Personal Computer Game News

[yourbeliefs]

SteamOS was made because Valve wanted to say "F U" to Microsoft after it became clear they were going to try to do their own Game distribution service, which we are seeing now with the Windows 10 App Store. The fact of the matter is though that developers are likely going to stick with Valve & Steam because of their pedigree and robust infrastructure. There is also the appeal that Linux and SteamOS are completely free. But yes at the end of the day developers are going to gravitate towards the largest market base, and Windows has that by a WIDE margin. Hell you could argue that Mac also has a respectable install base with their sales higher than ever.

Oh, and let's not forget that SteamOS games generally run significantly worse than their Windows counterpart.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/...gnificant-performance-hit-for-steamos-gaming/

 

[king3pj]

There is also the issue of Origin, uPlay, Battlenet, etc... Valve is really the only one trying to shift the gaming market to Linux. If you want to play games that aren't available on Steam Linux support is even more rare than it is on Steam.

Anyways, I don't have a problem with Microsoft providing another storefront to buy games through. In theory more choices will bring prices down. The problem is that there really isn't any additional choice right now. Microsoft isn't allowing anyone else to sell their PC games (and take that 30% cut) and games that aren't published by Microsoft aren't bothering with the Windows 10 store.

Still, I'm not sure we would be seeing these Xbox exclusive games making their way to PC if it wasn't for the Windows 10 store. Is being forced to buy the next Forza through the Windows 10 store really that bad considering that Forza has never been on PC before? People who refuse to purchase through the Windows Store can continue to treat it like a console exclusive. Nothing has really changed for them. Now people who want to play Forza on PC will be able to though.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Well this can't bode well for Bethesda...

Now they're trying to entice more people to preorder Doom 4 by offering Wolfenstein: The Old Blood for free with it.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/379720/

I have to admit that Bethesda arguably did more bad than good with their MP betas. Playing that put Doom 4 from a Day One Purchase to a Gamefly Rental for me. Unless they plan on doing a massive overhaul of MP I don't see myself going and playing it after I beat the campaign, and I ain't spending $60 (or my GMG Credits) on a 12 hour SP experience game. I still can't believe that they thought that DOOM MP would be enhanced with a class system and weapon rollouts. It's like they forgot what made id Software games' MP so fun.

 

[king3pj]

Apparently the Forza 6 Apex open beta is now live in the Windows 10 Store. I'll probably download this when I get home but it's kind of bad timing for me with the Overwatch Beta happening at the same time.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Yeah I'm going to fire the beta up tonight. Unfortunately I had issues with Battle.net and decided to just try the One version. Yeah if I decide I like it I'll fix my Battle.Net PC issues but I didn't feel like jumping through hoops for an unproven beta. I literally know NOTHING about OW except that when it was revealed, everyone said it looked like TF2.

 

[king3pj]

Yeah I'm going to fire the beta up tonight. Unfortunately I had issues with Battle.net and decided to just try the One version. Yeah if I decide I like it I'll fix my Battle.Net PC issues but I didn't feel like jumping through hoops for an unproven beta. I literally know NOTHING about OW except that when it was revealed, everyone said it looked like TF2.

That's basically what it is. The main difference is more character choices with unique weapons and abilities. I've got the Xbox One version downloading now just to see it on console. I'll be keeping my purchase on PC though.

 

[yourbeliefs]

That's basically what it is. The main difference is more character choices with unique weapons and abilities. I've got the Xbox One version downloading now just to see it on console. I'll be keeping my purchase on PC though.

Well in that case want to play it tonight?

 

[king3pj]

Well in that case want to play it tonight?

Sure.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Sure.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Nvidia unveiled the geforce 1080. Faster than a Titan x and more powerful than a SLI 980 dual card set. Priced at only $600. http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/06/nvidias-new-gtx-1080-gpu-is-even-faster-than-the-titan-x/

 

[king3pj]

Nvidia unveiled the geforce 1080. Faster than a Titan x and more powerful than a SLI 980 dual card set. Priced at only $600. http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/06/nvidias-new-gtx-1080-gpu-is-even-faster-than-the-titan-x/

Just like last generation, it looks like the x70 card is the sweet spot in terms of price to performance. The 970 matched the 780Ti which was better than the original Titan. The 8GB 1070 is also faster than a Titan X and it comes in at $379. I wouldn't spend $600 for the top end card when something that powerful is available for less than $400.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-pascal-gtx-1080-1070,31754.html

Huang also announced the GTX 1070, which also offers staggering performance. Nvidia did not reveal the number of CUDA cores or transistors that make up the GPU in the 1070, but Huang said the card offers 6.5 TFLOPS of floating point performance, and that this card will outperform a Titan X, as well.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Boy, Square-Enix really needs to learn more about marketing for PC gamers..

Not only has the Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster just been announced for PC, but it's coming out on Thursday. And for some reason there's no price yet.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/359870/

 

[king3pj]

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/di...cked-frame-rate-and-more-now-enabled-for-uwp/

It is not great that this had to be news but Universal Windows Platform games (games purchased from the Windows 10 Store) can now have unlocked framerates and support Nvida's Gsync and AMD's Freesync monitors.

More importantly for me is that multi GPU support is supposedly coming soon.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Don't see why the hell they couldn't put this in the initial release. I've heard of releasing unfinished games, but not unfinished gaming platforms...

 

[king3pj]

Don't see why the hell they couldn't put this in the initial release. I've heard of releasing unfinished games, but not unfinished gaming platforms...

Unfortunately they tried to streamline UWP to basically make it an extension of Xbox One on PC hardware. They didn't realize, or didn't care, that PC gamers like a higher level of control and customization than what is available on console.

The idea of Windows 10 being able to play most Xbox One exclusives could turn out to be a great one. The problem is that they seem to be taking a bare minimum approach instead of providing PC gamers what they are used to.

I played some of the Forza 6 Apex beta over the weekend and it looked pretty great at High settings at 1440p but it's frustrating to know that the only reason I can't run Ultra smoothly is because the UWP doesn't currently support SLI.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is probably the most egregious example of this. If you bought the game from Steam like I did it has very good SLI support. If you bought the UWP version from the Windows 10 Store there is no SLI/Crossfire support to be found. How does that make any sense?

 

[meStevo]

Pretty clear to me they just had to release the platform earlier than intended and we got a minimum viable product. Excited for the directions this could go.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[yourbeliefs]

Civilization VI is coming October 21.

http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/5/11/11653620/civilization-6-release-date-preview

In related news, Steam has Civ 5 Complete on Sale right now.

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/36075/

 

[king3pj]

Civilization VI is coming October 21.

http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/5/11/11653620/civilization-6-release-date-preview

In related news, Steam has Civ 5 Complete on Sale right now.

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/36075/

Well, that just made my Fall list a little longer. I guess it shouldn't be all that surprising with Civ V still making the top 10 most played list on Steam every month 6 years after release but for some reason I wasn't anticipating a new Civ game any time soon.

 

[Poke]

 

[yourbeliefs]

That may be encoded at 60FPS but I have to believe that was originally faster, like an unlocked rate. That's the fastest I've seen Doom 4 so far..