Fed up with PC gaming

Right now I can't get Far Cry to run. I have X24400+ w.X1950 crossfire running the Catalyst drivers from the X1950 install CD. The game just crashes out of 3D mode as soon as the map loads. It doesn't make me want to quit PC gaming but it does piss me off.

I also had a couple pretty stressful days trying to get Half-Life 2 to run without pink and black checkerboard textures everywhere. I bought the CD version on the day the game was released. It would have been fine if I purchased over Steam.

These occasional headaches are worth the much higher quality, immersion, richness, and responsivess of gaming on a PC versus on a console.
 
For a hardcore gamer.. I am very disappointed in your pc specs.. you are only running 1gig of ram. A true hardcore pc gamer would have 2gigs of ram. Upgrade that ram son.
 
I felt like you do about two years ago. Looks like we have very similar PCs according to your signature. I am only excited about very few PC games and COD2 was one of them. Yep, runs like shit on a computer at the time was very powerful although the 7800 had just come out so I was one gen late. The patches never helped any, still runs like shit.

I play most games on consoles now because I can rent them first and sell them for some money if I don't like them.
 
ReubenRosa said:
For a hardcore gamer.. I am very disappointed in your pc specs.. you are only running 1gig of ram. A true hardcore pc gamer would have 2gigs of ram. Upgrade that ram son.

I assume you are speaking to me. It turns out that I forgot to add the 2x in front of my Corsair XMS2. I do have 2gb.
 
Staples said:
I felt like you do about two years ago. Looks like we have very similar PCs according to your signature. I am only excited about very few PC games and COD2 was one of them. Yep, runs like shit on a computer at the time was very powerful although the 7800 had just come out so I was one gen late. The patches never helped any, still runs like shit.

I play most games on consoles now because I can rent them first and sell them for some money if I don't like them.

I don't get the issues with COD2. I ran it @ 1280x1024, 6800 GS, and 1 gig of ram with no issue with 2xAA. And ran it later a second time when I upgraded @ max settings (minus forced AF) and it's never been a problematic game for me.

You have a nice system too, btw.
 
GPUCommando said:
I don't get the issues with COD2. I ran it @ 1280x1024, 6800 GS, and 1 gig of ram with no issue with 2xAA. And ran it later a second time when I upgraded @ max settings (minus forced AF) and it's never been a problematic game for me.

You have a nice system too, btw.
COD2 seems to be a problem limited to the CPU really. And this is scary since I have an Athlon 64 at 2.4GHz. I use fraps and my frame rate is never more than 30fps. It is always somewhere between 29-22 FPS. 29 with on low detail and low lighting and 22 at 1600x1200 with max everything. Maybe it is just me but it is a really strange problem as turning down lighting and shadows should cut down on the CPU usage by a lot.

30fps is good enough but really it is no better than most console games. To top this off, COD2 for Xbox 360 does not have a locked frame rate so most the game runs between 60-40fps.

Even years ago in this forum, lots of people claimed that they played games with 4xAA/16xAF with max everything at some really high resolution. I had the same system setup as these guys and I knew that a game running at those settings would be running like 20fps. Maybe it is many PC gamers who say things are working well when in fact their games are running 20-30fps and they don't even know it.

If this is true, then it would do a ton for explaining why I believe my games run terribly and others think their games are running great. And I am not just looking at the fraps numbers, I can tell the difference between 30 and 50fps like night and day.

I have to admit that I may have never tried to turn down the resolution in COD2 from 1600x1200 but I think that if I hardly saw a difference from extra high to low detail, it most likely would also not make a difference. The only difference I see between my system and many others' is that I have 1GB or RAM. I used to do tests on this some years ago to see if 1GB really ran the game faster than 512MB. The loading times were a lot faster but most games ran exactly the same. So for this reason, I don't think that upgrading to 2GB will really do much. I could be wrong but I only have 2 slots on my motherboard so it is very hard for me to justify spending $230 just to see if it maybe makes a difference.

