Has PC upgrading reached diminishing returns for Gaming?

[EastCoasthandle]

With PC games in the stat they are in do you believe it's still worth it to upgrade your PC's CPU, memory, graphics card, motherboard, ram, etc to play certain PC games? Or do you think that upgrades for your PC to one existent or another have peaked and on a downward slope of diminishing return?

 

[kyle2020]

Im unsure as to the question. If your asking are people stopping upgrading their systems to play 'x' game then yes, I do believe they have seeing as more and more people are starting to overclock and squeeze every last little bit out of their hardware.

That said, I did build an entire PC just for Crysis . . .

 

[erocker]

I think as far as the normal desktop user/gamer goes there are definitely more performance options to choose from than ever before. For example, going back a couple years to when the Athlon 64's were top dawg, there would be games that would still bring a top system to it's knees. FarCry comes to mind, then later Oblivion (then G80 and Core 2 came out). Now days we can buy a "budget" system and max out many of today's demanding games. Right now we are all lucky as we can get a processor (PII x3 720 for example) for under $140 bucks and it will run anything. A couple years ago if we wanted a processor that wouldn't yield to anything we would be spending $500 bucks plus easy. Memory is cheaper than ever due to an over saturated market and motherboard options are endless, though I suppose we are restricted to a handful of companies to choose from. So, I'm thinking there's plenty of ways to go overboard on what you buy, but I think this is one of the best times to be a PC gamer.

 

[Sir_Real]

The prob is pc hardware is getting more powerful almost by the month. Yet the processing power needed to run even the newest games hasnt really changed much in around 3 years. Take crysis for instance. That game is almost 3 yrs old & arguably still the most graphical pc game.

Most pc games are almost strait console ports so they dont need the latest & best pc hardware to run them.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Im unsure as to the question. If your asking are people stopping upgrading their systems to play 'x' game then yes, I do believe they have seeing as more and more people are starting to overclock and squeeze every last little bit out of their hardware.

That said, I did build an entire PC just for Crysis . . .

I am asking (you) if it's still worth it to upgrade your PC for games with the current state of the PC gaming market (link provided in the OP). As what erocker said you really don't need a top end PC gaming rig like you did in days past. So in a nutshell do you think it's still worth it to upgrade your PC (there are an assortment of different components to choose from).

 

[NastyHabits]

For me the hardware vs. software see-saw battle doesn't mean much. For the moment you can play almost any game on mid-range hardware (ie. HD 4850 and a P-45 with a sub $200 proc). Still, I will continue to upgrade hardware because I simply enjoy building new PC's, and tweaking them. (Within my budget, of course).

The current economy will undoubtedly slow down development, but there are enough new things in the pipeline to keep us happy for sometime to come.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Yes, they are far beyond the diminishing returns older systems had....

My X850XT plays all the games I own just fine... Granted I don't play nor even care about crysis..

Why spend $3k for a new SLI system, if older hardware is capable?


The "Overclocking" way has been obliterated. People used to overclock to match higher end components. Now people buy the higher end component, to make it faster.

And people wonder why high end stuff is expensive....

 

[AltecV1]

i blame the consoles,they have destroyed PC gaming

 

[phanbuey]

I am asking (you) if it's still worth it to upgrade your PC for games with the current state of the PC gaming market (link provided in the OP). As what erocker said you really don't need a top end PC gaming rig like you did in days past. So in a nutshell do you think it's still worth it to upgrade your PC (there are an assortment of different components to choose from).

I see what you are asking... There is no one game right now that i would upgrade for. I did upgrade for crysis and Crysis warhead, and that still is the #1 game in terms of gfx demands at the moment.

I think DX11 can change that - if games come out for it that are worth anything - Im still waiting for more half life series games . I think that will be my next build - if there is another half life in dx11 - I may build a PC for it.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

i blame the consoles,they have destroyed PC gaming

I don't blame consoles.

I blame gaming becoming "mainstream".

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=282

 

[Frick]

Dippy: Those have been my exact feelings for quite some time now. It's the way it is.

