Well I've been playing PC games for quite a long time (3-4 years to be more exact), and so I've gathered a healthy amount of games which most of them are on steam. I must say that I really do enjoy playing on the PC but even though I've been playing for so long, there is still a few things that really agitate me very much about the PC gaming market that really turns me off to gaming on the PC in general. Obviously you should already know what I'm talking about...

The main beef that I have with PC gaming is the fact that in order play a handful of games these days is that you have to have the proper equipment. Now to be fair I'm not really looking for a super-ultra-mega gaming PC that runs Crysis at a very smooth rate, but I would still like a PC that can play a game at least somewhat smoothly. I'm more of a performance over quality all the time but even then I still feel as though I would need those high end parts in order to get most out of gaming. However its just ridiculous how expensive these parts are and lets face it, I'm not going to spend $300 just so I can be able to play a $50 or less game. It just insane to me! For all those curious about my PC all you really need to know that it can run most Valve games except I have to tweak Half-Life 2: Episode 2 to get it to run decently without choppy framerate.

Another thing that really bugs me about buying PC games is the "Specs" needed in order to play a certain game. Now when I do go to the PC games section and take interest in a certain game obviously one of the things I look for is the "Recommended" requirements that are needed to play the game. Now theoretically, if I have the "Recommended" requirements I should to be able to play a PC game with at least a solid framerate without it looking sort of crappy. But however its just not the case for and it can get really irritating when I have to change settings all the time in order to have some kind of smoothness. Its tedious, occasionally confusing, and its just too much work for me.

I really just don't know anymore...and it all just feels somewhat overwhelming to me. Are there any PC people that can at least enlighten me about PC Gaming and all the hardware stuff? Should I just go off and buy the parts to play a game?

Well I've been playing PC games for quite a long time (3-4 years to be more exact), and so I've gathered a healthy amount of games which most of them are on steam. I must say that I really do enjoy playing on the PC but even though I've been playing for so long, there is still a few things that really agitate me very much about the PC gaming market that really turns me off to gaming on the PC in general. Obviously you should already know what I'm talking about...

The main beef that I have with PC gaming is the fact that in order play a handful of games these days is that you have to have the proper equipment. Now to be fair I'm not really looking for a super-ultra-mega gaming PC that runs Crysis at a very smooth rate, but I would still like a PC that can play a game at least somewhat smoothly. I'm more of a performance over quality all the time but even then I still feel as though I would need those high end parts in order to get most out of gaming. However its just ridiculous how expensive these parts are and lets face it, I'm not going to spend $300 just so I can be able to play a $50 or less game. It just insane to me! For all those curious about my PC all you really need to know that it can run most Valve games except I have to tweak Half-Life 2: Episode 2 to get it to run decently without choppy framerate.

Another thing that really bugs me about buying PC games is the "Specs" needed in order to play a certain game. Now when I do go to the PC games section and take interest in a certain game obviously one of the things I look for is the "Recommended" requirements that are needed to play the game. Now theoretically, if I have the "Recommended" requirements I should to be able to play a PC game with at least a solid framerate without it looking sort of crappy. But however its just not the case for and it can get really irritating when I have to change settings all the time in order to have some kind of smoothness. Its tedious, occasionally confusing, and its just too much work for me.

I really just don't know anymore...and it all just feels somewhat overwhelming to me. Are there any PC people that can at least enlighten me about PC Gaming and all the hardware stuff? Should I just go off and buy the parts to play a game?

"Now to be fair I'm not really looking for a super-ultra-mega gaming PC that runs Crysis at a very smooth rate, but I would still like a PC that can play a game at least somewhat smoothly. "

Ppl like you who keeps buying low end stuff to save money should not play pc games. Complaining about upgrades when you are making the wrong upgrades over and over again. Just get a gtx260 core 216 from anywhere online, it's cheap and affordable, It's about $160 if you can get a mail back rebate coupon, not $300, you can play most games no problem. Also get a fast cpu or overclock it. Just get a xbox360 instead if that's what you want, more performance. I can run half life episode 2 over 80 frames to a 100 on my 9800GTX, you really need to stop complaining and start buying smart upgrades.

