Is the PC entering into a new Golden Era?

l88bastard

l88bastard

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Since the days of Atari 2600 I have been waffling back and fourth between consoles and pcs.

The last time the PC completely stole me away from consoles was the early 90s with the Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Codename Iceman, Red Baron, A-10 Tank Killer, etc, etc games and until now (for me) that just seemed like a bygone era for PC gaming.

For me and my gaming, the consoles have been dominating since the Sega Genisis, Super Nintendo, N64, Sony Playstation, Xbox, Xbox360/PS3. PC did not capture my attention until Grand Theft Auto 3 and Battlefield 1942 in 2001-2002, but those only held me so long until I was sucked back into console land around 2003. I tried to get back into PC gaming in 2007 with a completely new rig, but it just never seemed to have enough power to run the games the way I wanted to run them. Even with top of the line stuff like two 8800 ultras, things just were not fully enjoyable or problem free.... At that time the PC just could not compare to sitting in my lazy boy and gaming with my console on a 120" projection screen.

However, with the release of ATIs 5000 series, PC gaming has completely stole the show for me. Running three dell 20.1 2007fps at 4800x1200 is soo much better than console gaming at 720p on my 120" projector that I have not turned my xbox on in about a month! The selection of PC games is fantastic! I now have Over Flanders Fields and IL2 to satisfy my flight sim cravings, Dirt 2 looks amazing and is awesome fun with an eyefinity triple screen setup, Crysis has never looked or played better than with my 5970 Ocd to 900/1200 and I have not even gotten around to re-discovering some of my old favorites again!

With the PC I have an abundant selection of Joysticks, controllers and racing wheels to boot! It just seems that the sky is the limit with PC gaming because the consoles, no matter how hard they try, just cannot compete with the detail & depth of the PC experience now. Yes I know the consoles are cheaper to use and play, but anybody that has had the fortune of experiencing eyefinity & alternate triple sceening solutions knows exactly what I am talking about. The new PC experience is just sublime and I really hope this kicks off a new golden era, because it certainly feels like the beginning of a beautiful era!
 
When the Core i7 was released there was all sorts of talk about how it wasn't a very good processor for gaming - that's proved to be false. Many games are now being optimized for quad-core processors, and those games just fly on the Core i7's.

The newer GPUs are just staggering - and if DX11 turns out to be one of the better Direct X's (and it looks like that might happen) then we're going to be in for some mind blowing software.

I would say that we're looking at a golden era for the PC right now. I can't remember when hardware has been this powerful.
 
hopefully Ill have an i7 rig by next spring. then..... HELLOOOOOO Battlefield 2.5 ...erm... I mean Bad Company 2. :D
 
l88bastard said:
Boasting about mah uber double 8800 Ultra money burning skillz...

At that time the PC just could not compare to sitting in my lazy boy and gaming with my console on a 120" projection screen.

However, with the release of ATIs 5000 series, PC gaming has completely stole the show for me.

Blah, blah, look at mah uber rig...
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There's your problem right there; lack of any taste or discretion. 1080p cannot ever look good on a 120" screen. Ever. Even if it had 8x AA. Which consoles don't. So stop complaining about your PC's former problems. At least it had something on the order of 10x the pixels per inch that your consoles had.

Oh and by the way...PC games are still glitchy and crashy. Always will be. We just don't care :D
 
jonneymendoza said:
glad i invested on a i7 pc when it first came out
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I'm glad I waited for the Core i7. I was about to buy the Q6600, but I remembered the mistake I made when I bought my previous PC. The single core CPU was on its way out, and instead of waiting another six months for a duo core I bought the single core machine. That shaved a good 18 months off the life of my system.

The Core i7 I have now is an amazing CPU. I was seriously happy with my GTA 4 numbers - we were told that games that would run well on quad-core CPUs would run exceptionally well on Core i7's, and GTA 4 is proof of that.
 
