Thoughts about PC Gaming and its current problems

Thoughts about PC Gaming and its current problems

• Rahul Agarwal

  Jonrio wrote:

  yeah no kidding i own starwars darkforce and i get this message it say theres no dos what is going on

  Google "DosBox"

  
  
  

• RGunasekaran

  hello,
  
  I just get desperated playing games on my PC, while i can play Farcry honnestly,
  Quake 4 doesn't pass 1 FPS ...
  
  I remember playing Ultima 8 on my DX2-66, it was slow but acceptable !
  
  Where is the time where there was only Assembler and C
  Where is the time where developers where not so lazy to optimize
  (maybe they have objectives to achieve, i recon)
  
  Well there are two worlds,
  
  - those who always get the latest Geforce at the rate of one or two per year,
  - those who (probably have no idea of inside of their pc), these are generally not gamers.
  
  I'm jumping back to ten years ago, when PSX was out i just bought it.
  
  At least you turn on and play
  and you don't get any wrists injuries or whatever else
  also console are way more much ergonomic than any pc
  however pc is generally finer resolution and console is more arcade-oriented
  but when i start my console, i just get hypnotized by so much action,
  on my pc, there's always something to do/fix/try/check/add whatever you want
  
  but isn't the problem starting at the CPU layer
  PC school is CISC,
  Console school is RISC
  
  i always dreamed of having technology used by scentifists first, like RISC.
  have you ever used a Mac with a poor Radeon it outperforms similar pc
  
  years passes but i found RISC being still the best for everything.
  
  but there are colors and tastes for everyone !
  
  see you
  
  
  

• Omid_

  1) performance

  Now don't anybody hit me for saying this but the main reason for poor performance (in any software) is sloppy design and/or implementation of the software in question.

  If an architect creates an architecture that requires a dozen object instantiations to read a single value from the keyboard (for example) that's bound to slow things down.

  Same when a programmer does Java string concatenations on a massive scale instead of using StringBuilder (or StringBuffer in older versions of the language) for that he's going to see performance problems down the road.

  And that's just 2 examples, there are many more like the C program I once had to tune where the original author had heard about making a function out of everything you do more than once and had therefore create a function to add 2 integer values, which was called in a tight loop in which it created something like 100% overhead to the loop duration. Inlining that function resulted in an instant 20% performance increase for the program in question (which was about half the increase the customer wanted).

  In part this is caused by overly tight deadlines on projects leaving no time for profiling and optimisation, in part it's because of tight budgets leaving no room to hire experienced people, in part it's because people are no longer taught optimisation techniques (do they still teach programmers what the overhead of a function call is for example Or how different mathematical operations translate into CPU cycles ).

  2) Drivers

  There are poor drivers out there, but also very good one. The main problem with drivers is kids using hacked unofficial versions because "a friend" told them they'd get massively higher fps doing so.

  3) Hardware

  That's the price of an open platform. If you don't want that, buy a Mac

  4) Resources

  That's the price of a general purpose system. If you don't want that, buy an XBox

  5) Installation

  See 3) and 4)

  6) Multitasking

  That's the problem with game companies writing games still that work only in fullscreen mode. You don't seem to want that multitasking anyway as you're insistent on turning PCs into consoles so I don't see your point.
  I currently run MS FS2004 and multitask that with MSN Messenger, IE, IRC, and Visual C++... Works perfectly.

  The main reason the console business is growing faster than the PC business is that the PC business is pretty well saturated and doesn't force its users to buy all new software for every new hardware version.
  It's also for a lot of people quite a bit cheaper to buy a $350 XBox and hook it up to their TV than buying a $1000 PC and find a room for it, plus buying a $50 joystick, a $300 screen, etc. etc.

  That's again the price of having a general purpose system, and I prefer it that way.

  
  

• Madhu Srinivasan

  Roygar wrote:

  In conclussion, it’s my opinion that in order to the pc gaming business be as big as the console busines (as it was a few year ago), we need Windows to act as a console, the user insert the disc, there should be a quick check and start up process (stoping services, checkins drivers, resources) and the game should lanch with no task switching, no multitasking, just the game running.

  If this is what gamers really wanted, then PC games would already do this. The technology to do this has existed for a long time -- this is what "Autorun" was created for -- and a few games even tried to run directly off CD-ROM. But it's never been what users actually want. They don't want to wait for things to load off of an optical disc, they much prefer the faster load times of a game fully installed on a hard disk. They don't want PCs tied up running one game, they want to be able to ALT-TAB and chat with instant messaging, check a hint site on the WWW or to see if their peer-to-peer downloads have finished yet. If they wanted their PC to act like a console when playing games they'd just get a console, they're much cheaper.

