The Semi-Official PC Gaming Thread - Page 2

Like I said...

Do you feed them to the PC?

I'm dual-booting XP 32 and Vista 64 and haven't had any issues with gaming under Vista. Admittedly I've only used it for Company of Heroes, the Crysis demo, and Stalker (when a weird paged pool file error made Stalker crash at full detail under XP, which has since been fixed with a Microsoft hotfix), but they all ran great. The only real issue is drivers. I had to do some heavy internet digging to find a decent driver for my sound card and any driver at all for my wi-fi card.

Well I got lucky, and my old man was in a good mood and agreed to split the cost a nice laptop with me, so I should be back in commission soon. My question now is should I stick with Vista or install XP? The laptop comes with Vista but I have had nothing but pains in my experiences with Vista. Is there anything from it worth salvaging it?

For the whole vista/xp debate, I personally run both (32 bit versions of each at the moment) and I have to say I really have no problems with gaming under vista.

To be fair my PC is barely 6 months old but I find once you get a real feel for the OS and its personal quirks, I actually prefer it to XP. At this point I only keep XP on this machine for avid/pro tools, otherwise I would happily go the complete vista route. I think if you're building a new machine it's a very stable OS, it's just not so kind to older systems.

That said, I've been gaming pretty much exclusively on the PC since the 'end' of the last console generation. I plan to eventually make the jump into the new formats with a PS3 purchase (metal gear 4 bundle) but right now I'm pretty content with the choice of PC titles.

My main games in rotation are Assassins Creed and Sins of a Solar Empire, but I'll be picking up Mass Effect and Age of Conan next month. Not to mention we're seeing Spore and Fallout 3 this year.

Now if only Grand Theft Auto 4 had a solid PC release date...

presently in the process of building some kind of quad core thing to play last years games on...still deciding on what video card to throw in there. Spending an unhealthy amount of time looking at Tom's vga charts.

I just got turned on to Trackmania today. Mainly because it's free and somewhat of a blast to play. Grab it off steam if you already haven't done so.

I'm no fan of racing games, unless they have the words Death and Rally in the title, but I love TrackMania Nations Forever. It runs surprisingly well on my machine and it's arcady enough for me to enjoy. Oh, yeah and it's completely free. Highly recommended.

Even though it's a few months old now, I'd still recommend an 8800GT (512) for around $200.00. Still probably the best bang for the buck.

So my desktop is officially screwed, and I'm ordering a new quad core mofo desktop today for my birthday.

So what games do I need to catch up on? Crysis is on my list, as is Age of Empires 3. Should I be holding out for the updated Witcher?

Pre-ordered Age of Conan at Best Buy, so there's a war rhino waiting for me at level 40! Word is the head-start folks can download the client on the 14th and start playing on the 17th.

So, to those who were planning on picking up Age of Conan, how was launch?

I tried to play during beta but my computer couldn't handle it. What little I saw and read about didn't convince me to buy a new system, but I'm still curious about other people's takes.

I'd like to check out their message boards for reactions but you have to own a subscription to the game and be registered to view them (which seems odd.)

They'll be opening up the message boards for everyone eventually, but they want to keep it confined to players during launch.

I know some folks were ticked off about the early access selling out, and there was a lot of downtime during the three-day head start, but I had absolutely no problems yesterday, and from what I heard the launch was pretty damn smooth. There's an issue with the traders (bankers) not working, the game isn't DirectX10 compatible yet, and there's apparently a zone that people are stuck in, but Funcom is aware of all of these issues and working on them.

I'm having a lot of fun with it so far, although I'm still in the introductory area. There's tons of quests to do, and the combat system is much more involving than a lot of other games.

Sounds great. I'll probably be picking this up next week as a birthday present to myself. I was into LOTRO for a while but it just didn't sustain my interest.

So we finally get an adult MMO? I might check this one out too.

What percentage of PC gaming time is spent on MMORPGs, pirated games, solitaire, and on-line poker?

95%? 99%?

