PC Gaming Industry to hit a wall?

[cHilli]

I think that PC gaming is about to go bye bye.

The reason being that specs for games getting crazily high, no doubt in 2 months the min RAM for new games will be 2 gigs, then 6 months later 2.5, soon we're up to 3. This to me brings up an interesting issue.. How many people actually use 64 bit OS's? not that many currently.. will, in a year, when the Ram usage reaches its limits for OS's, mean that people simply CANT play games? Like, I don't think people know enough about to PC's to toss away and upgrade to 64 bit, because of the complications of is your processor 64 bit or not, alot of people just dont know.. ok the hardcore gamers do, but ask 80% of the nublets here and no idea.

Intels new chipset the i7 is coming at a good time, it's 64-bit only, so they will be pushing hard that people move to that. But not yet. Reason = it only takes DDR3 ram which is just too expensive currently for mainstream users to start using.

PC Gaming could be in trouble due to OS limitations, basically.
Ridicoudly, Vista 32 sp1 bit fools the user into thinking they are using 4, 6 whatever about of ram is installed on their machine, but they arent..

Any thoughts?

[Redgore]

When windows 7 comes along I think you will see the use of 64bit OS' going up big time. Alot of people are waiting on 7 rather than getting a new machine with vista on it. When DDR3 gets more widely used it will of course come down in price.
Vista itself doesnt fool users, companies like Dell offering 4gig of RAM on their machines do.

I see the main obstacle with PC gaming as being the ease of piracy over the consoles. COnsoles by design make it unusual for a pirate to bother with circumventing protections, unlike PCs which are far too much of a open platform.

[Nitrous]

The constent upgrading of PC's for games is one reason why im not a PC gamer. Its far easier to spend a large amount of money on a new games console every 5 -10 years and its also more accessable for the average gamer.

[cHilli]

Hey is W7 a 64bit only OS? I never actually checked..

What OS are you using Redgore.. some linux system no doubt:P

I'm actually considering upgrading to Vista Ultimate 64 bit and paying for it ( can get it cheap here for students), just to have my 6 gigs of ram and Direct X 10. I wonder how much of a step ahead 7 will be from Vista? I heard they are actually rebuilding it this time, is that true?

Yep of course DDR3 will come down in price but maybe not until standard mobos require it, like the i7-based boards are aimed at high end systems are they? But then again everything that was high end 2 years ago is standard usage now!..

I must say if I couldn't pirate games for the PC I wouldn't maintain it to the level I do.. So maybe piracy is good for hardware companies but bad for software ones.

EA are being ridiculous though with their new counter piracy measures, what is it called DRM? It's almost making it easier to play the game via pirating it that actually playing it

[Redgore]

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is the name used for any technology that restrict usage, of course the companies call it anit-piracy protection but alot see it as restriction as it can get in the way of freedom of usage.

Piracy is bad for a whole load of people. It affects jobs in the long run. It forces technology like DRM onto people who are pirating their software and generally gives the current generation a bad name.

7 is very much based on vista, while it isnt 64bit only it seems like the way it will work is that the main retail box etc will be 64bit with the option of 32bit as a secondary choice, in reverse of the recent releases.

I personally use linux as I don't game on it and my computer cant take a 64bit OS, let alone games. I have a xbox 360 for gaming :)

[cHilli]

I suppose piracy is a bad thing in the long run, but I'm not going to switch to buying software any time soon. When I can afford it, I'll buy it =p

It's funny to think that at the heart of XP/Vista is code written for computers 15+ years ago. They really need to start from scratch, like Ubuntu and OSX, (not sure bout Linux, don't know anything about it really).