What year did you realize PC gaming was superior to consoles?

Just this gen, but it happened in 2014. The lack of a lot of decent retail exclusives and shit hardware did it, disappointed in the lack of any real generational leap after an 8 year 7th gen. I just can't fuckin be bothered with them anymore. And games and DLC seems more expensive than ever.

1992.

It's only PC if IBM is involved.

I hate to be the one that has to break this to you, but going with a PC isn't going to get you away from the installs and updates. At least with the PS4 you can usually start playing the game as it installs.

The year I was able to play The Last of Us on my awesome gaming PC.

That's pretty much the way I see it, PC's are IBM compatible units (that moniker is so antiquated now :) ) which is why I chose the 1990's

@soulitane: That code always doesn't work with new games (although I do prefer gmg over steam anyday of the week)

Prior to playing Warcraft 3 and WoW, I never really considered pc superior. I just thought it was another platform. However, after I played those two games, I began to realize the limitations of consoles. I saw that consoles, I saw that controllers could never allow a player the level of control needed for a game like Warcraft 3 and WoW, and that consoles devs would rarely try to create an experience with as much depth and variety as wow. I honestly consider WoW as my number 1 game of all time just do to the longevity of the game. It was just as fun as many other amazing games, but the amazing experiences lasted for years. I have never played a game for as long as WoW. After playing Blizzards, I began playing games like CiV, as well as pc fps games which showed me how poorly fit controllers were for playing shooters. This stuff all happened from a period of 2008-11. So I pretty much realized just how superior PC was by 2011. I got my first gaming pc set up, a gaming laptop, in 2010. I finally built my first custom built pc myself over last summer.

Yea I can understand that, and this was the main reason I decided on consoles initially. Actually, the reason I chose them was because I didn't enjoy spending hours cramped up in front of a (relatively) small monitor on an office chair, which kills my pinched nerve for long sessions. Consoles were mostly a deal of comfort to me. Being able to kick my legs up with a big ass TV on a comfy couch, I didn't mind conceding PC benefits because comfort was first. But ever since I finally got my rig hooked up to my HDTV with controller support, there is just no comparison.

In addition, console games are getting to the point where they are flirting with the line that people use to argue against PC gaming:

• console games are now being released, broken, buggy and incomplete (AC: Unity, Drive Club, Halo: MCC)
• many have to deal with one day, massive patches
• replacing the HDD is needed if someone is heavily into DD

I played consoles to avoid this. On a PC, these can be dealt with by physical replacement (granted you can replace a console HDD, but that goes against the argument) or by delving into config files. Usually they're pretty simple remedies a Google search will fix. On a console you have no such freedom, but you are nevertheless stuck with many of the same problems until a patch arises, all the while with less performance. And while you may see the whole unit failing as a strength, the failure of single components in a PC is what makes it great and ultimately saves you money. I do hear the hassle argument, but I also constantly hear many saying that the One and PS4 are nothing but low-end PCs, and there's an element of truth to be had in it. And if it's true, there's no argument to a console's favor aside from the community PSN and Live have built.

PC gaming is becoming a more attractive prospect the more consoles attempt to emulate them, and in this, I give Nintendo great credit in their attempt at distinguishing their platform. But as it is when push comes to shove, and all things are working properly on both a PC vs console, there is zero argument to be had as to which is the objectively better gaming experience. It's just a matter of whether you're willing to put in the little bit of extra effort to get there.

As a child grows up and starts becoming a man he sees PC is superior.

@Ballroompirate said:

Outside of superior BC, mod support and higher resolution/fps everything you said has a positive effect and a negative one

My GTX 970 was $332, that's literally the price of a whole console, hell you can get a Xbone and the MC collection for $349. Cheaper games? again that's depending on the game and if it's on sale, got to love paying $59 for a digital copy of a game

Price's on video cards aren't bad if you look around (I purchased a R9 290 which is like 10 precent slower than a gtx 970 and paid less than $200 brand new). Most of the R9 280s on the shelves where priced $160-180 and offer twice the performance as the consoles (R9 290 and 280s for half the price of the consoles isn't bad considering they smoke it and any above average CPU in the last 5 years is all you need to pair it with).

Cheaper games is almost always (GMG and physical copy preorders where all $50 or less, friend bought the physical for $40 )

Ah, bragging about a feature pioneered by PC (in, what, 2010?) as your chosen next-gen console's feature.

