Is Intel killing PC gaming? [Archive]

Phanto

07-12-2006, 07:43 PM

The Guardian Unlimited (http://www.guardian.co.uk/) has posted (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2006/07/12/is_intel_killing_pc_gaming.html) an article where Mark Rein of Epic points to Intel being part of the demise of PC gaming.

Here's a bit from it...
Rein placed the blame firmly at Intel's door, for an approach to the computer market that tended to go for the lowest common denominator . He suggested that the lack of graphical power was holding back further developments in all kinds of software, not just games, and claimed Microsoft had "capitulated" to Intel by not enforcing 3D power on the desktop. Such a change would cost very little - he suggested between $5 and $8 - but the result is that the gaming industry is now thinking of abandoning PCs completely in favour of consoles.

Well it's true that there are some kind of lack for PC games right now but there are great PC games right now and more are coming. It's also true that the PC games have begun to disappear, Call of Duty 3 anyone?

The Iron Weasel

07-12-2006, 08:08 PM

Savok

07-12-2006, 08:20 PM

Epic would do well to make it so Mark Rein never, ever talks to the public again.

Kamalot

07-12-2006, 08:22 PM

Ph00p

07-12-2006, 08:23 PM

FUCK HIM 360 is killing PC Gaming at least FPS gaming shit look at how shitty COD 2 was, I was about to mention how shitty COD 3 will be for PC if its anything like the last retarded consoloid version but then I guess it'll be different than the console versions?

Mainstream gaming in general is fucking up pc gaming making everything uber n00b friendly like the retarded "halo health" system in COD 2, that was rediculous. Another thing that 360 fucks with PC gaming is the eb and flow ex. COD 2 you had a tiny bit of environment then suddenly CHECK POINT, UH OH THATS RIGHT BIG FIGHT COMING UP RIGHT AWAY! I remember back in the day of PC games like shit even COD 1 had more of a natural feel, COD 2 is broken up into check points and tiny bits of scenery anything in between those 2 are unheard of, no randomish encounters, no flow all very n00b friendly bullshit very Haloish.

sflufan

07-12-2006, 08:30 PM

Oh dear! Call of Duty 3 -- which is being made by Treyarch, not Infinity Ward -- isn't coming to the PC. Whatever shall we do?

Kamalot

07-12-2006, 08:32 PM

Oh dear! Call of Duty 3 -- which is being made by Treyarch, not Infinity Ward -- isn't coming to the PC. Whatever shall we do?
That leaves us free to play something decent.

Wonka

07-12-2006, 08:34 PM

But Infinity Ward is making a modern call of duty for PC which will be leagues better then CoD3 on the consoles.

I would be surprised if I could not play that new COD on my 360.

Intel is not killing PC gaming. I don't think that anything is really killing PC gaming. I would say that PC gaming is more fading into a niche market. I don't expect it to actually DIE, just become a smaller and smaller piece (proportionally, NOT in actual size) of a larger growing market. In other words, I think that most of the growth will be in console games. I think that the reasons for this are straightforward. A lot of us sit at a PC all day long. People like to sit on their couch and use a larger screen when they relax. Consoles are increasingly capable of many of the same experiences that were previously exclusive to PCs. And most nerds already play games on their PCs. Whereas the non-gamer types (the untapped part of the market) are more susceptible to console games than PC games. I could go on, but you have all heard this all before. The bottom line is the same. PC gaming does not seem likely to become the fastest growing market segment for all of the above reasons and more.

So you see, its not so much that PC gaming is DYING, its that console gaming is growing MUCH MUCH faster as a market. Which means that most games get made for consoles as the priority and for PCs as an afterthought or a cash in. Simply because there is more money (marketshare) to be made on consoles.

MS is trying to "revitalize" PC gaming, we shall see if they succeed or not. I think that they can make it less of a hassle for people. And if they ever finish XNA, that would at least help to increase the number of games made for the 360 to get also made on the PC. Some of you hate the idea of this, but thats just too bad. This is the way the world is, so you are just going to have to get used to it. And this includes you Mr. Rein.

sflufan

07-12-2006, 08:35 PM

That leaves us free to play something decent.

Like Spore for example!

Rafer

07-12-2006, 08:35 PM

This isn't new really, he's been saying the same thing for at least the past few months, from the firing squad interview (http://www.firingsquad.com/features/epic_games_rein_interview/page2.asp) ...

There are some seriously expensive desktops and laptops with crappy graphics chips in them – these aren’t just the low-priced machines either. [...] If people take those machines home and try to play recent PC games on them they’re going to have a horrible experience and possibly give up on PC gaming altogether. Users aren’t educated in this area but when their new $1,500 PC says “no” to a decent PC game they’re going to just assume the PC games market had passed them by. This is sad because the difference in cost the PC manufacturer to put in a decent graphics chip isn’t very much.

Reading that interview I think he has a reasonable point.

inmostlight

07-12-2006, 08:37 PM

Draft

07-12-2006, 08:39 PM

His assessment is 100% spot on.

balamoor

07-12-2006, 08:40 PM

It is just Mark Rein whining and bitching about graphics again. Nobody pay attention to him.

Spore is coming to the PC, as are these other titles:

Neverwinter Nights 2
Resident Evil 4
Star Trek Legacy
Panzer Command
Phantasy Star Universe
Gothic III
Lord of the Rings Online

PC gaming isn't dead, but PC gaming does not cater to Mark Rein's every whim, and that makes him cranky.

Mark Rein is a Grade-A asshole whose company survives on graphics alone. He once said that the only difference between Pole Position and modern day games is graphics, essentially forgetting a lifetime of advancements.

Add to that:
Biowares Unannounced MMORPG, which is rumored to be Baldur’s Gate Online (May not be but a lot of folks from Bioware Austin has been spending a great deal of time at WOTC)

Warhammer Online
Warhammer: Mark of Chaos
Might and Magic Dark Messiah
SOE DC Comics MMORPG

PC gaming is far from dead in fact PC titles are being released about as fast as 360 tiles which is still woefully lacking in games. Mark Rein is just talking out of his ass..yet again.

sflufan

07-12-2006, 08:41 PM

Kamalot

07-12-2006, 08:42 PM

Which only goes to prove that console gamers must be some of the laziest people on earth.
Or they highly value their time.

sflufan

07-12-2006, 08:43 PM

Or they are just impatient and lazy.

Wasson_

07-12-2006, 08:43 PM

I just think as they years go buy it'll be more along the lines of certain PCs and basically all Gaming Consoles in general evolving into the same kind of dedicating Gaming platforms that still have the basic shit any PC has for extra functionality.

balamoor

07-12-2006, 08:45 PM

His assessment is 100% spot on.

Okay that settles it, now we all know Rein is talking out of his ass.

Oh almost forgot..... :rolleyes:

inmostlight

07-12-2006, 08:48 PM

Or they highly value their time.

Seriously, I have real life and a job getting in the way. I'm lucky if I can get in an hour of gaming every few days; spending two hours hunting down drivers, rebooting, and figuring out what the conflicts are is like having an unpaid job I don't want. Simply not worth it any more.

CannibalKid

07-12-2006, 08:50 PM

While i do think there is a little bit of an over exaggeration, i see his point, and agree. A while back i remember reading the Laptops are pushing past desktops in sales. Go to compaq, hq, dell, best buy and look at the majority of laptops they're selling. There are so many models with insufficient video memory, and graphics processors that are equivilent to a geforce 3. That is a serious problem when you're a MIDDLEWARE company, and you'll be liscensing a graphics intensive, multi-core processer optimized game engine.

But on the other had, perhaps they should develop a game engine optimised for integrated graphics and liscense that to smaller developers, as the number of machines available that could run this type of software well are very plentiful.

niakori

07-12-2006, 08:56 PM

-.-
Mmos are starting to contribute a large chunk of pc gaming, they were essentially the reason I started to game on the pc (and fps of course). At one point I was a person that just bought a new pc when mine got old, but now I'm building my own. I don't see how any of it is time wasted, I see it as another learning experience.

Don't get me wrong I love my consoles too, but my pc is much more valuable to me right now for gaming, especially with all this next-gen nonsense. With ad shoveling this and that format and useless features in my face, it gets warysome. So in retrospect I guess I'm the lazy one. :p

Draft

07-12-2006, 08:57 PM

Okay that settles it, now we all know Rein is talking out of his ass.

Oh almost forgot..... :rolleyes:Ah, what do you know, Balamoor, Evil Avatar's resident middle aged man who posts like a pissed of 12 year old, is trolling another thread. What a joy it is to post here, with our open moderation system that allows such behavior! Surely nothing could be more conducive to polite, interesting conversation!

I find it pretty funny that every angry reply in this thread basically ignored his points, and went on to list a half dozen up coming PC games. I find it pretty fucking funny that a dozen of you were able to get so worked up without even reading what the man said. Because if you had bothered, you'd see that he is in fact 100% right.

Intel's cost cutting on motherboards is bad for PC gaming. The fact that you can buy a PC without a graphics card, or even worse, the AGP/PCIe slot to put one in later, is bad for PC gaming. What kind of numbskull fucking caveman do you have to be to disagree with that. He's more or less stating a fact, like the sky is blue, or balamoor is unpleasant.

Try to be a little more mature and seperate your bias for the man from the points he's making. Yes, Mark Rein talked shit about the Wii. Yes, Mark Rein thinks graphics are important. Neither of these things automatically disqualify his opinions about the PC gaming industry. In fact, while we're talking qualifications, let's remember he's an executive at what is probably the most important 3D game engine developer in existance, so maybe you could at least do him the internet courtesy of responding to his idea and not listing 6 MMOs with a smug grin on your face.

balamoor

07-12-2006, 08:59 PM

But on the other had, perhaps they should develop a game engine optimised for integrated graphics and liscense that to smaller developers, as the number of machines available that could run this type of software well are very plentiful.

See that's an excellent point, and some developers do. Take Drafts favorite game World of Warcraft, for all it's issues you can basically run the damn thing on a Pentium III and a Voodoo II card..a slight exaggeration, but I have seen folk play the game on some ancient ass PC's and I think that is the secret, develop games that are loadable and fun, fuck keeping up with the bleeding edge.

vallor

07-12-2006, 09:00 PM

Wierd, I thought CoD2 was an incredible game. And "mainstream" gaming is where the dollars are. I love the angst and righteous furvor that the gaming purists/console haters bring to bear these days. PC gaming is doing OK still so don't get your panties in a bunch.

Personally I think PC gaming is doing worse than consoles because it is too complicated and/or too expensive for most people who want to play the hot new games. That may change if consoles themselves get too much more expensive.

For the user:
Plug in console to TV and power+insert game and recieve the TOP END experience. It is much easier than checking requirements, an install process that these days often seems to extend 30 min - 1 hour, then launching the game only to find out that your PC is only able to deliver a meduim level experience if you want to maintain performance. Thats IF you don't have any technical issues that then require a call to a helpdesk... etc.

Like it or not PC gaming is hard for the "n00bs" that account for a lot of gamers these days.

For the developer:
Even with the sony dev tools being "hard" to use compared to the other consoles it is still a heck of a lot cheaper to developer for a fixed platform.

