Miscellaneous > The Lounge
Gaming
SpittingTrashcan:
Good forum members,
This is my first visit to the site, and my first post in the forums, so pardon any lack of erudition or etiquette as the mistakes of a newbie trying his best. I've spent some time perusing the feedback section, and as far as I can tell, the webmaster's sentiment about computer gaming is distinctly negative. In specific, he regards the support of the Windows platforms for many of today's games as an utterly insufficient reason to stick with the operating system. I freely admit to being uninformed about the capabilities of other operating systems, but I know a few things about computer games and gaming - in fact it is my field of choice unless something more interesting comes up. I'd like to share my feelings on this issue, and I sincerely hope you'll provide me with sound counterarguments... I don't want to use Windows forever.
Here are my arguments from a gamer's standpoint. It is very true that the games I play are supported fully by Windows. I am almost as sure that the various incarnations of Linux, Unix, and OS X do not have nearly the support for computer gaming. I use my computer for a fairly narrow range of activities: text and image editing, email, web browsing, a little programming, and games. This seems to me to be fairly representative of the average use of an average Windows computer.
Of these activities, I have invested by far the most time and money into games. They are one of my primary sources of entertainment, having supplanted television and coming in a close second to reading. Again, among Windows users this is not atypical.
Thus it rankled me quite a bit when the webmaster suggested that the best solution is to switch OSes and buy a gaming console. There are a number of reasons why this proposal seemed ludicrous or at the very least infeasible.
1. I have already bought many games which, to be frank, are dear to me. These games will not work under another OS, and are not available for any console. I do not want to give these games up, nor do I want to have wasted the money I spent buying them.
2. Consoles are fiendish and pernicious to me. I do not like their controllers. With few exceptions, I do not like the games made for consoles. I do not like the fact that most are not reverse compatible: unlike with computers, I must buy an original Nintendo if I want to play original Nintendo games. They are costly, underpowered, overhyped pieces of crud. My computer is a better gaming system than most consoles on the market, and were I to upgrade it only slightly it would blow them out of the water. Console makers are just as greedy and monopolistic as Microsoft, and while their access to my inner life is less, their control over the content I can use is far greater.
3. My computer can do more than a console. I don't want to buy a console which can only duplicate some of the functions of my computer, when I have a computer which is already as good as a console. If a computer which could do everything I want it to except games were cheaper, then a computer and a console would be a good deal. But my computer would cost just as much without the "gaming components" because I don't have any "gaming components." I prefer an all-in-one approach.
4. Thanks to emulation, my computer can play classic console games. I don't need to have an 8-bit Nintendo to play those good old games, because I can download an emulator and ROMS. As far as I know, many of the best emulators are being developed mainly for DOS/Windows boxes. I wouldn't mind giving up some of my other games, but my emulators are very nice and to buy the consoles they duplicate would be ridiculously expensive.
5. I truly believe (others may disagree) that we are on the cusp of a revolution in gaming. Games are becoming more and more sophisticated, as brilliant programmers, musicians, artists, and other professionals plow countless hours into creating a game which is not only entertaining, but complex, challenging, and perhaps even moving. For a person like me, this is immensely exciting: it's sort of like what it must have been like to be around at the time that movies were coming into their own as art. I absolutely cannot miss the opportunity to see where these advances take us, and perhaps participating personally in the creation of a new form of art. Deride me if you will, but this is desperately important to me. Therefore, since Windows remains the OS of choice for game developers, I must stick to it, loathing it though I do, if I want to play new games; and if I want to create new games, I must program for Windows because that's where the gamers are.
So. These are my reasons for staying with Windows 98. I'm doing it for the games alone. That's reason enough for me. Now if there were some way for me to keep the game support and lose the OS, I would switch over even if it took quite a bit of trouble and work. But games, sadly for me, are my deal breaker. Does anyone even care, and if so, what do you recommend?
Thank you for your time and patience.
edit: Pardon me for posting before reading. Another thread already brings up these issues (I believe it is titled "Webmaster, in your replies... " or something like that), so this little rant of mine was unnecessary. That said, if you would still like to address my personal opinions in the matter, I certainly wouldn't mind.
[ April 02, 2002: Message edited by: SpittingTrashcan ]
Centurian:
Hey,
What the webmaster chooses to do is his choice. Personally I have written game in windows and I am sure I will write more.
I use Mandrake 8.1 for alot of things including most of my web access but I also have a w98 partition on my hard disk.
I suppose in a sense I am supporting Microsoft by writing game that work in their OS but I enjoy it and I have no intension of stopping. At some point I expect I will also write some games for Linux.
I use Mandrake mostly because I disagree with Microsofts policies. I seldom use W98 for internet access because it is a virus magnet. Yes there are many ways to limit virus's on a win computer but it can still happen. Further if you follow the crowd (which I don't) you will spend a fortune on virus protection software for windows. Under linux there is no need for virus software.
FuckMicrosoft is all about freedom choice. The informed individual has a choice the uninformed individual is limited to what comes pre-installed on most computers.
What you choose to do is your choice.
If your interested you can find my games at Dark Mares
They are in the Win-Related section.
Calum:
yup, while windows is a piddling pile of pish, there's nothing stopping you using it, trashcan, (may i call you spitting?) but i reckon you rsituation has an ideal solution.