PCs greatest threat to itself comes not from hardware concerns but from software. PC will not be in a golden age until you can insert a disk, go through a reasonable install period, and then play the game.

I have been struggling all night with Batman: Arkham Asylum. After installing a new version of Windows and installing the game via Steam, GfWL prompts me for my product key and then, when entered, tells me it's invalid. Without focusing on my problem, because the last thing I want is to threadjack, why does GfWL ask me for my product key? I was asked for it during install. How many times can you ask someone if they stole something before it's just straight up rude? A reinstall is probably in order, which entails another two hours downloading the game.

At one point, I threw my hands up, tossed MW2 in the xbox and something clicked. This is it. This is why PC gaming is dying/dead/"not in a golden age"/what have you. When you treat people as if they're second-class, they will change whatever they can to be part of the majority again. Nobody likes to be shit on. Some will grind their teeth, blood will rush to their faces, and they will scream and yell about how PC gaming isn't in trouble, hoping that merely their will may change the obvious but the writing's on the wall. PC gaming is indeed still profitable, but that sweeps under the rug a number of deeply alarming facts:

The rate of hardware evolution is almost at a standstill. ATI just released a series of fantastic cards to great fanfare but what, really, is there to do with them? The high end 5's are stright up gaming thoroughbreds but what can't Xfire'd 4's do? Likewise, what is the reasoning for Fermi when even the avid can "settle" for a 260 and still max contemporary games? There are few games being developed indigenously on PC and the ones that are receive little to no marketing in major media outlets. Have you ever seen a S.T.A.L.K.E.R commercial?

PC gamers are treated like criminals. Nerds on forums can (and surely will, knowing this tirade's audience) moralize and chastise those who steal games as rationalizing petty theft but PC gamers are merely adopting a social role, one that has largely been formed for them. If we are treated as criminals anyway, why not reap the benefits of criminal activity? It's tempting, surely, but it confirms the industry's stereotype and fulfills the contrived self-fulfilling prophecy the industry devised in order to transplant PC gaming marketshare to the consoles. I'm sorry if this sounds like a conspiracy theory, it's really nothing so orchestrated and epic, merely numbers and a shuffling of resources. I think what they're doing is intelligent from a business perspective but erodes my hobby.

Tl:dr - PC gaming is dead, at least in the public eye, until it is easy, until it is not looked at in social circles as bordering on criminal (guilt by association - he's a PC gamer, he must be/know a pirate), and until developers stop seeing dollar signs. Developing primarily for consoles may yield a rapid ROI and the numbers will be big but developing for PCs is futureproofing. Getting to know the architecture and what's in the pipeline and how to take advantage of newer graphical features is a wise investment that can't be measured on a spreadsheet. As much as I hate their games, I applaud Valve for not abandoning PC gamers. That's about it.
 
PC technology is entering a golden era.

PC gaming software is entering a nadir.
 
WabeWalker said:
I'm glad I waited for the Core i7. I was about to buy the Q6600, but I remembered the mistake I made when I bought my previous PC. The single core CPU was on its way out, and instead of waiting another six months for a duo core I bought the single core machine. That shaved a good 18 months off the life of my system.

The Core i7 I have now is an amazing CPU. I was seriously happy with my GTA 4 numbers - we were told that games that would run well on quad-core CPUs would run exceptionally well on Core i7's, and GTA 4 is proof of that.
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best thing about a i7 is that we can simply toss in a i9 6 core processor as its fully compatible with the X58 mobo's
 
l88bastard said:
.... At that time the PC just could not compare to sitting in my lazy boy and gaming with my console on a 120" projection screen.
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l88bastard said:
However, with the release of ATIs 5000 series, PC gaming has completely stole the show for me. Running three dell 20.1 2007fps at 4800x1200 is soo much better than console gaming at 720p on my 120" projector that I have not turned my xbox on in about a month!
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Holy crap dude, are you really loaded? I feel like I am a ghetto-gamer after reading this thread.... I am happy to have my meager rig..... my expectations are way lower than yours....:(

I'd love to see your gear in action!!!

