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Recommendation to the op: Do NOT buy a "Gaming laptop" This is covered under the umbrella of "Don't buy prebuilts" but I think it requires special mention because people are easily swindled by them. 1. Gaming laptops are expensive. Seriously expensive. Because building one yourself is basically out of the question you're at the mercy of Dell, Alienware, etc. to make it for you and they will absolutely gouge you. You'll spend twice as much on a laptop of the same power as a desktop, possibly more. 2. They are not any more convenient than a desktop. Because you're compressing all those parts into little space they heat up extremely quickly. In the short term this means you can only play games for brief periods of time compared to desktops, in the long term it can actually damage the parts. You also have to remain plugged in at all times because the battery life is going to be absolute poo poo when you play games so the portability goes out the window. 3. Lack of support. Most of the time, portable versions of hardware (Graphics cards, processor, et al)are the same as their desktop counterparts. There are times this doesn't apply though and it can seriously suck in those cases. Best example is that drivers for desktop graphics cards do not work on the laptop versions without some jury rigging. This means if a driver comes out for the desktop version of your graphics card that fixes some game issues you're poo poo out of luck till its made available for your laptop version. Seriously I repeat, do not buy gaming laptops there is almost no good reason for it. Even if you're a student who needs a laptop for school. Get a kick rear end desktop and a cheap notebook, you'll spend less for 2 items than you will for 1. This is from personal experience.
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Dec 19, 2010 10:41
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Charles Martel posted:I didn't know about there being separate drivers for desktop hardware and laptop hardware. You gave an example of video card drivers...is it more prominent in Nvidia or ATI cards, or both? ATI, admittedly. http://www.hardwareheaven.com/modtool.php This is a solution but I never got it working right, it does mean another pointless step though.
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Dec 19, 2010 11:37
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For the record I own a gaming laptop and a rather pricey one, and I dont regret it but I feel I'm one of the few cases where it works out. I'm going overseas pretty soon and wont be back in the states for a few years, but wanted to play some games with good replay value to keep me occupied. So a desktop wasn't in the cards. When I come back I'm buying one though, straight up.
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Dec 19, 2010 13:16
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Kilometers Davis posted:I think the main point is that unless you absolutely can not use a desktop, don't get a laptop. They're fine but not a good investment in any way. Yeah basically. I'm sure theres a scant few who can justify it but if you just want convienance, a desktop+cheap notebook is the way to go. A gaming laptop is only if the desktop part is 100% impossible.
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Dec 19, 2010 13:21
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I should clarify I put gaming laptop in quotes because I'm warning against ones advocated as such. So far everyone has given their counter-argument using laptops good enough to play games but are not sold as "Gaming laptops". If you can find a good priced one that can play games moderately well, that's fine. Just dont get roped in by alienware because the idea of playing crysis maxed out in the car gives you a boner, it wont be that good.
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Dec 19, 2010 19:52
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Funso Banjo posted:No-one answered this, and I am wondering the same thing. I'd like to think someone puts Pokemon stickers on theirs.
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Dec 19, 2010 20:01
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Frostillicus posted:I'm going to disagree with you here, but it's partly because of my personal situation. I have a job that requires a lot of travel, and I spend tons of time in hotels during the work week. I bought an Asus G73 gaming laptop almost a year ago, and I get a ton of use out of it. I would definitely prefer to be at home gaming on my desktop which is more powerful and cost less, but I can't take it with me on the road. We discussed this at length already. There's some very few individuals who it works for, I'm even one of them, I didn't literally mean it to be all encompassing. Just if you have desk space and you're at home for the most part, don't buy one, it's not worth it.
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Dec 24, 2010 19:47
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SwissCM posted:Just get a wired XBOX 360 controller. Another option is a bluetooth adaptor and a PS3 controller if you prefer that type. Dont absolutely need the adapter. I use the USB cable and it works just fine. The 360 controller is the default for most people who dont have one though. All games for windows live games automatically support it and will automap the controls and put the icons in the game instead of generic button icons. Lot of non-GFWL games are doing this now too like Super Meat Boy.
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Dec 26, 2010 05:27
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Most first/third person shooters are still going to be mouse and keyboard centric. And luck would have it thats most of the primary market right now.
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Dec 26, 2010 21:42
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Samurai Sanders posted:Oh, I knew that vsync influenced framerate but I didn't know it led to input lag. I see that the input on some others of my games improved too when I turned it off. Tying mouse speed to FPS is generally a sign of bad programming. Dead Space is just a particularly bad example.
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Jan 5, 2011 10:53
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Civ 4 should run wonderfully and it's an awesome game. Just note that only the Beyond the Sword expansion is worth playing. It contained everything worthwhile in the 2nd expansion (Warlords). Boot the vanilla game up once to try the tutorial since it has some helpful advice but after that just play beyond the sword.
