PC vs 360

Darkwave · 18 Sep 2006 at 09:23

times_champion said:
Maybe, but to be fair a 360 would play those same games in a much higher red, and also still be playing contempory games in 4 years time, wheras the £200 PC would be worthless for games! In terms of price (thinking purely for games) the 360 is the easy winner.

My point was that a lot of people conveniently forget that you need a HD capable TV if you want anything more out of it, so the X360 is absolutely not £200 unless you want me to say that I can build a PC that can do 640x480 for £200 and use S-Video/Composite out.

My entire computer (Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, X1900XT) costed about £800 total. That includes widescreen LCD monitor, 5.1 surround sound speakers, everything. It's not much dearer than buying an Xbox 360 with a HDTV, and it does a lot more too.

Not to mention that Oblivion doesn't look like utter crap on my system either, the Xbox 360 doesn't even use AF as far as I can tell and never mind the modding abilities of the PC.

devilkazuya · 18 Sep 2006 at 09:32

cheets64 said:
XBox 360 all the way, the games are just pick up and play and with live you can have a great laugh, no downloading maps, patches, getting high pings, its just connect and join a race, also no cheating in console gaming.

PC gaming is just too much hassle.

exactly....360 is for the CASUAL gamer.

z0mbi3 · 18 Sep 2006 at 09:35

times_champion said:
Also how come some games like the EA sports titles and Lego star wars 2 seem to be based on the xbox version and not give PC ownders the option to have next gen graphics?

Surely Lego Star Wars is a bad example. Its Lego. Any kind of snazzy graphics would seem out of place.

times_champion · 18 Sep 2006 at 11:59

Ulfhedjinn said:
My point was that a lot of people conveniently forget that you need a HD capable TV if you want anything more out of it, so the X360 is absolutely not £200 unless you want me to say that I can build a PC that can do 640x480 for £200 and use S-Video/Composite out.

My entire computer (Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, X1900XT) costed about £800 total. That includes widescreen LCD monitor, 5.1 surround sound speakers, everything. It's not much dearer than buying an Xbox 360 with a HDTV, and it does a lot more too.

Not to mention that Oblivion doesn't look like utter crap on my system either, the Xbox 360 doesn't even use AF as far as I can tell and never mind the modding abilities of the PC.

Ah - i see what you mean there then! I agree totally that I have an LCD monitor and 5.1 sound as part of my PC package toom and to get all that for 360 would be very expensive, plus games are a lot cheaper on PC so there would be a saving there. The point does still stand about a hypothetical £200 PC being totally unable to play the same games as the 360 in 4 years time. I guess the trad-off for always having cutting edge graphics is that any PC gaming machine is quick to become outdated.

Shoseki · 18 Sep 2006 at 12:03

I can buy a gamepad for my PC, and I can play MMOs like WoW using keyboard and mouse. Until games for consoles reach that type of scope, I will always use a PC. Not to mention the fact that I can alt-tab and check emails whilst waiting for something, chat using teamspeak or any other software, do work on the PC...

County · 18 Sep 2006 at 12:27

The ONLY game i use my PS2 for is GT3 :cool:

I also prefer to game with a keyboard (PC) wheras the missus prefers a pad (Console)

I used to love console gaming, but they dont make em like they used to do they?

{CUE: Hovis music}

cheers

neocon · 18 Sep 2006 at 12:40

First Person Shooter with gamepad autoaim = rubbish

GTAIII / VC/ SA on console were good though

robaylesbury · 18 Sep 2006 at 13:02

I also owned and sold a 360 inside 1 month. That's not to say that it isn't a nice system, but for me it just came down to the gamepad + FPS problem.
It just doesn't work for me.
Driving games = great
sports = good
FPS = Oh dear!!

I'm bad enough with a keyboard and mouse. A gamepad just made me depressed.

Nice system for the casual gamer, though. Shame about the price of games.

Warbie · 18 Sep 2006 at 16:47

devilkazuya said:
exactly....360 is for the CASUAL gamer.

Hassle doesn't make a gamer any more 'hardcore', and the 360 certainly isn't any more casual than playing on a pc.

