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Not a day goes by where I sit here an dream of playing some game or another that cannot possibly hope to run on this humble little laptop of mine. I am sure that others of you are in the same sort of predicament as well whether laptop or desktop. Unfortunately it feels like with each new leap of technology as good portion of people are left behind who haven't made the jump. The thing that sucks is that on one hand I feel like I would love to get a newer computer so I have the chance to play these games but on the other hand I really dislike the idea of having to continually upgrade in order to play the latest games at decent framerates.

Don't get me wrong though, I love playing games on the PC. The thing is is that it seems like people that play games on the PC are getting the short end of the stick. I understand that there is a "hardcore" demographic out there that has monster pc and can play Crysis on the higher settings but there are still a lot of people out there that would play games on the PC but don't have the hardware that a lot of newer PC games demand.

Say what you will about WOW but if there is one thing that WOW is capitalizing on are all of those people out there that have been left behind by giving them a decent game experience without having to have a particularly powerful computer.

I don't know how feasible this is (I'm not very good on the technical side of things) but would it really be that difficult for some games to be optimized to be played on lower and higher graphics settings? No, I don't mean scaling the graphics down like in Oblivion or something similar (the graphics scaled down look like shit presumably because the game wasn't really expected to be run on that low of a setting) I mean taking more time with the game to have the ability to scale the graphics down but not loose the artistic direction of the game.

/end rant

Seriously though, what are some things that irk you about PC gaming and what do you think developers can do to alleviate these problems?

Recently I decided to play around a bit with the old Neverwinter Nights, to see if people have made any new fun scenarios. I was bored, so I thought that I could jump in for a few minutes and see if this will float my boat for a while. I found my CDs and:

1. Inserted CD and started installation.
2. Typed a long registration key.
3. Started downloading patches and mods that are necessary to play this (admittedly shitty) game.
4. Had to change CDs for a couple of times.

15 minutes later:

1. Inserted first expansion CD and started installation.
2. Typed another long registration key.
3. Started downloading another patch and wasted some time to remind myself which one I need for my combination of expansions.
4. Had to change CDs for a couple of times again.

20 minutes later:

1. Inserted second expansion CD and started installation.
2. Typed another fucking long registration key.
3. Started downloading a patch that makes localised version of the game work properly. Searched for few mods.
4. Got disconnected and had to start the above over.
5. Had to change CDs for a couple of times again.

20 minutes later:

1. Installed patches.
2. Installed mods.
3. Launched the game.
4. Found it's too old to work properly with my graphic card.
5. Messed around with settings and looked on the internet for solution.
6. Restarted PC a couple of times.
7. Said: "Fuck this shit!"

30 minutes later:

1. Uninstalled expansion 2.
2. Uninstalled expansion 1.
3. Uninstalled game.
4. Manually deleted left overs.
5. Pulled out my DS and just started playing some Castlevania.

2 hours of great fun later:

1. Reminded myself why PC sucks and can be used only for work and casual/indie games.

Yeah, that is almost exactly what happened to me yesterday trying to play Diablo 2. I installed D2 and LoD and about 20 minutes into playing it the game froze and the computer shutdown. Tried it again and the same thing happened. However, I did finally get it to work by running it in compatibility mode. Funny that you mention the DS, had it not worked that is what I would have been playing, possibly even playing Castlevania lol...

This is probably the most common problem that people run into trying to play games on their PC. I don't want to sound redundant but I think that the only way for PC gaming to have a streamlined setup is to have a dedicated app like Steam that handles the patching and the like. However, I don't feel that that is a good option either as it puts a lot of power into the hands of one company and also ends up creating a monopoly of sorts if everything were to be Steam released.

What really sucks is that I don't necessarily know that there is a solution to this problem. One, PC are all similar in their essential components but dissimilar in their choice of said components. So making a particular game run almost perfect on all systems would seem impossible to me. Sadly, my lack of knowledge in this area of computers does me a disservice in trying to meditate upon a solution. Unfortunately I think that the best option out there right now is to go with a 360 or PS3. This doesn't mean that I don't think there isn't a solution to the problem I just think that for the time being I would just like to sit down and pop in a game without a whole crapload of hassles. (Not that that doesn't happen on consoles...red ring of death *cough*)

What I really hate is that if you complain about all these problems on most forums, you will just get replies of "your comp is crap" or "you just suck at using computers".

