Serious Computer gaming a waste of money?

[WalmartSniperLX]

What do you think? Is serious computer gaming a waste of money? What I mean by serious is more than a casual gamer. I guess to be a serious gamer you are a person who must have the hardware to play all the latest games at least on medium-high settings. But I know most games are in windows, and even if you arent a windows user at all (like myself), please feel free to give your opinion anyways :) Also if the answer you would have liked to vote for isnt there, please feel free to express it

[Polygon]

well it depends on if you are just ok with "decent graphics" or "top of the line" graphics

Like ive had my computer for 4 years, its no where near top of the line now, yet most games i play (half life 2, FEAR, battle field 2, PREY, americas army) all run fine on my computer, and most of these are on medium-high settings

my computer cost like 800$ when i built it.... and i havent spent that much on it since (besides games)

and its games like crysis and etc make me cringe.... they are making their games so resource hungry that you will most likely need a top of the line computer to even run the game. Sure its innovation for making the game look really great, but where do you draw the line between pushing graphics and stuff, and making it so only like 1% of the world can even play your game? (im probley exaggerating... it will most likely run on non top of the line comps but you know what i mean)

and here are the price range of the games i play:

Half lIfe 2 + half life 2: Deathmatch: 20 dollars
Half Life 2 Episode 1: 20 dollars
half life 2 mod: source forts - 0$
half life 2 mod: dystopia - 0$
half life 2 mod: half life 2 capture the flag - 0$
half life 2 mod: garrys mod - 0$

fear - 40 dollars
prey - 20 dollars
americas army - 0$

as you can see im a huge mod fan... there are so many fun games that are just free modifications for exsiting games... and most of them could qualify as their own game... and not to mention its free!

[WalmartSniperLX]

well it depends on if you are just ok with "decent graphics" or "top of the line" graphics

Like ive had my computer for 4 years, its no where near top of the line now, yet most games i play (half life 2, FEAR, battle field 2, PREY, americas army) all run fine on my computer, and most of these are on medium-high settings

my computer cost like 800$ when i built it.... and i havent spent that much on it since (besides games)

and its games like crysis and etc make me cringe.... they are making their games so resource hungry that you will most likely need a top of the line computer to even run the game. Sure its innovation for making the game look really great, but where do you draw the line between pushing graphics and stuff, and making it so only like 1% of the world can even play your game? (im probley exaggerating... it will most likely run on non top of the line comps but you know what i mean)

I understand you completely. Thats the issue thats making me angry. My system was a budget pc with a decent gpu for windows (x1600pro) with a AMD Sempron processor. It can play the same games you listed (I love Prey btw) but not super smooth. Also load times are a ____. It really makes me angry when developers try so hard to push boundaries. Not to bash, but this is why I no longer use windows. They make the os resource heavy and they redesign DX(10) so previous cards cannot run games designed in dx10. Theyre pushing buyers to get the latest and somewhat greatest. Thats just my opinion on the matter

[Polygon]

hmm... i have an ATI Radeon 9800, 1 gb of ram, and a AMD Athlon XP 2.1ghz and i can run all of the games listed (except for bf2... but thats only sometimes and honestly that game needs like 4 gb of ram lol) fine.

and prey might have a linux port... i doubt it but there is already a mac port :D

and just a side note.... most games that are coming out soon wont only be dx10 (except for halo2 cause MS is evil) and will support dx9 and 10 for a while... and there will be a patch for xp sometime that is like dx 9-2 or something that makes it so dx10 games can run using dx9, but it wont be as good.

[Kujen]

I understand you completely. Thats the issue thats making me angry. My system was a budget pc with a decent gpu for windows (x1600pro) with a AMD Sempron processor. It can play the same games you listed (I love Prey btw) but not super smooth. Also load times are a ____. It really makes me angry when developers try so hard to push boundaries. Not to bash, but this is why I no longer use windows. They make the os resource heavy and they redesign DX(10) so previous cards cannot run games designed in dx10. Theyre pushing buyers to get the latest and somewhat greatest. Thats just my opinion on the matter


Do you propose we don't advance technology, or what? If developers didn't "try so hard to push boundaries" we'd still be playing games that look like the original Doom.

[WalmartSniperLX]

Do you propose we don't advance technology, or what? If developers didn't "try so hard to push boundaries" we'd still be playing games that look like the original Doom.

I didnt say that. However changing the arhitecture of a graphics api to the point where it has NO compatibility with a previous one is completely unacceptable in my case, especially if its going to be as expensive as dx10 will be. OpenGL has proved superior and always will be, even over dx10, which is why its used in the film industries, CAD, DCC such as animation, etc, however it isnt backed by a large corporation like MS, which is what developers need (in most cases). And yes I know most games will support dx9 still... but a serious gamer wont settle for 2nd best unless theres somthing better to wait for. Thats where my "waste of money" line comes in for "serious gamers".

Oh and btw my computer plays those games fine as well, however not on max settings... which is completely fine but once again remember this is a thread talking about gaming enthusiasts.

EDIT: I should restate what i said about pushing boundaries. Its good to do so and Im a learning developer and support it, but MS' fear of a challenging competetor such as the OpenSource community and the industry's leading graphics foundadion, OpenGL, has lead to all this new stuff featured in Vista thats forcing people to buy hardware specifically for this purpose. Its bullshi+

[Josh1]

All valve games: $103 AUD
WoW + BC + 2 months: ~$90 AUD.
Garry's Mod: $13 AUD
Probably all my games: $1500 (I have alot of games).

This is my entire family and we are gamers.

[prizrak]

If by serious you mean playing latest and greatest and gtting them pretty much as soon as they come out then yes it is. Hardware will have to be changed every year at the very least to keep up with certain things. I've had gamer friends with the latest top of the line hardware who complained about slowness with some of the newest games.