PC Gaming and the problem with parity.

Soldato
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PC gaming used to have a higher upfront cost with games no more than 30 pound. But even the ganes have price parity with cobsoles now

Only the likes of COD and BF, it's not hard to find the majority of brand new PC releases for £35 or under (and less on key sites) the same can't be said for console games which seem to stay £40+ for several months after release.

I've never paid more than £35 for standard edition PC game, and never will
 
Soldato
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Is it me or there is a smear campaign currently going on against pc gaming? There is a reason why we're all here and why pc gaming has skyrocketed in popularity the past few years. Console gaming sucks and nothing has changed.
 
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Is it me or there is a smear campaign currently going on against pc gaming? There is a reason why we're all here and why pc gaming has skyrocketed in popularity the past few years. Console gaming sucks and nothing has changed.

I think there is a lot of negativity going on within the PC market just now, due to the high prices of GPUs/RAM. No one likes being ripped off. I can't see it getting better until 2020, but i hope i'm wrong.
 
Soldato
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I think there is a lot of negativity going on within the PC market just now, due to the high prices of GPUs/RAM. No one likes being ripped off. I can't see it getting better until 2020, but i hope i'm wrong.

Aye. This time last year I was planning to upgrade in the future, now I downright can't afford to.

At this rate I'll be playing games which my 970 is capable of, whether good games come out or not. Its annoying watching gfx cards nearly double in price.
 
Caporegime
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i can think of many reasons for having a pc over console with games i play.

car games run at higher hz look better feel better.pubg on xbox runs at low of 13 fps.on pc i play at 144 fps. call of the wild looks better on pc than xbox. literally all my games i play are better in every way on pc.so i like my pc games.there is room for improvement though.
 
Soldato
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Aye. This time last year I was planning to upgrade in the future, now I downright can't afford to.

At this rate I'll be playing games which my 970 is capable of, whether good games come out or not. Its annoying watching gfx cards nearly double in price.

This I can agree with - glad I got my 980ti when I did, considering they are going on eBay used for almost the same as I paid new 2 years ago!

I take that back, they're actually selling for more! :eek:
 
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Associate
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The problem is that people want ultra high end hardware. GTX 1080Ti, overclocked i7 8700k, 32GB overclocked RAM, large capacity SSD drives. The list goes on.

You just don't need all these things to play games at better the current console resolution and frame rates. I spent the best part of £2000 on my gaming PC not because I needed to but because I just wanted to.

There is no reason to have anything more powerful than an i5 and a GTX 1060 to run games at better than console spec. That's where the smart money is in PC gaming.
 
Soldato
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i still think pc gaming has a lot to offer, as others have mentioned there's significantly more freedom with pc versions of games especially when it comes to modding which can be the lifeblood of some games (cmon, does anyone actually preferr vanilla minecraft to modded? or skyrim, anyone remember what vanilla skyrim even looks like?)

sure if you just look at lazily developed aaa titles then consoles might not be far off pc's atm but the gap will open up again and if you look below the surface there's still much more on offer.
 
Caporegime
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anyone remember what vanilla skyrim even looks like?)

If it's one thing I'm against it's modding. Yes, the choice is there for others. But I won't ever touch any mod with a bargepole. It's just one of my bugbears. Things that change the graphical look, well that's just two fingers up to the original artists work. Mods that change the UI or gameplay in some way, that could cause instability in the game. Sorry, it's just the way I am. *shrugs*
 
Soldato
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Got em all....Switch, PS4, XBOX1 and a pretty darn nice PC (1080ti outputting to a 3440 x 1440 gsync 120hz monitor)

Only the switch has taken any serious amount of time away from my PC and thats because its handheld.

Bang for buck against my consoles, my PC is a waste of money, but its a luxury for those that want to have the very best.

IMO there is no point in doing things half hearted with a PC, if you want to see the difference in gaming you need to shell out.

If a game is available for the PC I will always get it over my consoles, however the consoles are nice for the exclusives (GOW4 in a couple of months!!!)

If it's one thing I'm against it's modding. Yes, the choice is there for others. But I won't ever touch any mod with a bargepole. It's just one of my bugbears. Things that change the graphical look, well that's just two fingers up to the original artists work. Mods that change the UI or gameplay in some way, that could cause instability in the game. Sorry, it's just the way I am. *shrugs*

Modding is a major advantage IMO, Skyrim is a great example of where modding makes a massive difference to the look and feel of a game.
 
