Games that force hardware upgrades

I hate games that require better hardware than games like them. There is no need for it if you have not done anything "great!!". So far I have never seen (or played) a single game that is worth buying a new computer for.

Here are a few games that should have been made better to either allow for setting to be turned off for it to play better on 'older' hardware, or just fix the code!
- Supreme Commander
- Guitar Hero 3 (for PC)
- Crysis
- NFS Pro Street

Fix your code!!!!!
You could all still fix the issues in a patch, but you're not going to :(


These areticles are very useful to tell what the average gamer has:
2007 in PC Hardware (includes user comments)
http://www.digg.com/pc_games/2007_in_PC_Hardware
It links to this article:
http://www.yougamers.com/articles/16000_2007_in_pc_hardware/
Many users comment. One of the best is a like to Valve's hardware survey:
http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Anyone making a game NEEDS to make it work with the average machine. 'Work' means at least 30fps on average.

Do it!

Video card!

What should i get?

I have not got a new system for a few years, and I am thinknig of getting one. But what video card do I get, or what manufacturer even?

I have always been an ATI fan. (Had a Rage, Rage Fury Pro VIVO, Radeon 9500 Pro and Radeon 9800XT)
I once owned a VooDoo :P
I once owned an nVidia GeForce....

But things have changed. AMD owns ATI now. Is that good or bad?
I like AMD, but is it for for ATI, I don't know.

I had a friend with a new GeForce back in the day and BF1942 had bad graphics/texture issues. See picture.



Another friend has an AlienWare laptop. Get got it 1 year ago. It runs Vista. But the driver for ithas some issue as well. For example, in COD4 he cannot see people. He only sees their gun... not so useful.

So I did some 'research' :P Google searches.
Results 1 - 10 of about 207,000 for nvidia driver issue problem
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,100,000 for nvidia driver issue
Results 1 - 10 of about 956,000 for nvidia driver problem
Results 1 - 10 of about 348,000 for nvidia graphics problem
Results 1 - 10 of about 216,000 for nvidia graphics issue
Results 1 - 10 of about 37,700 for nvidia video corruption
Results 1 - 10 of about 258,000 for nvidia corruption

Results 1 - 10 of about 203,000 for ati driver issue problem
Results 1 - 10 of about 458,000 for ati driver issue
Results 1 - 10 of about 410,000 for ati driver problems
Results 1 - 10 of about 307,000 for ati graphics problem
Results 1 - 10 of about 214,000 for ati graphics issue
Results 1 - 10 of about 47,300 for ati video corruption
Results 1 - 10 of about 275,000 for ati corruption


So, some reviews to compair:
DirectX 10 Shootout: Nvidia vs. ATI
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/09/directx_10_shootout/

ATI vs nVidia
"but nVidia really seems to be pretty flaky with Windows Vista"
http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/06/18/ati-vs-nvidia/

I don't plan to use Vista.
I do plan to use an nVidia chipset on the mothboard. But i have used the nForce chipset with ATI video cards before and not had issues.

Well, I don't need the best out there. So no 8800, or the 3870. So it's the 8600 vs the 3850.
Google....
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3151&p=8
http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=279416
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/247874-33-3850-8600gt

http://legionhardware.com/document.php?id=704
"Those looking at buying a sub $300 US graphics card should still turn to the GeForce 8800 GT, while those looking at spending anything less than $200 US should consider the Radeon HD 3850, no actually they should only consider the Radeon HD 3850!"

There we have it. I am set on the ATI Radeon HD 3850. I was actually looking at getting this card to start, and thatwas based solely on price and model numbering :D

Now to pick a manufacturer.... (ASUS, Sapphire, Colorpower, Diamond, ect)

Guitar Hero 3 for PC

I have lots to say about Guitar Hero 3, for the PC.

1. I hate ports. Ported games with no work put into improving performance is just a money grab. I hate you all for doing this. Too many companies get away with this bullshit.
Put some effort into it! Earn the money!!

2. Also to do with ported games.. but more to with just the performance. Here are the specs of the box I play on right now (it cost me $40 because I got it for free as it needed a motherboard).

Intel Celeron 2.5Ghz

1GM of DDR 333Mhz RAM

ATI Radion 9600 Pro (128MB)

40GB 7200RPM IDE HDD

And the game runs like Half-Life 2 on a PII 700Mhz P.O.S. WTH?

You can make the game run better! This box played COD4 at 1024x768, but GH3 is not even smooth at 800x600 with the 3 graphics options turned off!

I even removed the 3D animated backgrounds using this hack:

http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39719&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=a117e43aeda25a215fa83cd2b859e4cf

This 'hack' made things playable... but it still lags up a lot.

Fraps (without recording) usually shows a frame rate of 35-40. At times it gets a low as 28 FPS

3. The PC version comes with an Xbox GH2 guitar. This is both good and bad.

The bad is, why not give us something better?

The good is that it should work with an Xbox (I have not tried yet,but I hear it does) It even has the Xbox button on the controller, used on an xbox to bring up the Dashboard menu thing.

I am also told that if you get the wireless game receiver for the Xbox 360 controllers, you can use the wireless Xbox 360 guitar on the PC version of the game. Though it is not 'supported' by the makes of the game on the PC.

Here are a few screen shots of the GH2 wired guitar/controller in Windows, showing that it works like normal Joystick or gamepad.

This image shows the buttons and the axises available:

I have made this image to show how everything maps to buttons and axises in Windows:

For an Open Source and free alternative to Guitar Hero for the PC, check out Frets on Fire:

http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/

You can use the Xbox 360 wired controller for this game as well. However, I have not tried the wireless one with it. It will also let you use a computer keyboard to play (as does GH3 for PC).

Honest Game Reviews!

This guy hits the nail on the head every time.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation

I personally only disagree on one thing he says, and that was about Guitar Hero 3... I enjoy the game (for now) and he does not. I agree with everything else he says about it though. It is annoying and 'main stream'.

He is very fast and whitty, and the animations are pricelessly funny.
And no "9 out of 10" rating bull shit.

Enjoy.