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Are we entering a PC gaming golden age?
- Thread starter Layell
- Start date
First off, you don't need much of a PC to get twice the power of a PS4. i5 CPU and the equivalent of a GTX 760 or 770 probably gets you that. For example, I know GTA V runs at a flawless 1080p60 on the former, and that's with slightly better graphical settings, more pedestrians and cars on the roads, much less pop-ins, better LoD rangea and much better loading times, especially if you own a SSD
As for why I don't pick console, it's rather exhaustive really. Mainly because all my favourite games are PC only. I also enjoy modding and tweaking my games, having access to all sorts of software, being able to game both on TV w/ gamepad or monitor w/ keyboard-mouse depending on the situation, much better prices and free multiplayer. The graphics are a perk, but certainly not my main priority.
jfoul
Member
Golden age or not, in the next couple years PC software and hardware will be going through an exciting transition.
DX12 & Vulkan is bringing long overdue improvements, and should be widely adopted. With almost everything running on x86 now, we're starting to see more Japanese developers embrace Steam.
16nm & HBM will bring us extremely powerful video cards in small form factors. I think we're also going to see the market for SFF/HTPC become more popular and competitive (Ex: Corsair Bulldog/Lapdog/Steam Machines).
As for price competition, we can only hope that AMD banking hard on DX12 pays off, and the AMD Zen CPU release isn't a disappointment.
DX12 & Vulkan is bringing long overdue improvements, and should be widely adopted. With almost everything running on x86 now, we're starting to see more Japanese developers embrace Steam.
16nm & HBM will bring us extremely powerful video cards in small form factors. I think we're also going to see the market for SFF/HTPC become more popular and competitive (Ex: Corsair Bulldog/Lapdog/Steam Machines).
As for price competition, we can only hope that AMD banking hard on DX12 pays off, and the AMD Zen CPU release isn't a disappointment.
OfficerZap
Neo Member
I don't think the number of Steam users and the new controller are signs, or positives.
IIRC, recent data mining showed a lot of steam accounts only had one or two games attached, reducing the "real users" considerably.
Secondly, we've been able to use controllers for yonks. Valve putting out their take on one doesn't move the dial.
The real test of a Golden Age is being able to quickly gather a list of 25+ essential experiences. Millions of games existing (especially crowd sourced games) is fine, but what counts is experiences that will remain quality for years.
As much as I enjoy Subnautica and Salt, for example, they're not Golden Age.
IIRC, recent data mining showed a lot of steam accounts only had one or two games attached, reducing the "real users" considerably.
Secondly, we've been able to use controllers for yonks. Valve putting out their take on one doesn't move the dial.
The real test of a Golden Age is being able to quickly gather a list of 25+ essential experiences. Millions of games existing (especially crowd sourced games) is fine, but what counts is experiences that will remain quality for years.
As much as I enjoy Subnautica and Salt, for example, they're not Golden Age.
Let's get back to talking about how amazing it is that more CRPGs are being released than I have time to play.
And that if I want something different, I can soon play an almost day-and-date western release of the most recent "Tales of" game on PC.
I think that warranted correction.
And that if I want something different, I can soon play an almost day-and-date western release of the most recent "Tales of" game on PC.
Your original argument was a lot more specific than that: a 300 GPU every 2 years to play at console-like settings. The reality is closer to a 150 GPU every 3 years, which is a 300% difference in yearly cost.
I think that warranted correction.
Ah if this was the case with OpenGL also :/ We really need some competition in this field.
Mac and Linux users suffering never ends...
Yes, it's a golden age, imo. We have a lot of fantastic games and PC digital stores offer huge selections for small prices; we have a lot of classic ready to play on modern PCs, thanks to GOG and others; we have A LOT of japanese games here in the West and this was impossible just 3/4 years ago.
The average quality of gaming is improved, despite my nostalgia for the good old times of Win98SE (i was -ehm, i am- one of those quakers born with mouse and Strogg for breakfast, eh).
The average quality of gaming is improved, despite my nostalgia for the good old times of Win98SE (i was -ehm, i am- one of those quakers born with mouse and Strogg for breakfast, eh).
Ah if this was the case with OpenGL also :/ We really need some competition in this field.
Mac and Linux users suffering never ends...
Vulkan is the new version of opengl is it not?
More_Badass
Member
Divinity: Original Sin, FTL, Rocket League, The Binding of Issac: Rebirth, Spelunky, Ori & The Blind Forest, Prison Architect, Volgarr The Viking, The Stanley Parable, SpaceChem, and I could go on, especially if we want to focus on indies
Yes, along with some of Mantle.
Good year.
