Is Crysis the last great PC game we’ll see?

**Nick** · 29-10-2007, 09:50 AM

So over the weekend the Crysis single player demo highlighted for me one crucial thing.

Forget DX10 vs DX9 comparisons, forget bump mapped pixel shaded triple pass filter of the undoubtedly beautiful CryEngine2, forget anything at all to do with Crysis itself.

All Crysis did was highlight a MAJOR shortcoming in one aspect of PC gaming.

Vista just doesn’t work.

There, I said it. But before you keyboard warriors start foaming at the mouth and hammer away at your keyboards posting threats on my life and explaining in detail what a n00b I am, let me explain.

I consider myself to be fairly competent when it comes to PCs. I’ve built a fair few in my time, for myself, family and friends like many of you on here have too no doubt.

I understand the importance of driver and bios updates but I don’t apply them just because they’re there, I apply them when I hit a problem which, to my mind is the sensible option… ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is my motto about drivers… unless I’m having a problem I’ll stick with the drivers I have, simple as that.

I’m not one to moan about patching games either as I LIKE the support given after release, it enhances and smoothes out my playing experience, so why moan?

But Vista, well that’s a different kettle of fish.

After the weekend I’ve had wrestling with operating systems I can only reach one conclusion: Vista is too unstable to game on, period.

Let’s take the first problem that reared its head after installing Jericho for review. Suddenly, out of nowhere the display started blacking out as if I’d turned the monitor off… then, after 10 seconds or so, it came back but now the framerates were so slow as to be unplayable. This’d happen maybe 3 or 4 times then the game would hang, the sound would start looping and that was it… reset time.

Now you’d put this down to drivers or heat issues but on rebooting, the same thing started happening even on the desktop and now I had an error message saying that nvlddmkm had stopped responding but had recovered.

Do a Goggle on it, this isn’t an isolated issue to just me, hundreds, if not thousands, or others are having the same issue. Looking for a solution is no help either as neither Microsoft, NVIDIA or any board partners have done anything definitive about it.

Some of the solutions range from maybe sensible (manually update the nvlddmkm file as it’s accidentally not updated) through to the bloody nefarious disabling UAC, changing power options and enabling remote desktop connections…

But no proper fix addressing the problem from anyone involved. Some people are claiming to have fixed it by installing older drivers, (not much good if you want to play the latest games), others are citing BETA drivers as the solution (nope, didn’t work).

So what is the solution? Well for me it was a complete reinstall of Vista and then a very careful updating to the latest drivers which did fix the nvklddmkm problem at the expense of losing everything on the drive. Not a huge problem as this is the gaming rig and all that’s on there is games, but imagine if it was my personal machine?

Now before anyone goes off saying that I’m just resistant to change and anti-MS, that’s not true. I run Vista on my own machine. I’ve persevered with it from the day of launch and put up with its system hungry, fickle ways. I’ve even spent a few hundred pounds on new Corsair memory to stop the random crashes I was experiencing with my cheaper stuff. In short, for 2D desktop work and media stuff, I LIKE Vista… you just can’t game on it.

So what’s to be done? Well, I did hear of a Vista SP1 BETA that was available from MS if you did a little easy hacking of certain updates, but it seems MS have shut that door now, so that’s out. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING is using the latest drivers, not BETAs, just the latest official drivers and the hardware itself has been stressed tested for issues there…and it all checks out fine. It’s only when you throw a game into the mix that everything goes tits up.

But my biggest worry isn’t with my machine here. It’s with the thousands of machines sold with Vista preinstalled to less technically able users. These people won’t keep their drivers updated if they have a problem… they probably won’t even bother keeping Vista up to date… and you could say that it’s their fault if they don’t.

But think about the impact that has on the PC gaming world in general.

Dell and the like are going to have their call centres swamped with people wondering why, even after following their advice, their machines still don’t work. Publishers are going to be getting calls from people asking why the game doesn’t run even after patching and updating. Forums are going to be awash with irate users, passed pillar to post with no-one owning the problem.

And all it’ll do is drive the gamer away from the PC and onto the consoles… and, let’s face it, the console versions of a game ALWAYS work. There’s no patching, no hunting for drivers, you just slap the disk in and away you go.

And let’s not forget publishers will go where the paying public are AND console games have the added benefit of being MUCH harder to pirate… the Xbox 360 has been in the wild for over two years now and still hasn’t been cracked. A publisher is going to make far more on a console simply because you can’t pirate the game you want to play… so even if you borrow it from a mate the publisher has still made at least one sale.

So, is Crysis the last great game will see on the PC? Well, maybe not, but I’d be pretty certain it’s the last great game we’ll see initially released just for the PC… and if the PC component manufacturers don’t pull their fingers out, there’ll be nothing but a decline in worthwhile PC titles from now on.

dangel · 29-10-2007, 10:15 AM

Welcome to the world of nVidia display drivers on Vista. If it's any consolation i've had months of issues just with using them on a media centre (no 3d).
I will give them one thing - they're getting a lot better now. It's getting harder to cut them some slack though so long after vista shipping (even given the radical shift in driver model for the new OS which is what's really behind it all). It's worth bearing in mind that display drivers can have rather profound effects on non-3d stuff - i've had suspend/resume issues, problems with explorer etc which were all down to nVidia.

