PC vs 360

[Darkwave]

PAL = 576i

Thanks. I knew I was quoting NTSC LOL.

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.

Ah, but then comes the age-old argument by the Xbox 360 people that they can "play from the comfort of their couch, not at a desk." In which case a 17" or 19" TFT would be far too small.

I play my games at my desk with a keyboard and mouse, as I imagine almost all PC gamers do with a few exceptions, so a 16x10 19" 900p display is more than adequate for me and still gives a sharper picture than an Xbox 360 in any resolution as native 900p looks far sharper than 720p upscaled to 1080i does.

The 360 always renders games at 1280x720 no matter what you output it at - it scales down to SD PAL 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.

Scaling down to 576i = 576i though, it's not like it makes the lines half as thick, it just squishes it to fit. Same with upscaling from 720p to 1080i, it doesn't magically make the lines half as thin, it just stretches it which is why PS3 people preach native 1080i to no end.

Also, as an aside; Does the lack of anisotropic filtering in Oblivion not just annoy the hell out of you?

 

[Mark A]

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

Yep thats the first thing i noticed, its ridiculously loud whereas my PC is very quiet. I have to have the volume down at night and the fan is too noisy to the point where it does my head in. I hope the PS3 is quieter.

Games are not too bad cost wise if you get them off ebay, i just picked up Saints Row for £30 . Still more than a PC game but i could sell it on ebay for maybe £28 in a months or so time when I'm bored of it, so don't loose much.

I don't agree that there is quality title after quality title released on the 360, but thats a matter of taste. For me there are probably more quality releases on the PC than on the 360. I'm looking forward to Resident Evil 5 on the 360 and also Alan Wake looks interesting.

How much better do the GFX look when going from 640x480 CRT TV to HD on an LCD TV?. I was having a look at Saints Row today and it looked like the gfx would look OK if there weren't jaggies everywhere.

 

[sc(+)pe]

hmmm PC vs 360.

You could aswell say PC vs Any console.

What is the measuring stick of what is better?

The problem is, its personal preference and there is no diffinitive answer. You can justify this and that for either the consoles or pc but it doesn't make you any more right than the guy who has the opposite view of yourself.

Enjoy technology for what it is and stop trying to justify the money you have just spent.

 

[Phil99]

Scaling down to 576i = 576i though, it's not like it makes the lines half as thick, it just squishes it to fit. Same with upscaling from 720p to 1080i, it doesn't magically make the lines half as thin, it just stretches it which is why PS3 people preach native 1080i to no end.

Was just saying about the frames per second issue, I thought mglover070588 was thinking that if you put the 360 on a HD capable monitor and run it at a higher res games like Oblivion will run at a lower fps than you see on a standard TV

Unfortunately PGR3 is awful at scaling but all the other games I've played look fine scaled down.

Also, as an aside; Does the lack of anisotropic filtering in Oblivion not just annoy the hell out of you?

Not my kinda game & have never played it on 360 so can't comment on that one I'm afraid.

 

[Darkwave]

Was just saying about the frames per second issue, I thought mglover070588 was thinking that if you put the 360 on a HD capable monitor and run it at a higher res games like Oblivion will run at a lower fps than you see on a standard TV

Unfortunately PGR3 is awful at scaling but all the other games I've played look fine scaled down.

Ah, I know what you mean now. I've never actually seen the Xbox 360 playing in SDTV resolutions, I think such a thing would be a complete waste considering the price of and equipment inside the console itself.

OT: I was just told that the Wii will not have 720p or 1080i/1080p support. I hope I am having my leg pulled.

 

[OpenToSuggestions]

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.

I agree, but i didn't have the wow factor I had when I had a ps2 from psx, and with the xbox compared to the ps2. the 360 is nearing a year old now and only virtia tennis has looked next gen to me. by the time the ps2 was this old I was wowing gt3 that said, they are clearly holding halo3 back until ps3 is out and maybe halo3 will be the wow game that makes you buy a 360, just like gta3 did with ps2 also doesn't the 360 only utilise 1 core at the mo?? so maybe then we will see improvement in games, yet on the other hand no pc games (that I can think of) use the dual core capabilities of my pc so the arguement sorta cancels itself out

 

[NokkonWud]

My PC is faster than any console.

And it always will be.

Nuff said.

But at what cost? Your graphics card, motherboard, processor and memory cost more than all 3 next generation consoles combined with games!

I have a Xbox360 and haven't been off it a whole lot, it's a fantastic games console. Infact, I can't really remember the last PC game I played for longer than an hour since December 2nd.
My current PC is no slouch either: Asus P5W DH Deluxe, Intel Conroe 6600 (@ 3.0), 2gb GSkill HZ 6400, WD Raptor 36gb (w/ 16mb Cache) and there are games I couldn't run on my PC that I can on my Xbox360 (PGR3, TDU, Dead Rising), but I refuse to limit myself to any one format.

Both are fantastic, but if you want fun games then it would have to be the 360 at the moment as the last 'great' game to be released on the PC was 'Fahrenheit' over 18 months ago. Of course, thats just my opinion.

 

[Darkwave]

But at what cost? Your graphics card, motherboard, processor and memory cost more than all 3 next generation consoles combined with games!

I still don't understand why people say this, my entire system costed £800 with monitor and speakers included. My mate bought an Xbox 360 and a 720p LCDTV for it and it costed... £800. The difference being he can't use a mouse, keyboard, or anisotropic filtering and I can (and a lot of non-game related stuff.)

But of course, then people reply with "but you don't need a 720p display." Well I can build a PC that can play Oblivion maxed in 640x480 (with anisotropic filtering and mods) with TV-out for £200 or less too.

 

[Final8y]

I agree, but i didn't have the wow factor I had when I had a ps2 from psx, and with the xbox compared to the ps2. the 360 is nearing a year old now and only virtia tennis has looked next gen to me. by the time the ps2 was this old I was wowing gt3 that said, they are clearly holding halo3 back until ps3 is out and maybe halo3 will be the wow game that makes you buy a 360, just like gta3 did with ps2 also doesn't the 360 only utilise 1 core at the mo?? so maybe then we will see improvement in games, yet on the other hand no pc games (that I can think of) use the dual core capabilities of my pc so the arguement sorta cancels itself out

Oblivion & quake4 have dualcore support on the pc.

 

[Darkwave]

A short list of games with dual-core support: -

Age Of Empires III
Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2: Special Forces
Black & White 2
Call Of Duty 2
City Of Villains
F.E.A.R.
Peter Jackson’s King Kong
Quake 4
Quake 5 (promised)
Serious Sam 2
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Movies
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3
Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
Vangauard Saga Of Heroes
World Of Warcraft

 

[Gandalf501]

Hmmm... xBox 360.... Hmmm. Microsoft.... Hmmm, Direct X in a box... No thanks, I have a PC already with Direct X... I wouldn't dream of buying an xbox 360, when I already have one tucked away in my PC already...

Now if you said PC vs PS3, then thats a different kettle of fish all together.

 

[dustiestrat]

the reasonyou have to count monitor,keyboard,mouse and speakers when comparing price with 360 is because u cant run just the tower to play you need all those components u tell me one person who doesnt already own at least one tv in there house ? all you do pay your straight £200 for 360 go home plug in and play u get controller with it.
also the whole keyboard and mouse over joypad is a pointless argument to since microsoft said there gonna sell 360 keyboard and mouse for the console .

 

[Phil99]

Hmmm... xBox 360.... Hmmm. Microsoft.... Hmmm, Direct X in a box... No thanks, I have a PC already with Direct X... I wouldn't dream of buying an xbox 360, when I already have one tucked away in my PC already...

Now if you said PC vs PS3, then thats a different kettle of fish all together.

Can we all assume this is a very poor attempt at sarcasm?

If the 360 is a clone of the PC (which you seem to imply?), where's PGR3, Burnout Revenge, Saints Row etc for PC?

The real differences aren't in how the games are coded, it's how they're presented, played and ultimately if they're even available on a particular platform at all.

 

[DaveyD]

...
Now if you said PC vs PS3, then thats a different kettle of fish all together.

Why?

 

[Raumarik]

I bought an XBox 360 back at the end of June, I had been a dedicated PC gamer for several years mostly playing online games:

Ultima Online
Counter Strike
Unreal Tournament
Quake 1/2/3
HL TFC
HL DM
Dark Age of Camelot
Eve Online

Those are the main games I played but I have to admit I have no regrets to getting a 360 and ditching my PC. Many people will argue that the PC is more powerful than the 360, true if you pay for it. My own PC was about on par with it but I still think the 360 wins by leaps and bounds. I'm no fan boy and I certainly have no brand loyalty, at the moment I just know that the 360 is better. If you want a PC that can play games smoother and with greater ease you're going to have to fork out a lot more than the price of a 360 console. I was facing a rather huge bill to upgrade my PC if I'd kept it another 6 months or I wouldn't be able to play the latest games as a decent resolution and with a reasonable frame rate. I don't have these worries with the 360, slam the disk in, it'll update/patch if needed and off I go and play. No worries, no messing about and best of all everyone is using the same hardware, so nobody has an advantage... *cough* Nostromo *cough*

I prefer FPS on the PC, most MMORPGs simply wouldn't work on the 360 but I do think it excels in terms of pure fun and enjoyment. Unlike PC players of Test Drive Unlimited, we don't have to worry about our frame rate or whether the chap we're racing has hacked his saved game... you know it's going to happen on the PC.

 

[devilkazuya]

A short list of games with dual-core support: -


Quake 4
Quake 5 (promised)

errr, where did Quake 5 get announced? Got a source?

 

[Raumarik]

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

No its for the people who use their PC for work, e-mail etc and simply can't be bothered chasing updates for the game, OS, graphics card etc.

Nothing casual gaming there. It's about wanting a system that works when you want to use it.

 

[Gandalf501]

Can we all assume this is a very poor attempt at sarcasm?

If the 360 is a clone of the PC (which you seem to imply?), where's PGR3, Burnout Revenge, Saints Row etc for PC?

The real differences aren't in how the games are coded, it's how they're presented, played and ultimately if they're even available on a particular platform at all.

Feel free to assume. But you would be wrong. Im not being sarcastic. The xbox was built around Direct X. Hence the name of the product. X-Box. Considering that the Direct-XBox 360 will not be able to upgrade to Dx10, then by the time vista arrives, your Direct-Xbox will be last generation...

I diasgree with you. A poorly coded game impacts on the presentation, it impacts on how you can play it. A straight port of a game, without additional coding for the target platform can also result in a poor experience. Coding is important, without coding you wouldnt have any game at all, regardless of platform.

 

[Gandalf501]

Why?

Windows XP, Vista - Made by Microsoft. Played on Direct X
X-Box, X-Box 360 - Made by Microsoft. Played on Direct X (or variation)

Playstation - Made by Sony...

 

[DaveyD]

Windows XP, Vista - Made by Microsoft. Played on Direct X
X-Box, X-Box 360 - Made by Microsoft. Played on Direct X (or variation)

Playstation - Made by Sony...

That's still not a good reason. Sony will have their own DirectX style equivalent system, and in the end, it's just another console, with similar power to the 360, and pretty much the same technical capabilites.