 

[AsRock]

Im unsure as to the question. If your asking are people stopping upgrading their systems to play 'x' game then yes, I do believe they have seeing as more and more people are starting to overclock and squeeze every last little bit out of their hardware.

That said, I did build an entire PC just for Crysis . . .

Nothing new there. It's one thing that PC users tend to love about PC the option to be able overclock. There's just more people with computers to day so yes of course there is more people overclocking there system.

And more and more people are getting to like this option with a PC.

To the OP. I upgrade when it feels like i need to and as seen as i play a load of different types of games i tend to upgrade every 2 years. Currently waiting till 2011 for my next upgrade and what games do come out and say that do not play well i will still play them but i will not upgrade a whole comp for it. I will play it again on my next due upgrade though.

Upgrading all the time is just not worth it as the gains are so little. Might be tempted next year for a 58xx or 3xx range but that be it.

My games keep coming and going the ones i enjoy playing for a example Hitman\Max Payne\OFP and arma and some others but there is some new ones that pop up in between those releases like Bioshock.

Do i think PC gaming will come to a end ?.. yeah i bet it will at some point and they be just like a console later. The 360 is not that far of now never mind later.

 

[KainXS]

i blame the developers because every now and then we have ports with insane system requirements and the games don't justify the system requirements

for example, cryostasis and need for speed undercover!!!!!!!

mainly nfs, it looks worst then the previous most wanted in my opinion and has higher requirements,:shadedshu

the problem is that these developers are mainly developing for the consoles now and the pc users get reamed alot now, and its only gonna get worst, but there is a point where it will stop, these consoles I think have already hit their limits graphically with some titles,

 

[Kreij]

Do hardware upgrades produce diminishing returns for PC gaming.
Yes … Now
No … In the near future

The biggest problem that I see plaguing the PC gaming landscape right now is the cost of producing a AAA title. Game production has jumped into the 10s of millions of dollars and the risk of not getting a reasonable return on investment makes all the money people very nervous. Couple that with the fact that the PC gaming crowd has become very picky about how their games play and look (as they should)
means that it is becoming harder to justify the excessive expense to make a great PC game, and the console market becomes a much more lucrative venture.

However, all is not lost. I think that in the near future what will change the PC gaming landscape is the availability of new tools for the developers that will simplify development and reduce production costs dramatically. If someone comes out with tools that allow studios to develop near photo-realistic games with great physics for a fraction of the cost of today, you will suddenly see an upsurge in the number of games coming to the PC market again.

When this happens, we will once again be shelling out our hard earned dollars for new hardware, because the new games will make Crysis look like an old Atari 2600 game.

AS always, just my 2 cents

 

[phanbuey]

...

That is so true... I really find this "pc gaming is dying" thing all a bit Malthusian - there are really alot of assumptions being made when people say that the industry is dying. One being that new technologies won't open up new opportunities and cost savings for gaming developers.

That being said - it really doesn't matter - PC gaming or not. Whatever provides the best experience is what we want. If gears of war is so good, then I may buy a xbox - just like i bought an N64 for goldeneye.

lol at crysis looking like atari .

 

[MatTheCat]

With PC games in the stat they are in do you believe it's still worth it to upgrade your PC's CPU, memory, graphics card, motherboard, ram, etc to play certain PC games? Or do you think that upgrades for your PC to one existent or another have peaked and on a downward slope of diminishing return?

Whilst I myself am planning on getting 6GB RAM, a good I7 CPU and a HD5870 (when it or its equivalent is released), that is only me being very greedy. Really and truly, taking Crysis out of the equation my rig runs practically all games that I play supersweet mostly without any question of frame rate loss. I mean, is it worthwhile to spend hundreds upgrading just so you can ramp the FSAA up from 4 to 8? Of course not.

If it were not for my desire to finally see Crysis running properly maxed out at a solid 60Hz, I could not for the life of me see any reason to even upgrade my current rig considering the current crop of games on the market.

However, with Windows 7 looking as though it is going to be a hit, maybe DX11 will do things to PC games that the console manufacturers simply cannot or will not match, thus once again making PC gaming a much more focused on platform. However, it will be something at least in the region of late 2010 before any proper DX11 titles will see the light of day and much longer before any titles are seen which brings DX11 into its fuller glory.