Interestingly, my work PC which has an ATI card in it is rock solid - not one BSOD in almost 12 months.

Who do we blame? Well you 'use' Vista so MS is an obvious target. Were the decisions MS made about the driver model worth all this hassle? Honestly? Yes. I think the philosophy is a solid one - we shouldn't have lots of evil stuff in the kernel. nVidia - have they dropped the ball? Absolutely. Do I understand why - probably. One can only imagine the sheer hell their developers have been going through - your bosses pushing new silicon out which supports a new DX revision on a new OS with a new driver model whilst supporting the existing XP base. Oh, and drop into that probably working on the next series of cards too. Not an easy job. Writing drivers is bloody hard work - writing display drivers (from scratch) for DX10 cards is a nightmare.

I've seen plenty of 360 'releases' online - are u sure?

Still, if you think nVidia's drivers are bad.. pop an XFI in your machine

**directhex** · 29-10-2007, 10:17 AM

surely fun with drivers is part of the PC experience?

think of it as a rebirth of C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM=4096

UltraMagnus · 29-10-2007, 08:35 PM

i guess nvidia hate the vista niche as much as the linux one, go figure

to be honest, i think vista is the next windowsME, or perhaps BOB

Betty_Swallocks · 30-10-2007, 12:05 AM

Well, I'm sitting here after having just formatted my disk and reinstalled XP after trying Vista for the second time. I have a 7900GT OC and under Vista I was getting loads of graphical corruption in all sorts of games, new and old. I tried it just after it came out and reverted because of all the things I couldn't do anymore. When my XP installation corrupted itself a week ago and I had to rebuild I thought it was a good time to try it again to see if the driver support had improved.

Well, it hasn't, If anything it's got worse.

I can deal with there not being driver support for my HP scanner. It is a few years old and I can understand them not wanting to code for a device that by their standards is obsolete.

More seriously, and a contributing factor in going back to XP is that my Ergodex controller doesn't work properly under Vista and Ergodex seems to have no intention of producing drivers. Seemingly they want us to throw it away and buy the newer, more expensive but almost identical CH products device instead.
There are some basic 3rd party drivers but they aren't signed so I'd have to reboot and disable driver signing EVERY BLOODY TIME I wanted to play a game. That just isn't going to happen.

But the overriding thing that made me revert was the fact that I can play hardly any of my games under Vista thanks to the Nvidia drivers only really working with the 8x00 series cards. There are people all over the web complaining that the 7x00 cards just don't work properly.
If I can't game I might as well have an Apple Mac.
Vista has to get better real fast.

0iD · 30-10-2007, 12:14 AM

I'be been using Vistax64 Ultimate for quite a while now & I have no real issues. It even crashes less than XP did & I can still play all my games ok.
Which takes me to the console deabte, as discussed in Zakk's thread Who is a HEAVY first person shooter player on PC? FPS's are just better with a keyboard & mouse, you get so much more functionality & versatility at your fingertips.

**directhex** · 30-10-2007, 12:40 AM

Originally Posted by 0iD

I'be been using Vistax64 Ultimate for quite a while now & I have no real issues. It even crashes less than XP did & I can still play all my games ok.
Which takes me to the console deabte, as discussed in Zakk's thread Who is a HEAVY first person shooter player on PC? FPS's are just better with a keyboard & mouse, you get so much more functionality & versatility at your fingertips.

that's the theory, sure, but is the market there to warrant the astronomical investment? more and more games are ending up on multi-format, purely because they need to to turn a profit.

usxhe190 · 30-10-2007, 12:44 AM

vista will improve...but i agree..it is pretty crap at the moment with no driver support...!

dangel · 30-10-2007, 08:35 AM

Originally Posted by directhex

that's the theory, sure, but is the market there to warrant the astronomical investment? more and more games are ending up on multi-format, purely because they need to to turn a profit.

So long as they make the sales (which they do) they'll still support that platform. The PC has been due to die as a gaming platform so many times before - with people pointing at consoles as being the cause (again). Cyclic tis all.

dangel · 30-10-2007, 08:37 AM

Originally Posted by Betty_Swallocks

There are some basic 3rd party drivers but they aren't signed so I'd have to reboot and disable driver signing EVERY BLOODY TIME I wanted to play a game. That just isn't going to happen.

All you have to do is type "cmd" in the Search Box included in the Vista Start menu. Next, press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open a command prompt window with elevated privileges. Now enter bcdedit /set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS in order to disable Driver Signing and reboot.