Even if it was just a problem with this PC,
 
As usual I see the comments about spending a bazillion dollars on PC gaming. I can play everything just fine on my current hardware. It's the obsession with super high-rez/aa/etc that makes for spending lots of money.

s754 A64 3400+ summer this year - $99
Gigabyte PCIe board - January this year - $75
1 GB RAM 2 years ago- $140
x850xt - $110 AR this summer
160GB SATA drive - $7 AR
80GB IDE drive - $20 AR 3-4 years ago
18x DVD burner - $30 last month
4x Pioneer DVD burner (?dunno?)
Case - $70
430w Antec Trupower - $30 AR
Sony FW900 24" CRT - $200

That's $781, many pieces of it from years ago. I could build a similiar PC these days for less than $400 (monitor not included). I could probably do $300 for a similar setup given some patience. AND IT PLAYS GAMES FINE. I can play FEAR combat, Quake 4, etc all at acceptable resolutions. Guild Wars at 1920x1200 maxed. Civ 4 runs great.

I just finished my upgrade cycle and likely won't be spending any money on it for the next 2 years (perhaps some more RAM).

In the last 5-6 years I've spent maybe $1k on computers. It's about on par with what a PS3 will cost you and about the same:D

My PC is for FPS games, RTS games, and TBS games. None of which I find acceptable on a console.

PC gamers on a board like this have a bad case of unecessary upgrade-itis. There's been no need to spend thousands of dollars on a PC since the AMD K6-2 era or so.
 
PoweredBySoy said:
Hmm, that's strange. I seem to get all my games to run smoothly within 5 minutes of install.

I think you're kind of a drama queen and maybe you should go back to Nintendo.

I invite you to play Neverwinter Nights 2

have a nice day with you 4k rig
 
ReubenRosa said:
For a hardcore gamer.. I am very disappointed in your pc specs.. you are only running 1gig of ram. A true hardcore pc gamer would have 2gigs of ram. Upgrade that ram son.

Some people earn more money than others, directly linking PC specs to how hardcore you are is not especially fair. There was a time when I was younger living with just my mum who didn't have much money, I got by on my 56k modem and really bad PC specs and still kicked ass online.

Now a days I sport the fastest single slot video card currently available, run 2Gb of RAM, but only because I can afford it! I don't consider myself anymore "hardcore" now than I was when I was kick ass all those years ago!
 
I agree with you wholeheartedly and thats exactly why I went out an bought a x360, because I was getting fed up with games that were riddled with bugs and needed patching. Granted, I miss my mouse, I do still play CSS and some other PC games on occassion, but I've grown to like consoles more and more over the years. Plus I dont have as much time to put towards gaming, so consoles work better for me, more of that sit down and play and then stop feel, instead of tinker with settings to get it to run right :(.

Perhaps in a year or two I'll come back to PC gaming and see how things have changed ;)
 
I see a lot of people on here try to justify their $2,000 (give or take a thousand) gaming rig saying how they do a lot more then just game!

I'll be honest with you fellas - I use my PC to write papers for school, download MP3s of songs I like (then buy CDs through BMG), surf bodybuilding and gaming forums and watch A2M videos. And that's it!

For that I can use a $50 10 year old PC bought at a garage sale, I don't need two cores to watch porn! lol

$100 PC + $300 core xbox = one happy college student

:p
 
Hulk said:
I see a lot of people on here try to justify their $2,000 (give or take a thousand) gaming rig saying how they do a lot more then just game!

I'll be honest with you fellas - I use my PC to write papers for school, download MP3s of songs I like (then buy CDs through BMG), surf bodybuilding and gaming forums and watch A2M videos. And that's it!

For that I can use a $50 10 year old PC bought at a garage sale, I don't need two cores to watch porn! lol

$100 PC + $300 core xbox = one happy college student

:p

By that logic, there's no reason for anyone to buy something nice. Why get a nice PC when you can have a shitty one? Why get a nice car when you can get one that sorta starts? Same thing, right?
 
Basically.

I was deciding if I should post the following or not, its midnight here and I just finished some school work and just realized that this down here is a little rant. :p

I like to do lots of activities but I also look for [H]ot deals.

For example, I like to do lots of outdoor types of things. My friend spent around $1,000 on a mountain bike, I got one as well but I went to Walmart and spent $300 (thats with tax). During the summer I was on that bike almost every day while my friend only spent a few days riding his. Same with kayaking, I bought a kayak on sale for around $350 when normally others ones cost double that. And it's not that I don't have money to spent on these items, I do, I just think that certain things are a ripoff and certain people don't care - they will pay $625 for a video card or $100,000 for a sports car.
 
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