//edit - it is actually possible to be accurate with a pad in a fps (look at Golden Eye to see how good a fps can be on a console). I think that many of you are just thumb challenged

OpenToSuggestions · 19 Sep 2006 at 22:29

i have oblivion on my 4600 x2, 2gb ram, x1800xt pc and it runs well on high (but not max) settings at 1440x900. my mate has it on his 360. the 360 version takes longer to load, looks worse, has lower fps, cannot be modded, and it is only running on a standard 640x480 tv. also the sound of the fans is ridiculusly loud. he said he doesnt mind as his other mate has one and was quieter but kept overheating. so all in all im quite glad i dont have a 360!!

you have to play on a 360 yourself to find out how noisy it is. even the power supply has a fan, and even that is noisy! also 50quid a game is daylight robbery. I know my pc costs more than a 360 but when you consider you need an expensive HD tv for it to look nice, a pc is better, and does so much more than gaming

Darkwave · 19 Sep 2006 at 23:05

I didn't pay attention to the noise from my mate's Xbox 360 as we were all talking dead loud at the time and having a laugh, but I am in complete agreement with you about Oblivion mglover070588.

It doesn't even use anisotropic filtering, which looked disgusting. It wasn't even in 480i like you were playing it in, which would make it less noticeable, this was in 720p so you could make out every disgusting, faded texture and all the soup in the background.

Does any game on the Xbox 360 utilise anisotropic filtering? I don't know about you guys but this is more important to me than antialiasing in any game. No anisotropic filtering just makes everything look washed out and fake, especially in a game like Oblivion that has excellent textures.

As I keep saying; I am glad I can play Oblivion in maximum detail with HDR, 6xAA, and 16xAF with mods in 16:10 900p for the same cost as an Xbox 360 and an LG 720p LCD like my mate has. I would be properly gutted if I knew what I was missing out on.

cheets64 · 19 Sep 2006 at 23:13

mglover070588 said:
i have oblivion on my 4600 x2, 2gb ram, x1800xt pc and it runs well on high (but not max) settings at 1440x900. my mate has it on his 360. the 360 version takes longer to load, looks worse, has lower fps, cannot be modded, and it is only running on a standard 640x480 tv. also the sound of the fans is ridiculusly loud. he said he doesnt mind as his other mate has one and was quieter but kept overheating. so all in all im quite glad i dont have a 360!!

you have to play on a 360 yourself to find out how noisy it is. even the power supply has a fan, and even that is noisy! also 50quid a game is daylight robbery. I know my pc costs more than a 360 but when you consider you need an expensive HD tv for it to look nice, a pc is better, and does so much more than gaming

Cmon on, your CPU and graphics cards is worth about £400, plus a monitor will be £200 and add HDD, Ram, Case, Mobo, Mouse+keyboard, Speakers.

And you must play your games on mute because I can only here the fans when its quiet in game plus an HD TV is not just for a 360 its for Sky HD, normal TV and DVDs. TBh your picking and choosing and not looking and the downsides of your £1500 rig

Darkwave · 19 Sep 2006 at 23:21

cheets64 said:
Cmon on, your CPU and graphics cards is worth about £400, plus a monitor will be £200 and add HDD, Ram, Case, Mobo, Mouse+keyboard, Speakers.

And you must play your games on mute because I can only here the fans when its quiet in game plus an HD TV is not just for a 360 its for Sky HD, normal TV and DVDs. TBh your picking and choosing and not looking and the downsides of your £1500 rig

£1500 rig? :eek:

Surely not, my rig as in my signature and my monitor and speakers costed a grand total of £800. If we're just talking about the tower alone, that was £600 on the dot more or less.

