The wake of high-quality HD consoles has been tough on the PC video game industry. Not only are they up against a lower cost of entry and their booming game libraries, they're up against products that are excellent in conveying what kind of experience gamers are buying into. The PC industry? Not so much: "How fast is a GeForce this or a Radeon that? How does it change when you have 8 cores and vendors are using different numbering systems to describe the speed of their processors? Will it run Crysis at 9999 x 9999?" Oy vey.
This is a problem that's plagued the hardware industry since the rise of the 3D accelerator. It's hard to tell, so we've long relied either on third-party benchmarks or becoming as broke as possible by throwing money at the problem as a barometer for PC gaming performance. But fear not! The PC Gaming Alliance has inspired AMD/ATI to do something about it at last.
Sure, the Phenom X4 brand speaks to gamers, but that sticker was not enough on its own. They've just announced that they're going to start mass promoting their Windows Experience Index put another sticker on their gaming PCs. Yes, as if they don't already have enough meaningless stickers. Quick, grab your wallets now and read on!
AMD's new stickers (pictured above) will simply say "AMD GAME!" to indicate that they're capable of running the average game on the shelf, whereas the ones that say "AMD GAME ULTRA!" will run high-powered games like Crysis. While it seems like a bright move, this is short-sighted and flawed for a number of obvious reasons:
- The secondary sticker benchmark names are generic. The average person would be hard pressed to tell one "PC Uber Ultra Extreme" product from another one's "Alien Supertech Nanosystem" when other vendors have used similar generic words in their marketing for both components and systems for years, thereby diluting the value of these badges.
- Once the PC is aged 6 months these standards move up and the sticker on the computer stays the same. Imagine if all PCs simply said "Pentium Office!" How could one possibly discern?
- Are game makers going to follow suit? I doubt it. When Oregon Trail 9000 Hyperfighting Edition hits the shelves, will it have a GAME or GAME ULTRA label on the back? The answer is probably neither.
- Nvidia may do something similar, but it will probably look different.
- The sticker means nothing when parts change.
- We already have minimum system requirements printed on games, so who is this press release really for? *cough* stockholders *cough*
This non-news seems like more noise thrown into an already inconsistent industry vernacular for PC hardware. Thus, the news of AMD's new initiative to put new vague shiny stickers completely misses the point. So what's the solution?
I'd like to see PC manufacturers (game marketers or otherwise) embrace a standard that can scale with the diversity of all computer systems and ever-changing hardware. The best foot forward so far is Microsoft's PC Gaming initiative, which puts an experience index in the control panel that gives a numerical average score as to a system's capabilities. These systems are shipping with Vista anyway, so why not put that on a sticker instead and educate consumers about how well your systems rank against it? The conspiracy theorist in me says that it may expose how sub par the low-end models are for games, which in turn points back to the original problem: high-end HD gaming PCs are ridiculously expensive right now.
Hey AMD, how about a 50% off sticker instead?
Contest:
1:45 PM on 05.19.2008
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I think for the PC market to make a comeback the game companies need to stop optimizing their games for hardware that has yet to be released and instead shoot for great graphics and performance on machines that are 6 months old or more. Not everyone has the money or ability to upgrade to the newest of the new every time a new "AAA" title is released. If they shot for great performance on older systems they would be able to push many more units.
If console games can push their respective hardware to new limits every few months it makes no sense as to why PC hardware can't be pushed in the same manner.
I have not yet put one together but I intend to learn in the very near future.
You look at the requirements and get something = or < to that? I didn't think it was so difficult. All you need is a new Mid-High Range comp every 3-4 years. If you custom build it which is way easier then people make it out to be thats about 1000$. Which easily is worth the money over time.
As for the stickers. I want them to make happy faces to indicate performance. The happier the better, until top of the line is one of those creepy rapist smiles.
Why let Microsoft have only the OS monopoly, let them monopolize the hardware industry too by finding away to cheat such tests and pressure companies into an even more illogical escalate of useless technology that just takes away everything that ever was fun about gaming in the name of prettier graphics.
You are just dead wrong, hardware is not the problem for PC gaming: The pc will always carry a premium price because gaming is NOT its central focus.
No the problem is Software: PC games need to differentiate enough without worrying about a technology race. What the HD consoles have proven is that niche markets work, hence the Wii its the equivalent of rubbing dirt in your eyes when compared to the 360 graphical horsepower, yet by embracing its niche market of "casual" users and not gamers they are laughing all the way to the bank with inferior market.
