Years ago, during the days of Rainbow Six Rogue Spear and Raven Shield I was a hardcore PC gamer when Xbox came out this just died for me.
Lately I’ve been thinking what it would look like for me if I were to give PC gaming a shot again and potentially replace my console gaming, Xbox in this case. One of the reasons I would consider it is because we’re so early into this gen and we’re already seeing concessions with some games.
Cyberpunk with raytracing, but it’s nowhere near close to what PC can achieve and it’s also at 30fps. Dying Light 2, 1080p/60fps or dynamic 4K/60 and higher with VRR. Long story short, this is starting to become a little annoying, unavoidable with consoles but it makes me wonder how future games only for the hardware will look. With PC, granted you have a powerful enough one you can just do more. So …
Back in the days installing a game and play it wasn’t that easy. I remember plenty of games not running great even though I had the best videocard, RAM etc at the time. How is this nowadays? Still some hassle here and there or a lot better?
Every Xbox exclusive comes to PC Game Pass day one, right? But the games that come to Xbox Game Pass…are they for PC too?
What would it cost me to run something like Cyberpunk with full raytracing effects, much higher settings than XSX overall? Just for any of the big games nowadays really.
Is there any telling for how long it will last me until I have to start consider buying a new videocard or even a totally new PC because the motherboard is just not supporting newer videocards etc anymore?
Anyone here that made this decision? If yes, was it a good decision or are you back at console gaming?
I would hook a pc up to my OLED C9 via HDMI. Find a good place to put the pc and mostly use controller since that’s just most comfortable when on the couch.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not even close to making this decision yet, but I’m just brainstorming I guess. Last but not least…
Sometimes there are third party games that are console only or PC only. Normally driven by whether a Windows Store version exists. Destiny came late to PC, Outriders didn’t come to PC (or did much later) and so on.
I was a PC gamer during the last gen from 2013 to coming back when Series X launched. There’s quite a few ups and downs really;
Pros:
Performance is better if you’re willing to spend the cash
Mods are great, far better than limited opportunities in for that on console
Multiplayer being free
Games are usually cheaper, particularly on Steam (excluding the Xbox games that is) but game pass is there on the xbox app anyway
Cons
Price for performance isn’t great, the money I sold my gaming PC for paid for a Series X and a Switch so it’s really a decision on if you’ve got the expendable cash
Cheating is big on PC, alot of pc players will deny it and say ‘git gud’ but I experienced it considerably especially with EAs games.
Controller could be a con if you don’t like using keyboard/mouse.
But overall, you won’t need to upgrade that often depending on how much you spend initially. Worth saying that 4k needs a good video card, consoles run with lower settings in 4k to compensate.
PCs work better than they use too and both steam and xbox app make installation and running fairly simple.
I came back because I found it wasn’t as simple as consoles, I didn’t like the PC needing a huge 600w of power when the powerful consoles barely reach half of that and I wanted more of a unified social experience.
I recently (2019) made the switch from primarily console gaming to PC, but have since returned to console gaming in summer '21 by getting an XSS and ultimately upgradeing to an XSX. If money was no option, sure go for it. But the fact that you’re asking ‘What would it cost me…’, quite frankly the answer is too much. I have no idea what the actual number would be, but I’m guessing to beat the Series X in any meaningful way you’d have to spend $2000 USD easy in the current market and to ‘…run something like Cyberpunk with full raytracing effects, much higher settings than XSX overall?’ probably closer to $3k. PC gaming is (pricing excluded) more accessible than it ever has been, but honestly I can’t see a time where it will ever beat consoles for ease of use and convenience. That said I still have the privilege of my PC to fall back on when I need to so take what I say with a grain of salt. One thing I do miss most about consoles is the ability to cheat (not multiplayer). I hate difficult games, so the ease of running a trainer or hacking the save was always nice. Play Anywhere is great for transferring a save to PC, hacking my save and then transferring back to Xbox.
I made the journey the other way around, from PC to console and it’s such a relief. Console is much, much cheaper and It Just Works™. I also find the PC community filled with elitists, cheaters and neckbeards and that’s not for me.
this is absolutely ludicrous I’m sorry, I don’t know why people pull out numbers like this from nowhere.
