PC gaming future non existant?

[lovemyPC]

Glad that most people here have sense and it's just the few who are spouting crazy conspiracy theories about payoffs and corporate schemes to destroy PC gaming.

But I don't understand why people are crying the end of PC gaming. If Oems are no longer interested in the market, so much the better. the business goes to boutiques that understand how to build a real gaming PC.

To me the future of PC gaming and gaming PCs in retail can be seen in the partnership of BB and VM. I hope it works out well for them. Once BB sees that those gaming systems sell, they'll invest more time to train their employees better.

 

[Rousdower]

One of the most glaring problems I've noticed is the lack of upgradability. Sure you can pick up that HP Pavilion machine, and it'll even have a slot, but just try to put a decent video card in there. PSU won't handle it. I've noticed that the large OEM machine builders are keen to put a good processor and some decent ram in the box, tout that it's extremely fast and "upgradable" then they put in a 250 watt POS power supply.

Not only that, but the replacement PSU are completely proprietary, very slim pickings, and have tremendous markup, and are never ever in stock. And the buck twenty you shell out for that new PSU will only get you 100 extra watts most of the time.

This is why there is so much trouble. Sure it brings the overall cost of the unit down, but at a huge trade-off. Now your PC is hamstrung to running only low to mid-low video cards (assuming that the necessary slot is available). Very disappointing.

When I was doing direct selling, I'd always be sure to ask the customer about their intentions a few years down the road. If they're a business that needs some video horsepower, then I'll completely dissuade them from purchasing the cheaper models and go for the slightly more expensive ones that have a little headroom for upgrading. Unfortunately, a good portion of the customers are only sold on price and are wary of salesmen actually trying to do them a favor thinking that I'm upselling for upselling sake.

Hopefully some of the larger OEM builders (I'm looking at you, HP) will realize this and accept a few dollars in lost margin and simply include a better PSU in their low - midrange units, thereby making upgrading simply a possibility.

/Rant off.

 

[Mohonri]

I think this can be summed up in a few points:
1) Prices for anything are determined by supply and demand. The reason there are $600 video cards is because there are some people who will buy them.
2) Perception of value drives demand. If BBY or CompUSA or CC or whoever slap the "Extreme Gaming" label on a computer, that computer gains perceived value in the eyes of the customer, in most cases regardless of actual quality.
3) (related to #2) A vast majority of people see little to no value in opting for anything but the very cheapest you can get. And as much as I love to have a powerful computer, they're right (other than having too little RAM). A huge majority will never open their computer case, will never play 'serious' computer games, will never do anything more than internet use, email, and word processing. Because of this, OEMs can afford to scrimp on expansion slots and weak PSUs.

Now, with regards to the whole "Extreme Gaming" on a 5200...people who go for that will likely never know the difference. They haven't done their research, don't know that the 5200 is a low-end card from two (almost three now!) generations ago, and have never had their monitor at a resolution over 1024x768. They certainly haven't gamed at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and 16xAF with all the texture/lighting/shadow/mapping details maxed out. As long as their games will run, they'll be happy, even if it's only at 640x480.

Is it misleading to portray anemic hardware as "Extreme Gaming"? For anyone here (the build-it-yourself, hardware enthusiast, never-enough-resolution, never-enough-framerate, never-enough-detail crowd), the answer is outrage, as we've seen here. But for the rest of the world that doesn't know better, it's not such a big deal.

 

[Zap]

I mean to get what 'we' would call decent performance, it would be a minimum $300 videocard. Add another $150-$200 for the rock solid mobo with sli.

First video card I played FEAR and Q4 on was... [drum roll please] Geforce FX5900XT. Games were installed, didn't even look at graphics options and I was playing. Guy next to me at a LAN party had an SLI setup and spent about 2 hours fiddling with FEAR settings. By the time he was done being satisfied with the framerate and quality, we were going on to play something else.

