I think you may be misunderstanding what everyone is trying to say. Your prices are off. I'm not saying you should be like me, but I am a hardware junkie and I track products and pricing regardless if I am buying anything. Hardware today is tons cheaper than yesterday, and if your in to computer gaming (stereo type alert) chances are your somewhat of a pc enthusiast. That said, most pc gamers don't always build from scratch. I have 3 different boxes, all different specs, and each one of them runs modern games more beautifuly than my xbox 360. I like the consoles don't get me wrong, but pc gaming has had HD for longer, and has had better quality graphics and -in my humble opinion- better quality games (yes, even on machines that run $500).
If I want more performance, I upgrade a part here or there. I've ran two of my machines with no upgrades since 2008 and guess what? Back than (that year had a ram overstock so prices were pretty low granted), I spent no more than $400 on each machine during upgrades, and I run the FFXIV benchmark with the lower 3000's (slightly above average). U mad?
I think you may be misunderstanding what everyone is trying to say. Your prices are off. I'm not saying you should be like me, but I am a hardware junkie and I track products and pricing regardless if I am buying anything. Hardware today is tons cheaper than yesterday, and if your in to computer gaming (stereo type alert) chances are your somewhat of a pc enthusiast. That said, most pc gamers don't always build from scratch. I have 3 different boxes, all different specs, and each one of them runs modern games more beautifuly than my xbox 360. I like the consoles don't get me wrong, but pc gaming has had HD for longer, and has had better quality graphics and -in my humble opinion- better quality games (yes, even on machines that run $500).
If I want more performance, I upgrade a part here or there. I've ran two of my machines with no upgrades since 2008 and guess what? Back than (that year had a ram overstock so prices were pretty low granted), I spent no more than $400 on each machine during upgrades, and I run the FFXIV benchmark with the lower 3000's (slightly above average). U mad?
hehe ... i actually experienced a drop in monitor resolution after the "HD" standard came to LCD monitors in the 24" inch native.
i consired myself a reasonably dedicated PC junkie and if i wouldnt spend my € on computers i would spend it on cars anyways.
also i could add that if you pick the parts wisely u get industry quality hardware compared to the cheap gimmicks u get in consoles .... hell a average hardware lifespan of a console with my gaming habits would be less than 6 months were as my latest computer i build has been running literally 24/7 for close to 1 1/2 years with only occasional user made reboots every now and then with absolutely no problems .... and i get same or better warranty for every major individual part compared to PS3 or 360.
I have no interest in a consumer product that is under the control of a single corporation.
"I used to think the worst thing in life was to be all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone." Robin Williams
It's a whole lot cheaper to chase people in your neighborhood with a homemade sword. As a matter of fact, you'll even have your food and lodging paid for several years if you're aggressive enough.
/sarcasm_off
it is more expensive to enjoy PC games, and it's more expensive to drive then it is to walk or ride a bicycle. It's cheaper today then it ever used to be, and I think it's worth it. I usually spend around $1500 every three years on my PC. I could easily blow $100 on one night at the bar, so if I don't go out 5 times in a year, or once every two months, my PC gaming habit is paid for. And with the great looking games on the horizon, it's easy to find something to do on those nights I'm not going out drinking.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
What people don't realize in this comparison is just how far off consoles are from modern gaming PCs.
The most important component in gaming is, of course, the GPU. Do you guys know what the PS3's GPU is like? It's basically a Geforce 8600 GT. You can get that card, right now, used, for $30 So yes, you can get a $300 PS3 for gaming; you're just going to be limited to a $30 video card. Right now, even my $1000 laptop is something on the order of twice as powerful as the PS3.
A game like COD Black Ops is a very poor example, because in all honestly, it's not much of a stress on a modern computer to begin with due to its mediocre visuals, but if you're talking about a game with real visuals to boast about, like the Crysis series or Metro 2033, then no, a $300 console with a $30 GPU is not going to match a $1000 PC built today, or even a $600 computer. You're also not going to "optimize" your way around this, as some have suggested. Optimization isn't going to reduce the size of the textures or the number of triangles you need to churn through to produce a given image. That's still going to be GPU bound, and a gaming PC today, even a relatively cheap one, easily has vastly, vastly more power than the PS3's "RSX Reality Synthesizer" (quite a flaboyant name for a 256mb Geforce 8600GT).
Even at launch, the PS3, costing $500 or $600, didn't have hardware that was extraordinarily impressive in Q4 2006 at that price point (it was good, certain, because PS3s are sold at the cost of production, but it didn't exactly revolutionize the market).
This is in addition to the fact that you get much more utility from a $600 gaming computer as from a PS3. I, myself, am starting to get more into the post-processing side of photos, now that I have a decent camera and some fairly good lenses to play with, but of course I know that I won't ever expect to see so much as something comparable to Adobe Camera Raw on the PS3, let alone any of the other general purpose software I use, from video and sound file editing software, skype, or even mundane things like zip utilities (I seriously doubt the PS3 is boasting anything like Winrar).
