State of the gaming art
Is PC gaming...
a) Dying?
b) Changing?
c) Growing?
Anyone who answered ‘a’, go and stand in the corner. If you answered either ‘b’ or ‘c’, have a biscuit and feel proud of yourself. That said, every man and his blogging dog seems to have their own pet theory on the state of PC gaming, and that can make it wildly tricky. Compounding this is that ‘PC gaming’ has become an astonishingly broad term. Are MMOs, for instance, a mere part of PC gaming, or do their players’ tendency to stick with one game for years now make them a separate industry of their own? Should the independent developers churning out inspired Flash games and mods be lumped in with the mega-budget Need For Speeds and Crysises of this world?
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What am I meant to be doing? Why am I here? Who are you? WHAT YEAR IS IT? WHO'S THE PRESIDENT? Ah, my memory seems to have failed. Fortunately, if I go into the shop and by PC Format, there's a complete guide to choosing new memory. We've picked 12 of the best dual and triple-channel sticks and given them a run for their money.
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Anonymous (not verified)
10 April 2009 - 6:01pm
It's dying because every
It's dying because every game that comes out requires you to have bought a top of the range PC within the last month or so in order to be able to play it. Most people can't spend 2K on a new PC every six months and so can't play the newer games.
Michael Carter (not verified)
12 April 2009 - 10:31pm
Ok I know it's easy to be
Ok I know it's easy to be rude on the internet, but that is one hell of an ignorant comment. £2000 for a decent gaming PC, and every six months at that? You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
I have been building my own PCs for years, and the last time I did a complete full upgrade was more than three years ago. It cost me about £600 back then, which it may surprise you would be pretty much all I would need to spend now to make myself a very good gaming machine.
That £600 would get you a graphics card such as an GTX 260, plus a Core 2 Duo 8400 cpu, plus 4 gb of ddr2 8500 ram. With that, you could play virtually every game currently available at full whack, with the exception of Crysis and Crysis Warhead. Why you think you must spend two grand to play Farcry 2, Fallout 3, COD etc is completely beyond me. I am currently playing Fallout 3 on my aging, three year old PC and it looks as good as, if not better than any of the consoles can manage.
Your problem is that you think you must get all of the latest stuff, which is just silly. Educate yourself via enthusiasts sites and find out the truth. A core i7 with an x58 mobo, DDR3 ram and a gtx 295 are complete overkill for all current games available, apart from the aformentioned crysis games. And the mid range offerings from Nvidia and ATI still do a pretty good job of Crysis too.
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