Let's see, in the last year i've played : COD4, Assassins Creed, Gears of Wars, Crysis, Rainbow Six Vegas 1 & 2, orange Box, Timeshift, Kane & Linch, Lost Planet, C&C 3, Suppreme Commander, Guitar Hero III, Turok, and many more i can't remember.

so.. No. I can't stand MMORPG's

But isn't it true that if you lived somewhere where the console versions of this crap weren't ridiculously overpriced you'd probably just get them that way? Are you so drawn to playing while sitting at a desk that you refuse to play the same games with a controller, a TV, and on a couch?

I just bought a new PC that's actually capable of playing decent PC games again and just find that I have no desire to sit in my office and play them. I'd much rather game on the couch in the living room.

I like both PC and console gaming. Why chose I say?

When Bioshock launched, my 360 decided to red-ring, so I picked it up for my PC. Amazing game, and absolutely gorgeous with dx10.

(Rather than repair my 360, I was sent a new one. No problems so far. Mainly GTA IV these days.)

I play Civ IV quite a bit too. The most recent expansion was excellent. They expanded the role espionage plays. Nothing better than sending saboteurs into an "ally's" territory to soften them up before I turn on them.

I've played CoH and WoW for a while, and I'm playing Age of Conan now. Believe the hype. It has its shares of hiccups and bugs (new MMO after all) but the pros far outweigh the cons. It's a beautiful world, and the combat is great fun. I'm a Bear Shaman (melee priest.)

I can understand why you say that, I used to feel the same way. I was a die-hard PC gamer (I remember buying the original 3DFX cards when they first came out) but after a while you get used to it and it actually becomes more fun than sitting at a computer and playing it.

Once I made myself play with a controller for awhile, this was after I got out of college and there were a couple of years where I had no cash and a mac laptop so a console was the only way I could keep gaming, it started becoming second nature. I actually feel a like I am worse with mouse and keyboard now when I go back to trying to play on a PC, it's kind of funny.

What Stelios said.

I'd love to play arcade or racing games on Xbox.
But Anything that requires me to aim, i'm going with PC every time.

Sure, the multiplayer options of Xbox Live are awesome (and the only reason i would consider getting one), but Nothing will ever replace the mouse for me.

But yes, you are correct in thinking that if the cost of the system and games wasnt 4 times what's in the states, i would buy an Xbox.

We're a half step away from that now.

I completely agree that the mechanic feels a little bit 'forced' at first. But the question is, how much time have you spent learning the mouse and keyboard mechanic as well? Obviously you're not going to start over and be at the same level you are with a different input method so there has to be something that makes you switch over and learn a new system.

For me, it was the inability to keep up with the demands that having a gaming PC required plus wanting to sit around in my apartment and have friends come over and shoot each other in the face in multiplayer. Those issues finally forced me to give up mouse and keyboard gaming.

And while you may have not gotten to that point yet, at some point you might, and once you've gotten away from the mouse and keyboard as a control scheme, you'll probably find that you don't miss it and it's fun to not be stuck sitting in an office chair at a desk when you want to have fun playing games.

I find it interesting though that the biggest PC gaming proponents aren't usually in countries where consoles have reasonable prices and good release dates on games. That says to me that the reason people stick to PC gaming for now is that it's still for most purposes EASIER than consoles to get a good gaming experience, a fact that is counter how it's been in the US, Japan, and the UK for probably the last 10 years.

I was under the impression, that like when I was in college or China, most everyone who played PC games just pirated the crap out of them.

I do.
But only because we are getting thumbfucked with prices.

An Original PC game in argentina runs over $100. And that's if the distribution company makes it locally. Imported games run close to $200.

I've said it before. Rock Band costs $500 here. Fuck That Shit.

Even when a console game supports it, I never use the vastly superior mouse-keyboard combination.

If i'm feeling hardcore, and precision is key - sure. But I don't play games like that anymore.

Also, I like not having to upgrade my console.

I love both console and pc gaming, and I don't have any problems with FPSs on a console. Yeah, I prefer a mouse and keyboard, but I also like the big screen and 5.1 DD I get in my living room. Up until this past Christmas I was using the 360 almost exclusively, simply because my pc wasn't up to snuff. But now with my new rig I'm back into pc gaming big-time. I'm loving Oblivion again especially, with all the official AND fan-made pc mods available for it.

Of course, now that I have a good gaming pc again, I have to decide which titles to purchase for which platform.

