PC gaming boom: Steam sets new record with 41.6 million concurrent players
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Once you set up a console it’s pretty much hassle free after that, compared to a PC which needs variable amounts of fiddling per game.
On console you simply buy the game, download it and then play. If you must know how it runs you can find that on youtube/forums/reviews etc easily for the vast majority of games.
On PC unless you have the top line specs you need to research how the game will run for your specific hardware. There may not be any public details depending on how common your specific hardware is, how recent the game is, etc. Then you need to understand the spec list, which implies you know about CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD concepts & the hardware generations to know a rough estimate of performance comparing your PC to the spec list (if the developers bothered to put a note with the expected performance of the minimum & recommended tiers, which not many do.)
Let’s say you don’t give a shit about all of the above. You go ahead and just buy and download it. It may come with a stupid launcher that you hate. Especially if it automatically sets itself to run on the startup and/or needs you to have an account. Then you need to also fiddle with the launcher to make it work as you want.
Once you finally start the game you’ll have to tune the settings if you want more FPS, or the game looks bad. There you gotta know about resolutions, vsync, models, shadows, render distance, postprocessing, etc. You may not know what these do since it varies per game and its engine, so it’ll be a bunch of trial and error.
Finally you also need to deal with tweaking the mouse and keybinds (unless you buy separately a console controller).
It is way easier than this to game on PC these days than this person is talking about.
Buy a gaming computer that has good recent ratings across a few sites like Google, Amazon, Tom’s hardware.
Thats its! Lower the graphics settings in the game if you are experiencing issues.
Thats it! Play most all games for the next 5 years before worrying about upgrading.
Then when you do upgrade components be fascinated about how easy it is with a tiny bit of googling how to build a computer/upgrade hardware.
Thats it!
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No it is not. Computer gaming is easy peasy these days see my above comment.
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Console gaming is so anti-consumer. Who would prefer to use a console if they are even the slightest bit savvy with a computer?
You can sell it or give it to your kids?
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This next Steam console will be interesting. With all the success they’ve had from the Steam Deck it might stand a chance this time around.
It’s just going to be 1080p and slightly bigger screen.
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None of those are things people have to deal with except in very rare circumstances. All the driers are basically handled by windows update or are already in the kernel.
You do not need to do anything with antivirus these days.
Windows 11 makes you sign into an account, so do the consoles.
Pairing a Bluetooth controller technically is something you need to do, but let’s be honest. Is it really challenging?
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Once you set up a console it’s pretty much hassle free after that, compared to a PC which needs variable amounts of fiddling per game.
On console you simply buy the game, download it and then play. If you must know how it runs you can find that on youtube/forums/reviews etc easily for the vast majority of games.
On PC unless you have the top line specs you need to research how the game will run for your specific hardware. There may not be any public details depending on how common your specific hardware is, how recent the game is, etc. Then you need to understand the spec list, which implies you know about CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD concepts & the hardware generations to know a rough estimate of performance comparing your PC to the spec list (if the developers bothered to put a note with the expected performance of the minimum & recommended tiers, which not many do.)
Let’s say you don’t give a shit about all of the above. You go ahead and just buy and download it. It may come with a stupid launcher that you hate. Especially if it automatically sets itself to run on the startup and/or needs you to have an account. Then you need to also fiddle with the launcher to make it work as you want.
Once you finally start the game you’ll have to tune the settings if you want more FPS, or the game looks bad. There you gotta know about resolutions, vsync, models, shadows, render distance, postprocessing, etc. You may not know what these do since it varies per game and its engine, so it’ll be a bunch of trial and error.
Finally you also need to deal with tweaking the mouse and keybinds (unless you buy separately a console controller).
Before the steamdeck my gpu was an rx 740.
I never needed to tweak settings on a per game basis.
Just go into game options and hit auto detect or select a preset.
It’s really that easy.
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You can sell it or give it to your kids?
Same with a PC lol. Hell, it probably would be more useful overall.
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None of those are things people have to deal with except in very rare circumstances. All the driers are basically handled by windows update or are already in the kernel.
You do not need to do anything with antivirus these days.
Windows 11 makes you sign into an account, so do the consoles.
Pairing a Bluetooth controller technically is something you need to do, but let’s be honest. Is it really challenging?
All the driers are basically handled by windows update or are already in the kernel.
Eh… There was an issue a while back with Nvidia drivers causing all sort of issues and requiring a rollback. While it’s not something you would have to deal with often, from the perspective of the technically inept, that one tine they may have to do this would ruin their day and also whoever they’re calling for support.
The average person is far less competent with technology than you may think.