Truth is, I do suck at computers. I was pretty into it all when I was a teenage. But the more I got into specific fields of gaming and game design and the more my interests went away from nerdy ones, the more I'm left behind when it comes to PCs.
For a game developer, I'm pretty clueless when it comes to techie stuff. I do know my share about what is related directly to games, but I don't know a thing about latest CPU types, graphic cards, drivers and their settings.

Thing is, that it really shouldn't be a problem - I just want to play a fucking game, not get a deegree on MIT  :-X. And I still know more about computers than your average casual user.

Really, each time I play a game that doesn't make a heavy use of mouse, I wonder how great would it be to have it on a console instead ( :cavestory:). And for the mouse heavy games - they better be short, because I don't want to kill my eyes and butt from sitting before a screen for hours. I get enough of it at work already!

Is there any way to fix it? I don't think so sadly. Diversity and flexibility is actually PC's main feature and big game studios don't have the time to make their game work on all that mess. Been there, seen that - "It doesn't work on Ati and Athlon combination under Vista? Fuck! Too bad, add that to the readme.txt and go on with the release".
It's much better with casual games that don't have nasty deadlines and are made to work on as many configurations as possible. Though it takes ridiculous amounts of development time from my experience.

I think it'll sort of fix by itself by just following the current trend further - PC = smaller downloadable games (casual and indie) and MMOs, and concoles for the rest.

Well welcome to capitalism, baby. It seems there is a large enough demographic of hardcore gamers who upgrade their rig to the latest and best every 12 or 16 months for it to be profitable for a couple of studios to keep pumping out AAA titles which demand a lot from your hardware.

But after all these aren't all the games that there are. In the bargain bins you can find hundreds of really amazing older games which run on just about every hardware. And the indie scene? We get new indie games all the time which don't push the hardware envelope. So I guess I don't really see the problem?

Well, that isn't exactly the issue. I suppose I should have clarified myself a bit more. I was merely using graphics specifications as a platform for initiating the discussion. What I am talking about mostly is the fact that running a game on the PC is not as easy as it should be. Bargain bins are all fine and good but that doesn't mean a thing, an old game can have a problem with a certain piece of hardware just as much as a new game can. I mentioned above that I was having problems running Diablo 2 which is more than just a few years old. Recently I have also experienced problems with Imperishable Night which theoretically should have no problem running on this computer (I can run Oblivion on low settings).


Hmm, you would think that if it was an issue of being driven by a capitalistic outlook that the developers of these titles would see the potential in bringing in more people through abolishing the barrier for entry. I don't think that WOW would be even 15% as popular as it is if it weren't for the low barrier of entry.

Okay, I see your point. I guess that's just a basic fact of trying to run one piece of software across a range of wildly heterogenous hardware configurations. I guess one way around this would be to provide one stable, efficient and well-tested runtime environment in which many different games are hosted; much like console emulators, which you can use to run hundreds of games on virtually any PC, even across operating systems, but for more modern titles which are specifically written for that environment. A VM like Java, but better suited to games. The idea is nice, but try getting more than one vendor to accept such a system. I guess the reasons are more political than technical.

Also, some of the hiccups cited above are more related to copyright protection. This whole DRM thing is a pet peeve of mine, punishing honest customers as opposed to people who just download the cracked version. But again, it's political and doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.


Let's face it: many of the current big budget titles are nothing but rehashes of older games. Just look how many sequels were presented at E3 this year. If you take the next-gen graphics away, you just end up with a game you played two or three years ago, so there's no incentive to allow these games to scale very well to older systems.

And hardcore gamers just seem to expect this. They want eye-candy above all else and are prepared to shell out the money for it. If the system wouldn't work, it would have collapsed on itself by now. (I'm not saying it isn't going to; just so far it hasn't happened.)

WOW was different, it had to offer a new gameplay experience to many players (I haven't played it, but so I hear), so it profited greatly from allowing older systems to run it well.
EDIT: Thinking about it, the game concept actually requires the barrier of entry to be low, because more players probably means more fun for everyone playing.

AppLocale is your friend.

My solution to PC Gaming is to not play anything I'd have to pay for, and/or stay a couple of years behind.

Bonesaw.


