Console or PC?

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Yes, I mistyped that (fixed already).

My new PSU though becomes quite noisy when I run TW2 (in Wine). I'll probably get a noise meter to figure out if it fits the noise specs. Because it appears way too noisy to me (under lower load it's very quiet).

Fan noise, or coil whine? Anyway, TW2's a torture test that surpasses Furmark in general meanness.
 
A lot of people already discussed hardware and longevity with you, so ill try to talk about other things.

I'd go with PC because:

- Mods are incredible, to the point where if you like a specific genre thats very modeable, such as strategy games, you can literally get hundreds of almost new games for free. It can make your favourite games unlimited in content, seriously.
- Many more games and more variety, In this aspect the PC is huge compared to consoles. Also the most unique and original games always come in PC.
- Games are much cheaper in general.
- You can choose between visual quality or performance. This is very important, if in a game you dont care much about its graphics you can get it running extremely fluid and trust me, it really makes a difference, also you can sacrifice lots of almost unnoticeable or even ugly effects for the nice things you like the most.
- Good old times. With a PC you can play very very old games from the best times in gaming, and if you also had a PS1/2 Gamecube or some others, you can use your games with emulators, and at this point they work in general very very well.
- You can use a gaming PC for video editing or many other things.
- Its upgradeable, so whenever you want a bit more power in the future just buy one part, and not an entire new machine.
- Mouse and Keyboard are much superior to controllers for almost ANY game where you have to move the camera (first person shooters and third person games).
- Tons of free games and many are pretty good, if you want quick fun without spending money.

There are other things of course but i feel this is enough.

Good luck with whatever you choose.
 
Fan noise, or coil whine? Anyway, TW2's a torture test that surpasses Furmark in general meanness.
Just regular fan noise. I wonder if any PSU would fare any better under that load (mine is Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 650). They claim that the noise level is like this:

Excpet that the fan doesn't rotate at all at low loads. But I'm not sure how to measure that noise perceptually, so I'll get some noise meter to get the level coupled with a power consumption meter, to see whether the unit is defective, or it's just that noisy by design.

Temperature wise, when running TW2 (on max settings, except for ubersampling), GTX 680 heats up to 80°C. In comparison, with TW1 it heats just up to 70°C.
 
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I'll likely get around to playing on PC and PS4. Both platforms have their strengths - giving me the perfect excuse to purchase collectors editions for each.
 
I wont upgrade my PC until 800 series comes out. Maybe just before Cyberpunk game. 500$ just for one GPU is a lot. PS4 serves me well. Last weekend I fell asleep in my bed playing AC4.. haha. Graphics do look nice on new consoles. I am impressed.
 
If your only planing to get this one game I would say PS4 or X1. Not to sound judging but you sound like a more casual gamer who just games in your off time. Console would mean you don't have to concern yourself with watching your pc performance and having to learn how to upgrade. It would take a powerful PC to play this game close to max. If you don't want to have to worry with parts and building one I'd say console. Then when you see a game you may want, you wont have to worry about having to check your PC's specs each time. PC would be better for a hard-core gamer for sure, but from the vibes I'm getting just save your time and money and just go with the console for the ease. The devs said it will be really close to PC and the difference will be minimal. Maybe check out performance for PS4 and X1 to see which you like best.
 
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If your only planing to get this one game I would say PS4 or X1. Not to sound judging but you sound like a more casual gamer who just games in your off time. Console would mean you don't have to concern yourself with watching your pc performance and having to learn how to upgrade. It would take a powerful PC to play this game close to max. If you don't want to have to worry with parts and building one I'd say console. Then when you see a game you may want, you wont have to worry about having to check your PC's specs each time. PC would be better for a hard-core gamer for sure, but from the vibes I'm getting just save your time and money and just go with the console for the ease. The devs said it will be really close to PC and the difference will be minimal. Maybe check out performance for PS4 and X1 to see which you like best.