**Nick** · 30-10-2007, 09:45 AM

Originally Posted by dangel

So long as they make the sales (which they do) they'll still support that platform. The PC has been due to die as a gaming platform so many times before - with people pointing at consoles as being the cause (again). Cyclic tis all.

no, no, no... I'm not saying this is the death of PC gaming, I'm saying that we're going to see fewer and fewer PC-centric titles.

There's going to be less games that have been specifically coded for the PC and then ported over to consoles, it's going to reverse with games being written for consoles and ported to the PC.

The consoles are a safer market if you want to make sure you get a return on your massive investment in developing a game.

There will always be cross-platform titles, it's sound business sense to take advantage of every medium you can spin a profit on, the point is that the PC, I think, is going to be of less and less importance not only in the eyes of the publisher but in the eyes of the consumer too.

If you weren't technically adept on a PC and bought yerself a ready built system from PC World or Dell or any of the other builders, you'd be looking at the Vista install and wondering why stuff doesn't work... and then perhaps looking at your Xbox 360 or PS3 and thinking that you'd never had a problem with it.

So when it comes to games buying time, what are you going to go for? The PC version that from experience is likely to cause you grief and several tech support calls to get working, or the console version that just works and, if an update is needed, is just pulled automatically from the web by the console?

Yes, you can say that buying a machine from PC World means you get what you deserve but for millions who have little or no clue about PCs, they've no reason to go elsewhere as they lack the knowledge needed to build their own and fix any problems they have.

We're a technically knowledgeable bunch on here, so it's not a problem for us... but for the vast majority of PC users, not enthusiastic early adopters like us, they just want a PC that works. That's why laptops sales are rocketing skywards right now, it's a one-box solution... no wires and cables to plug in, you just turn it on and it works.

Publishers are only just starting to tap in to this massive market of casual, technically inept gamer... and it's MASSIVE... but it's also a market where there's a huge intolerance to technical problems. If a game doesn't work, they'll likely take it back to the shop claiming it's an issue with the game. It only takes one refusal from the counter staff to refund a game that, in the eyes of the consumer, is broken and that consumer will now be looking elsewhere for more reliable gaming fun.

And where they go is where the publisher is going to target their next release.

kalniel · 30-10-2007, 09:55 AM

Absolutely.

Vista was claimed to be the beginning of the end of the nightmare for developers and gamers having multiple system configurations to work with. DirectX10 and the Vista benchmarking thingy was meant to ensure the variation was in scalability, not compatability.

It didn't work.

At least, while we're still producing DirectX9 compatible games. Remember when XP first game out? Games designed to work on 98 and XP didn't always do that well on XP. My memory (which could be wrong) though is that when we started dropping compatability with 98 the stability with XP improved. Maybe this will be the case with Vista, and maybe we can start focusing on scalability. If we get that sorted, gaming on PC could actually see an upsurge (more than the current upturn that is.. )

Lets not forget, gaming on the PC isn't making less money - I believe the industry's actually worth more than ever now.. it's just that other markets are worth even more. But if you could make money on the PC market a few years ago, you can certainly do so still.

dangel · 30-10-2007, 10:15 AM

Originally Posted by Nick

no, no, no... I'm not saying this is the death of PC gaming, I'm saying that we're going to see fewer and fewer PC-centric titles.

..and I don't disagree. All I'm saying is that we've been here before - new consoles come out, are technically comparable for a while and so ports are all the more commonplace. Factor is how much alike the PC / 360 are from a developers perspective thesedays and it's even more true. The question is, will this mean dumbed-down ports by their hundreds or will they spend a little time jazzing it up for the platform? Probably the fomer for the main perhaps

I don't, however, think that Crysis will be the last PC-centric game we'll see - not by a long shot.

Originally Posted by kalniel

Lets not forget, gaming on the PC isn't making less money - I believe the industry's actually worth more than ever now.. it's just that other markets are worth even more. But if you could make money on the PC market a few years ago, you can certainly do so still.

Darn right. WOW anyone?

usxhe190 · 30-10-2007, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by kalniel

At least, while we're still producing DirectX9 compatible games. Remember when XP first game out? Games designed to work on 98 and XP didn't always do that well on XP. My memory (which could be wrong) though is that when we started dropping compatability with 98 the stability with XP improved. Maybe this will be the case with Vista, and maybe we can start focusing on scalability. If we get that sorted, gaming on PC could actually see an upsurge (more than the current upturn that is.. )

yep agreed...just a phase like the transitition from 98 to XP. i still remember the days when people wouldn't move to XP because it was just much faster and stable under 98...

usxhe190 · 30-10-2007, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by Nick

There's going to be less games that have been specifically coded for the PC and then ported over to consoles, it's going to reverse with games being written for consoles and ported to the PC.

The consoles are a safer market if you want to make sure you get a return on your massive investment in developing a game.

the only way i can see that happening is if publishers that being paranoid about privacy on the PC gaming market...

but then some publishers are dedicted pc publishers...