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PC Gaming is too much work.

E

eat2na

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 9, 2003
Messages
441
Just a rant I guess. I used to be a PC Gamer and enjoyed all that it involves from building up your system to tweaking obscure game settings to get that extra few frame rates. Then after I got my console I got lazy and now I can't get back into PC gaming! I find it frustrating that you can't just buy a PC game install it and be playing in a few minutes with max resolution and everything smooth.

There is always so much tedious work involved. Adjusting this and that and downloading drivers and stopping processes and then you got it working a little bit smooth and then it crashes. I used to enjoy all the tweaking and fine tuning but now I hate it. :eek: I built an $1700 crossfire three dell IPS monitor eyefinity system with dual 5850 and Phenom II CPU and 8 gigs of ram about 8 months ago but all I do is Surf the web with it.
 
just get yourself an xbox360 controller for your pc and it can be as easy as any console.

Don't like to tweak the settings? then don't, set it at middle of the road settings and just play.

I do this an am really enjoying my eyefinity setup, with the xbox360 controller its just pick up and game on. (going through the force unleashed games this week)

infact i typically just go into the video settings to change the resolution and leave all other settings at default.
 
eat2na said:
Just a rant I guess. I used to be a PC Gamer and enjoyed all that it involves from building up your system to tweaking obscure game settings to get that extra few frame rates. Then after I got my console I got lazy and now I can't get back into PC gaming! I find it frustrating that you can't just buy a PC game install it and be playing in a few minutes with max resolution and everything smooth.

There is always so much tedious work involved. Adjusting this and that and downloading drivers and stopping processes and then you got it working a little bit smooth and then it crashes. I used to enjoy all the tweaking and fine tuning but now I hate it. :eek: I built an $1700 crossfire three dell IPS monitor eyefinity system with dual 5850 and Phenom II CPU and 8 gigs of ram about 8 months ago but all I do is Surf the web with it.
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Whatever floats your boat slacker. If you call tweaking a PC for gaming "work" especially with todays almost brainless setups then we can't help you.
 
I enjoy Console gaming and PC gaming.

Steam has made PC gaming SOOOO easy. I also don't really play games that require much (big fan of blizzard), or I play a lot of games that are dubbed "console ports" when they are cheap on steam.

Generally on get a game on PS3 if it is one tha I will play with friends...hence why I got BC2 on PS3.
 
If you don't want to get the most bang for your buck, then use the default settings (low, medium, high, ultra). Leave windows update on automatic. I only update drivers when something DOESN'T work.

Otherwise, don't cruise free-porn sites/other suspicious pages with russian ad-servers and most windows 7 machines will just keep on chugging along without any issues.
 
eat2na said:
Just a rant I guess. I used to be a PC Gamer and enjoyed all that it involves from building up your system to tweaking obscure game settings to get that extra few frame rates. Then after I got my console I got lazy and now I can't get back into PC gaming! I find it frustrating that you can't just buy a PC game install it and be playing in a few minutes with max resolution and everything smooth.

There is always so much tedious work involved. Adjusting this and that and downloading drivers and stopping processes and then you got it working a little bit smooth and then it crashes. I used to enjoy all the tweaking and fine tuning but now I hate it. :eek: I built an $1700 crossfire three dell IPS monitor eyefinity system with dual 5850 and Phenom II CPU and 8 gigs of ram about 8 months ago but all I do is Surf the web with it.
Click to expand...

Well it's definetly a little more involved than a console of course. Naturally whenever you have to put a little more effort into something, usually, it's worth it and you get more from it. The same holds true for PC gaming. Honestly though your biggest problem is going with a triple screen setup (eyefinity/NV surround). If you wanted to keep things simple why would you throw that into the mix? I mean with all the console ports and lazy devs it's still sometimes a challenge to get the proper FOV just for 16:9/16:10 and then you add into the mix that retarded resolution you guys run and then factor in the HUD problems and fov etc etc...It's a recipe for disaster. Especially for someone who "just wants to game". If you enjoy fucking with all the settings and reading WSGF looking for fixes then go for it. if you want to just game, get rid of 2 monitors and play on 1. You will eliminate 80% of your problems imo. As far as shutting down processes...what are you running in the background that (these days) you need to shutdown before you play a game? Again if this is a problem then you aren't running your rig correctly. If the main purpose for that machine is gaming then keep all the non necessary shit off it. I keep my gaming rig lean for that very reason, as to keep potential issues to a minimum. I usually don't have a problem. Drivers? Ya keep your drivers up to date once in a while, not something that needs to be done every week. Once every month or 2? That's alot? Meh nothing you said is a big deal really. Your just looking for justifications for your bitching. Console gaming is very bland and stale and makes me want to barf honestly. I feel a little stupider everytime time I play a game on a console to be honest. lol Kinda kidding but not really.;)
 
I install games and play them max resolution without tweaking all the time :confused:

You'll be spending more time watching your xbox load saves and maps than you would have "tweaking".
 
eat2na said:
I find it frustrating that you can't just buy a PC game install it and be playing in a few minutes with max resolution and everything smooth.
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Well, you can't exactly do that on a console either when it's rendering at 600p and capped at 30fps...
 