So PCs are a much, much better deal than the OP is implying; you just have to think about it a little bit.
Addendum: I should add that even if the PS3 was physically capable of executing most of my general pupose programs, I don't think the 256mb of system ram would even be enough to open one RAW image file in any of my image editors.
You get what you pay for. Well, sometimes; other times, you get less than you pay for. That $300 console has graphics that perform almost as well as the integrated graphics that AMD will launch next spring. Seriously, integrated.
Specs matter. Or if you don't think so, I think I might still have my old 400 MHz Pentium II with an ATI Rage Pro video card and 160 MB of video memory. It played plenty of games in its day. Want it for $200?
If you happen to need a computer for other purposes, you add a $100 video card and viola, you've got a gaming computer--and one that massively outperforms your $300 console.
There are good reasons why very few MMORPGs make it to consoles. Consoles just aren't capable enough, so that it takes tremendous effort to port an online game to them.
Did anyone point out that a console is generally rendering at sub-1280x720 resolution and upscaled to 1280x720 or 1920x1080, has no Anti-Aliasing, uses lower quality textures and generally seems to have lower quality filtering enabled.
While even a cheap PC will cost more than a console, if you hook your computer up to your TV you'll find you can achieve the same graphics quality and better FPS on a cheapass GPU. The reason on the PC you feel compelled to buy a $400 GPU and jack the graphics way up is because you can, and it looks much nicer. But if you just want it to look like a console you don't need a $400 GPU you just need to hook it up to your low pixel density TV and sit 6 feet away like you do a console.
Did anyone point out that a console is generally rendering at sub-1280x720 resolution and upscaled to 1280x720 or 1920x1080, has no Anti-Aliasing, uses lower quality textures and generally seems to have lower quality filtering enabled.
While even a cheap PC will cost more than a console, if you hook your computer up to your TV you'll find you can achieve the same graphics quality and better FPS on a cheapass GPU. The reason on the PC you feel compelled to buy a $400 GPU and jack the graphics way up is because you can, and it looks much nicer. But if you just want it to look like a console you don't need a $400 GPU you just need to hook it up to your low pixel density TV and sit 6 feet away like you do a console.
Well, I sort of said that but with more grunts and one syllable words ; )
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Originally posted by lunatis Originally posted by Benthon You forgot the fact that the utility computers have versus a console. I couldn't browse to my hearts content (or very effectively) if I owned a console. PC's also hold many console titles and aren't specific to any one. Plus, you can build a computer for $500 and end up in the midrange nowadays. So would you rather spend $500 on a computer you can do a shitton things with, or $300 for a console that's brand bound and you can't troll MMORPG.com on. I know my answer.
What if you COULD use a mouse and keyboard on a PS3, and BROWSE your files? That's where I'm going with this. It's just a software issue rather than a hardware one, and this is why I say it's a hardware rip-off. Between, 500$ machines don't play games very well in high resolution. Well, you can (or could rather) use a mouse and keyboard on a PS3, and browse your files. I dual booted Linux on my PS3 for a while. It ran terribly. Absolutely worthless to have so I wasn't surprised or disappointed when they removed the option to install Linux.
Like I was pointing out in my other post, consoles don't play games in high resolution at all. You just can't tell because you're sitting so far away from your TV. I actually run 3 identical monitors for my PC and have my Xbox 360 hooked up to one of the monitors through HDMI for occasional gaming. It looks terrible next to a PC game. I can run the same game on 360 and PC side by side and the 360 looks like crap and I only have a $150 GPU (Radeon 5770). I could easily run 360 quality graphics on a $50 GPU and possibly off my onboard graphics.. hell I should try.
It was painful playing L4D2 on 360 just to play with some friends when I can get a much much crisper cleaner picture on my PC if they weren't so into stupid Xbox Live achievements. At least they did Borderlands on PC with me instead of 360.
give up dude, you cant convince anybody on this site that consoles are any good, they're all PC fanboys. but i'll agree that console gaming is much cheaper then a PC gaming and graphcs cards are expensive. the whole PC is better then consoles arguement is pretty bad to be honest. being a long time console gaming that switched to PC gaming i can tell you they each have their pros and cons.
give up dude, you cant convince anybody on this site that consoles are any good, they're all PC fanboys. but i'll agree that console gaming is much cheaper then a PC gaming and graphcs cards are expensive. the whole PC is better then consoles arguement is pretty bad to be honest. being a long time console gaming that switched to PC gaming i can tell you they each have their pros and cons.
Well that's one way to put it. Here's another way:
I'm pretty sure that if we could get the same graphical quality on a console and use an input device of our choice then you might find more people using consoles.
Consoles are good (or have been traditiionally good) because of:
1, ease of use: just put in the cartridge/media and play the game
2, inexpensive
3, can play in an area that is traditionally set up for groups of people such as den, living room, etc. Furniture around the TV and everyone can see or have a go without too much difficullty.