As far as what you are saying about PC gaming, I have to agree w the OP who said that the the HW is awesome, but the the software is lagging.
 
firas said:
maybe its waiting for the next generation of consoles to give it a little push.
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It waiting for people to stop buying crap. Why should publishers make decent fun games, when all people want is the next Halo or regurgitated MW2?

Its the same reason music nowadays is shit. Go look at the top 40 hits, or see what torrents are out there. People want crap, so thats where the dollars are, and thats where the publishers will go.
 
Soggy_Popcorn said:
There's your problem right there; lack of any taste or discretion.
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Yeah, he was wrong to enjoy that gaming experience. Next time he'll clear it with you first to make sure its ok.

PCs always go in cycles and right now we've got very advanced hardware but not necessarily the software to back it up. Quad core cpus in general have not been well utilized yet which is why the i7 is just starting to come into its own. On the video card front, that's why eyefinity is so smart- because even if games are lagging behind (which I absolutely think they are), it still opens up something radically new that greatly enhances existing and older games as well. In the past video card manufacturers have been constrained by monitor manufacturers and game developers.
 
WabeWalker said:
When the Core i7 was released there was all sorts of talk about how it wasn't a very good processor for gaming - that's proved to be false.
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Who said that? i7 has significantly higher IPC than both Penryn and Conroe, so what part of i7 would make it "not very good for gaming"?

If you're talking about three+ years back, when quad core processors in general were lower clocked than their dual core siblings, had a much higher TDP, software releases weren't yet focused on multithreading, and the quads were also hugely more expensive, then yes; the value proposition was squarely with the dual core processors.

I'm not sure I think the PC is entering a golden era -- it is certainly less expensive than it ever has been to get into it, and there are still a plethora of titles available, but the development focus has (largely) left the platform. Having said that, the PC still retains most of its inherent advantages compared to consoles, so there are still the same reasons people are going with the PC vs a console.
 
MiG31_Foxhound said:
PCs greatest threat to itself comes not from hardware concerns but from software. PC will not be in a golden age until you can insert a disk, go through a reasonable install period, and then play the game.

I have been struggling all night with Batman: Arkham Asylum. After installing a new version of Windows and installing the game via Steam, GfWL prompts me for my product key and then, when entered, tells me it's invalid. Without focusing on my problem, because the last thing I want is to threadjack, why does GfWL ask me for my product key? I was asked for it during install. How many times can you ask someone if they stole something before it's just straight up rude? A reinstall is probably in order, which entails another two hours downloading the game.
SNIP SNIP SNIP SNIP
Tl:dr - PC gaming is dead, at least in the public eye, until it is easy, until it is not looked at in social circles as bordering on criminal (guilt by association - he's a PC gamer, he must be/know a pirate), and until developers stop seeing dollar signs. Developing primarily for consoles may yield a rapid ROI and the numbers will be big but developing for PCs is futureproofing. Getting to know the architecture and what's in the pipeline and how to take advantage of newer graphical features is a wise investment that can't be measured on a spreadsheet. As much as I hate their games, I applaud Valve for not abandoning PC gamers. That's about it.
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Lol, the first point is so moot. PC gaming has had to deal with one form of copy protection or another since the beginning! Just off the top of my head, F-17 stealth back in 1988 had copy protection on the disk and then you also had to do a plane ID thing using the manual, Out of this world had a friggin clusterfuck code wheel, and the list goes on and on, Kings quest and its random questions from pages in the manual, etc., yadda yadda yadda. If microsoft and sony could get away with it they would have copy protection too....ohhh wait they do, its just not as in your face as the PC because you have a little bit more rights with the pc!

