Well, all I know is low cost PC's that sell the most, (in the UK) last year (2006) still came with AGP, not PCI-Express, and onboard graphics and sound that could barely play a 3 year old AAA PC game (except the biggest sellling PC game The Sims - which is why it is the biggest selling game!), the UK home PC buying public have never spent more than an average of £600 ($1,000) on a PC in the last 4 years, so with the cost of Vista, a DX10 card and the hardware purchase (new PC or at least new PCI-Express motherboard for the PCI-E DX10 card), the expectation of a turnaround in ever lower home PC sales in the last 3 years is unlikely to take place.

This leaves just the ever smaller hardcore gamers to drive the technology, making them less effective as a group and so a slower take up in the hardware needed for DX10 PC games.

This drive both from the media and hardcore gamers for the next holy grail, which is DX10, is only going to continue to contribute to the shrinking PC games market.

The fact is, DX!0 will to 99% of gamers not show games to be any different. All that is different between DX5 and DX7 is the chage in games in that period, not the Direct X. So it is with DX10. It has been 5 years since DX9, so I defy anyone to really see any difference when a DX9 game is played in DX10. A couple FPS here and there maybe, but that's it. DX10 will not save PC gaming any more than the latest DX10 NVidia card or Microsift with it's Vista and 'Microsoft for Gaming' marketing. It will be a wider range of genres, better quality gameplay, and less hardware upgrade demands from AAA games.

The differences between each release of Direct 3D have been astounding.

Are you telling me you cant tell the difference between a DX9 and a DX8 game??

If thats the case you need your eyes tested.

DX10 will allow more more complex games to be developed, and will release the CPU from being the typical bottleneck in any gaming system.

People also seem to forget the other benefits in new GFX cards, such as video acceleration
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2977

The difference in CPU offload is nothing short of astounding with those new cards.

BTW, what do you mean by 'playing a DX9 game in DX10'???? That makes no sense. You cannot play a DX9 game in DX10.

Go to Gamespot, and see how they have used a TYRE on a vehicle t show the difference between the X-Box and Vista version of Halo 2 - If there were major major differences why use a tyre?

Most people don't notice because if you show a game from the DX5 era and another from tyhe DX8 era, it will be the changes in gaming in the timescale that people will see, not the very small part Direct X plays! The difference between X-Beyond (DX7) and X-3 (DX9) is enormous. Nobody is going to know or care about the little that Direct X brings to the equation!

So I still say that Vista and DX10 and these new nvidia cards are not going to do a damn thing for PC gaming. It will be the widening number of gaming genres to attact more gamers to the format that will do that, and we see every year FEWER genres, not more, in PC gaming!

In fact it is the fewer PC games releases (last year the fewest number of PC games were published) and the fewer genres that makes it less and less likely that the more casual gamers are going to spend the money they will need to to get a Vista DX10 system with the power to play the PC games due in the second half of the year. There will just not be enough PC games to play either in quantity or a wide enough range of genres to attract the numbers required.

You actually have no idea what you're talking about, do you??

For a start, Halo 2 is DX9, and is a direct console port from Xbox to PC, so there was never going to be much of a difference.

Do you think that by playing a DX9 game in Vista it magically becomes DX10??

I've really had enough of your domm and gloom for the PC gaming market, especially considering your last couple of posts clearly show that you have little or no technical knowledge for the subject which you argue.

ANd come on, the 'small part' that DX plays??? There wouldnt be any games if it wasnt for the API. DX and OpenGL being the main 2 standards, and DX now being far more advanced.

Do you even know what an API is?

I'll give you time while you google.

Oh by the way, you really seem to be a moron.

I just checked out gamespot, and the 2 screen shots are amazingly different.

Thats the aiming reticle **sigh**, not pointing out a tyre lol
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6169711/index.html?tag=topslo...lk=topslot

If you put your mouse over the picture it changes to the PC version lol

I was using an older card for a long time, while playing Far Cry. I really love that game. Anyway now I have this 7800GT, and I can play the game with everything turned up high. Until I started playing this again with the new card, I never knew there were tropical fish swimming in the ocean. WTF? Talk about losing detail! LOLolz gf gf gf gf

And who would mind if Crysis used the HL2 or even the Far Cry Engine? In Fact how many more would be playing PC games if these engines were stil be used? Oblivion is barely 'prettier' than HL2 or Far Cry and yet demands so much more in hardware. PC Games are getting totally out of proportion between how much better they look versus how much kit you have to buy to play it!

That's another reason PC game sales are falling - because when you see screenshots nowadays most gamers say 'getting that extra bit is not worth £500/$700 to get it. So they don't - and enough then start looking at retro PC games to fill the gap, hence the ever growing eBay retro section!

