Oh I said that... lasted about a month with the release of MW2... I crawled back, forgot how good PC was... is, and it shocked me like it did when I first had a decent PC to game on... shot looks good!!!!!!!

" I had a lot of trouble getting Batman to work after getting it on steam  "

" It's kinda sad that $1500 worth of computer parts only last you five years (not including the OS and the monitor). Five years ago, what you have is what every computer game was developed for. Even buying bleeding-edge computer parts today will be crap in less than half a decade. Technology is so depressing. "

B-B-But Shogun 2: Total War JUST came out!

" I'm due for a PC upgrade soon, and thankfully with my new job I can afford a great rig. The reasons, however, why I always prefer gaming on my consoles are:
 

• The constant demand on upgrading your rig. The feeling that six months after buying a brand new rig you already feel the need to buy a new one (or parts of it at least).
• I'm no idiot when it comes to setting up my PC, and I have friends that often turn to me when they need help with their computers. But sometimes the demand of knowledge on you to get a fucking game to run is ludacris.
• Comfyness of couch vs. comfyness of computer chair.
• The angry and amazingly rude PC nerds on Internet. They're 10x worse than the most rabid PS/Xbox/Nintendo fanboys out there.

 That said, when all the stars align and everything works with your PC it's a great experience. And I'm sure that the mentioned PC nerds above will tear me a new one with this post. "

I can understand both sides of the debate, but when I hear about Jeff's problems with his hew PC built by tested, I'll stick to Mac for work, consoles for gaming and lots of porn to make me blind enough not to notice PC's better graphics...

I think the problem with these older PCs is that newer games are trying to latch onto feature sets in the CPU/GPU that the hardware doesn't have, and with a lot of PC games these days, the developers don't take things like that into account, so you get a myriad of errors trying to run more current games on 4-5+ year old hardware.
 
PC gaming isn't like console gaming, it never has been.  A console is a mostly static set of hardware, there are no minimum requirements, if you have an Xbox 360, you are good to go.  I remember trying to get Lego Star Wars to work on my son's PC with a Geforce FX5200 and it would because the FX5200 didn't support a certain feature that game required.  I have a PC at home now w/ an old Via 600Mhz CPU in it that I'm going to give to a friend's daughter that won't run Minecraft at all, even with a Radeon 9250 installed, because the CPU is mising at least one hardware feature that the game requires to run.
 
PC gaming is about vigilance and a willingness to spend the cash to have the experience.  Unfortunately, the number of people able or willing to spend the money to enjoy the experience pales in comparison to the number of people willing to drop $200-$300 for a console and call it good enough.  Those of us who are carry the torch and hope for the best.

" I think the problem with these older PCs is that newer games are trying to latch onto feature sets in the CPU/GPU that the hardware doesn't have, and with a lot of PC games these days, the developers don't take things like that into account, so you get a myriad of errors trying to run more current games on 4-5+ year old hardware.  PC gaming isn't like console gaming, it never has been.  A console is a mostly static set of hardware, there are no minimum requirements, if you have an Xbox 360, you are good to go.  I remember trying to get Lego Star Wars to work on my son's PC with a Geforce FX5200 and it would because the FX5200 didn't support a certain feature that game required.  I have a PC at home now w/ an old Via 600Mhz CPU in it that I'm going to give to a friend's daughter that won't run Minecraft at all, even with a Radeon 9250 installed, because the CPU is mising at least one hardware feature that the game requires to run.  PC gaming is about vigilance and a willingness to spend the cash to have the experience.  Unfortunately, the number of people able or willing to spend the money to enjoy the experience pales in comparison to the number of people willing to drop $200-$300 for a console and call it good enough.  Those of us who are carry the torch and hope for the best. "

Oh man oh man - you picked Magicka. That game has issues. Even now it doesn't really run stable.  
 
For recent games, I haven't had many issues. It's only with indie games and old games or obscure games that you usually run into problems. The only recent game in my memory that I had trouble with was Magicka and Civ V - don't get me wrong, both are great games, but like Magicka, Civ V had problems (crashing, freezing, slowing down, urgh). 
 
I can understand the frustration - computers are finicky beasts. I'm lucky, I haven't had many issues. But some, like you, do have issues, and I wish you all the best when you decide to resume PC gaming. Have you tried Formatting? Fallout 3 for me REFUSED to work at all when I got it - I had to format my computer, at which point it worked like a charm (well, it worked as well as FO3 works, if you know what I mean). So you could try that if you've got spare time. It might fix some issues. Also, delete old games you don't plan to play. Sometimes that can fix stuff. 