Some coding tasks may be more difficult but you half the resources needed to test (no wonky configurations).

Market factors are less of an issue (for example having to run a special batch of your title in the old oversized boxes because Costco won't stock the smaller boxes)

Support requirements for console games are typically less burdensome (some companies with dozens of multiplatform releases spend over 50% of their PSS budget supporting 2 or 3 PC games and the other 50% on the 10 console games).

Oh yeah, and when your game goes to manufacturing once you pass 3 CDs (which many games are doing these days) it is cheaper to go DVD... except you can't rely on people having a DVD drive standard in their PC yet so you usually have to ship a CD variant anyway.

Right now consoles bring home the bacon and support pretty a large portion of the industry. Oh sure there is the odd PC game that breaks 1m units, there are even PC games that break 5-10m units... however the two games that I can think of that sold that much were The Sims and World of Warcraft (ON NOS, 2 "n00b" targeted games!). 1m units is comparitively easy to do with a decent game multiplatform or on an entrenched system like the PS2 not to mention the kickbacks for exculsivity that can be a booster to any developers bank account.

You should be grateful that any company puts out a PC port of their game for the purists out there, much less an original game exclusive to the PC.

balamoor

07-12-2006, 09:01 PM

Ah, what do you know, Balamoor, Evil Avatar's resident middle aged man who posts like a pissed of 12 year old, is trolling another thread. What a joy it is to post here, with our open moderation system that allows such behavior! Surely nothing could be more conducive to polite, interesting conversation!

I find it pretty funny that every angry reply in this thread basically ignored his points, and went on to list a half dozen up coming PC games. I find it pretty fucking funny that a dozen of you were able to get so worked up without even reading what the man said. Because if you had bothered, you'd see that he is in fact 100% right.

Intel's cost cutting on motherboards is bad for PC gaming. The fact that you can buy a PC without a graphics card, or even worse, the AGP/PCIe slot to put one in later, is bad for PC gaming. What kind of numbskull fucking caveman do you have to be to disagree with that. He's more or less stating a fact, like the sky is blue, or balamoor is unpleasant.

Try to be a little more mature and seperate your bias for the man from the points he's making. Yes, Mark Rein talked shit about the Wii. Yes, Mark Rein thinks graphics are important. Neither of these things automatically disqualify his opinions about the PC gaming industry. In fact, while we're talking qualifications, let's remember he's an executive at what is probably the most important 3D game engine developer in existance, so maybe you could at least do him the internet courtesy of responding to his idea and not listing 6 MMOs with a smug grin on your face.

So young, so retarded..damn that Emo music.

niakori

07-12-2006, 09:02 PM

Damn Draft that backhand of yours hurts an awful lot. :(

CannibalKid

07-12-2006, 09:03 PM

Also, it should be noted that Rein's statement is also hurt by the massive markups on specialty built computers that are capable of playing these games near their launch. I have a wishlist on Newegg for a new computer that has the exact same components that a Falcon Northwest machine has, and it comes in over US$1000 cheaper than what the company wants. The precieved value of these really crappy laptops is very high if the prospective buying is a layman.

Draft

07-12-2006, 09:04 PM

So young, so retarded..damn that Emo music.so old, so angry...

relief is just a click away. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FKGNIS/qid=1152762926/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0277288-4904604?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=3760901)

RMan

07-12-2006, 09:05 PM

I'm sure he could be more clueless, but I just don't know how. It should be a game, forecast the next ignorant, buck-passing whine that Mark Rein whips out. Of course, the comments are stupid, but if you read about what he’s saying, it’s not a complaint about Intel but an advertisement for the 360. Here’s one thing I’m sure of, no matter what, Mark won’t place any blame ever on MS, not starting a MS flame, just saying that Mark is all about licking MS boot, and that’s crystal clear.

Here’s a question for you Mark, if the lack of graphics power is holding back all kinds of software, KINDLY NAME ONE. Just one, and maybe you’ll not sound like a complete ass.

sflufan

07-12-2006, 09:06 PM

"You should be grateful that any company puts out a PC port of their game for the purists out there, much less an original game exclusive to the PC."

They should be grateful that I'm willing to give them money for a game that wasn't specifically designed for my system of choice - the PC.

balamoor

07-12-2006, 09:10 PM

Damn Draft that backhand of yours hurts an awful lot. :(

Sorry guy that's not a backhand, it is yet another dumbass rant by Skippy the wonder bitch.
Intel may be going down this road, but AMD isn't and AMD has been eating Intel’s lunch in sales since last year. Yes Intel is going down the onboard graphics processor road but that is affecting their sales, more than it's affecting PC gaming as a whole. Business week and the Wall Street Journal backs this up by the way.

Folks like draft have been predicting the end of PC gaming for the past ten years, big surprise were still here and will be for another ten. Anyone that thinks different is seriously deluded.

vallor

07-12-2006, 09:15 PM

"They should be grateful that I'm willing to give them money for a game that wasn't specifically designed for my system."

If you mean to say games for the PC are specifically designed for the PC then you are only partially correct. They may be targeting an x86/x64 or Mac platform but thanks to the infinate number of hardware and software configurations available PC games are often also "dumbed" down.

(edit - I wanted to provide a recent example from my own experience. The game I'm working on right now targeted the min-spec graphics card as a 32mb fixed function card (e.g. no shader support).

As we began our performance tuning work we found out that we couldn't do the things we wanted to do because to do so would completely break a fixed function card.

Overall the proposed work would have improved performance quite a bit on any shader 2.0+ card and somewhat on any shader 1.1+ card but we couldn't do it because our market requires we support the fixed function cards even though it comes at the expense of the mid-high end modern computer)

There are more compromises made in PC games to account for the variable platform than you'll see in a multi-console title.

Granted, most PC games are more configurable and in the long run a company that supports their title for years will eventually get the PC version to outstrip the experience of the console version... but most companies (mmo's aside) don't support their PC products with upgrades that long.

Draft

07-12-2006, 09:16 PM

Intel may be going down this road, but AMD isn't and AMD has been eating Intel’s lunch in sales since last year. Yes Intel is going down the onboard graphics processor road and that is affecting their sales, business week and the Wall Street Journal backs this up by the way.AMD doesn't make motherboards, retard. Reality backs this up, by the way.

But there is a rumor that AMD is buying ATI, which would give them an in-house mobo designer and manufacturer, which could have a potentially awesome effect on the PC gaming industry. So maybe that post above was from the future?

Folks like draft have been predicting teh end of PC gaming for the past ten years, big surprise were still here and will be for another ten. Anyone that thinks different is seriously deluded.Hahaha, now I'm "predicting the end of PC gaming?" I'm a Borys level PC gaming fanboy, you geriatric moron.

niakori

07-12-2006, 09:23 PM

:( I surely hope this back and forth namecalling is in jest because my sarcaso-meter is severly broken.

balamoor

07-12-2006, 09:31 PM

AMD doesn't make motherboards, retard. Reality backs this up, by the way.

No shit cocksucker, but AMD CPU's also don't use Intel chipsets do they? My meaning was that the majority of PC gamers use AMD based boards anyway.

But there is a rumor that AMD is buying ATI, which would give them an in-house mobo designer and manufacturer, which could have a potentially awesome effect on the PC gaming industry. So maybe that post above was from the future?
Actually the rumor was proven false ....like the rumor about your Heterosexuality.

Hahaha, now I'm "predicting the end of PC gaming?" I'm a Borys level PC gaming fanboy, you geriatric moron.

Dude you really need new material, the old age shit is well... lame, there are many older gamers on this site as a matter of fact Evil and I are around the same age. So try somthing new, who knows you may come off looking less the shrill little bitch…hey you never know.

Abash Alarmist

07-12-2006, 09:35 PM

Hahaha, now I'm "predicting the end of PC gaming?" I'm a Borys level PC gaming fanboy, you geriatric moron.

First off Draft, I love you. Keep on your rants with logic behind them!

I personally think nVidia and ATI are klling computer gaming. Their new cards with QUAD-SLI is what is going to kill the computer gaming industry as they are trying to market 4 $400+ cards to be thrown into a computer. I do not know a single person that will be willing to do this, let alone 2 of them. That is what is going to ruin computr gaming if it continues. I hope not, but I wouldn't be too suprised.

Abash Alarmist

07-12-2006, 09:37 PM

No shit cocksucker, but AMD CPU's also don't use Intel chipsets do they? My meaning was that the majority of PC gamers use AMD based boards anyway.

It is quite a shame that the majority of the people who buy computers are NOT PC gamers. They are your average joe blow. And even then, Intel still has the market share, no matter what demographic you want to look at: gaming or not.

Actually the rumor was proven false ....like the rumor about your Heterosexuality.

Dude you really need new material, the old age shit is well... lame, there are many older gamers on this site as a matter of fact Evil and I are around the same age. So try somthing new, who knows you may come off looking less the shrill little bitch…hey you never know.
As is your bash on his sexuality. Its lame, immature, and just completely fucking stupid. You fucking bigot, shut your mouth.

Kamalot

07-12-2006, 09:40 PM

Draft

07-12-2006, 09:40 PM

Dude you really need new material, the old age shit is well... lame, there are many older gamers on this site as a matter of fact Evil and I are around the same age. So try somthing new, who knows you may come off looking less the shrill little bitch…hey you never know.And yet you're the only one who posts like a hyper violent prepubescent Gamefaqs member. I would give you a few posting etiquette suggestions, but seeing as you're far and away Evil Avatar's most retarded, obtuse, beligerent troll, I feel anything short of "kill yourself" would fail to have any meaningful effect.

Suicidal ShiZuru

07-12-2006, 09:42 PM

Anyone whos is dumb enough to get a quad SLI system should be shot. Back on topic, I dont really mind if pc gaming goes back into more of a niche market, less morons to deal with. Also who cares how much a boutique rig costs, even if I was a millionaire I wouldnt buy one.

lmao roflmao lol pwnt btw...

Actually the rumor was proven false ....like the rumor about your Heterosexuality.

gspot

07-12-2006, 09:45 PM

Read the article and it makes more sense. He's complaining about how Intel is pushing the integrated graphics chips; I know people who've bought PCs without doing enough research then find they can't play games. (And frankly, they shouldn't have to do that research if they're not primarily gamers.) And oh look, there's not even an AGP or PCIe slot to add a new video card, so they're essentially SOL.

eh, anybody who doesn't do the research deserve to be boned IMO. It may just be me, but I don't think consumer convienience will ever be on the point of you don't need to look before you leap. Know what you are buying is a pretty basic concept that people don't grasp all too often (myself included). It's shitty that intel did it, but it's the fault of those who bought their product more.

Personally, I gave up on PC gaming a few years ago. One too many instances of coming home with a new game and then spending hours looking for new video and sound card drivers, resolving conflicts, dealing with StarForce, etc. I take any new 360 and new PC game, put them in their boxes at the same time, and be playing the 360 game before I even get to the setup.exe's first clickable dialog box. My time just isn't worth the hassle of PC gaming.

Do you notice a difference in the two? I find games ported to consoles from PC's are campier, and feel watered down. Maybe it's just me though.

