Is that because of price gouging and hollow games stuffed with microtransactions?
Yep… Steam Deck is kicking Xbox in the nuts and I’m feel fine with that… In fact, because of the Deck, I’m actually thinking of going Linux rather than upgrading to Windows 11.
You can always dual-boot, i.e. have both Windows and Linux… or multiple Linux installations, if you please.
Start with Linux Mint for greater stability and familiarity. Soon enough you’ll learn that distributions are basically fancy pre-packaged collections and configurations of mostly the same applications (they’re also called packaged), which should make choosing your distribution a bit easier. There are differences, of course, but you’ll need a deeper knowledge and more of a nuanced list of requirements before it starts to matter much, so don’t stress about comparing them and choosing “the best” for you - you’ll always be able to switch the entire distribution or reconfigure your own to fit your specific needs surprisingly easily.
I really appreciate the suggestion. In fact I’m currently trying out Pop Os in an old laptop, before trying to explore dual booting in my newer laptop.
I will definitely look into Mint now.
Who says the Linux community is crappy to newbies? You are awesome thanks again.
Who says the Linux community is crappy to newbies?
Don’t worry, we have that, too. ;) It’s a whole package!
Jokes aside, glad to help. Feel free to drop me a private message here or in Matrix if you have any more questions or something. Happy Linux’ing!
So I’m a millennial (35 years old), and I have the following devices that I play games on (in order of most gaming prestige to least):
- Xbox Series X
- Steam Deck
- Lenovo Thinkpad T480
- Macbook Pro M1
I can tell you right now I am struggling to find a reason to play games on my XSX. On my Steam Deck/Thinkpad? I have a massive library of games, from old and new.
One of the biggest mistakes that this generation of gaming has done is do lots of remasters of old games - now I have my Steam Deck with all these old titles, I wonder in most cases why I’m paying so much money for such little return (my personal feeling is that the Resident Evil franchise is the only exception to this - the PS1/PS2 games, if they were ported onto PC, had horrible controls and lacklustre saving mechanisms. The remasters solve this as well as enhanced graphics).
Furthermore, the biggest selling point for me with the XSX was the backwards compatibility of old games like GTA IV and RDR. RDR aside, most of these games have made their way onto PC with a controller scheme that is fully compatible with any modern controller, let alone the Steam Deck.
It’s quite funny how my XSX in recent times has been used more as a TV streaming device until I upgraded my TV, which has the smart apps on the TV, so I don’t need the XSX any more.
I have strongly considered selling my XSX, but honestly GTA VI is the only thing that’s keeping the XSX in my living room. I am awfully tempted to pack it up and put it in the loft until GTA VI comes out - that is how little I care about the console. Over the weekend I went to my brother’s and played on his PS5 - apart from the triggers, I couldn’t immediately find the selling point, nor could I convince myself to shell out up to £500 on a console where the only game I would be interested in playing is God of War Ragnarok and/or Uncharted franchise.
This console generation by both companies has been exceptionally weak. It’s kind of funny that I sold my Nintendo Switch for the Steam Deck, but I’ve found owning a Switch to be far more compelling and memorable than owning any of the modern games consoles; Super Mario Oddysey was great, even if it was a little too hard for me, and BOTW was actually a little fun, but I really had to tap out after a few hours in. Donky Kong Tropical Freeze was just absolutely incredible and stellar. I can’t tell you any first party game I’ve enjoyed on XSX outside of Forza Horizon 5, but even then, FH5 was effectively a reskin of FH4).
Oh, and I don’t think it needs to be said, but the Macbook is not very good as a gaming machine. It’s OK for small indie titles, but unless Apple gets its finger out (it never will unless gaming makes them gangbusters for very little money - not very likely in long term), the Macbook/iPhone/iPad/Apple TV will always be a second class citizen to even the crappiest PC.
XSX is good for free gamepass via farming MS rewards points. That’s basically all I use mine for. I don’t think I’d use it much at all if it wasn’t for gamepass. Probably helps that I’ve never had an Xbox before and theres a huge back catalog of games I missed that I now have access to.
Gamepass is fully usable on PC too, fyi. It’s pretty well done, your saves carry over and everything.
I really enjoy the cloud save sharing. I like playing on the XSX to utilize my OLED TV and Atmos home theater, but for more challenging sections I’ll go upstairs and use MKB on my PC.
How much work do you put in farming MS points?
Probably 10 minutes a day. The microsoftrewards sub on Reddit has a lot of good info. I game the system so they don’t get any personal info on me. Even with the recent nerfs it’s enough to keep gamepass ultimate going for free. I’ve also redeemed a few hundred dollars worth of gift cards for games and MSFS addons.