  It's important to realize that things are often the way they are for a reason. The PC games market has always been very competive, no company has ever been in a position to ignore what its customers wants. PC games install themselves to hard disks, support task-switching and multitasking because that what users have always wanted and there's no evidence to suggest that has changed.

  A better explaination of why PC game retail box sales in North America have been falling is that gamers with PCs have been spending more of their money on subscription fees for MMORPGs and other similar games. The total amount of money that North American consumers have been spending on PC games may not actually have shrunk at all. We'll have to wait for next years statistics which should include online subscription fees in order to find out.

  
  

• Bren Besser

  1. Performance. Let’s face it, in order to play the lastest games in a nice way (nice graphics, good framereate) I need a killer pc

  
  Agree, some of the games released today almost doesn't work even on the newest hardware and they still look like ***.
  When it's possible to make good graphics with high framerate(FarCry, UT2004) why make the opposite(FEAR, NFS:U)
  CoD2 released last month has a pretty nice feature. You can choose if you want to play with DX9 or DX7, if you have DX9 it will look realy good but you need a killermachine to run it, if you have an older machine just turn on DX7 and you'll get a pretty high framerate and it still looks ok.
  
  

  2. Drivers: Most of the problems the user have while playing are driver related, mainly the sound driver or video driver and why   maybe problematic drivers, lack of updates, lack of compatibility..

  Agree, some people don't even know that your hardware needs drivers and even if they do, they don't know how to update them.
  Now you have to find the manufacturers homepage, browse through 100menus, select which OS and which model you have. There are people that doesn't have any idea of what hard-/software they have inside their computer. This also relates to the next point.
  A good idea would be to have the ability to install drivers through windowsupdate or some other auto-detect and install tool.
  I know windowsupdate already has drivers to some graphic-cards but they are usually 2months old and they also don't work everytime.
   
  

  3. Hardware problems. There’s no easy way to check if my PC is ok to gaming, there’s is a IRQ conflict with my sound card my drivers fully support directx

  
  Agree, I have no idea if my graphiccard supports pixelshader 2.0 or 3.0, the manual doesn't say anything about it, the manufacturers homepage doesn't say anything about it and neighter does my computer.
  A program that tells you exactly what your computer supports would be realy nice.
  
  

  4. Resources. there’re a lot services running on XP that are not needed for gaming

  Pretty hard to tell if a service is wanted or not, I maybe want to do other things while i play so turning of services needed for those things would be pretty stupid.
  If you for example want to play a singleplayergame it would be pretty logical to turn of all services that has with networking to do becouse they consume alot of resources. What if I want to have my messenger running at the same time or tab out to visit a walkthrough-website or something similar
  
  

  5. Game installation. Why in a console is possible to run the game from disk, without a hard drive, only with a small memory unit available to save games and in PC a need to do a long installation process  in order to play can’t pc games run directly from the cd / dvd

  
  Actually, most games(ok, maybe not anymore) has an option to only install a small piece of the game on your hdd and load the rest of the resources from the CD.
  But I peronally prefer to install the full game on my HDD so i get rid of the CD.
  I always apply a crack to my games even if i've bought them because I dont want to swap CDs all the time and most games start 20secs faster with crack because the CD-spinup-time is so slow.
  I don't see the reason why developers put cd-checks on their games at all. They always get cracked 20mins after the game has been released and even my 11 year old little sister knows how to find and install them. If the game got an online cdkey-check that's enough, the cd-check is completly useless and is only an obstacle for people who have bought the game.
  Another advantage you get when you install games is that you easily can create and install mods.
  
  But, there is one problem with the installers most games use today, there are 300 steps you have to click through.
  First there is a welcomescreen, then you have to accept an 11 page document of yaddayadda, after that you have to click through another welcomescreen, then you have to select advanced to choose where you want to install the game, then you have to go to next page and uncheck that you dont want any desktopicons, on next page uncheck that you don't want any startmenuicons and on the last step see if all settings are ok and then install the game.
  Why not only have two pages.
  First page: Do you accept that we dont take any responsibility for anything at all Yes/no
  Second page: Where do you want to install, do you want startmenuicons/desktopicons
  Done!
  
  Another problem is that many newer games is using "my documents" to save settings, savegames and other stuff.
  I lost alot of savegames to some games when i formated my computer, i had my games installed on D:\ and windows installed on C:\
  Where is my documents located Byebye savegames
  I had no idea those games used my documents to save stuff so i didn't have a chance to save them. Why not put them in the installdir of the program instead
  
  This also made me think of another problem, it's too hard to move games between computers because alot of stuff is saved in the registry so you have to search and export everything that is related to the game if you want the game to work after a reinstallation of windows or if you move the game to another computer.
  
