News Mark Rein continues to opine

I had this problem on my last computer. I had it custom built 3 years ago with a Athlon 3000+ & 1 gb RAM. That was all i knew about that affected the performance. Until i taught myself more and built my own PC i did not realise that graphics cards even existed and when i did how they have such a huge impact on performance. Before my sister couldn't even play the original sims properly with medium settings at 1024*768.

When i opened it up a found out why 64mb Geforce 4 MX440, so out it came and in went an XFX 6800GT (AGP8X) afterwards it was a completely different machine and it can now play the sims 2 at full settings at 1280*1024.

I have just upgraded from the same card on my now 2 year old PC to a new 512mb 7900gt (only £200 from OcUK on a Weekly Special) and this has handled everything i can throw at it easily, and thats before i Overclocked it.

And yes i have also got an Xbox 360, A ps2, A ps1, a N64, a Philips CD-I and have pre-ordered a PS3 because i have always liked console gaming especially split screen with my mates

 

You're playing it on a 1Ghz Athlon with 333 RAM and a GeForce 4? The minimum spec is 1.4Ghz.

Please post your full spec coz there's either a) something wrong with my PC, b) you're happy to play NFS:MW at 4fps, or c) you're lying

I also meant that the PC versus console debate is pointless, not that this thread was one, although it obviously is turning out that way.

 

Full spec: Athlon XP 1900+, 512MB RAM, Geforce 4400 Ti.
The settings I run at are in fact:
Res: 1024x768
AA, Shadow Detail, Rain Effect: Off
Texture filtering, Word detail and reflection detail: Low-Medium
Everything else: High

And it runs absolutely fine so long as there are no other programs running.

 

A gaming PC for 425$ ? PCs cheaper than consoles? No way...

You are adding 425$ to a computer that may or may not be adequate for that upgrade. Many, many people are still on AGP or Socket 754. If your MB doesn't support PCI-E or 939/775/AM2 socket, add nearly 100$ to get a new mobo (if you want dual core CPU). Then, add probably an extra 100-150 to get those 1.5, 2 Gb DDR2, because your old DDR will likely be useless now, plus HDD (because a 2 year old 20Gb IDE HDD isn't going to make it nowadays), plus...

If you have an adequate PC (adequate for upgrading, that's it), it's likely not older than 1-2 years...that means you spent another 400-600$ or so 12-24 months earlier. All in all, it's simply not possible to build a PC adequate for gaming that to can play the latest games for 2-3 years for much less than 1000$

Upgrading is nice, and cool and funny for us enthusiast, but trying to compare the economics of console vs pc gaming is simply ridiculous. Consoles are way, way cheaper. Period.
*A console cost 300-600. A decent gaming PC cost nearly twice if you DIY. It can easily go up to 2000$ if you buy from an OEM.
* Consoles can play the latest and greatest for 5-6 years, A 1000$ PC can't play them at all in 2-3 years (how many 3 year old PCs can play Oblivion? How many of them can play it fine? ). Sure, graphics don't improve as much (although games do improve vastly with time), but no console gamer loses the experience due to inadequate hardware.
* Consoles don't require upgrading (which in addition, means more disposable income to spend on games), PC do.
* Consoles and console games usually cost 0 time to configure and use. PC gamers spend lots of time hunting for patches, fixes or at best, simply doing basic Windows maintenance. Time is money...

I love PC gaming as much as anybody else, and I don't think it will die anytime soon... as long as people buy PCs, there will be somebody developing games for them, but the advantages it may have over consoles are certainly not economic...In fact, the only thing that still ties me to the PC, are Bioware's games and keyboard+mouse for FPS (wich incidentally, are the culprits I have to upgrade my GPU every year). If a console ever gives me a functional kb+m, compatible with most games (or at least FPS), that will be the end of PC gaming for me.

 

My three year old PC runs Oblivion very well. Low to high 20's which is good enough for me (it's smooth-ish) My specs are:

Prescot core P4 3.2 GHz
1 Gig Corsair XMS
6600 AGP 8X
120gig IDE hard drive out of my Gateway I bought back in 2001.
200gig IDE Hard drive that my parents had in their old HP before they upgraded.