Cons: can't easily be upgraded, games are stuck with the architecture of the console, don't look at good as pc games, input devices might be limited, not as much utility as a pc. Meaning I can spend a Thousand dollars or so on creating a pc that will do more than just play games but several hundred dollars will only get me a console.
Pros of a pc:
1, Great looking games
2, upgradeable to extend life and to keep up with more graphically intensive games
3, greater utility
4, allowance of different input devices
Cons of a pc are
1, More expensive and if you aren't going to use for anything else but gaming it might make more sense to go console with the cons that a console brings to graphics
2, sometimes the games have to be tweaked or are buggy or require patches. Though from what I understand consoles are now patching (?)
3, not as portable in some cases
No one is being a fanboy or a hater. They are simply outlining the aspects of pc's that make them attractive. I'm sure that if a console could give the same experience people would love to drop the amount of money they spend on gaming.
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Heh, ok I just finished testing Xbox 360 L4D2 side by side with my onboard Radeon 4200 IGP. With all graphics options set to lowest possible and resolution set to 1280x720 with GPU scaling to 1920x1080 it looked almost identical to the Xbox 360 except that Xbox 360 has some sort of full screen blur effect applied that I had no setting for. However this blur effect provided a worse graphics experience that I couldn't match on the Radeon 4200.
The Xbox 360 runs at a steady 30 fps of course, while my Radeon 4200 ran at 25-28 fps with dips to 20-22 fps when looking at fires. I didn't try an outdoors level so it may run too poorly in that situation but on the rooftop I was getting 25 fps. I also set driver optimizations to 'Performance' when I probably should have used 'High Performance' and maybe eeked out another 1-2 fps while further degrading image quality toward the Xbox 360 level.
Overall I found the Xbox 360 more playable because of the constant 30 fps, but the onboard Radeon 4200 slightly more pleasant to look at because of the sharper edges and textures due to no blur effect. I believe an onboard Radeon 4250 or 4290 may provide the necessary performance to exactly match the Xbox 360.
You forgot the fact that the utility computers have versus a console. I couldn't browse to my hearts content (or very effectively) if I owned a console. PC's also hold many console titles and aren't specific to any one.
Plus, you can build a computer for $500 and end up in the midrange nowadays.
So would you rather spend $500 on a computer you can do a shitton things with, or $300 for a console that's brand bound and you can't troll MMORPG.com on. I know my answer.
lol come on now 500 bucks? give me a break. Minimum is 900 (more like 1000).
Realistically this has been happening to computers for a very long time, hell the only time I play my computer is for mmo's everything else is on the ps3. This is also the reason a lot of the newer mmo's coming out will not have as great numbers because a lot of them push the boundaries for graphics. I remember when AoC came out I couldn't even play the game because the min reqs were too high.
The only game i've really considered a new pc for (recently anyways) is crysis 2 just cause the first one was so sick. But for me to spend a grand just for one game is ridiculous.
Unfortunately for the computer game market consoles will always be the cheaper choice.
Originally posted by DiSpLiFF lol come on now 500 bucks? give me a break. Minimum is 900 (more like 1000).
Not true, especially considering I just compared one of the cheapest onboard GPU you can get (Radeon 4200) and found it to be only slightly inferior to console graphics. Consider this:
Athlon X2 CPU $50 Motherboard w/Radeon 4250 $55 400W PSU $40 Case $30 2 GB Ram $40 500GB HD $40 DVD Drive $20
Total: $270, with slightly inferior performance to a console with just onboard graphics.
Now throw in an entry level graphics card: Radeon 5670 $80
$350 and it would blow away a console. You do not need $900 or $1000 for a computer that can rock console graphics.
I'm not saying consoles are bad or a bad purchase, I have every console you can think of. But there are misconceptions about what it takes to game on a PC these days, and the graphics level of entry level PC vs consoles vs top end PC.
That's a very interesting point, especially when you break it down. For me personally though, I don't avoid computer gaming because my graphics card is old. Actually I don't avoid computer gaming at all. I'm pleasantly surprised when I update my graphics card and find my games are prettier, but I was still playing them when they were only mediocre. I have both a decent computer and a console game, and I play them both. There are games on both systems I have interest in, though my console seems to have monopoly on RPGs.
That's the problem, I think. MMO'ers are to a large degree, RPGer's. We like the numbers and the levels and all that fun stuff, because without it, it wouldn't be an MMO. It would be an FPS, or a straight up action game. RPGs generally don't come out for the computer. PC games are mostly platform, FPS, puzzle and strategy game territory, which is bound to have less appeal to an MMORPG'er than a literal RPG.
It's true, some of the recent, high-quality RPGs came out on PC, like Dragon Age and the upcoming Elder Scrolls 5, but these are drops in the bucket compared to the console library. Fighting Games are another area the PC lacks on, another genre that appeals to me greatly, so that's once again a style of gameplay I stick to my console for more.