Edit: And yes I do pay VAT, everything was ordered from this site a few weeks back. :cool:

OpenToSuggestions · 19 Sep 2006 at 23:21

the xbox i went on is only a week or so old so maybe they ramped up the fans to stop overheating.
not sure if it was 480i then, it was just an old 14 inch portable, ive also seen it on a 24inch widescreen tv and it looks equally as bad.

in response to 'cheets64's' post i never actualy though my pc is worth that as i've done it up bit by bit over the years

but my tower (as a 360 does not come ith a screen and speakers and wireless card etc etc) is only worth about 800. my cpu was 170 and gpu was 150 a few months back.

i was just thinking that my ps2 is 295mhz, and the 360 is 3.2ghz i expected more of a differance as it is tuned for games as its a games console. project gotham3 only looks a little bit nicer than gt4 on my ps2. of course running a 360 in high def is just like cranking up pc resolutions, so i bet games (especially oblivion) will run even worse.
i know my pc costs several times more than a 360 but when u have to buy an online adapter, a 50quid game etc etc it doesn't seem so special.
when I 1st played on a ps2 i was in awe (got 1 on day of release

), same thing when halo on xbox, but the 360 dissapointed me greatly

Darkwave · 19 Sep 2006 at 23:25

mglover070588 said:
not sure if it was 480i then, it was just an old 14 inch portable, ive also seen it on a 24inch widescreen tv and it looks equally as bad.

It would've been a 480i TV as standard TVs (portable or wide) output at 640x480 interlaced (that could be NTSC and not PAL, but they're practically the same.) Pretty much every HD ready LCDTV and HDTV in this country outputs at 720p which is 1280x720 progressive (50fps.)

Oblivion ran fine on my mate's 720p just-under-30" HD LCD, but as you said about your mate's Oblivion the load times were abysmal and the graphics were very poor (like I said no anisotropic filtering and a shorter draw distance, never mind no mods, make Ulfhedjinn an unhappy bunny.)

OpenToSuggestions · 19 Sep 2006 at 23:27

ahh just havn't heard tv called 480i before

Darkwave · 19 Sep 2006 at 23:28

mglover070588 said:
ahh just havn't heard tv called 480i before

Aye it's just a fancy way of saying 640x480 really. Sorry.

Phil99 · 19 Sep 2006 at 23:44

PAL = 576i

The monitor + speakers will be exactly the same price as with a PC if you want to take them in to account with the cost of the 360, so the comparison should always be between 360 & tower.

360 will run at full resolution (1280x720) on a 17" TFT which I imagine is what 90% of PC gamers use.

I don't think there's any point comparing PC:Console really, they're both designed to be used differently so it's almost entirely down to personal preference.

Sports + Driving = Console
FPS = PC (BF just doesn't compare, but still a laugh on XBL)

And games can be had for £20-£25 if you don't mind either waiting for a bit or importing/second hand...can't remember the last time I paid RRP for any game.

Nikumba · 19 Sep 2006 at 23:45

I have both a PC and a 360 and I must admit I play WoW, few RTS on my PC but the majoirty of my gaming is on the 360.

I like the fact I can just put a disk in push one button and the game is running. I like the east of use of Live Marketplace, there is nothing that I am aware offers that ease of use on the PC.

Granted, you can leave your PC on all the time and double click an icon, but you have to worry about patches, patches that fix a bug but render your game saves invalid and that seems to be happening a lot recently.

Several people have said you need a HDTV to get based of a 360 while that is true, I have seen it on my mates 28" tescos widescreen TV and the image quality is fine with the red/white/yellow lead.

You will always have people who say a PC is better or a Console is better, or a pad is better than a keyboard/mouse.

At the end of the day its what people like. Sure I could go out a spend £800 - £900 to upgrade my PC to the latest spec but to what end?

Kimbie

Phil99 · 19 Sep 2006 at 23:48

mglover070588 said:
i was just thinking that my ps2 is 295mhz, and the 360 is 3.2ghz i expected more of a differance as it is tuned for games as its a games console. project gotham3 only looks a little bit nicer than gt4 on my ps2. of course running a 360 in high def is just like cranking up pc resolutions, so i bet games (especially oblivion) will run even worse.

The 360 always renders games at 1280x720 no matter what you output it at - it scales down to SD on 'normal' TVs and up to 1080i depending on what you set it at, so it'll run at the same fps at any setting.

The reason the difference isn't so huge yet is because developers are still getting to grips with the 360 whereas the developers have pretty much mastered the PS2 with games like GT4 & MGS3 which have very impressive graphics for the specification.

Can't wait to see what the future holds for the 360 & PS3 when we start to see some games that really push them