My gawd, what is with y'all? It's not ATI or Nvidia doing it to you, it is YOU doing it to YOURSELVES! A $100 video card today with a current game already gives more eye candy than a $200 video card and game from a few years ago. Be content and play the damn game! Besides, eye candy is not required to have fun. Last weekend the LAN party I went to had a Jedi Academy tournament (Quake 3 engine) that I won. Also, I bet a dime that if someone went to your computer and turned the color down to 16 bit without you knowing, you would not notice a difference.

Unfortunately, a good portion of the customers are only sold on price and are wary of salesmen actually trying to do them a favor thinking that I'm upselling for upselling sake.

Partially wary of upselling, but really just looking for the low price. Yesterday I was trying to sell an old system of mine that I no longer use. Asking price? $220. Woman didn't buy, saying she was not looking to spend more than $100. My system had a mobile Celeron 1.6GHz (twice cache as desktop Celeron), 1GB PC3200, Asus motherboard with IGP and AGP, etc. A heck of a machine for $220, but regardless she wanted cheaper.

 

[LanPirate1]

He's right. I spend so much money and time getting my rig outfitted with what I think is decent stuff so I can play FEAR, QUAKE4, COD2. And then I go to a lan and everyone is playing older games, mostly because they don't have the hardware. I find lan's are easier on my hardware. Most multiplayer versions of COD2, FEAR, SWBF2, they seem to be faster than the single player versions, no cinematics, less demanding on my rig. Some guy in my clan had dual 78000GTX's and I saw no real difference in gameplay in most of the lan games we played when compared to someone's
X800XL, both at 1280X1024, playing games like UT4K, Farcry, even BF2. Really puts it into perspective for me. I get all jealous that those guys have "SLI" and I don't. Then I pwn them at the lan. It does'nt mean much when you are waiting to respawn!

Let the Big box stores sell crap. We will educate our friends and family based on our experiences and knowledge of pc's. The small speciality stores and internet companies will do well, selling the educated people what they want.

 

[movax]

I love Best Buy. Few years ago, picked up a Sony Vaio on massive open-box sale (only $900 back then!): P4 3.2C, 512MB RAM, 160GB HDD, Radeon 9200. Same rig serves me today (in sig), with upgrades along the way (new case, increased RAM, new PSU, new video card, more HDDs) best investment ever. 3.2Ghz of CPU power won't become obsolete anytime soon...it handles video encoding very happily, and my gaming bottleneck is my gfx card. I could extend the life of this system for at least another year if I managed to find that S478 board that has PCIe on it (if you know where I can get this tell me!), and drop in a 7900/7600. That would last me a LONG while

 

[MrGuvernment]

I love Best Buy. Few years ago, picked up a Sony Vaio on massive open-box sale (only $900 back then!): P4 3.2C, 512MB RAM, 160GB HDD, Radeon 9200. Same rig serves me today (in sig), with upgrades along the way (new case, increased RAM, new PSU, new video card, more HDDs) best investment ever. 3.2Ghz of CPU power won't become obsolete anytime soon...it handles video encoding very happily, and my gaming bottleneck is my gfx card. I could extend the life of this system for at least another year if I managed to find that S478 board that has PCIe on it (if you know where I can get this tell me!), and drop in a 7900/7600. That would last me a LONG while

I think AOpen is the only one who makes a socket 478 PCIe board - but AOpen rep is not that great and i cant find any reviews on the board as i was in the same boat last year.

 

[JOESKURTU]

In thinking about the article:
Once vista comes out the graphics requirements are going to be as such, that even the lamen will realize that they need a better chip to take full advantage of Vista's features. Hopefully this will expand Pc games market as well. Just imagine what DX10 is gonna be capable of.

Man I am getting pissed at companies like UBIsoft. They took our precious Ghost Recon franchise away from PC. They claim they are going to put out another one for PC but you know what? That promise is getting old! That game did not start out as an xbox title! In my opinion this is the bigest let down for the PC platform (companies who used to releease for PC and now only deliver vaporware).