" @Krakn3Dfx said:

" I think the problem with these older PCs is that newer games are trying to latch onto feature sets in the CPU/GPU that the hardware doesn't have, and with a lot of PC games these days, the developers don't take things like that into account, so you get a myriad of errors trying to run more current games on 4-5+ year old hardware.  PC gaming isn't like console gaming, it never has been.  A console is a mostly static set of hardware, there are no minimum requirements, if you have an Xbox 360, you are good to go.  I remember trying to get Lego Star Wars to work on my son's PC with a Geforce FX5200 and it would because the FX5200 didn't support a certain feature that game required.  I have a PC at home now w/ an old Via 600Mhz CPU in it that I'm going to give to a friend's daughter that won't run Minecraft at all, even with a Radeon 9250 installed, because the CPU is mising at least one hardware feature that the game requires to run.  PC gaming is about vigilance and a willingness to spend the cash to have the experience.  Unfortunately, the number of people able or willing to spend the money to enjoy the experience pales in comparison to the number of people willing to drop $200-$300 for a console and call it good enough.  Those of us who are carry the torch and hope for the best. "

I can't imagine a person with a 600Mhz comptuer running ANYTHING let alone minecraft. I bet most websites barely load on that thing. EDIT: It's slower than an iPhone! "

" I'm due for a PC upgrade soon, and thankfully with my new job I can afford a great rig. The reasons, however, why I always prefer gaming on my consoles are:
 

• The constant demand on upgrading your rig. The feeling that six months after buying a brand new rig you already feel the need to buy a new one (or parts of it at least).
• I'm no idiot when it comes to setting up my PC, and I have friends that often turn to me when they need help with their computers. But sometimes the demand of knowledge on you to get a fucking game to run is ludacris.
• Comfyness of couch vs. comfyness of computer chair.
• The angry and amazingly rude PC nerds on Internet. They're 10x worse than the most rabid PS/Xbox/Nintendo fanboys out there.

 That said, when all the stars align and everything works with your PC it's a great experience. And I'm sure that the mentioned PC nerds above will tear me a new one with this post. "

Nobody saw that article that Nvidia posted a guide on building a $600 PC to play Crysis 2? 
 
As someone who plays games on the PC, sure it takes time (to add all those amazing mods), but it's definitely worth it. 
 
Helps that a lot of LCD TVs have DVI ports and even regular monitor ports on them. You can totally game on your couch with a wireless Mouse/keyboard or 360 controller.

PC gaming is easy.
 

" @owl_of_minerva said:

" The reason PC has these problems is because of the wide variety of hardware available. It sounds like you're long overdue for an upgrade. But if you can't afford one, then yeah, I can see gaming on it being pretty frustrating. "

yeah after watching Jeff build a PC for 1500 i got all excited. i think im going to buy piece my piece over the next couple of months. 

" @PatriotsAreGod: So is trolling. It takes literally zero thought. Keep it up. "

I'm giving up for a while also.

You pull an old box out of the closet & expect it to perform after
years of neglect?  You should look at the motherboard & see if
any of the capacitors are busted & seeping shit out.  If they are
then it's time for a new mobo.
 
Just go upgrade the core.  CPU. Mobo. RAM.  Try to reuse 
everything else.  Try to get 4G RAM & plan for 8G in the future
& install Windows 7 64-bit.  I did that last fall, rebuilt the whole
box to Windows 7 64-bit, added an extra 4G of RAM recently.
And haven't changed anything else inside the machine for the
past 2 years.  And I have a shitload of working, running PC
games.  The extra 4G I added to get 8G RAM added extra
zip to loading windows in the OS & helping Firefox since Firefox
hogs so much memory when running.
 
If you upgrade the core, install a new OS, & games still fail, 
upgrade the video card.  I just get basic, run of the mill video
cards that price around $140-150 & I never have any issues.
The higher-end cards, aside from being expensive, run hotter
& are likely to have problems earlier.
 
Then after all of that, upgrade to a good flatscreen monitor.
Dell usually has some good-sized ones for $200. I got mine
last summer.
 
From my point of view, video games are a LOT less buggy
on the PC than they used to be.

GOOD
 
Get Super Street Fighter IV.  Shit is gawtlike.

I cannot disagree more. However, I will say that in order to see it my way you have to be updated fairly well with your hardware. That is expensive. Nevertheless, if you have a good gaming pc, I don't see any better way to play many games, (although some do not really play nicely on a mouse and keyboard.) I will mention FPSs and RTSs and some RPGs etc. Those work amazingly on a PC. I love playing my RTSs and Battlefield games. Consoles turned Battlefield 1942 into 1943, and BF2 into BFBC1+2. If you've played 1942 and Battlefield 2 and then moved on to Bad Company then you'll likely understand. What a shame that 1943 didn't even come out on PC but I wouldn't really want that particular game as a sequel to 1942. Anyway, I love my PC gaming, and I hope Battlefield 3 comes back to basics. I had an xbox, then a PS3 and Wii, then a 360, and finally I came to what I had been looking for. The console way is definately cheaper. PC gaming is great if you get the proper set-up. Long rant anyway, but if you had a good PC I'm certain that you would be happy. I know I wasn't until recently. Anyway, console gaming is good too, but I really hope PC gaming isn't going away ever. 
 
Quote Jackel2072  - I am DONE with PC gaming for a while 
--> I'm just starting with PC gaming... hopefully for a long while.