The PC Gaming industry needs a couple of things to survive:
a) Slow down on the technology race, stop making up stupid excuses ( AA and AF ) to release products, only introduce new technology when there is a REAL technological advancement, not 10-15% increase in horsepower
b) Separate itself and return to its niche market. Given the option even the most hardcore gamers will trade in their mouse and keyboard controls to play CoD 4 if they get to save thousands of dollars on hardware and millions of headaches by not dealing with ridiculous amounts of bugs and bad programming.
Case Point: the only PC centered genre that still drives the industry at this point its MMORPGs and Strategy games. And that is because they offer gameplay experiences virtually unknown in the console world at this point.
So apparently my PC is more reliable than my 360. All because I take the time to watch out what I install, clean out all the dust and stuff inside my computer, defrag and debug it once in a while and I got a efficient machine. Now something goes wrong with my 360 and what can I do? Cry in a corner until Microsoft sends me a new one.
Alfie
Also, your answer to why hardware sales are slumping is essentially to cater to what worked in the past, which isn't realistic. They have to continue to sell products regularly to sustain their "REAL" advancements.
I prefer if gaming focused on consoles, isnt that why there here for? and at least its 95% compatible to play (RROD + PSN issues), If I had the budget to spend 3-5k on just a gaming PC I would spend it, but the fact is 6 month later, my PC is considered old already, and advanced games require the latest 3ghz chip, 4g ram, drivers. so screw that, my friend kept shoving it to my face how Crysis was so much better than Unreal, yet why do I have more fun with Unreal? GoW, UT3 > Crysis. Of course Crysis was good, but to me I had more fun with Unreal, and Unreal is considered last gen compared to Crysis.
If my post didn't make any sense, then good! cuz thats exactly how I feel about PC gaming.
I wish they would just make a PC-wide classification like "Budget", "Mid-range" and "High end" or something, and add those things to the games as well. So you could see if your card holds up and all that.
So now we've got ATI/AMD, Nvidia and Microsoft all throwing their standardization systems into the mix at the same time.
Way to make life easier guys. FAIL!
So now we've got ATI/AMD, Nvidia and Microsoft all throwing their standardization systems into the mix at the same time.
Way to make life easier guys. FAIL!
1) You mean to say 95% of PC gaming right? Cause PC gaming is a tiny portion of gaming in general in which case games are not bogged down by operative systems like Vista. And even if not often ported opengl its an open standard and implemented across many platforms and until recently many games used it and supported it. So this dominance you speak about has only been really solidified since the PC as a gaming console has become nothing but a trash can of console ports.
2) I never said or implied that PC Gaming needs to carter to the past, I said it needs to focus on its niche market. Prior to microsoft venturing into consoles ( the single most important reason for any decline in QUALITY of pc gaming ( not actual sales mind you ) ) take a look at the games available for consoles on the ps1 and early ps2 era. Compare said games to the PC games at that point in time.
Does Baldur's Gate, Quake II, Starcraft, etc look anything like console games on the ps1 and early ps2? It was a different style altogether, PC gaming faced the exact same problems people claim it faces today ( bugs, expensive hardware, bugs, constant updates, bugs, piracy, did I said bugs? ) but find any serious gamer and they told you that they put up with a lot to get to play those vastly different games otherwise unavailable on any other platforms.
Enter the xbox and Microsoft throwing money at PC game developers, most of them jump ship and leave all their creativity behind it seems, the ones who claim to remain bitch and moan and blame everything on "piracy" and "hardware costs" and "oh so many different configurations" while their creative minds are long dead and forgotten.
So when its the last time we saw a truly innovative game? When was the last time the PC had a game you just cannot find anywhere else? Thats the reason why they did well for so many years, it was never the vastly superior technology and horsepower of the PC, consoles have always done way more money on way worst technology.
Going back to basics doesn't means rehearsing old titles, it means innovate, make use of all that extra horsepower and unique controller scheme in ways you just can't replicate on the xbox and ps3.
Thats what PC game developers should be concerned about. Notice I say PC game developers, that excludes porting whores.
I'm not preaching Vista. These PCs are shipping with Vista already. If they're going to do that, they may as well use a better performance barometer that's in the box already.
Then I tried to play stalker, which wouldn't boot properly despite being fine yesterday, so I redownloaded the files from steam (which took 2 hours). In the meantime I fired up gears of war, which crashed a total of nine times in the twenty minutes I tried to play it, then patch it, and then gave up.