For crysis on very high, you can only run it with two gtx260 sli or a gtx295 which is a dual gpu game and it requires vista for true very high settings, don't worry about that game, no one can really run it well regardless.

Crysis isn't optimized very well. It's incredible looking though if you can manage to run it.

Crysis was poorly optimised. It's a bad benchmark for anything but sheer graphical power.

@atejas said:

"Crysis was poorly optimised. It's a bad benchmark for anything but sheer graphical power."

Oh I didn't know that at all lol. Every time I hear about Crysis I always hear about the graphics and stuff like that.


@HitmanAgent47 said:

"Ppl like you who keeps buying low end stuff to save money should not play pc games. Complaining about upgrades when you are making the wrong upgrades over and over again. Just get a gtx260 core 216 from anywhere online, it's cheap and affordable, It's about $160 if you can get a mail back rebate coupon, not $300, you can play most games no problem. Also get a fast cpu or overclock it. Just get a xbox360 instead if that's what you want, more performance. I can run half life episode 2 over 80 frames to a 100 on my 9800GTX, you really need to stop complaining and start buying smart upgrades. For crysis on very high, you can only run it with two gtx260 sli or a gtx295 which is a dual gpu game and it requires vista for true very high settings, don't worry about that game, no one can really run it well regardless. "

Thanks for the brutal honesty there (not sarcasm), I guess I just got fed up with it that all. I guess I'm just afraid that if I do end up buying the more expensive upgrades then all of a sudden something better will be released and I would have to buy that in order to make the requirements.

You just have to build smart. PC gaming in comparison to console gaming can actually be less expensive over time if you're smart about it.

u need to learn what kind of upgrades u need. it sounds like u are buying things that are not as great as u think they are. i still have pentium 4, it is running great. it plays crysis on high. u should look at crysis warhead. the game is a lot more optimized then crysis. i played the trial for crysis wars and the graphics looked a lot better and ran a lot smoother then crysis.

" u need to learn what kind of upgrades u need. it sounds like u are buying things that are not as great as u think they are. i still have pentium 4, it is running great. it plays crysis on high. u should look at crysis warhead. the game is a lot more optimized then crysis. i played the trial for crysis wars and the graphics looked a lot better and ran a lot smoother then crysis. "

Here's the thing man. 3-4 years isn't really a long time. A lot of the hardcore PC gamers I know are guys in their 40s and 50s who have been waaaaay too into it for like 20 years. We're talking loading up 5.25 inch discs to play insane flight sims. Most of these guys have years and years of experience and thus know their way around a computer. That's why companies are able to get away with how incredibly obtuse the PC market is, although their ability to pull that is definitely being edged out by competition from consoles.

My advice? Start saving some money up not to upgrade, but to build your own rig. It'll cost you maximum 2/3rds what you would pay for a pre-made computer and you'll get better performance out of it than with a pre-fab since you'll probably be using higher quality parts...  Not to mention you won't load your rig down with bloatware like most big box computers. Most importantly though, you'll gain valuable experience. By the time you're done you'll know every part in your computer and you'll be able to take it apart and put it back together again, and better yet you'll be able to do that to most any modern computer. That's a valuable skill to have.

I have been playing PC games since around 2004/5 and i can agree with the fact that it can be expensive to keep upgrading your pc. But its not overly expensive if you try to future proof your system, for example i bought a really cheap procesor that just happens to be a quad core (q6600) to be exact, but it wasnt even that expensive. my motherboard is a p5k-e wifi ap premium and it was £60! the most expensive piece of hardware for me was the graphics card cuz i didnt want my games looking bad. I bought a Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 512MB. I was able to run crysis maxed out with little framerate drop, although i only have a 1280x1024 monitor.

Another understandable problem is the lack of "Good" games coming out. Im kinnda stuck with Left 4 Dead atm and some counter strike. This is making me lean more to the xbox 360 now which is a great console but i do prefer the pc for fps action games. Im not a big fan of RTS or MMO games either.