+- Tendo City (https://www.tendocity.net)
+-- Forum: Tendo City: Metropolitan District (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Tendo City (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=42)
+--- Thread: PC gaming seems as strong as it has ever been. (/showthread.php?tid=6976)
PC gaming seems as strong as it has ever been. - Dark Jaguar - 13th July 2016
It's amazing really. Just a few years ago, people were forecasting the death of PC gaming, and these days it's taken off to such a degree that the forecasting now calls for the death of consoles. Between changes to how OSes are handled, more robust APIs, and groups like GOG working hard to make all the games of the past work on modern systems, PC gaming is also more reliable than it has ever been. I build my own systems, but for those who either don't know how or would rather not bother with the hassle, the variety of prebuilt options actually made for gaming AND built to last has grown a lot too. Beyond Alienware, there's the current crop of "Steamboxes", MS's own Surface Pro series, and with the upcoming changes, the XBox One itself may just gain the ability to play PC games (internally, it runs on x86 architecture and Windows 10, so nothing really prevents it except MS's own lockdown on "side loading" unapproved applications).
Beyond that, I see so many people turned off by the current generation of consoles who are sick of the console wars and would rather just dump some money into a good PC rig and leave Sony and MS to do their own thing. (Note I didn't mention Nintendo. They do their own thing and at this point everyone gets a Nintendo system purely as a system to play Nintendo's own games. I know that's why I do it.)
I've just recently upgraded my PC. It's been long overdue, and when it comes to PC hardware there's generally no point waiting for that new hardware just around the corner because there is ALWAYS new hardware just around the corner, so I took the plunge with the new GPX 1070s having just come out. I'm loving it so far. It took some work getting my Windows 10 install to boot correctly after the switch from BIOS to UEFI (I pronounce that with a hard "I" sound, because it sounds more computery that way), but I've got it running correctly now. I have to say in the process I learned a LOT about the GPT partitioning system (compared to the old MBR), as well as what makes UEFI so different (the key is in how tightly integrated it is with the OS now, it can even replace Windows 10's boot logo, though I turned that off). Modern hardware all seems specially designed for overclocking, to the point where I wonder just how honest those "default settings" really are now. I had to replace my case, because enough has changed over the years that this old case I bought in 2003 or so just wouldn't fit the hardware I wanted any more. Cases by and large look ridiculous (when it comes to aesthetics, I got the distinct impression that a lot of custom PC builders never got out of the 90's, it's all "extreme" with cyber dragons other such nonsense all over the place.
Let me get into that, because it's pretty tasteless. I've seen firsthand what a lot of PC builders think looks good, and as a general rule, I hate pretty much all of it. I didn't pick my hardware based on aesthetics, but to see the descriptions on some of it, I have to wonder just how often hardware sacrifices performance in the name of looking cool these days. Firstly, far too many cases have these stupid curves all over the place that, aside from looking like some early 2000's era PC, also makes the things harder to clean and harder to fit exactly where you want them to go. I went for one of the few companies that believes that form should follow function and picked up a big white box shaped case. http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/define-series/define-r5-white As you can see, it's simple and clean, just like I like it, but more than that it doesn't have any shapes that get in the way of opening the case up and tinkering with it. A big deal for a lot of these builders seems to be having side windows. I opted out of that. I actually saved money getting one without a window. That's crazy to me, because I got this case in particular due to it's silent design, and the window panel means no silencing foam where the window is, so I got one that's quieter AND cheaper thanks to the crazy style that's "in" right now. So, builders like to show off the hardware inside with that window. To that end, EVERYTHING LIGHTS UP NOW! That was one of the things I hated finding out the most. I keep my PC in my room, and I tend to sleep in there too. Good thing is, I could shut those blasted lights off in the firmware. Bad news is the LED on the case itself is surprisingly bright. I slip a pokemon pamphlet over the light just so I can sleep at night. Lastly, there is exactly ONE acceptable color scheme that "looks good" in the eyes of builders right now. Black with red highlights. There is no possibility of an alternative viewpoint here. I had to sift through countless reviews of hardware on newegg that all would say things like "great hardware, disappointed it wasn't black and red to match my hardware" and "good and it's black and red so it looks great". Basically, things sorta drifted to that black and red outnumbering other colors, and out of fear of a color clash, now EVERYONE demands absolutely everything use that color scheme. The good news is, I really don't care. Since I'm not using a case window, nobody's going to see that hardware unless I open my PC up anyway.
Well, back on track, the good trends include power cabling being detachable from the power supply and much better modular case design with a whole section "behind" the motherboard dedicated to cable management to keep stuff out of the way. It's clear they've been focusing on making cases more builder-friendly, and I like that. I also like how modern cooling fans focus on both solid build quality and silence. (I've not yet had good reason to take the plunge and go with liquid cooling.)
My specs are good enough to hold me for the next five years now I think, with a little room to grow on with the motherboard in particular so my next upgrade will likely be cheaper anyway. At this point, my next upgrades will be a new monitor and eventually replacing my hard drive flat-out with a SSD (flash capacity is increasing steadily enough that I expect that within the next five years).
On the topic of software modifications, then came the process of making sure all of my PC games still worked. I managed to find a lot of fixes to get pretty much everything working just fine, fully featured even. MS themselves make a special "application compatibility" tool which includes all manner of rules to change Windows' behavior when launching programs. For example, I used one ruleset to fix issues launching Morrowind. Unfortunately, one critical issue with Windows 10 proves elusive to find a convenient fix for, and that's the frame buffer. For now, the only way I can play Curse of Monkey Island is through ScummVM, but at least I can play it.
On the original topic, GOG is really starting to become a big threat to Steam's dominance. As far as features go, all they're lacking is a good multiplayer and chat backend and they'll have all the major features Steam have.