It’s the age old problem of high end gaming for the past 20-30 years … too young to afford the best hardware/consoles … too old to find the time to play on the best hardware/consoles
The demographics always have one or the other … youth or time
- the younger you are, the less money you have but the more time you have
- the older you are, the more money you have but the less time you haveThe only common denominator in both groups is investing in smartphones or a general PC … if you don’t have the money as a kid, you always have access to a phone … if you are old and don’t have time and don’t want to invest in expensive hardware or specialty consoles you won’t have time to play with, you just invest in cheaper smartphones or a general PC
I’d love to have a gaming PC, but honestly the price is way too high for what I want, and the PS5 will play all the games shown on the tin with no issue.
I know the PC form factor is better for all sorts of things, and you get better graphics, people say the price is cheaper, etc. But when I keep hearing that game devs aren’t giving any consideration for performance, so it sounds like you need a top build with lots of video ram to actually play modern games anyway.
The price for a mid to high tier PC in Canada seems to be 2.5-5x the price of a PS5, so I just don’t feel like I can justify the cost. Streaming with GForce Now makes the value proposition even worse for me, since it would take many many years for the streaming service to cost more than a gaming rig.
edit: I’m sure I’m wrong on the pricing thing, so if anyone can point me to a good place to buy a PC which doesn’t suck or have shitty parts mixed in with the headline ones, and has a simple way to buy the parts, I’ll happily take a look. I miss strategy games that suck on console or emulating in Wine.
Or PlayStations lol
Smartphones… Lol mobile gaming
PC’s … okay now this one actually has merit
Smartphones can be magnificently capable devices. It’s the industry that is Hamas.
The only reason I still want consoles to be developed is that a lot of cool features were designed and pioneered with consoles. Stuff like DirectStorage was implemented on the XSX before it was on PC, but that’s an example of consoles having pushed the boundaries and built new systems that benefit the whole computing ecosystem.
I don’t find this to be the case anymore. They keep claiming “technological leaps” but they only quantify the leaps in terms of being able to run at a higher resolution with higher frames, and we’ve gotten to the point with processing that we can brute force all of that stuff. There used to be a lot of limitations to run on a console, and it caused a lot of creative workarounds and solutions within the industry. It feels like those limitations have been removed everywhere but the Switch, and I would argue that’s the console with the most interesting exclusives.
Consoles used to help push the limit of what could be done on lower-end hardware. Now there’s basically no limits, especially with size. American games are like 100+ gigs now, it’s insane. Say what you want about their business practices and how anti-consumer they are, but I at least value Nintendo’s efficiency in game design and development having been limited by hardware. They make fun games that are functionally massive but do not require tons of storage in comparison to other AAA titles.
Your point stands in all software development these days. The days of streamlined code and optimization seem dead. All our engineering software keeps getting massively larger and slower every release, and the suppliers mantra is buy more cpu power. Meanwhile thanks to Linux geeks I have a full Samba Share NAS setup for sending music and video to my TV with web gui, and it runs on a 13 year old Iomega fanless ARM board with 256MB of RAM.
PCs Mostly.
It’s honestly 80% because it’s cheaper, then 20% for mods.
50% for the mods and 50% because you can pirat stuff if some bastards suddenly decide you don’t own what you paid for…
and PCs
No way man, PC is dying.
But it’s kinda funny thing to say when Xbox doesn’t have much good first party game released for the lifetime of the latest xb. And when the exec chasing the f2p whale they all failed miserably.
Edit: is sarcasm that hard to read? 🤔
You wrote that post with a flat affect.
Sarcasm isn’t hard to read, when it is actually written.You needed to so something with capitalization, italics, /s, make a point that counteracts the part you are being sarcastic about, use the rule of three, use juxtaposition, or worst of all, use an emoji. I don’t hate emoji just to hate them, it’s just that they look different depending on the end-user’s machine. This can make the feeling of the post feel drastically different.
Also remember that this is the internet. Think of the absolute dumbest thing you can think of, something that is very easily disprovable, and there will be true-believers of that thing. Earth is flat, NFTs are a good idea, and that Romana Didulo is the queen of Canada. All things that people actually believe.
I’ll go PC because consoles are dull nowadays.
I got the ps4, the pro, the VR and ps5. And the game selection sucks.
A lot of the experience is bad too, the ps4 had what amounted to ads and poor customisation and less capablitiy than the ps3.
The PS5 cannot even load decent defenition trailers on it’s built in Playstation Store.
It is just underwhelming, I played Hitman and God of War and then I got a PC and I am moving over to that.