Oh, just to be sure, Spore won't be coming out for console, will it?

balamoor

07-12-2006, 09:46 PM

And yet you're the only one who posts like a hyper violent prepubescent Gamefaqs member.

Funny, I have never had a mod tell me that I was being a "Whiney bitch" yet you have.

I would give you a few posting etiquette suggestions, .

You cannot teach that which you don't know jackass

I feel anything short of "kill yourself" would fail to have any meaningful effect.

You first, hey they might even write an Emo song about it.

DJ:And that was Go cry to your Mommy singing; Draft Slashed his wrist over a forum spat.

Thanks for playing skippy.

captainstrombosis

07-12-2006, 09:50 PM

balamoor

07-12-2006, 09:59 PM

I sort of agree with him. It's not as bad as he makes it out to be. But it's getting to the point where it's just not worth it.

I can get a 360 with better graphics capabilities for vastly less money. I can rent games, saving myself money. I can buy Used games, saving myself money. I can play games on reliable Xbox live and not have to deal with public online services like Gamespy.

Yes you can, but really how many decent Titles for the 360 are avalible? Hell it seems like every time I click on EA a 360 game is being pushed back till 1st part of or mid 2007. And lets be honest there really hasn't been any break out must go buy the 360 games relased yet, that dosen't lend a lot of confidence.

I'm still a diehard PC fan because there are no real strategy games on the Xbox360. However that seems like it might change depending on how BFME 2's controls play out in the long run.

Problem is the PC version wasn't that swift, so I doubt the 360 version will do that well, consoles are cheaper, but until they can get more titles than FPS games, and sports titles I don't see PC gaming going anywhere.

Draft

07-12-2006, 09:59 PM

Quoted for insightIntel GMA 950 Tech specsMobile GMA 950

On Intel i945GM chipset motherboards.

T/L support: Software based (no Hardware T&L Support)

Clock speed: 250 MHz

RAMDAC clock : 400 MHz

Pixel Pipelines: 4

TMU Per Pipeline: 1

Vertex Shaders: 1 (v2.0) (software)

Pixel Shaders: 4 (v2.0) (hardware)

Pixel Fillrate: 1000 MPixel/s

Texel Fillrate: 1000 MTexel/s

OpenGL: Yes. v.1.4 with enhanced lighting

DirectX (hardware): Yes. v.9.0

RAMDAC clock : 400 MHz

Video: MPEG-2 VLC, iDCT, and hardware motion-compensation, simultaneous dual HD (1920x1080i) video overlay windows.

Despite similarities, is not based on PowerVR Zone Rendering Technology licensed from Imagination Technolgies.World of Warcraft minimum system reqs:

Windows® System 2000/XP OS:

* Intel Pentium® III 800 MHz or AMD Athlon 800 MHz
* 512 MB or more of RAM
* 32 MB 3D graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting, such as NVIDIA® GeForce™ 2 class card or above
* DirectX® 9.0c (included) and latest video drivers
* 6.0 GB available HD space
* 4x CD-ROM drive
* A 56k or better Internet connection BZZT, insight not found. Please try again later.

Maybe you're suggesting budget games be written in DirectX 7? Was that the "insightful" part of his post?

Suicidal ShiZuru

07-12-2006, 10:00 PM

I can rent games, saving myself money. I can buy Used games, saving myself money. I can play games on reliable Xbox live and not have to deal with public online services like Gamespy.

Those are all personal opinions which dont affect me, or many others. Ill take my PC gaming online any day over XBL since it is much, much more functional and better. More players... less lag, probably a few other things.

I sort of agree with him. It's not as bad as he makes it out to be. But it's getting to the point where it's just not worth it.

I can get a 360 with better graphics capabilities for vastly less money.

False, cheaper yes but it is a computer after all so you get everything else.

RMan

07-12-2006, 10:02 PM

Intel's cost cutting on motherboards is bad for PC gaming. The fact that you can buy a PC without a graphics card, or even worse, the AGP/PCIe slot to put one in later, is bad for PC gaming. What kind of numbskull fucking caveman do you have to be to disagree with that. He's more or less stating a fact, like the sky is blue, or balamoor is unpleasant.
This is entirely dependent on your view of PC gaming. If PC gaming requires the constant circle jerk of video card upgrading, then yes, but for MANY others (like all the WoW players) cutting edge graphics technology is not required for ‘PC Gaming’. Not focusing on graphics tech is bad for Epic’s business plan, the idea that it’s bad for gaming and everyone should accept that is close-minded and just plain wrong. The reliance on constant hardware upgrades is what hurts, and ironically often defines (like in your case) PC gaming, and is why many people prefer console gaming.
In fact, while we're talking qualifications, let's remember he's an executive at what is probably the most important 3D game engine developer in existance, so maybe you could at least do him the internet courtesy of responding to his idea and not listing 6 MMOs with a smug grin on your face.
I know precisely what Mark Rein is, and when he stops saying stupid things I will, for one, stop calling him out on it. You can blindly believe him because he’s attached to a successful company, but I’ll think about what he says and not just his title.

captainstrombosis

07-12-2006, 10:03 PM

Yes you can, but really how many decent Titles for the 360 are avalible? Hell it seems like every time I click on EA a 360 game is being pushed back till 1st part of or mid 2007. And lets be honest there really hasn't been any break out must go buy the 360 games relased yet, that dosen't lend a lot of confidence.

I agree with this. However the Xbox had plenty of games I loved. It took a year but it got to em. I have faith in the Xbox 360.

Problem is the PC version wasn't that swift, so I doubt the 360 version will do that well, consoles are cheaper, but until they can get more titles than FPS games, and sports titles I don't see PC gaming going anywhere.

I didn't mean it needed to be financially sound. The control scheme just needs to catch on.

Suicidal ShiZuru

07-12-2006, 10:04 PM

Intel GMA 950 Tech specsWorld of Warcraft minimum system reqs:

BZZT, insight not found. Please try again later.

Maybe you're suggesting budget games be written in DirectX 7? Was that the "insightful" part of his post?

Whats your point? He wasnt quoting specific hardware configs.

I dont blame companies pushing out new technology requiring better hardware, but people being stupid. Generally no one knwos how, or is scared to try, isntalling computer hardware. Also a lot of people seem to think they need to be able to run a game at max settings to play it all.

balamoor

07-12-2006, 10:05 PM

Intel GMA 950 Tech specsWorld of Warcraft minimum system reqs:

BZZT, insight not found. Please try again later.

Maybe you're suggesting budget games be written in DirectX 7? Was that the "insightful" part of his post?

Umm Douchebag, did you even read what I wrote? My point was that WoW looks great and can run on a very low end (By today’s standards) PC. And More developers should take a page from Blizzard in that regard.

Now step away from the crack pipe, or what ever else your sucking on

captainstrombosis

07-12-2006, 10:06 PM

Those are all personal opinions which dont affect me, or many others. Ill take my PC gaming online any day over XBL since it is much, much more functional and better[players/lag etc].

False, cheaper yes but it is a computer after all so you get everything else.

Right back at ya. Your spouting opinion just like I did. Except I didn't call anyone out on saying an opinion. That's all anyone here has said. Opinion.

To clear things up. I meant you get a better deal as far as graphics. As it is now you can get better graphics quality in some of the absolute best PC's.

Suicidal ShiZuru

07-12-2006, 10:08 PM

Right back at ya. Your spouting opinion just like I did. Except I didn't call anyone out on saying an opinion. That's all anyone here has said. Opinion.

To clear things up. I meant you get a better deal as far as graphics. As it is now you can get better graphics quality in some of the absolute best PC's.

There was no opinion in my post, just fact, prove me wrong.

captainstrombosis

07-12-2006, 10:10 PM

XBL since it is much, much more functional and better[players/lag etc].

Just like everything online. Xbox live has good and bad players. Just like regular internet. To say it is something specific to the Xbox is opinion. To say lag is worse, is opinion. To say it is more functional is opinion. It's all subjective to circumstances. Thus it is opinion.

Draft

07-12-2006, 10:11 PM

This is entirely dependent on your view of PC gaming. If PC gaming requires the constant circle jerk of video card upgrading, then yes, but for MANY others (like all the WoW players) cutting edge graphics technology is not required for ‘PC Gaming’. Not focusing on graphics tech is bad for Epic’s business plan, the idea that it’s bad for gaming and everyone should accept that is close-minded and just plain wrong. The reliance on constant hardware upgrades is what hurts, and ironically often defines (like in your case) PC gaming, and is why many people prefer console gaming.Are you high. I am dead serious. Are you high. Where did Rein, or me, or ANYONE ELSE say that you needed a bleeding edge, $500 video card.

His point, my point: Intel's "integrated graphics" don't even include hardware transform and lighting, which has been a standard feature of graphics cards since the GeForce 256. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_256)

The point is not that everyone should dive headfirst into the never ending money pit that is PC hardware. the point is that if your average POS Dell Wintel box came with an integrated GeForce 6200 instead of Intel's shitty, useless integrated graphics, the potential PC gaming audience would number in the hundreds of millions. If every PC sold had even the barest 3D graphical capability, the PC game market would be in much better shape than it currently is.

Instead, consumers buy thousands of PCs with multigigahertz dual core CPUs, gigs of RAM, terabytes of storage, and the 3D capability of a gameboy. And this hurts PC gaming.

It's shocking that some of you are seemingly incapable of digesting that at face value, and insist on turning this into a debate on PCs versus consoles, or PC gaming dying, or the "need" to continuously buy bigger, better, more expensive hardware. Shocking. I mean, you're typing posts, you must have at least basic reading comprehension.

Suicidal ShiZuru

07-12-2006, 10:14 PM

Just like everything online. Xbox live has good and bad players. Just like regular internet. To say it is something specific to the Xbox is opinion. To say lag is worse, is opinion. To say it is more functional is opinion. It's all subjective to circumstances. Thus it is opinion.

Shit, I meant to say [more players/less lag]. Its fact. Nothing with the actual skill of the people or anything.

captainstrombosis

07-12-2006, 10:15 PM

Shit, I meant to say [more players/less lag]. Its fact. Nothing with the actual skill of the people or anything.

Whatever you say. I will not get into an arguement over it. Simply because it's not what you said.

Suicidal ShiZuru

07-12-2006, 10:17 PM

Wow youre fucking retarded it seems. Prove me wrong, you cant, its all fact. Get over it.

captainstrombosis

07-12-2006, 10:20 PM

Wow youre fucking retarded it seems. Prove me wrong, you cant, its all fact. Get over it.

Get over it? You're the one who decided to come down on me for *gasp* saying an opinion simply because it was opinion? I never claimed what I said was fact. I already proved you wrong. You came back by changing what you said. You asked me to prove you wrong. I did, so you changed it around. I really don't care.

Move on. You are making a big deal out of nothing. Is it really that boring there?

Deadend

07-12-2006, 10:21 PM

I am going to have to say Mark Rein is right on Intel hurting the PC gaming market by making systems that can't even do ANY sort of 3d and marketing them at consumers, even though those boards are for business PCs where 3d cards do not belong.

Things in PC gaming would be better if PC's could do the bare minimum Hardware T&L.