Sorry, but you are wrong. PC configuration proposed above in this thread (with Core i5-4440 and GTX 770) costs less than $1000 if you buy it pre-built (and even less if you build it yourself), and it offers about 2 times the performance of PS4 and about 3 times the performance of Xbox One. Console versions of the games are better optimized in general, but here the difference in pure performance is just too huge. Closer to the end of the current gen lifecycle developers will figure out how to optimize console games further, so you can expect that in maybe 5 years console games will run as smooth and pretty as their PC versions on the PC described above (without any upgrades). But The WItcher 3 will undoubtedly look better/run smoother on this PC than on PS4 or Xbox One.

To sum up, this kind of PC will most probably keep the OP safe of need of upgrading for most of the lifespan of current console generation.

Besides, with this kind of PC you can also run The Witcher 2 on Ultra (with Ubersampling disabled), and get a much, much better grpahics quality than on X360. And the OP said that he wants to play TW2 as well, which wouldn't be possible on PS4 or Xbox One.

Also, if you buy not a single game but buy them somewhat regularly, the price difference between PC and console games will eat the price difference between the machines themselves quite fast.
 
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Hello all. I have a bit of a dilemma that could use some more experienced advice.

I bought this laptop of mine a year and a half ago. In my foolishness, I didn't think I'd be playing games anymore. Well, I was wrong. It worked for a while with the Mass Effect series. Then came Geralt. Witcher 1 worked, but Witcher 2, even on minimum settings, ran at such disappointing FPS that I stopped playing during the holy-crap-awesome assault-prologue, to save the experience for a better time.

Advice?

Wow, I'm sure I've answered this already. This topic popular here? :)

I would say buy a PC, but that's me. At least you should if you're savvy in computers or know someone who is. I built mine with a lot of help. Many of my friends go with console but that don't bother me because that is their choice. PC is mine.

With PC I can do whatever I want with it, tweak and customise however I want. I upgrade everything every five years or so and have yet been able to play all coming games between those upgrades. A console is easy to manage but you can't do anything with it besides updating it a lot. Updates aren't upgrades. You are stuck with it until next comes along and if you open it up you void all warranties. For some reason games are much more expensive as well.

And yeah, I play with mouse and keyboard as well so that goes into the equation.

As for you, the choice is completely yours. If you go with PC, leave out the laptop as an alternative and if possible, build it yourself or with help. :D Good luck!
 
Sorry, but you are wrong. PC configuration proposed above in this thread (with Core i5-4440 and GTX 770) costs less than $1000 if you buy it pre-built (and even less if you build it yourself), and it offers about 2 times the performance of PS4 and about 3 times the performance of Xbox One. Console versions of the games are better optimized in general, but here the difference in pure performance is just too huge. Closer to the end of the current gen lifecycle developers will figure out how to optimize console games further, so you can expect that in maybe 5 years console games will run as smooth and pretty as their PC versions on the PC described above (without any upgrades). But The WItcher 3 will undoubtedly look better/run smoother on this PC than on PS4 or Xbox One.

To sum up, this kind of PC will most probably keep the OP safe of need of upgrading for most of the lifespan of current console generation.

Besides, with this kind of PC you can also run The Witcher 2 on Ultra (with Ubersampling disabled), and get a much, much better grpahics quality than on X360. And the OP said that he wants to play TW2 as well, which wouldn't be possible on PS4 or Xbox One.

Also, if you buy not a single game but buy them somewhat regularly, the price difference between PC and console games will eat the price difference between the machines themselves quite fast.
Well I'm not wanting to start a system war. I was just saying that imo a console would be better for a casual gamer. I'm a console gamer and it's mainly because I just get 3 maybe 4 games a year to play. I consider myself pretty casual. I just like to come home game for a couple hours in my chair and call it a night. PC's just frustrate me. If you know all the ends and outs and know how to get a really good rig for a really good price and beat out consoles then cool. I myself just don't feel like worrying with it. I do agree with you about Witcher 2. That is the only game I regret never getting to play on PC. However, I tried once before to have a friend help build me a computer and it blew up in my face. I just don't want to get that way about games. It's a mild hobby not my life line.
 