It does not take a technology genius as is being implied - it it just seeing the market in a human rather than grognard, hardcore gamer way - or indeed a website that has employees writing about it that get their living from it!

But you dont need a $500 card to play any game.

And I know people who've played Oblivion on 9800 typ cards, so saying that its a hog is just wrong.

Sure, turn up the settings and it will demand more, like any other game out there.

I get used to my words being twisted. I said how prettier Oblivion looked and the minumum and recommened systems for it were way more than HL2 and Far Cry and yet barely looked any prettier. Hence Half Life selling more units than HL2, Doom selling more units than Doom 3 and i've made a £100 bet at 3-1 that Crysis will not match Far Cry sales in a like time period of one year of sales from the release. date.

In fact, take the Sims out of the equation and you have games now getting to No.1 in the sales chart with sub 200,000 sales, when it was over a million sales to do the same 20 years ago in 1997.

There are just so many signs that PC gaming is disappearing, and yet we have a 'but the king DOES have clothes!' from the hardcore gamers and PC gaming media.

It may take another 12-18 months, but I can stand being the little kid in that story that was laughed at by the masses who all agreed the King's clothes were amazing when he was saying the King was naked!

1997 was only 10 years ago, but thats besides the point.

Would you mind quoting sources for your units sold statements?

The reason you have games like the sims selling more, is due to the target demographic, not the low hardware requirements.

Men, women and children are who the Sims are aimed at.

The likes of Doom etc are targeted at males, from 16 years and up. See the difference?

One of the other main reasons you dont see new games selling as much as older games did, is because you couldnt verey well go and torrent a new game over a very slow internet connection could you?

I really dont see how you have any basis for any of your arguments.

BTW, nobody twisted your words, we cansee exactly what you're saying, and quite frankly I dont need to twist anyones words to make an argument.

You're rhetoric of the 'doomed' PC gaming platform are getting very tiring, and it seems you bring the same thing up on any thread related to DX10, vista, or new games.

Only because if I didn't, all you would have is 'this is going to save PC gaming' and 'that is going to save PC gaming' and this will help that save PC gaming'

In recent months we have had 'Microsoft for Gaming' saving PC gaming, then we had Vista saving it, now we have DX10 saving it, and it's all a load of old tosh!!!!

The King has got no clothes

...And Rome is burning while Nero fiddles.

Two great sentiments for what is going on with DX10 and DX10 cards combined with Vista and the continuation of ever higher hardware demands for shallower and shallower cookie cutter games.

And yes, I did make the mistake of 20 years when I meant 10, that was a typo, but 10 years ago when a game was generally under 5MB, proportially, it wasn't that far off the 5GB that has to be downloaded now!

But nevertheless, software companies were just as loud about priacy then, and just like the movie industry they complain about it during times when sales are rocketing! And if what you are saying is that a game would sell 1 million instead of 200,000 if there was no piracy is implying that piracy has gone from nothing to 80%! Even if that statistic is true, I wonder if that started when the games industry decided to save money by releasing all games in small DVD cases with a summary manual and a pdf full manual? I wonder if we still had the big boxes with the well written manuals and maps, etc with better opportunity for 'friendly, manual based protection (recognising Star Systems from the manual to be able to navigate in the game, for example), we'd still have million sales and low piracy...?

OMG, Just heard they launched DX11, and You will need to get the latest card that requires 3% percent down and 30 years of monthly payments. Ha ha, if that was the case, I would still do it. Pc gaming isn't going anywhere, Yes I was totally bummed about the 8600 series as everyone else, but I am so excited that my new 8800gts just came in


I also agree that they could of released more titles with the dx9 platform, but on the other hand Have you seen trailers and screen shots of dx10 graphics, they are sick. Maybe the developers will just bombard us with dx10 titles just to get the mainstream going.

Lastly imho, I beleive that console gamers cannot say crap about pc games aren't as great looking as ps3 or xbox360 games. Pc games now imo have taken the leap in graphics, and I don't care if your running a ps3 through hdmi on a beautiful plasma, dx10 graphics are going to pay dividends. You will see. Even my wife said OMFG that almost looks like a picture taken in canada when she seen a screenshot for some title coming out.

But many many many many PC gamers and possible PC gamers are just fed up with talk about graphics. To go from stick men in the first PC DOS game to the graphics in Half Life 2 and Far Cry is far enough for most gamers. Show them Oblivion and they won't say it's a 1000% better than HL2, they may say it's a little better, but no one will say 'what a leap' like they did from CGA to EGA or EGA to VGA. So you aren't going to sell a game based on graphics to more than 5% of possible PC gamers. The argument has moved on to content and genre. Do we really think a DX10 Crysis or any other game is going to knock Oblivion to pieces graphically? Of course not. It will be better, yes, but not so better that everyone that can just about run Oblivion is going to spend $1,000 to get the hardware that will run Crysis. Crysis is looking in terms of content and genre just another fancy FPS. For the bulk of PC gamers moving more and more to retro gaming or more and more to console gaming it will not be enough, there are enough FPS's on PC to last a decade, and anything that just relies on graphics will get the same reaction.