Atleast we have some PC loaylists (ID, Epic, Valve, Microsoft etc).

 

[MrWizard6600]

... 3.2Ghz of CPU power won't become obsolete anytime soon...

no offense (like really none in the slightest) but thats what i mean. "Average Consumer thoughts: 3.2ghz must be good". its the semi education some people at best buy and future shop give you. "higer ghz is better" they dont tell you anything about busses or clock cycles, hell most dont even tell you the diferance between DDR's (i asked a dude at london drugs what the dif between ddr133 and ddr400 is and his answer? "the price").

and yea thats all i mean. give the consumer a mobo that at minimum supports pci-e. and maybe a little overkill on the psu. maybe an extra 50watts. 400 is even ok for some of the less power thursty sli configurations.

The Viao in mentioned in my previos post, it could have supported easy the AGP connection, but instead of the usual glued on brown plastic connector for agp. there was a feild of dots, proving that it coulda been supporting agp, if they had only put another 5mins work into that assembly line.

 

[MrWizard6600]

In thinking about the article:
Once vista comes out the graphics requirements are going to be as such, that even the lamen will realize that they need a better chip to take full advantage of Vista's features. Hopefully this will expand Pc games market as well. Just imagine what DX10 is gonna be capable of. .

DX10 ONE unified shader language. no more differance between shader operations, just one type of shader. that autta improve performance a chunk

Atleast we have some PC loaylists (ID, Epic, Valve, Microsoft etc).

and ea. everyone of there games = ps2 pc and xbox. too bad for nintendo, i always figured them the best most coorpirate responsible company... hope the revolution does good...

 

[AaronP]

DX10 ONE unified shader language. no more differance between shader operations, just one type of shader. that autta improve performance a chunk



and ea. everyone of there games = ps2 pc and xbox. too bad for nintendo, i always figured them the best most coorpirate responsible company... hope the revolution does good...

Yes but their Console counter-parts are always lacking and massively inferior.

 

[MrGuvernment]

The Viao in mentioned in my previos post, it could have supported easy the AGP connection, but instead of the usual glued on brown plastic connector for agp. there was a feild of dots, proving that it coulda been supporting agp, if they had only put another 5mins work into that assembly line.

Had nothing to do with 5 mins works it had to do with saving $$$ to offer a lower cost system. otherwise the cost on the system would of been another $20+ which when added up = thousands for a company.

This way you have to buy the next model up - or next time read the specs on the system to know what your getting.

 

[HmmmDonut]

I haven't exprienced these things at any of the brick and mortor stores. Last time I was at CC they were selling gaming machine with an A64 and a X800XT for $1200. That isn't such a bad deal.
And having spent much of my life on IGP i can tell you that games are playable. New IGP's can handle source. I even got my mother laptop to play battlefield 2 with ati intergrated. It was barely playable but for me anything over 20 is playable. [H]ard members are spoiled pure and simple.

Not only that but most OEM's ship systems now with upgrade slots. I know my old dell 4300 had a AGP slot. Most Brick and mortars' list system specs either on the site.

In the end if the consumer does not have the intellgence to research the product they intend to buy than the deserve to be scammed.

 

[MrWizard6600]

Had nothing to do with 5 mins works it had to do with saving $$$ to offer a lower cost system. otherwise the cost on the system would of been another $20+ which when added up = thousands for a company.

This way you have to buy the next model up - or next time read the specs on the system to know what your getting.

i didnt buy the system lol, dad bought it, i just tried to make it good. not that it wasnt good in the first place i just wanted better. yup.