Also, have you ever had an xbox Red RIng on you? At one time I had six xbox 360s on a lan setup for major gaming sessions with friends and each of those xboxs red ringed at least twice! It takes them nearly a month from start to finish to repair a red ringed xbox and have it back to you! So yea your frustrated because of some weird probelm with batman, which can be solved with a little bit of due dillagence but try and go thru red ring hell no less than 12 times! At least with the pc you can fix the problem component yourself and be gaming/porning again within a few hours!
 
Soggy_Popcorn said:
There's your problem right there; lack of any taste or discretion. 1080p cannot ever look good on a 120" screen. Ever. Even if it had 8x AA. Which consoles don't. So stop complaining about your PC's former problems. At least it had something on the order of 10x the pixels per inch that your consoles had.

Oh and by the way...PC games are still glitchy and crashy. Always will be. We just don't care :D
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Ok, well I am not going to personally attack you because that is not allowed. What is allowed is to politely ask you to think before you speak so you won't have to remove your foot from your mouth later.

Yes, I primarily console game on a 120" projector, but what makes you think that I don't have proper 1080P sets, nor tried it on a 1080p set? In addition to my projector, I have two 1080p sets; a 40" Samsung and a 37" Westi, PLUS I have a 2560x1600 gateway XHD monitor that upscales the picture quality of a lesser signal. So I have tried plenty of taste and discretion good sir. PLUS CONSOLE GAMES THAT PLAY AT 1080P ARE REALLY JUST UPSCALED 720P, except for a very small cauldron of games that play 1080p native.

And to stop complaining about my PC problems! Well I had a 680i Striker extreme mobo that was pure crap and made pc life hell, I had the MSI 8800 ultra which had the crappiest factory over clock ever which made the thing an unstable mess until you physically downclocked it. I was an early adopter of Vista 64, which was also a bloody mess of frustration. All those things caused pc gaming to suck major ass in 07 for me and DID NOT allow me to enjoy the pc gaming experience over consoles. However, that is all past and now everything is damn well near perfect, which is the reason for my thread hear that you are in? Where do you get the notion that I am complaing about pc gaming here? If anything this thread was a RAVE!

Rant over.
 
Spare-Flair said:
PC technology is entering a golden era.

PC gaming software is entering a nadir.
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I disagree. There is a very wide and rich selection of excellent PC games from all kinds of generes that consoles just cannot touch.

Gaming quality and selection is just like movie quality and selection. If your movie watching experiences consist solely of just watching over budgeted hollywood crap like transformers 2 and Harry Potter spinoff number seventeen, that come out every summer than you are going to feel very empty.

Yes, PC has its Crysis, and countless mindless arcadey racers and ghetto appealing games and boring stamped out FPS, but if you look and dig deep enough into things that interest you, then you will find the quality PC games which are not overhyped shit piles!

Over Flanders Fields is a perfect example of this. It is an amazing WWI simulator and with the right equiptment you can get lost in it for hours and hours. You will never see a game like OFF on the consoles, the closes you will see is Birds of Prey, but it cannot even touch its PC counterpart IL2-1946.
 
Spare-Flair said:
PC technology is entering a golden era.

PC gaming software is entering a nadir.
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I agree. We have never had more powerful hardware (that's an order of magnitude more powerful than the DX9 hardware in consoles) but we don't have the software except for Crysis to truly push that hardware. With the multiplatform mania, games are developed for the lowest common denominator.
 
Why yes it is. While exclusives are dying for all platforms, you'll still find more on the PC than on the 360 and PS3. Plus the more PC like the consoles become the less I find myself playing them. Why play a "historically" PC genre title on a baseline PC (console) when you can get the full gaming experience on a PC? Especially when a gaming PC no longer breaks the bank.
 
The biggest complaint I have in regards to PC gaming in general even though it is my preferred method of playing is the install/update process. This is very frustrating. Consoles have PC's beat in this regards when it comes to jumping in and playing. Just pop disc in and go. PC install process takes 10 mins then another 10-15 for patching/updating.
 