If these games started being released on PC exclusive, or in addition to console, I'd be using my PC for gaming a lot more. I can multi-task with my PC, and while I can do so with my PS3, it's clunky and uncomfortable.
I don't think it's any one thing that's holding PC gaming back, but probably a multitude of issues it faces all at once. Pirating exists for consoles, but a PC doesn't require extra money to mod before you can make use of those pirated copies. The graphics card problem you mention may also be part of it, though not a biggest one. Console's are also already established gaming mediums, whereas PCs serve a variety of functions, so when making a game a console is probably what comes to mind first and foremost. Finally, consoles already have large, established gaming libraries that only grow larger, in part because of all the other reasons it has dominance over the PC gaming market.
All of these little things add up to one big issue that makes developing PC exclusive titles unpalatable. If Fable 3 is any indication, it's a lot of extra work to turn a console game into a PC game, so while some attempt it, others would probably find it a waste of funding for the same reasons mentioned above. That's my take on it, anyway.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
You're really exaggerating the prices, unless you want the latest best ever gaming PC.
And I don't see the use in doing so for anyone but the biggest geeks (no offence if you have the money and want to spent it on something like this), all that big power might last you a bit longer but you ain't gonna see huge differences in current games.
I calculated a full upgrade to a pretty damn solid system for my PC at about 600 euros (without box and screen).
But I ended up just replacing the video card for 200 euros as my system will probably still last for a year and a half easily with just that alone and prices will have gone down by then.
Yes, consoles are still cheaper, but they also don't play a lot of genres nearly as well imo.
It's also up to the makers of games to make them good looking while still being playable for a relatively broad public.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
lol come on now 500 bucks? give me a break. Minimum is 900 (more like 1000).
Not true, especially considering I just compared one of the cheapest onboard GPU you can get (Radeon 4200) and found it to be only slightly inferior to console graphics. Consider this:
Athlon X2 CPU $50
Motherboard w/Radeon 4250 $55
400W PSU $40
Case $30
2 GB Ram $40
500GB HD $40
DVD Drive $20
Total: $270, with slightly inferior performance to a console with just onboard graphics.
Now throw in an entry level graphics card:
Radeon 5670 $80
$350 and it would blow away a console. You do not need $900 or $1000 for a computer that can rock console graphics.
I'm not saying consoles are bad or a bad purchase, I have every console you can think of. But there are misconceptions about what it takes to game on a PC these days, and the graphics level of entry level PC vs consoles vs top end PC.
I seriously don't see how you could do a Fortress Raid on Aion with that system... Or do a raid in WOW with this machine without simply watching your computer go like "chunk chunk chunk".
Let's be honest, I do have a core 2 duo, 2 gig of ram, a 500 gig hdd, and a 8800GTS 320MB, and it's not gonna run everything as well as you guys say. Upgrading for a GTX 460 would cost me about 175$ and it would slightly increase performance from my 8800GTS just because of the extra RAM and a FEW more cuda cores...
What bugs me is that you never really run the game perfectly smooth at all times, for everything it was intended to. It's nice to hunt bunnies in Westfall but it's nicer to be able to do Fortress Raids in Aion...
First of all, consoles set an iffy standard, let me point that out immediately.
Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are *LOSING* money on every console they sell, it costs far more than they sell for, but why? Because every game licensed for the platform makes their money back. They sell you the console cheap in the hopes that you'll have more money to spend on games, which is where they make the lion's share of the money. They make jack on the hardware itself. With that in mind, never look at it like consoles are killing the PC market, because it only seems as such because they are willing to take a major hit on selling you the hardware in order to get you to stock up on software, which in many cases, they are making money simply for licensing the rights to produce games on it. Ever question why the WIi has so much 'shovelware'? Because they didn't have to pay a dime to get smaller studios to produce it, but they make loads for allowing them to release it for *their* hardware. Sometimes they do finance the projects, but more often than not, they don't.
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No, Nintendo makes money on every Wii that they sell. That was the point of having hardware that is vastly inferior to the competing consoles.
The video card technology in it *alone* far surpasses the price tag, as it did with the gamecube. What I have stated is common knowledge, you can read up on it from any site, they will tell you that all console makers lose money for the hardware - and simply because they run a monopoly on what software releases on it. Seriously, look it up mang.
In fact, both the Wii and Gamecube have more stock in the video adapter tech than the processor power itself. The issue has never been the visual quality, as can be seen in quite a few 1st party games, but in the actual power to process residual data. They could'nt have the tons of zombies that dead rising did on the 360, but they could have given a few of them amazing fur textures on screen, if they wanted to.
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Thing is, PC gaming has always been a very expensive hobby. You dont need to buy top of the line stuff, go with something thats a year old, and has another generation of stuff after it.
