Is it even worth it to buy a xbox360 or ps3?

[Niode]

As far as PC gaming goes as long as you don't want (or even need) ultra high settings or 2 megapixel textures (which for the record nobody can see the benefit unless you're running a display of at least 1920x1200 even then I'd question the need for it) you're going to be fine with an 8800GT or even a 3870 which can be had for next to nothing (we're talking sub £100 here folks).

Like Moz said, the art of building rigs is not just slapping any components that are compatible together. It's about getting the right components for the job, ones that benefit from each other. There's no use slapping that 295GTX onto a motherboard with an Athlon x2 5400 or god forbid a Pentium. It's like putting a 6 litre V8 into a toyota corolla. It's got the brunt but the rest of the car is holding it's true potential back. Likewise just slapping a top of the range graphics card into any old motherboard with a PCI-E slot isn't going to do you any favours unless it's got the dual channel 16x slot you're effectively halving the potential performance of the card.

[miked]

And like I said, when Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 come out, I wont quite hate myself so much for getting the new machine.

SC2 and D3 will have somewhat low requirements though. Blizzard games always stay quite a bit below the average requirement level. Its a good strategy and all, but I'm just saying it never takes much of a system to run their games.

I only wanted a new processor cause according to benchmarks I could be doing way better, and I guess its more of an obsession than NEEDING it.

And suddenly this entire debate makes sense.

Not sure if you caught my edit there, but no chance in hell a P3 would run SC2. And the 360 CANT be upgraded, so it stops me from spending money, which is of course good. Glad were talking like humans now

[holaback]

And like I said, when Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 come out, I wont quite hate myself so much for getting the new machine.

SC2 and D3 will have somewhat low requirements though. Blizzard games always stay quite a bit below the average requirement level. Its a good strategy and all, but I'm just saying it never takes much of a system to run their games.

I only wanted a new processor cause according to benchmarks I could be doing way better, and I guess its more of an obsession than NEEDING it.

And suddenly this entire debate makes sense.

http://www.scary-crayon.com/games/sf2pc/
read about it and laugh

You aren't seriously going to use those as any frame of reference for SF4 PC are you?

that was not...i just thought you guys would get a kick out of that horrible port from many years ago

[Niode]

Niode: I will admit im a bit of a graphics hog on the PC. I actually moved up from a 7900gs and sure while it was running games decently at medium settings that was fine.........till I got my new monitor and 1024 and 1280 resolution range suddenly looked like shit, since I should be running 1650 x 1080. I then moved up to a 9600gt and everything is still fine with the machine, and will run anything I throw at it, at maxed or very damn close. I only wanted a new processor cause according to benchmarks I could be doing way better, and I guess its more of an obsession than NEEDING it. Processors a x2 4400 and I have 2gb of ddr2 800 BTW. Yes pretty much everyone has a pc, but an old single core and 512mb of ram will do for most everything a NORMAL person does, which obviously doesnt apply to gamers. If you put a 7900gs in a machine like that, good luck running type of new game that relies on dual cores. And like I said, when Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 come out, I wont quite hate myself so much for getting the new machine.

I'm sorry I switched off at 1650 x 1080, what the hell is that resolution?!

I'm yet to find a game that RELIES on dual cores. Most games are just starting to support multi-core optimisations. Oblivion was one of the first and that had shady support at best.

The thing about PC gaming is they have to scale so that even the bottom rung guy who has the 6600gs or whatever in their machine can still play the games. Not all games are like Crysis which demands an extremely powerful card to run at HD resolution otherwise it cries home to mummy. That's poor optimisation right there and not what most games are like on PC. It's a one off case. It was developed to have the highest quality eye candy there is. The problem was, once the eye candy mode was switched off the game sucked underneath.

Take the Source engine games. Highly optimised games that still look great today but will run on practically anything. Hell I had HL2 running on an Athlon XP 2ghz with a Geforce MX440 (that shitty thing couldn't even do hardware transform and lighting, yay for no shadows, at all!). Not every game scales as well as the source engine does, but a hell of a lot of them do. If they don't do it in the options you can get most games running on crap hardware with a few tweaks.

[Mozgus]

Not sure if you caught my edit there, but no chance in hell a P3 would run SC2. And the 360 CANT be upgraded, so it stops me from spending money, which is of course good. Glad were talking like humans now

You might eat those words this year, but that's fine. We should be clear though that overhead RTS games are rarely resource hogs, with Company of Heroes probably leading the bunch. Blizzard won't be stupid enough to limit their install base by requiring anything extremely modern. StarCraft 2 will scale back very well, I'm sure. StarCraft fans are EXPECTING the sequel to run on most any decent machine, just like the original did on launch.

