elite gaming rule

girl@sopuli.xyz to 196@lemmy.blahaj.zone – 627 points –
112

Pc gamers when their 350$ handheld laptop has a bigger library, more backwards compatibility, and cross platform access without any monthly subscriptions.

Don't forget the mods, console fanboys only get their approved mods while PC gets the wild west experience

Don't forget console commands to work around a bug in a quest. Or summon items. Or respawn accidentally killed NPCs.

If I can't play stalker gamma on it it's basically worthless

I can pirate very easily too - probably saved me about $3k in game costs alone while still having a way larger legit library than 99% of Consol owners

denuvo has changed this somewhat

The only thing denuvo has done was delay games a bit for me.

Well, normally I wouldn't have to wait to pirate something. So I think the current situation is pretty bad

why is denuvo hard to remove tho?
yeah, there are a lot of traps embeeded in obfuscated code (a total mess and really hard to reverse engineer)
... but in the end it still has to interface with some service to check for license ownership or obtain some sort of token for decryption, why not hook that or find a way to reuse tokens across multiple machines?

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PC Gamers: buys $550 Steam Deck

Console Gamers: . . . shit

$460 (64gb version + 1tb SD card)

My PC is better than my console, that's for sure. I have the Xbox 360.

Mine actually isn't. It's better than a PS4 but not as good as a PS5 (which I have).

I have a ps2

You could almost argue that the pc is not better.

Had such happy times in the ps2 days

Try zone of the enders 2 on PC. Plays a million times better than on PS2 with the massive frame rate drops.

I'm just happy I can watch my porn on 4k on the second screen with music, while still playing on ultra in my games. Makes me feel like I am at a bar.

You must go to some wild bars!

What if my $300 PC is better than your $400 console?

What if it had more utilities than just gaming and streaming?

What if my $1500 PC built 5 years ago has been more capable than multiple generations of consoles that have been released since? My brother has bought like 3 XBoxes in the same amount of time and my PC still outpaces it by a pretty wide margin.

5 years ago

multiple generations of consoles

There has only been one generation of consoles released since.

The Switch successor might count as another generation if that comes out this year, though, and it would also be a sad state of affairs if your PC wasn't more powerful than mobile hardware so that's basically a given, I'll give you that.

Didn't they release several different versions of the Xbox in that time? Like technically the same "generation" or whatever but upgrading a few minor things like storage and such?

2020 was the release of ps5 and “xbox series x” (and also the cheaper “xbox series s” model that has since proven incapable of playing certain xbox titles, holding the whole xbox platform back; see baldur’s gate)

no new consoles have been released since and it will be at least 3+ years before a new generation of consoles arrives (meaning one that has games the previous model can’t play)

Here's what I'm talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox#Comparison

The XBox One came out in 2013, but then starting in 2016, they started releasing a series of other XBoxes with incremental upgrades. The "One S" and "One X" within a year of each other, then the "Series S" and "Series X" in 2020. It looks like the CPU and GPU get upgraded along the way, but none of them is nearly as powerful as the PC I've had through that time period, nor as capable considering I can do more than play games on it.

What's your PC specs, and let us check it. :) And what year did you buy your PC?

Lowest price I can find for a PS5 is $500

That's less than I've put into my PC since the PS4

Edit: Just realized that the CPU I recently upgraded from predates the PS4.

Plus, no monthly fees for online play on PC.

That depends on the game you’re playing, not the platform, right?

Right?

Nah, you need to pay a monthly sub to play online with every console

Don't need a sub to play F2P games online on PS, at least.

Meanwhile, on Xbox, you need Game Pass to play Final Fantasy 14, on top of the subscription to the game itself.

No not every game, there are a lot of online F2P games or games that have their own sub to play on PS5 that don't require PS+.

Nope. You need Playstation Plus or Xbox Game Pass Core for online play on their respective platforms. And they charge subscription fees for that.

You mean like WoW?

Who still plays WoW though?