You could install an easy to use distribution of linux, like mandrake, then get VMWare on top of it. VMWare emulates a standard personal computer, so you install windows on top of it, and i've heard that windows running on a VMWare virtual machine is more stable et c than it running on a real machine!
VMWare is expensive though, and if you want a less expensive option, or you haven't got some of yr hardware working in linux yet, you might want to dual boot. most commercial type linux distributions come with a dual booting tool, that's quite easy to use, such as LILO.
With this option, you still have a windows system installed on yr computer, but you can use linux whenever you want for all that internet/music/text editing stuff, and sample the sturdier platform doing its job more thoroughly than windows.
And you could also just use windows for those things too if you so choose.
Also you would be able (in both these examples) to play games that only run in linux or unix. there may not be that many that are so complex as the norm these days, but at least you have the choice to play them if you want. Some games which were windows/sony only have actually been ported for *nix recently. not sure the exact ones... Quake comes to mind, but i'm no pc gamer so i haven't a clue really.
I think though that the companies themselves may be a bit backward re: licensing, ie, if you spent money on a licence for quake on windows, you will probably be expected to pay for another licence to play exactly the same thing in unix. This may change though, as all things might...
As you say, gaming doesn't seem a high priority for linux and probably won't be for a while. In my opinion, the VMWare solution looks like the best one, only excepting its expense, which may well be worth it, all in...
[ April 02, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
psyjax:
I don't personlay see gaming as something to consider when purchasing a computer. unlike a consol, DVD player or VHS, spending the amount of cash one does on a computer for games alone is simply outrageous.
While I myself love games and play them alot, I can't justify the amount of dough I spent on my computer in order to run a program that does basicaly nothing usefull.
Hey, I'm not knocking games, I think they are fantastic, but practicaly, they are useless.
I mean think about it. Consol around $200 or so bucks and the games run anyware from $20-$30 (or $10-$9 if you get em at a bargin bin which is what I do for old PSX games and Dreamcast, way cost effective :D ). To maintain an avid gaming habit on a PC first you shell out anyware from $1000-$3000 on a top of the line computer, then you spend $50-$60 on the latest title every few months for a year. Of course the bargin bin prices are way cheep here too so it depends how you shop.
But then middle of next year there is a new hot title that pushes the boundaries of technology and and before you know it your buying more ram a new video card etc. so thats a few 100 bucks. Were as the consol is still running on the same hardware and chugging along with a steady stream of new titles.
Furthermore, the avarege life of a computer before it goes obsolete is 3 years. So you will probably be buying a whole new machine in that time wereas a PS2 or GameCube will still be a totaly vaible and well suported platform, that you don't need to upgrade.
So basically your paying thrugh the nose and upgrading hardware to serve a purposless cause, running software that is basically a screen blitter tied up in a main loop that does nothing else eccept read keyboard and mouse events .
What's so bad about this?
An old 300Mhz Mac or Pentium could serve internet, text editting, programming, desktop publishing purposes just fine. (granted a suped up mac with PS7 gives me a hard on, oooooo, I love my comp. )
An older machine can also run most emulators. Im not saying, go out and buy an old computer, I'm just saying guaging the level of computer technology you spend your money on by the games you play is a bit rediculous.
Oh ya, Mac's have some tight emulation www.emulation.net
And games support for the platform is not as horrible as most would have you belive.
Anyway. Those are my thoughts.
[ April 02, 2002: Message edited by: psyjax ]
SpittingTrashcan:
First, thank you all for your responses. I intend to look into making my machine a dual boot, as that seems to be the most economical solution at the moment.
psyjax, I'd like to address some of your points. My basic argument stems from the fact that I am not made of money. I did not in fact buy a "gaming machine." Specifically, I spent less than $900 on a Athlon K6-2 500 with 64MB Ram, a 15Gb HD, and a CD drive... pretty bare bones. I salvaged the keyboard and mouse, yoinked a Voodoo3 out of my parent's desktop (they don't game), and used an old fuzzy screened 800x600 monitor until it broke, at which point I bought a new moderately priced monitor. To my delight, I've found that this machine is quite good enough to run some top-of-the-line games (Grandia II, FFVIII, Serious Sam, Black and White even). I have no plans of upgrading any time soon: I don't need it, and I don't have the cash on hand.
To cut right down to the basic issue: I don't have a lot of money, and I don't have a lot of time. The first point removes Macs as an option. I'm not going to spend more for less machine, no matter how good the OS... that's part of why I don't buy consoles. And I don't have the money to blow on a true powerhouse Mac.
The second point makes a dual boot machine rather tricky. Certainly Linux is an extremely powerful OS by all accounts. It is also, as far as I can tell, designed by coders for coders. I am not a coder, I am not a techie, and I do not have three weeks I can spend learning to use an OS when I have one that does work as well as I need it to. My computer is not a lifestyle: it is a tool and it is a toy. I don't have the time to learn a new OS, and I don't want to take the risk of causing a problem I CAN NOT get any professional to fix.
I realize that this board is populated in large part by the computer-savvy power users who find OSes such as Linux etcetera to be useful and easy tools. I come from the perspective of the Computer User Non Technical. If you should ever happen to wonder why Microsoft can continue to exist despite its poor products and bad practices, even when a better alternative exists, look no further than the gulf between you and me. Even the most just and righteous cause cannot live without the bourgeoisie.
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