  

  In conclussion, it’s my opinion that in order to the pc gaming business be as big as the console busines (as it was a few year ago), we need Windows to act as a console, the user insert the disc, there should be a quick check and start up process (stoping services, checkins drivers, resources) and the game should lanch with no task switching, no multitasking, just the game running.

  Totaly disagree.
  I want to be able to have my messenger running while i play, i want to listen to mp3 while i play, i want to be able to talk with my friends over voip while i play, i want to be able to play while i'm printing a document, and i want to be able to do whatever i want with my computer. I can list over thousand things you can do with windows and multitasking, another good example is tabbing between your game and gmax if your creating a mod.
  That's the strength of a PC, you can do whatever you want whenever you want. You can choose exactly what program you want to use, if you don't want to have your messenger running while playing simply turn it off, I still want to have the ability to keep it running.
  
  IMO the problem actually is opposite, most PC-games are getting more and more like console-games. This means they are getting fewer and fewer options in the menus and you almost have to edit everything in ini-files if you want a game to work the way you like.
  Take battlefield2 as example, to assign your controlls in a normal way you have to do this in a .con-file with a texteditor, otherwhise you can't assign movement to your mousebuttons and you can only dream about using the mousescroll to anything else than changing weapons.
  It's the same thing with all games and even in windows. To turn off mousesmoothing in winXP you have to edit things manually in regedit and changing the deadzone on your joystick is impossible.
  I don't mean that you should have to work all day to install your mouse or joystick. You should be able to just plug in the USB-cable and start playing if you want but there should still be an option to mix with advanced settings without having to open a hexeditor or regedit.
  
  
  I say the same thing as Jack Hoxley did: If you want the PC to become a console why not simply use a console instead
  

• popskie

  yeah no kidding i own starwars darkforce and i get this message it say theres no dos what is going on
  
  

• yoges

  You've got some valid points in what you say... but as I see it, a "Desktop PC" and a "Games Console" serve similar but different purposes. You wouldn't want to run MS-Office on your XBox360 would you
  
  Also, you probably want to have a look at the Windows Vista details - it's stated that gaming is a "first class citizen". I don't know how much of the information is public yet, but there are a *lot* of new things coming along in the future that will help out...
  
  

  Roygar wrote:

  1. Performance. Let’s face it, in order to play the lastest games in a nice way (nice graphics, good framereate) I need a killer pc

  
  Gaming is still a fairly specialist area of desktop computing; these are the people who often have the necessary hardware (or are prepared to buy it).
  
  

  Roygar wrote:

  Why don’t design games to run in a P4 of 1.8Ghz with a GeForce 4600

  
  There are a lot of games out there that are aimed at the lower-end (and laptop) market. However they're rarely publicised in quite the same way as a AAA title.
  
  There's also a marketting aspect to it... whether you agree with it or not, technology sells. If you want a big hit title then you'll have to compete with everyone else. If everyone else is using the latest-and-greatest then you have to as well. Not necessarily for any good reason, but I would imagine that people will look at a game using last years technology in a different way when compared with tomorrows technology.
  
  

  Roygar wrote:

  it seems to me that there’s no estandar or minimum requierement for a driver to fully support directx (I could be wrong)

  
  There is a minimum standard required, but at least currently it's probably a lot lower than you might think (iirc, the hardware has to be DDI7 to be compatable with DX9). Especially in Direct3D, a lot of the functionality is via "caps" - something that is going to be (mostly) disappearing with D3D10
  
  Given that hardware moves at such a rapid pace (3D hardware has about a 6 month cycle) there are thousands (if not millions) of combinations of drivers and hardware out there. Only the biggest games publishers can test their applications on more than the "common" configurations.
  
  

  Roygar wrote:

  There’s no easy way to check if my PC is ok to gaming

  
  I agree with this point. You require a significant understanding of your system (hardware and software) to interpret the minimum/recommended requirements on the back of a game box.
  
  I can't remember the name of it, but there is a tool that's shipping with WinVista that will classify the hardware down to a single number (I think). This should pretty much solve the issue.
  
  

  Roygar wrote:

  there’re a lot services running on XP that are not needed for gaming, in fact, they consume a lot of resources. Then Why there isn’t a easy way to stop them It would be to hard to have a simple application that shutdown any unnecessary services before running a game and free as many resources as possible

  
  That might make for a nice OPTIONAL feature, but I don't think you'd ever get it done officially - and I certainly wouldn't want it to be done! As I outlined at the very start of this reply - a desktop PC is much more than just a gaming machine; it is quite possible that you want to run other things in the background (e.g. leave MSN signed in, your AV running...).
  