Maybe Vista will change this with it's requirements of 3d power, hopefully it will, when Joe Average goes home and Windows it'self tells him that he can't do things he should be able to and got jerked around.

Suicidal ShiZuru

07-12-2006, 10:21 PM

Get over it? You're the one who decided to come down on me for *gasp* saying an opinion simply because it was opinion? I never claimed what I said was fact. I already proved you wrong. You came back by changing what you said. You asked me to prove you wrong. I did, so you changed it around. I really don't care.

Move on. You are making a big deal out of nothing. Is it really that boring there?

Yes its that boring. I didnt change a god damn thing I said I just made it more clear since the way I typed it was a bit odd. I "came down on you" for rejecting facts.

Suicidal ShiZuru

07-12-2006, 10:23 PM

Things in PC gaming would be better if PC's could do the bare minimum Hardware T&L.

Maybe Vista will change this with it's requirements of 3d power, hopefully it will, when Joe Average goes home and Windows it'self tells him that he can't do things he should be able to and got jerked around.

Are the 3D features actually required, I thought they were optional. Cosnidering the price of hardware, and *** seeming to push PC gaming more, having it as a basic hardware requirement would be awesome and very helpful to the gaming market.

ProfPuppet

07-12-2006, 10:26 PM

At some point in the (god hopefully) near future I'll be building a new computer and the thought of it gives me a panic attack. I know that corporations (Dell, Alienware, etc.) sell 'gaming rigs' and suchlike, but is there anyone out there that posts a 'Hey, idiot, here's what games A-G at resolutions/settings R-Z play like on this rig!' ?

As to the article, I dunno. The 'demise' of PC gaming cannot, I think, be placed largely on a single corporation's doorstep. That's a gross oversimplification. The push to make everything shinier at the cost of the game actually running well or being fun, the retreading old ground again and again with games...

I just imagine some game designer going: "Okay, we're going to have supermegapixelshaders on this thing, and it's going to drop the framerate by 50% and up loading times by 10 seconds, and we'll have lots and lots of loading and bugs, but my god it will be pretty and people will want to buy it."

Suicidal ShiZuru

07-12-2006, 10:29 PM

niakori

07-12-2006, 10:29 PM

Maybe Vista will change this with it's requirements of 3d power, hopefully it will, when Joe Average goes home and Windows it'self tells him that he can't do things he should be able to and got jerked around.

Good point Deadend, nearly forgot Vista.

RMan

07-12-2006, 11:03 PM

Are you high. I am dead serious. Are you high. Where did Rein, or me, or ANYONE ELSE say that you needed a bleeding edge, $500 video card.
Umm, the whole thing is about graphics power, or are you or he suggesting that people need to put a GeForce2 in this AGP/PCIe slot you demand?
His point, my point: Intel's "integrated graphics" don't even include hardware transform and lighting, which has been a standard feature of graphics cards since the GeForce 256. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_256)
Aww, that sounds really bad, until you actually think about it. First off, no new games rely on hardware T&L and any game old enough to rely on it will have absolutely no problems with it running in software. The vertex pipeline is seriously underused compared to the pixel pipeline, all vertex operations in even the more demanding PC games on the market could likely be done in software without significant impact if the drivers were written decent. They likely don’t come with 5 ¼ inch floppy drives either, start your rant on that. FYI, I didn’t see him mention this at all, just that the graphics weren’t powerful enough (which they wouldn’t be for games relying on graphic muscle). In the end the machines will be bought primarily by people that don’t care about graphic muscle, are designed as such, and other than Mark and you being pissy because people may not care I don’t see the problem.
the point is that if your average POS Dell Wintel box came with an integrated GeForce 6200 instead of Intel's shitty, useless integrated graphics, the potential PC gaming audience would number in the hundreds of millions. If every PC sold had even the barest 3D graphical capability, the PC game market would be in much better shape than it currently is.
Rubbish of the highest order. If people cared enough to pay for it, it’d be in there, plain and simple. You can say a slight improvement in graphic capability will change the world, but it’s just massively stupid. Show evidence, any evidence, that graphics are even remotely that important! This is the real world, not Epic’s dreamland, out here it’s just not that important.
Instead, consumers buy thousands of PCs with multigigahertz dual core CPUs, gigs of RAM, terabytes of storage, and the 3D capability of a gameboy. And this hurts PC gaming.
Again, it hurts PC gaming in the eyes of Mark and the narrow minded graphic hardware whores. Here in the real world, people choose the DS over the PSP, the PS2 over the Xbox, the PS1 over the N64, and every step of the way prove over and over again that high end graphics are not significant. Deal with it.
Shocking. I mean, you're typing posts, you must have at least basic reading comprehension.
Yea, you’d think so, but there you go :).

tombofsoldier

07-12-2006, 11:14 PM

Intel isn't helping, which is ironic since they need the pc gaming industry as much as anyone (dual core conroe anyone?), some businesses dont work with Alex Smiths view of any competition being better. If intel stopped shipping motherboards with built in 3d support, people would have to buy better cards. If people bought better cards, they could play better games, and being able to play better games will cause people to want to play more games.

The problem with the perfect capatilist economy is the problem with almost every other human designed system, it doesn't take into account the massive force of human stupidity and ignorance.

Ondo

07-12-2006, 11:26 PM

Intel GMA 950 Tech specs
World of Warcraft minimum system reqs:

BZZT, insight not found. Please try again later.

Maybe you're suggesting budget games be written in DirectX 7? Was that the "insightful" part of his post?

If you look at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wow/?id=aww0830p you'll see that not only does World of Warcraft support the Intel GMA 950, it also runs on the older Intel Extreme Graphics 2.

RMan

07-12-2006, 11:34 PM

If people bought better cards, they could play better games, and being able to play better games will cause people to want to play more games.
How does better video cards translate to better games. Seriously, look at the history, better graphics appeal primarily to the people already playing games, a way to draw attention to the next shiny incarnation of what they already play. The breakout hits, the games that draw in new gamers and appeal to the masses like The Sims and World of Warcraft are not graphic powerhouses. If anything, the argument should be that less graphic focus will allow more focus on gameplay (which is, I think, a big reason these games were successful), because this assumption that the average player or even potential player cares much about high end graphics is just that, an assumption.

Watership

07-13-2006, 12:57 AM

Which only goes to prove that console gamers must be some of the laziest people on earth.

Play games much? You know the type? They work all day, working.. you know? Then they spend money on a game, and they come home and they put the disk in, and you know, play it. Sorta like DVDs, CDs, and you know.. TOAST.

PC gaming has become a hassle. I spent 20 mins fucking with the Darkstar One demo trying to get it run smothly on my PC. The only thing PCs have over consoles is Technology curve, which can cost them a console's price every 6 months, and the mouse.

Parsifal

07-13-2006, 02:42 AM

[...]I would give you a few posting etiquette suggestions, but seeing as you're far and away Evil Avatar's most retarded, obtuse, beligerent troll, I feel anything short of "kill yourself" would fail to have any meaningful effect.

Haha, that was funny, you sure do know your posting etiquette :p

Xed

07-13-2006, 04:14 AM

Again, it hurts PC gaming in the eyes of Mark and the narrow minded graphic hardware whores. Here in the real world, people choose the DS over the PSP, the PS2 over the Xbox, the PS1 over the N64, and every step of the way prove over and over again that high end graphics are not significant. Deal with it.
Here we go again... it is not about how good the graphics look or anything. It is not about high end graphics. Your console comparisons have nothing to do with this.
No one would have chosen the DS over the PSP, the PS2 over the XBox etc, if they weren't able to PLAY THEIR FUCKING GAMES ON THEM.

The point is, if you buy a new PC today, and don't know enough about Pc hardware, you might well end up with a system with POS integrated graphics and no AGP/PCIe slot. And such a system will not be able to play the majority of games released in the last years at all. Putting a decent low-end GPU in there would be incredibly cheap. If they left out the integrated chip, the cost difference could be so small you wouldn't even notice it.
And that would open up a huge market for PC games.
Is this so difficult to understand?

Saying that "if people wanted it/were willing to pay for it, it would be there" is BS, too. If that were the case, everything released today would be perfect, no room for improvements left.

Dr Quincy

07-13-2006, 04:20 AM

Is Mark Rein killing PC gaming?

51|RandoM

07-13-2006, 05:30 AM

Or they highly value their time.

Uhh, yeah, because if you highly value your time you're going to waste it on the couch playing a videogame.

The only thing killing PC gaming is competition for limited development resources. It is kind of a no-brainer to develop for console instead of PC. Easier platform to support, lower consumer expectations, more shelf space at the retail outlets, etc.

Spigot

07-13-2006, 05:46 AM

First off Draft, I love you. Keep on your rants with logic behind them!

I personally think nVidia and ATI are klling computer gaming. Their new cards with QUAD-SLI is what is going to kill the computer gaming industry as they are trying to market 4 $400+ cards to be thrown into a computer. I do not know a single person that will be willing to do this, let alone 2 of them. That is what is going to ruin computr gaming if it continues. I hope not, but I wouldn't be too suprised.
Bah! You stole my point.

The ridiculous price points for graphics cards are really the biggest stumbling block on the market. Even Rogue's prices are low compared to some of the cutting edge cards, and they expect you to SLI 18 of them together to get the ULTIMATE GAMING EXPERIENCE!

I highly doubt that PC gaming is going to die anytime soon. I'd like to think that with this latest batch of 'powerful consoles' we might see a divergence of the markets as the console games and the PC games end up markedly different. No more watering down a PC game that was developed primarily for a console. Games like Spore will really highlight this difference.

I do understand that coming from a publisher and retailer's perspective, PC gaming is not the market to go after. It's very disappointing to see the PC section in almost every store shrinking further and further every month and in some cases essentially being relegated to an end unit. The growth of Steam and other online distribution services will probably end up making retail space a moot point in the ongoing battle of the console vs. PC. PC gamers can still have a vibrant gaming scene, it just won't be competing directly with whatever shiny candy is being dangled for the console crowd.

The lazy, lazy console crowd with their unwillingness to upgrade regularly. :rolleyes:

I'm off to play Chrono Trigger on my SNES now...

Spigot

07-13-2006, 05:50 AM

Instead, consumers buy thousands of PCs with multigigahertz dual core CPUs, gigs of RAM, terabytes of storage, and the 3D capability of a gameboy. And this hurts PC gaming.
That's a very true point as well.

My father-in-law's computer is nothing top of the line but it's no slouch yet I can't even run WoW on it because whatever onboard '3D accellerator' is in there can't even handle it.

One of the guys at work got the aforementioned dualcore 3 GHz beast of a system yet the video on it is barely functional. And he wants to game on it. It's really sad.

Oh, and Kamalot's list of games back at the beginning of this thread is one that bears mentioning as it shows that PC gaming is alive and well.

dirtbag

07-13-2006, 05:52 AM

Haven't we been hearing this "PC Gaming is Dying" song every couple of years since the late '90s? I think the industry just runs in cycles, kind of like how RPGs were largely absent for a few years before making a resurgence.

I will agree, however, that these ultra-cheap PCs with sub-standard components hurts things, because people who decide to try out gaming will suddenly realize that their system is wholly incapable of it, then switch to console.