As I say, PC gaming is struggling because of lack of content and genres, not graphics. Crysis wll not sell more units than Far Cry. It will sell less, just like Half Life 2 did not sell as well as Half Life, or Doom 3 as many units as Doom. If graphics were the answer, this would not be the truth of the matter,

So the emphasis on graphics and Dx10 and this card is beside the point. It will have no impact on the re-emergence or the disappearence of PC gaming. If anything by demanding ever more expensive and more often PC updates to continue gaming on the PC, it will be to the negative.

I believe that graphics in pc games are developing more in the ways of offering realism in the sense that they want to merge the gamer with the game, so that he feels like hes in that ditch during WW2 fighting it out against the nazis with his friends beside him doing the same..
direct X and graphics wont stop until we get games that look as real as our own world, and perhaps then the designers will start focusing on the gameplay lol..
after that theyll probably move onto computers that stimulate ure hearing and taste buds.. ok im getting out of proportion, but this is something that will keep going, what we need to complain about is the game designers and producers etc out there doing a s**tty job, not about the access for technology.. because when it comes down to square 1 its all about the designers, we should be pushing them harder to come out with new and fresh ideas, or perhaps just have them all replaced with completely new people working...

has anyone ever considered how long a game designer works for a "gaming company" or whatever theyre called? if u have the same people working all the time with the same stuff for all these years, ure bound to just have cliche and un-creative ideas for creating new games.. eh?

Captain GuNs said:

Show me a game where I feel like I'm in a ditch in WW2. If you want that kind of realism join the Army.

ian elliott said:


But isnt that the idea? Having the game have you feel like you're somewhere you're not, immersion.

Suspension of disbelief or whatever its called.

I agree, the more immersive and realistic the better.

Immersion is character and story - not graphics, because graphics on a 17" monitor or 32" LCD is still 'miniature' not life-size! And as I have said before, graphics have pretty much become redundant to most average gamers now (y'know, the one's that account for 70% of sales?!) They consider Far Cry to look as good as Oblivion and yet see the hardware requirements for Oblivion twice that of Far Cry, so upgrading is now costing something for nothing - hence lower home PC sales.

And with graphics taking a step back, independent gaming, the Wii, XBox Live and PS3 backward compatibility, along with PC retro sales increases shows how graphics is now not the forefront of gaming and that gamers are now willing to forego graphics for gameplay to ever larger degrees, whether through emulation or through products like DOSox.

I, for example, just got Terra Nova - Task Force Centauri, from Looking Glass technologies, a 1994 3D Sci Fi tactical squad game, and am currently playing through DoSBox 'Realms of Arkania - Star Trail'. It takes me 10 minutes to get used to the mid 90's SVGA graphics, but the story, the characters, the gaming options (choosing witch party member will take which guard shift when you camp overnight, for example!) all thoroughly delight like modern games seem to miss more and more.

It's like PC games in around 2003 discovered the wind tunnel, and games have been getting more and more similar to each other with less and less true imagination used. The average gamer is getting alittle bored with that. Just like most car drivers now see their 'wind tunnel' car as just a vehicle to get them from A to B, and have lost the excitement. But you need a car to get to work - do you NEED PC games?!

Yeah well I guess I'm the wrong guy to discuss this with as my gaming preferences are strictly multi-player online FPS, so story line etc. has little to do with the games I play. I don't care about saving the princess or slaying the dragons....I even tried to get into the STALKER game and it bored me too.It's just not my deal.

So I agree, graphics are only one component. Just more important to a gamer like me.The more realistic and better graphics and sound as well as game play you can get on a game like BF2 (My current favorite) the better I will like it. Never single player, always online with my buddies.

As far as the expense? When I consider the money I save by sitting at the house and gaming it's almost a wash right? I can get in all sorts of trouble at the bar but not the battlefield...besides all my cars are paid off..

Last week we will built a machine for a buddy of mine for $360
( Sans monitor/keyboard/mouse) that runs Bf2 like a charm.

All that being said, when a new game comes along that requires DX10 and an 8800/8600 etc then I will consider the jump..

( Potentially COD4-when that comes to PC I'm not sure if it will be DX10, but that's the only game on the Horizon I've heard of that I anticipate playing...)

Until then I'm cool with DX9 and BF2...I even still play 1942 up here at work where the machines are less powerful....

It doesn't have to be the latest for me.