BTW, i used this feature with Odor1886 and TLOU:R and it's pretty shit. Constant stutters and sound clipping issues.

Also, PC has this thing called "automatic background updates".

Hopefully you'll get to brag about it next console generation.

I was born console gamer

Only got a pc That was capable of gaming in 2013, after that I've ignored consoles realizing pc gaming is better

Not bragging, just pointing out that it's really not that bad with installs on the PS4. But, yeah, waiting 2 minutes to play a game on the PS4 is TOTALLY the same as waiting 20 minutes waiting for it to download enough on a PC.

BTW, the PS4 does automatic updates as well.

Probably in the 90's sometime.

I disagree. I think if you need to qualify the statement with when 'all things are working properly' then there is an argument to be had. If you're being objective, you wouldn't just ignore the issues in starting the game. And I would say the issues I've run into on PC are worse than any issues I ran into on consoles. While there are broken games released for both, there are far more issues with PC games than their console counterparts. For example, the latest has been the rebooted Prince of Persia that refused to run at 1080P with an i5 and HD 6870. I looked for solutions and found I could uninstall every C++ iteration, reboot, install the C++ the game needs, reboot again, and then finally play. I decided I'd rather just play, even if I had to settle for 720P. I've never had anything like that with a console version of a game.

I would also not base arguments on the lame exaggerations of fanboys.

Diablo 2 did it for me in 2000. Then I found Baldur's Gate 1 which changed how I looked at games. Then right after that, Baldur's gate 2 came out and I was blown away. I still played every console, but it wasn't the same after D2 released.

Uh... the Amiga was a million times better anyway :) I LOVED my Amiga.

To answer the TC, I started gaming on a PC (adventure games mostly, there wasn't much else available) and kind of grew with it as it went from the worst gaming machine in the world to eventually the best.

Along the way I owned most of the big consoles and still go from PC to console at a whim even now though PC is obviously ever present it's just the specs and hardware that change.

I love ALL games systems yes even the latest Mariobox.

graphics wise, around the time of crysis. Before that i really couldnt tell because graphics werent that good looking to start off with. a less jaggie version of a blocky character wasnt my idea of graphical supermacy...

games wise, its really a matter of taste. i think all consoles and pc have games have incredible libraries ( i know this gen isnt that great yet, but i think it will eventually)

RTCW multiplayer got me hooked to pc gaming.

1. Sony servers are slow as shit, so it'll take your PS4 20 minutes to download what would take 2 minutes on PC.

2. PC does have streaming downloads too. It's where this feature was freaking born, you know.

Did you intentionally skip the "background" part?

No, PS4 doesn't download updates while you're playing a game.

I rember trying to play some Second Son while the damn GTA5 Bundle PS4 was downloading an update for GTA5 for literally an hour (2 minutes, you say?).

NOPE.

It seizes all activity when a game is running.

PC doesn't.

When i first saw this in 2007

Yep, pop the disk in a PS4 and in a couple minutes, it's ready to play. And the PS4 does download in the background and I've never had it prevent me from playing a game while it was downloading an update for another. I have no idea why you had such issues. Nowhere did I claim this as a Sony innovation, I simply pointed out to someone that the PS4 had a feature that made game installing a bit less annoying and evidently even this was too much for your rage against Sony or the pride you have in your PC.

For me it was in the late 80's on the Amiga 1000 and 2000 units my dad brought home for the family. Amiga completely trashed anything I'd seen on NES with games like Defender of the Crown, Operation Wolf, Rescue the Embassy, Stunt Racer, and Earl Weaver Baseball.

I already refuted that. That's a lot of bull and we both know it.

An hour of downloading patches, for a game that came pre-installed on a console.

Get it through your skull.

Occasionally it does take a few minutes, most of the time you're downloading shitloads of patches.

That's why i have a PS4, right?

Get your head out of your ass.

Better? Never really cared to look at things like that but what made me take attention to the format?

Probably this.

The release of GeForce 8800 with 480 mm² size chip started a new class of large GPU size template for the PC and game consoles wasn't able to match that.

Current PC GPU flag chips from AMD and Nvidia still follows GeForce 8800's chip size and energy consumption template.

Getting games to function properly is really a separate issue from whether console gaming is better than PC gaming when both are operating as intended. Your argument is analogous to saying, "The guy who can ride a $600 bicycle flawlessly makes that bike better than the $10,000 one with a guy who can't ride it". But get two riders of equal capability? It's not even a contest. That's not an elitist or condescending statement, it's a factually correct one.

