PC gaming is about to lose another customer...

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If you consider building a new system every 4 years as "frequent", then yes. Otherwise, no, I don't build them very frequently. My last build was in August of '06, and it cost me $1200. The one before that was sometime in '02. And the one before that was in '99. Three boxen in 10 years isn't bad... and I don't plan on building a new one for at least a couple more years. This one is doing just fine.

I don't need to build/buy a new system every couple of years to avoid game compatibility issues... at worst, I buy a new video card every few years, and when I do, I spend between $100 and $150. For the record, I haven't bought a new video card in 2 1/2 years, and I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon.

 

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I own both a PS3 and PC for gaming, and still prefer the PC by a country mile.. Im lucky like BM and have no problems with games, and the system im using is now 4 years old and still plays games like COD4, RA3 etc without a hitch.

Although I agree some games are just better on the PS3 like Pro Evo or Fifa, but saying that I think alot more games are better on the PC, such as any shooters or games like RA3, Wow etc.

It is all down to preference. PS3 is easier, if thats what your looking for, no doubts about that..!

 

No probs here either
not sure what the patching/graphics beef is, thats mainly tied to cutting edge games that are designed and optimized for the latest drivers, installing Crysis on release day, or CoD5 on release day will sometimes add those minor issues
its not exactly a big deal to install a driver though
and once your done your done, you can play the game whenever you want unless they patch the game
beats playing on out dated console hardware (and yes, the PS3 and XBox360 are OUT DATED, because they were designed years ago

 

My system is too new to have caused any issues yet. I always download a patch when it's available wether I have had any issues or not.

The only game I have had an issue with was once during fallout3 I went to save and the game crashed but other than that I've not had any problems with anything.

The only thing I can see me having to do in the future is a buy a new graphics card as I doubt my cpu will become redundant or die for a long time.

 

I spend enough time on my PC as is so gaming on my console is a welcome break and most of the game I play aren't available on PC or are waiting to be ported , times are changing lads.

 

I truly don't understand that mindset. I spend 8+ hours tied to my PC, and when I get home, after the wife and kids go to bed, I look forward to... my PC. Work on PC != gaming on PC - it's not like I have to use a different machine to do something different. That's the joy of having a PC, isn't it? Business productivity AND entertainment enjoyment, all in one box.

Got nothing against console gaming or those who prefer it. Preference is preference. But those of you who have consoles probably have a PC as well... particularly those of you on THIS forum. And I'd wager that I spend less on my PC and games than you consolers spend on your PC and console and games.

Sure, if I had unlimited bucks, I'd have a console... perhaps two. But I don't... and my PC gives me everything I need, so there's no need for me to spend MORE money.

 

Well, at some level there has to be a significant difference in our setups that determines who has problems and who doesn't. It could either be in hardware or software. Who knows?

 

Dunno. I do a lot of consumer research before buying components, and I stick to trusted brands. I don't buy until the research has been done already, and I always get the best bang for the buck - never the bleeding-edge, top-of-the-line. Intel processors with Intel chipset motherboards (only because I didn't build a system when AMD was king) - not nVidia chipsets, not VIA chipsets. Creative for audio. Single graphics card (either ATI or nVidia, whichever is on top at the time), standard-aspect monitor. Never a bunch of crapware slowing down my box - I keep it lean and mean. Those are my secrets, if there are any secrets there to be had. It's worked for me flawlessly for the past 13ish years, when I built my first system from scratch.

 

Seems your rules are similar to mine Mike, apart from the out dated 'standard aspect ratio' lark

Intel processor, Intel chipset
Asus Mobo
Graphics from BFG or Asus, nVidia or ATI whoever is best
Creative X-Fi for sound
Western Digital for HDD
OCZ or another performance brand for memory
MS Keyboard
MS Mouse
Multiple Monitors (WS and Non WS)
Clean install of windows vista, office 2k7, firefox
no crapware here either

My system is rock solid, does not crash

 

Yep... my current build is a very similar system:
Intel C2D
Asus Mobo w/Intel chipset
Sapphire ATI video card
Creative Audigy Fata1ity (only reason I got it was because it was the same price as the normal spec Audigy!)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (though a WD would have suited me just fine)
Corsair memory (though I had spec'ed out some OCZ that I almost bought)
Logitech keyboard and mouse
Multiple Dell monitors
Clean install of Windows XP (though my next wipe and reinstall will be Vista Ultimate)
Enermax PSU

Only reason I mentioned standard aspect monitors is because some games don't play well with widescreen monitors. Granted, that's becoming less and less common, as widescreen is somewhat mainstream these days. But still, if that is a potential cause of concern and/or crashing for Math, it's worth mentioning.

Last time I had a system outage, it was due to a failed fan on the CPU heatsink. Arctic Cooling sent me a replacement at no charge.

Last time I had a crash, it was due to Norton Ghost mucking things up... disabled Norton's services, and the problem went away. Attempted to uninstall... and it wouldn't (like most of Symantec's crap - big surprise, right?). Forced me to do a wipe and reinstall about 6 months sooner than I wanted to. Needless to say, Ghost is sitting on a shelf, not installed.

Other than those two issues, I can't remember the last time I had a problem with my gaming rig, going all the way back to my 2002 build, which provided gaming happiness until 2006. It was repurposed during the writing of the Vista book as my Vista lab PC, and it's still going strong today as my wife's computer.

 

Oh yes, I do my research. But that's not the whole story in getting games to work.

It could be the one of several other things, like:

1. Even though the hardware is good, the drivers may be iffy. An example being my Creative Fata1ity Pro Gamer sound card. Creative are known to have dodgy drivers.

2. The DirectX runtime distribution files are most likely to be different. Unless we have exactly the same .dlls for our respective distributions, that could very well be an issue.