That's why I only get sp games that are exclusive to Playstation with mine. I mean technically Bloodborne and Demon's Souls have multiplayer but I'm totally fine not seeing bloodstains and messages that say "try jumping" everywhere or having some rando invade me.

At the same time, most of those exclusives are PS4 games so unless you really want the 5 or 6 games that are only on PS5, you could save money and get a PS4.

Same for me, but it's just GT7. Really wish Sony would port it to pc.

See Also: Apple Vision users after playing Fruit Ninja for the first time.

Aint heard of no ps5 running linux

Not Linux, but I believe it runs on FreeBSD.

PS3 used to have the option to boot into Linux, though. Used to.

Whats the point of freebsd if youre not free to do anything you want with it

It used to be that you could legit build a PC for fairly cheap, but those days are long gone. Yet another hobby that got gentrified.

Definitely not the case. You can easily get all-in-one mini PCs for $400-500 that can play most any new game at 1080p without much issue. Thanks to all the new stuff like DLSS/FSR, you can get away with a lot more for a lot less.

Maybe they came back down, but when I looked at parts a year or so ago, the prices were extremely high. Unless you're one of the lucky few who lives anywhere near a Micro Center. There's not even one in my state, so I rely on sites like NewEgg, Amazon, and Best Buy.

I built my first PC for ~$1k in 2017, and it was moderately good. Unless something has changed and I've not noticed, I don't think I could even build that again for that price with the exact same parts.

Or maybe I'm clueless, and you can show me an alternative site that I'm unaware of.

Depends on your target. The integrated GPUs from AMD these days are very good, and can run a lot of games at 720p pretty well. Discrete GPUs have also come down in price over the last year.

What happened was the pandemic created a supply chain bottleneck combined with scalpers gathering up what supply there was. The issues were worked out by the end of that generation, but then Nvidia released the next generation with prices where they assumed people would just pay that now. That's bitten them in the ass, and there's been a lot of market correction as GPUs sit on the shelf (though probably not enough).

As usual, AMD comes out looking like the good guy by being slightly less shitty than its competition. They also had elevated prices this generation, but kept it just a bit lower. Looking good by being a smidge less bad than Intel and Nvidia is a plan that's worked for them 100% of the time every time in the past, so why change it?

I mean, in the graphics department, despite starting out rough, Intel is looking kind of sweet if you tolerate some drivers shennanigans every now and then

Modern games and hardware are expensive, but you can get an absolute slayer of titles from previous years for a steal. You won't run new games at the bleeding edge of graphics, but you don't need to.

Yeah, I know that. I'm a very patient gamer, but my comment is referring to the cost of hardware. That can be somewhat offset by the lower cost of games, but you're not getting as much bang for your buck by building your own PC as you would have had in the past. Not even close!

Add to that the fact that game sales and discounts are nowhere near what they once were and that things like HumbleBundle have taken a nosedive, and it's very much a rich person's plaything, in comparison to what it was in the past. Even used gear is going for more than what one would expect.

I agree with your tips, though.

Yeah, prices went super high during the pandemic, and prices for GPUs in particular stayed high for a while due to crypto miners. They're largely back down to earth now, though.

That's good news! They were still high last I checked, but it's been a while since I've even thought about upgrading anything.

depend if your gpu seller is amd or nvidia

Bought a fine used pc for relatively cheap and upgraded it over time. The CPU from 2016/17 is still mighty fine.
Also NVMe SSDs are dirt cheap nowadays, although they are more expensive than last year they now cost about as much as I paid for a crappy HDD back in 2017.

I have no idea why you think this... In 2020 you may have had a point, but GPU prices have returned to normal after the cryptodouches destabilized the market.

I bought a gpu last week that's was just $120 (Arc A360), and it's pretty dang solid. A high end (but still affordable) GPU would be about $250 (GTX 3060).

If we're talking about matching the latest consoles, then you're looking at $340 (Radeon 6700) GPU with a $120 CPU (Ryzen 5600). I don't recommend that, but that's where the comparison starts. Throw another $60 into that and you start getting specs way above the latest generations.