Two of the best PC games ever made came out in 2004. On the same day no less!
OfficerZap
Neo Member
Also, is it possible to spin the platform warrior stuff off somewhere else?
PC Golden Age can/should be able to be discussed in isolation. What's great about PC gaming should be about PCs - if anyone is saying it's great ONLY IN COMPARISON TO CONSOLE EXPERIENCES then that's a qualifier that really kills everything.
Screw consoles, let's talk about PC.
PC Golden Age can/should be able to be discussed in isolation. What's great about PC gaming should be about PCs - if anyone is saying it's great ONLY IN COMPARISON TO CONSOLE EXPERIENCES then that's a qualifier that really kills everything.
Screw consoles, let's talk about PC.
Exactly! Like Divinity: Original Sin, Age of Wonders 3, Shadowrun: Dragonfall or Pillars of Eternity.
Vulkan will completely replace OpenGL for high-end gaming on non-Windows platforms.Ah if this was the case with OpenGL also :/ We really need some competition in this field.
Mac and Linux users suffering never ends...
Of course, if you are on a Mac platform, you probably need to pray to your Apple Idol of choice for them not to block it.
Oh wow didn't know that. Gotta do some reading then.
Leafhopper
Banned
...
What do you think this thread is for? Are you seriously complaining about a thread about PC Golden Age is only trying to stay on the topic of PC games?
While I'm very happy about modern games, I agree that Looking Glass-style games are in short supply. Practically nothing since then lives up to the promise of Deus Ex/System Shock/Thief.
Just in case you're not already aware, a bunch of ex-Looking Glass developers made a Kickstarter for an Underworld revival: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/othersidegames/underworld-ascendant
And while it's not exactly the same thing, I get similar vibes from Metal Gear Solid 5. It really feels like a Japanese immersive sim. Tons of intersecting systems affecting the game in fascinating ways.
OfficerZap
Neo Member
Sorry if my post was unclear - I wasn't saying that there aren't high quality experiences, only that being able to mention a large number of them that will stand the test of time is a prime indicator of things being awesome.
I hope you're talking about Vampires the Masquarade Bloodlines.
But late 2004 the first games I played on my PC (P4 3.0ghz, 6800GT, 1gb of RAM) were Far Cry, Painkiller, HL² and Doom 3. Later I discovered some ancients gems/classics and consoles were distant second gaming machines ever since.
It helped that my father used to game a lot on his PC.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
You're going to have to let me in on your settings for GTA V then because I feel like I'm barely running it better then my X1 did, with a GTX 960 and an i5 4690k.
OfficerZap
Neo Member
Apparently, comparisons to current gen consoles and how much more power you can get for $x
Leafhopper
Banned
Atraveller
Banned
Nailed it!
TouchMyBox
Member
Change that to 4 years and better than console settings and we're onto something.
Freedom = $1.05
Banned
I'd argue the golden age was the era of Wolf3d and Doom, of Commander Keen and Duke3D, of Baldur's Gate and Diablo.
Basically the 90s.
Basically the 90s.
Sadly there really hasn't been a 'return to form' for P&C adventures. Esteemed past developers fell face first with their crowdfunded games. Most players will agree that the best current P&C games don't come close to the 90's titles.
So you have 2 classic PC genres: one is MIA (RTS) and one that isn't delivering the goods (P&C).
If you're going flat out imply that console gaming is cheaper than PC gaming, don't do it in this thread. Yeah, a PC costs more than a console at base price but the amount of money I've saved on actual games since I built my PC through digital merchants like Steam, GOG, etc. coupled with the fact that PC games drop in price very quickly. Silly argument.
Personally, I can run Metal Gear Solid V on MAX SETTINGS on a rig I built for around £700 in August 2012; haven't even thought about upgrading except maybe getting better cooling. Yeah, the reason some PC owners upgrade components is because a lot of devs don't port games to PC as well as they should and some PC builders don't do their research and build PCs with bottlenecks.
IMO, we've been in a golden age since 2012 and things are only getting better for PC gamers.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
How recently are we talking? There's definitely still some gems for P&C.
LurkerPrime
Member
Adventure games have never been more popular... or at least, they're far from dead. They've diffused a lot, but Wadjet Eye keeps the more traditional format alive while TellTale has brought it to the masses with their narrative adventures. This is without getting into the sea of 'walking simulators' that exist--a clear offshot of the adventure genre.
It's like Civilization--you can have more than one golden age--and it's hard to argue that we're not in one right now. The games are cheap, they flow freely, and variety, fidelity, and quality (or at least scope), have never been greater. It's an era where anyone can make and distribute a game; and where what's old is new again, thanks to the magic of crowdfunding. Adding to the magic, this is the first era of video games where gamers are true patrons, funding what they love directly, free from the greedy corproate influences of the past. 'Tis a glorious time to be.
