PC vs Console gaming analysis

[Brats]

Aren't all PC gamers on the same playing field controller wise?

If you play with a controller but want to play online, like you say you're gonna be stuffed. Even if you play with KB and mouse, there are specialist gaming devices that give that extra edge.

If someone beats me in an online game on a console, I know it's not because they have the better controller, hardware set up, tweaked .ini file or a bot. It's because they're the better player.

For me it's simple - don't play everything! I buy maybe a game a month. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I don't want to play everything, and I don't have the time.

If you're only going to buy a game a month, why buy multiple platforms? I could possibly understand the logic when the systems were further apart genre wise, but now? Every platform has enough must have games from a very varied staple to keep anyone in great gaming if they only buy that much. That's massive outlay of money, time and space just to play the odd game at a higher frame rate.

LBP looks fantastic, but I'm not going to fork out £300 fo PS3 for just that, when I know I have too many games on the 360 and Wii that I could ever possibly rinse for fun. I'm going to pass on that game, but by no way am I going to 'miss out'.

I'm sure it would if the consoles, which you clearly prefer, weren't on an even playing field. If a console version was 30fps and the other 60fps, I'd like to think most knowledgeable gamers, with both machines, would choose the 60fps version, all other things being equal.

Things are never equal though. Eeven if the games are, what about the online community? 'Because it's the version my mates will be buying' will be far bigger decider than any 60 vs 30 difference.

I do have a feeling that part of the long term success of CoD4 is the 60fps gameplay. It may be a coincidence that the most popular online game is 60fps on all platforms, but it may be people enjoy playing it more because of the framerate. But I don't know.

The levelling system, setting, gunplay and game-types have much more to do with it. COD2 was 60fps too and it never reached the popularity of COD4, nor Gears or Halo which are both 30 fps.

[anephric]

That might have something to do with the fact that CoD2 multiplayer was broken for agggess and hence a lot of people abandoned it and never looked back. Plus, of course, it was a 360 launch title with a smaller user base.

As much as I enjoy not having to worry about god hacks and punkbuster and stuff on Live, there are still enough idiots around using modded controllers, and (certainly on Xbox1) standbying/bridging their routers and stuff to annoy me. Certainly, nothing like to the extent of cheating pigs on PC, but still.

[EvilBoris]

LOL

The new HDD ripping will be a sure sign it's an MS OS when the HDD starts churning! Let's hope they include a defragger (and a good one, unlike the one they ship with Windows ).

Supposedly the FATx system doesn't require much defragging anyway.
3 years of caching in and out of the HDD would surely of left most people's 360s in that state already if it were a genuine concern.

[Matt]

Yeah, I'm afraid all systems can be ****ed with by little ****wits. There's a 360 controller mod that lets you fire a pistol really quickly in CoD4. There are mouse hacks as well, which while I'm sure they're not great, may be an advantage over controller players. Not as bad as the hackers and aimbots on PCs of course.

Once again, all we've proved is no system is perfect and all could improve considerably

Why do I own all 3 platforms if I only buy a game or so a month? Well, choice is a good thing. I use a PC for work and recreation, so if I could only keep 1, it would be that. TBH I see more point having a PS3 and a PC than a 360 and a PC, as you get a lot of the same FPS titles on those two platforms - my favourite genre Yet there are 360 only titles I want, I got the 360 the other week pretty much exclusively for Gears 2. And a PS3 adds fun to my gaming time. It's probably just the titles I've bought on it compared to the titles I own on the other 2, but there's a lightheartedness I enjoy on the PS3 - yes I know it's title based!!

[Matt]

Supposedly the FATx system doesn't require much defragging anyway.
3 years of caching in and out of the HDD would surely of left most people's 360s in that state already if it were a genuine concern.

Someone posted here that checking a 360 HDD on a PC shows all kinds of fragmentation. I don't know much about it on the 360, but I do know MS are incapable of writing a competent file system

Besides, caching on the HDD may be totally different. Can't the 360 cache 3 titles or something? In which case, each slot will be self contained and easy to manage, never overlapping, never growing in size. Once you've installed and deleted 10 games on a 20 gig HDD you'll have a lot of issues I'd imagine.

[EvilBoris]

Besides, caching on the HDD may be totally different. Can't the 360 cache 3 titles or something? In which case, each slot will be self contained and easy to manage, never overlapping, never growing in size. Once you've installed and deleted 10 games on a 20 gig HDD you'll have a lot of issues I'd imagine.

I guess it depends on how the data is stored, I assume that if it is a large image type file that there is less framentation than if there are lots and lots of small files distributed across various sectors?
It's never going to suffer from the same fragmentation that a PC would because all the game data is going to be Read only, so it's surely never going to get fragmented as much as your average PC would from the constant cache web pages, edited system configuration files etc?

