Why are we putting up with such crazy system requirements?

[shapedsilver]

Okay, so I just bought a laptop, a fairly expensive laptop, like, several times as expensive as a PS4, in the hopes that it would be able to play any game with no problems. It has 16BG RAM, 4GB VRAM, I7-6700HQ Processor, which are common specs for a gaming laptop around $1000. So, then, why is it that not only can I not play the really demanding games, like Witcher 3, but apparently no one who bought a gaming laptop for less than $1500 can. Why do we put up with this?
If I wasn't going to college, I might have gotten a desktop, which I know are more easily upgraded, but I am not going to have room for a desk in my dorm. And even if I did, would I really want to spend money on a new GPU or CPU every couple of years? Probably not.
I know that developers want to make the best looking and best playing games possible, but I highly doubt that if Dying Light was programmed better it would take 16GB of RAM to run. I don't see how PC gaming is better than console gaming if we have to fork over ridiculous sums of money just to keep up (and I realize that PC gaming has other advantages, but that's beside the point).
I just really think that we're being taken advantage of, and that we (PC gamers) shouldn't have to put up with this. Does anyone have an answer/argument to this?
(P.S. I know that I can overclock my CPU or GPU, but that's still not a guarantee, and I'd have to but external fans, and it won't be long till my overclocked CPU is out of date too, whereas with a console, if the game's label matches the machine's logo, you know it works. And they only update hardware to the point where you have to buy a new one every 5-7 years, not every 2-3 years.)

 

[KKAW]

Okay, so I just bought a laptop, a fairly expensive laptop, like, several times as expensive as a PS4, in the hopes that it would be able to play any game with no problems. It has 16BG RAM, 4GB VRAM, I7-6700HQ Processor, which are common specs for a gaming laptop around $1000. So, then, why is it that not only can I not play the really demanding games, like Witcher 3, but apparently no one who bought a gaming laptop for less than $1500 can. Why do we put up with this?
If I wasn't going to college, I might have gotten a desktop, which I know are more easily upgraded, but I am not going to have room for a desk in my dorm. And even if I did, would I really want to spend money on a new GPU or CPU every couple of years? Probably not.
I know that developers want to make the best looking and best playing games possible, but I highly doubt that if Dying Light was programmed better it would take 16GB of RAM to run. I don't see how PC gaming is better than console gaming if we have to fork over ridiculous sums of money just to keep up (and I realize that PC gaming has other advantages, but that's beside the point).
I just really think that we're being taken advantage of, and that we (PC gamers) shouldn't have to put up with this. Does anyone have an answer/argument to this?
(P.S. I know that I can overclock my CPU or GPU, but that's still not a guarantee, and I'd have to but external fans, and it won't be long till my overclocked CPU is out of date too, whereas with a console, if the game's label matches the machine's logo, you know it works. And they only update hardware to the point where you have to buy a new one every 5-7 years, not every 2-3 years.)

Laptops will always have a very poor price : performance range.
For example the GTX 960M will perform no where near as good a desktop GTX 960.

 

[4745454b]

And "4GB VRAM" doesn't mean anything. It could be a really weak GPU and 4GBs is just marketing.

Consoles might run X86/X64 hardware now, but they are still running Linux based OS's. Or I guess Xbox One is onto windows now. Games are coded to run on that hardware, and tricks need to be used to run on a PC. I suspect as consoles are moved more towards PC type devices that games will run better and better. But realize also PCs can do more. When GTA4 came out the consoles didn't even run it at 720. Or rather one of them ran it at 720 with reduced details while the other ran it at 68x with full details. On a PC when you run GTA4, do you run it at 720 or 1080? What are your detail settings? I'd bet when you compare consoles to PC, the PC is doing way more.

 

[clonazepam]

That laptop's probably good enough for your average first person shooters like Star Wars Battlefront. My nephew's in college and plays that on his iMac. For mobile, that's a pretty low price point, so no, I wouldn't expect any of the really CPU and GPU intensive games to run great.

Gamers in general are consuming media at ever faster rates while at the same time demanding more and more complexity. While I loved me some Quake II / Hexen II and others like them, they just don't do it for me these days.

You should be able to find plenty of titles that'll run decently, just don't expect a lot from the latest and greatest. If you really feel like you have to have the latest and greatest, then maybe think about why.

I still play the hell out of Dark Souls I, and now Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen (old but sorta new now on PC).

 

[gamerk316]

And "4GB VRAM" doesn't mean anything. It could be a really weak GPU and 4GBs is just marketing.

Consoles might run X86/X64 hardware now, but they are still running Linux based OS's. Or I guess Xbox One is onto windows now. Games are coded to run on that hardware, and tricks need to be used to run on a PC. I suspect as consoles are moved more towards PC type devices that games will run better and better. But realize also PCs can do more. When GTA4 came out the consoles didn't even run it at 720. Or rather one of them ran it at 720 with reduced details while the other ran it at 68x with full details. On a PC when you run GTA4, do you run it at 720 or 1080? What are your detail settings? I'd bet when you compare consoles to PC, the PC is doing way more.

When you write software for an embedded system, you can do a LOT of things to improve performance that you can't do on a multitasking OS like Windows. This is nothing new. Consoles are also typically targeting 720p/900p @ 30 FPS these days, with the equivalent of low-medium graphical settings. And guess what? $500 PCs can handle that configuration no sweat.

Laptops have to deal with thermal issues causing reduced performance, poor drivers, and lower performing hardware compared to the equivalent desktop counterpart. Laptops are simply poor choices as far as price/performance goes.

 

[James Mason]

You clearly don't understand the hardware specs is why.

What you said is the equivalent of "I bought an 18 wheeler but I can't go as fast on the road as those honda civic, wtf?"