Curious About PC Gaming

ScumLord

Ya laptops are useless for gaming, they really are a dead end street.

indough

agree with the last two posts, laptops are crap for gaming imo

humanji

One point that would make me say that you should stick with your consoles, is that you're used to a mac. PC's and macs are very different animals and considering that you may need to do a lot of tinkering to get some games working at their best (or for some, to get them working at all), it's going to be a huge learning curve. If you're willing to put in the time and effort though, PC gaming is fantastic. Much more versatile than console gaming, IMO.

Overheal

^ yeah but playing a console or playing a PC: its the same thing as taking the bus or owning a car.

indough

i prefer walking

Overheal

indough wrote: »

i prefer walking

youll need these:

indough

nah i think thats cycling, this is walking:

BopNiblets

You can have your RPG and strategy, FPS FTW!

ScumLord

humanji wrote: »

One point that would make me say that you should stick with your consoles, is that you're used to a mac. PC's and macs are very different animals and considering that you may need to do a lot of tinkering to get some games working at their best (or for some, to get them working at all), it's going to be a huge learning curve. If you're willing to put in the time and effort though, PC gaming is fantastic. Much more versatile than console gaming, IMO.

The only time I've had real issues with a pc game was with Half life 2 which I still can't play due to the security they put on the game and the way they don't answer any of my emails.

Windows 7 is much more stable again, even some mac users are saying it's a decent OS and that's saying allot! If you get an xbox controller for the PC you've more or less got the xbox experience only better.

humanji

Personally, I've never really had any trouble running games either, but some people have an awful time getting certain things to work. That's the main problem: it all depends on what you buy. I got Lost Planet with my grpahics card and it refused to work simply because it didn't like my monitor. You'll always get bizarre errors like that with a PC. Sometimes they can be ignored, and sometimes they can't. Where as with a mac, things are more standardised, so you know what to expect.

oceanclub

Insurgent wrote: »

To be honest I'd stick with your PS3. To get the most out of PC gaming you would need to upgrde, upgrade, upgrade

But you really don't... my PC is now 2 years ago and it wasn't incredibly high-end when I put it together. Am playing Batman: Arkham Asylum on it right now, 1650 x 1080, all settings on high, 60 fps, smooth as melted butter. At this point in the console cycle, with most games being multi-platform, PCs are rarely stressed at all, only by the big PC-only hardcore shooters.

I have a gaming PC, laptop, Wii, XBox 360, and DS (well, the latter is my wife's but I, er, borrow it sometimes). Of all these, I do 90% of my gaming on the gaming PC. It's a matter of taste but I would consider PC gaming if some of the following apply to you:

(a) Genre preference: Most of the games I prefer are more suited to a mouse/keyboard combo to a controller - FPSs and RPGs. (I cannot stand playing FPSs with a game controller)

(c) Controller preference: I can only think of arcade games, platform games being and driving games being genres where a gamepad is preferable to a mouse/keyboard. And since I hardly ever play driving games, it's not a big deal. (I did buy Braid on the XBox 360 for that reason).

(d) Comfort: I prefer sitting up in a comfy chair in front of a monitor rather than slouching on the couch when playing - if I'm slouched I'm too comfy, and just crap when I'm playing.

(e) Mods/tweaking/community: Console gaming is primary a consumerist activity - you buy and use a product. PC gaming is a lot more interactive, I find. Even I, a non-coder, have gotten involved in gaming mods and patches (in my case, the Vampire Bloodlines patches). I like that aspect of PC gaming.

Not to mention the fact that it allows you to game on the cheap (buy a copy of the Half-Life 2 pack on Steam for €15, and there's enough mods to keep you going for a year).

(f) Game price difference: Games tend to be cheaper, a _lot_ cheaper. Even first-release games; I got Batman: AA for £16 new! That's ignoring the decent sales you get on online distribution systems such as GOG.com and Steam.

(g) Enhanced older games: It's great not just being able to go back and replay a classic such as the Oblivion prequel Morrowind, but being able to patch/enhance it so it looks relatively modern.

P.

oceanclub

L31mr0d wrote: »

That being said, about mid 2008 I built myself a PC and I haven't upgraded it since. I really can't justify the expense as it plays everything fine and there's still some headroom for more overclocking should I need it.