Consoles are kinda dying anyways tho. Less and less sales even tho there are more and more gamers.

They are more and more just mini pc's with ads and paid online service.

Well the last 2 generations of ps/Xbox consoles with mainly PC parts brought that upon themselves. They need to be consoles damn it, not weak PCs.

The switch still stands out with unique features (and pricing).

PC is cheaper in the long run.

You don't need new controllers or any proprietary accessories when switching console and you can buy games on steam sales (which can be insanely cheaper).

You can also update your pc if you want it to last a bit longer.

I think consoles made more sense back then. If you like your console that's fine, but I'm pretty sure pc is much cheaper and last longer when you consider all those factors.

I know it's a meme, but you don't need $3K for decent gaming PC unless you want overkill performance. If you get components on sale, you can build something pretty good for $600 to $700 (excluding monitor, mouse and keyboard). You just be patient and fool around on pcpartpicker.

You aren't getting a "pretty good" gaming PC for $600-$700, be serious now. That doesn't invalidate most of your other points, but your exaggerations weaken your message.

Here you go, bud. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/N3cVgB

This matches my $2,000+ build from 6 years ago. I still use it today, and I have no plans to upgrade still. It runs modern games at at least 50-80 fps at 4k.

This build is $652.99. It doesn't include windows, but I paid $19 for windows pro, and Linux is free.

That's very impressive for that price, though I am highly skeptical of those framerates since my PC has better specs and doesn't get that without some serious compromises in settings. How are you getting a Windows Pro license for $19? I use linux 99% of the time, but I'd love to have a pro license on the cheap.

It depends on the title. Obviously it'll run terraria at 4k but Cyberpunk obviously won't. Consoles do the same thing though and just lower the resolution for difficult titles.

Cyberpunk runs at something like 50-70 fps, if memory serves. It's high enough that it doesn't bother me, but it could be better for sure.

I am running that on very high settings, too. That's a game where you want everything way up. I don't know if I used the literal highest, but the hdr (after a lot of manual tinkering) looks fanatastic.

If you aren't going to use Win Pro for anything important, you could always run massgrave and unlock it for free.

They are very real framerates, I assure you. It really depends on the game, though. Most recently, Palworld has been flowing at around 70fps or higher, but I'm using the second highest settings, not the very highest.

I purchased the windows pro key off a third party website last Black Friday. I already had a license, and I just wanted the encryption! I just googled it, and ostensibly found another one for $35. They are a thing, oddly enough. Just be sure to research where you're buying it so you don't get scammed.

I'm serious. You won't have ray tracing shenanigans or whatnot, but you'll run everything 1080p at max settings smoothly. You just need to wait for components to be on sale (especially the gpu and the cpu). Like I said, it doesn't include peripherals. That's what I did, it totally can be done.

Since you're serious, I'd be very curious to see the part list for this if you have the time. I am quite aware of current prices and GPU prices are currently still rather bonkers, even with sales.

I've double checked and while I think it's still perfectly reasonable, it would be more something between $700 and $800. I've made two mistakes: I slightly overestimated the conversion rate from CAD to USD and I didn't factor in the fact that I didn't have to buy a pc case and a power supply.

Ryzen 5 ($140) on amazon

Radeon 6650xt ($229) on canadacomputers

Msi B550-A Pro ($111) on canadacomputers

T-Force Vulcan [8gb x 4] ($80) one pair on amazon another one on canadacomputers

I checked quickly and I was able to fit the rest (SSD, case, power supply) for something around $760ish.

The cpu and the gpu were bought during a Christmas sale and the rest was bought later. This was bought about two years ago (a bit after the time gpus were insanely overpriced).

I'm going to second this, with a couple asterisks. $800 for the computer is probably about where you get the most bang for your buck in terms of AA/AAA gaming, but you will still need peripherals - keyboard/mouse, speakers/headset, and a monitor, that can tack another $1-200 on the price (notwithstanding that even if the controllers come with the console, you still need a TV.) Logical Increments puts their "good" tier at about $761, suitable for 1080p 60FPS with medium settings.

