Videogames Thread: Steaming Ahead

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

I personally find console gaming too slow with the controllers and UI,prefer the inputs of the PC. But yeah like Wert mentioned, you can always miracast your PC to any smart tv today and attach any controller to it, whereas the inverse isn’t true for playing console on the PC…So to maximise games PC is still a good bet.

Yeah the initial cost is more expensive now, but the cost over time and gaming experience is always cheaper due to sales, cheaper games, no annual subscriptions, mods , graphics , etc. 

[Werthead]

13 hours ago, Kalbear said:

That hasn't been my experience maintaining 5 PCs in my house. Between various hardware flavors and failures, having to get certain mod loaders and scripts running, figuring out how to download certain games, steam corruption of folders, different graphic card updates (and how sometimes those updates will hose one game and make another one fine), setting up different accounts with different permissions for the family members...it's not just saying 'yes'. 

Maybe I should have been clearer and said maintenance and updates of windows pcs. Windows itself usually isn't too bad as long as your hardware is reasonably standard (though we had a fucking mess of a time with a couple of drawing devices) but all the other stuff adds up. Heck, just account management across multiple people isn't awesome. That probably isn't a big deal if you only have one person, I suppose.

Being on my sixth PC since 1998 without experiencing too many of these problems, I'm a bit worried about what on Earth you're doing to your PCs  I only dabble in mods occasionally but they mostly just do everything for you (especially via Steam), graphics cards updates are another "install yes/no" thing and most games auto select settings for you quite well (unless you have a 4090, apparently, in which case they either set the game at about 25% of the capability it can handle or try to run everything in 8K at 400fps, presumably in a morbid attempt by the designers to either melt your card or have the fans generate enough spin to take off).

The only major mod headache I've encountered was New Vegas, but that's a game that infamously needs mods more than most and can be janky in how it handles them (although once it's working - and it's not really that hard - it's a sublime thing of beauty).

8 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Yeah the initial cost is more expensive now, but the cost over time and gaming experience is always cheaper due to sales, cheaper games, no annual subscriptions, mods , graphics , etc. 

The cheaper games thing is still true, but fading fast: new PC games in the UK are now going for £60, just behind console games at £70. Alan Wake 2 going for £40 on Epic is a real outlier. Ten years ago it was closer to half the price of a console game new, which was outrageously good value. 

Steam and other online retailer sales are also now just dogshit compared to what they used to be. It used to be you could get a game that was 2 years old, sometimes less, reduced to £10 or sometimes less, even big blockbuster ones that have sold well. Now there's games that have been out for five years, even indie ones, that have never dropped below £20.

I do like that you can use controllers on PC without any issue, but it is annoying that you can't use mouse and keyboard on most console games, even when they have a PC port and a mouse and keyboard control scheme.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Being on my sixth PC since 1998 without experiencing too many of these problems, I'm a bit worried about what on Earth you're doing to your PCs  I only dabble in mods occasionally but they mostly just do everything for you (especially via Steam), graphics cards updates are another "install yes/no" thing and most games auto select settings for you quite well (unless you have a 4090, apparently, in which case they either set the game at about 25% of the capability it can handle or try to run everything in 8K at 400fps, presumably in a morbid attempt by the designers to either melt your card or have the fans generate enough spin to take off).

The only major mod headache I've encountered was New Vegas, but that's a game that infamously needs mods more than most and can be janky in how it handles them (although once it's working - and it's not really that hard - it's a sublime thing of beauty).

The cheaper games thing is still true, but fading fast: new PC games in the UK are now going for £60, just behind console games at £70. Alan Wake 2 going for £40 on Epic is a real outlier. Ten years ago it was closer to half the price of a console game new, which was outrageously good value. 

Steam and other online retailer sales are also now just dogshit compared to what they used to be. It used to be you could get a game that was 2 years old, sometimes less, reduced to £10 or sometimes less, even big blockbuster ones that have sold well. Now there's games that have been out for five years, even indie ones, that have never dropped below £20.