Halo 2 PC had something that mimicked that by installing only the first level, then taking you into the game while it installs the rest of the game. But no other developer's tried working that into their game.
 
wayreth21 said:
The biggest complaint I have in regards to PC gaming in general even though it is my preferred method of playing is the install/update process. This is very frustrating. Consoles have PC's beat in this regards when it comes to jumping in and playing. Just pop disc in and go. PC install process takes 10 mins then another 10-15 for patching/updating.
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Not if you use Steam. I've converted all but a few of my games over to Steam (usually during sales, I rebuy games I like.) A couple of mouse clicks, and a short time later, the game is on my system, up to date patch-wise, and I can just click and play. Less steps even than a console since my computer stays on. It takes a little more time to download than it would to install from a disc, but if you factor in finding, downloading, and installing patches, then it actually takes less time. My connection is around 25Mbit down, (which is not amazing for cable currently,) and I can install a large game in not much time. I totally thought Steam was garbage when it launched, but it's probably the best thing in PC gaming distribution-wise ever created.
 
J3RK said:
Not if you use Steam. I've converted all but a few of my games over to Steam (usually during sales, I rebuy games I like.) A couple of mouse clicks, and a short time later, the game is on my system, up to date patch-wise, and I can just click and play. Less steps even than a console since my computer stays on. It takes a little more time to download than it would to install from a disc, but if you factor in finding, downloading, and installing patches, then it actually takes less time. My connection is around 25Mbit down, (which is not amazing for cable currently,) and I can install a large game in not much time. I totally thought Steam was garbage when it launched, but it's probably the best thing in PC gaming distribution-wise ever created.
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While this doesn't totally "fix" the pop-in and play that a console has, it does significantly mitigate any installation issues. It's completely painless, which is an improvement over what it once used to be.

To be honest, the biggest issue for PC gaming are the compatibility issues -- i.e. needing certain drivers, needing to look for particular workarounds for configuration-specific issues. For enthusiasts it's no problem, but this is one of the main reasons consoles exist: the game just works.
 
J3RK said:
Not if you use Steam. I've converted all but a few of my games over to Steam (usually during sales, I rebuy games I like.) A couple of mouse clicks, and a short time later, the game is on my system, up to date patch-wise, and I can just click and play. Less steps even than a console since my computer stays on. It takes a little more time to download than it would to install from a disc, but if you factor in finding, downloading, and installing patches, then it actually takes less time. My connection is around 25Mbit down, (which is not amazing for cable currently,) and I can install a large game in not much time. I totally thought Steam was garbage when it launched, but it's probably the best thing in PC gaming distribution-wise ever created.
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These are my thoughts exactly. Steam has hundreds hundredsof games availible (and my credit card number on file). A few clicks, a download that is often faster than a trip to a B&M store and I'm up and running. Many of the games can be had on the cheap, with frequent, deep discounts. Classic games which have been of the shelves for years, only availible through e-bay, most which run almost flawlessly.

If the software side of PC gaming is lagging behind today, I'm hoping the Steam, or something like it, will help the software to flourish again. Namely, that bright indie developers (like id in the early '90s and Valve in the late '90s) will have a way to bring unique, unexpected games to millions of people that would not have seen the light of day in an older developer-publisher-distributor buisness model.
 
quadnad said:
To be honest, the biggest issue for PC gaming are the compatibility issues -- i.e. needing certain drivers, needing to look for particular workarounds for configuration-specific issues. For enthusiasts it's no problem, but this is one of the main reasons consoles exist: the game just works.
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I agree with this. The need to do this has been slowly fading out for a long time, but it is still there. Not quite on the order of hunting down a bad chip on a RAM expansion ISA card, changing jumpers, switching PCI slots, etc. etc. Now it comes down to driver issue, bad OC, or faulty hardware pretty much. (much improved, and the last one being applicable to consoles as well.) Still a long way to go, but we have it pretty good these days.
 