Yep, it's funny when I hear people complaining that PC gaming means having to constantly upgrade. I've been trying to justify getting new components to myself for the past six months and I can't, since my PC pretty much plays everything at full whack. I WANT to upgrade, dammit.

P.

Overheal

BopNiblets wrote: »

You can have your RPG and strategy, FPS FTW!

If youre going to go to the trouble, I like Warhammer (That's Cycling)

ScumLord

oceanclub wrote: »

Yep, it's funny when I hear people complaining that PC gaming means having to constantly upgrade. I've been trying to justify getting new components to myself for the past six months and I can't, since my PC pretty much plays everything at full whack. I WANT to upgrade, dammit.

P.

Lol, I went ahead and upgraded recently even though I didn't really need to. I had the cash and planed to do some overclocking so that's how I justified it, I also managed to convince myself that my motherboards old and if I don't put in a new cpu now they might stop making them meaning I won't be able to upgrade it.

superfly

my pc is 3 years old and would have normally upgraded by now but since i bought a new graphics card earlier in the year it is still doing the business
So it looks like it will be next year before i'd consider upgrading again, on those results it looks like you can get away with high end gaming for 4 years with 1 gpu upgrade in the middle
Places like Komplett, Ankermann and computerplanet can make you some great high end gaming machines for not too much money

BothBarsOn

Hi all,

OP here again. Thanks everyone for the replies (I'm new on boards.ie and I'm impressed!).

I think I'll take the coward's way out and get a MacBook Pro with a 9600m. That way I can at least get a taste of PC gaming (and more importantly, Windows 7) via Bootcamp. I'll be missing out on the high-end, obviously, but I'll learn enough from older games to know if I fancy taking the plunge with a proper gaming PC next time I'm in the market for a 'pooter. And I know, I know, I could get a kick-ass PC for much less money, but it's too much of a risk.

Thanks again.

leninbenjamin

Christ no not a macbook! You could buy yourself a decent specced laptop and build yourself a mid range gaming machine for the price of a decent macbook!

Best thing for me about PC gaming anyway is the mouse. It's not that I don't like the Xbox or PS3 controllers, it's just that a mouse gives so much more freedom and comfort imo.

Manic Moran

PC, PC, PC...

Granted, I play games which aren't suited for consoles to begin with. If I'm playing Steel Beasts Professional or Falcon 4, which uses every key on the keyboard to include Shift, Alt and Ctrl combinations, there's not much a console can do to keep up. Upgrading the games with the latest patches and mods is something which, I believe, most console games cannot do either.

I did buy a laptop for gaming, but mainly because I do a lot of long-term travelling. Can't really drag the desktop out with me to a war zone. That said, my old desktop at home served me well for about four years, with only minimal upgrading if any. (New DVD drive for burning, and I upped the graphics card a bit).

NTM

hooradiation

As if in reaction to this very topic, my PC has decided it doesn't like doing what it's supposed to anymore and has simply stopped working. Now begins the long process of finding out what the hell is on it's period so i can replace it.

Thankfully i have a DS and Wii, so I have something to do while I play hunt this down.

PC gaming, it's fantastic, no really.

(and I'm posting this from my netbook, before anyone gets shirty)

jonny72

BothBarsOn wrote: »

Hi all,

OP here again. Thanks everyone for the replies (I'm new on boards.ie and I'm impressed!).

I think I'll take the coward's way out and get a MacBook Pro with a 9600m. That way I can at least get a taste of PC gaming (and more importantly, Windows 7) via Bootcamp. I'll be missing out on the high-end, obviously, but I'll learn enough from older games to know if I fancy taking the plunge with a proper gaming PC next time I'm in the market for a 'pooter. And I know, I know, I could get a kick-ass PC for much less money, but it's too much of a risk.

Thanks again.

Oh god don't get a macbook! you can get a PC laptop that does everything the macbook does and then have enough left over for a budget gaming PC!

Kinetic^

BothBarsOn wrote: »

Hi all,

OP here again. Thanks everyone for the replies (I'm new on boards.ie and I'm impressed!).

