PCs and Consoles and Clouds... Oh My!

[Psych]

I tried Diablo II for the first time about a month ago. I played for about five hours before stopping, saying to myself "Oh I can see why so many people sink so much time into this," and then deleting the game so I wouldn't be tempted to lose more time to it.

[Fuzzy Lobster]

I've never been able to afford/known what the heck I was doing enough to build a decent computer. As a result I've never really been able to play PC games much at all, especially not the pretty ones. I live for the lowest settings.

Now that I've finished school and finally have a big kid job, I've been wanting to build a better machine and play a bunch of games I missed out on back in the day. Unfortunately I'm super lame and I'm so unaccustomed to playing on the PC that I really suck at using the keyboard controls.

[liquid]

I've been playing on my PC since 1993. The first game I played was on the PC, I've never owned a console and I doubt I will - it's far more expensive for me than upgrading my PC every two-three years.

HDTV (i don't watch TV, hell I don't even have an old 20" tv), Console, Wireless (if 360), more expensive games, subscription to use my internet connection for p2p(!!) gaming (wtf?!)... plus, I don't think single player games are worth $60 ($90 here) and there isn't a genre in gaming other than sports and fighting that I would prefer using a gamepad (and that I can connect to my PC) to play(and or fighting you still need an arcade stick).

Take all that into consideration and spending close/over a thousand dollars for something I will only use to play games becomes unreasonable.

Within the next year or two I will have Starcraft 2, Bad Company 2, Diablo 3 and Mafia 2. The Blizzard ones alone will occupy my gaming time for the next 2-3 years each. Why do I need a console again?

Plus, I like to build my own PC, research the hardware and possible upgrade possibilities and costs. It can run for months and it still won't overheat. I'm a PC guy.

[elmuerte]

I've never been able to afford/known what the heck I was doing enough to build a decent computer. As a result I've never really been able to play PC games much at all, especially not the pretty ones. I live for the lowest settings.

Unless you want to play the latest and greatest games you don't need a crack ass system. The mid range consumer PCs from Dell or HP are more than good enough to play most of the 1-2 year old games (make sure it contains a dedicated graphics card from AMD/ATI or nVidia). With an Intel GMA you really need to reduce the graphics quality, but you can run pretty much everything 3 years old on acceptable quality settings.

A PC gaming system isn't expensive per se, only when you want to play state of the art games.

For example, for about 450 euros you have a pretty decent gaming system from Dell (Inspiron 545s w/ Radeon HD 4350).

Note: for mobile graphics cards you should add another year to the age of games.

(@GrouchoClub) Intel GMA integrated graphics cards often suck, it's always best to get the the GMA X??? HD versions. Ofloading stuff to the CPU usually doesn't help anything because the CPU is usually not powerful enough in configurations which have a low end graphics card (exception being certain workstations which need CPU power but don't need powerfull 3D graphics).

Laptops usually suck for gaming, because power and battery efficiency+heat productions usually don't work well together. It looks like you laptop has a GeForce Go 7200, which isn't that bad. Most games from 3 years ago should work reasonably well (4+ for FPS games). The problem is that you don't have a lot of RAM and the GPU isn't that fast. So you should use mid or even low resolution textures, and disable most of the post processing features.

[SoulChicken]

I own each console and have a PC. A benefit of being a 30 something manchild with a career. I know my 12 year old self would be proud of me, restricted as he was to an Atari ST, never owning a SNES or Megadrive.

This allows me to be platform agnostic, I just plays da games. Since listening to Idle Thumbs I have rediscovered PC gaming and that has become the platform I use the most nowadays. Thumbs made me aware of games like Dawn of Discovery and TRINE and things have just snowballed from there.

I just find I'm playing PC games the most these days.

I do love my consoles though, I think multiplayer on the XBOX360 is so easy and efficient. On the PC I don't really have a clue what I am doing, I have very few people on any PC friend list and playing with strangers has suprisingly been more perilous than on the 360. I dont have any real life friends that play video games so I just try and pick up friends from SA or here.

I just love Video Games. and yes I'm talking about Jake.

[castorp]

...and then deleting the game so I wouldn't be tempted to lose more time to it.