Spigot

07-13-2006, 05:53 AM

Play games much? You know the type? They work all day, working.. you know? Then they spend money on a game, and they come home and they put the disk in, and you know, play it. Sorta like DVDs, CDs, and you know.. TOAST.

PC gaming has become a hassle. I spent 20 mins fucking with the Darkstar One demo trying to get it run smothly on my PC. The only thing PCs have over consoles is Technology curve, which can cost them a console's price every 6 months, and the mouse.
Don't talk to me about hassles! In my day, you had to rewrite your Autoexec.bat and config.sys file for almost EVERY SINGLE GAME you tried to play in order to squeeze out every last bit of virtual memory in the vain hopes that maybe, JUST MAYBE you could get that game you bought to actually work on your blazingly fast 486. And usually you had to turn the sound card off to do so.

Kids these days and their so-called 'hassles'. Yeesh. :D

Spigot

07-13-2006, 05:57 AM

Haven't we been hearing this "PC Gaming is Dying" song every couple of years since the late '90s? I think the industry just runs in cycles, kind of like how RPGs were largely absent for a few years before making a resurgence.
This is true. There's no reason to really freak out TOO much given that every time a new generation of consoles comes out the nay-sayers tend to jump all over the PC and declare them a dead medium.

Until the console gets a few years older and starts looking snaggletoothed while the PC keeps trundling along, upgrading on the fly and generally smoking the console of the day in every area.

Then they release a new version of the PlayBox Wii60 and the cycle begins anew.

I know that for many of us of the average EvAv age, it has seemed a little nicer to pick up a console like the 360 instead of upgrading to a PC given that a mid-range gaming rig is going to be comparable in many of the same areas yet the 360 costs a lot less and you have the ability to just plonk a game in and play instead of contending with the various technical problems on a PC, like the drive locking up, the power supply overheating, the disc randomly failing for no good reason.

Oh, wait... they DID replicate the PC gaming experience in the 360 :)

Lord Dongkey

07-13-2006, 06:07 AM

So to preface, I'm a die-hard PC gamer. For now. /sigh

As to replying to on-topic points, people need to keep in mind that capitalism heavily affects the choices of mobo/chipset manufacturer's. If they're saving even a measly $10 like Mark Rein is saying (was it 10? or did he just say a small amount? anyway, let's go with $10), and they produce 100,000 motherboards, well, they just saved a million that can go back to shareholders in the form of dividends, splits, payouts, that can line the pockets of the CEO's, CFO's, board of directors, or even, god forbid, that could go towards a competitive pay increase for employees that design and fabricate these boards. The market hasn't made a strong push for manufacturer's like intel to stop cutting corners on the integrated graphics chips - if it can run a desktop at 1280x1024 at 32 bit color, guess what? You just satisfied the realistic demands of a vast majority of your PC using market. Adding on even $5 to each motherboard you manufacture equates to flushing money down the toilet, regardless of how much that pisses off Mark Rein, Draft, and yes, even me. But it's the way it is.

As for PC's being a pain in the ass - I love my PC. I have a video card I spent $515 on about 2 years ago (sapphire x800 pro) - and it runs things at max detail to this day without AA and AF... and shadows.... oh yeah, and shader/particle effect density.... oh, and I usually have to turn down the bump mapping distance since specular highlighting and the 1953195 passes on textures made nowada.... well fuck me! Looks like I'm not running max detail. And haven't been for a year.

I'm a grown up now. I have a job, I get paid, and the next time I'm staring a realistic $1500 PC overhaul in the face on newegg, and I glance over and see PS3 @ 600 + X360 @ 400 + Wii @ 250, and say "Hmm... $1,250 I buy the three systems, then have 250 to blow on games on ebay"... nevermind the part where I can buy the systems used on ebay or at gamestop/eb/whomever, or where I don't necessarily even want all 3 consoles, and getting a 360+wii for 650 leaves me 750 in disposable income instead of working on the PC... Well, I think you see where I'm going here.

I've spent countless hours tweaking, fixing, breaking, swearing, and in general, being a PC gamer. I have a JOB right now because of what I've learned tweaking the winOS to make games run better. But fuck me if I want to go home with a brand new game, sit down at my PC, then install it and scour forums and tweak for 2 hours to find out that the game I'm running only runs on EAX 3.14551a with shader model 3.0 for HDR, and will hard lock and reboot my machine if I'm on EAX 3.14550a with shader model 2.0, so no HDR etc. etc. etc.

Unless there's a paradigm shift, the PC gaming market will continue to drive itself into a niche market due to extremely high barriers to entry in the form of exorbitant costs of hardware, as well as absurd levels of expertise and low-level hardware/driver knowledge required to get these fucking things to work right. Nevermind that the retention rate for old and jaded 25-year olds like me is probably dropping, since buying a dedicated hardware platform that only locks up on games once in awhile instead of every couple days looks pretty fucking nice.

Oh, and the crazy monkey poo-flinging on this thread? You guys rock.

Spigot

07-13-2006, 06:21 AM

Oh, and the crazy monkey poo-flinging on this thread? You guys rock.
Our poo-flinging skills maxed out after years of practice.

Actually, you pretty much summed up my points from the last 4 posts that I made. I love my consoles but I'm also not willing to let my PC bite the dust. Your point about choosing between a $1200 gaming rig or a few consoles is exactly the decision I made this spring, although I got the gaming rig, mainly because my old system was getting so creaky I couldn't play much besides WoW on it anymore. But there was definately some soul-searching going on there about whether I should have picked up the new rig or just dropped the same amount on a 360 and a cheap HDTV.

For now, I think that will be the decision weighing on many people's minds. Actually, now that I think about it, has anyone factored HDTV into the whole PC vs. Console debate? That was a major stumbling block for me when I was looking at the 360 and even more so with the PS3. With this push to have everything in high definition, what about the majority of the population who don't have an HDTV? Sure, as the prices continue to drop we'll see more market penetration and eventually it will become the norm, but while PC gamers have to contend with overpriced video cards or bargain PC's without any decent 3D accelleration, console gamers are going to have to deal with the HDTV conundrum. That tacks on a good $500-2500 in costs depending on how good a TV you get. And there were comparisons done on the differences between playing a 360 on a regular TV as compared to an HDTV. For some games, the results on a regular TV are almost a step back from the Xbox.

Bah. I wish we didn't have to have this argument every year or two. I'm trying not to sound like a big PC fanboi even though I do love my PC. I also spend a lot of time glued to the front of my crappy TV playing all of the various console games that I own, to say nothing of my love affair with the DS. Sigh.

Ernst_Jager

07-13-2006, 06:22 AM

I agree with Dongkey. Pimping out a myspace account is hard enough for 80% of the population, much less trying to get a PC game to run on one of the almost infinite possible computer configurations. With console gaming you open the box, put in the disc and play. No twinking, no worries when you are buying it that your computer might not run it....nothing but enjoying the game.

Lord Dongkey

07-13-2006, 06:30 AM

For now, I think that will be the decision weighing on many people's minds. Actually, now that I think about it, has anyone factored HDTV into the whole PC vs. Console debate? That was a major stumbling block for me when I was looking at the 360 and even more so with the PS3. With this push to have everything in high definition, what about the majority of the population who don't have an HDTV? Sure, as the prices continue to drop we'll see more market penetration and eventually it will become the norm, but while PC gamers have to contend with overpriced video cards or bargain PC's without any decent 3D accelleration, console gamers are going to have to deal with the HDTV conundrum. That tacks on a good $500-2500 in costs depending on how good a TV you get. And there were comparisons done on the differences between playing a 360 on a regular TV as compared to an HDTV. For some games, the results on a regular TV are almost a step back from the Xbox.

My wife and I broke down and bought a 56 inch JVC HD-ILA LCD tv last year. That does not bode well for my PC gaming habits when this next upgrade track comes around...

But then, I can't think of a single game on the 360 that interests me, so I guess the Wii and PS3 will tell? Could always buy a PS2 for $130 and have a plethora of cheap cheap games to hold me over for a long while, but that's gonna be some ass on a TV that big... ;)

You're right though, a lot of people don't have HDTV's, and that really does change the balance on things.

Spigot

07-13-2006, 06:49 AM

My wife and I broke down and bought a 56 inch JVC HD-ILA LCD tv last year. That does not bode well for my PC gaming habits when this next upgrade track comes around...

But then, I can't think of a single game on the 360 that interests me, so I guess the Wii and PS3 will tell? Could always buy a PS2 for $130 and have a plethora of cheap cheap games to hold me over for a long while, but that's gonna be some ass on a TV that big... ;)

You're right though, a lot of people don't have HDTV's, and that really does change the balance on things.
I don't know man, get a PS2, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus and you'll be set for a rockin' good time on a TV that big.

Of course, you're talking to someone who's been all a-twitter this week because I got a copy of Chrono Trigger for the SNES, so cutting-edge graphics aren't always a selling factor for me. As long as a game runs smoothly and doesn't look absolutely atrocious, I'm cool with it.

I think that everyone who has said that PC gaming is NOT drawing in a lot of new players is right though. We seem to be a rather insular bunch who keep on chasing after that rainbow until the money runs out and we are essentially forced to stick with the cheaper and easier to run consoles and give up the PC gaming. I think that Rein does have a point about the need for somewhat decent onboard 3D hardware to be standard but devs also need to realize that not everyone has a bank of SLI cards to churn out whatever lickable graphics their new game may contain.

Shifter

07-13-2006, 06:49 AM

fiercey

07-13-2006, 06:50 AM

See that's an excellent point, and some developers do. Take Drafts favorite game World of Warcraft, for all it's issues you can basically run the damn thing on a Pentium III and a Voodoo II card..a slight exaggeration, but I have seen folk play the game on some ancient ass PC's and I think that is the secret, develop games that are loadable and fun, fuck keeping up with the bleeding edge.

...or Guild Wars. I think it says Pentium III right on the box.

I don't need a game that takes advantage of every single new video card feature, I just want something graphically smooth and decent with gameplay that rocks. I think PC game developers are killing themselves by making every game require the latest $800 video card that I don't want to go buy.

It seems like all the technical progress is for not, because new games still run sucky unless you're on the highest end hardware. I'd vote PC game developers leave out any new feature that slows a game down for any card made in the last four years.

-f

Kamalot

07-13-2006, 07:14 AM

All these people with integrated video cards WILL find things to play. They'll play Flash games, YAHOO games, downloadable shareware, PopCap games and more. Mark Rein is upset because they won't play Unreal XIX, his latest graphical whorecase.

Intel isn't killing games, they are killing Mark Rein's games.

Rasputin_DEV

07-13-2006, 07:18 AM

I don't know man, get a PS2, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus and you'll be set for a rockin' good time on a TV that big.

Of course, you're talking to someone who's been all a-twitter this week because I got a copy of Chrono Trigger for the SNES, so cutting-edge graphics aren't always a selling factor for me. As long as a game runs smoothly and doesn't look absolutely atrocious, I'm cool with it.

I think that everyone who has said that PC gaming is NOT drawing in a lot of new players is right though. We seem to be a rather insular bunch who keep on chasing after that rainbow until the money runs out and we are essentially forced to stick with the cheaper and easier to run consoles and give up the PC gaming. I think that Rein does have a point about the need for somewhat decent onboard 3D hardware to be standard but devs also need to realize that not everyone has a bank of SLI cards to churn out whatever lickable graphics their new game may contain.

