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Are we entering a PC gaming golden age?

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
It's now uninstalled but I still have the settings.xml file. Here you go

Also, you could check if "high performance mode" is enabled in the power options and in nvidia control panel, because you should definitely be getting much more out of your setup.

Thanks, I'll check it out today! I feel like I've spent more time fiddling with settings then playing the game.
 

z1ggy

Member
Software wise, being able to play so many turn based RPGs makes the last years so fucking awesome. So many quality games...Wasteland 2, Divinity, Shadowrun, XCOM, Banner Saga, etc...
 
My thoughts.

We're about to. Steam Link and steam controller will bring in more people. The variety of games and studios of all different sizes is probably as good as it has ever been. AAA multiplatform stuff from consoles is getting better and better on PC (still needs some improvement, but Arkham Knight wouldn't have been fixed a couple of years ago).

VR is going to have a really healthy impact across the board... increasing the demand for computing power and getting a good chunk of people to upgrade will give developers of regular titles way more power to play with and a bigger market of people to reach.

That's not even thinking about how awesome VR is going to be on PCs. Think of everyone who is going to get a gaming PC or upgrade a lagging one over the next year or so in order to be able to enjoy some VR titles. That increase in high end PCs available for developers to target is going to make the whole PC gaming infrastructure a lot healthier.

This time next year, I reckon we will be in that golden age.
 

Jackben

bitch I'm taking calls.
"Slightly incorrect" lmfao.
How the hell is it slightly incorrect? Would calling Uncharted the best 1st person shooter be only slightly incorrect?.
cy9Mu.gif
SC2 failed pretty hard due to Blizzard not caring about it. Failed in the long run is what I mean, it's pretty dead.
That's true, it fell off pretty hard and has just been downhill since. Even the competitive scene has been dying.
 

The Llama

Member
My thoughts.

We're about to. Steam Link and steam controller will bring in more people. The variety of games and studios of all different sizes is probably as good as it has ever been. AAA multiplatform stuff from consoles is getting better and better on PC (still needs some improvement, but Arkham Knight wouldn't have been fixed a couple of years ago).

VR is going to have a really healthy impact across the board... increasing the demand for computing power and getting a good chunk of people to upgrade will give developers of regular titles way more power to play with and a bigger market of people to reach.

That's not even thinking about how awesome VR is going to be on PCs. Think of everyone who is going to get a gaming PC or upgrade a lagging one over the next year or so in order to be able to enjoy some VR titles. That increase in high end PCs available for developers to target is going to make the whole PC gaming infrastructure a lot healthier.

This time next year, I reckon we will be in that golden age.

I think VR will be really, really cool, and very successful over the long term, but I think that it's going to have some harsh growing pains for the first few years. We're going to have a lot of competing headsets, API's, exclusivity, etc. If anything, it'll kill the current golden age until stuff gets sorted out. At least just IMO.
 
from a convenience perspective it's great and re-releases/archival has never been easier but the late 90s, early 00s had far more interesting games largely due to major pubs doing original pc software.

kickstarter crpgs are neat and all but honestly the couple i've played (wasteland 2, shadowrun dragonfall) feel like b-level retreads that dont measure up to those late 90s classics.
 
from a convenience perspective it's great and re-releases/archival has never been easier but the late 90s, early 00s had far more interesting games.

kickstarter crpgs are neat and all but honestly the couple i've played (wasteland 2, shadowrun dragonfall) feel like b-level retreads that dont measure up to those late 90s classics.
Have you checked out Divnity and Pillars?
 

Corpsepyre

Banned
PS4 for the exclusives. PC for everything else. That's how it should be, and has been for me.

Or if you prefer Xbox One, then that works too.

But 3rd party content is almost always better on the PC, and that's where it should ideally be played if you can afford it.

I love my PC.
 
The thing about 'basically' unlimited backwards compatibility, including bc for games from other systems thanks to emulation, is that pc gaming is always sin the golden age, it just gets better every year.
 
It's been like that for years though. I would argue that we're not so much in a golden age rather that PC gaming had reach its stride for the past 10 years or so with the advent of Steam and Half-Life 2.
 
I think VR will be really, really cool, and very successful over the long term, but I think that it's going to have some harsh growing pains for the first few years. We're going to have a lot of competing headsets, API's, exclusivity, etc. If anything, it'll kill the current golden age until stuff gets sorted out. At least just IMO.

To be clear, I'm not predicting that VR will be an instant massive hit, just that it's going to get a lot of people to upgrade their PC gaming hardware or to buy their first gaming PC. Those people aren't going to *just* play VR games. The PC userbase with powerful PCs is going to spike a bit for the first time in ages.