Im still running a 1 gig 4870, 8 gigs of DDR2 ram, Phenom II X4 Black 3.0 ghz on a win 7 home system. I can still play anything I want. Maybe I cant play the most graphically intensive game on the highest setting at a very high resolution, but I really dont care to.
this... I have a rig identical to this but w/ a 4890 and I can run everything. Max resolutions would be great if I was on a 32 inch monitor but I'm not. I'm on a 23 inch crt running 1600x1200, the rig I have can run everything fine at that and its around 3 and a half yeahs old.
Yes, Sony and Microsoft lose money on every console they make. But Nintendo doesn't. Nintendo uses vastly cheaper and vastly slower hardware.
170 mm^2 on a 90 nm process does not cost $250 per chip today. That's about the same size as AMD's Juniper chip, on a much more expensive 40 nm process, and those cards sell at retail for around $120 new for a completed video card.
If Nintendo did the appropriate die shrinks, the GPU in a Wii on a 55 nm process would probably be about as big as the RV710 GPU in a Radeon HD 4350. And how much does that cost? Even after adding a PCB, heatsink, and various other components, and having several different companies at various steps of the way take their markup, not much:
Nintendo uses ATI... and has since the gamecube. I agree, they may be makine a slight margin on the Wii for sacrificing on the processor power, but the costs of what goes into the Wii/GC is nothing to scoff at. Honestly though, I still think they don't make squat. They just don't lose as much as Sony/MS.
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Add me to the list of those so called "Unconvincable PC lovers". I see things exactly the opposite of the OP.
Microsoft and Sony's mostly successful attempt to hijack PC gaming and gamers has actually stiffled the technological progess of the PC gaming industry.
It always amuses me to see games like Gears of War 1 & 2 finally come out for the PC and see reviews making statements such as "The PC version of Gears of War is everything the 360 version was and more." or "The graphics in Gears of War have never looked better than they do in the PC version..." and yet we still see console jockeys claiming that the PC sucks and their rinky dink, outdated from the starting gate, console is the gamers dream machine.
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I think you may be misunderstanding what everyone is trying to say. Your prices are off. I'm not saying you should be like me, but I am a hardware junkie and I track products and pricing regardless if I am buying anything. Hardware today is tons cheaper than yesterday, and if your in to computer gaming (stereo type alert) chances are your somewhat of a pc enthusiast. That said, most pc gamers don't always build from scratch. I have 3 different boxes, all different specs, and each one of them runs modern games more beautifuly than my xbox 360. I like the consoles don't get me wrong, but pc gaming has had HD for longer, and has had better quality graphics and -in my humble opinion- better quality games (yes, even on machines that run $500).
If I want more performance, I upgrade a part here or there. I've ran two of my machines with no upgrades since 2008 and guess what? Back than (that year had a ram overstock so prices were pretty low granted), I spent no more than $400 on each machine during upgrades, and I run the FFXIV benchmark with the lower 3000's (slightly above average). U mad?
hehe ... i actually experienced a drop in monitor resolution after the "HD" standard came to LCD monitors in the 24" inch native.
PC has had HD for so long that this was new in 2006 http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/2560_1600_gaming_preview/
i consired myself a reasonably dedicated PC junkie and if i wouldnt spend my € on computers i would spend it on cars anyways.
also i could add that if you pick the parts wisely u get industry quality hardware compared to the cheap gimmicks u get in consoles .... hell a average hardware lifespan of a console with my gaming habits would be less than 6 months were as my latest computer i build has been running literally 24/7 for close to 1 1/2 years with only occasional user made reboots every now and then with absolutely no problems .... and i get same or better warranty for every major individual part compared to PS3 or 360.
cheers.
I have no interest in a consumer product that is under the control of a single corporation.
It's a whole lot cheaper to chase people in your neighborhood with a homemade sword. As a matter of fact, you'll even have your food and lodging paid for several years if you're aggressive enough.
/sarcasm_off
it is more expensive to enjoy PC games, and it's more expensive to drive then it is to walk or ride a bicycle. It's cheaper today then it ever used to be, and I think it's worth it. I usually spend around $1500 every three years on my PC. I could easily blow $100 on one night at the bar, so if I don't go out 5 times in a year, or once every two months, my PC gaming habit is paid for. And with the great looking games on the horizon, it's easy to find something to do on those nights I'm not going out drinking.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
What people don't realize in this comparison is just how far off consoles are from modern gaming PCs.
The most important component in gaming is, of course, the GPU. Do you guys know what the PS3's GPU is like? It's basically a Geforce 8600 GT. You can get that card, right now, used, for $30 So yes, you can get a $300 PS3 for gaming; you're just going to be limited to a $30 video card. Right now, even my $1000 laptop is something on the order of twice as powerful as the PS3.
