Anyone else just unenthused about gaming and hardware?

Bluntwrapped · 13 Jul 2017 at 12:43

+1 to the current selection of PC games sucking and people paying silly sums of money to improve 1 or 2 games (GTX upgrades and/or Gsync monitors)

Would be interesting to know how much global PC enthusiasts spend purely to improve Battlefield 3/4/1 and being even more silly, CS:GO.

It's comparative to how much people are willing to spend on freemium games thinking it'll give give them the edge. Investment is short term and therefore represents terrible value for money.

The situation sucks. Ironically the business and the marketing strategy is more entertaining and effective than the games and/or hardware available.

VincentHanna · 13 Jul 2017 at 12:55

FoxEye said:
So be prepared for PC gaming to be a tiny niche in the gaming market, and developers to treat it as such.

Other GPU's are available...

If a steam survey is anything to go by, most people still use 1080p and you can get away with a £200 GPU to run that. There's no doubt in my mind that an Xbox One X is enormously good value for money though.

Psycho Sonny · 13 Jul 2017 at 12:55

Bluntwrapped said:
+1 to the current selection of PC games sucking and people paying silly sums of money to improve 1 or 2 games (GTX upgrades and/or Gsync monitors)

Would be interesting to know how much global PC enthusiasts spend purely to improve Battlefield 3/4/1 and being even more silly, CS:GO.

It's comparative to how much people are willing to spend on freemium games thinking it'll give give them the edge. Investment is short term and therefore represents terrible value for money.

The situation sucks. Ironically the business and the marketing strategy is more entertaining and effective than the games and/or hardware available.

I'm currently gaming on a 60hz dell u2412M (PC) and i believe a u2414H (PS4)

I was going to sell both, get a 144hz 27" 1080p screen for PC and use my 55" tv for the PS4.

Do you not believe that will improve my enjoyment of CS:GO?

JediFragger · 13 Jul 2017 at 13:18

FoxEye said:
Who does, these days? A 1080ti is £700, to build a PC with similar tier components would set you back between £1000 - £1500!

OcUK alone have sold thousands of Ti's, their's no shortage of buyers!

erazor51 · 13 Jul 2017 at 13:20

wunkley said:
I agree. I thought it was just me, getting old...

Same here, I used to upgrade every year but for the past few years can't be asked anymore.

Mickcas · 13 Jul 2017 at 13:24

erazor51 said:
Same here, I used to upgrade every year but for the past few years can't be asked anymore.

I'm new to pc gaming and already starting to feel like this. I'm not seeing any new games that I really want to play, hardware is all over the place. Hoping once Vega is out the GPU world is any more stable

KonfuciousK · 13 Jul 2017 at 13:27

VincentHanna said:
Other GPU's are available...

If a steam survey is anything to go by, most people still use 1080p and you can get away with a £200 GPU to run that. There's no doubt in my mind that an Xbox One X is enormously good value for money though.

As a standalone collection of components then yes, the X-Box is a good buy. Once you factor online memberships, season passes, inflated game prices, crazy peripheral costs and the likeliness of it breaking just after warranty runs out it becomes a bit of a red herring to me.

Bluntwrapped · 13 Jul 2017 at 13:49

Psycho Sonny said:
I'm currently gaming on a 60hz dell u2412M (PC) and i believe a u2414H (PS4)

I was going to sell both, get a 144hz 27" 1080p screen for PC and use my 55" tv for the PS4.

Do you not believe that will improve my enjoyment of CS:GO?

Possibly, if you get your 144hz for next to nothing. If you're paying hundreds for the sake of one game I would say it's not worth it - no game is.

Obviously this is my opinion there are plenty who will disagree

The most defensive tend to be those who have already blasted hundreds/thousands of pounds on hardware claiming "it's my money I'll choose how I spend it"

That's fair enough, but it doesn't change the fact some are just suckers for marketing.

VincentHanna · 13 Jul 2017 at 14:16

KonfuciousK said:
As a standalone collection of components then yes, the X-Box is a good buy. Once you factor online memberships, season passes, inflated game prices, crazy peripheral costs and the likeliness of it breaking just after warranty runs out it becomes a bit of a red herring to me.

You're assuming many things

1) Season passes are generally the same price on Xbox/PS4 and PC
2) Game Prices are more expensive, but even if you bought 12 games a year that would generally only be £120 extra
3) What peripherals would you need that a PC wouldn't require? The console comes with controllers.
4) You think Microsoft would release a £450 console and have them regularly break? They massively learnt their lesson from the Xbox 360 'Red Ring' issue. In fact the Xbox One had completely OTT cooling, which is why it was bigger than the PS4.

And what's to stop a £700 GPU breaking out of warranty?

chroniclard · 13 Jul 2017 at 14:21

Only thing that annoys me is the cost of things, some things seem too expensive. However I think its always been expensive on the higher end. My 486 dx2 66 PC was £600 20 year ago.

melmac · 13 Jul 2017 at 14:22

beany_bot said:
Been on this forum and watching tech for some time now. And don't think I've ever been this "unenthused" about the state of things. What with Nvidia being so pricey at launch. Vega being nowhere, and when it does come potentially not even that great. Power hungry, no cards available and all grossly overpriced due to mining craze. Ram shortages and prices.