I played a bit of call of duty 4 until my PC switched off (due to me forgetting to underclock my borked and awaiting RMA gfx card by 2%, fucking factory overlock) Following this I attempted to tweak Stalker for an hour, ended up reverting back to my original settings, found it had decided to start crashing when I loaded my savegames, and went back to wow for a bit.
I own a high end, very well maintained machine and I'm a IT technical support specialist, and I can't get an afternoons gaming out of my machine some days. It's no wonder your average PC gamer is playing the fucking sims.
I also bought San Andreas from steam to give it another go in the wake of GTA4. Admittedly I ran this without a hitch, but only long enough to remember how dire a game it is.
Some days I'll defend PC gaming to the death, and other days I just want to throw it on the fire, breathe in the fumes and go buy an EeePC, 360, PS3 and Wii.
In fact, I might.
well... how about the avarage fps of 10 popular games
including rts fps and some driving games.. ?
you still can benchmark on the same games with new components so
comparing gaming pc's shouldn't be a problem.
btw. phenom... gaming..?
What you are asking would require cooperation between multiple (competing) hardware vendors and software publishers. Can you really see ATi labelling it's whole range as technically inferior to Nvidia. How about the constantly shifting balance between AMD/Intel?
You would then need publishers to label their games honestly (this hasn't happened in over a decade). Crysis apparently didn't sell too well. Can you imagine how much worse it would have sold if most people were aware that with their rig it would look like little more than a slideshow?
As mentioned above, Microsoft has seriously damaged PC gaming by throwing cash at companies to take their big hitters to console (often with some level of exclusivity).
You would also need for Dell/Alienware and the like to stop gouging their performance system prices so disgustingly. Were they to charge reasonable prices PC gaming would be FAR more accessible to those not able to build their own.
In this digital age, it is ridiculous that the industry that pushes performance and improvement in hardware is so shit when it comes to new tech like digital distribution. There's another thing publishers really need to get behind, instead of not bothering or keeping prices artificially high in order to keep high street stores happy (CoD4 is still ~$85 on Steam in the UK).
Ultimately, the PC gaming scene has been thoroughly raped and shafted by the attitude and behaviour of hard/software vendors and their own greed. They can all bitch about piracy boo hoo wah wah but they fucked it up, nobody else.
Advocating the tool already is Vista is advocating Vista, even if this is not an anti-microsoft thing there is still plenty of reasons for a gamer to remain on XP if the option was legitimate.
Giving into DRM just means you just gave up your rights as a consumer a little bit, so giving up and just saying "I'll use Vista" means exactly that. This might be a profoundly strange concept for most Americans but I will not be bullied into an OS, gaming or not.
And much like DRM, advocating the integrated rating system you brought forth is as good as advocating Vista which its as good as advocating DRM bullshit since you can't get one without the other.
The truth is that PC gaming HAS leveled out in terms of what is required to play games on it, Crysis was a relic of a bygone era where new PC games were constantly pushing the graphical envelope. Good gaming hardware from 3 years ago will still play 95% of PC games out today, even if it's not at super maximum settings. However a shitty integrated Intel chipset still struggles to run Source based games, which is simply inexcusable when you can get a $50 graphic card that will run it passably. Pushing up the MINIMUM hardware is what the PC industry needs, so that every computer a person can get will at least plausibly be able to play most games out there.
There's an opportunity here for a retailer to cash in by offering a barebones gaming notebook with a 8800M GTX for less than $1500.
Some retailer needs to stand up and offer affordable gaming notebooks
I thought the whole point to a 3D engine was to scale to the hardware, so a game will run smoothly on any card, but look good on a high-end card. Some engines will scale in realtime, but most don't. This kind of falls into the same train of logic as running a game at 100FPS when your monitor runs at 72Hz. Um, running the game too fast will actually make the image look worse.
PC gaming is an experimental business. So long as people want to push the envelope, there will be only three measures of a card: how stable the drivers are, how fast it runs a particular game at a specific setting, and its feature list (DirectX9 vs DirectX10 is the de-facto method at this point in time).
Anything other than stability and benchmarks, and we are kidding ourselves. Maybe you'd all like to use the Mac strategy and just classify cards as "overpriced", "unupgradable", and "even God can't afford this"?
Also its about time MS or someone brings out a lite OS just for games!! Im sure all these other windows bits and bollox slow my machine down!!