Next-Gen Schmext-Gen

N

Neo

New member
So I've been suffering from a bit of buyers remorse lately over spending a GOOD amount of money on a monster graphics card for my PC. Basically, the card was expensive enough to buy a PS4, with an extra controller, the camera and 2 games.

In my head I've been going over and over trying to justify the purchase of the graphics card, over that of a PS4. And last night I finally saw the reason why PC gaming, with the correct hardware, is unmatched at this stage even with the PS4 and XBone.

I have Batman Arkham City for both the XBOX360 and the PC. I've never installed it on the PC and preferred to play it on the XBOX360. Last night I decided to put my PC through its paces and finally installed the game on my PC. I managed to set everything to max at a resolution of 2560x1440, and I even through in some AA as well with all of the bells and whistles such as DX11 features set to "extreme".

The game's benchmark result returned an average framerate of 99 FPS with the lowest dip being 55 FPS.

Looking at this game and playing it made me realize how powerful PC's can be when it comes to gaming. Even with the latest hoo-haa about Watchdogs, where it is now being speculated that the 2013 E3 demo was actually being played on a PC and not a PS4, it seems to make more sense to me. And my purchase has definitely been justified.

I love console gaming and I'll own an XBone and PS4 someday for the exclusive titles. But there's no way in heck they'll ever be able to outperform my PC as it stands now.
 
It's pretty much common knowledge that PC's are way ahead of consoles, but again it is a shlep for the general population to keep up with the constantly changing PC technology. For me personally there is no PC game that matches the quality of some of the best console exclusives, so I tend to prefer consoles for that reason (not to mention the convenience of having it be able to play every game released in its lifespan), which again all comes down to my personal taste in games.
 
That is one big bonus for consoles...

The first title and the last one created for it will all perform well. So you're getting a gaming platform that will play all new titles in it's 10 year cycle... No PC can do that without additional spend.
 
Glad your card is making you happy bud. Unfortunately it seems most of the games at E3 were running on pc's like ours and the console versions are no where near as gorgeous. Next Gen at the moment is a bit of a joke to be honest...well on consoles at least. So I'd gladly drop R8000 on a new gpu that will max everything for the next 3 years with all the eye candy I want at 60fps no problem...unlike next gen consoles which are struggling to even maintain an avg of 60 at much lower settings.
 
TBlaar said:
That is one big bonus for consoles...

The first title and the last one created for it will all perform well. So you're getting a gaming platform that will play all new titles in it's 10 year cycle... No PC can do that without additional spend.
Click to expand...

How many consoles actually have a full worthwhile 10 year lineup? By the end of this year, there won't be anything worthwhile coming to the 360 and the PS3. Same thing happened to the PS2 when the PS3 came out, within a year, the only games coming out for it were the annual releases; FIFA/PES, WWE and shovelware.

A PC with a Core 2 Quad (Something like a Q6600) and a GTX 8800, which came out around the time of the PS3/360, will still be able to play games on medium/low settings at resolutions below 1080p, which is very similar to what the PS3/360 can do. It won't be able to run certain dx11 only games, but there aren't many of those out there anyway. Neither will the 360/PS3 though. I think the versatility of a PC, even one that old, is still way more useful than a "dedicated" console.

Let's say you saved the amount of money a Xbox Live Gold membership would cost for the 8 years you had the console, which is about R500 a year x 8 years = R4000. With that R4000, you could adequately upgrade the PC so that it could play newer games at 1080p on medium settings. Hell, the money you would've saved on games with steam sales/humble bundles/gog sales/whatever would have been enough to upgrade it.

Maybe I'm just crazy... "whistling:
 
Last edited:
Yep. Video game prices are my deciding factor for what platform I go for. PC for the win! Steam and Humble Bundles! Saviours of the wallet!
That being said I am developing quite a strong interest in the WiiU. Im just really liking the screen on the controller idea.
 
It does seem though, that games released most recently looks better than ones released 7 years ago for PS3 for example... where on PC you need to scale down the resolution etc just to be able to play it.

I am all up for PC though, don't get me wrong...
 
TBlaar said:
It does seem though, that games released most recently looks better than ones released 7 years ago for PS3 for example... where on PC you need to scale down the resolution etc just to be able to play it.

I am all up for PC though, don't get me wrong...
Click to expand...

True, but I find that on the PC, if you have to scale down a few settings, it still looks gorgeous. BF4 is a good example. I mean, look at how great the game looks on medium. It easily beats the XBOX360 version. If you can then scale up to High (which is not that hard if you're playing on 1080P) it beats the PS4 version...and if you then scale up to Ultra, you literally blow next-gen out of the water.

I spent a good amount of money on a new GPU just now, but I can play BF4 on Ultra settings, @ 2560x1440 resolution with 2xAA at more than 60 FPS. Comparing the same game on the PS4, there's no way in hell a next-gen console will be able to do that.

Consoles only have one trump card, and that is exclusivity on some really good titles. But if a game comes out on all platforms - like Watchdogs - you can bet your socks the PC players are going to have a better experience.
 
True dat!

I played Skyrim on PS3, still wish I played it on PC rather.... not gonna start playing it again though...
 
Oh! another benefit about PC gaming is that, if you can't run a brand new AAA at max settings, you can always replay the game one day when you've upgraded again. So PC has 100% backwards compatibility....that's a major bonus.
 
TBlaar said:
The first title and the last one created for it will all perform well.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. There were more than a few games the past gen that had stuttering issues in some areas on console. In theory a console should be able to play all games very well, but it does not always work out that way in practice.
 
as a play games not platform person I also keep returning to my pc. currently have a ps2, ps3 and x360.

pc is just better, now to save up for a new gpu :p

gonna go amd, r290x here I come
 
MS and Sony cannot afford to release a console that will cost R12,000+, so PC will always be better.

TBlaar said:
So you're getting a gaming platform that will play all new titles in it's 10 year cycle... No PC can do that without additional spend.
Click to expand...

The_Imp_ZA said:
How many consoles actually have a full worthwhile 10 year lineup? By the end of this year, there won't be anything worthwhile coming to the 360 and the PS3. Same thing happened to the PS2 when the PS3 came out, within a year, the only games coming out for it were the annual releases; FIFA/PES, WWE and shovelware.

A PC with a Core 2 Quad (Something like a Q6600) and a GTX 8800, which came out around the time of the PS3/360, will still be able to play games on medium/low settings at resolutions below 1080p, which is very similar to what the PS3/360 can do. It won't be able to run certain dx11 only games, but there aren't many of those out there anyway. Neither will the 360/PS3 though. I think the versatility of a PC, even one that old, is still way more useful than a "dedicated" console.

Let's say you saved the amount of money a Xbox Live Gold membership would cost for the 8 years you had the console, which is about R500 a year x 8 years = R4000. With that R4000, you could adequately upgrade the PC so that it could play newer games at 1080p on medium settings. Hell, the money you would've saved on games with steam sales/humble bundles/gog sales/whatever would have been enough to upgrade it.

Maybe I'm just crazy... "whistling:
Click to expand...

absolutely. I have one of those Q6600's and I'm still playing everything. Okay, I have XP, so the very latest games don't run any more, but that is microsofts fault. The thing I love about a console driven market is that you don't have to upgrade all the time like you did back in the day because they cannot release a game that is above console specs. So if you buy a PC that is comparable to a console, you are pretty much guaranteed not to have to upgrade until the next gen
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top