3. Some systems do not like copy protection algorithms installed when you install a game. For instance, my PC doesn't like Starforce (as many other systems don't, and has effectively been phased out), but is happy with Securom that other people's systems aren'y happy with.

It isn't simply a case of carefully selecting good components based on reviews, putting them all together and every game magically works.

 

DirectX issues? are you kidding me? not since DX6

Creative APPS are known to be dodgy, the drivers are rock solid, no audio issues or audio driver issues, and thats going back a good 10 years
SB16 anybody?
AND I run x64 and use those 'dodgy' new fangled drivers!

I'm not saying your problems can't possibly be related to any of this, but I have yet to see it on any of my own systems, or systems I build to the same standards, and the same goes for many of my LAN buddies

PC games CAN be more troublesome than console games, but they often have a lot more benefits too, like Dawn says though, horses for courses!

 

I think for gaming you do need to get the pc setup correct where as with a console you don't

With my last system I had a few nv4.dll issues usually on boot up but this was no great deal to me.

The problem with consoles for me is that you can't upgrade and if you get a dodgy game (and you do get them) you can't patch them unless you have xbox live or whatever the PS3 one is and sometimes you have to pay as they call it an add on.

I think if you get the system right then you should be ok, but if you have had enough of getting it right then fair enough.

 

Thats just Wrong Brucey, C'mon you had a Xbox360, how many game patches did you have to pay for? Like PC Games, consoles now offer expansion packs which are chargeable.

And just to add Xbox Live has a silver account @ no charge.

 

I never had xbox live as I didn't see the point in it at the time. My mate had a game some rip of of GTA (can't remember the name) and it was dead buggy, there was a fix and he had to pay for it. It was only £1.99 for the fix but still money.

 

I have the Fata1ity Pro Gamer sound card, and I have no driver issues. In fact, I always use Creative, and have never had a problem.

You say that "iffy drivers" can't be caught by research. But if you do the research, then you should KNOW which cards have the driver issues, and you should avoid them. I saw no legitimate gripes with the Fata1ity, so I bought it.

True... but I use the latest DirectX for my OS, as the latest games typically require the most recent DirectX version. So that shouldn't be an issue. I have yet to have an issue where I couldn't play a game when I was patched to the minimum DirectX version or later.

I understand that many people have issues with Starforce, but it has yet to disable any component of my system. Once I'm done with a Starforce-enabled game, I remove the game and I remove Starforce.

Again, perhaps Ryan and I are just incredibly lucky... we don't seem to ever have those issues.

But it is. When I see complaints of people building a system that doesn't work, or is buggy, or crashes, or has software issues, or has gaming issues... I don't buy that hardware. And it's worked *every* time for me. I do the work, and it SEEMS to make a difference... because I don't have those problems you speak of.

The only other explanation is that, since I am a tech, I can recognize and eliminate potential problems before they occur. But you're a tech too, and it wouldn't be fair of me to judge your skill level by the issues you're having. Assuming you are a very competent hardware tech, that leaves only "incredible luck" and "thorough research" as the only other possible explanations.

Again, I repeat: I could just be incredibly lucky. But with the amount of games I have played - FPS, RTS, TBS, sports, trivia, MMO - certainly I would have had at least ONE major difficulty at some point, don't you think?

Meh. I don't mind updating drivers (or the OS) occasionally, or removing unused apps occasionally, or upgrading hardware components occasionally. It's all part of maintaining a properly functioning computer - which I'm going to have to do regardless of whether I game or not. In fact, I enjoy it. If you don't, then perhaps a throw-away computer and a console is the perfect solution for you!

 

Forgive me, but this is one of the most outrageous statements I've ever heard! Seriously...

DirectX has had major revisions to both its internal architecture and capabilities in-line with hardware technology development. These changes have lead to various problems, including the missing texture issue found for FarCry, which was a combination of issues with DirectX and how it was implemented in the game engine, along with driver issues.

And these 'apps' are not heavily reliant of drivers, no? As in these apps still need the drivers to talk to the card?

As I think I implied before - yes, there will be some systems that appear to work seamlessly. One thing I can say, though, is that I have always been able to find at least one case of exactly the same issue that I've had, both for the same hardware and across alternatives. If it were so easy to create games for the PC that work all the time, how come you hear so many moans? Given that I work in the actual games industry I'm very well aware of such issues and why they would happen.

Well the fact that they have to be installed prior to play, and having to match your system specs to the game beforehand immediately makes them more troublesome. I used to have the same perceptions as you, but you eventually run out of steam if you are a very hardcore PC gamer.

That brings me to another point actually, the more demanding a game is on resources and hardware requirements, the more likely it is not to work because the average user is unlikely to have a very highly-spec'd PC. And that is very true.

 

Still looking for the bit where I said "iffy drivers can't be caught by research"?

So, according to this you would have avoided the card that we both have? I saw this myself before buying the card but still chose to. None-the-less, it proves that many people have issues and if you research hard enough you will see that Creative has a reputation for bad drivers. Why are they particularly bad? Because the same issue occurs over a variety of configurations.

Well, you do realise that when you update the DirectX runtime, only those components that need to be updated are actually updated, right? This does not mean the same thing as as long as everyone updates to the latest version they will have identical .dlls.

Maybe.

 

Because most people don't know how to spec out or maintain a PC.

I never said it was easy to create games for the PC... nor did I even say it was easy to do the research before buying quality components. But it is possible.

Not true at all. I haven't run out of steam (or Steam, for that matter) yet.

Perhaps you're not hardcore enough. heheheheh!

Really, is it THAT difficult to install a game? Come on... You have to do it a grand total of ONCE for every game.