Discussion What's your favourite video game you've been playing?

Page 22 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar


Welcome to the wonderful world of PC gaming. We need more testimonials like this to clear the air for those hesitant to jump in.

Like you said, upgrading isn't that hard to afford, esp once you factor in how much you save on games. Often times PC games can be had for $45 or less at launch, and then there's Steam sales. Over a 3 year period you can easily save enough for upgrades just on the difference in what you would have spent on console games, and with consoles, they stagnate over their long life cycle, vs refreshing your tech on PC.

 



It's not bad, but has way less perks, no Health vs Armor choices, and thus no lock picking or hacking, so less replay value.

Since it's intended as an expansion vs full game and is priced very well for the amount of gameplay it has though, it's an outstanding value. I thought it was a bit too easy to play though, and was disappointed the hardest mode was one life, vs one hit death like Akumu in The Evil Within.
 


I can't even remember playing the old ones( I think I had return ), and I honestly don't play alot of fps, as I have no intention of playing it again ( playing on normal, in it for the story, killing the things) It was totally worth the price, the game is beautiful. Im glad it doesn't have to much in the way of a perks system as Im also playing Witcher 3 and that has all the choices. Enjoying the ride.

Am looking to pick up The Evil Within after I cut down my backlog a bit.
 
I can cut down one game from my backlog now. Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Finished it on Normal difficulty. Great game. Really looking forward to Mankind Divided.

I don't think I'll ever be playing the Evil Within. Horror games aren't of my taste. I've played Amnesia: The dark descent, back when it was released in 2010, but I never got around to finishing it because it was just too scary for me. lol

 


Let's be honest here. You aren't actually "saving" money though, are you? LOL. People have games in their account that they bought on sale but probably have never played. 😀
 
"Honest"? Sounds like BS to me.:sarcastic:

Actually most avid gamers that go to the extent of chatting about games on public forums are the type that play and finish all the games they buy. I now and then see threads by a few players asking if anyone doesn't finish a lot of games they buy, and not many fall into that category.

Furthermore, many that buy them on sale on Steam wait quite a while to play them and if anything are MORE anxious to play them when they finally get a good price on them.

You're always going to find some players that due to time constraints or being dissatisfied with certain games will play them a bit then shelve them, but that happens just as much if not more with those paying full price as those buying them on sale. Either way though, if you give up on a game having bought it on sale vs full price, you're losing less money.

You make it sound like people buying PC games on sale are mostly buying titles they wouldn't normally, but that is not the case. Usually they're waiting not just for price drops on games they know they want even before launch, but may also be waiting for proper patching, DLC, or complete editions at bargain pricing.

PC players can get better pricing, but I think they're also smarter about how they buy their games. Console players often preorder, buy at full price at or shortly after release, or even impulse buy certain titles they're not sure they will like just to justify owning a platform with limited exclusives.

Anyways, back on topic. Looks like what I WON'T be playing for a while is Batman: Arkham Knight, which appears to be given a crappy PC port job by a 3rd party team. Shame on your Rocksteady. This is a good example of a game that is better purchased at bargain bin pricing, and hopefully after some MUCH needed performance patching.

 
Arkham Knight has currently got a 5/10 from steam user reviews. I was really hoping it'd be a great port. 30 FPS cap? Really?
Why do the devs overlook the PC platform? At least it's reassuring to know that they'll fix it soon enough.
 


The shocking thing to me, is it was ported by Iron Galaxy, same team credited for Arkham Origins, and even Bioshock Infinite, according to Wiki.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Galaxy_Studios#Games_developed

It's easy to raise the FPS cap in the ini file, but it doesn't do a whole lot of good when on even powerful spec you're dipping to low to mid 20s FPS when driving or gliding.

One person claimed he got better performance on Dx10. Some think they are reverting to Dx10 (or 9 in Arkham City) merely by turning off Dx11 features in the menu, but really, you're not.

You need to go to the BmSystemSettings.ini in the game directory and change AllowD3D10=False, to AllowD3D10=True. Optionally in Arkham City you could use a -d3d9 launch option, which might work here as well, but with -d3d10.

In a way, we shouldn't be surprised. Even the Rocksteady developed Arkham City had most PC players using Dx9 vs Dx11, and although most devs have learned by now how to work with Dx11 better, this is a larger game world and ported by a small team.