There. I said it.

That is pretty much my philosophy when it comes to playing games nowadays. The only reason I have Oblivion installed is because my girlfriend plays it. We have to keep the graphics scaled down though so it looks like complete shit on low. Besides I don't really have much use for Oblivion either, well, except for the improved combat system but I think I can stay with Morrowind which I feel is the better of the two.

While it is true that some games are just eye candy rehashes there are others that I would really just like to have the opportunity to play. I don't mind the graphics being scaled back somewhat as long as I could actually play the game with a decent framerate.

PCs are for spreadsheets.

When Half-Life came out for PC but not for Mac.

When I can't even play many indie games because my computer is so incredibly crap.

When thanks to my half sized integrated graphics card in my HP Slimline, I can't even play Worms Armageddon.   

When they decided that Windows doesn't need built-in DOS compatibility anymore.

When the best video card I could get (as in, the best in the whole damn area, no price things here) is a 7100 GS. Also, when my country's currency is worth little against the dollar, but that goes for consoles too.

When some games won't even initalize because the card I use is not specifically supported by such game.

I actually have a half-way decent PC at the moment, so my damnation is directed at all the old favourites that won't run on a dual core processor, or that can't past Vista's over-the-top security.

It is annoying when games check to see if you don't meet the minimum requirements and then refuse to run if you don't.  I've run enough games with half the necessary RAM to at least want to give it a go.

I find that when backwards compatibility is the issue, I say: DAMN YOU GAMING IN GENERAL AND NOT ONLY PC GAMING AND MAYBE NOT ONLY GAMING BUT ALSO USING OTHER KINDS OF SOFTWARE TOO!!! instead.

Sometimes not out loud.

Seriously. I don't meet a single one of Assassin's Creed minimum requirements and yet I can play it fine only have a problem also reported by people with computers that are more that enough to run the game.

I, too, have backwards-compatibility-related rage. So much rage, in fact, that I can only hope to express it through small pictures of people with highly expressive faces.

 >:(

Seriously, I'm a younger player. There are so so so many great games out there that aren't made to run on my relatively new computer. I hate having to take my chances with emulators and updaters to play good old games. Rar!

Luckily the only PC game I have compatibility problems is MGS.

Curiously, the only old game that would bother me if it had compatibility problems.

When I'm trying old PC games, in rough order:

1. Try on my laptop, has the weakest spec of my current PCs.
2. Try on VMware- though other virtual machines would possibly work too if you're not a fan.
3. Go into my cupboard, where I've stored my old-gen PCs. Dig one out, dig out the last OS installation media I knew it worked with, install that, then install the game. Go hunting for old drivers and DX releases online and through my archives. :) Hook up to modern monitor and controls. Play. :)

Old console/Amiga/C64 games- emulator obviously, though if I've got the console and original media (usually the case) I'll sometimes compare the results.

Sometimes it doesn't work anyway, and sometimes the game isn't as good as you remembered. That leads me to step 4:

4. Look for modern indie remake. Pay $10-$20 to author. Play that for many hours instead. ;)

As for dealing with the upgrade cycle- there are so many games out there it hardly matters. I just pick up last-years major commercial releases from the bargain bins, and stock up on indie titles. That way I don't pay the early adopter premium for hardware or software. I just upgrade when my work needs require it, then shuffle the machines down.

It'll be a bit sad in ten years though. I know I'm not going to be able to play half the games I bought now due to activation issues, etc.

Right now I've decided that I'm not getting rid of any old hardware. Until it dies, that's it.

Because no one is going to circumvent that copy protection EVER (2 weeks)

It builds up after a while. I tend to keep old "selected" hardware. That is, a selection of hardware so that I can the use bulk of the old software I still want to. I used to keep everything- it took up a lot of space, and costs when moving house. Consoles generally aren't very big so they're immune to this rule. ;) Anyway, I pack things away much better nowadays.


Haha, yes, very true, and probably faster than two weeks too. Of course, that's all assuming the game is fairly popular and no crucial content is stored on the server. And that I can find the cracked version in ten years time. And that it works as well as my legitimate version did.

Unfortunately, some of the games I enjoy are somewhat niche offerings, and might not draw the same cracking interest. So in time, they are probably going to die. :(

Of course, someone will have done a remake by then. ;)