I think that's going to be really healthy for traditional PC gaming.
 

Patrick S.

Banned
See this guy gets it. And nobody wants to play Dark Souls on keyboard or hunched over at a monitor. I worked all day at a monitor and all I want to do when I get home is sink into my comfy couch and play with my console that just works, y'know?

My PC sits behind my TV. I don't see it, and it's more quiet than my consoles. And everything I want to play on it works. Modern operating systems, the wireless Xbox 360 controller and HDMI were a blessing for PC gaming. I'm not getting a console this generation, unless Gran Turismo 7 is the best thing ever or Final Fantasy XV stays exclusive to the PS4.
 
This is wrong. I'm sure someone could actually get stats together but having lived through that, I'd say there are more games and at better quality now more than ever. Of course there have been a lot of changes and losses / gains of great developers / studios / publishers

I disagree, while quality has improved, most experiences can be had elsewhere. I remember the originality of PC games in the 90s/early 2000s and thinking, damn, I've gotta get a PC. The experiences just seemed so unique to the platform and it felt like they were tailor-made to take advantage of what a PC could do. Today, it's multi-plats, indies (many of which are crazy similar) and the odd original game.

I owe multiple consoles and a gaming PC, but rarely do I find myself NEEDING to get games for the PC other than for graphical reasons.

And damn if they've yet to give us anything close to the gameplay of Jedi Knight which I understand came to Xbox, but it wasn't the same imo.

My PC sits behind my TV. I don't see it, and it's more quiet than my consoles. And everything I want to play on it works. Modern operating systems, the wireless Xbox 360 controller and HDMI were a blessing for PC gaming. I'm not getting a console this generation, unless Gran Turismo 7 is the best thing ever or Final Fantasy XV stays exclusive to the PS4.

I have the same setup, but for anything online as far as a shooter, I've got to have a console for controller play and I won't use a controller for fps on PC. Since I've got it anyhow, I just ending buying more stuff for the ps4.
 
I disagree, while quality has improved, most experiences can be had elsewhere. I remember the originality of PC games in the 90s/early 2000s and thinking, damn, I've gotta get a PC. The experiences just seemed so unique to the platform and it felt like they were tailor-made to take advantage of what a PC could do. Today, it's multi-plats, indies (many of which are crazy similar) and the odd original game.
In what way are many indies similar?
 
For people with money. We have to be clear about that. As long as you need a new 300 euros GPU every 2 years to play medium-high settings(console settings in other words), then it's a no-go for millions of people.

I know you've already been thoroughly beat down for this, but this doesn't even make sense logically. Most games don't go beyond the scope of what the current consoles are capable of, which have fixed specs. So why would you need to upgrade your GPU every two years, especially if it is more powerful than the current consoles? Did the consoles somehow get more powerful all of a sudden?

A 970, for example, will always be more powerful than a PS4 now or 7 years from now, and thus will always handily outperform it when running the same game (well, assuming it's a quality port), even if the 970 couldn't run it at max settings.

More genre variety including genres not available on consoles, cheaper prices thanks to Steam, mods, compatibility with games released decades ago...

Not to mention virtually endless backwards compatibility and emulators.
 

Vic20

Member
I'd say we're more on the peak of a new silver age like thing that's on the verge of blossoming into a golden age if the growth we've seen in the last 5 years keeps pace.

I just wish amd would get competitive enough to put another fire under the ass of intel so we could start seeing real cpu gains again...


Is there a game today that isnt playable at 4k on a 980 or 980ti, though?

If you drop settings and don't want to achieve 60FPS, then yeah, there are many titles that can hang in there in 4K, but very few that can do so on high settings with a frame rate above 20-30. For that SLI is required. Then there are still shitty ports. I'm rocking 3 way SLI Titan X's and Assassin's creed Unity still doesn't run smoothly at 60FPS. Thanks Ubi!
 

Momentary

Banned
For people with money. We have to be clear about that. As long as you need a new 300 euros GPU every 2 years to play medium-high settings(console settings in other words), then it's a no-go for millions of people.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Because I have dual GTX980s and I see what it takes to max out games. I know what im talking about

Just because of your last comment I find this hard to believe. As a matter of fact I'm calling you out on this.
 

Steel

Banned
It's a good time to be sure, but I need a Warcraft IV with proper custom games and a new mechwarrior that's not the worst kind of F2P before I feel like it's the golden age.
 