LuminaryJanitor said:
Well, you can't exactly do that on a console either when it's rendering at 600p and capped at 30fps...
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Not to mention almost every time I pop a disc into my ps3 to play a game it seems theres some large patch to download and update before I play with my kids. In fact the HD is so dog slow on that machine while applying the update I think I've seen paint dry quicker. Oh and I don't have alot of stuff on the HDD either so it's not that.
 
Mucking around with hardware configurations and tweaks to get a few more frames per second is good work. Jumping through dozens of hoops in the DRM and online activation sideshow, or spending hours trying to fix game problems that were never patched is not.
 
In all honesty, PC gaming has never been easier. Most games are pretty good about picking settings based on your config. You don't have to eek out that extra 5 fps if you don't want to. If you don't want to put your PC together, there are plenty of places to buy a PC with a decent - top of the line discreet vid card.

Is it as easy as a console? No, never will be. But compared to PC gaming 5 years ago? It's night and day. Be thankful it's not the late 80's and early 90's...himem.sys, config.sys, autoexec.bat...don't miss that crap one bit.
 
Steam is right up your alley, easy installing, automatic updates, even keeps track of your display driver.
 
oscrogo said:
In all honesty, PC gaming has never been easier. Most games are pretty good about picking settings based on your config. You don't have to eek out that extra 5 fps if you don't want to. If you don't want to put your PC together, there are plenty of places to buy a PC with a decent - top of the line discreet vid card.
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This. Plus, drivers don't need updated that often if you don't want to do it.

Digital distribution sales make the little extra effort well worth it. The most cost efficient way to play new games.
 
I download video card drivers once every couple months, everything else is basically taken care of by windows update. I use steam and I never have to update or patch anything, it's automatic.

Let me put this in perspective for you:

"I want to play video games" on my pc - wiggle my mouse to wake PC. Play.

"I want to play video games" on my xbox - turn on tv, turn on stereo, go grab my controller stashed in the coffee table, walk over to my games rack and grab the game I want to play, put it in the drive, start xbox 360, wait a minute or two, start playing. Oh damn, game has a patch, I gotta wait for that to finish because xbox doesn't auto download patches for your games while you're not using it like steam.

... and consoles are simpler? Really?

Honestly PC is far simpler now. All the guesswork is taken out of it. You only really need to update 1 driver, the video card drivers, and even that is taken care of by windows update but I prefer to get the drivers straight from nvidia only because of personal preference.
 
eat2na said:
I find it frustrating that you can't just buy a PC game install it and be playing in a few minutes with max resolution and everything smooth.
Click to expand...
That's pretty much exactly what I do in the majority of cases. Go in to Steam, click buy, wait, click Play Game. Go into menus, make adjustments, done.
 
eat2na said:
I find it frustrating that you can't just buy a PC game install it and be playing in a few minutes with max resolution and everything smooth.
Click to expand...

Turn on PC, have Steam set to auto start, click game, start, options, max, ok, start, go? If you can surf surely you can do that.

eat2na said:
I built an $1700 crossfire three dell IPS monitor eyefinity system with dual 5850 and Phenom II CPU and 8 gigs of ram about 8 months ago but all I do is Surf the web with it.
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And I'm sure with everything being multi-ports you can see the quality difference one just one IPS Dell monitor.
 
The only "tweaking" I generally do these days is setting all the graphics options to maximum and picking the level of AA that gives me the smoothest performance. Even my year-old 5870 has no trouble playing most games at maximum settings at 1080p.
 
Its only hard if you want to play with high quality graphics. If you want to play at console level graphics, as in 720p, then just drop the resolution to the lowest setting, by a $50 video card and you're set. Wouldn't even have to ever download a driver once its installed.
 
I'll admit, getting a PC up to snuff can be a little arduous. But once all is said and done, the pros out weigh the cons over console, IMO. And it really isn't all that hard anyways... I have to really tweak only once every year or so when I put in new hardware, but that's it. And with Steam, PC gaming is easier than ever.
 
eat2na said:
I know right... Maybe I'll get into it when Skyrim comes out. The last game I enjoyed on the PC was Oblivion.:confused:
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Then why the hell would you spend $1700 on a new gaming rig? Sometimes common sense eludes people.
 