Arguably the bigger value here is not being locked into a platform - if you find yourself with a little more budget down the road, you can piecemeal out your old PC with newer parts for a lower cost than a new console (with the possible exception of the GPU) and you can get more utility out of a PC than a console.

While I definitely agree for desktop situation. The landscape for PC gaming has changed dramatically, there are some sub ~$1000 laptops that are not bad entry points. Same with the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, both are decent entry points for someone interested in PC gaming with not a massive budget.

You can if you buy used, but yeah, I think $1000 is about the minimum for a complete build, new.

Any "game" that takes a PC over $600 (or even that) to run isn't a good game, it's a garbage barely interactive movie with vaguely game-like elements that unlock new parts of the story.

The more power required to run something, the more garbage it is. Sell only lowish-end PCs and make good games. Then kill off consoles like they should have years and years ago.

Also, anything over 1080/60hz (also, VR) is a scam made to suck more money out of your pocket for fucking nothing.

Wow that is certainly a hot take. Sounds like sour grapes to me, as someone who is very frugal and does quite enjoy VR gaming and my nice 34" widescreen 144Hz monitor with all its millions of pixels.

Sure you can enjoy games at 1080p and low framerates, but I definitely enjoy them more in 3D versus 2D and with more pixels and frames. It's simply better to have more detail and smoother performance.

I mean, that was what mine cost back in like 2014, and I would've kept it that way for a while if not for my growing interest in VR, which admittedly had me shelling out another $200 for a GPU in around 2016. It trchnically wasn't a gaming PC, sure, but it's kept up pretty well in recent time. I still don't see myself having to replace any parts for a while now - I'm consistently still able to play current games on medium-high settings, occasionally having to turn things down a bit for games like Darktide.

I mean, technically it referred to itself as an office PC and not a gaming PC, but that's just pedantics when it works all the same.

also steam sales are often way better than sales on console which is only part of the year and only games atleast a year or two old but still if you're patient you can get really good deals for games on pc

You get to run older games that use to run like shit on previous console generations without waiting for a "remaster" and paying $70 for it. Current generation games will run better on future versions of your PC sometimes to a really silly degree.

I heard half life 2 was really hard to run back in the day and now you can run it at 200 fps on a modern toaster.

The real cost is in trying to match parts that look good together (especially white), spending money on RGB/screens, going liquid instead of air so you can see more of your motherboard, and spending way too much on a really nice looking case.

PC is way cheaper long term because you can pirate games

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Ah, this again. Maybe we can start accepting other people's use cases? (This goes both ways btw)

Yeees, let's shit on people who spend money in their hobby and use their computer for more than just running overhyped games at medium settings.

I am so tired of these attempts at justification for "Console Elitism."

Yes, you bought a cheap shit product because you don't have the money or knowledge to build, or operate, a proper computer. Congratulations, you're part of Sony/MS's primary demographic.

It's the same with a 400€ computer though.

If you spec it out right with used parts you can get really great performance for relatively cheap.

Here's a list I put together for fun about half a year ago, prices have probably changed a bit though (Ebay) 13900k: $475, (Ebay) 3090: $630, mobo: $100, (Ebay) 64gb RAM: $100, case: $40, 850w PSU: $130, AG620 cooler: $50, 2tb SSD: $67, fans: $20, (Ebay) 4k monitor: $200, total: $1812

Or you can look at that chromebook I got on ebay for $40 that I played Celeste, Half Life, and Half Life 2 from start to finish for the first time on after swapping its operating system out with linux (which is actually pretty easy). You can also find old mini pcs with a lot higher performance for similar prices used if you don't need a laptop.

Obviously neither of those are very directly comparable but they do show you can get great price to performance in a PC, if you know what to look for.

I just added water-cooling and a larger PSU, $200 later lol.

When I think about it I realize I could spend my money on other things but hey, having dual 32 inch screens is better than outside.