Soggy_Popcorn said:
There's your problem right there; lack of any taste or discretion. 1080p cannot ever look good on a 120" screen. Ever. Even if it had 8x AA. Which consoles don't. So stop complaining about your PC's former problems. At least it had something on the order of 10x the pixels per inch that your consoles had.

Oh and by the way...PC games are still glitchy and crashy. Always will be. We just don't care :D
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Quit talking out your ass about something you know nothing about. Maybe your hobo 120 inch screen looks like ass. I have seen some 109 inch and 146 inch LCD TV's at CES in Vegas that have mind blowing quality to them. Especially the 108 inch Sharp Aquos which had the best color/clarity in a 1080P screen I have ever seen.
 
J3RK said:
I agree with this. The need to do this has been slowly fading out for a long time, but it is still there. Not quite on the order of hunting down a bad chip on a RAM expansion ISA card, changing jumpers, switching PCI slots, etc. etc. Now it comes down to driver issue, bad OC, or faulty hardware pretty much. (much improved, and the last one being applicable to consoles as well.) Still a long way to go, but we have it pretty good these days.
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I remember these days too. So many different standards and APIs made things a PITA. Instead of plug and play we called it plug and pray. In the early days of 3D acceleration you had S3D, Rendition RRedline (anyone remember the V1000E?), 3dfx Glide, OpenGL, Direct3D, and ATi's own 3DRage proprietary API among others. And that's just for graphics. Not withstanding the many different ISA sound cards that you had to configure manually. Although I do miss my Gravis UltraSound...

Now you primarily have Direct3D as your API of choice, with OpenGL all but used today. Barring driver compatibilities, it's just install and go if you meet the game's requirements.

Although nothing really does beat popping in a disc and off you go in a console for the masses, merely for simplicity's sake.

For me, the golden age where you saw far more than incremental improvements in image quality for every new generation of hardware is gone. That ended around 2005-2006 with everything multiplatform now. Gameplay wise, yes there are lots of great games being released. Graphically, things are stuck in a rut.
 
relapse808 said:
Quit talking out your ass about something you know nothing about. Maybe your hobo 120 inch screen looks like ass. I have seen some 109 inch and 146 inch LCD TV's at CES in Vegas that have mind blowing quality to them. Especially the 108 inch Sharp Aquos which had the best color/clarity in a 1080P screen I have ever seen.
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1080p is 1080p is 1080p. I don't like the idea of stretching that few pixels onto 120'' personally, but no doubt it would "meet my standards". Color and clarity might be nice, but 24" monitors display the same amount of pixels. As far as resolution goes, putting 1080p on a 120'' screen is a downgrade BUT I would not kick it out of bed for eating crackers :p
 
quadnad said:
This discussion isn't specific to i7, but multicore processors in general. For example GTA 4, RE 5, Source titles, etc.
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This trend is going to continue as well - games that run well on quads almost always run better on Core i7's. When GTA 4 was released it became evident that the people who were running the game smoothly were mostly Core i7 owners.
 
WabeWalker said:
I did not know that.
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yup now you do. theirs a reason why they brought out the i5's and the smaller socket 1156 mobo's for mainstream users whilst people who are on the 1366 socket mobo's can automaticaly uprade to the 6 core nehalem cpu's
 
quadnad said:
While this doesn't totally "fix" the pop-in and play that a console has, it does significantly mitigate any installation issues. It's completely painless, which is an improvement over what it once used to be.