So until they issue a proper PC patch people, try playing on Dx10. You never know, that kind of fix may never come, or come with severe compromises anyway. I've checked the ini files thoroughly and I noticed the default Detail Mode is 2. I played Dishonored at Detail Mode 5, and it ran just fine.

 
Yes, I saw the workaround bit. Simple task but the cap shouldn't have been there in the first place.

I remember playing Arkham City in DX9 instead of DX11. I never tried DX11 to be honest, as I heard of the performance issues.

I don't have the Arkham Knight yet, but I'd really like to play it soon. But as of it's current form, I'm staying away for now.




 


Detail Mode can take on values 0,1 and 2 unless the developer edited the Unreal Engine files which is unlikely. So basically any value above 2 is considered as 2. It's related to rendering of meshes and collision volumes. 2 means that all meshes and collision volumes will be rendered.
 


I've had to come up with a system to avoid this.
In last year's summer sale I bought Batman together with a bunch of other stuff. But the other stuff came later in the sale and I was more excited about it. With my schedule it meant at least 2 month before I was done with the other stuff and in that time I'd forgotten about Batman. It was also one of 30+ games I had installed, so it didn't stand out in any way when glancing at my list.
Then the winter sale came about and I noticed that shiny Batman game, but gasp, it was already in my library.
So now I actually uninstall local content and use those custom catagories. Just so I don't end up waiting for a game I want to play I've already bought but whose excistence I just forgot about.
And I need it too. The steam sale ended 3 days ago? And I got metro, homeworld, Don't starve together (which I don't need to remember coz my wife will remind me) and . . . and . . .
Balls.
It's installed and catagorized as "steam summer sale 2015" and "unplayed". 2 months from now when I'm done with homeworld, the two metros (and uninstalled local content) and another season of SC2 I'll see what it was I forgot.

I've got games that came with bundles that I've only ever opened and then never started again. From my last humble bundle I finished Shadow warrior and played unepic. The rest is rotting in my steam library (except the TIM game which I gave to my wife)

But that's just my personal condition. I don't doubt there's people out there that buy games and end up not playing them. Don't know if there's a lot of them though (relatively speaking).

There is a list of games I've played for less than 3 hours though. It's euhm . . . probably longer than it would have been without the steam sales.
 


I guess we will have to disagree. I think people will see a game for $5 and think "oh it's only $5. I think I'll try it". Then they play it for less than however many hours and it will sit in their library forever.

I am not arguing the fact that pc players get better pricing than consoles. That is a fact. But my point is that if the game was not on sale, would you buy it? If the answer is no, then you really aren't saving money and it doesn't matter if it is $5 or $60.



This is exactly my point.

But anyways, I bought my first PC last week and Arkham Knight came with the graphics card. I played about 3 hours yesterday and didn't notice any glitches, bugs, frame-rate drops or any other stuttering.
 


Setting it higher than 2 does make a difference. Whether you realize it or not, I don't care. I am going by what my own eyes have seen, and it wasn't a placebo effect.



That is a generalization making it sound like all Steam sale shoppers only buy on impulse, vs mainstream titles they've been waiting to drop in price. It's more the exception than the norm. It's more likely they will make small addon purchases like that to their main shopping goals.

The next paragraphs makes your argument even more baseless, because you contradict yourself. You admit up front PC games are priced better, yet end saying you still aren't saving any money PC gaming vs console gaming.

And it matters not whether one always only buys sale or reduced price titles, you're still getting more games for the same amount of money. And that's without even factoring in the added $10 players pay for console titles because the devs pay a licensing fee to even be able to make titles for such crap platforms.

The only thing that's making console look good lately is a mere illusion, it's called platform parity, and it happens via sabotage or neglect of the PC ports to make the simultaneous release console version look equal or even better. In fact it's happening a LOT lately because consoles this gen have a week list of exclusives, and devs are finding the hardware underwhelming in power.



 


I know UDK so I'm telling you from the development perspective that it doesn't make a difference. It's very unlikely for the developer to change the Unreal Engine's core code.

 
@ Someone Somewhere,
What good does it do to read/quote a sentence if you don't even put it in context? He was making it sound like ANY sale purchases were impulse atypical titles that don't get played. I stated they're more likely small addons to main purchases of mainstream titles that drop in price. BIG difference.

@chimera,
I can only go by what I've seen. Try doing such an edit in Dishonored. Provided your vision is halfway good, you should be able to see the differences. I have also mentioned it to others whom have tried it and noticed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom