I found a list of DX10 games here, and can't seem to find anything 'better'. Still, all these games look like games, nothing "zomg photorealistic" yet. (However "World In Conflict" looks pretty nifty :o)
However, looking forward to Alan Wake. I rememeber reading about it agggggess ago, and I had forgotten about it.
screenshots like that are nice, but the fact is you can't get graphics like that without shelling out $700-2000+ for your computer. And it will be obsolete in 2 months requiring $500 more ad infintum.
My computer was above average a year and a half ago, now I can't get more than 60 fps with 2X AA because I don't want to buy yet another gfx card.
What? I haven't upgraded my PC in quite a while, and this 8800GTX has been owned since launch - It still plays everything (Crysis etc) on max. I haven't had to spend $500 every 2 months...
Been a die-hard PC gamer for about 10 years now, but since I bought an Xbox 360 earlier this year, I've bought 12 Xbox 360 games and I haven't bought a single PC game.
As for me, the best platform for fun games to waste time on are consoles, simply because that's what consoles are made for. You put the disc in, no installation, no configuration, just play it. Exactly as it was intended to be played.
I'm not that interested in modding, since I often happen to prefer paid professionals' content in the original game above amateur mods.
However, I do play iRacing, RBR and LFS on this PC, since those would be worthless on a console, because of the lack of CPU power for physics calculation and lack of support for the G25 (except the PS3). I've bought this PC mostly to be able to do HD video editing and audio/music production.
As been said before, the games/sims I do play on my PC are those that have a long life and are in-depth. All other games go straight into my XBox 360 tray.
That must be like being in heaven. You usually have to jump through hoops to get a particular game running smoothly on PC. Granted, after you've installed the game, the latest gfx drivers, sound drivers, new direct x, the latest game patch, done your research on the internet, applied your ingame settings, applied the config tweaks, etc.. you can often have a nicely performing game. But I'm sure there have been times where I've spent more time setting up a game to run properly than actually playing it.
This drama needs to be sorted out, there's just too much work involved in getting games working properly on PC.
Even better, if you want to play with a friend online... you don't have to arrange online meetings etc. Simply select a friend from your list, and select "send game invitation" (or whatever it's called). A few seconds later he'll be in your lobby/game. Same goes for chatting... send an invitation, and a few seconds later you'll be able to talk to each other (i often abuse my xbox as a VOIP telephone to talk to friends, and it's free :razz.
It's rarely quite that simple, normally there's the lengthy install time (someone is going to pipe up with "well, you HAVE to install PS3 games too "), and at least a good few mins going through the graphics / sound options to get a balance between good looks and performance, somet thing you don't have to worry about with a console.
I don't think the process will ever improve to console standards on a PC, simply because of the wide range of components that different people have, unless they start standardizing pc components, however, I doubt that will ever happening, because PC hardware is one of the biggest technology pissing contest's / e-penis enhancing activities there are.
It's more a case of squeezing the best out the games I have. Usually you don't have to go through the whole list of chores, but there have been cases where I have.
Ahaa- add another one... hard drive defragmentation.
As for defragmenting, hmmm.......the xbox360 HDD can become rather clogged at times, and need cleaning up, which means you have to re-download all your DLC / patches
Installation : Fair enough. We know that.
Latest Graphic Drivers : Rarely required. As long as you keep vaguely up to date (I update once every 6 months or so) you'll have no problems.
Sound drivers : Tend to update less frequently anyway, but the above solution will be fine.
DirectX : How often do updates really come out, and aren't they usually supplied with the game itself (but in a secondary installation process).
Latest Game Patch : Fair enough, but some are moving to automatic updates and in-game checks.
Research : Rarely any required.
Applied in game settings : I stuggle to think of a time when I've spent more than 5 minutes on this. Of course, you can spend longer later getting the last few fps out of the game, or balancing important stuff against mere eye-candy. This does apply to consoles to a degree. It takes longer to set up GT4 than it does to perfectly configure LFS.
Config tweaks? : I don't even know what they are, so they can't be that common. Surely you have to apply them to consoles too?