I think I'll take the coward's way out and get a MacBook Pro with a 9600m. That way I can at least get a taste of PC gaming (and more importantly, Windows 7) via Bootcamp. I'll be missing out on the high-end, obviously, but I'll learn enough from older games to know if I fancy taking the plunge with a proper gaming PC next time I'm in the market for a 'pooter. And I know, I know, I could get a kick-ass PC for much less money, but it's too much of a risk.

Thanks again.

MacBook Pro's start at €1149 for a basic 13" model, which isn't a great size screen for gaming tbh. You could build a decent gaming machine for €500 and have enough left over to buy yourself a decent laptop for on the go. Please review your choice. If you need help building a cheap gaming machine then go here.

thebman

Pc gaming rocks for a few reasons. Just look at the mods/custom maps for start on games like HL2, TF2, L4D and others.

I only play valve games on my Pc really though. I use my PS3 and 360 for games that release on console first as usually the control schemes are messed up putting them on Pc. Mouse lag FTL

0ubliette

BothBarsOn wrote: »

Hi all,

OP here again. Thanks everyone for the replies (I'm new on boards.ie and I'm impressed!).

I think I'll take the coward's way out and get a MacBook Pro with a 9600m. That way I can at least get a taste of PC gaming (and more importantly, Windows 7) via Bootcamp. I'll be missing out on the high-end, obviously, but I'll learn enough from older games to know if I fancy taking the plunge with a proper gaming PC next time I'm in the market for a 'pooter. And I know, I know, I could get a kick-ass PC for much less money, but it's too much of a risk.

Thanks again.

Buying a mac to sample PC gaming is like buying a 6 pack of non alcoholic beer to sample being pissed out of your face, it AINT GONNA HAPPEN!
Unless of course you jsut want to play peggle and WOW, a mac might be able to run those, but if you want actual real PC games, a PC is the only thing youll run them on.

TerrorFirmer

0ubliette wrote: »

Buying a mac to sample PC gaming is like buying a 6 pack of non alcoholic beer to sample being pissed out of your face, it AINT GONNA HAPPEN!
Unless of course you jsut want to play peggle and WOW, a mac might be able to run those, but if you want actual real PC games, a PC is the only thing youll run them on.

Actually from a tech spec the Macbook is pretty good. It's just the price. For example, the cheapest macbook with 9600GT - the minimal level really desirable for a new gaming laptop, as opposed to the crappy 9400M in the lower macbooks - is 1,800 euro. For that price, you'd build a savage gaming desktop and a laptop more powerful then the Macbook at running games. For example, I got my laptop with 9600 for 599 euro...a Macbook double the price has a slower video card.

Macbook = good for certain purposes. But gaming isn't one of them unless you have a range of other requirements that Macbook offers you solutions to.

Overheal

Not only is Mac the dumbest way to go about gaming, but a 9600? Seriously?

I hope you bought the extended warranty bud. youll be able to cook eggs.

As Terror says if gaming is your main battle role here, a macbook is not really wise. if its more of a college/general use thing, grand. but high end gaming, it is not.

Dcully

BothBarsOn wrote: »

Hi all,

OP here again. Thanks everyone for the replies (I'm new on boards.ie and I'm impressed!).

I think I'll take the coward's way out and get a MacBook Pro with a 9600m. That way I can at least get a taste of PC gaming (and more importantly, Windows 7) via Bootcamp. I'll be missing out on the high-end, obviously, but I'll learn enough from older games to know if I fancy taking the plunge with a proper gaming PC next time I'm in the market for a 'pooter. And I know, I know, I could get a kick-ass PC for much less money, but it's too much of a risk.

Thanks again.

Mate this is a crazy decision in so many ways.

BothBarsOn

You know what, fuq it. I'm gonna build a PC. You only go around once, right?

AlmightyCushion

BothBarsOn wrote: »

You know what, fuq it. I'm gonna build a PC. You only go around once, right?

Good stuff man. It's actually fairly easy. I built my first pc a few years back and I hadn't even seen the inside of a pc before. Get some good guides online and get some excellent advice on what to buy over on the building and upgrading forum and you'll be laughing.