A game like COD Black Ops is a very poor example, because in all honestly, it's not much of a stress on a modern computer to begin with due to its mediocre visuals, but if you're talking about a game with real visuals to boast about, like the Crysis series or Metro 2033, then no, a $300 console with a $30 GPU is not going to match a $1000 PC built today, or even a $600 computer. You're also not going to "optimize" your way around this, as some have suggested. Optimization isn't going to reduce the size of the textures or the number of triangles you need to churn through to produce a given image. That's still going to be GPU bound, and a gaming PC today, even a relatively cheap one, easily has vastly, vastly more power than the PS3's "RSX Reality Synthesizer" (quite a flaboyant name for a 256mb Geforce 8600GT).
Even at launch, the PS3, costing $500 or $600, didn't have hardware that was extraordinarily impressive in Q4 2006 at that price point (it was good, certain, because PS3s are sold at the cost of production, but it didn't exactly revolutionize the market).
This is in addition to the fact that you get much more utility from a $600 gaming computer as from a PS3. I, myself, am starting to get more into the post-processing side of photos, now that I have a decent camera and some fairly good lenses to play with, but of course I know that I won't ever expect to see so much as something comparable to Adobe Camera Raw on the PS3, let alone any of the other general purpose software I use, from video and sound file editing software, skype, or even mundane things like zip utilities (I seriously doubt the PS3 is boasting anything like Winrar).
So PCs are a much, much better deal than the OP is implying; you just have to think about it a little bit.
Addendum: I should add that even if the PS3 was physically capable of executing most of my general pupose programs, I don't think the 256mb of system ram would even be enough to open one RAW image file in any of my image editors.
You get what you pay for. Well, sometimes; other times, you get less than you pay for. That $300 console has graphics that perform almost as well as the integrated graphics that AMD will launch next spring. Seriously, integrated.
Specs matter. Or if you don't think so, I think I might still have my old 400 MHz Pentium II with an ATI Rage Pro video card and 160 MB of video memory. It played plenty of games in its day. Want it for $200?
If you happen to need a computer for other purposes, you add a $100 video card and viola, you've got a gaming computer--and one that massively outperforms your $300 console.
There are good reasons why very few MMORPGs make it to consoles. Consoles just aren't capable enough, so that it takes tremendous effort to port an online game to them.
Did anyone point out that a console is generally rendering at sub-1280x720 resolution and upscaled to 1280x720 or 1920x1080, has no Anti-Aliasing, uses lower quality textures and generally seems to have lower quality filtering enabled.
While even a cheap PC will cost more than a console, if you hook your computer up to your TV you'll find you can achieve the same graphics quality and better FPS on a cheapass GPU. The reason on the PC you feel compelled to buy a $400 GPU and jack the graphics way up is because you can, and it looks much nicer. But if you just want it to look like a console you don't need a $400 GPU you just need to hook it up to your low pixel density TV and sit 6 feet away like you do a console.
Well, I sort of said that but with more grunts and one syllable words ; )
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
That's where I'm going with this. It's just a software issue rather than a hardware one, and this is why I say it's a hardware rip-off.
Between, 500$ machines don't play games very well in high resolution.
Well, you can (or could rather) use a mouse and keyboard on a PS3, and browse your files. I dual booted Linux on my PS3 for a while. It ran terribly. Absolutely worthless to have so I wasn't surprised or disappointed when they removed the option to install Linux.
Like I was pointing out in my other post, consoles don't play games in high resolution at all. You just can't tell because you're sitting so far away from your TV. I actually run 3 identical monitors for my PC and have my Xbox 360 hooked up to one of the monitors through HDMI for occasional gaming. It looks terrible next to a PC game. I can run the same game on 360 and PC side by side and the 360 looks like crap and I only have a $150 GPU (Radeon 5770). I could easily run 360 quality graphics on a $50 GPU and possibly off my onboard graphics.. hell I should try.
It was painful playing L4D2 on 360 just to play with some friends when I can get a much much crisper cleaner picture on my PC if they weren't so into stupid Xbox Live achievements. At least they did Borderlands on PC with me instead of 360.
give up dude, you cant convince anybody on this site that consoles are any good, they're all PC fanboys. but i'll agree that console gaming is much cheaper then a PC gaming and graphcs cards are expensive. the whole PC is better then consoles arguement is pretty bad to be honest. being a long time console gaming that switched to PC gaming i can tell you they each have their pros and cons.
Well that's one way to put it. Here's another way:
I'm pretty sure that if we could get the same graphical quality on a console and use an input device of our choice then you might find more people using consoles.
Consoles are good (or have been traditiionally good) because of:
1, ease of use: just put in the cartridge/media and play the game
2, inexpensive
3, can play in an area that is traditionally set up for groups of people such as den, living room, etc. Furniture around the TV and everyone can see or have a go without too much difficullty.
Cons: can't easily be upgraded, games are stuck with the architecture of the console, don't look at good as pc games, input devices might be limited, not as much utility as a pc. Meaning I can spend a Thousand dollars or so on creating a pc that will do more than just play games but several hundred dollars will only get me a console.