I do like that you can use controllers on PC without any issue, but it is annoying that you can't use mouse and keyboard on most console games, even when they have a PC port and a mouse and keyboard control scheme.

There’s a huge regional variance, I know you guys in Europe usually get the worst deals, in india for instance even newly released AAA PC titles go for 45-50 USD at launch on Steam. The only exception recently was Starfield which debuted at 60 USD….needless to say didn’t sell very well here. But I think even that was cheaper than globally where it went at 70 USD. The same ain’t true for console pricing which is the same everywhere globally, so for me PC gets me lots of savings in the long run.

I also live in a shared household and it can get awkward gaming in the living room, especially with mature rated games, as opposed to the privacy of my room. And I’m a shameless graphics whore lol.

[Caligula_K3]

9 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

 

Yeah the initial cost is more expensive now, but the cost over time and gaming experience is always cheaper due to sales, cheaper games, no annual subscriptions, mods , graphics , etc. 

I really don't think this is true. It was at one point. But gaming PCs, even mediocre ones, are ridiculously expensive now. The XBox Series S is very affordable. And the sales I've seen on the XBox store have been on the same level as what games go for on Steam. The recent sale on Cyberpunk was the exact same across all platforms.

Something like Gamepass can absolutely add up over time. But unless they give me a good deal on an annual subscription, I'll be buying it month to month and unsubscribing whenever I'm not using it. 

 

[Werthead]

 I did just do a spot check and you can get all-in 4060 systems for under £1,000, which isn't too outrageous for a pretty solid card which is DLSS capable (plus, y'know, the rest of the PC). Natively you wouldn't want to go much above 1440p with that, but with DLSS that can handle 4K  well, and for the same price (ish) as a PS5+XBX and able to run games from both.

The real game-changer for prices coming down will be how well DLSS and the AMD equivalent continue to develop. The differences they can make in speed and efficiency for an almost unnoticeable drop in visual quality is quite stunning. I was playing around with the DLSS settings on Phantom Liberty and seeing the performance load on the graphics card drop by half for no noticeable change in visuals was pretty eye-opening.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Werthead

[Poobah]

14 hours ago, Werthead said:

If you want a no-problem 60fps 4K gaming PC, 

Is this what the XBox and PS5 deliver? If so how are they able to do so at their price points? Are they just upscaling or actually delivering native 4k? I thought I remembered hearing that most console games ran at 30fps? I'm genuinely curious, my last console that wasn't a Nintendo product was the original Xbox so I'm very disconnected from all this stuff. 

Also feel it's worth pointing out that if you're building a gaming pc and don't want/need the specific things that nvidia do have leads in (ray tracing, dlss) I would really go AMD for your graphics card. They're notably ahead on rasterisation and price to performance, at least in the research I've been doing ahead of building a new system. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

6 minutes ago, Poobah said:

 

Also feel it's worth pointing out that if you're building a gaming pc and don't want/need the specific things that nvidia do have leads in (ray tracing, dlss) I would really go AMD for your graphics card. They're notably ahead on rasterisation and price to performance, at least in the research I've been doing ahead of building a new system. 

The issue is that Nvidia seems to have developed more partnerships with gaming studios so the AAA games coming out are almost always optimized around and built for new Nvidia Technology. My sweet spot right now is AMD CPU, Nvidia(asus) GPU, Aorus Motherboard, Corsair Coolers, Asus for monitor, ram etc. (asus are awesome at everything else).

Also dont  Xbox/PS consoles require you to pay annually just to use their network for MP gaming? Thats just ridiculous to think about as PC gamer....Internet usuage really should be considered as a utility now, even Nintendo dosent charge for it. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

16 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 I did just do a spot check and you can get all-in 4060 systems for under £1,000, which isn't too outrageous for a pretty solid card which is DLSS capable (plus, y'know, the rest of the PC). Natively you wouldn't want to go much above 1440p with that, but with DLSS that can handle 4K  well, and for the same price (ish) as a PS5+XBX and able to run games from both.