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All the driers are basically handled by windows update or are already in the kernel.
Eh… There was an issue a while back with Nvidia drivers causing all sort of issues and requiring a rollback. While it’s not something you would have to deal with often, from the perspective of the technically inept, that one tine they may have to do this would ruin their day and also whoever they’re calling for support.
The average person is far less competent with technology than you may think.
This is still a stretch. Don’t consoles also have issues like this? What about the red ring Xbox 360s? Didn’t ps3 have issues with Skyrim saves becoming corrupt?
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Steam Deck is as easy as any console, at least
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Console gaming is so anti-consumer. Who would prefer to use a console if they are even the slightest bit savvy with a computer?
Look at OS user numbers, most people aren’t the slightest bit savvy with a computer.
I’ve run into a few games that only have split screen on console so there’s that I suppose.
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It’s just going to be 1080p and slightly bigger screen.
That would be the successor to Steam Deck, there’s rumors that Valve is working on a standalone console.
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That would be the successor to Steam Deck, there’s rumors that Valve is working on a standalone console.
Sure, it’ll dock. They aren’t going to make waves.
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Same with a PC lol. Hell, it probably would be more useful overall.
Can’t give them your steam account.
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Can’t give them your steam account.
You literally can? You can add any amounts of games to a family share and even play LAN with them
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This is still a stretch. Don’t consoles also have issues like this? What about the red ring Xbox 360s? Didn’t ps3 have issues with Skyrim saves becoming corrupt?
Can’t say I’ve ever had any of those consoles, just playing devil’s advocate here. Personally as a PC gamer who’s been called on for support countless times for driver issues, launcher issues and what not, that’s all I can attest for.
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You literally can? You can add any amounts of games to a family share and even play LAN with them
You can’t transfer your steam account, eg when you die. Against terms of service.
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You can’t transfer your steam account, eg when you die. Against terms of service.
An who’s going to enforce that? No one is broadcasting to the newspaper that Someguy3 died and now their son is using their account.
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PC gaming emulation on Android and hopefully someday high end regular Linux phones are going to be a big inertial multiplier for PC gaming. Performance for games that work isn’t far off from a Steam Deck from my testing on high end mobile phones. Compatibility and streamlining is still not great though. But a few more years at this rate and anyone with a phone as strong as a Snapdragon 8 gen 3 will have a pocket Steam Deck. PC gaming is going to grow a lot because of that
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Steam Deck
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Battlefield 6 (also bf2042)
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Call of Duty 2025 (whatever they’re calling it these days)
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R6 Siege
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Monster Hunter Wilds
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PUBG
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F1 2024
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FC 25
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Madden 25
Those are just a short list of popular titles that cannot be played on the deck, and in the case of BF and COD this year, possibly on your PC without tinkering. I don’t play most of these titles, just MH Wilds. I do know a LOT of people do play them though.
Consoles satisfy the lowest common denominator which covers most people. They’re easy and just work. Buy the game on a disc and put it in your PS5, let it update and you’re off to the races and very unlikely to have issues.
Windows PCs require minor tinkering from time to time, but they do need tinkering. Driver autoupdates in windows and you start crashing? Yeah, that’s happened a couple times in the past year. I had to get optiscaler going to keep framerate as well as settings high despite having very powerful hardware in Expedition 33 this year in windows, and it’s not even particularly demanding perf wise.
The deck though has tons and tons and tons of titles that need a little bit of poking or prodding, I love mine but it’s got many limitations. I’ve got games that just aren’t properly recognized by gamescope and thus no perf overlay works. After tinkering on linux i’m pretty sure this is a proton issue where it doesn’t properly recognize the game vs a launcher or anticheat.
I game a lot. I have a 9800x3d and a 9070xt running Pop OS (linux) and I can play basically anything I want to play, but it’s certainly not everything. I definitely need to tinker to get stuff to work on Linux, but it’s fairly painless once you figure out you need to carte blanche apply a pulse audio 60ms setting, and you get a good proton switcher to go between cachyos/GE/Proton latest/Proton Experimental versions depending on the game to find one that works without extra tweaking. It’s not easy for a layman, though anyone who has been a PC gamer and has built a couple of systems can probably manage it with a heap of patience and a dual boot config to fall back on when patience fails.
There’s no doubt that the steam deck has made linux more approachable than ever for gamers but it’s hardly a perfect implementation. All PCs require tinkering, and windows sadly is still the easiest among them. It is nice seeing a green checkmark on the deck for a game, but as i’ve seen with Eternal Strands this year, that’s hardly a guarantee that the game will be enjoyable without tinkering if at all.
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