Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Hehe. Yeah, I pretty much got out of PC gaming just before the concept of high-performance video cards came into being. Doom and Command & Conquer didn't really care how many trillion polygons per nanosecond you could shade.

I will admit to having gone out and spent a fair bit of money on a fancy sound card after ROTT came out. Anybody remember the Gravis Ultrasound? Yeah, that card was the ****.

It's all good, though. I'd much rather trade off some graphics detail for mouse-based input. And frankly, with the resolution turned down a bit (from my system's native 1920x1200) and the detail controls set to medium, it still looks better than the first one, and plays quite smoothly


Given the number of PC-based games that I play in the average decade, I can't see myself spending any more than the bare minimum for a video card.

rmcelwee

iTrader: (1)

No $200 video cards for me. I just paid $30 for an XBox1 and $10 for a DuoX2 modchip. I've got something soldered wrong because it is not booting up correctly but it should be an easy fix (I hope). I was dying to play Black again and my other working XBox1 is hooked up as a video server and not really ready for playing games.

FWIW, here is Black (very cool game):

ThatGuy85

iTrader: (4)

Ahh. I suppose that's where you and I differ then. I do 95% of my gaming on the computer so I'm always upgrading and putting the latest and greatest into my rig. I barely ever touch my PS3.

In other news, still plowing forward in Portal 2. It gets even more hilarious as I progress. Game of the year, hands down.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

So do I. I just honestly don't play too many computer games these days. At least, apart from simple little flash games. (Crush the Castle and Hedgehog Launch don't care what kind of video card I have either.)




I've been taking it in small pieces. Trying to prolong the experience as much as possible. Just met back up with my one-eyed friend, and we're about to go down a familiar elevated corridor.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

Just beat it - the end is pretty cool. Got stuck for awhile in one of the levels - chapter 8. Apparently I wasn't trying in the right place.

99mx5

iTrader: (16)

The last console I had was a Atari 2600. I only play games on PC and prefer to use a mouse and keyboard for input as I can't stand those thumb controllers. The most expensive part of my current PC is the video card (XFX 6970).

A friend just beat Portal 2 and was pleased with the game. I may end up buying it since I played through the first one. Amazon has it for $38.

y8s

iTrader: (8)

I googled the terms mouse with ps3 and the first (news) link made me make that "hnff" noise out my nose.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Why is that, prey tell?



CHAPTER 2 SPOILER FOLLOWS

Highlight to read:

I must say, the GlaDOS dialog is really quite well-written. She had turned into a serious ******* during her slumber. One gets the feeling that she is harboring an actual grudge just from the sly verbal mistreatment alone.

END OF SPOILER


99mx5, I'm with you on the Atari 2600. Granted, the ratio of shitty games to awesome games got pretty high towards the end of its lifetime, but it's interesting to me that, so far as I can remember, that was the last system on which realtime two-player gameplay was really common until, what, the Wii?

I did have an NES after the 2600, and then a Sega genesis after that, and that was the end of my console experience.

Double Dribble. I just remembered that. Great two-player game.

Reverant

iTrader: (10)

Ludicrous gibs (give me that...). I admit I liked God Mode, but I liked Dog Mod even more...

Went from PC speaker to Adlib, Sound Blaster, to Adlib Gold, to Sound Blaster Pro, to Sound Blaster AWE32, to Sound Blaster Live. Quite the upgrade one could say.

richyvrlimited

iTrader: (1)

Creepy, that's the exact sequence of soundcards I had...

Reverant

iTrader: (10)

Its even more creepy when you add the fact that you've admitted that you are cyberstalking Joe and me...

jeff_man

iTrader: (7)

MSI 870A-G54 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
HIS Radeon HD 6950 2GB
AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2GHz
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB

~$500 every 4 or 5 years for a new pc. same as a console at release ever 5-8 years.

and i have a TOSHIBA Qosmio X505-Q8xx (not sure what model, had a q875 and the 360m video chip died so they are sending me a q890 to q899)

y8s

iTrader: (8)

"No Keyboard and Mouse Support for PS3′s Portal 2"

just the high relevance for such general search terms.

l_bader

I know it is a touch late, but here's a little trivia to answer one of Joe's earlier questions:

POTATO = PO(r)TA(l)T(w)O = Portal Two

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Well, yeah. I'd kind of accept it as an axiom that, in addition to costing more and displaying at a lower resolution, any console release of game X is inherently going to have poorer controller support than the equivalent desktop release of said game.