Hehe, yesterday I did exactly that – it just took me 20-30 hours longer (this time – I go trough this every two years or so). I loathe this game and it's accessibility and addictiveness.

[BlarfMarfle]

There is a bit of cognitive dissonance with me, re: PC versus console gaming. I tend to think of myself as primarily a PC gamer, but thinking about the gaming I have done most in the last 6 months, it's been probably 70%/30% console/PC.

I like the way I can load up a game and pop back into it while I'm working, and I prefer mouse and keyboard for shooters, RTS and sims. But platforming, action and certain shooters (Gears) I play on console. I played Batman on console, although curiously I played Beyond Good and Evil on PC. So, I'm all over the map.Since I'm almost 100% single-player only, the online stuff doesn't really affect my decision on platform.

I'm ok with that. I don't see the need to be dogmatic- except that I won't buy a game digitally unless it's from gog.com, Impulse or Steam.

[Garple]

Just in case this is useful to anybody else:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/251808-33-intel-game-compatibility-list

long list of games that'll run on Intel GMA 950

[Garple]

My laptop runs the Freedom Force demo on the highest settings! I'm pumped...now if I could just get Steam to accept my credit card

see, I've never been a PC gamer, so I've missed so much that's it's perfectly fine with me to be going back and playing old games. I'm downloading Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines from D2D (a game I drooled over in Best Buy 5 years ago) and keeping my fingers crossed (it was only 5 dollars)

All this is really making me want to save up for a new PC. So...if I bought a mid-range dell for like $600, I could play most games? If I did that...would you guys recommend customizing it on their website to get the best vidcard they offer...etc? Note: I'm not worried about the cutting edge...I just want to be able to run most games on decent settings.

Is there a particular PC you guys would reccommend for that (one that's relatively cheap?) I don't really want to build my own computer, because I'm afraid to screw something up and I don't really have the extra money to cover any costly mistakes.

[elmuerte]

I would customize it and make sure you have a decent video card. That's probably the most important part of a PC (ditch the Intel GMA for a real AMD/ATI or nVidia card).

[Moelman]

I would customize it and make sure you have a decent video card. That's probably the most important part of a PC (ditch the Intel GMA for a real AMD/ATI or nVidia card).

This is the best advice probably, I think for gaming a decent video card is definitely the most important thing, I've gotten by with having a good video card but below required CPU and RAM for games before. 9800's and whatever ATI's equivalent is are pretty cheap these days.

[Garple]

Seeing as I'm stuck with the GMA for now (it's a laptop, so I can't upgrade), I've been tinkering with it, seeing what I can run.

I've managed to get Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines running beautifully the other night but haven't been able to get it going at all tonight. I got Messiah running flawlessly.

All this messing around is so lame, but if I have another platform for gaming, I feel compelled to take advantage of it. If nothing else, I can lose a million hours to Diablo II and the first two Fallouts.

Please offer any suggestions you might have for PC games made in 2002 or earlier that you consider essential, or at least well worth playing even today.

[miffy495]

Or you could just buy Torchlight. Seriously, I barely knew it existed before last week and now I'm playing compulsively. Incredibly good.

As for pre-2002 PC games, I would say the original Freedom Force is one of my favorite games ever. It's $5 on Steam. You have no excuse if you haven't played it. The original Max Payne is similarly cheap and awesome. Unfortunately, pre-2002 also means age 13 and younger for me, so not having a job or any kind of money at that age limited my experience. Still, give those two a go and I doubt you'll regret it.

...also, it can't hurt to have a look at the engine a game runs on. If it's based on Quake 3, you'll have games up to 2004-ish that use that engine and should be scalable back down to 1999-equivalent hardware.

EDIT: Whups, Freedom Force came out in early 2003. Still, you should be able to run it...

EDIT Part 2: The Re-editing: on looking over your earlier posts, I see you're already going for it. I'll just be on my way then.

[Garple]

Freedom Force is one of my favorite games ever. It's $5 on Steam. You have no excuse if you haven't played it.