And no, there's no need for consolation during these joyous times.
It's like Civilization--you can have more than one golden age--and it's hard to argue that we're not in one right now. The games are cheap, they flow freely, and variety, fidelity, and quality (or at least scope), have never been greater. It's an era where anyone can make and distribute a game; and where what's old is new again, thanks to the magic of crowdfunding. Adding to the magic, this is the first era of video games where gamers are true patrons, funding what they love directly, free from the greedy corproate influences of the past. 'Tis a glorious time to be.
And no, there's no need for consolation during these joyous times.
More_Badass
Member
I have more PC games in two years than games for all the consoles I had over 15 years. PC gaming is insanely cheap, especially once you consider the endless coupon codes, sales, competing storefronts, etc,
Hip Hop
Member
This is so wrong. The install base was so small back then too.
The improvents, technology, and standards set across the board with PC gaming today make it the best era ever, even way before getting into the games. The crap you had to go through in the 90's and early 2000's lol.
You're arguing preferences here with games, I and other people could say the same thing today, tons of great games and unique experiences coming out on PC today overshadow anything else than before.
BumblebeeCody
Member
Isn't Golden Age to be the beginning of something? Like comics.
But Golden age PC gaming? Maybe the player base is increasing but the quality of games remain the same.
But Golden age PC gaming? Maybe the player base is increasing but the quality of games remain the same.
Unlikely. Dishonored has its own strengths but its a far cry from Thief and infected the reboot with its power bullshit. These mass market games just wont push the envelope on immersive sims because thats risky.
Dictator93
Member
No, we already entered the current PC gaming golden age around the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014
And the most important point of it for me is one you don't mention:
- A return to form for classic PC genres such as (above all) CRPGs, but also P&C adventures, space sims, building games, 4x, etc.
it is known
For someone with such hardware you are quite ignorant about what console settings are.
SneakyStephan
Banned
The consoles aren't shit, it's easy to match them with entry level hardware so it doesn't mean much.
Next year when pascal is out (theoretically almost doubling performance across the line) , as long as prices do not go up AGAIN to just slot newer higher performance gpus in among the old lineup instead of replacing them (which I fear they will) then price/performance might look better again (for gpus at least)
Next year we'll be in the same 3 years after console release spec bump time as we were in last gen during 2008-2009.
You need to keep in mind that:
-this time the consoles were much much weaker than pc hardware at the time of their release (especially the cpu, but the gpu too) relative to the ps3/xbox360 at the time of their release.
-despite that it still costs more to match console performance than it did in 2009.
Imagine if these consoles hadn't sucked... you'd be looking at an i5 and r9 280 to match them.
In early 2009 130 euros got you a cpu that demolishhhhhed the consoles by as much as a 250 euro i5 does today.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2721
this article is a good reminder of the effect competition had on cpu prices.
Relative price/performance has doubled for the cpu (thankfully stayed the same for motherboard and ram)
There is no performance/dollar increase coming next year for cpus so it's going to stay like this... There has'nt been one since the i5 2500k (190 euros in 2011, vs 245 euro i5 4690k in 2015)
There won't be one till zen releases in 2017, and even then there might not be one if amd let us down.
In early 2009 130 euros got me a hd4870 which was a good 4x faster than the gpu in the consoles and ran everything at much higher than console resolution, at much higher than console settings at well over 60 fps.
I'd always get at least 3x console framerates in multiplatform games at higher resolution.
Hell the xbox one is barely 60 percent faster than that gpu... that's how good it was for 2009 (or how bad the xbone is depending on your perspective
) Now 140 euros gets you a 750ti which just matches the ps4 and it's already vram bottlenecked at 1080p (which the 4870 would not be for another 2 years after I bought it,and wouldn't have been for 4 years had I spent an extra 15 euros on the 1GB version, but mistakes were made
) The 750ti's successor just launched (950 ) and you can guess it... it just slotted in alongside the 750ti price/performance wise instead of replacing it, performs 30 percent better and costs 30 percent more.
This is my point, you're saying the consoles just released (no they released 2 years ago) and you expect the price/performance gap to grow like it did last gen.
That's how it goes these days, prices just slowly creep up with every new hardware launch, now the entry level costs more than the midrange used to. So the price/performance gap between aging consoles and new hardware is increasing much slower than last gen.
in 2009 there was the 4850, the 4770 , the 4750 , and then the 4670 entry level card (that still beat the consoles handily). The 4670 cost 75 euros in Q3 2008 and came with 512MB vram (no bottleneck just like the 4870)
You could get the same entry level console killer experience with a 50 euro athlon II (still get 60 fps with it too) and a 75 euro hd4670.