Series X is at an RTX 2070 level. An entry level 3rd gen RTX graphic card like 3060 will walk circles around the new consoles (barring the few additional gigs of memory that the consoles have for 4k) and that costs 400 dollars, and that’s right now in the horrible mess that pc market is in. The rest of the rig can be built in the remaining 600 to 700 dollars. 300 dollars for an equivalent cpu, and the remaining for stuff like the motherboard and storage and power supply.
At max you need 1k-1.2k dollars to make a pc that is faaar better than the consoles (and that 1k will become like 800 or so in a few years, when an outdated 3rd series will still be more powerful than the consoles). Sure that’s still double the cost of the new consoles, but it’s nowhere hyperbolic like 2000 USD or more. If you don’t have monitor, then that’s another 200 to 250 dollars for a great 144hz 1440p panel.
We’re not trying to match consoles, we’re trying to beat them. Which is why I said ‘but I’m guessing to beat the Series X in any meaningful way’, which you so helpfully cut out of your quote. Also I feel like even a 2070 Super machine would be tough to fit into a $1200 budget unless you’re buying used in one of the big metro areas.
Another downside for me would be that I like the ease of use of just turning my console on with the controller while I already have my lazy ass on the couch and from there I can join friends in a party and all that. With PC and my living room setup it would be more of a hassle. I’d have to use the mouse to join a party or browse steam or Game Pass. Or can all that be done with controller too?
I didn’t cut it out, cuz an entry level 3rd gen RTX does beat the console in several meaningful ways. If you consider the other parts, the only other expensive one that is in the way is a pcie gen 4 SSD and that I agree is just a cost one would have to bear even on pc if they want that speed. But you can get by without need for that with lesser speed or capacity, the flexibility will come in as per your requirement.
20 series got destroyed by Nvidia themselves with the release of the 3rd gen. They had clearly rushed that gen out to basically drive the market in a direction they wanted, shifting the paradigm to RT and machine learning focus, which they got significantly better in the 3rd gen cards and others are still catching up on. No one is buying 20 series anymore, just that the current gpu market is a mess and everything is overpriced and stock hard to come by because cryptobros have taken over for their mining farms so people are having to settle.
I would definitely say right now is possibly the worst time to build a pc and it personally sucks because I’ve been planning an upgrade and it’s just hopeless at the moment.
Controllers can be kind of a shitshow on PC. If you stick with Steam you’re probably fine, or with an Xbox controller (which to be fair most people on this forum would be). DS4 support is all over the place, but can be helped by things like DS4Windows (but Steam Input and that don’t always get along nicely). If I remember correctly Steam can also fuck with support for Xbox controllers for games not launched from Steam. In my opinion Steam does too much. I get they’re trying to compete with consoles, but it would nice if they acted more like a good citizen of the PC ecosystem instead of lord and ruler of it.
I use a third party 360 controller and fortunately haven’t had any issues till now. I do agree playstation controller support is a bit of a miss and wish it could better. I feel Sony should also do something about supporting that more, rather than us having to rely on some random dev on pc managing and updating drivers for that. Now that they’re more serious about pc, they could devote resources to that.
There was one time where steam tried to do some weird shenanigans with the controller yeah, but I went in and disabled some shit and it’s been chill since.
As for using controller with steam and Game Pass, I can just use that there, right? But as for Windows desktop and such, I will always need the mouse for that, right or can I even use controller for that? Trying to get a potential PC situation the closest to the ease of use of consoles as possible.
I was playing RDR2 yesterday and couldn’t help but think to myself…I could play this beauty in 60fps on PC if I had a good enough one.
I’m a PC Gamer and i always been. I also had xbox360 and PS4 but PC Is the best platform in anyway. Yes, it’s more expensive but playing with the maximum of settings at 4k resolution (thanks DLLS) and moreof 60 FPS it’s incredibile. if you have enough money, take a good PC and you will be fine with It and you’ll have all games coming from Xbox and the most of future PS titles.
General workflow is better handled with mouse cuz the OS is designed for that. So id suggest having a mouse for all non gaming related tasks cuz it’s more intuitive/less cumbersome, that’s the ease of use on pc. Console UI are built around controller, so they feel intuitive for that. Similar ease of use for PC would be hard to translate using a controller cuz the UI is a lot denser and you have instant access to every control or action in a click or two, something the mouse is just designed to work best with.