[anephric]

Yep - if you use XSata you can see the full extent of the 360's poor housekeeping. Plus, if the 360's caching was that efficient, I wouldn't have had the performance issues that I've had (along with everyone else) and wouldn't need to wipe it every so often.

[Matt]

I guess it depends on how the data is stored, I assume that if it is a large image type file that there is less framentation than if there are lots and lots of small files distributed across various sectors?
It's never going to suffer from the same fragmentation that a PC would because all the game data is going to be Read only, so it's surely never going to get fragmented as much as your average PC would from the constant cache web pages, edited system configuration files etc?

I'd guess when the game is copied to the HDD, it's not copied per file, but done as an ISO. Total speculation on my part, we'll know soon enough. That's how I'd have done it if it was my project, effectively using the HDD as a virtual DVD drive. That way the copying process doesn't put individual files on different parts of the drive, as you say that would be a bad idea.

Either way, the problems only start when you begin running out of space and deleting older games to install new ones. Say you have a new game at 6 gig, but only 2 gig left on the HDD. So you delete a game taking 5 gigs, leaving you 7. The game will have 5gigs, then the other gig elsewhere on the HDD. Once you start repeating this process over several games, you'll have issues.

Though thinking about it, have we had it confirmed how installs work? Maybe they'll work like the file system in slots. You take the max size of a 360 DVD (6.7gb I think) and the OS just splits the HDD that way. Simple! Though then you'd have maybe 2 slots, possibly only 1, on a 20gig, which would be naff. Still, it would solve all fragmentation issues right away.

MS need to give me a job

[EvilBoris]

Think about how many times you'd have to install and uninstall games to the point that the HDD was fragmented enough to cause any problem though.

[kernow]

storing as an ISO would then have the filesystem overhead, and then the ISO driver overhead, storing as normal files would only have a filesystem read.

fair enough it wouldn't be much of an overhead to read via an ISOfs driver and then the actual filesystem ,but it'd still be there. I guess thats the same if you read from the disc though, unless theres some other way of directly reading the files.

[Malavon]

OMG did I accidentally click on Gamefaqs message boards instead of NSTC-UK forums?

FFS sake guys, some people around here really need to grow up.

Yup, like you. There wasn't a single rude post until you came along with your flame bait (which I bit )

[Matt]

storing as an ISO would then have the filesystem overhead, and then the ISO driver overhead, storing as normal files would only have a filesystem read.

fair enough it wouldn't be much of an overhead to read via an ISOfs driver and then the actual filesystem ,but it'd still be there. I guess thats the same if you read from the disc though, unless theres some other way of directly reading the files.

I'm unsure of this. A dev will sequence data on a DVD to give the optimal reading speed - often used data may be duplicated sequentially in several areas, dummy files, etc. The only way to ensure this "smooth" reading with the new 360 ripping would be an ISO, or similar, system.

The more I think about this, the more a "slot" system for installs makes sense.

Think about how many times you'd have to install and uninstall games to the point that the HDD was fragmented enough to cause any problem though.

Not as many times as you think. It depends on the file system. Say you have the biggest 120gig drive. Install 5 games, delete games 1 and 2, install 3 more. Do the 3 you've just added get appended AFTER the fifth installed game, or does it look to "fill" the gap of the deleted files, potentially fragmenting one of the newly installed games? Then a month down the line you delete more and add more, it will compound the problem. Remember, deleting a file doesn't actually delete anything off the HDD, the data is still there until overwritten.

Considering some games stream textures, if a title that does that extensively, say GTA54, was fragmented in this way, that may lead to a lot of disc churning - and ironically enough, it may cause some streaming issues as the devs didn't plan for their data to be accessed this way.

We only have to look at other MS file systems to know they're not the best at management, and without a tool to maintain the drive, I'd expect some issues. And some smart company to release a defragger you can use by plugging your 360 drive in to your PC

[Stormtec]

I understand that this has turned to a rather in-depth discussion (digression?) about technology and gubbins, perhaps. So I'm just going to simply say that I don't like to pick sides. There is no "versus" for me. Can't I just like both? =)

[Matt]

I understand that this has turned to a rather in-depth discussion (digression?) about technology and gubbins, perhaps. So I'm just going to simply say that I don't like to pick sides. There is no "versus" for me. Can't I just like both? =)

Yes you can. I like both as well

[Ouenben]

MattyD certainly went quiet after everyone told him off for his little tantrum

I love pc gaming but cba with all the updates, drivers, new hardware etc.
I'm a console gamer at heart but love the odd FPS on PC.
Unreal tournament 2004 remains a favourite