Besides, remember Skyrim's PS3 save file bug that essentially broke the game? If we're going to argue by the metric of qualifiers, consoles aren't exempt from these issues either (as my bolded/underlined denotes, I didn't just say PC) though admittedly they are rarer, and when they arise there's no recourse available to players until the developers put a patch out, which may be a matter of days or even weeks, because they are closed systems. With a PC, if a problem arises you can usually fix it within a matter of minutes because you have a community of people out there with similar builds that encounter the same issues, for which someone's usually found a solution.

It's a rare occasion I can't get a game on the PC to run, and even 95% of those cases arise from compatibility issue of much older games (as noted with your example) that came out 5-10 years prior. Have I encountered a new game that wouldn't no matter what I tried? Sure, but extremely seldom. And because of that (and exclusives), consoles will always have a place on my shelf as a last resort, as well as eventually becoming retro-gaming machines.

But IMO, PC is where the best gaming can be found, and the benefits far outweigh the headaches.

I never felt the PC was superior TBH. The consoles always offered a totally different experience free from administrative red-tape and chock full of unique, high quality experiences... in the PS2 days this was. I don't believe anyone with a wide interest in games could have sincerely believed the PC was objectively better with the huge number of innovative, zany and just plain awesome console exclusives back then.

But as time has gone on the landscape has changed. Japanese developers have largely retreated from the home console space (ignoring Nintendo, but TBH Nintendo are almost their own thing) leaving platform agnostic western developers in their wake. In essence consoles don't have the glut of high quality, unique software anymore. I mean look at last year, what came out? This year? Looks like almost everything is being delayed.

Add to that recent frustrations with sub-par performance, buggy games out of the box and the need for patches even on consoles these days and such as you have a load of red-tape that was previously the domain of PCs. TBF it's gotten worse on PC as well with higher game complexity meaning more things that can break - but at least before the console was the alternative to that.

The question to me them becomes this: if the PC offers (largely) the same games and same overall janky experience, why not opt in to a system where I can at least use hardware to get around some of the issues I have (performance) whilst enjoying games at potentially higher quality? The sad truth is I err on the side of PC these days not because of the strengths of the platform (which have largely not appealed to me) but because consoles themselves have failed to deliver a console experience this generation. And that sucks because the PC doesn't offer that console experience either.

Are you using a wire? Because the PS4 pretty much dies in terms of download speed with wireless (when with a strong connection right next to the router). Seriously, you'd be better off using string than the wireless on that thing. The PS4 DOES feature background downloads. Last I checked up to 3 at once (albeit cutting the download speed of each by a third to achieve it).

I'm not sure if this was added for an a firmware update or not but I've definitely downloaded demos, updates and even games whilst playing other games before and have done so routinely without so much as thinking about it. I can only assume you ran into an issue with the server being so slow to respond it paused the download - but that's not normal (although Sony's server periodically fucking up for no apparent reason unfortunately is...).

Slow...ish downoad speeds are though. I can get games on Steam averaging 18-20MB/s. On the PS4 its more like 6MB\s average. And on the Xbox One... well I don't know since the last time I used it didn't display an average on screen.

The stuttering you're experiencing during install-and-play is also likely due to some freak HDD defragmentation or an issue that needed patching rather than a flaw with the implementation itself. I've not had that issue with any game installing whilst playing (both digital and physical). I have however experienced stuttering trying the same on the PC (I've not tried with an SSD where this might not be a problem though) which makes sense to me as the PS4 has resources tucked away specifically to handle things like install-and-play whereas the PC doesn't.

I have experienced issues with sound being strange through the DS4 headphone connector though. Even with games that are entirely installed. With Infamous is was so bad at one point that I switched over to using the TV's headphone port instead.

Is Gamespot so desperate for activity that they have to let these types of threads repeat themselves without end?

Yes, you spent lots of money on your PC, you have insecurities and you need to feel good about yourself - we get it.

How about talking about how fun it is to play Madden or NHL on your PC with your friends. Or how much fun it it to play your PC while you're riding the bus or taking a dump.

Your entire post was a massive nostalgia rush for me. I remember actually being excited for Encarta. Even installing it using the run command prompt the way the manual told me to.

But just be thankful you weren't playing the PC version of FF8 (as I was) cos at the time it was an atrocious port (Gamespot gave it a 6/10 IIRC). Seriously, people who complain about poor ports these days have NO idea how bad ports used to be. And back then you couldn't just hop online and quickly fix a game. People were using download managers back then just to cover 30MB files!