The real game-changer for prices coming down will be how well DLSS and the AMD equivalent continue to develop. The differences they can make in speed and efficiency for an almost unnoticeable drop in visual quality is quite stunning. I was playing around with the DLSS settings on Phantom Liberty and seeing the performance load on the graphics card drop by half for no noticeable change in visuals was pretty eye-opening.

Not to also mention that a 4060 is about 2x more powerful than the latest consoles. 

[A True Kaniggit]

1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

....Internet usuage really should be considered as a utility now, even Nintendo dosent charge for it. 

Isn’t that Nintendo Switch Online?

You can’t play Switch multiplayer games over the internet without the subscription. 

Edited November 5, 2023 by A True Kaniggit

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

7 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Isn’t that Nintendo Switch Online?

You can’t play Switch multiplayer games over the internet without the subscription. 

My bad then, i only used to play pokemon on MP on the 3DS which was always free

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

 

Also dont  Xbox/PS consoles require you to pay annually just to use their network for MP gaming? Thats just ridiculous to think about as PC gamer....Internet usuage really should be considered as a utility now, even Nintendo dosent charge for it. 

No, xbox doesn't do this and hasn't for quite some time.

Also keep in mind that you can buy that pc now for $1000 - which is still $700 over the cost of an Xbox series s - but you could have had the S for 3 years during that time. And would have likely had to upgrade that pc if you wanted that level of performance, or spent a lot more money.

Also, @Werthead, I think you misunderstand - I have 5 PCs I have to manage at the same time. Since 1998 I've had to manage maybe 40 or 50 upgrades or changes. What I'm doing differently than you is that I'm dealing with kids and folks who are not pc savvy. The biggest problems have been around non-gaming stuff honestly, but even gaming stuff has had issues. I hate minecraft Java now...so very much. Tmodloader for terraria is pretty great though, and skyrim mods are fine provided my spawn remember to back things up. 

But it adds up in time and mental energy, and it is nice that I have to do none or that with the xbox or playstation.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

@KalbearTrue PCs typically do require more maintenance than consoles but bear in mind even this has 'dumbed down' over the years due to consolidation and standardization. The whole 'PC getting viruses over the internet', or a game/applications not being compatible with your PC build hasnt been a thing in over 15 years now thanks to Steam, MS Defender,Updates, Directx and other platforms that have become industry standards. My entire family is non tech savvy other than me but honestly the way PCs and Macs are nowdays, its quite dummy proof to use and let them upgrade/troubleshoot automatically.

To give you another example of productivity, I remember a time when for every new PC i had to get Winrar/VLC/Flash and a whole bunch of third party apps to really make it useable which would chew up a non techie but they are no longer needed today as these processes have become embedded within the base OS/browsers itself.

Modding has become a lot easier due to the advent of installers like MO2 and NMM which provide a GUI for the user to easily install things, whereas in the olden days we had to manually override the game file directory ourselves, but its still not for the casual gamer, especially on getting mods to run properly without breaking your game, you need to devote a weekend to watching youtube videos on how to run em in the right order, troubleshooting compatibility etc.  i have over 200 skyrim mods installed but it took some time for my game to run with stability after i fiddled around with the mod loading orders. The community support for em is alot better now though with nexus and steam workshop forums along with official game forums.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Werthead]

I started Alan Wake 2 and holy shit this is easily the best-looking video game ever made. Genuine moments of freak-out photorealism where my brain just went, "Is this actual video or is it 3D graphics?" It's easier to tell with the people, but even they look far better than anything I've seen before.

[Darryk]

I bought an Xbox Series X, got bored of it and sold it so I could go back to playing PC games.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

I started Alan Wake 2 and holy shit this is easily the best-looking video game ever made. Genuine moments of freak-out photorealism where my brain just went, "Is this actual video or is it 3D graphics?" It's easier to tell with the people, but even they look far better than anything I've seen before.

How does it compare graphically to Witcher 3 Next Gen edition and Cyberpunk 2077 RT overdrive ? 

[Werthead]

48 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

How does it compare graphically to Witcher 3 Next Gen edition and Cyberpunk 2077 RT overdrive ? 