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Jan 8, 2011 06:12
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Civ 5 will probably work since its not a real time game but frankly it's not as good as 4, and I'm one of the game's bigger apologists. Get 4 now, wait for 5 to get cheaper and possibly patched better.
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Jan 8, 2011 06:50
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Node posted:Civ 4 is probably going to be the best history 4x for the rest of time. It could certainly get a lot better, but I don't think video games are headed that direction any more. Buy Civ 4 BTS and treasure it forever. Oh come on.
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Jan 8, 2011 07:31
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It's one of many aspects. In Civ 4 there's 5 kinds of victories. cConquest (Through sheer military power defeat everyone else), domination (occupy most of the world's land mass and population), cultural (create a lot of art and monuments), diplomacy (become head of the UN by making a lot of friends), Space (be the first to create a rocket and go into space), plus a generic time victory for having the highest score in 2050, which is sort of like a "wild card". Even if you're going for a non-combative victory you still need to have a standing army because your neighbors might not be so kind, but keeping a defensive position is a lot easier than offensive. RagnarokAngel fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Jan 8, 2011 |
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Jan 8, 2011 08:14
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spasticColon posted:The Civ 5 demo keeps crashing on me whether or not I skip the intro movie after the Steam overlay pops up with a message and after that the demo locks up. I'm downloading the Civ 4 BTS demo right now though so I'll give that a try. Why don't they sell the Civ 4 complete edition on Steam or did I miss it? They do: http://store.steampowered.com/sub/4323/
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Jan 8, 2011 20:05
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spasticColon posted:Haha. That would be hilarious if the game designers put that in the game later on. There's a lot of good ones. Galactic Civilizations II is a good space one. I'm sure people can name others but Civ 4 is best to start, it's accessible without being too simple.
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Jan 11, 2011 05:34
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Chortles posted:Oh, consoles Erm unless im reading this wrong it's just some service rep lost his cool and said they "could do it" if people didnt stop bitching, not anyone in authority?
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Jan 19, 2011 07:43
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Samurai Sanders posted:I'm finally just going to ask this here and drat the consequences: I just put a book down and lay the mouse pad on that.
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Jan 23, 2011 01:57
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Samurai Sanders posted:Oh, both of those involve sitting up straight. The whole idea of a sofa is that I am lounging sideways. If I wanted to sit up straight, sitting at my desk would be the same thing and there wouldn't be any advantage to the sofa. I lie on my bed personally. Always worked for me.
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Jan 23, 2011 07:03
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Starhawk64 posted:Some people pirate games just to see if they can run on their This still isn't a good reason to do it.
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Jan 24, 2011 07:20
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spasticColon posted:Are there any good games out right now that take true advantage of DirectX 11 video cards? How recent? Because Metro 2033 is the best one I can think of.
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Jan 24, 2011 07:33
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Chortles posted:It doesn't help that in order to keep the demo as a viable marketing tool, they might have to patch the demo with any improvements in the full game. If I recall correctly, Bohemia Interactive Studios has never bothered to patch the ARMA II demo despite all the changes and attempted improvements in the full game, so I don't consider it that great of a selling tool for ARMA... Bingo. Saying they have to do "more work" like they're being crybabies is really underselling it because game development is already a very intense process that leaves little wiggle room to mess around, especially come crunch time. Developing a demo is like designing a second, smaller game at the same time, that takes manpower away from the game. You can't just finish the game then strip out the first level and call it a demo it doesn't work like that. You have to develop the demo concurrently and keep it updated as the main game goes.
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Jan 25, 2011 08:19
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MurraneousX posted:That's why you label it a tech demo, put your sunglasses on, lay back, then just tap the sign whenever someone raises an issue. "Tech demo baby, deal with it" Consoles aren't getting noteworthy demos any more than PC does anymore as much as it may seem like it. This has been an issue across the board.
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Jan 25, 2011 18:08
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One example doesn't prove an entire trend.
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Jan 25, 2011 18:19
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ReV VAdAUL posted:MS benefit greatly from killing off PC gaming because it means more profit for the 360. I'm sure Games for Windows Live was deliberately made crappy so as to make consoles seem the better option and then they got blindsided by Steam. Haha are you crazy?
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Jan 26, 2011 19:57
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Okonner posted:What, exactly, does this sentence even mean? Used sales. You havent been able to sell PC games through outlets like gamestop for a while since the shakiness of stuff like serial keys. Console games are moving there with their "buy new to get this dlc" system.