These days truly irredeemable ports are few and far between. Generally speaking if a game gets a PC version it's fairly safe to say it will be alright.

The problem with your bike analogy is it is based on the user inability, not an inherent aspect of the bike. It would be more appropriate if the $10,000 bike required constant maintenance and spent 20 minutes in the shop before the rider could use it. Sometimes you don't want to tinker and tune or care about being the fastest; you just want to ride.

It's not that you can't get the games to run, it's that it's all too common for getting them to run is a process. Are you implying that there is an expiration date on games made for the PC? That you only have a short window to just be able to play a game? That doesn't seem very convenient to me. Barring the extremely rare example, I can pick up a console game from any year and it will run. Even your example is from a developer notorious for buggy software and only comes into play after dozens of hours of playing the game. Yeah, with PC you can usually figure out a solution, but that doesn't make it any less annoying. But another, lesser annoyance would be Bioshock Infinite that I just started. I tried setting it up with the included benchmark, but even medium presets gave horrible screen tearing, so I did it in game with FRAPS running. Then it also gave me a chance to change the mouse sensitivity so I adjusted it to where it felt good (I also turned off mouse acceleration). It was all good until the first combat started and the mouse movement changed to where it was jumping around making it hard to aim. So evidently, I need to undo the game adjustment and balance it out with the system settings. But hey, AMD has a gaming evolved program to help set up games. But instead of basing it off the 1080P screen I use for gaming, it keeps insisting I should use the resolution of my little 1024x768 monitor I have plugged in as a secondary display.

Then there's the hardware. I tried to replace an HD 3850 with my HD 6870 and even with the right slot, enough power and updated drivers for every chip on the Foxconn system board, it wouldn't work. No BIOS nor even successful POST. Communicating with Foxconn and the GPU manufacturer and replacing the GPU didn't help. Only recently was I able to actually start using it (since I couldn't return it once I cut the bar code off for the rebate) when I replaced the system board, CPU and RAM. But then the RAM didn't run right and I had to figure out if it was a problem with the RAM (which required making a boot disk to test), the memory controller in the CPU, or if it was a flaw in the system board. (Spoiler - it was the system board.)

I can relate to this as I've had my own hardware headaches. Sure, issues arise on console as well, but when they do it's rarely the case that I feel like console gaming on the whole is a tease because of it. In some ways not being able to do anything about an issue (other than returning the game) is actually a relief. I've had my own share of staying up into the wee hours of the night trying to fix some pesky issue simply to get into the game.

...and then there are times when the game I got just SINGS. It runs and plays beautifully and for the few hours I'm playing that game all is forgiven.... yeah, PC gaming is a bit of a love-hate relationship. Sadly the negative experiences colour my overall feelings towards it far more than the positive, even knowing that the positive experiences actually outweigh the negative.

It's not superior.

Even with a wire, it doesn't even begin to touch my bandwidth cap.

While Steam, as well as Origin or Uplay or Battle.net easily max it out.

And PS3 was even worse.

Well, i got my brother a PS4 this december and we were sitting there waiting for GTA5 to download its patches and it warned us that it would stop if we try and play some Injustice instead of just sitting on our asses.

Maybe it was patched in later, i didn't bother checking since.

Well, it's not like i can defragment my PS4's HDD, can i?

It happened with 2 games (i.e. all games that i played while downloading), with like 3 months between them, so it's not a one-off thing.

Yep, i did use the controller jack while playing.

Didn't even try using my TV speakers, they sound like absolute wank.

Maybe it's a controller jack issue, but it still an issue that wasn't fixed.

Never happened with fully installed games, though.

Defintely an issue with the sound transfer on the jack as the issue went away the very moment I switched over the the TV's headphone port. I'm guessing the controller was cheaped out on in some way as it's an issue I've had with multiple games and controllers (but not all). And certain games consistently trigger it worse.

Well, i got my brother a PS4 this december and we were sitting there waiting for GTA5 to download its patches and it warned us that it would stop if we try and play some Injustice instead of just sitting on our asses.

Maybe it was patched in later, i didn't bother checking since.

Background downloads have been implemented for ages. Well before GTA came out. And I've never seen a game force a stop. Does GTA download via it's own in-game client (do you have to be within the game) instead of over firmware? I'm guessing it's downloading within the game rather than genericaly, which explains why the download stops the moment you kill the in-game client the download relies on.