Now you're either heavily compromising with a 70 euro pentium (or some garbage amd apu that'll bottleneck you to hell in every single threaded game, aka no arma or tera for you) to get that console (ugh) experience or you at least need an i3 (130 euros ) to get an entry level PC standard experience).
Seriously , the entry level console killer in 2009 was about 350 euros...
550 euros got you that sweet bang for buck midrange pc that felt powerful and did not feel like you were compromising, and you didn't even have to buy gutter tier power supply/cases or leave out an aftermarket cpu cooler to get to that number.
Now you're looking at 450-500 euros for less relative performance and about 950 euros for a midrange bang for buck build that doesn't feel like you're having to compromise or bottleneck in games.
I think you'll agree that an i5 is the minimum for a medium range build that isn't going to cpu bottleneck you on a 60 hz monitor and that the 390/970 are the bang for buck midrange gpus atm)
You and durante are right that you can still beat the consoles for pretty cheap, but I'm really not interested in that as a pc gamer.
I compare what I got for my money now vs what I got for my money before , ON PC, not on some platform where expectations are really low.
And what I see (and what my wallet saw) is that shit got a lot more expensive.
My budget for parts isn't much bigger than it was 6 years ago, but i'm not nearly getting as much bang for my buck anymore because of the state of the hardware industry.
Maybe if you can afford 650 euros for a 980ti and 600 euros for a 6 core broadwell you don't really care because you'll just spend what it takes to get the best, but for us whose experience is limited by our budget it fucking sucks.
Drakendodertje
Member
When it comes to RTS, FPS, point and click-adventure games and Space-sims maybe yeah, even though those genres are pretty much alive and kicking today as well.
I have always had a broad taste for games, and during the 90's i was incredibly jealous of all the quality platformers, fighters and arcadegames hitting the consoles. What did we have? Commander fucking Keen. Only about 5% (if that) of the games that were published on consoles reached the PC platform. Now i would say about 80% of the consoles' catalogue. And they look better as well than their console-counterparts. We have an entirely new indie-industry too. We have the older genres i mentioned above. Plus the biggest online community. Plus Emulators.
Hardware is cheaper than ever. In the 90s you bought a PC for comparitively twice the price, and half the life-span.
And we have Steam now.
Screw the nineties, it's nostalgia talking when people truly think that age was better than now.
More_Badass
Member
There are some cool indie games going for that immersive sim approach. The relatively recent Consortium, as well as the in-development Udon Dreams
I guess from when the Broken Age kickstarter happened. It was looked as a genre great coming back to show those euro devs what a good P&C game looks like. Numerous P&C crowdfunding games followed that by past creators and it seems like the best you can say about them is that they are as good as those European/Germany-developed P&C games from the past decade that 90's P&C fans used to look down on.
The new Hitman looks like it might finally delivers on one upping Blood Money so thats pretty big.
This is the game I want GAF to play. It has its problems but it's doing incredibly clever things with its narrative. It's such an impressive debut for a new studio. Can't wait for the sequel.
(and so long as you're not tied up in the immersive sim = FPS thing, MGS5 feels a lot like an immersive sim to me)
GoldandBlue
Member
I played PC games during the 90s and I'm finding a ton of unique games now compared to then.
General Lee
Member
To me the golden age was somewhere around 98-2002, where a lot of current day franchises were born on PC. There were great times before that too, and some good games coming after that, but I think Crysis in 2007 marked the final death of AAA PC exclusives. These days PC exclusive gaming is mostly about online mmos, mobas and card games. I don't really care about any of it.
I feel like there could be a lot more variety to games if we weren't stuck with the console controller setup with most games. Don't get me wrong, I love to play with a controller, but keyboard & mouse just gives a lot more options, and the dual analogue stick design is limiting game design. Maybe Valve's new controller will finally bring some much needed change.
I feel like there could be a lot more variety to games if we weren't stuck with the console controller setup with most games. Don't get me wrong, I love to play with a controller, but keyboard & mouse just gives a lot more options, and the dual analogue stick design is limiting game design. Maybe Valve's new controller will finally bring some much needed change.
More_Badass
Member
Considering that there are PC-exclusive arcade racers, RTS's, tactical strategy games, 4x, horror games, roguelikes, and other genres, I don't get how anyone could say that.
Maybe those genres like mobas might be the biggest, but so many other genres are thriving
What is Vampire Bloodlines and why do people reinstall it?