I built this PC 3 years ago and a year ago I moved up to the 6600 from the 9600XT. Don't believe me? Here's some screens I took while playing it using FRAPS:







I am so sick of hearing "d00d j00 need the 1337 grafix c@rd for y0 system man!!!" I can Oblivion a better setting then my friend with an athlon 64 3700+, 2 gigs of ram and a 6600GT. I absolutely crush his settings. If my current PC (the 3 year old ne) can still play games that look better then most Xbox 360 games, why should I even bother.

 

The author seems to forget the prices for the consoles are sold with losses. For example: If Nvidia (or card manufacturer) decides to sell their top cards for less then the production costs, to get more money out of the games that are bundled with the card. Then we can compare console to pc. But even then, it is still a apples to oranges comparison.

 

Define "very well". If you mean, at 800x600, settings low-to-medium and you get high 20's and 10's (on outer areas) without HDR (selling point for TES:O graphics), then, yes, I believe your PC can run it. Unfortunately, your PC can't run Oblivion like an out-of the-box X360 can. Not in High Definition, not with HDR, not with high frame rate...

Not only that, but how much did that PC cost 3 years ago? In 2003, a P4 3.2 was a top of the line CPU, not a 100$ budget CPU. 3 years ago 200Gb drives were ridiculously expensive, and a 9600XT was a high end card. Add to that cost a new 6600. Your PC didn't cost less than 1000$ probably, and nowadays, your rig is not fit for a single upgrade (you'd have to buy a new mobo, cpu, RAM and video card...), but for a total rebuild if you want to play Crisys or most new DX10 games....

With that money, you could have bought PS2 2 or XBox years ago at 180$, a 360 last year at 400 and you'd still have about 500$ or so to buy games while your gaming experience would have been similar (from a technological point of view) and you'd have much more powerful hardware right now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying consoles are better nor worse nor nothing along those lines...only that they are cheaper.

First of all, I don't speak 1337.
Second, you are lying or not telling the truth. If you get better settings with your rig than your friend does with a 3700 and a 6600GT, that's because he must have his PC full of malware and spyware, or doesn't know how to defragment a disk. Probably doesn't know how to do half decent Windows maintenance and knows 0 about security. His hardware is quite better than yours.
Third, nobody says that you need a 600$ GPU to play games. What I say is that the cheapest PC that can be considered adequate for gaming is, at least slightly more expensive than the most expensive console. And while said PC won't be able to play fine the latest games without one or more upgrades after 1.5-2 years (more if it's not a budget gaming rig, but then, you are spending loads more of money initially), the console will give better and better performance as years pass (because the games only get better).

Of course, as ObiWan says, it's a apples to oranges comparison, as PCs do many things consoles don't. But trying to argue the economical advantages of console gaming, at best, is deluding oneself and at worst, blind fanboyism.

[Edit]
According to this site:
http://www.hwextreme.com/reviews/processor/intel_3200/
the P4 3.2 launched in June 2003 at 620'$ More expensive than the "outrageously expensive" PS3...and that's the CPU alone
[/edit]

 

Iago: diferent times dude.

if i go to a big computer store i will only find ATI 9250 graphics cards or Nvidia Gf6200 in every system. they will sell you a P4 3.4Ghz, 2Gb ram, 250Gb HD, 5.1 sound, 17'' secreen. for 999€

what they dont tell you is that there is a asrock mobo in there with an integrated soundcard and a integrated Graphics or a ATI 9250.

i have seen people buy these peaces of cr*p and say its a great buy, and then come to me ranting about games not playing well and the pc being filled with ads from the maker.

if you want to put a better GC you have to buy it and then pay extra 100€ to put it in, because of the warranty stamp. and then see that it works better, but the mobo sucks.... you can see what happens here.

another think is that they put stuff on your computer that will slow it down 1 month after the warranty is gone, you call them about your decreace of speed, they say "F*** off if you want more speed buy a new computer, or come here, he will fix it for 200€ plus you have to be without computer for about 1 month" it then stays there for 1 month and 2 weeks, you pay extra about something they broke that they say it was already broken and it gets delivered to you with a scrach on the side and they did not even open it or do anything to it. my friends GC was overheating, he got the pc to the store, they said "come here in a week", the pc was done 2 weeks later and it was the same, they did no even open it, i opened it voiding the warranty, the cooler (X800 pro i think) was a small ass aluminium cooler with a small fan that was damaged and did not rotate fast enough.

thousens of people get into these situations, and this is because it produces money... BAH!!!!!!