Pros of a pc:
1, Great looking games
2, upgradeable to extend life and to keep up with more graphically intensive games
3, greater utility
4, allowance of different input devices
Cons of a pc are
1, More expensive and if you aren't going to use for anything else but gaming it might make more sense to go console with the cons that a console brings to graphics
2, sometimes the games have to be tweaked or are buggy or require patches. Though from what I understand consoles are now patching (?)
3, not as portable in some cases
No one is being a fanboy or a hater. They are simply outlining the aspects of pc's that make them attractive. I'm sure that if a console could give the same experience people would love to drop the amount of money they spend on gaming.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Heh, ok I just finished testing Xbox 360 L4D2 side by side with my onboard Radeon 4200 IGP. With all graphics options set to lowest possible and resolution set to 1280x720 with GPU scaling to 1920x1080 it looked almost identical to the Xbox 360 except that Xbox 360 has some sort of full screen blur effect applied that I had no setting for. However this blur effect provided a worse graphics experience that I couldn't match on the Radeon 4200.
The Xbox 360 runs at a steady 30 fps of course, while my Radeon 4200 ran at 25-28 fps with dips to 20-22 fps when looking at fires. I didn't try an outdoors level so it may run too poorly in that situation but on the rooftop I was getting 25 fps. I also set driver optimizations to 'Performance' when I probably should have used 'High Performance' and maybe eeked out another 1-2 fps while further degrading image quality toward the Xbox 360 level.
Overall I found the Xbox 360 more playable because of the constant 30 fps, but the onboard Radeon 4200 slightly more pleasant to look at because of the sharper edges and textures due to no blur effect. I believe an onboard Radeon 4250 or 4290 may provide the necessary performance to exactly match the Xbox 360.
lol come on now 500 bucks? give me a break. Minimum is 900 (more like 1000).
Realistically this has been happening to computers for a very long time, hell the only time I play my computer is for mmo's everything else is on the ps3. This is also the reason a lot of the newer mmo's coming out will not have as great numbers because a lot of them push the boundaries for graphics. I remember when AoC came out I couldn't even play the game because the min reqs were too high.
The only game i've really considered a new pc for (recently anyways) is crysis 2 just cause the first one was so sick. But for me to spend a grand just for one game is ridiculous.
Unfortunately for the computer game market consoles will always be the cheaper choice.
Not true, especially considering I just compared one of the cheapest onboard GPU you can get (Radeon 4200) and found it to be only slightly inferior to console graphics. Consider this:
Athlon X2 CPU $50
Motherboard w/Radeon 4250 $55
400W PSU $40
Case $30
2 GB Ram $40
500GB HD $40
DVD Drive $20
Total: $270, with slightly inferior performance to a console with just onboard graphics.
Now throw in an entry level graphics card:
Radeon 5670 $80
$350 and it would blow away a console. You do not need $900 or $1000 for a computer that can rock console graphics.
I'm not saying consoles are bad or a bad purchase, I have every console you can think of. But there are misconceptions about what it takes to game on a PC these days, and the graphics level of entry level PC vs consoles vs top end PC.
That's a very interesting point, especially when you break it down. For me personally though, I don't avoid computer gaming because my graphics card is old. Actually I don't avoid computer gaming at all. I'm pleasantly surprised when I update my graphics card and find my games are prettier, but I was still playing them when they were only mediocre. I have both a decent computer and a console game, and I play them both. There are games on both systems I have interest in, though my console seems to have monopoly on RPGs.
That's the problem, I think. MMO'ers are to a large degree, RPGer's. We like the numbers and the levels and all that fun stuff, because without it, it wouldn't be an MMO. It would be an FPS, or a straight up action game. RPGs generally don't come out for the computer. PC games are mostly platform, FPS, puzzle and strategy game territory, which is bound to have less appeal to an MMORPG'er than a literal RPG.
It's true, some of the recent, high-quality RPGs came out on PC, like Dragon Age and the upcoming Elder Scrolls 5, but these are drops in the bucket compared to the console library. Fighting Games are another area the PC lacks on, another genre that appeals to me greatly, so that's once again a style of gameplay I stick to my console for more.
If these games started being released on PC exclusive, or in addition to console, I'd be using my PC for gaming a lot more. I can multi-task with my PC, and while I can do so with my PS3, it's clunky and uncomfortable.
I don't think it's any one thing that's holding PC gaming back, but probably a multitude of issues it faces all at once. Pirating exists for consoles, but a PC doesn't require extra money to mod before you can make use of those pirated copies. The graphics card problem you mention may also be part of it, though not a biggest one. Console's are also already established gaming mediums, whereas PCs serve a variety of functions, so when making a game a console is probably what comes to mind first and foremost. Finally, consoles already have large, established gaming libraries that only grow larger, in part because of all the other reasons it has dominance over the PC gaming market.
