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RAM is dirt cheap these days.

Catyrpelius wrote:As for a $600 decent gameing rig that will last you awhile..... If you built yourself a top of the line gameing PC right now with the best parts currently on the market 3 years from now it would struggle to play a new game on low settings. Gameing rigs have a usefull lifespan of 3 years, 1.5 to 2 years if you like better quality graphics.

Really? My 3.5 year old rig still plays anything I throw at it on high to highest settings without any issues. I don't forsee anything coming out this year that will pose that much of a challenge. Your statement was true about 5-6 years ago but gaming and pc hardware development have started to stall. It's going to take another breakthrough of sorts in technology for things to start going massivly obsolete again.

If your running a 3.5 year old rig your not running at or near the high or highest settings on new and future release games. A 3.5 year old video card is not Directx 11 compatible. Sorry to rain on your parade.

If you are running a game that was designed to utilize DX11, on a video card that does not fully support DX11 you cant utilize most of the high end features.

Only cheap memory is cheap right now..

The only thing that isn't that old is my video card that I got for 35 bucks. Directx 11 isn't that widely used and regardless of what you want to think, it is possible to run games if you have the proper set up and build the machine yourself. You can save a ton of money doing this, especially if you already own the license to your os and just toss it on the new computer.

I own a gaming PC. If you buy the parts separate from different manufacturers/ companies and build the PC yourself it costs a lot less than if you buy from a company like Dell (or sites like Ibuypower etc).

You just need to be informed on what you're doing while you build your PC, because if you miss something it can end up exploding the machine and you face will get lacerated from metal and plastic bits so badly that people will think you were attacked by a thousand killer bees with rending knives instead of stingers.

Cheese Elemental wrote:

Yak9UT wrote:If it was 13 years ago then I would go for the Console due to the fact its cheap and is meant for multiplayer. But these days I would go with PC because consoles have gone down hill since they have limited Multiplayer games.

What? Xbox Live and PSN made online console gaming great. PC multiplayer is all well and good, but there's a lot of hacking and piracy nowadays. You don't nearly as much of that on consoles.

But consoles tend to have the problem that some games dont have dedicated servers and I live in Australia and you can only go on to American servers making for bad lag. Besides Xbox Live you have to pay for unlike PC

Yak9UT wrote:

Cheese Elemental wrote:

Yak9UT wrote:If it was 13 years ago then I would go for the Console due to the fact its cheap and is meant for multiplayer. But these days I would go with PC because consoles have gone down hill since they have limited Multiplayer games.

What? Xbox Live and PSN made online console gaming great. PC multiplayer is all well and good, but there's a lot of hacking and piracy nowadays. You don't nearly as much of that on consoles.

But consoles tend to have the problem that some games dont have dedicated servers and I live in Australia and you can only go on to American servers making for bad lag.

Dead wrong. XBL (or at least matchmaking in most games) prioritises hosts in the same country. I hardly ever get a bad connection because I hardly ever connect to foreign hosts.

Yak9UT wrote: Besides Xbox Live you have to pay for unlike PC

It's a trivial price, and cheaper than, say, buying games off Steam.

Steam games cost the same as their boxed cousins. Less with deals.

The main problem with XBL is not the price, but the fact that you're paying for nothing. There are no servers to manage or moniter, the money gained through XBL is pure profit. You're basically paying extra to use your own internet connection.

The AA doesnt bother me too much. A lot of the games look really nifty without it on the PS3. The only RTS I've enjoyed on the PS3 is RA3 so, I'm not totally against the PC.

FPS's on the PC are fine and amazing in some cases as they can get mods, but anybody with any know-how can get them on the consoles.

I just prefer the consoles with a FPS. Also, its almost impossible to find good single player games anymore on the PC. Sometimes I just want to play alone you know.

Also, PS3 discs come with an anti-scratch layer. PC's have yet to do that.

But that doesn't really matter when you only have to use the disk once. Hell, you don't even need the disk, really, so long as you have the CD-key, you can just download the installer.

Xbox Live is an awsome service and is worth paying for IMO, its more then just online multiplayer.

No one is going to win or loose the "great strugle", each meadium has its place. The PC is where it all began, its also the place where you see most developers pushing the envelope, thats why you see big leaps in requirements for PC games, think Far Cry and then Oblivion. Its hard to make PC games run right over the large veriaty of PCs that are out there. The same manunfacuter has to write a game that will run correctly on someones $35 video card and my 5970. Its relivtly easy to create a video gmae for a console, they can be written relativly quickly and ten to have fewer bugs in them. Thats why there are a ton of games out for every console.

Me, I currently own a gameing PC, a 360 and a Wii. I play completly different things on them. On the PC I play the super big names that I want to experiance in all their glory, Oblivion, Fall Out 3, New Vegas, Starcraft 2... On the 360 I play all of the great console specific games they are comeing out with. On the Wii I play all the neat games they have. Every gameing device has it place, with the possible exception of the PSP....No PC or console is ever going to win.

I agree that both PC games and Consoles have a place. I still definitely prefer strategy (both RTS and turn-based) and FPS's on my PC.

One of my biggest beefs with PC games used to be their fiddliness, where sometimes it seemed like I would have to update three drivers, update Windows, restart the machine, and then do an interpretive dance in order to get the thing to run right. A console, on the other hand, you just inserted the game and turned it on.

Now, though, newer OS's and games seem to be much better about auto-updating, so it doesn't seem like nearly as much of a pain to get a PC game to run.