Except that Steam won't accept my credit card or paypal account. I thought I'd cleared it up when I bought Audiosurf (which is probably a great candidate for desert island game, btw...with a few gigs of Mp3s that include "Ante Up" by M.O.P. and "Blue Lips" by Regina Spektor). Oh well, I've sent steam support another message. in the meantime, maybe I'll get torchlight from a different site. Probably be a good idea to buy it direct from runic if that's possible.

Edit: I'm also looking forward to jumping on D2D's Tropico bundle to get ready for Q1 of 2010 when the xbox 360 version of Tropico 3 comes out. Thank God for the Xbox getting a lot of the games you'd have expected to be PC only in the past. Yes...I know...Playing a strategy game on a console...blah blah blah (console gamers don't necessarily mind that...we're more used to a controller anyway and don't necessarily have enough experience with PC games to know what we're supposed to be frustrated about)

Also: Has anyone played Democracy 2? or the prequel?

[liquid]

For those who might be wondering what to purchase for a good PC and don't have 1000000000000000$, check this out http://www.destructoid.com/my-guide-to-making-a-killer-pc-on-the-cheap-152820.phtml#ext

It's a decent configuration. You can save yourself a bit of cash if you get XP SP3 or pirate 7, depending on your personal preferences. If you do pirate it - make sure you invest the saved bucks into the video card - get one with more memory if your monitor is more than 22" and you want to play on the bigger resolutions. This config will let you enjoy Crysis, so you'll be set for at least 2 more years with it I presume.

[toblix]

Also, you can break into a store and steal an awesome computer.

[Nachimir]

A great tip on electricity is to just run cables from your neighbor's house. Ideally, you wait until they're on holiday, dig a trench between your houses, break in and make connections, and they never find out.

[toblix]

On an unrelated note, something to do when you're strapped for cash: buy a cheap cup of coffee and then pretend to spill it on someone, preferably a rich-looking man (look for: monocle, moustache, golden cane). Then -- and this is the trick -- pretend to clean him right up, and while you clean him right up steal his wallet.

[miffy495]

And, if possible, his moustache.

[Garple]

It's occurred to me, as I'm trying out different PC games, that many of the genres that work best on the PC (i.e. Strategy, RPG and Adventure) are the genres that age better than any others. Do you guys agree, disagree?

I mean, no matter what hardware you have, you'll be able to run, Diablo II, the Monkey Island series (Including the new Telltale episodes), Heroes of Might and Magic, Fallout and Starcraft etc... even certain modern classics like Torchlight and World of Goo.

So, even though having an up-to-date system is ideal, there are still a zillion good games that'll run on your humble little machine.

Plus digital distribution has made it much easier to obtain older games and be sure that they'll run on your OS.

This post is really tangential; does anybody know where I can purchase digital versions of Planescape:Torment or Baldur's Gate?

Edited November 10, 2009 by GrouchoClub

[miffy495]

If you're American, I think Gametap has them. It's the reason I signed up in the first place, but then it turned out that they weren't available in Canada for whatever reason.

[Garple]

but then it turned out that they weren't available in Canada for whatever reason.

That's so weird when that happens. Maybe they're illegal in Canada.

edit: thanks for the info. They're, otherwise, hard to find. I'd prefer to own them, but it seems I'll probably have to settle for what I can get.

[Garple]

I'm using my dad's computer right now and I just discovered he has a real graphics card! An old one, granted (Radeon 9200) but still. The closest I've ever come to real PC technology. He said he wouldn't mind if I installed a game or two. Any recommendations for great older games that I probably wouldn't have been able to play on my integrated card?

[liquid]

Look for games released between 1990-2002 or something like that. The card is probably with 128MB RAM? AGP, made in 2001. Ancient technology

If you've bought your Main Board with the integrated video after 2002 chances are you're better off with the integrated one. As long as you give it enough RAM to use from your main ram of course.

[Garple]

Look for games released between 1990-2002 or something like that. The card is probably with 128MB RAM? AGP, made in 2001. Ancient technology

If you've bought your Main Board with the integrated video after 2002 chances are you're better off with the integrated one. As long as you give it enough RAM to use from your main ram of course.

Ah, well. Fuck computers.