Soldato
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If it's one thing I'm against it's modding. Yes, the choice is there for others. But I won't ever touch any mod with a bargepole. It's just one of my bugbears. Things that change the graphical look, well that's just two fingers up to the original artists work. Mods that change the UI or gameplay in some way, that could cause instability in the game. Sorry, it's just the way I am. *shrugs*

i'm not sure i agree on disrespecting the original artist, modders are more than aware that game designers are constrained not by their ability but by time/finances/the need to make games work on all platforms, and a healthy mod scene is paying homage to the original creators creating something that inspires others to do something themselves.

yes it can cause instability, but that's just the nature of things, and certainly no worse than supposed AAA titles that are released with gamebreaking bugs and other issues, at least with modding any instability is self-inflicted.
 
Soldato
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If it's one thing I'm against it's modding. Yes, the choice is there for others. But I won't ever touch any mod with a bargepole. It's just one of my bugbears. Things that change the graphical look, well that's just two fingers up to the original artists work. Mods that change the UI or gameplay in some way, that could cause instability in the game. Sorry, it's just the way I am. *shrugs*

Conversely, graphical mods can give older games a new lease of life, exposing them to a whole generation of gamers who would have otherwise written them off due the outdated graphics.

There are mods for Skyrim which don't actually change the UI or graphics, but instead add new quests, items or even whole new areas (e.g. Falskaar).

Or mods which add functionality that simply should have existed in the first place (e.g. the controller/splitscreen mod for Minecraft - the console versions have splitscreen, why is it not in the PC version?)

Hell, some of the most played PC games today started life as mods and wouldn't have existed without the mod scene (Counterstrike and DOTA are 2 examples which instantly come to mind)

Whilst it's obviously completely your decision, to write off all mods as "two fingers up to the original artists/developers" or as being unstable, is somewhat misplaced
 
Caporegime
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Modding is great, transformed a lot of games for me. Sorely miss being able to make your own maps in MP games :(

But none of the consoles run the game at 4k. Its more like 1440p at 30 fps and lower settings. You can easily achieve that with a £150 used gpu, turn on dynamic resolution on your pc version too so you can also get these occasional resolution bumps. 30 fps is 30 fps there is no way to make it feel better and console optimization is pretty much a myth that has been disproven so many times.

What about a hdr? Just run an hdmi cable from your pc to your hdr capable tv/monitor and enjoy it.

PC is nowhere as good at doing dynamic resolution, only certain titles are i.e. battlefield 1 and star wars battlefront. Digital foundry did a very good video on this saying about how PC/developers really need to do a better job on the PC version of games for this as currently consoles method/games are much better.

What do you mean by console optimisation? The games are optimised first and foremost for consoles hence why they are able to get such good performance for the games "considering" the hardware consoles have.... Where as with PC, you "generally" need better hardware to be able to achieve the same. Also look at what consoles are capable of when they are the only platform to be optimised for i.e. last of us, HZD, uncharted and so on. The only real true PC graphically/technically driven title we have had is crysis and I doubt we will ever see a game like that again.

And you can make low FPS feel/look better via numerous methods:

1. sync optimisation i.e. just look at g/free sync and compare what 30 fps feels/looks like with it turned on/off

2. One big factor which helps especially on consoles since they generally can't turn it off.... is motion blur

3. Use a controller, as touched upon earlier, 30 fps feels far better with a pad than M+K, even on PC

Still, as I said, 30 fps isn't great as no matter what you do, the motion clarity + responsiveness still suffers but it isn't as bad as what people make out imo and after a while, your eyes adjust. Also, hook up whatever console or PC to a decent/responsive display and 30 fps won't look as bad i.e. 30 fps feels/looks far better on my OLED TV than on my IPS monitor.

HDR only works on certain 9xx and 10xx and 4xx, 5xx, vega GPUs and even then it doesn't work anywhere as well on the PC as it does with consoles, a few on here ended up getting a console purely just to have a faff free HDR gaming experience, no doubt it will get better over time though. Also, most people who have good gaming PCs will want to use a dedicated gaming "monitor" i.e. g/free sync etc. and all of the current monitors on the market are absolute crap for "HDR", they don't come anywhere close to the requirements for it, not to mention, the true high end HDR TVs will look far better than any current HDR monitor.

Is it me or there is a smear campaign currently going on against pc gaming? There is a reason why we're all here and why pc gaming has skyrocketed in popularity the past few years. Console gaming sucks and nothing has changed.

If anything I would say PC gaming has been on the decline especially on this forum, I've seen a lot of PC gamers switch to console over the last 1-2 years and even more so over the last few months due to the prices sky rocketing across the market, also know of quite a few who have had enough with PC gaming irl too. Although they have all moved for various reasons i.e. cheaters plaguing PC, more fair play on consoles (i.e. everyone has same hardware, same graphic settings + FPS on console and so on).