Sure, consoles are a bit easier in this regard (though they're meeting in the middle anyway), but is easier better? Don't you wish in some console games you could trade off, say, unimportant cloud animation against critical draw distance for example. Even the best games have flaws that could be fixed with a little tweaking.
I think this thread just illustrates that comparing PCs and consoles is just comparing apples to oranges. The reason cosole-lovers don't like PC gaming so much is often the reason that PC-lovers *do* prefer PC gaming.
Claiming a console game version of a game is 'worse' because you can't tweak it is like someone claiming a Ferrari is rubbish because you can't fit a family of 5 in it. It's just not aimed at that kind of people, and that kind of person is perfectly catered for in a totally different product. The console-lover will often like the colsole version *because* you don't tweak it.
I have a similar history to the OP, except that I got a job working in an arcade which led to a job doing minor repairs on coin mech's and board changes on tabletop and cabinet games and pinball machines. Electronic gaming has really been in my blood since pre-Space Invader times. I've been using PC's since about early '94. I abandoned consoles about 7 years ago, but I have played from time to time on friend's consoles.
I still prefer the PC for various reasons.
Although it isn't so much of an issue now, console games in the past have been geared mainly towards kids and early teens. That has often meant that the games held little or no appeal to me. I've also never liked many Nintendo games, and that goes back way before Nintendo ever made a console. I still have trouble liking games created by Nintendo.
I despise menus in console games. I think console games don't have enough buttons. I prefer a PC keyboard to a game pad. Apart from these gripes I think consoles have their advantages in some ways, but not many. Perhaps the best thing about consoles is that you plonk yourself down on the couch next to a mate, pick up the controller and hop into some multiplay action within seconds. These days the console games are reasonably portable too.
Boys like gadgets and hardware, and I like to build, upgrade and tweak PCs. Tweaking consoles is fun too, but the limitations are greater.
I do believe that consoles are evolving nicely, but they haven't quite made the grade for this consumer. Lastly, consoles are over-priced, as are console and PC games. Way too expensive for what you get.
Yeah, sure- I actually prefer to have that level of control. It's just with a PC it's easy to go overboard with things like comparing the latest beta drivers, regular virus/spyware/malware scans, gfx benchmarks (very rare for me to do this these days) etc.. I'm the kind of person who if I see new gfx drivers, I'll download and install them just to see if there's a difference (it's stupid I know, but it's a long standing habit). I make more work for myself than probably the average person, although with my new system most things tend to work fairly well out of the box, I don't need to tweak so much.
I also make custom profiles for most of my games with nHancer.
In short, yes definitely I prefer the PC- but I'm also a little envious of the 'press the on button and go' efficiency of consoles.
Indeed. I think the ideal is somewhere in between the two - simplicity and customisability in one. But I'll stick with the PC until Sony makes something that can run GT8 AND Solidworks, for example, within a minute of each other.
Actually Dead Space looks like a cartoon. Where that Crysis screen shot is (almost) photo realistic. So I'm not quite sure what you consider to be "high quality" graphics. But for me it needs to look like real life, as in just like a photo would. None of the screen shots in the thread you link to look even slightly photo realistic.
Another plus point for consoles and that is the ease of availability of games. If I had an XBox, Wii or PS3 I could go down to my local high street and pick up a game, (from all sorts of places, even Woolworths !), with a good chance of finding one that I actually wanted. If I want a PC game, I pretty much have to order it on line or find a major HMV etc retail outlet.
So if you're the kind of person that isn't too worried about best price but just want your game today, consoles have a far better chance of being able to deliver that than the PC.
Despite all that, I'm not interested enough in games to go out and buy a dedicated games console so I'll be sticking with the PC.
Err yeah but the 8800 is not even a mid range card let alone a budget one. It was high end when it came out, (and with a cost to match), and is still pretty high end in terms of actual performance even compared with the latest cards, (the 9xxx and 2xx etc haven't moved the game on all that far from the 88xx series cards).
the only game that I really need to look up for fixes in recent year is TDU.
most games doesn't require you to run on the absolutely newest drivers, usually the ones an year old will do....dunno why you are getting all these problems.