  

  Roygar wrote:

  Why in a console is possible to run the game from disk, without a hard drive, only with a small memory unit available to save games and in PC a need to do a long installation process  in order to play

  
  I don't honestly know if there is a good reason for this. I think it might just come down to making use of available resources. For most consoles you are *forced* to run the game off a CD/DVD - meaning that you'll specifically design it to work that way. On a PC you have access to a hard disk, so if the resource is there why not use it
  
  Also, a hard disk drive is an order of magnitude faster than any optical drive (mine clocked up around 44mb/sec in a recent benchmark; my CD drive will at best do 7mb/sec).
  
  Have a search around for the Meltdown 2004 (maybe in 2005 as well) slides - there have been a couple of presentations on installation "best practices".
  
  

  Roygar wrote:

  almot every game recommed to shutdown everything so only one game is running and has all the resources for itself.

  
  You don't *have to* turn off all other applications/services, it's just recommended so that you get the best possible performance.
  
  

  Roygar wrote:

  In conclussion, it’s my opinion that in order to the pc gaming business be as big as the console busines

  
  I don't think it will be as big as the console business. It might grow, but I don't think it'll exceed the console sector. A desktop PC does many things (which is it's strength) whereas a games console is a super-sleek fine-tuned beast designed only for playing great games.
  
  

  Roygar wrote:

  We as programmer have to design games not thinking the small porcentage of people who will upgrade their system next year, wbe’ve to think in the mainstream, considering the hardware that people has now or has the last year, they are the bigger market.

  
  It is a big decision - who are you targetting your product at If it's mainstream then not only does the technology need to adapt, but the whole game itself has to change!
  
  I won't go into it here, but game developers have been arguing about the holy grail that is the mainstream for years and years now
  
  You've raised plenty of good points, but my own  personal conclusion would be that making a desktop PC work like a console is a pointless venture. Why not just go and use a console instead !
  
  Cheers,
  Jack
  
  
  

• fenris

  Roygar wrote:

  5. Game installation. Why in a console is possible to run the game from disk, without a hard drive, only with a small memory unit available to save games and in PC a need to do a long installation process  in order to play can’t pc games run directly from the cd / dvd are the cd/dvd units too slows compared with the unit of a console and why if a install a game still there’s a long loading time why some games install 2.5GB of compressed files on the hard drive why don uncompress everything to fasten the loading time

  
  
  When making games for a PC you need to take into account that there's a enormous amount of different systems. Making a game stream from a dvd fast enough is not easy (also not impossible though), and having a million different drives to make it work on makes it even harder. I think on consoles it's hard as well, but only having to take one type of drive into account makes it easier than on the PC.
  
  Also, on a PC there's this huge harddisk you can install it to, and people are 'used' to installing games (sadly enough). For a PC developer it's really the easy way out to just adhere to this scheme, and the budget for the game is usually spent on things like getting the game to run on at a certain percentage of the video cards out there.
  
  

  Roygar wrote:

  6. Windows multitasking and gaming reality. A lot of people may say that Windows Xp is a multitasking OS and you can start playing Quake 4 while you have the outlook getting emails and or downloading music (legal of course) in background. But that is a lie, almot every game recommed to shutdown everything so only one game is running and has all the resources for itself.

  
  
  There's some games you can run while emailing.. for example Solitaire, or minesweeper. But anything that requires fast framerate (like quake 4) or large amounts of memory (like quake 4) will quickly take over your machine. There's really no oher way for those games to run. But, you can still alt-tab to your outlook if you want, and it will work.
  
  

  Roygar wrote:

  In conclussion, it’s my opinion that in order to the pc gaming business be as big as the console busines (as it was a few year ago), we need Windows to act as a console, the user insert the disc, there should be a quick check and start up process (stoping services, checkins drivers, resources) and the game should lanch with no task switching, no multitasking, just the game running. We as programmer have to design games not thinking the small porcentage of people who will upgrade their system next year, wbe’ve to think in the mainstream, considering the hardware that people has now or has the last year, they are the bigger market.

  
  
  I agree with you, this would be an ideal world. And you know what It already exists! It's called XBox and XBox 360! :) ok, except for the PC gaming bit, but it does everything else you describe: it runs from disk, has kick-*** performance, just the game running, etc. It's a developers dream too, you only have one platform you need to support. And the best of all is that a console is WAY cheaper than a PC. (not to develop for probably, but alas).
  
  Cheers,
  Nick Waanders
  
  

• Paully13x

  Roygar wrote:

  Why in a console is possible to run the game from disk, without a hard drive, only with a small memory unit available to save games and in PC a need to do a long installation process in order to play

  __________________________________________________________________

  That is because game console makers don't want people modifying their games, but on computers they don't have much of a chose since computers can multitask and resources are needed for things other than constantly getting EVERY piece of game information of a slow disc drive

  
  
  
• Thoughts about PC Gaming and its current problems