 

[Stinkfist]

Ok, I think everyone has figured out by now that I work for good ol BB. Anyhow, we have this philosiphy of being a "knowledgable friend." See, the thing is, we dont work on commission, so I'm going to ask a bunch of questions like "What do you want to do with this computer?" and "You said your interested in playing games, do you want to get the best quality experience out of those games?" I hate to break it to you guys, most people have NO INTENTION of playing the latest games at 16x12 and 8x FSAA. Hell, most of the time they get 17 inch flat panels and the extent of what they do with the computer is e-mail, editing digital photos and making home movies so they can send them off to the family. BUT let's say someone is interested in playing the latest and greatest and doesnt know or want to build a computer themselves, then we offer them the high end ATI and nVidia cards AND offer to let our double agents (geek squad) come to their homes and install and show them how to use the system to it's fullest. And you better believe we arent going to let someone buy a computer without an available pci-e with the intention of playing games with any seriousness. The funny thing is we have a pretty good sony vaio system out on an end cap that has built in x300 graphics (radeon x200 xpress) and it actually runs Battlefield 2 on 1024x768 with medium settings JUST FINE, it actually impresses alot of people. Now I know it's not what anyone that visits this forum is looking for, but for most people that's alot better than most offerings and they wont play BF2 enough to ever want to turn the settings up. I guess what I'm saying in all this is maybe next time you visit one of the B&M stores, maybe you should talk to one of the guys in blue and let them show you what system is going to fit what you do, hell we take the case screws off our desktops so we can show the customer EXACTLY what it is they are buying. Maybe then you'll realize that an e-machines t6410 with an A64, 1gb dual channel 3200 and an available pci-e with an add in $500 video card is going to make one hell of a sub $1000 gaming machine, and for that proof I point you in the direction of the [H]'s recent cpu and gpu scaling article.

 

[MrWizard6600]

you gotta read the stuff posted before you....

 

[Stinkfist]

you gotta read the stuff posted before you....

The point I was trying to make is if you go to a B&M store and just pick whatever random computer you want without talking to someone first, then if you dont get what you want dont freaking whine about it. That's why we are here, and I would be pissed if I told someone "You cant play games effectively on that" and then they go bitching about how they cant upgrade the system to play games, that would piss me off. Maybe they should listen to the guys who are actually familiar with the damn things first.

 

[magoo]

PC gaming is alive and well. Dont kid yourself.
What else is going to have the power to give you the excellent graphics in the new ageia demos????? The PPU will breathe new life into the computer game niche.
People are going to drool when they see what games have in store for them.

Yes, it wont be the guy who wants a desktop,monitor and printer for 300 dollars.
But it will be the guy who likes games and just cant deal with XBox or Nintendo.
The titles will be there.
The new PPU may even bring the need for high-end graphics cards down to reality a bit too.

 

[Catweazle]

If PC gaming is 'dying' from the inclusion of integrated graphics in the more budget level name brand reatail systems then it's definitely suffering a long and painful death. That particular problem is one which has plagued consumers for as long as 3D gaming has been around, basically, and PC gaming isn't 'dead' yet as a result. The assumptions made in that interview are bunkum.


The inexperienced consumer goes to buy "a computer" and later finds out that it won't handle the games which they'd like to play now that they have "a computer" and it's simply part of the learning curve. From that point they either don't run games or they make sure the next system they buy is more capable. First thing they'll find out when they ask questions about why the system won't play the game they're trying to run is that a better graphics card actually needs a graphics card slot!

If the next system purchased is 'only' a 6600GT system then bully! At least they've advanced a bit. Bulldust to the suggestions that a 6600GT won't run games. It will! It just won't run them as well as a cutting edge card would. And there ARE better systems to be bought pre-assembled. At Australian PC User we never seem to be short of highly capable gaming systems when we feature those in review articles. The consumer needs only to go look for themselves, rather than relying on the salesman to tell him what is available for purchase.


The fact that the first PC 'Mum and Dad' purchase often proves to be inadequate for the games 'Junior' wants to play has been a problem for years. and it's a probably that's easily overcome. If PC gaming is 'under threat' from anything hardware related it's more likely to be the notion spread by hardware 'enthusiasts' that modern games specifically NEED the latest, greatest and most expensive in hardware in order that people can run them. PC gaming has ALWAYS demanded a bit more in hardware than the average entry level consumer system, but not everybody NEEDS to play any particular game at it's maximum settings for graphics.