I had a nasty habit of getting all fired up about playing ICO whenever I was drunk, back when I had a PS2. I think the only thing worse would have been a hankering for chess or something... But I *loved* that game, so it's been a big draw. That, and Disgaea... /shudder

I agree on the PC Gamer numbers as well - for instanc, just because WoW has 6 million subscribers does not mean it's new entrants into the market as far as the player base is concerned. Take a look at the populations of other MMO's to see where most of them came from.

SLI needs to curl up and die, also. The idea that someone would spend up to or over $1000 for hardware that's going to be obselete in under a year is enough to destroy the market. Bleh.

shnastybiznastic

07-13-2006, 07:21 AM

I don't really care about all the jacking this article to be about other things, and I agree that Mark is a speculator/shitspewer on the level of Dvorak, but here's the real killer: Intel offering onboard graphics has shit to do with PC gaming declining.

Number one, everyone offers onboard graphics, not just Intel, two, the decision to create onboard graphic chipsets was based on the need to lower PC prices, not some evil plot by Intel to trick you into wanting a faster processor instead of a better graphics card.

In fact, the whole Megahertz Myth was a ploy to segment the market along the easiest line possible, a single performance number. The whole thing was just a way for Intel to get joe blow to understand how fast his computer was without having to explain what a FLOP is and how it can sometimes be a bad measure of performance. Hell, that strategy is coming back to bite them in the ass, after the laws of physics slapped down any hope of getting a P4 over 5GHz, and they need to find not only a new way to compete, but a way to convince the consumer that the 2.5 GHz core duo is faster than a 2.5 GHz P4.

The fact that the PC market has failed to stabalise like every other commodity market also has something to do with it. In an industry where the margins are paper thin, and the consumer is unwilling to pay for extra features, it's not Intel that destroy's the ability of people to play games, it's the fact that a PC is still a four year purchase on average and people who know they will be dropping another thousand in four years want to cut corners in every way.

Not only that, but a graphics card is a pretty good corner to cut. I mean, there are no non-game applications outside of CAD, and the busses are designed in such a way that it's fast to accept data, but slow to send it back, so it's not useful for any kind of non-video processing. that sounds like the thing to leave off to me. How does this have anything to do with Intel?

And another thing, what's so bad about PC gaming becoming a niche market again?

Evil Avatar

07-13-2006, 07:26 AM

Rasputin_DEV

07-13-2006, 07:30 AM

And another thing, what's so bad about PC gaming becoming a niche market again?

I'll tell you why.

(drumroll... or not)

Niche markets are commonly viewed as having less capital in them, less target audience in them, and less turnover/influx of new capital/target audience potential. The more niche PC Gaming becomes, the less money is going to come in to the market. Currently, hardware and API changes dictate that more man hours have to be used to make games, which equates to development costs. Less money means more studios closing due to inability to compete/keep up with the "big dogs" on graphics and other areas, and less innovation.

It's a blanket claim/statement to make, but it really seems like PC Gaming's niche status strongly correlates to its decline - assuming you subscribe to the theory that it's declining, which I'm not sure I do.

On the flip side, let's say Intel decided to smack pimp graphics chipsets on all these mobos (pimp... being relative to what they are now.) Now all of a sudden people can game, let's say there's a rather appreciable influx of new players in the market buying games, and big money takes note.

Then big money forms a conglomerate, since economy of scale is something capitalism has made into an artform. Big money buys smaller studios and their IP, thinking to capitalise on the creativity and abilities of others. Small studio leads retire with lots of money, devs and programmers get raped with disgustingly long hours and no OT pay since big money calls them salary and exempt, big money churns out vapid sequal after sequal and turns the PC Gaming market into a lifeless soulless money-farm instead of an industry defined by creativity and innovation.

So.... unless innovation and gameplay take the forefront of the featureset, PC Gaming has a rough road ahead of it.

Electronic Arts FTW. /disgust

Rasputin_DEV

07-13-2006, 07:33 AM

To be honest, I don't think the problem lies with Intel. It has been my experience that the problem lies with ATI and NVIDIA. The integrated video chipsets offered by both companies pretty much fail to run any current games.

When people are running what equals a GeForce 2 MX or the pre-Radeon ATI x200 as their on-board video card they are doomed from the beginning. ATI and NVIDIA should step up to the plate to make sure that their integrated solutions can at least run Directx9 applications or they shouldn't make those chips at all.

I think it's most accurate to say the problem lies with *every* provider of integrated chipsets, assuming you're going to say the problem lies with any of them.

Seems more like the problem lies with the fact that cutting costs and margin issues take precedence when the hardware guys are so seperated from software, and the earlier mentioned market majority not really needing any more capability than what integrated chipsets currently offer.

ATI and NVIDIA have set themselves apart as catering to the gamers, the niche markets, the few the proud the blah blah blah, but in reality, they're companies too, and when it comes to the monetary laws currently holding sway in the integrated graphics chipset markets, they're no exception. They're in it to make money, and right now, they think they're doing an optimal job of it... and I'm not sure they're not.

Bad_Buddha

07-13-2006, 07:36 AM

The point is not that everyone should dive headfirst into the never ending money pit that is PC hardware. the point is that if your average POS Dell Wintel box came with an integrated GeForce 6200 instead of Intel's shitty, useless integrated graphics, the potential PC gaming audience would number in the hundreds of millions. If every PC sold had even the barest 3D graphical capability, the PC game market would be in much better shape than it currently is.

Instead, consumers buy thousands of PCs with multigigahertz dual core CPUs, gigs of RAM, terabytes of storage, and the 3D capability of a gameboy. And this hurts PC gaming.

"Fascinating, Captain."

Since most of those IBM Integrated units are going to businesses that have no need of 3D T&L, I don't see the impact on PC gaming.

As someone else said, anybody that is going into PC gaming as a hobby should be looking into the specs and requirements involved. Why is this not being taken into account. If someone went out and bought an Xbox 360 and took it home to hook it up to their 1960's console Magnavox with an RF adapter, you'd call them an ill-informed idiot. If someone buys any product costing over $500 and doesn't do their homework, they deserve what they get.

Another thing that gets my goat: Developers that won't release games on DVD, because not everyone has a $35 DVD drive. But they will release games that require an up-to-date $150 video card.

Rasputin_DEV

07-13-2006, 08:03 AM

"As someone else said, anybody that is going into PC gaming as a hobby should be looking into the specs and requirements involved... If someone buys any product costing over $500 and doesn't do their homework, they deserve what they get.

At what point has the precedent been set for someone to even *know* that they need to do that research? The assumption is probably that a $1500 to $2000 machine should be able to play any new game on the market, because it's a new machine. Is there some resource for new PC users/wannabe gamers to go and spec out their machine vs. modern day games?

Let's take Prey. Just came out this week, and:

Minimum System Requirements:
Intel Pentium 4 2.0Ghz or AMD Athlon XP 2000+ processor
512MB System RAM
100% DirectX 9.0c compatible 64MB video card with latest manufacturer drivers
8X CD-ROM (standard edition), DVD-ROM (Limited Collector's Edition)
2.2GB of uncompressed free hard drive space
100% DirectX 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card
Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP with latest service pack installed
Mouse and keyboard
DirectX 9.0c (included)

Even a relatively informed buyer is going to read their specs, read the specs of the minimum system reqs for the latest and greatest graphical game, and say "Hmm, my card has 64 megs of ram, so it should play that.", not realizing that minimum system reqs today really equates to "Will succeed in loading up the game but will look even worse than Doom 1"

Even F.E.A.R.:

* Windows ® 2000/XP with latest service pack installed
* DirectX(tm) 9.0c
* Pentium ® 4 1.7 Ghz or equivalent
* 1GB RAM
* 128 MB DirectX ® 9.0 Compliant Video Card with hardware T&L and pixel shader support*
* 3.0 GB free Hard Drive Space for installation
* Additional hard drive space for a Windows swap file and saved game files.
* 16-bit DirectX 9.0 compliant sound card with support for EAX 2.0
* Broadband connection for multiplayer games.
* Mouse & Keyboard

A lot of those shitty integrated graphics cards, or poor showings from NVIDIA and ATI, have 128 megs of video ram - ram is cheap enough that it makes them look better and they probably feel that it increases their sales enough to justify their costs.

There's some deeper rooted problems with the current marketing process and willful misinformation of consumers to just lay the blame at their feet and stand on the superiority complex stand of an elite gamer, saying "It's their own damned fault for being misinformed." That kind of attitude just encourages PC Gaming market decline.

Citizen Philip

07-13-2006, 08:30 AM

I'm not suppose to post anymore, but on this specific topic, I will. The majority of gaming tech support problems are video device related, of those video device problems most of them are IGP related. Only a small fraction of video device problems are driver related. There is a lot of FUD in this thread from ex/console gamers regarding PC upgrading and hardware.

All the namebrand companies: Dell, Compaq, Gateway, HP etc. sell virtually all of their systems without a video card: but every spec will mention video graphics in their respective descriptions. They are not lying about having a video device, but are not being honest about their performance: people get very upset when they find their $2000 computer has th equivilent video capacity from the 2001. After the fact, an end user must rely on a subpar PCI video device, as the mobo have poor expanions and no PCIE or AGP slots. That is a big problem.

Most people who have a DX9 video device, already know you goto either ati or nvidia and download your drivers. Assuming you have the capacity to click on a button that says "Download Drivers" you can update your card with no hassle.

ATI and nVidia offer enthusiast cards and regular cards. Enthusiast cards are very expensive, bleeding edge. You do not need an enthusiat carad to enjoy PC gaming. Regular cards are fairly priced, but obviously lack some of the power of their expensive couterparts.

I agree finding the best regular card can be tricky, but only if you don't like doing research (i.e. going to review websites) or you have desire to trust a salesperson at a computer store.

I don't like Vista personally, but, Vista requires DX9+ video devices: give Vista a 4-5 year span to saturate the market and there will be resurgence in PC gaming as most of the major brand PC sellers are going to have to sell video cards with their systems.

The namebrand companies started this trend by investing into subpar IGP devices, Intel can be specifically blamed as well.

Spigot

07-13-2006, 08:34 AM

I'm not suppose to post anymore, but on this specific topic, I will.
Nice to hear from you again.
I don't like Vista personally, but, Vista requires DX9+ video devices: give Vista a 4-5 year span to saturate the market and there will be resurgence in PC gaming as most of the major brand PC sellers are going to have to sell video cards with their systems.
This is a very good point. If you have to have a card in your system with a decent GPU in order to run the OS, the issues with the games should clear themselves up.

At least with regards to the clueless entry-level gamer.

AversionFX

07-13-2006, 08:52 AM

Seriously, I have real life and a job getting in the way. I'm lucky if I can get in an hour of gaming every few days

Seriously.

At what point has the precedent been set for someone to even *know* that they need to do that research? The assumption is probably that a $1500 to $2000 machine should be able to play any new game on the market, because it's a new machine. Is there some resource for new PC users/wannabe gamers to go and spec out their machine vs. modern day games?