You just need to look at all the statistics, triple A titles is where consoles rake in the money, PC not so much, the vast majority of profit for PC gaming comes from titles such as overwatch, CS:GO, LOL and so on.

The problem is that people want ultra high end hardware. GTX 1080Ti, overclocked i7 8700k, 32GB overclocked RAM, large capacity SSD drives. The list goes on.

You just don't need all these things to play games at better the current console resolution and frame rates. I spent the best part of £2000 on my gaming PC not because I needed to but because I just wanted to.

There is no reason to have anything more powerful than an i5 and a GTX 1060 to run games at better than console spec. That's where the smart money is in PC gaming.

Problem is, even for a somewhat decent rig, it still costs more than a xbox one x/ps 4 pro and a mid range system like that won't have anywhere near the same longevity as the console.

As I've said before on here, if you are going to do PC gaming for wanting to get all the main benefits i.e. slightly better graphics and consistently higher FPS (especially for those that want 100 FPS at a minimum) then you need to spend ££££ and you will have to be prepared to set aside some £££ every year for upgrades if you want to keep the "true" PC experience.
 
Soldato
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I don't get the argument about cost, I'm still using a 7 year old CPU (i7-2600), and a GTX 980ti which cost me £320 2 years ago, and I can still play every current game with no issues at 1080p or even 3440x1440. Gone are the days where you HAD to upgrade every year or 2 to actually be able to play the latest games.

If you're spending £4-500+ every year on the latest & greatest CPU/motherboard (and more on GPU) then I guess it does become difficult to justify when there is minimal benefit, and I don't really see the point except for benchmarking scores

This pretty much.

Bought an i5 760 full system here, cost me £100, plus £40 for the 7870 and all this is running 3 monitors at 3600x1920. that's my native gaming resolution if I can get decent FPS. There isn't a single game that am unable to play.

It's true, am not getting 100 or 300 FPS in the newer games, like Doom or PUBG but that ain't stopping me from killing you in a game. (^_~)
 
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Caporegime
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This pretty much.

Bought an i5 760 full system here, cost me £100, plus £40 for the 7870 and all this is running 3 monitors at 3600x1920. that's my native gaming resolution if I can get decent FPS. There isn't a single game that am unable to play.

It's true, am not getting 100 or 300 FPS in the newer games, like Doom or PUBG but that ain't stopping me from killing you in a game. (^_~)

I have a separate similar system but with a 7850 and there is no way you will be getting good FPS with somewhat good settings in titles like division, assassin's creed origins, dishonoured 2, GTA 5 etc. at that Res. It's not even capable for 1080p now unless you are dropping a lot of settings to low/medium and off....

But you can't argue with that setup for that price.
 
Soldato
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Now, not so much, everything is parity, the only aspect PC gaming has in it's favour is high frame rates.

What you're missing is that console gaming jumps every several years whereas PC gaming evolves with each generation of both CPU and GPU. The XBox One X may be a capable gaming device right now, but it will be well behind PCs in 2 years' time.
 
Soldato
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I'm still on my main build from 2011 (i7 2600K) only thing I've upgraded since then is GFX card.

I was looking at the 1080ti's for VR mainly plus the extra FPS in everything else. Like i said it just isnt worth it anymore even if that lasts me another 5 years its still more than i've ever spent.

think I went 480oc (died)>670>970

So my last two cards on release combined were still cheaper than the option now. If my 970 dies tomorrow I've got no idea what I'd do.
 
Soldato
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Consoles are just for games. PC is for life.

Everytime I've dabbled with a console it was sold within 6 months as I was bored with it. There have been 3 versions of Xbox and 2 versions of PS in that time only done one major upgrade. Who cares if no new GPU's are coming out we are now in an age when you do not need to upgrade your PC for the latest games. Enjoy it. Stop whining.
 
Soldato
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I have a separate similar system but with a 7850 and there is no way you will be getting good FPS with somewhat good settings in titles like division, assassin's creed origins, dishonoured 2, GTA 5 etc. at that Res. It's not even capable for 1080p now unless you are dropping a lot of settings to low/medium and off....

But you can't argue with that setup for that price.

Can't comment on the games listed since I will never buy them, but The Division (just tested it), runs fine at 3600x1920 at Med settings, seems the update also reset my graphic settings, so I might drop the resolution down and return to high settings.

Sure, there are some settings disabled or turned off, still looks better then whatever it looks on the console.
 
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