🚀 go-pugleaf

In <435ne0$m...@also.hooked.net> dka...@also.hooked.net (Derek Kawaii)
writes: 

>The way I see it, the PC has a lot of problems as a game machine.  For
one thing, the inputs are limited.  If I want to play SSFIIT with a
friend, we have to huddle up to my keyboard and type fast and furious. 
Have you ever tried to dragon punch by typing d,x,c Ctrl quickly as
your friend elbows you?  Oh sure, there are joypad solutions.  But,
since the PC allows only 2 buttons for two-person play, you only get to
use fierce punches and kicks.  I could spend some money on a Suncom key
emulation pad or start soldering the connections my now defunct SNES
>joypad, but the point is that its a force fit. 


Derek no need to soder. There are more input devices available for the
PC than any other. I recommend the Gravis Phoenix, there you have 25
buttons that you can program any way you like. I have two and are
considered by me a prise possesion. 

 
>There are excellent games written specifically for the PC to get
around this: OMF2097, FX Fighter, etc...  But, to me, they pale in
comparison to titles like TSD, Tekken, and VF2.  It will probably be
another year before the PC can do games like that.  This is because the
PC  does games by brute force.  The next gen consoles have separate 
processors for manipulating polygons, texture mapping, video decoding,
sound generation, scrolling, etc....  And the console's chips were
designed to make great games work.  The PC relies primarily on one fast
chip to do (almost) everything.
 
Sure, I can get a wave-table 32 bit sound card and even a video decoder
card,  but I ain't going to get anything like Virtual Fighter 2 on my
PC no matter how much money I through at upgrades  (3D cards will
probably change this, but that's another story and a whole lot more
>money). 

Sounds like you like fighters. Yep the weakest link in the PC gaming
world. But you do mention the 3D boards. Today I pre-ordered the
Diamond Edge 2MB PCI 3D board based on the Nividia chip for apr. $300.
This board I feel will eliminate any bottle necks the PC has had in the
past. It will do all those fancy polygonal equations, in fact it's an
advanced circular polygon producing engine which cuts down dramaticaly
on how many polys needed to render objects and at the same time
producing much better graphics. For ex. a fighter on the PSX may take
2000 polys to produce on the Nividia chip it may take only 500, this
means even more speed ultimatley. The Diamond edge also tackles
bottlenecks such as wave-table excelleration and joystick readings. Hey
did you know that just reading a joystick port on the PC takes more
than 10% of your processors output. Again this board reduces it to
zero.

 
>And even if I could get VF2 for my tricked out PC, it would probably
crash after Shun took one swig of his sake.  This is a major problem
for PCs running games. Since most worthwhile games are pushing the
envelope, and your system is pushing the envelope, toes often get
stepped on resulting in a frustrating gaming experience. With a
>console, this just doesn't happen (well hardly ever). 

Yeah Setup is a PC problem. Win '95 is a big move forward. But face it,
it will never be easier than a console. Hey you got to work for all
great things!


 
>To be fair to my PC, there are many excellent games to choose from
which are thoroughly entertaining.  They often have more depth and
realism than most console games.  Hell, half of the games for the next
gen consoles are PC ports! Also, to be fair, the next gen consoles are
great but they are not perfect. I've noticed a few flaws like
large-scale pixelization of close ups and mountains appearing
out of nowhere. Maybe U64 or M2 will fix this.  Also, the resolution of
the consoles doesn't seem as crisp as SVGA. (maybe its the fact that
>they're limited to the TV) 

I feel overall the Consoles are gonna have the horesepower but in the
end the users are gonna tire quickly to the poor display of the TV. By
the end of the year there are gonna be some examples of what the new 3D
boards can do and it's gonna shake more than a few people. 4x the
graphics resolution is just gonna be to much for the consoles to
compete with. Why the consoles don't hook up to a PC monitor is just
stupid, optionally of course.

>So, to sum it all up, I could dump $1000 plus into a quest to get the
ultimate gaming system, or I could drop about $300 to get one of the
next gen consoles (great but not ultimate) OR I could just wait things
>out and finish Wing Commander III...


I'm not sure what you have but I feel a DX2-66 VLB with a Nividia
board, 8 meg. ram, 16-bit sound board and a 4x speed CD-Rom will play
games quite well. I feel the rat race of upgrading processors will be
finally slowed for a reasonable while. If you don't know, this is the
gaming industries biggest concern, there loosing market because today
everything pushes the limits way to much upgrades are killing their
business. These boards are designed to bring back market share and the
486's as a viable gaming platform.

BH