While I dont think its hard at all to maintain a gaming PC you guys certainly are downplaying some inconveniences involved. When it comes to ease of maintenance consoles really do beat out the PC, that really cant be denied. And thats where the benefit of owning a console ends :D
 
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himmy said:
Then why the hell would you spend $1700 on a new gaming rig? Sometimes common sense eludes people.
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My PC was old and had Windows XP and a single 8800GT so I thought maybe building a new toy and three monitors would inspire me again. But after putting it together all I ended up doing was benchmarking and looking at it. I played Crysis and Dirt2 but there was no wow factor involved. Like I lost all motivation in it. I actually play more games on my iPhone than anything else.
 
I guess what I am doing is announcing my retirement. lol! Some people just loose the drive and can't get back into it. When it feels like work, is time to give it up.
 
Sorry what?

I install a game, crank the settings, and run. I just leave Catalyst on quality everything (Except AA, I hate AA. ) and see how far I can push whatever it is im playing... (Sig is out of date. Lazy. )
 
so you get a fancy eyefinity setup and then complain about having to do tweaks to get things working to your liking? this is like buying an Escalade and complaining about gas costs.
 
eat2na said:
I find it frustrating that you can't just buy a PC game install it and be playing in a few minutes with max resolution and everything smooth.
Click to expand...

You can't do this with a console either, sure you pop the DVD in and it works but you get scaled back graphics and shitty low rez textures to go along with your ease of use.
 
I get kinda bummed out when I cannot really changne console settings for graphics lol
 
Ya, I agree that PC gaming can be very simple at this point, especially with steam. I like that it still allows tweaking if you feel like it, in nvidia control panel or a .ini, but in general, default settings give you a better experience than consoles, and looking at the graphics options in game for like 1 minute can give you a much better experience.
 
Maybe you've outgrown PC gaming, or gaming in general. I've come realize that I have. My interest in gaming has diminished over the years as more interesting, productive and satisfying things come up.
 
*puts the oldtimer hat and gets the rocking chair*

In my time son, we used tapes to play a game. Loading game took about 45 minutes in which all inhouse had to behave quiet and silent, not to disturb loading process, or a dreaded "self test" menu would appear on Atari 65XE :)

Also, during the 286 era, you had to tweak autoexec.bat and config.sys for every game you were running. For example Harrier Jump Jet required more then 610 kb RAM, so you had t switch of mouse, and other unnneded stuff. Later, there were things like memmaker and so, but truehardcore users, still did it manually :)

To play at buddy's home, with the bigger games, you had to manually pack them with ARJ, and pray, that the 4 diskettes would not die, till you get to your buddy :)

So don't tell me son, that now gaming on computer is complicated.
 
Lol, great post MorgothPI. I can sympathize with OP's comments, though. They certainly have merit, but for me, any inconvenience I may get with pc games all goes away when I can run a game at very high resolutions at 60 fps or higher. That is the holy grail for me. ;)
 
I had the dreaded clackalackalackalacka sound of my C64's 1541 drive when it couldn't read a sector. Or the diabolical Guru Meditation error on my Amiga.

Don't forget the XT era, and packing up RAM expansion boards with DIP socket 64K-256K chips.

Or for years on from that point: setting the jumpers on your modem, so that the Port Addresses, IRQs and DMAs wouldn't interfere with your sound card or serial ports. How about downloading the latest patch set for your Gravis Ultrasound, and then running the million and three utilities necessary for it to behave like a Sound Blaster or Roland device in a game without native support. Boot floppies with different RAM settings. (Ultima 7 was a bitch! too bad it was one of my favorites) :D

How about terminating those MFM hard drives that made the chirp-chrip-scrapeyscapey-chirp-chrip sounds (Seagate ST-225s spring to mind.)

I remember plugging 41256 memory chips into my ISA VGA card. (which was mindblowing after the EGA setup I had)

Or tweaking the bus speed, to get every last ounce of power out of your VESA Local Bus Orchid or Tseng Labs video cards?

(These aren't necessarily in chronological order.) Ahh, the memories flooding into my head. A friend and I spent full nights configuring things, so we could play a game for a couple of hours before I'd have to leave again.

I never would have imagined something like Steam back then. Now, as someone else aptly put it, I wiggle the mouse, click the game I want, and I'm playing.
 
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As far as I know, all recent games play fine out of the box. And for the lazy, they look better than the console version without messing around with the controls. Forgot to change the FOV and AA? It's still better than the console.
 
lol I can't believe people are bitching at pc gaming. Back then I had to slop in 12 friggin diskettes just to play strike commander.
 
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