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Jan 26, 2011 20:10
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World of Goo figured out pirates by looking at the leaderboards. There were way more people on the boards than those who ever bought it combined. It was something obscene like 80% would have to have pirated it to get the number of people on the leaderboard. Another example of bad pirating is the first Humble Indie Bundle. A full third of the downloads were from people who got the download link from other people who did pay. Now you can argue you "ask" for this sort of thing by doing that but it's not much different from having no DRM. In fact, the humble indie bundle was a perfect storm that refuted all the major justifications of pirating. 1.You could pay what you wanted, even .01, so it wasn't too expensive. 2.There was no DRM on any of these games. 3.Many of them did have demos to try it first if for some reason .01 was just way too much for 5 well regarded indie games. And yet? People pirated it. I'm not justifying intrusive DRM, it's not the right way to deal with it, but I can see why companies feel they "have to".
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Jan 27, 2011 03:29
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Because it's tradition doesn't mean its right. Crimes of all kinds have existed since the dawn of man (in this case it's basically theft, just a specialized kind of theft), and yet we still punish people for crimes, or at least evaluate what causes crimes in a social context to attempt to deal with them.
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Jan 27, 2011 03:33
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You didn't, I'm just not sure what your point is. Theft is theft. I'm sure no legitimately good game has failed solely due to piracy but it's still a lovely thing for a developer to deal with.
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Jan 27, 2011 03:34
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Sorry just trying to not "edit my post 3 times before I say what I wanted to say". Basically what I'm trying to ask is what is your suggestion on dealing with piracy? Don't and let it happen because it isn't that bad and is unavoidable? I mean this seriously isn't trying to be a dick and exaggerate your point I'm genuinely asking for your input on the situation.
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Jan 27, 2011 03:41
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Well the fact that it was a charity thing made donating so little you basically got it for free kind of a dick move in the first place.
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Jan 27, 2011 03:43
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Yes but it's still understandable why publishers don't want their stuff given for free. Like I already stated, world of goo had an obscene piracy rate. A lot of people bought it. It was a "success" but there's still that nagging feeling that the majority of the people got it for free. Sure, not all of these people would buy it if they weren't given an option. Hell, maybe most wouldn't. But SOME of those are lost sales. Not all games that are wildly pirated are so bad they "deserved it". I'm NOT defending lovely DRM practices. Stuff like ubisoft's methods are ineffective and screw the legitimate consumer over. What I'm saying is there is another way. I don't know what it is but I think it exists.
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Jan 27, 2011 03:51
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I don't want to stretch this out any further because DRM/piracy discussion can kill any thread so let's all post one last thing and be done with it, because while I see everyone's points, there's no changing it. Axemaniac basically summed up my feelings better than I could. It's not really about HOW MUCH piracy affects sales, it's just that I think it's a given someone should be paid for their work. Software sort of is this weird gray area because you're not "stealing" it as much as copying it for free, but it gives the same net gain to the pirate. It's just a dick move is how I feel, to sum it up. Cardboard Fox posted:There's not really much a publisher or a developer can do. Any DRM system can and will be cracked considering the only thing needed is time. The only system that can stop piracy is stream based gaming. There's no way you can pirate an input stream(unless I'm somehow wrong?). I see the future of gaming becoming more like Netflix, a closed system where the publisher will sell their product at the price they want and never have to worry about used game sales and piracy. This is a really insightful argument about DRM done by a developer of Spyro 3. Rather than try and make an "uncrackable DRM" they made one that was a pain in the rear end to crack and yet didn't affect the user in any way. This way it made a crack take months before it finally came out. By then anyone with even a passing interest in the game had just bought it to save themselves a hassle. I think it's really interesting and a potentially positive way to handle the issue.
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Jan 27, 2011 04:08
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X-Fi: makes the song literally better than what it was recorded at.
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Jan 30, 2011 10:06
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Bloody Hedgehog posted:I know, I don't get this. I think people only compare the two because they were made by eastern europeans. And are post-nuclear scenerios. But yeah again, nothing alike aside from being shooters.
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Jan 30, 2011 12:22
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Kilometers Davis posted:Not pictured: Vinyl towering over everything Games should come on vinyl.
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Jan 30, 2011 20:36
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Amrosorma posted:We do? What is this golden ear bullshit? The idea that you can hear distinctive sound changes and differences that "normies" can't.
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Jan 31, 2011 19:26
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Samurai Sanders posted:If you're a sound engineer, aren't you making a product that is FOR the "normies"? Try telling them that.
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Jan 31, 2011 19:47
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Amrosorma posted:No, the thing that makes us different from "normies" is our musical training gives us the vocabulary to discuss what's going on in more specific and productive terms than "this sounds good" and "this sounds bad". Whoa dude relax I wasn't talking about all of them. See there's audio engineers and then theres... Edit: Seriously did I like insult your religion, race or creed here? This is a pretty strong reaction. RagnarokAngel fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jan 31, 2011 |
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Jan 31, 2011 20:16
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Perhaps you read too much into what I said.
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Jan 31, 2011 21:02
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