Well I'm not wanting to start a system war. I was just saying that imo a console would be better for a casual gamer. I'm a console gamer and it's mainly because I just get 3 maybe 4 games a year to play. I consider myself pretty casual. I just like to come home game for a couple hours in my chair and call it a night. PC's just frustrate me. If you know all the ends and outs and know how to get a really good rig for a really good price and beat out consoles then cool. I myself just don't feel like worrying with it. I do agree with you about Witcher 2. That is the only game I regret never getting to play on PC. However, I tried once before to have a friend help build me a computer and it blew up in my face. I just don't want to get that way about games. It's a mild hobby not my life line.

Well, I play quite a lot, but practically only on console. Reasons the same - I want to play, not to waste my precious time on upgrade and maintenance. Thought I wouldn't call people who build their own PCs hardcore. Gaming is like driving. You drive well, and a lot, and, let's say, you compete - you are hard-core. You don't need to be auto mechanic as well. Hard-corniness in gaming does not really depend on a hardware, and how much time people spend tweaking it.
 
Every forum I visit there are always some fanboys.

Can we stop with arguing what is better? They all are great, some people are poor some rich people some don't have life some do. I like red colour you like blue. Who cares.

People are scared of exploring unknown they don't know much about other things but assume it's worst becasue they listen to youtube douchebags like it's a bible!

 
Fucking hell, you're actually considering an XBox...

Anyway. If Games have become your passion and you're interested in pursuing it, then PC all the way. The games are infinitely cheaper and there's a wider selection of different games. Everything from your Point and click adventures and RTS games to your FPS and RPGs.

If however the only game you're thinking of playing is Witcher 3 (and Witcher 2 I suppose) then I wouldn't recommend you getting anything. This is an expensive hobby my man and unless you're wiling to commit, I doubt that a single game could ever be worth the purchase.

However, if you're thinking of actually putting some time into gaming but you wanna be all cool about it (ie regarding gaming as a casual pasttime), then go PS4. PS4 will have a better library of games, it's cheaper, and its creator isn't gonna try to fuck you in the ass every other minute.
 
Well, I play quite a lot, but practically only on console. Reasons the same - I want to play, not to waste my precious time on upgrade and maintenance. Thought I wouldn't call people who build their own PCs hardcore. Gaming is like driving. You drive well, and a lot, and, let's say, you compete - you are hard-core. You don't need to be auto mechanic as well. Hard-corniness in gaming does not really depend on a hardware, and how much time people spend tweaking it.

Well said!
 
Yes, between two consoles, ps4 looks like a better deal now. It is cheaper (unless you got to have kinect), and either more powerful, or at least as powerful as X1. Less hassle, at least for now.
 
There are also upcoming Steam Machines - a new contender on the console scene. First are expected to be sold around September 2014. These are much closer to PC (essentially they are PCs) than either PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, and performance and flexibility wise they'll beat both for sure. But they still come with controllers and console style experience. This is just for the reference, I still don't consider that to be more useful than a regular PC.
 
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Console versions vs PC version?

Hey guys,

I am new to the forum, but I wanted to join the hype for TW3. I really enjoyed playing the first two games and I am now desperately waiting for The Witcher 3 ._.

But now to the question I have and to the reason of this topic:
I think I have read or heard something that it would be difficult to keep the spirit of The Witcher on the console versions.
I played the first two games on the PC, but I am not sure what the big difference between pc and console will be.

So maybe I am missing something, but what is the advantage of the PC version (except the savegame import maybe)?
Will there be graphical differences? If so, wich one will be better?
I am not quite sure if I am missing something important if I buy the PS4 version :-/

Maybe we can use this thread also as a collection of differences between the versions and points, that may be different.


I have searched the forum for similar topic, but didn't find any. Please be understandingly if the topic already exists, I haven't seen it.
 
Ofcourse the PC version will look better, but we don't know by how much. It mostly comes down to preference how you like to play videogames. With a controller and big screen, or M&K.
 
Best thing to do is to own both platforms. But play TW3 on PC tho since you wont be able to import your progress on PS4.

I am also buying PS4 maybe around christmans, waiting for good deal. But I already bought TW3 on GOG so no choice now.
 
It all comes down to how much you want to spend. If you get a beast of a pc to max the game then it should look considerably better than the console version with even some special effects for realistic hair. Investing in a console would be cheaper and still look amazing, probably just less amazing and without things like mod tools and save import.
 
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