Most PS4 games don't rely on their own clients to push updates and patches (I know Destiny/FF14 do for example).

Well, it's not like i can defragment my PS4's HDD, can i?

Consider this: http://www.gadgethelpline.com/rebuild-sony-ps4-database/

As your issue isn't normal. I've used two different PS4s with almost two dozen games (and across 3 different HDDs) and I've not experienced additional performance hit/stuttering owing to the install-and-play feature, nor heard of anyone else that has. If it's not a HDD issue it may well be a firmware bug that sucessive updates have hopefully ironed out.

During the summer of '69.

You are making it sound like nearly every PC game is giving you problems akin to your few examples you've brought up (which sound admittedly severe), and I think both you and I know that to blanket an entire platform in such a sentiment is being more than a bit disingenuous just because you've encountered a problem in one or two games. I've installed 11 from Steam over the past two days, with full controller support, hooked up to my TV, and have not run into one single problem.

Not one. I'm not saying problems don't arise, but they're not as common as you are making them out to be. If you're having problems so common as to not make the effort profitable to you, then you either are trying to run really old games on new hardware or new games on old hardware (which I've conceded will bring problems), or something else is going on. Current games on current hardware will rarely give you issue.

Also, are you implying there's not an expiration date on games made for the consoles in terms of convenience? As is, having/wanting to eventually disconnect old hardware from your TV, find storage space, then when you wish to play its games again, pull it and all its software out and hook it up after the new gen arrives? That's somehow not inconvenient, but PC gaming is? How so? Nintendo is the only one I'm aware of that still really utilizes BC. With a PC, usually it starts taking about 2-3 OS iterations and generational hardware leaps before any real serious compatibility problems begin popping-up.

@ProtossX the year that Uncharted, Last of Us, Infamous, Fire Emblem, Zelda, DKC, LBP, God of War, and Crash Bandicoot came to PC

The late 90's was where PC gaming started to make waves. It had the better hardware and everything. Despite that console games always defined the medium because PC is dog shit. Sorry... just slipped out :/

I tried PC gaming once a while back, I didn't like it too much, maybe my computer wasn't fast enough, but I had problems making the games look as good as they did on the PS3, without spending a fortune or tweaking everything to the point where I would get frustrated and just go back to playing a 3DS game.

I probably did it wrong, but I like console gaming better. Controllers are more comfortable for the games I like the most. If I was really into shooters, I would probably play on a PC since nothing beats the precision of a mouse.

I'm not trying to say it's every game I try, but it's not rare either. Looking back, I seem to have a critical issue maybe 2-3 times a year. But if you look in the forums for most games, you'll find similar issues. It's just part of the nature of the beast. You have dozens of different manufacturers making dozens of different parts leading to thousands of different combinations compounded by thousands of different software combinations on, in many cases, an OS renowned for poor software security (in this case, referring to the ease with which one program can muck with another). It's just impossible for a developer to account for everything. Even if everything works as it should, you still might have some tinkering to do in order to get the right balance of performance versus visual fidelity you prefer. None of this is a factor for consoles. I think if we're going to include possible performance and visual superiority (depending upon the PC set-up), then the possible hassles must be weighed into consideration as well. Therefore, it isn't a simple cut-and-dry, "PC is the best" inarguable answer, but more of a, "it depends". It depends on you're actual PC. It depends on how frustrated you get by critical errors and the effort it takes to resolve them. It depends, sometimes, on total luck of the draw.

I do not care whether PC gaming is "superior" to console gaming. I am concern on the games that I enjoy which are often found in consoles.

Good question

I realized it possibly with Sim City 4 and modding

It became a fact with Skyrim and modding

1988. my Apple II had games like nothing the intellivision, atari, or nes had to offer. games that actually took thought and interaction, unlike the button mashing consoles have always embraced. not much has changed today.

@asylumni: most Steam and MMOs I've tried offer the same option to play while it is installing. you hit a certain point in the download and Play is available. is not some new feature that PS4 implemented.

I never said it was a new feature that Sony invented. Though I'm surprised it works for MMO's (since the install files usually lag behind the required updates for online games), I've been aware of the feature in Steam games for quite some time. I've also been aware that installing from a disk is much quicker than downloading from the internet. It's still a nice feature and still lessens the impact of a required installation so it's not as annoying as it was when the whole game needed to be installed before playing.