No matter if you are an Xbox 360, PS3 or even a Wii fanboy I think we all have to tip our hats to the new generation of consoles and the power they bring to the table.
I recently heard about the requirements for the new John Woo game, Stranglehold on the PC and it’s borderline ridiculous requirements.
“The game will require at least 15 gigs of hard drive space, 2 gigs of ram and a Nvidia 7800 or higher / ATI x1300 or higher graphics card.”
That is a lot of machine required to play a FPS game on your computer, a buddy of mine recently ran into similar problems, but not as extreme, when he purchased Halo 2 and Shadowrun for the PC, he could not run Shadowrun on his rig. This is why PC gaming is a problem in my eyes, you have to constantly upgrade your computer just to keep up with the newest titles. Games are built for consoles and the only thing you have to worry about is upgrading to a different system every few years to stay with the curve of technology.
Each new console and handheld runs games with high quality graphics and you never have to be concerned about disk space or RAM, just buying the game and being able to get it unwrapped from it’s plastic straight jacket. Putting the problems of hardware aside (which PC systems are very prone to as well if not more if you factor in viruses) these consoles are designed to have you gaming with little to no effort or worries by the gamer, you have to respect the consoles and their pushing of one another to bring this technology further and faster every year.
As a huge fan of Starcraft I wonder what the requirements for the new Starcraft II game will be, at least for me if they are too exagerated Blizzard can count me out.
3 Comments
Write a Comment»Yeah, the constant need for upgrades is what stops me from playing PC games. You basically have to upgrade something every year to keep up.
I concur. That’s actually what made me break down and get an xbox 360 in the first place… got sick of seeing higher and higher system requirements every other week when a new title would come out and knowing that the some of the best games would run like crap on my system.
Now all my games crash equally on my 360!
As the only resident pc fanboy on the website, I’m compelled to defend it. Just a few points to realize:
-PC gaming is not a cheap experience. It’s going to be more expensive than consoles, thats a given. The upside of this is more customization of your own machine, and you can upgrade what really matters. The downside, of course, is the cost.
-The hardware you listed is close to becoming standard for many machines:
The 7800 card was released nearly 2 years ago, and at this point in time AGP versions are cheaper than dirt. Take a look at this 8600 - two full generations newer than the 7800 - at $140. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150229 That’s a hell of a deal, and will easily last you 2-3 years.
While 15 gigs IS a monster of a game, you also need to take into account that hard drive costs have plummeted in past years. You can get an external hard drive for $80 (again see newegg.com) or a FIVE HUNDRED gb internal drive for $105 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136110).
Lastly, 2gb of ram sounds like a blockbuster - but it’s really not. Checking prices again, you can find a gig stick for as low as $50 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820141166), which comes to a total of $100 for 2 gigs.
This will make your machine ready to play many of the upcoming games for as little as $345. That’s less than the 360 and PS3 at release. Throw in shipping charges, and we’ll call it even $380. The thing to understand about computers is that you don’t need to be on the bleeding edge of technology to play and enjoy the games with decent to excellent graphics.
A quick note about upgrading: processors and motherboards do need to be updated as well, but don’t really regulate the quality of gameplay for games you are playing. RAM, VRAM (video cards), and hard disk available space are what really makes the games run smooth or not so smooth.
So in reality, unless you’re the guy who just NEEDS to play games with the utmost in graphics (which, by the way, DX10 will obliterate all console graphics. If you don’t believe me, take a look at Crysis), you can get by with upgrading your PC every few years with mid range equipment that often comes out to similar costs as the consoles.
I hope this helps to enlighten some of you guys to PC gaming. It’s not as harsh of a place as it seems for upgrading and such - it only gets messy when you want that off-the-developer’s-table technology. Keep in mind that technology normally outpaces developers for games in the PC area. Whereas xbox 360 is released and developers immediately start to work on it, there’s a normal lag of 6-12 months for ripping new technology. Take DX10 for example - it came out with Vista, and the first game to use it was Lost Planet - which came out very recently. Even then, its not a complete overhaul, and the game still works great on DX9 cards - like the one I have.
Just throwing in my 400 cents.