Oh how i miss the old days of PC gaming.

[Jingo]

I picked up gta4 on the cheap from steam, and despite having a nice system the performance of the game is shocking.

I certainly can't be bottomed to fiddle and finely tweak settings etc as the pleasure in gaming for me is derived from being able to fire up some escapist fun for short periods.

Xbox = turn it on, pick up controller, games play as they should.

That's my opinion on what might seem to be the future of PC gaming, although it's certainly not all bad; L4D, TF2 and other steam multiplayers are still very enjoyable (if only I had more spare time!)

[Garp]

"Good old days of PC Gaming"? When were they then

For as long as I remember there have always been hassles with gaming on the PC, you pay the price for better graphics and superior control interface.

I hate to think how many hours I spent grappling with memmaker, qemm386 etc. trying to break 600k of free base memory just so I could play Frontier: Elite II. In those days you had to know your hardware intimately, how sound cards were configured etc. etc. because you had to set them up (usually by invoking a separate config file).

Eventually DirectX and OpenGL came along and all of a sudden devs found their lives a lot easier and gamers could breath a little easier too. No more faffing about with crap.

But along with that games have been getting more and more complex and what the average gamer wants has changed. We want freedom, we want choice, we want to do what we want to do and not necessarily what the game maker wants. Game testing is a nightmare these days, because there is nothing you can do to replicate what end users might do. Games are so complex they even fail to run properly on games consoles too at times.

[Justsomebloke]

I Love my pc.

[NokkonWud]

Originally Posted by Streeteh

Graphics really don't bother me, it's the price that keeps luring me back onto the PC.

I'd go console every time, sure it's £40 new (although BioShock 2 Rapture edition was only £30 new on Xbox360 from Zavvi), but you can sell your games on, often for 3/4's the price, so it's actually cheaper, you don't get those stupid PC bugs and they just *work*.

I don't miss the days of PC gaming at all. Drivers, updates etc.. all feel like a thing of the past. This generation consoles really have kicked on and for what I get I'd rather pay that money every day of the week over the cheaper (and quite often, inferior) version on the PC.

[divine]

Originally Posted by Jingo

I picked up gta4 on the cheap from steam, and despite having a nice system the performance of the game is shocking.

There are two caveats to GTA 4s performance:

1 - it was a lazy port that didn't have a great deal of effort put into it and the way it tries to render things is somewhat arse backwards compared to other PC games so it cannot always take proper advantage of PC hardware.

2 - it looks vastly better than the console version, if you ran it at the same sort of settings it used for the consoles, it will run a surprising amount faster. It does really like a quad though (even a slow one), as it was designed to make use of the multicore CPUs in the consoles.

[Will]

Originally Posted by Jonny69

I like modern pc's because I don't have to press the Turbo button to play Sopwith

I liked the Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe.

I still think I have a copy of Monkey Island 1 on 5.25 floppies somewhere too!

I still think having to set up your config.sys and autoexec.bat with different modules into low and/or high memory was awesome fun!

[Justsomebloke]

Originally Posted by Will

I still think having to set up your config.sys and autoexec.bat with different modules into low and/or high memory was awesome fun!

I have to admit that my PC is my Hobby & I Love messing/Tweaking it it's just what I like doing.
My console is for Forza 3 & I am Loving that as much as BF2. They are two completely different set ups though & Both have a Big part in my life.
I tweak Forza 3 More than I tweak my PC that's for sure.
I feel privileged to have Both systems running Perfectly though & I know I get the best for me from them both.

[Belmit]

The only thing I miss from my PC days is the control system. I'm very happy these days to do without having to update drivers, patch games, try different resolutions and getting random crashes etc. but having played HL2 on both PC and console it does make me long for the old mouse and keyboard combo.

Plug and play gaming is a decent enough compromise though I guess.

[Treefrog]

Originally Posted by Mark

Totally agree with you on that last point. My last purchase of anything 'current generation' (at the time) was a Radeon 3850 - and that was forced due to not owning any PCI-e cards and wanting an HDMI-capable card to keep future options open. I recall that being about £100 too, and it still does everything I need it for (admittedly that doesn't include gaming).

That X850 I bought off you is still doing well
I was checking out GPUs @ hardwaresecrets.com and was pleasantly surprised at just how good it is! I'd need a 3850 or 4850 to get any worthwhile improvement in data throughput.
Thanks again and if you plan on upgrading from the 3850 in the future I may well be interested

Entropia is bugfix after glitch after update after 'undocumented feature' and I know it annoys a lot of other players there too. it does seem that everything now is more focussed on graphics rather than gameplay. The gfx are nice but you can only look at the scenery for so long ...

Gameplay ftw!

[Briggykins]

Originally Posted by Belmit

The only thing I miss from my PC days is the control system. I'm very happy these days to do without having to update drivers, patch games, try different resolutions and getting random crashes etc. but having played HL2 on both PC and console it does make me long for the old mouse and keyboard combo.

This is also the case for me. While I can't really say I've ever had a major problem getting a game working since probably Direct X 3, it's undoubtedly true that console gaming is much easier to get going. But I'm so welded to a mouse and keyboard that I just can't play my usual games on a gamepad (though I'm not saying it's impossible - I'm sure there are a great many console players who would destroy me even without a keyboard). So when PC gaming finally goes under, as unfortunately I'm sure it will, I'll be one of those clinging to the wreckage.
That said though, I didn't realise how much fun race games were until I started playing them on the console. Horses for courses I guess.