Much better. Obviously it's not doing as much over such a large scale (it's rendering a small town and a lot of woods in the Pacific North-West), but in terms of detail it's a significant step forward beyond those.

[Werthead]

There's a chunk of Alan Wake 2 set in New York City and that's where the game goes into overdrive visually. I suspect it will be a long, long time before we see that kind of fidelity in an open-world game but it's pretty incredible.

The actual game itself is very good outside of the visuals. Much less reliance on the combat of the first game, much more focus on story, exploration and survival horror elements. I think the game just about stands by itself, but you'll get a lot more out of it if you've played Alan Wake 1 (including the 1:1 recreations of AW1 areas in the AW2 engine, which is a trip) and there's a fair few references to Max Payne, Quantum Break and Control. They have to change the names in the references to the former two (Remedy don't have the rights to them, despite making them) but the references to Control are fairly overt.

7 hours ago, Poobah said:

Is this what the XBox and PS5 deliver? If so how are they able to do so at their price points? Are they just upscaling or actually delivering native 4k? I thought I remembered hearing that most console games ran at 30fps? I'm genuinely curious, my last console that wasn't a Nintendo product was the original Xbox so I'm very disconnected from all this stuff. 

Also feel it's worth pointing out that if you're building a gaming pc and don't want/need the specific things that nvidia do have leads in (ray tracing, dlss) I would really go AMD for your graphics card. They're notably ahead on rasterisation and price to performance, at least in the research I've been doing ahead of building a new system. 

The Xbox X and PS5 can technically deliver 4K at 30fps but tend to bodge it at HD or 1440p and upscale, which works varyingly well based on the game. The type of DLSS technology we have now didn't exist during their development, so their comparative solution is much weaker, though still semi-effective (it's what drives the Quality/Performance mode differences you see in some games). I suspect Microsoft and Sony also both bank on the lukewarm uptake of 4K TVs meaning it's not really necessary for a large majority of people to have consoles capable of rendering natively at 4K.

The PS5 and Xbox Z or whatever the hell they call it will probably lean on this technology much, much more. PC games are already utilising it even when they don't really need to. Everyone seems to be locking onto it as the solution to video card specs and prices going even more insane in the future (especially given that nVidia want to switch more focus to AI chips, which is where they're making the big money right now).

Edited November 5, 2023 by Werthead

[Caligula_K3]

Finished Starfield. Or at least got to an end point I'm fine stopping at after buying the most expensive ship in the game, doing tons of sidequests, and finishing the Crimson Fleet, Vanguard, Ryujin Industries, and main questlines.

I really enjoyed it, overall. I really respect the game's ambition and variety of gameplay and settings, the faction quests are among the better in Bethesda games, and even the main questline gets pretty good after a terrible opening. It also felt like there was more scope to role play than in the past few Bethesda games.

Downsides: exploration is a lot less fun than usual due to load screens and too many procedurally generated planets. There are some bizarre UI and design decisions that make outpost designing and other features tedious. And some elements of Bethesda quest design feel dated, especially in combination with so many loading screens. Do I really need to always return to a questgiver to complete the quest? Can't we send e-mails or use walkie talkies in the future?

Overall, 8/10 for me, though I could see why some would rate it lower and others higher.

[IlyaP]

47 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

exploration is a lot less fun than usual due to load screens and too many procedurally generated planets. There are some bizarre UI and design decisions that make outpost designing and other features tedious. And some elements of Bethesda quest design feel dated, especially in combination with so many loading screens. Do I really need to always return to a questgiver to complete the quest? Can't we send e-mails or use walkie talkies in the future?

How does it compare to the space fights/travelling/traversal in Freelancer? 

[Arakasi]

Question on Elden Ring here. So my eight year old son has finished Armored Core 6 and I was wondering if Elden Ring which is also from the same developer was fine for him to play. (Since I bought it when I got my PS5) My son is pretty mature for his age and has completed god of war, th E mass effect trilogy, horizon games, the Diablo games, etc. But I haven’t let him play Witcher 3 because of the nudity and adult content. The very little I played seemed generic dark fantasy but I don’t know how adult the topics get.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Arakasi