All of these little things add up to one big issue that makes developing PC exclusive titles unpalatable. If Fable 3 is any indication, it's a lot of extra work to turn a console game into a PC game, so while some attempt it, others would probably find it a waste of funding for the same reasons mentioned above. That's my take on it, anyway.
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You're really exaggerating the prices, unless you want the latest best ever gaming PC.
And I don't see the use in doing so for anyone but the biggest geeks (no offence if you have the money and want to spent it on something like this), all that big power might last you a bit longer but you ain't gonna see huge differences in current games.
I calculated a full upgrade to a pretty damn solid system for my PC at about 600 euros (without box and screen).
But I ended up just replacing the video card for 200 euros as my system will probably still last for a year and a half easily with just that alone and prices will have gone down by then.
Yes, consoles are still cheaper, but they also don't play a lot of genres nearly as well imo.
It's also up to the makers of games to make them good looking while still being playable for a relatively broad public.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I seriously don't see how you could do a Fortress Raid on Aion with that system... Or do a raid in WOW with this machine without simply watching your computer go like "chunk chunk chunk".
Let's be honest, I do have a core 2 duo, 2 gig of ram, a 500 gig hdd, and a 8800GTS 320MB, and it's not gonna run everything as well as you guys say. Upgrading for a GTX 460 would cost me about 175$ and it would slightly increase performance from my 8800GTS just because of the extra RAM and a FEW more cuda cores...
What bugs me is that you never really run the game perfectly smooth at all times, for everything it was intended to. It's nice to hunt bunnies in Westfall but it's nicer to be able to do Fortress Raids in Aion...
https://i.imgur.com/Dc8dU3M.png
Have fun doing fortress raids in Aion on a PS3 or Xbox 360, then.
Oh, wait...
First of all, consoles set an iffy standard, let me point that out immediately.
Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are *LOSING* money on every console they sell, it costs far more than they sell for, but why? Because every game licensed for the platform makes their money back. They sell you the console cheap in the hopes that you'll have more money to spend on games, which is where they make the lion's share of the money. They make jack on the hardware itself. With that in mind, never look at it like consoles are killing the PC market, because it only seems as such because they are willing to take a major hit on selling you the hardware in order to get you to stock up on software, which in many cases, they are making money simply for licensing the rights to produce games on it. Ever question why the WIi has so much 'shovelware'? Because they didn't have to pay a dime to get smaller studios to produce it, but they make loads for allowing them to release it for *their* hardware. Sometimes they do finance the projects, but more often than not, they don't.
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No, Nintendo makes money on every Wii that they sell. That was the point of having hardware that is vastly inferior to the competing consoles.
The video card technology in it *alone* far surpasses the price tag, as it did with the gamecube. What I have stated is common knowledge, you can read up on it from any site, they will tell you that all console makers lose money for the hardware - and simply because they run a monopoly on what software releases on it. Seriously, look it up mang.
In fact, both the Wii and Gamecube have more stock in the video adapter tech than the processor power itself. The issue has never been the visual quality, as can be seen in quite a few 1st party games, but in the actual power to process residual data. They could'nt have the tons of zombies that dead rising did on the 360, but they could have given a few of them amazing fur textures on screen, if they wanted to.
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this... I have a rig identical to this but w/ a 4890 and I can run everything. Max resolutions would be great if I was on a 32 inch monitor but I'm not. I'm on a 23 inch crt running 1600x1200, the rig I have can run everything fine at that and its around 3 and a half yeahs old.
Yes, Sony and Microsoft lose money on every console they make. But Nintendo doesn't. Nintendo uses vastly cheaper and vastly slower hardware.
170 mm^2 on a 90 nm process does not cost $250 per chip today. That's about the same size as AMD's Juniper chip, on a much more expensive 40 nm process, and those cards sell at retail for around $120 new for a completed video card.
If Nintendo did the appropriate die shrinks, the GPU in a Wii on a 55 nm process would probably be about as big as the RV710 GPU in a Radeon HD 4350. And how much does that cost? Even after adding a PCB, heatsink, and various other components, and having several different companies at various steps of the way take their markup, not much:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127544
Nintendo uses ATI... and has since the gamecube. I agree, they may be makine a slight margin on the Wii for sacrificing on the processor power, but the costs of what goes into the Wii/GC is nothing to scoff at. Honestly though, I still think they don't make squat. They just don't lose as much as Sony/MS.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
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Add me to the list of those so called "Unconvincable PC lovers". I see things exactly the opposite of the OP.
Microsoft and Sony's mostly successful attempt to hijack PC gaming and gamers has actually stiffled the technological progess of the PC gaming industry.
It always amuses me to see games like Gears of War 1 & 2 finally come out for the PC and see reviews making statements such as "The PC version of Gears of War is everything the 360 version was and more." or "The graphics in Gears of War have never looked better than they do in the PC version..." and yet we still see console jockeys claiming that the PC sucks and their rinky dink, outdated from the starting gate, console is the gamers dream machine.
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