Also, direct ownership of the games forever.
I regret not buying the PS4 Pro when my old PS4 died, because the PS5 is just PS4 Pro V2. It seems like every game is still cross gen and we’re 4 years since release.
100% agree it is a disappointment. Tbh sales don’t reflect it but ps5 and switch sucked for me.
The latency makes any sort of fast paced game difficult. I can play platformers or turn based strategy games, but something like Fortnite is unplayable.
It’s really about the type of network connectivity between where you are playing and where the PC is.
Eg, I have my TV ethernet hookup to my PC. Typically, I get less than 15ms latency, and I think it’s usually about 8ms added at 120fps. I’m comfortable using Sunshine/moonlight for any game on this setup, and I can’t tell the difference between playing on the PC or via moonlight on the TV. Fortnite or any other type of FPS is totally playable. 15ms latency might matter to hardcore or competitive FPS, but it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever to my crap reaction times or shitty skills.
Now I could also play that same FPS using moonlight on my phone while I’m overseas, on the train, using mobile data in a crowded area via a vpn across the internet to my home PC, and I’d expect that to be pretty bad.
If I played that same FPS at a friend’s place across town, on moonlight on their PC that is ethernet connected to his router, with my PC running Sunshine as host, the lag is going to depend on how good the connection is between his house and my house. If he’s on fiber, and I’m on fiber, and there’s no traffic congestion, then it could be under 30ms. Which would be unnoticeable for all but the most extreme of game requirements.
Also, what you are running moonlight on matters. Different devices will decode streams faster or slower, which can add to latency.
I guess what I’m saying is that it’s about the power of the device you are running Moonlight on, and the quality of it’s connection to the Sunlight PC, more than the type of game.
Yeah I was surprised at how completely playable Moonlight was at a friend’s house, we live an hour apart on the interstate and we both have coax Internet with its anemic upload speeds. I was playing Tears of the Kingdom without issue. I don’t even bring my desktop for LAN parties anymore I just stream my game
I was playing God of War (PC version) on my phone in obscene places I should not have been able to. People were looking at me funny on the bus when I cracked up at Atreus mocking Kratos with ‘Boy, read this. Boy, what does that say!’
But so many moonlight/sunshine problems end up having the word “wifi” in there somewhere 🤣. Hardwire, dammit!
And at gigabit as well. Was having all kinds of steaming issues because it frequently spikes over 100Mbps.
It depends on the device, it’s decoding abilities, how much lag that introduces and how much you’re willing to accept. Counterintuitively, sometimes lowering the moonlight network bandwidth setting improves latency and gameplay.
There’s a good discussion about this on reddit.
I game at 1440@120fps and 1080p@120fps, and from memory the highest I’ve set the network bandwidth setting is 40mbps. Also,.on some devices, using h264 and disabling HEVC works much better, as h264 is so much easier to decode.
But, you bet I’m still hardwired at 1gbps!
Thinking about it, it was probably Steam Link that was going that high. I tried Sunshine/Moonlight on a whim after getting bad performance from Steam and it’s been so much better.
Could never find acceptable settings for Steam link to work.
Sounds like I’m in the minority, at least in this thread.
I’m console all the way. Currently own a XSX and PS5. My full time job is on a PC all day, and I’m not a fan of keyboard/mouse gaming.
Am I really in the minority here? I like to sit on the couch with a controller in front of a 65" big screen. Its just so comfy. Don’t want to mess with a gaming rig setup. It’s the convenience of the console I guess.
Yeah… PC gaming does not imply keyboard and mouse. You can use whatever controllers you want.
It also doesn’t imply sitting on an office chair in front of a monitor.
I use my PC to game on the TV, from the couch with a controller all the time.
I use a game pad as much as I can for PC gaming to avoid RSI. Often I do “hybrid” gaming of mostly gamepad and grabbing my mouse when navigating menus or the keyboard to type.
While I do understand the sentiment that consoles are more convenient than PCs, there’s nothing stopping you from using a PC as if it’s a console. I game on PC 99% of the time, I almost never play with KB+M, and my PC is connected to my 55’’ LG C2 in my living room right alongside my ps5. This obviously doesn’t stop you from having to deal with dumb pc troubleshooting if you want to do one of the miriad of goofy ass things PCs can do with some technical know how on your part. But if you’re just going to be buying modernish games on steam I don’t think you’re experience is going to be all that different from gaming on a console. It’s just a different box running a different OS that isn’t tightly controlled (from a storefront perspective) by Sony.
Plus you get the benefit of playing games from basically every generation of gaming on one box.