PC gaming does seem to have a much cloudier future than it did several years back. But that's only because PC gaming has become much more of a 'niche' activity within the overall field of video gaming, which focusses upon a narrower variety of games.

 

[dualblade]

i think that OEM systems satisfy 99% of the people who are actually buying them. dad buys the system, son wants to play the games. dad's the one who's spending the money, and he's not going to spend more of it so his son can play games. OEM's realize that and build their systems accordingly (although i would like to see all systems come with a slot to upgrade the graphics should son save up some allowance).

i build computers for people all the time, and out of probably 50 systems that i've built, 2 got an actual video card. none of these people plan to play any games, so something like a geforce 6150 is a perfect solution - if they do some light gaming it'll do the job, and it hardware accelerates video playback (something that most people do use). to put an extra $150 into a system that people will never actually use is wasteful and a bad decision. all of my systems have a pci-e slot so if someone does want to upgrade then it's really easy.

 

[Zap]

not everybody NEEDS to play any particular game at it's maximum settings for graphics.

What's that sound?

That's the sound of someone's bubble bursting here on the forums.

Anyone ever see people at LAN parties with awesome video cards, perhaps even SLI... with a 17" or 19" LCD limited to 1280x1024?

 

[sirsnits]

the pc world will defeat the consoles as of today... and forever, the reason i sold my xbox (original) was because the lack of shader support, no antialiasing and low resolution.
i might get a ps3 or revolution...certain games u can only play on console. but as far is i can see... consoles are slowly transforming in to personal computers...
IE: online support, usb support, hard and sofware upgrades, downloads...on and on.

 

[Catweazle]

What's that sound?

That's the sound of someone's bubble bursting here on the forums.

Anyone ever see people at LAN parties with awesome video cards, perhaps even SLI... with a 17" or 19" LCD limited to 1280x1024?

I'm not sure that LANning is such a good example, to tell the truth. I know of quite a lot of people who maintain a machine specifically for LANning, which is lighter than their main system and on which they game at considerably lower detail levels than they'd normally do at home. I'm not sure just how 'typical' such an approach is, however.

When you examine more general indications, though, you get a rather clear picture emerge. I've written elsewhere:

Go take a 'reality check' before you spend that hard-earned! Have a look at what people actually USE rather than being confounded into thinking that other people must be all using the new stuff we constantly read about. The latest Steam survey figures, for example, indicate that the top 5 gaming cards in use, in order of how many people have them, are:

* Nvidia 6600 series
* Radeon 9600 series
* Nvidia 6800 series
* Radeon 9800 series
* Radeon X800 series.

Compared to what most people actually use, the stuff we read about a year ago is 'cutting edge'! Half of all the people providing stats to Steam game at 1024x768!

Even when we look at the profile of tech enthusiasts a similar picture emerges. Amongst a website enthusiast community such as H[ard]Forum, for example, almost half of all members use a 6600 or 6800 series card. Less than 30% have a 7800 or better card, and less than 2% use an X1800 or better variant.

It's not really a major expense which is needed to turn a basic PC into one which is capable of running PC games. For about $AU200 to $AU300 (about $US142 to $US213) one can purchase a capable display card, and matched up with a reasonably capable processor and an adequate amount of RAM that constitutes a 'Games system'. The 'average' system reached an adequate level of processing power a couple of years back now, and basically all new systems with a graphics card slot can be cheaply converted to a suitable level of capability.