I'm just really not excited at the moment.
Honestly if it wasn't for Ryzen making the CPU space exciting again at least then I really don't know if I would still bother. It's really not the pricing specifically. But I need to be excited by new tech. And at the moment I'm just not feeling it. There is nothing game changing. Nothing "wow".

I dunno, just ranting but it really seems as if the GPU space is just a total mess right now. Not sure what the future holds for it.
We are all fairly loyal PC folk here but I can't help but think that more casual folk are switching to console rather than enter or stay in this very murky and expensive swamp.

It's not the tech that's the problem. I think you are going through the same lack of interest that I am. People will disagree with me, but, I think we have reached a stage where games look great even on lower settings. It's only the very high, maxed out settings that cause cards trouble. And most people can't see the difference between high and very high anyway, without screenshots and careful analysis!! And now there are Freesync and Gysnc monitors, which means that people can turn graphic settings up and still get great gameplay.

It's not like years ago, upgrading your GPU mattered a lot!! There were huge visual differences between each of the graphic settings. And in some cases you might buy a game and it would be unplayable, even at lowest settings without a GPU upgrade.

Combine with the fact that a lot of games are the same old thing.

A lot of people are upgrading because they are bored and think that the next graphics card will solve their problem, but, it doesn't and so they need to wait for the next GPU to come along. They buy it, holds their interest for a few weeks, until they realise that most games don't actually play any better, most don't look any better. It's got to the stage now where people are upgrading within the same generation!! Switching from a 1080 to a 1080ti for example. It's an adrenaline fix that they get from getting new hardware.

VincentHanna · 13 Jul 2017 at 14:27

melmac said:
It's not the tech that's the problem. I think you are going through the same lack of interest that I am. People will disagree with me, but, I think we have reached a stage where games look great even on lower settings. It's only the very high, maxed out settings that cause cards trouble. And most people can't see the difference between high and very high anyway, without screenshots and careful analysis!! And now there are Freesync and Gysnc monitors, which means that people can turn graphic settings up and still get great gameplay.

It's not like years ago, upgrading your GPU mattered a lot!! There were huge visual differences between each of the graphic settings. And in some cases you might buy a game and it would be unplayable, even at lowest settings without a GPU upgrade.

Combine with the fact that a lot of games are the same old thing.

A lot of people are upgrading because they are bored and think that the next graphics card will solve their problem, but, it doesn't and so they need to wait for the next GPU to come along. They buy it, holds their interest for a few weeks, until they realise that most games don't actually play any better, most don't look any better. It's got to the stage now where people are upgrading within the same generation!! Switching from a 1080 to a 1080ti for example. It's an adrenaline fix that they get from getting new hardware.

I agree with you 100%. When I look back to my younger days, I was always upgrading my GPU.

Now I've had my Titan X SLI GPU's for over 2 years, and fully expect them to run 4k/High for at least 12-18 months more, at which point I may replace them with 1x high end VOLTA GPU.

Better off faffing about with VR or getting a new screen than replacing a 1080 with a 1080Ti.

JediFragger · 13 Jul 2017 at 14:38

VincentHanna said:
Better off faffing about with VR or getting a new screen than replacing a 1080 with a 1080Ti.

I'd agree with that. Medium settings def look great now, esp when compared to older games.

Cooper · 13 Jul 2017 at 15:01

JediFragger said:
OcUK alone have sold thousands of Ti's, their's no shortage of buyers!

OCUK proudly playing it's part in the next personal debt laden financial crash... :rolleyes:

Why do you think I'm still running 970Sli?

These days the idea of spending £700+ on a decent GPU, £800+ on a decent monitor, £350+ on a decent CPU, £250+ on a decent sized SSD or £200 on fast memory just makes me want to gag.

I've simply lost interest in spending the money to be at the cutting edge.

Things change I've changed · 13 Jul 2017 at 15:31

I've lost interest mainly because of the lack of any decent new games, never seen it this bad, tbh I think I just kept upgrading out of habit for while even though I wasn't playing anything.

MG42Maniac · 13 Jul 2017 at 15:37

I've lost interest but that is because of the sky high prices and poor improvements. I am putting all my money into buying our first house as well so know I won't be able to get anything for a while. We got an LG 4K OLED TV last year so just enjoying the PS4 at the moment.

Evian · 13 Jul 2017 at 19:13

Tell you what I'm fed up with and that's monitors with all the QC issues, Can someone tell me what the very best gaming monitors are?

Psycho Sonny · 13 Jul 2017 at 19:21

lowrider007 said:
I've lost interest mainly because of the lack of any decent new games, never seen it this bad, tbh I think I just kept upgrading out of habit for while even though I wasn't playing anything.

PUBG?

Psycho Sonny · 13 Jul 2017 at 19:23

Evian said:
Tell you what I'm fed up with and that's monitors with all the QC issues, Can someone tell me what the very best gaming monitors are?

just buy a decent TV tbh.

I was looking at monitors and seriously why pay £400 for a 27" 144hz. when £400 gets you a top of the range 43" 4K TV from last years models.

who cares if it's only 60hz, is it really that big a jump to 144hz?

Evian · 13 Jul 2017 at 19:32

Psycho Sonny said:
just buy a decent TV tbh.

I was looking at monitors and seriously why pay £400 for a 27" 144hz. when £400 gets you a top of the range 43" 4K TV from last years models.

who cares if it's only 60hz, is it really that big a jump to 144hz?

It is quite a big difference, 60Hz looks laggy compared to it =/