With the way things are now, if you are getting into any kind of hobby (LEAST of all, a tech-based hobby), if you don't do your research, you deserve all of the frustration and wasted money you get.

Beelzebud

07-13-2006, 09:09 AM

Nothing is happening with PC Gaming.

It's funny how many overlook the obvious: PC Gaming has ALWAYS been a niche market.

It's not going anywhere, it's also not going to suddenly become the mainstream way to play games.

Rifter

07-13-2006, 09:36 AM

I can see where he is coming from. I have a buddy that was one of the founders of our LAN group back in the Doom days. He has a PC, with integrated video. He doesn't play a lot anymore, because of lack of funds. Well, he can't play any decent games, even though he has a fairly new computer, becase of lack of graphics. I am sure he would have been happy to spend a little extra money for a PASSABLE graphics subsystem. I used to work at HP, and we would get complaints from parents saying their computer was less than 3 months old, and their kid couldn't play a new game on them. It really is kind of crazy.

As for console games killing off PC games, you see it all the time. How many games (lets say... like Deus Ex 2, Rainbow Six Lockdown, etc) have been created for a console, which gave the PC a lackluster game? Especially game franchises that STARTED on the PC, and are still around, because of the great PC support? I enjoyed CoD and CoD 2. I am pissed it jumped ship. The PC has been the bastard stepchild of gaming for FAR too long.

RMan

07-13-2006, 10:46 AM

And that would open up a huge market for PC games.
Is this so difficult to understand?
Nope, very easy to understand, just like Peter Pan flying by thinking happy thoughts is very easy to understand, I just don’t think it’s true.
Putting a decent low-end GPU in there would be incredibly cheap. If they left out the integrated chip, the cost difference could be so small you wouldn't even notice it.
It really doesn’t matter, none of the low-end integrated graphics solutions will ever run high end graphic games unless the developers make an effort to make their software scalable. It’s not like Intel is the only ‘culprit’ here, ATI and NVidia’s integrated graphics chips are weak and cheap, again, they’ll always be too weak for games that demand top notch hardware. The game developers demanding this hardware can call it an insignificant amount of money and pass the buck all day long, but the hardware vendors, from top to bottom don’t seem to agree. Developers demanding high end graphics consciously make this choice, they choose the market they want to cater to, and if they choose not to cater to consumers less interested in graphics then that’s their problem, not Intel’s, ATI’s, or NVidia’s.

Seriously, stop and think about the argument for one second. Hardware vendors are killing this industry because they are failing to supply a software developer’s minimum spec? You don’t see how that’s completely backwards, let’s not design software that works on people’s hardware, let’s design software that works on some people’s hardware then bitch and moan that it’s someone else’s fault it doesn’t work on everyone else’s. No, these developers make their choice, and hardware vendors and consumers shouldn’t be required to subsidize them through hardware expendatures if they don't want to.
Saying that "if people wanted it/were willing to pay for it, it would be there" is BS, too. If that were the case, everything released today would be perfect, no room for improvements left.
Uhh, no, spend a moment to think about what you’re saying. Everything released would be top-notch if people were willing to spend the money it costs to make it so, the point is they are not.

Still, show me this seemingly endless, mythical stream of gamers with money in hand, demanding top notch graphics but being limited by their integrated graphics chips (then you can try to explain how it’s been happening long enough to kill gaming, good luck on those points). The idea that it’s more than a handful is crazy. Think about it for a second, what games are these people demanding that can’t run on their integrated graphics chips? Note, there’s a difference between can’t, and won’t run on a given system, developers not testing their games on integrated graphics chips then their games subsequently not working on them is not the fault of the hardware vendor, just a natural problem with the PC’s customization ability and developers unwillingness to scale and test their product.
No one would have chosen the DS over the PSP, the PS2 over the XBox etc, if they weren't able to PLAY THEIR FUCKING GAMES ON THEM.
Which relates to the argument in no way. Again, most people weren’t demanding the higher end graphics hardware, period. And they’re able to play the games on them because the games are developed for the hardware, not the other way around. If you think about it briefly you may understand it.

51|RandoM

07-13-2006, 12:48 PM

why would people blame the integrated chipsets? That is retarded.

An integrated chipset is meant to be low cost solution, providing just enough capability for the head of a server or for a basic windows desktop.

If you make one of those chipsets that could support highend gaming, it wouldn't survive the market, you don't dump that much money on a part you can't upgrade/replace/repair without replacing the entire motherboard.

No, if you really think integrated chipsets are a problem, start pointing the finger at the people who are using them, in other words, the system builders. Even they're not billing them as gaming machines, sheesh.

Busted_Astromech

07-13-2006, 12:54 PM

Seriously, stop and think about the argument for one second. Hardware vendors are killing this industry because they are failing to supply a software developer’s minimum spec? You don’t see how that’s completely backwards, let’s not design software that works on people’s hardware, let’s design software that works on some people’s hardware then bitch and moan that it’s someone else’s fault it doesn’t work on everyone else’s. No, these developers make their choice, and hardware vendors and consumers shouldn’t be required to subsidize them through hardware expendatures if they don't want to.
Are you suggesting that developers shouldn't be able to implement modern features like shading because they should have to meet pre-hardware T&L standards? That would only serve to further hurt PC games because the technology would fall behind consoles. It's reasonable to expect a computer marketed as a gaming computer that sells for over $1000 to have a graphics card, right? But I've seen plenty of computers by companies like Dell that promise to give "Extreme Performance" but can't even play modern games.
Still, show me this seemingly endless, mythical stream of gamers with money in hand, demanding top notch graphics but being limited by their integrated graphics chips (then you can try to explain how it’s been happening long enough to kill gaming, good luck on those points). The idea that it’s more than a handful is crazy. Think about it for a second, what games are these people demanding that can’t run on their integrated graphics chips? Note, there’s a difference between can’t, and won’t run on a given system, developers not testing their games on integrated graphics chips then their games subsequently not working on them is not the fault of the hardware vendor, just a natural problem with the PC’s customization ability and developers unwillingness to scale and test their product.
The problem is not that developers are jerks who won't design a game to run on an IGP system. It's that a developer can't design a game to both meet modern graphical standards and pre-DirectX 7.0 standards.

When ordinary people cannot pick up a computer game at Best Buy and play it on their computer, the industry has a problem. How many people will become PC gamers if this keeps up? No one is saying that business computers should have graphics cards. No one is saying that vendors should be forced to put even mid-range graphics cards in their computers.

But by not even putting the bare minimum of a graphics accelerator in a computer billed as 'powerful,' (and what would a 'powerful' computer be bought for besides games?), the PC games market is being strangled.

I'm only repeating what many have said before me but it's such a concrete fact that it needs to be repeated until it is understood: when people can't play computer games, the PC industry will die.

Busted_Astromech

07-13-2006, 01:03 PM

No, if you really think integrated chipsets are a problem, start pointing the finger at the people who are using them, in other words, the system builders. Even they're not billing them as gaming machines, sheesh.
I do think it's largely the vendor's fault. For example: Dell's $990 XPS 220, billed as a "high performance multimedia PC," has an integrated graphics chip. Now when a person buys a computer from Dell's "Xtreme Performance Systems" line can't play a game that requires Hardware T&L, it's the vendor screwing over non-PC-savvy consumers who just want to play a few games. A PC like that used to come with something; my parent's first computer, a mid-range Gateway, had a Voodoo Banshee. Good enough for someone who wants to play games but doesn't care about high performance.

Yet now people are unable to 'casually' play computer games because the vendors have stopped supplying computers with low-range graphics cards in favor of IGPs. It's killing the PC market, plain and simple. They just need to support simple standards, not have great cards, but even a computer a layman would believe is powerful can't handle full DirectX 7.0 support.

fitbabits

07-13-2006, 01:59 PM

RMan

07-13-2006, 02:24 PM

Are you suggesting that developers shouldn't be able to implement modern features like shading because they should have to meet pre-hardware T&L standards?
If the stats posted here are accurate, the Intel chipsets support well beyond that. A system missing one underused hardware feature doesn’t make the rest of the system bad. You clearly do not understand the hardware, you’re talking about the fixed function pipeline, something that no new games use. Many of the newer cards do not support it either, they simply convert the FF pipeline to shaders at the driver level, which is perfectly fine (consumers and developers don’t know the difference, it performs well, who cares if it’s emulated). If you want to complain about a relevant hardware shortcoming, then bring it on, but don't bring up a missing a feature that nobody uses or is otherwise irrelevant.
But I've seen plenty of computers by companies like Dell that promise to give "Extreme Performance" but can't even play modern games.
If it’s marketed as something it isn’t, then blame the people responsible, in the case you mention, Dell. How is Intel responsible for another company’s possible false advertising or a customer’s misconceptions about what a gaming machine should be.
The problem is not that developers are jerks who won't design a game to run on an IGP system. It's that a developer can't design a game to both meet modern graphical standards and pre-DirectX 7.0 standards.
SM2 is well beyond DX7, but beyond the obvious lack of accuracy regarding this specific hardware, yes, game designers can’t design a game that’s not scalable below a specific platform and expect their game to run on it. They can’t have their cake and eat it too, Intel’s fault as well, I suppose.
When ordinary people cannot pick up a computer game at Best Buy and play it on their computer, the industry has a problem.
Agreed, still not Intel’s fault.
But by not even putting the bare minimum of a graphics accelerator in a computer billed as 'powerful,' (and what would a 'powerful' computer be bought for besides games?), the PC games market is being strangled.
Bare minimum by Epic’s standard is well beyond what people will pay for at a minimum. Look, you want this in simpler terms, Epic built an engine around SM3, and Intel didn’t supply an SM3 chipset on integrated chips, and perhaps didn’t make a chip that they can easily scale to because of Epic's choice to push the highest end of the hardware spectrum. That is it, this is not ideological, or logical in any way, this is Mark being what he is, a complete self server. They targeted the high end, and got aboard the MS gravy train in the process and are doing well, I say good for them, but to start bitching about the direct and completely predictable result of the path they chose, that’s just asinine. They’re blaming others for their own choices, plain and simple.
I'm only repeating what many have said before me but it's such a concrete fact that it needs to be repeated until it is understood: when people can't play computer games, the PC industry will die.
Agreed, now try asking yourself how game developers aren’t the problem.

RMan

07-13-2006, 02:32 PM

Now when a person buys a computer from Dell's "Xtreme Performance Systems" line can't play a game that requires Hardware T&L, it's the vendor screwing over non-PC-savvy consumers who just want to play a few games.
A game would have to go out of their way to require ‘Hardware’ T&L. They’ll require T&L, and then let the driver/card figure out where and how the job should be done. A dual core CPU would absolutely sleep through the requirements for software emulation of T&L. You are complaining about a difference in the implementation of a feature, not the lack of it, prove that the feature is missing or otherwise a real problem then you’ll have a case.