DocSeuss

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 disappoints me that all the new RTSes coming out seem to be shitting the bed when every other genre coming back seems to be getting it right.

I was more shocked that somehow a console that doesn't change at all during it's life somehow doesn't need upgrades but if you want to play on PC then you need to spend $300 on a GPU every 2 years just to make it comparable to a console... Do console GPUs have nanomachines or something?

People seem to forget that last gen was the exception to the rule, and usually, console gens are much shorter.
 

szaromir

Banned
It's basically Deus Ex with far better voice acting.

False, Deus Ex had amazing, open levels, while Bloodlines had claustrophobic, linear Half-Life-esque missions. Playstyle in Deux Ex was mostly determined by the player's preferences and imagination, in Bloodlines the character sheet forced your hand all the time.

There are similarities of course, hubs in those games have similar vibes, but they play differently. Bloodlines is a classic RPG, Deus Ex is an "immersive sim".
 

Halabane

Member
What ever is beyond gold is where we are headed. What got consoles to where they are is because often pc games had odd software setups, driver issues and changing displays. It also did not play in the living room. Consoles did make that better, especially the living room, lower dollar entry point and easy enough for kids to use without parents involvement.

New operating systems, internet and processing power most of these issues have gone away. The biggest issue is probably cost of entry to the high end of the hobby but the console market has made developers make mid-range versions of their games so lower cost machines generally will work. That and kids now need PCs for school and getting their work done so they are becoming like pencils/paper and encyclopedias, they need them.

With Valves new streaming device (they really should have just teamed with Roku and made it an all in one device...missed opportunity) the next hurdle of getting my high end PC in the Den into the family room will be even easier.

Also the digital dream is is really happening on steam. Not consoles. I pay so little for legal games on Steam, GoG, Amazon, etc. The games are almost instantaneously available to me after purchase. Its really is amazing.

We are moving beyond gold days. The only consoles I will be buying for here on is handhelds (still love Vita and 3ds) and Wii-U/NX (for the Nintendo library).
 

Momentary

Banned
See this guy gets it. And nobody wants to play Dark Souls on keyboard or hunched over at a monitor. I worked all day at a monitor and all I want to do when I get home is sink into my comfy couch and play with my console that just works, y'know?

You almost got me.
 

Patrick S.

Banned
What the fuck are you talking about?



Just because of your last comment I find this hard to believe. As a matter of fact I'm calling you out on this.

Yeah, it's strange. I've got a single 970 and play at 1920x1080, and I can max most games.
 
As you said, PC games in the past were literally built for the hardware and it showed.

This is kind of a bizarre criticism. In every major PC genre there's stuff getting built very specifically for the platform -- adventure games that never get ported anywhere else; franchises like XCOM dropping their console versions to focus on their core audience; RPGs like Divinity: Original Sin or Pillars of Eternity building with PC clearly in mind and treating any other interfaces as post-release afterthoughts; tons of indies beyond the top tier that never see console or mobile release, or do so in some reduced capacity....

IIRC, recent data mining showed a lot of steam accounts only had one or two games attached, reducing the "real users" considerably.

This is just a power law distribution at work, though. Typical, median consumers on any platform have very few games to their name, while a tiny group of high-volume users have tons.

Most players will agree that the best current P&C games don't come close to the 90's titles.

Which 90s titles? There may not be anything obvious to match the absolute top of the LucasArts catalog, but a glance at our annual P&C thread suggests there's quite a few excellent titles nonetheless, covering a pretty wide range of styles and approaches.
 

Momentary

Banned
I was more shocked that somehow a console that doesn't change at all during it's life somehow doesn't need upgrades but if you want to play on PC then you need to spend $300 on a GPU every 2 years just to make it comparable to a console... Do console GPUs have nanomachines or something?

8800 gtx was released in 2006 and out performs last gen consoles to this day. And mostly every other enthusiast card after that does.

I don't think people understand just because you aren't maxing the game out doesn't mean that you're not getting a better experience than in consoles.
 

Fbh

Member
Feels a bit like it, yeah.

Last gen I had little interest in owning a Gaming PC. Right now I'm saving up to get into it.

One of the biggest factors keeping me away from PC gaming in the past (aside from economical factors) was the limited amount of japanese games. But that seems to be turning around, now you have stuff like Metal Gear V, Tales of and even Naruto coming to PC on launch day and older console only japanese games getting enhanced PC editions like Valkiria Chronicles and Dragon's Dogma.

