Reply to: Do you have a game console ?

[voodooflux]

Water-cooling doesn't make your PC faster.

Not by it's mere inclusion, no, but the main premise behind it is to give you the facility to increase the speed of your PC by overclocking the CPU (and other components). As you say, it's certainly not a requirement for a "kick-ass" gaming PC though.

It doesn't quite work that way. The fact each PS3 has the same graphics card/CPU/RAM means developers can optimise very specifically to that precise configuration. This level of optimization simply isn't possible for a PC where there are thousands of configuration permutations. If you look at a PS2, it's hardware specs are laughable but it's pushed far beyond what games managed on equivalent PCs.
Typically, console games continue to improve in graphical quality over time as developers learn how to really squeeze the hardware until it creaks... good old-fashioned code optimisation that we rarely see (or need) these days.

WHS

[expat]

...
Surely a game is also a creative work, in the same ilk ? Someone had to create it, someone had to give it context, inject it with drama and suspense, make it challenging, etc.
...
In fact, this is where a film falls down. It's a passive activity. Suppose you want the protagonist to take a different course of action ? You can't. You are only passively consuming the vision that the director and scriptwriters deign you consume.
...

Apart from a handful of films, I cannot recall the great majority of being anything more than eye-candy. Turn on, watch, turn off, do something else instead. It's a passive pasttime.
Whether you think Die Hard is trash or not is a moot point.

The question beckons.

Do you want to slob out with a bucket of popcorn on the sofa and watch the film, or do you want to interact and be a part of it ?
...

I take the point and thank you for putting effort into making it. But in the end we are talking a different language.

I'm probably the one with the muddy language: when I say "creative" I mean creative, communicative, containing thought and provoking thought, and intended for the purpose of provoking thought (a lot for one word I admit). So while there is no doubt that someone had to create a game, I didn't mean it in that sense.

Similarly active or passive: words will get us into a lot of trouble here.

In a literal sense, reading or watching Hamlet and pondering on the dilemma of duty and the consequences of inaction, is passive; whereas driving down to the shops is active. But it is the first that is involving and mentally productive, and lasts a lifetime of the mind; whereas the second is merely an event that, while it may demand attention at the time, is over with no consequence one hopes except the useful but temporary possession of a six-pack and a pizza.

The difference is partly a question of trying to make too few words serve: is watching a film passive? No, because the action is not what the protagonist does, it is what the viewer's mind does. And the viewer does not "want the protagonist to take a different course of action", though he may well wonder what would have happened if he did .... but that wondering takes place in the viewer's mind; and the point is not to see what happens, but to think about it. In a good film, the viewer thinks, both during and after; in a game, nothing happens except what happens.


You describe well the couch-potato attitude to films. This attitude is a stranger to me but I see why this view would make you think cinema unimportant: this kind of film is. But for me watching a film is like reading a book - well I see the problem there too - for me neither of those activities is just a way of passing the time. In fact I never do anything just to pass the time, and TBH that is what I see games as being for.

[bobhope]

I looked in my free time calendar for some space for playing console games: it was empty.

Maybe in retirement eh?

[d000hg]

No.

Water-cooling doesn't make your PC faster.

Anyway, the games consoles are quite old now.

Look, a hardware comparison for PS3 vs xbox 360:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2453

It's from 2005.

That means old.

And both have 512mb RAM for GPU and CPU together. My PC has a 8Gb for CPU and 512MB for GPU

It doesn't quite work that way. The fact each PS3 has the same graphics card/CPU/RAM means developers can optimise very specifically to that precise configuration. This level of optimization simply isn't possible for a PC where there are thousands of configuration permutations. If you look at a PS2, it's hardware specs are laughable but it's pushed far beyond what games managed on equivalent PCs.
Typically, console games continue to improve in graphical quality over time as developers learn how to really squeeze the hardware until it creaks... good old-fashioned code optimisation that we rarely see (or need) these days.

[dude69]

For a laugh I recently put together a tip-top uber-PC spec at http://pcspecialist.co.uk, choosing what looked like the fastest and top of the range of everything, and it came to around £2,800. But strangely it didn't include the option for water cooling. Wouldn't this be a requirement for a kick-ass gaming PC?

No.

Water-cooling doesn't make your PC faster.

Anyway, the games consoles are quite old now.

Look, a hardware comparison for PS3 vs xbox 360:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2453

It's from 2005.

That means old.

And both have 512mb RAM for GPU and CPU together. My PC has a 8Gb for CPU and 512MB for GPU

[d000hg]

I don't like story lines either. My interest varies between football, FPS, driving and RTS games... anything where I can play for a bit and then stop.

[minestrone]

Personally I do not want a story line, I want dropped into a game of 8 on 8 with a G3.

If anyone does not think you think in a first person shooter then they have never played one.

While you go about what you do you are working out what at least another 5 players are doing at that time.

[d000hg]

I think you missed my point entirely, but all the best in getting your 12 year old learning C# (using XNA). Sounds fune but are there any magazines you can type in 1,000 lines of code (using XNA).

Do you even know what XNA is by the way? Your idiotic sarcasm suggests not.

[d000hg]

I think you missed my point entirely, but all the best in getting your 12 year old learning C# (using XNA). Sounds fune but are there any magazines you can type in 1,000 lines of code (using XNA).

If I can learn C at 11 and start with C++ at 13, mucking about with DOS Interrupt 21 (IIRC) and VESA paged memory addressing (ugh), a smart 12-year-old can figure out C#.

And why would anyone be reading a magazine... you can get a skeleton project/app off the web and start adding code to it in a similar way, loading 3D models and so on.

[bodnobal]

You can code in C# (using XNA) on your PC, and have it run on your 360. Easy.

I think you missed my point entirely, but all the best in getting your 12 year old learning C# (using XNA). Sounds fune but are there any magazines you can type in 1,000 lines of code (using XNA).

[Board Game Geek]

Reality Hack posted : I'll bring the knackered old set to one of the river pubs. Guinness is it?

Aye, though I have been know to drink Ale on occassion, so that would seem appropriate as well.

Damn shame I missed the Xmas Do.

[realityhack]

Anytime, mate.

I'll bring the knackered old set to one of the river pubs. Guinness is it?

[Board Game Geek]

Reality Hack posted : Seriously though, prefer playing backgammon with a real, beaten up old board than on screenboard

Now that's a good game, and yes, after a barmy day by the river, in a village pub as the sun goes down, getting out the backgammon (or chess) for a friendly over a pint of your favourite is quite pleasant too.

For the more traditional games, a human opponent is far more preferable than a computer (AI) one, IMHO.

[realityhack]

BGG, as always, makes some good points. However, perhaps it's just me, but after spending all day in front of a screen, the last thing I want to be doing is coming home and - oh, wait. Gah.

Seriously though, prefer playing backgammon with a real, beaten up old board than on screen. And articulate's not a bad board game. Just never got into using computers for serious gaming.

[d000hg]

I have a Commodore 64 does that still count as a console. At least you could cut your teeth and learn programming on that thing, try that on these new Xbox and Playstation thingies.

Jeff Minter I've hear is still coding his Llamas .

You can code in C# (using XNA) on your PC, and have it run on your 360. Easy.