Who still runs a P3 anyway? I never said you could slap a video card into any old system and compete with the current consoles. Of course, you'd need a retail PC bought in the last couple years. A P3 machine would hold so little value that its not even valid in our discussion of price points. Hell, I was using a P4 machine as a fucking TV stand until two weeks ago, when I just gave it to my father.

[the7k]

Man, this sure became a shit-storm. I was really hoping this wouldn't resort to ad hominem attacks, but se la vie.

I think we should separate PC from Gaming Rig. I can live fine without a Gaming Rig, but a PC is necessary. MAME, Steam and all that can run on a very inexpensive PC; I don't really need to involve myself in the rat-race of keeping up with video cards, cheap RAM and faster RPM hard drives to have fun with a PC. For the higher grade shit, I'll go to a console. It's easier and there's less chance that I'll fuck something up or need to upgrade the systems' OS just to play the latest game for it.

In the end, all that matters is whether you prefer its taste. If MMOs, FPSs, RTSs and WRPGs are your shabang-a-bang, then a Gaming Rig is the system for you. I didn't get a PS3 for Resistance, Oblivion or any of the other genres that I could get on a PC at that time. I got it for the PSN games, the MGS that would eventually make its way to it, and Gallian Chronicles (which would eventually be named Valkyria Chronicles for the West). They were games that I couldn't get on the PC at that time, and they had me much more interested than what the High-End PCs were offering to bring at that time.

[miked]

I mostly felt sorry for the guy when he talked about how his 286 just wasnt enough for the game and he needed a 386 haha. Some things never change.

Moz: What im saying is the I would still be happy with the P3 machine because I THOUGHT it would be easy to skip this generation if I got a new PC. Since getting the 360 all I use it for is internet, downloading movies and emulation of systems that emulated perfectly fine on the P3. I constantly look at it and think it was overall a waste of money. I would honestly still be happy with my old machine to this day as long as I have another means of gaming. And those pentium 3's are reliable motherfuckers. I actually gave it to a friend and he still uses it as his jukebox to this day.

[Mozgus]

Moz: What im saying is the I would still be happy with the P3 machine because I THOUGHT it would be easy to skip this generation if I got a new PC. Since getting the 360 all I use it for is internet, downloading movies and emulation of systems that emulated perfectly fine on the P3. I constantly look at it and think it was overall a waste of money. I would honestly still be happy with my old machine to this day as long as I have another means of gaming. And those pentium 3's are reliable motherfuckers. I actually gave it to a friend and he still uses it as his jukebox to this day.

I still think you're overlooking a ton of what PC gaming can offer you on that machine. It's very much worth having. You already got a 360 controller, so you're good to go there. Have you really dived into the indie scene? Indie games on consoles can't even come close to the quality and quantity that you'll find on PC. So many unique experiences that take risks which the big names cant afford to do.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Just my 2 cents on the scalable thing. I can run F.E.A.R, Half Life 2 (even on highest settings w/o AA or AF), Company of Heroes, Spore, Sins of a Solar Empire, Age of Empires 3, Flatout, Trackmania United, and a wealth of modern/sub-modern games (including doom 3 with plenty of tweaks and 3Danalyzer, which alows you to turn on and off things on integrated cards to make them run better) with ease on a laptop w/ a 1.8ghz single core Centrino and a GMA900 with 1.5gb of ram.

If I wasnt so much into tactical shooters, a need for a gaming computer or a modern console would be nil for me. The problem is what you deam playable and/or necisary for an enjoyable playing experience, for me, I like to have 17+ fps for it to be enjoyable but I can make due with even 15fps in most games that arent fps's. I dont see antialiasing as a big deal as I dont notice little lines going up and down when Im focusing on action and hardly notice anistropic filtering unless dealing with low res textures and going from 0x to 16x.

In answer to the OP no, I dont think it is, unless you need super realistic graphics then it isnt, I would suggest getting something similar to this for 700 max then let it last as long as possible.

[Niode]

Also, if your rig is as good as you say it is why aren't you buying games for the PC that have come out on 360. Paying extra for, let's face it, an inferior product just doesn't make sense to me. I like having the 360 but now games that are available for PC get bought on the PC, the exclusives stay on the console.