Fafnir wrote:But that doesn't really matter when you only have to use the disk once. Hell, you don't even need the disk, really, so long as you have the CD-key, you can just download the installer.

Yeah, but downloading a game is also possible on the PS3 and 360 and you don't need a serial key.

Halo, the games that you can download in enterity for the PS3 and 360 are redicuosly limited, ie nothing new. With the PC, people are pushing the digital distribution very hard.

You misspelled, nay, mangled the word 'rediculously' so that means the PC is rotting your brain. I play the PS3 most of the time now and haven't misspelled a word. This shows the triumph of the PS3 over the PC.




This post also shows the creative power I receive from the PS3 as I was incredibly creative when making that argument.

I would also like to argue the point of good single player games on the PC versus the amount of good single player games on the console.

Another point is the retail market, what is the largest section in the electronics department devoted to?

Wait, halonachos, are you seriously arguing those points? Like, seriously?

Catyrpelius wrote:Xbox Live is an awsome service and is worth paying for IMO, its more then just online multiplayer.

It offers less than the services PC gamers have had for well over a decade for free, but with a $50 price tag. It's comparable to WD in terms of value.

Acess to 360 demos and videos, arcade games, the zune market place, Netflix on Demand, Interent Radio...

Its really worth the $3 a month you pay for it.

As for my spelling, I'm at work and i cant install the google toolbar, so I have no built in spell check :(

I prefer PC over Xbox because I use my PC for more then just gaming. I built it to be a gaming monster but I also have a business to run.

Xbox can not provide the multimedia function that a PC can provide for me.

Thanks for your responses people...
I think listing the hardware was a little pointless as it's basically run on people's preferences rather than performance.
I'm not going to lie, I prefer PC because it's what I started with. I have a .88 K/d on MW2 on PC and I would probably epically fail on X360 or PS3.
Just my thoughts recently.
Greetz,
Mr. Self Destruct

Catyrpelius wrote:I want to know where you guys are getting such cheap PC parts from. I'd like nothing more then to find a $50 video card that will play all of the current and near future release games. $80 ram chips, sign me up.

As for a $600 decent gameing rig that will last you awhile..... If you built yourself a top of the line gameing PC right now with the best parts currently on the market 3 years from now it would struggle to play a new game on low settings. Gameing rigs have a usefull lifespan of 3 years, 1.5 to 2 years if you like better quality graphics.

If you think PCs havent progressed much lately you are not paying attention to whats going on in the PC would. We have multi core GPUs, solid state storage, many new northbridge and southbridge options, amazing new cpu lines, ram speeds are going through the roof...Direct x11

The biggest difference between a PC and a console, not counting the input devices is that no console out there, not even the PS3 for all you fan boys, does Anti Aliesing...Hands down that makes and console inferoir to a PC. But there are alot of great games on consoles that I cant play on the PC which is why I like consoles to.

Its easy to do.

1. Choose your compoenents carefully. research itemas fromm the motherboard up online, take your time, get it right.
remebmer that top end as about 10% extra power over just below top end components but are double or triple the price. As a rule of thumb, to be disregarded if ther right offer comes up, buy 12 months agos top end computer part. this is the right age to drop the price.

2. Look for corners to shave off. Start with looking at grey components rather than brand names, look at combinations that have a synergy etc. For example take a faster rather than a larger HDD. Do you really need a terabyte of storage? No you dont, dont kid yourself that you do. Size does affect access speed even if the speeds are identically rated. Go easy on your sound, unless you are connecting to a stero system stick with 2.1. The number of people who have jacked up sound software but no effective output, or cant use the output they have because of neighbours astounds me. You know sound is like audio graphics, it is a tax on the system. Also if you never get a full sound deck you never know what you are missing and thus your low spec sound still appears to be quality product to your ears. However never skimp on your graphics, get the dogs danglies and save a good proportion of your budget for it. However dont get upsold on tyhe very best, and dont be conned into thinking you have less than four years life from a good buy nowadays.

3. Price the components on at least 20 sites yo be sure you are getting a decent price.

4. Be prepare to switch your plan at any time. You never know when a bargain is around the corner, ther more you look for components and pricing the more easily you will find the bargains. I spent several hours over the course of a week sourcing a graphics card I ended up finding the next version up for less than the price if was willing to pay for the highlighted model.

5. Build it yourself. Be your own quality control, be your own waranty.

6. Tweak your OS. If you have a licensed copy of WinXP keep your stickers and entry code (to show you have legakl software) then use TinyXP or XPLite instead. If you cut the crap from your system you will make the system run faster. So long as your copy of the OS is legal it doesnt really matter which disk you use. TinyXP cuts so much junk it boots in 5-10 seconds ansd runs on a much smaller footrprint. A tweaked debloated OS is a free upgrade in itself.
Controlling your software is the biggest performance issue IMHO, replacing WinXP install with TinyXP made a huge performance difference. That plus the graphics card, which you have no getting around.

7. Remember that game designers are on your side. As games get more complex graphically they take longer to produce, beleive it or not graphics technology is plateauing in regards to gaming. Simple because game designers dont wants to push too hard. The higher the specs the fewer people can play and the more it costs to develop. This is a bad double whammy for a games designer unles the product is so hyped that people ust want to upgrade specifically for it. That is rarer than it sounds. The current real benchmark is Fallout 3, if you play that on a high setting you are good to go for the next few years.