 

[human_error]

At the moment there are very few games a decent system can play fully maxed out, and if the new ati and nv chips give performance jumps equal to the last generation's jumps then we will have graphics cards able to play any game (even crysis ignoring the final level - which still memory leaks my system to a crawl) at full settings.

Once the next generation of cards is out then we won't see any incentive to improve our hardware until the next wave of AAA titles with very complex engines and environments comes out. It may take something like a new version of the source engine to come out to allow developers to (relatively) quickly create complex games which look and play better than what we have at the moment whilst keeping development costs and time down, and until that happens we'll only see the occasional crysis style game which needed better optimising before release which brings our systems to their knees.

 

[Cold Storm]

For me, I feel that PC game is at a stand still on graphics.. You got the one game a year that comes along and makes you think to yourself if you want to UPGRADE to the next level for the few extra frames.. Or, even if you want to oc your system just to get the performace you would get if you upgraded it to the most HIGHEND system there is... But, even with that, and you do keep on doing that, Your going to be out of some serious money just to play the games..

As for me, I really could care less about my FPS in games. I'm more worried about how hot the system is, with oc, then it is on how the game is played.. So, with that, I have went with the bigger bang card..

I believe that PC gameing with become big again once people stop worring about how big the game is going to be.. If they just cared more about the quality of play, then I think PC Gaming wouldn't have to worry about consoles..

But, this is all my 2 cents..

 

[rampage]

for general office and home computing, there is no real need for upgrading, as for gaming there is more of a need, but still it is not that great, as lone as you have a medium> high end cpu and gfx card you are set, you might not be abe to play thing with full eye candy but you can play them...

to me where the problem is is a lot of the ported games coming acros to pc that just dont run like they should, its the software not the hardware letting us down

 

[kurosagi01]

i feel i'm not really in need of super high powered desktop now,seeing i only play css and l4d time to time i don't really need all the power i have to run them.Also i have ps3 and 360 so i'm pretty much unsured which games i want buy on whatever platform,for me FPS is only on my PC but games like cod i could always play it on my consoles..i really feel like selling my desktop to buy a laptop or something.
I could of bought a laptop before i built my rig but i was a nub with laptop and didn't know what was good but now i know whats good and bad i can finally decide to have an idea of what laptop i want and some are cheap these days that can run css and l4d on medium/high settings

 

[HossHuge]

The prob is pc hardware is getting more powerful almost by the month. Yet the processing power needed to run even the newest games hasnt really changed much in around 3 years. Take crysis for instance. That game is almost 3 yrs old & arguably still the most graphical pc game.

Most pc games are almost strait console ports so they dont need the latest & best pc hardware to run them.

I was thinking that same thing the other day after reading a post about future-proofing. Most of the new games coming out are not that demanding. I remember when people said you needed to have a serious system to run Bioshock. But the requirements for Bioshock 2 are the same.

Recommended Requirements
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo processor
System RAM - 2GB
Video card - DX9 - Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512MB RAM (NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT or better) / DX10 - NVIDIA GeForce 8600 or better

So what do you call it when you want a system good enough for a 3 year old game?
Past-proofing?

 

[Disparia]

Nope, not even close.

I could certainly stop everything else I'm doing, free up some RAM/CPU, but that's the wrong attitude to have with a computer, IMO.

Eventually, I'd like to end up with something like the system below, once the technology is there to provide completely independent terminals without graphical limitations.

 

[ASRockIQ]

Didn't read much above but most games now need only a good CPU and GPU.

 

[subhendu]

all games require only a dual core with 3ghz and a 9800gt....or a 250 gts or a 4850.....

the truth is we don't need a highly overclocked core i7.....or gtx 295 tri sli....

 

[hat]

Naw. I just got a 7750BE and overclocked it to 3, undervolted and ran it through linpack. Stable. I got a 9600GSO, overclocked it, ran it through an hour of the OCCT gpu test, lowered the clocks a bit after that and flashed the BIOS.

Before I had a single core sempron and a 7900GT. The only thing it deminished was my bank account, (although I am making that money back already)