 

[MrWizard6600]

the pc world will defeat the consoles as of today... and forever, the reason i sold my xbox (original) was because the lack of shader support, no antialiasing and low resolution.
i might get a ps3 or revolution...certain games u can only play on console. but as far is i can see... consoles are slowly transforming in to personal computers...
IE: online support, usb support, hard and sofware upgrades, downloads...on and on.

emulater my friend. emulator. there out there for every system. you may have connect to china to get em but they're there.

plus i mean i was in your situation, cept a lil different. NGC. had one, still do, with a little dust on it. got pro at nightfire, agent under fire, that other bond one, most bond games as far back as 007Golden eye for N64 (first 64 bit processer my ass). yea and as soon as i saw my friend playing CS i was like "WOA, this RULES!" 1600X1200 with no AA and no AS, owns any ammount of AA and AS on HD tv res (1000X800) and reg tv res (640X480). this was of couse, before counter strike source. which i play now. in cal. and do pretty good. not like Shaguar good but pretty good.

and thats only one point. the mouse and keyboard is soooo much better then a controller. you just cant get the fine-ness of a mouse with an anolog stick.

PC > console. but then also more versitile, and also more (alot more) expensive.

 

[MrWizard6600]

It's not really a major expense which is needed to turn a basic PC into one which is capable of running PC games. For about $AU200 to $AU300 (about $US142 to $US213) one can purchase a capable display card, and matched up with a reasonably capable processor and an adequate amount of RAM that constitutes a 'Games system'. The 'average' system reached an adequate level of processing power a couple of years back now, and basically all new systems with a graphics card slot can be cheaply converted to a suitable level of capability.

$240(CDN) for a new video card? ionno. thats like 6800 levels. for $150 you can get a 6600GT, which yea, can run every game out there, i have one (makes me part of the 50% huh) and i can go at 1200X1000, with max quality, and a little AA, but then i dont mind gaming at 30fps.

but then yea, i honistly think that it cant really get much better then the 8 series. i mean, nvidia is going to intigrate physics into etther there new chipset (nforce 6) or there new gfx card series, probibly the card series cuz people with nforce 5 arnt gonna al be gamers. on the other hand they could do like a Nforce 5, Nforce 5 sli, and Nforce 5 sli ultra (ultra includes the physics) anywho im rambling...

my point is ATI and Nvidia have done more progressing of technology in the last few years then the actual game script has. its all done in 3d studio max and Rhino, with a little C++, and SM3 thrown in, so really to make a high quality game all the people producing it need to do is add more time into producing it! like iv mentioned in previous posts, when we get the abillity to calculate radicals (create real curves) then we will need like 1Tb (terabyte) on board mem, and we will see some truly life like graphics, oh yea and texturing needs to be improved.

so yea were nearing the peak of gfx, at least in my opinion, but hey, bill gates once said the most we would ever need is 604 mb of memory. i have 1024, and lots of people have 2048. and i think pretty soon the DDR400 2gb single stick is gonna arrive.

 

[MrGuvernment]

The point I was trying to make is if you go to a B&M store and just pick whatever random computer you want without talking to someone first, then if you dont get what you want dont freaking whine about it. That's why we are here, and I would be pissed if I told someone "You cant play games effectively on that" and then they go bitching about how they cant upgrade the system to play games, that would piss me off. Maybe they should listen to the guys who are actually familiar with the damn things first.

hell we.......

I dont think you can speak for all BB employee's, myslef like MANY here have over heard many BB and B&M employee's trying to "sweet talk" someone into buying a computer, claiming everything is the BEST ON THE MARKET!!! when they are %110 full of it, this is why BB and other B&M stores have bad rep's - from people's actual experiences.

 

[DJ_007]

this is coming from someone who has owned every console untill the Xbox 360.. and i will purchase no more consoles.. i know PC gaming is much more expensive especially to keep up high resolution and high graphics however i also do video editing on my computer therefore i make money wiht my PC also so i find my PC much more usefull than a console.. and if nothing else the next gen consoles are nothing more than stupid computers.. and they will do nothing more than get more and more like computers... like everyone else has said they already have hardware and software upgrades as well as downloadable content... i see "PC" gaming out lasting console gaming simply because consoles are becoming computers in many respects... like the x box for example if you didnt know better and you just had the guts layin on a table you would swear its a computer .. it has a HDD.. disc drive... mobo.. and looks like onboard video... whichi it is.... so really they wont defeat each other rather they will become one...