 

What frame rates though?

I have no idea what's up with my PC then. I get 20fps when other cars are on screen and there's debris flying about (quite often in this game,) and it goes up to about 35 if I'm on my own. It's quite annoying to have that much of a difference in fps over the course of a race. Therefore, passing moves and police evasion tend to be affected

 

I can run HL2 at 1024x768 with all the graphically settings maxed out on an ATI X200 and still get a decent frame rate... This moron has no clue how much you can push an intergrated chip.

 

Just played it again and actually it's not totally smooth but generally when the other AI cars are behind me (which they usually are ) it runs probably about 30fps. Otherwise it drops to about 20fps. With the cops it's not too bad and you don't usually notice the drop in fps even when there are 10 or so of them on the screen. By the way anything above 30fps I'd consider playable but obviously it's not as smooth as 60fps.

 

Why so abusive? Do people think authors don't read comments in forums sometimes? Why the need to be so offensive to someone who is merely stating a desire for a higher quality of graphics for us all?

HL2 was a stunning example of how scalable games can be, it's also heading for 2 years old. There's no way in hell Unreal Engine 3 is going to be playable on anything that's ever been near the word "onboard". It's probably not going to play on many of the lower end of graphics cards in the market today.

 

Some points:

- I know for a fact that you can get keyboard and mouse adapters for PS2 and X-Box that are designed to work with all major FPS games. You have also been able to buy joysticks and countless other types of game control peripherals in a much wider variety for much longer than PC gaming peripherals. I'm really sick of hearing "I don't like console controllers, I want a joystick/mouse/burrito..." Then you can buy one!

- When I buy a console game, I'm buying a piece of software that has been written for my exact system from the ground up. There is no patching or tweaking required, and I know I'm always playing the game as the developers intended. That's a major selling point for me, even if it isn't for you.

- There are plenty of good, console-only releases. There are also many good, PC-only releases. Your personal lack of knowledge about one or the other does not mean that there is an actual lack of such titles.

Personally I'm a console person, but hey, whatever works for you, right? However, I don't appreciate being told by by Mr. Rein that I should be forced to change my personal PC-building paradigm because he wants to sell more games, but he doesn't want to:
- Stoop to supporting low-end graphics
- Shell out for a console SDK and license

Reality check, Mr. Rein! It's YOUR problem if I'm not interested in playing PC games, not mine. And it's not the chip manufacturers', motherboard manufacturers', graphics card manufacturers', or retailers' problem either; They're all in the business of making and selling people what they want, not what you think they should have. I'm glad that he seems to have realised that if he thinks that the general public is being hoodwinked into buying cheap, low-powered hardware, then he should go out there and educate them!

Nezuji

 

If it's like Oblivion, it may not even play fine with the higher end GPUs...Fortunately, Epic's engines are very scalable, so I'm 100% sure it will play fine and look great on everything from GF6 or x8XX upwards...

Still, we are in a scenario were a new, 400$-500$ card is underpowered to run the latest games (getting 20-30FPS in a Oblivion, no matter the bells and whistles and settings *is* underpowered in my book). High-end GPUs should chew through modern games like they're flash animations and should have some longevity, and today, the latest and greatest cards become obsolete the day they appear or even before...

I really don't agree with M.Rein regarding the integrated chipsets, he fails to see that many PCs aren't ever going to see a game installed. I don't think many enterprises would like to have their employees being able to play HL2 in the office's PC. And like Nezuji, many are perfectly happpy to stick to console games. You can build a beast of a PC for very little if you aren't interested in gaming, but if M.Rein's had things his way, the cost of developing and manufacturing all those high-powered integrated chipsets and GPUs would be passed to the consumer, whether he wants/needs said graphical capabilities or not.

Furthermore, although Intel chipsets can't play the latest games, they play older games just fine. Today, an Intel powered game may look ugly compared to an XBox360, but they look fine compared to PS2 or XBox. I've played hundreds of hours of Unreal Tournament on an integrated Intel chipset with my coworkers and had lots of fun, and lots of lost productivity