In all seriousness, though, I didn't realize that mouses were supported by any console games. I'm having a hard time visualizing it, for two reasons.

1: My Xbox is in the living room, and the sitting affordance in that room is a cushy sofa. Cushy sofas are not ideal mousing surfaces.

2: Do you also have a keyboard? Or does the mouse have buttons on top for walk and action commands?



I don't think any weapon in a game, either before of sense, equals the sheer awesomeness of the Drunk Missile. Nothing says "I'm fucked" like turning a corner and seeing a wave of those bad boys flying at you.


Soundcard-wise... I never had an Ad-Lib. Although I do remember having a copy of the little flexi-record (yes, RECORD) that they distributed for a while as a demo.

My first x86-class computer was a Tandy 1000HX, which had a fairly primitive three-voice sound chip (just three different beeps at once, nothing resembling actual instruments), and while it was a definite step down from the C64, some of the software companies did pretty amazing things with it. Sierra, in particular, comes to mind.

After I put together a generic 286 machine, I installed the then-new Game Blaster, which was a C/MS private-labeled by Radio Shack.

When the Sound Blaster came out, I bought one immediately. This was before "Creative Labs" existed in the US, and ordering one meant clipping the little 2" ad out of the back of Compute! magazine and mailing it to Brown-Wagh Publishing along with a cashier's check.

Then there was the SBPro, then the SB16, to which I later added the Gravis ACE (which was a wavetable-only device; it had a passthrough for the audio out of your main sound card, and the software configuration got a bit weird as games had to know to use the GUS for music but the SB for digitized audio) and after that.... I really don't remember. Good sound cards sort of became a commodity item around that time. I do remember that I hung onto that GUS right up to the point where ISA slots went away completely.

By comparison, I've never really splurged on a video card, unless you count the very first VGA card I bought, back when they were just plain expensive in general.

Bryce

iTrader: (24)

I remember back in the day I spliced a USB keyboard into my Xbox 1 and was able to type into chat on Phantasy Star Online.

PS2 has mouse and keyboard support for some games.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

The first console with mouse support that I'm aware of was the SNES.

Before you ask; yes, I had a Nintendo brand mouse on my SNES.

99mx5

iTrader: (16)

Joe, you bring up a good point about today's games. Most games these days focus on the single player element first then multi-player second. I remember many games having a coop mode. Now some games only have a single-player mode and then multi-player is added on as a patch. I hope P2 becomes a wake up call for coop game play. I still remember the good games playing coop in Quake, R6 Raven Shield, Ghost Recon. R6 Vegas 1, 2 and Serious Sam.

Portal 2 is starting to receive less than stellar reviews by PC gamers due to it being a game ported from the console version like Crysis 2. It sad to see how console games have hurt PC gaming. Games are not modded as much as before by the gaming community and PC games no longer use the extra computing/graphics power of PCs nor do they allow dedicated servers. Good thing Black Ops will have mod tools released soon. $15 for a map pack? No thanks.

As for sound cards don't forget the Aureal 3D. It was the one that completed with Sound Blaster back in the day. Too bad they were toppled like 3Dfx.

rmcelwee

iTrader: (1)

Since moving into this house I have always had at least 4 of some sort of console set up in a LAN Party type configuration. Back in the days of XBox1 there were a ton of games that supported SystemLink (XBox's version of a game that can be played over a lan). When the 360 came out they all but dropped the SystemLink option. Most games have an XBox Live component (where they can charge a monthly fee) but it is rare to find a game for the 360 where you can play co-op or deathmatch over a LAN. This probably is a non-issue for most people but when you cannot access XBox Live it is a major kink in the chain.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Yet another reason why I prefer PC-based gaming.

As I said earlier, I'm not really much of a "gamer" anymore, but it's nice to be able to pop online and explore Portal 2's co-op mode without having to subscribe to a monthly service.