Since I am primarily a Strategy game player, a PC is the only way to go for me.
But I am intrigued that the next installment in the Sid Meier Civilization series will be a console game. I have faith in Sid Meier, but still have trouble seeing how you can play a complex strategy game with a console controller.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is very cool. Some of the best atmosphere I've ever experienced in a game. It's definitely got problems, but the good far outweighs the bad.

And Grim Fandango, even though it's old. One of the best games ever made.

I don't really understand the 'wouldn't you rather be on a couch, playing on a big TV' arguments. Right now my PC is hooked up to a 37" 1080p HDTV, and I sit comfortably in one of those floor level rocking chairs with a wireless mouse and keyboard. And let me say, Crysis running at max detail at 37 inches is a fucking gorgeous thing to behold.

That everybody treats their PC as something that has to sit on a desk in their home office/den hooked up to a 19" monitor instead of in their living room hooked up to a TV isn't an issue inherent in the PC as a platform, it's just their perception of it that's flawed.

The average guy has his tv in his living room, with the lazy boy. Instead of living on the PC and paying thousands for graphics cards and ram to run Crisis, the glorious tech demo.

It actually is. Most people who have a PC that's actually decent enough to game on generally actually need to use it for things like, oh web browsing, email, spreadsheets, and all kinds of other stuff.

Once you've put your computer on the TV, no matter how big and wonderful that TV is, it loses a certain amount of its functionality. In a practical sense, it's rare that most people have the budget to invest in a PC that they ONLY use for gaming.

You may be willing to spend an extra $500-600 on a PC because you know you'll use it for that but I don't think it really makes sense that you'd be able to get a good gaming PC for less than triple or quadruple what a 360 or PS3 costs.

Keep in mind you'd still need to invest in a decent wireless mouse and keyboard and some kind of crazy surface to rest them on. Because trust me, I know from Typing of the Dead on my Dreamcast that sitting on the couch and using a keyboard for hours it'll carpal tunnel the crap out of you.

For me, the only thing that PC gaming really offers is: a place for indy and smaller developers to make games without having to pay the licensing fees for dev kits that console developers, a place where you can get a good fan community for modding games to extend the life of a game for free beyond the basic cost of the game, and a more complex input method thanks to the availability of 106 key keyboards or whatever.

It's also true that some of my current desire to move away from PC gaming comes from the fact that I'm already sitting at my desk using my computer for at least 9 hours a day for work. Even if I'm going to sit and play videogames for another hour or two I'd certainly rather do it in another room than where I spent the day working.

But if you prefer it more than a console, more power to you, I'm just saying that from my experience that once you switch it's great to be rid of the headaches.

Guys, would you horribly mind if the PC gaming thread didn't degenerate into a loong discussion about how PC gaming sucks? Let us enjoy our platform of choice, proselytizing is not welcome. You have the rest of the forum to yourselves mostly, give it a rest

My PC is still my platform of choice, even though I have a 360, PS3, Wii, DS, and PSP. I prefer western style RPGs like the Witcher and Mask of the Betrayer, and strategy games like Galactic Civilizations 2 and Supreme Commander to the mostly action fare I find on consoles. I also like to try out new MMOs, though I typically lose interest in them due to their community. Age of Conan has my interest at the moment, mostly due to the strength of their content, making the game less reliable on the people in it. So far I made level 15 (on a friend's account though, will have to restart when my copy arrives) and I'm mostly focussing on the Destiny quests, meaning that I'm playing it basically as a single player, western RPG. The grouping and other social functions are reportedly quite bad in the launch UI, and the team is working on fixing them. Any of you have any experiences with that?

I kinda have to disagree here. I thought Crysis really was just pretty graphics and a fairly solid engine - but nothing else.

It was literally an upgrade of the original for me, which may be fine for some. I'm waiting on Farcry 2 to see which turns out to be the better of the two.

I can't name any better FPS on the consoles because there's so few that are exclusive to the format anymore, but i'll happily pick the original Halo as something that gave me more fun than Crysis (even the PC version)

Yes, yes YES. One of the greatest adventure games ever.

Never found the flood to be a problem. Just a new enemy to mow down.

Still, there's your console game.

Back to PC.