I'm still happy with my Ps4, and the fact that most of my friends are on PSN means that it will continue to be my go-to place for online gaming even once I get a PC. But I'm definitely looking forward to getting into PC gaming in a few months
 

c0Zm1c

Member
The 1990s felt like the golden age of PC gaming to me. It is the period I look back on most fondly with regard to the platform. From a technology standpoint things are a lot better now than back then, but PC gaming is influenced a little too heavily by what is happening on other platforms these days and has lost it's individuality a bit. In some ways that's a good thing though, because it has helped make certain genres more popular on PC that have previously struggled to find an audience on the platform.
 

Durante

Member
divinity doesn't interest me
That's too bad. Of all the recent CRPGs it's the one which probably has the best claim to not only measure up favourably to the very best of the genre, but actually surpass them in some aspects. In my opinion, it features the best battle system overall in any party-based RPG.
 
D

Deleted member 125677

Unconfirmed Member
For people with money. We have to be clear about that. As long as you need a new 300 euros GPU every 2 years to play medium-high settings(console settings in other words), then it's a no-go for millions of people.

This is absolute bullshit.
 

bj00rn_

Banned
As long as you need a new 300 euros GPU every 2 years to play medium-high settings(console settings in other words), then it's a no-go for millions of people.

Jon Peddie Research numbers tells us there are about 57 million PC gamers with a 1000+ dollar PC out there. So obviously it's also a yes-go for millions of people..


(I also don't agree that you need a 300 euro GPU every two years to be enjoying PC gaming, on the contrary, a cheaper GPU gets you almost all the way)

a glance at our annual P&C thread suggests there's quite a few excellent titles nonetheless, covering a pretty wide range of styles and approaches.

Yes, and not to mention that the 90s titles are still here ready to go, today. As we all know backwards compatibility is just one of the brilliant default features of the PC platform.
 
Same here. Only reason I still want/need a PS4.

More and more JRPGs are coming to PC in recent years, so there's hope.

I believe Verendus said all the PS4 DQ games are coming to the west, and DQ10 was recently announced for PS4. Hopefully SE will bring the PC version along with it.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
To me its better than the 90's

The distribution of PC games sucked ass. When you could go to any blockbuster and try games for consoles, PC games were left out, i think this is around where PSX got huge.

3DFX vs Nvidia war & proprietary sound tech is where things started to go wrong, it was cool for nerds, but it set gaming back for years, from Glide to DirectX it made a mess of compatibility in games and the start of many frustrations. You could no longer play Glide games until glide wrappers, which came years later.

Now we have top of the line digital distribution and social features, compatibility has never been better (even for old games), cloud saving, auto-updates.

Kickstarter has been amazing for bringing back the "golden age" era genres back on the map after publishers started to stop producing them. CRPGs, space sims, adventure games, side scrollers. Add that japanese devs have never supported PC more than nowadays and it makes me a very happy camper, its never been easier to drop consoles than the past few years.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
Absolutely, yes. I've been playing PC games since the 80's, and there has never been a better time than now. Even the age of mysticism and that "wild west" feeling that surrounded the early days of computing is back with the advent of Virtual Reality.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
I believe Verendus said all the PS4 DQ games are coming to the west, and DQ10 was recently announced for PS4. Hopefully SE will bring the PC version along with it.

I'm just wondering where the PC version of KH3 is and why they are dragging their heels on FFT. TBS is a staple genre on PC. Its not that hard, SE.
 
Feels a bit like it, yeah.

Last gen I had little interest in owning a Gaming PC. Right now I'm saving up to get into it.

One of the biggest factors keeping me away from PC gaming in the past (aside from economical factors) was the limited amount of japanese games. But that seems to be turning around, now you have stuff like Metal Gear V, Tales of and even Naruto coming to PC on launch day and older console only japanese games getting enhanced PC editions like Valkiria Chronicles and Dragon's Dogma.

I'm still happy with my Ps4, and the fact that most of my friends are on PSN means that it will continue to be my go-to place for online gaming even once I get a PC. But I'm definitely looking forward to getting into PC gaming in a few months


This is one thing I came in to say. Finally the Japanese devs are giving PCs some love. Metal Gear Solid!
 

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Hmmm... yeah, I think that's fair to say. The only time that it's been close to this good was the late '90s, with the advent of 3D accelerators. That was a pretty incredible time, too.

But this is the first time that I really think the PC game space has meaningfully eroded the console market. Even in the '90s, a PC could never replace your Playstation -- the experiences on both platforms were completely unique. These days? there's so much overlap, and Japanese developers are supporting the platform to a degree that I don't think anyone could have expected. It's pretty rad.
 
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