Busted_Astromech

07-13-2006, 02:52 PM

If the stats posted here are accurate, the Intel chipsets support well beyond that. A system missing one underused hardware feature doesn’t make the rest of the system bad. You clearly do not understand the hardware, you’re talking about the fixed function pipeline, something that no new games use. Many of the newer cards do not support it either, they simply convert the FF pipeline to shaders at the driver level, which is perfectly fine (consumers and developers don’t know the difference, it performs well, who cares if it’s emulated). If you want to complain about a relevant hardware shortcoming, then bring it on, but don't bring up a missing a feature that nobody uses or is otherwise irrelevant.
There's a very good chance I'm in error: you're saying we've gone from software to hardware and back to software (but now performed on the graphics card) with T&L? That when a game box put Hardware T&L as its requirement it only applies to pre-progammable shader cards?

If so, then it appears I was wrong. But we still have people unable to play games on computers without graphics cards, though they have these integrated graphics chips. What causes this incompatibility, then? Are the chips incapable of partitioning system RAM to emulate the onboard RAM of a graphics card?

I will be happy to be wrong on the issue of a specific process. But the underlying problem remains that new computers can't play new games: not that they can't play them at low settings (which the layperson probably wouldn't even notice), but that they can't play them at all. For some reason these IGP are a terrible solution.

And yes, I do lay the majority of the blame at the vendors' feet, not at companies like Intel.

Spigot

07-13-2006, 03:24 PM

We interrupt this thread for the following announcement:

Please refrain from overtly personal attacks. You can argue your case without name-calling or other mindless and/or childish insults.

Thank you. Normal posting will now resume.
But... but... That's the EvAv way, isn't it? Yeesh.

It's so much easier to make fun of each other than use dusty old 'facts' and 'technical knowledge' that are all the rage on the debate circuit.

fitbabits

07-13-2006, 03:31 PM

But... but... That's the EvAv way, isn't it? Yeesh.

It's so much easier to make fun of each other than use dusty old 'facts' and 'technical knowledge' that are all the rage on the debate circuit.
Heh! There's a fine line between calling someone a fanboy or whatever and calling them a 'fucking douche bag' (for example). That's all I'm saying. Is all. And stuff.

Jasonp107

07-13-2006, 03:51 PM

My friend wrote up a long response to Mark Rein's misguided commentary on Flicker Gaming, so I'll just quote a little a link, but imho it's all about The Long Tail (http://www.thelongtail.com) - the PC has it and the console doesn't.

From Corvus:

It’s true that as consoles have become more powerful that more and more die-hard PC gamers are buying consoles. It’s true that many games which once may have been developed for PC are now being developed for consoles. It’s true that developing for the PC is developing for a rapidly moving target, whereas developing for a console is developing for a static platform. And let’s not forget the grotesque amounts of money which Microsoft and Sony throw around trying to woo developers into an exclusive relationships with their respective consoles.

The thing is that whenever people lament the loss of the PC as a gaming platform, they completely neglect to mention all of the money still being made with PC titles.

Full Article (http://www.flickergaming.net/index.php/2006/07/13/alas-poor-pc-gaming-i-knew-him-well-my-console/)

RMan

07-13-2006, 04:29 PM

There's a very good chance I'm in error: you're saying we've gone from software to hardware and back to software (but now performed on the graphics card) with T&L?
It’s a bit tricky and the terms can trip us up, but I’ll try to explain. Given the specs posted earlier (I have not researched the chip, just working with that) it says it has software implementation of T&L (that’s the old, rigid fixed function implementation of vertex lighting and skinning) as well as vertex shaders. On most >SM2 level cards, the vendors, instead of continually supporting the T&L in hardware, emulate it by converting the fixed function pipeline to shaders (a good thing, I’d totally do the same) and running them on the hardware, that’s for the DX7 and below pixel and vertex functions. This is simpler for them, and just as fast, possibly faster considering the more focused development.

Now, I’d wager most people would call this hardware T&L, but it is technically software emulating what was previously a hardware implementation (programmed shaders are software). The confusing part is that many consumers have simply conditioned themselves to believe that hardware=fast, and not hardware=not fast, or worse, not hardware=unbearably slow. This is not necessarily true, certainly if you consider the relative load of the functions. So, with my understanding of the Intel implementation, they are doing the vertex calculations in software (this is for T&L as well as vertex shaders) and the pixel operations in hardware. Vertex shaders are easily run 10Xs less than pixel shaders (an EXTREMELY conservative number), as well as being less complex these days than a pixel shader, so doing the far easier part in what will almost assuredly be an underused second core processor will not affect the vast majority of games.

In the end, what should be of concern is how fast the architecture is, seldom can this be assessed by just a statistic or assumptions about an unconventional implementation.
That when a game box put Hardware T&L as its requirement it only applies to pre-progammable shader cards?
Back then there really wasn’t an acceptable software implementation of T&L, so it was easier to just say they required Hardware T&L. Technically, what they almost assuredly meant was that it required T&L support that was as fast as hardware implementations. I do think it’s possible (don’t feel like looking through old DX docs) to demand a hardware implementation of T&L, but only a silly programmer would do that and Intel’s driver can just say it has it anyway.
But we still have people unable to play games on computers without graphics cards, though they have these integrated graphics chips. What causes this incompatibility, then?
That cannot be answered by me, it’s case by case, and really, completely subjective (seriously, I’m not trying to simply confuse you :)). Incompatibility is caused by one thing not working with another, while placing blame is tough, most people would assume that it’s the software developer’s responsibility to support a reasonable hardware platform. Often incompatibility (like it not working at all) is the result of a lack of testing, disregarding flat out bugs, the Intel implementation seems to be a SM2 solution that supports DX9, which is more than acceptable IMO. If a developer isn’t willing to make his software compatible with an SM2 solution, then I personally place the blame squarely on the developer.
Are the chips incapable of partitioning of RAM to emulate the onboard RAM of a graphics card?
Clearly not, low end NVidia and ATI cards share system ram.
But the underlying problem remains that new computers can't play new games: not that they can't play them at low settings (which the layperson probably wouldn't even notice), but that they can't play them at all.
Agreed.
For some reason these IGP are a terrible solution.
And… You lost me again :(. I’m not going to beat a dead horse (at least not for much longer) but there are at least two entities required to create an incompatibility. Just because Mark Rein says integrated graphics are the spawn of Satan doesn’t make it true (really, it doesn’t). Try, for a moment, to believe that I have the infinite wisdom and unwavering dedication to the truth that a marketing rep such as Mark Rein has, and just take my words vs his at face value. Think about what’s being said, not the title of who’s saying it, and decide on your own (I’m not asking you to blindly trust me, just don’t blindly trust anyone).

Spigot

07-13-2006, 04:42 PM

Heh! There's a fine line between calling someone a fanboy or whatever and calling them a 'fucking douche bag' (for example). That's all I'm saying. Is all. And stuff.
I think there's something in the Registration Agreement that explicitly states that every thread needs at least one douche bag reference. Kef pointed it out to me the other day...

Busted_Astromech

07-13-2006, 05:37 PM

I’m not going to beat a dead horse (at least not for much longer) but there are at least two entities required to create an incompatibility. Just because Mark Rein says integrated graphics are the spawn of Satan doesn’t make it true (really, it doesn’t). Try, for a moment, to believe that I have the infinite wisdom and unwavering dedication to the truth that a marketing rep such as Mark Rein has, and just take my words vs his at face value. Think about what’s being said, not the title of who’s saying it, and decide on your own (I’m not asking you to blindly trust me, just don’t blindly trust anyone).
Don't worry, I wasn't basing my opinions off what Mark Rein said (I'm certainly not a fan). His statements just corroborated my previously held beliefs about IGPs. I've long felt it a crime that computers today do not ship with anything approaching a workable graphics card. But I've never done any real research into what they IGPs are capable of, just built of what I'd read from all around the internet.

Now you're presenting very credible arguments that IGP's are perfectly capable of running modern games, but that software companies simply don't support them (and I appreciate you informing me on the state of Hardware T&L, by the way, I figured it just became an established toolset on every card sans Voodoo from GeForce on).

So what do I do now? I can either become undecided on the issue, unsure as to whether there is a flaw with the concept of IGPs that prevents them from being workable or whether game developers/publishers are not supporting them, or I can invest the time to research it.

I'm taking the easy way out, for now, and am formally filing an application to be undecided as to whether IGPs can stay or whether they should go (because on paper it really is a good idea). But I'll probably look into it further in a few days.

RMan

07-13-2006, 06:01 PM

I'm taking the easy way out, for now, and am formally filing an application to be undecided as to whether IGPs can stay or whether they should go (because on paper it really is a good idea). But I'll probably look into it further in a few days.
Undecided isn't bad, way better than the Jihad that some seem to have declared. Look into it, though, esp. if you have an interest in the technology, it's relatively fun material to learn about. But I agree also that they're good on paper, and my arguments are based on what's on paper and my understanding of their tech, I haven't used the thing. With the complication level of today's architectures, I'd still say the best test is to just run some real-world diagnostics, and evaluate the solution based on that. 'Paper' evaluation of someone else's architecture is just silly (if you want to know how it performs, it's ok for features), there are too many variables (remember, this is Intel, they have the ability to modify their chipset and enhance their architecture in ways no video card could).

shnastybiznastic

07-13-2006, 06:17 PM

Heh! There's a fine line between calling someone a fanboy or whatever and calling them a 'fucking douche bag' (for example). That's all I'm saying. Is all. And stuff.
Thanks for calling me out on that (if you don't rub his nose in it, he'll never learn). I really just hate analysts who ruin the title by just posting their arbitrary initial thoughts on whatever issue is at hand instead of, you know, analyzing. And I'm sure he's not actually a bag used for genital hygene. ;)

AngelFaceBabyTeeth

07-13-2006, 06:22 PM

Absolutely retarted to think that PC gaming is going anywhere but up , up , up!!!
look at the sales of PC gaming hardware alone!
look at online play numbers!
silly silly silly to think so!
good to be posting here

fitbabits

07-13-2006, 06:55 PM

Thanks for calling me out on that (if you don't rub his nose in it, he'll never learn). I really just hate analysts who ruin the title by just posting their arbitrary initial thoughts on whatever issue is at hand instead of, you know, analyzing. And I'm sure he's not actually a bag used for genital hygene. ;)
Eh? What the...? :confused:

If you've called someone a fucking douchebag in the past, I've not noticed. Nor was my post a sly attempt at calling you out.

rubbishfoo

07-13-2006, 07:34 PM

Hmmmm...

I have spent years with the Unreal/Tournament franchise games. I like them very much for mostly personal reasons. (don't hate me).

I find these comments by M. Rein disturbing... mainly because the man speaks that PC gaming is dying? Seriously? Haven't heard that...

Maybe Mark should have a look at the most successful game ever? Nearing 105 million USD/month. World of warcraft on X360? hahahaha yeah....

While I do agree that PC gaming is turning into a niche... it is simply foolish to make comments like this and blame Intel. The only fault lies with the consumer. Not everyone is a gamer... most people like MSoffice and their Email. Their children beg for games and they get consoles... Rarely does your average parent choose to spend this much money on their childrens entertainment budget.

DIAF Mark.

Rubbish_Foo

EDIT:: (while I am one of the more silent visitors to this site... I really like the community here... the several of you who make constructive posts really have my admiration.)

fitbabits

07-13-2006, 08:01 PM