But in respect to car racing, with the performance of modern computers,
there is no excuse to get physics wrong anymore. When you see the "racing"
game where cars behave like anything but the real cars it's just a big let
down.
If you don't see fun in RBR, perhaps that's because you don't find fun in
rallying, it captures the essense of rallying very well. I don't know about
every game you've listed, but rally games (other than RBR) are more arcade
games with automotive theme than anything else. Realism of Forza is also
questionable - just compare times vs real ones. Admittedly, in the arcade
genre consoles are definitely ahead of PC games.
Alex.
adsci
Grackle wrote:
> "adsci" <ad...@gmx.net> wrote in message
> news:43dde428$1...@news.arcor-ip.de...
>
>>no. you're wrong.
>>
>>WOMEN really killing PC Gaming. not the graphicscard companies.
>>
>>have you ever tried to play with joy when a woman (to who you have a
>>romantic relationship) is around?
>>
>
>
> Why would you want to play with Joy when your girlfriend/wife is around?
> You should find a place where you and Joy can be alone.
>
>
lol :D
Avilan
alexti skrev:
Besides, car race games has never been one of my favs.
Actually, I feel the opposite; I look in the console game shelves and I
see maybe one title at any given time (among ALL consoles) I would be
tempted to play. In the PC game shelf I see tons of games I would love
to play.
/A
CelesteB
<mvon...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Aww, that made me feel nice, thank you! :) Sorry for not having been around
>much. Got back into WoW, which is an ultimate timesink (yes, I regret it
>sometimes!), and paired with an increased workload, there's not been much
>time for anything else. I've downloaded new articles, skimmed posts, but
>never got around to posting. I promise I'll be better!
>
>Have you found any (newer) games that you enjoy? I'm a bit out of the loop,
>but there's nothing on my game dealer's "new titles" list that has caught
>my attention yet. It's great for my budget *grin*, but yeah, only WoW and
>work is a little "thin". and I'd not mind some fresh gaming excitement.
>
>M.
I haven't even caught up on VTM: Bloodlines or Kotor 2 or Pirates!
I'm playing Dragonshard at the moment and considering Dungeon Siege 2
on Vet level....these are the only recent titles I've played in the
past year :) I also picked up the old Kohan set because well, I have
kohan 2 still to play and I might as well start at the beginning of
the series.Oh, the Disciples 2 set. Lots of old games to play.
Yes, I got Civ IV, Gothic 2 and AoE 3 for Christmas but I tend to play
older to newer. By the time I get to all my games, I probably won't be
able to run them *g*
Also putzing around with Fire Emblem (GBA) and FF: Crystal Chronicles.
I got several console games along with pc games for Christmas but I
find I still like my pc...they give me the "gotta's".
Pop up the newsgroups more :)
Celeste
"Born to Rune" - T. Prachett
Jeffery S. Jones
<Magn...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
><mma...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>news:1138587380....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> If people are buying, then the prices are realistic. I believe modern
>> high-end chips have many more transistors than modern CPUs: so why
>> shouldn't prices be higher than CPU prices? Particularly when they may
>> have 512MB of very fast RAM on the card too?
>
> Umm.. because you can buy an XBox 360 for less mony than a high-end
>Geforce 7800?
7800GT is under $300 now. It is a pretty close match for the XBox
price, and isn't that far from top of the line.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130247&CMP=OTC-pr1c3watch&ATT=14-130-247
You pay a boatload of extra money to reach the actual top specs in
video cards, just as you do with CPUs. But you needn't go that far in
order to get fully functional performance.
> And besides, many consoles games look better even running "worse"
>technology. The original XBox has what, 4 year old graphics technology?
>And yet there are games for it like Dead or Alive Ultimate that have HDR and
>bloom effects, something most PC games still don't have.
Blame that on PC game programmers, who don't use features available
on commonly used video cards. One issue to always keep in mind is
that consoles run 640x480, and you might be surprised at just how
slick a lot of PC games look comparatively if you can drop the
resolution down and use a lot of quality features, including of course
the best AA/filtering. Feed to a big screen monitor from both, and
see which one really looks better.
--
*-__Jeffery Jones__________| *Starfire* |____________________-*
** Muskego WI Access Channel 14/25 <http://www.execpc.com/~jeffsj/mach7/>
*Starfire Design Studio* <http://www.starfiredesign.com/>