To be honest, the biggest issue for PC gaming are the compatibility issues -- i.e. needing certain drivers, needing to look for particular workarounds for configuration-specific issues. For enthusiasts it's no problem, but this is one of the main reasons consoles exist: the game just works.
Click to expand...
much like an ipod touch and a iphone, by default without jailbreaking it, "it just works" but by jailbreaking it, you can tweek, customize and unlease its full potential making your device 10x better than it is.

same thing with gaming. yes you can pop in mw2 on your console and play but in pc's you can tweek it to make it look and play alot better than the consoles and for me thats worth it alone to mess around with configues, settings, drivers etc.

nothing like playing a fps game with a keyboard and mouse, 1080p native res and aa and af, far outwaighs what a console can do.

i have always said this, the more simpler something is, the more restricted you are in getting the best out of it. i myself always tend to get stuff that are a bit complex to setup because if you think from a programmers prospective which i am a programmer, a programming language that is more complex gives you much more freedom and ability to carry out something of your intended purpose ie low level programing, whilst high level programing ie something like visual basic, is very simple to use yes but very restrictive in what you can do with it.


edit: toss in mod support for various pc games makes it even more worthwile. have a look at one of the 1000's of mods available for fallout 3.
 
Well, I think sitting at your own computer with all your files and programs is a greater sense of satisfaction than popping a disk into a console that you will never (within the license agreement) get to modify or customize fully. Also, if I go from playing my 360 to a brand new computer, going back to the 360 feels so clunky and crappy. I'm glad my new computer is on the way, since it's been almost 5 years since I've purchased one.

As far as the PC entering a new golden era? Not likely. There are some great exclusive games coming out for PC such as Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2, but it's not enough to convince most people to buy an expensive PC for yet, in my opinion. What I think will personally happen, is that computers will become more and more like consoles (having to start paying for DLC, games costing 60 dollars as well, no dedicated servers... hey wait, that's already happening!) and consoles will start becoming more like PCs (having mice/keyboard for RTS games, etc.) And once the boundaries between consoles and PCs has blended enough, I suspect PCs will win out, due to the large variety and choice involved, however, I think that Operating systems with start adopting to post-Console users, and will most likely have fully navigational menus for use on the TV with controllers, etc. and then the cycle will repeat! Of course, this is just my insane prediction without much proof :)

Anyways, I think PC is and always has been the way to go, provided you have the funds. All my best gaming moments were on a PC, and I've always gone to LAN parties, and hosted mini-LANs with friends, so I never minded the fact the PCs are designed for one person.
 
wayreth21 said:
The biggest complaint I have in regards to PC gaming in general even though it is my preferred method of playing is the install/update process. This is very frustrating. Consoles have PC's beat in this regards when it comes to jumping in and playing. Just pop disc in and go. PC install process takes 10 mins then another 10-15 for patching/updating.
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Come on man. I just got a PS3 (for pretty much the exclusive purpose of playing AC2) and I probably spent at least 5 minutes installing it on there. MGS4 is even worse, plus it installs multiple separate times over the course of the game.

People like to talk about how PC gaming has become more like console gaming, but what they don't realize is that console gaming has become even more like PC gaming.
 
The usual greatness of the PC was somewhat lost over the last few years ever since consoles have become so easy to develop multiplatform games for, we entered the age of lazy "lowest common denomninator" style developing which resulted in all the constraints of a console brought to the PC platform.

I've seen some games recently start taking a turn for the better, the first one that REALLY caught my eye was Need For Speed Shift, this is the latest game in very long franchise which for the last 5-6 iterations has been highly consolised, almost painfully so, mainly lack of graphics options etc.

NFS Shift shines with its correct widescreen with aspect ratio, options for vsync, options for both AA and AF and many other options that just make the PC version seem complete and actually designed with the PC in mind, compared to the complete opposite of the previous games.

Dragon Age recently showed me that at least 1 development studio are willing to give oldschool PC gamers back some of the games they love and make sure multiplatform development doesn't ruin them in the process, DAO is a superb game and never faulters on quality to appeal simply to appeal to more console users.

Dirt 2 being kept back for additional DX11 effects, this is a trend I would like to see continue, we can all wait a few more weeks/months for a game that takes advantage of newer PC technology.
 
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