Man, I’ve been console for ages, but this January I bought a gaming PC and hooked it up as my dedicated console, and it’s been amazing. If you like a bit of tinkering, PC can dominate as a console.
- Playnite makes an amazing front end, stitching together everything my PC can do. Emulators, Steam, itch.io stuff, GoG and Epic and Xbox Game Pass, all seamlessly stitched together and 100% controller accessible.
- Emulators are fantastic, my PC plays Switch, PS3, Wii, everything.
- Real settings are a godsend, as is more powerful hardware. Actually play Elden Ring at a proper framerate. Play old games in true 4K/120.
- Tinker like crazy. Mods, ReShade, actual in-game settings, GPU Driver settings, if it bugs you, you can do something about it. Currently messing with emulating Demon Souls with ReShade, some mods, and connecting to RPCN for online multiplayer, and it’s a delight.
- More powerful hardware too. Great to be able to push games past console, in whatever way you prefer. I’m already planning a GPU upgrade to be able to do more.
- Heck, even sharing features. My GPU can save 5 minutes or more of instant replay clips, which I used to save all of my Elden Ring boss fights, just hitting a controller shortcut when I killed the boss. My PC shares those via FTP, so I can just grab those on my phone and upload them to YouTube. Faster than Xbox uploads, and actually my files, with no arbitrary storage cutoff like I hit on Xbox.
Basically the only thing I miss is Xbox’s Quick Resume, or suspending a game on Switch. But a good PC fires up games fast, so it’s really not a huge loss in the face of all the benefits.
I made a tool for pausing every game (except online games, obviously). There are some free ones that do that, even on steam. If that’s what you mean?
If pausing the whole pc á la standby is what you mean, then you could simply try hibernating (maybe after pausing like above). Most games actually can be resumed afterwards. Pc is totally off.
But yes, that’s probably the only thing a switch (wifey has one, hence i know) can do great. Besides total portability…
Quick resume is definitely the best part of the Series X
Yeah, definitely hoping they consider bringing that to windows at some point, because it could be incredible. Obviously ultra-complicated, but it works unbelievably well on Series X. Being able to say, skip the loading of an emulator and hop directly back into the middle of a level in Demon Souls, jumping past all the logos and whatnot, would be amazing.
PC: can do all of those things with a $9 cable from amazon, just plug it into your tv lol
Yeah literally. This is just a setup issue.
Or Sunshine/Moonlight if you wanna keep the PC in a different room.
Used to do this. I had issues with either the audio or the video feed randomly dying, though, so I ended up finding a way to make HDMI+USB work when I moved.
More reliable, but now that I’m starting to think about reorganizing my office, copper will no longer do for 4K120 as that’ll go over the 5-meter limit. And an optical high bandwidth HDMI+USB setup isn’t cheap.
Upsides and downsides…
You could go with displayPort which doesn’t seem to have that 5m recommendation
Sadly TVs with DisplayPort support are very rare, and mine is not one of them.
TL;DR: yep
I use steam remote play. I’ve got a mini pc in my garage, another in my living room, and a third in my bedroom. There’s CAT 6 between my office and bedroom but the rest is wireless.
I spent more than I had to because I wanted all of them to be able to play less intense games like Hollow Knight and some emulation locally so if I have family and friends over we can have 3 games going at a time.
It’s one of the few PC tinkering projects I’ve taken on outside of work in the last several years because I’ve grown to mostly hate it. But this was super satisfying because I ended up with something that I could enjoy alone and with family.
I beat Shadow of the Erdtree on the one in the living room so it can’t be too terrible. I probably wouldn’t advise it for anyone wanting to play competitively but for casual gamers, couch co-op, RPGs, or friendly online games I can highly recommend this kind of setup.
I love Moonlight. I just switched over to Linux and haven’t gotten my Moonlight host set up yet. But it’s on my to-do list. What do you use to stream it? I’m rocking a Powkiddy RGB30. The square screen squishes stuff a little, but it’s pretty cool to play Astroneer on something so tiny.
I stream to either my Bazzite HTPC or my Steam Deck.
Oh, interesting. I was not familiar with Bazzite. I have a tiny Dell Optiplex hooked up to my living room TV, I was going to put Linux on there soon anyways. I wonder if that would be a good candidate for Bazzite.
I’m literally using Bazzite right now as a daily driver on my laptop, and it’s amazing. It is more gaming-oriented though, so I don’t know if there’s a better distro if you’re using it for just TV
Either Bazzite or ChimeraOS work well for HTPC setups.
While the post is clearly a shitpost, and the arguments in their provided form are not entirely valid, they could be altered to be valid.
Purpose-built devices will always have advantages over generic “do everything” devices. A modern smartphone can do everything, but you still have MP3/FLAC players, DSLR cameras, calculators, etc. Similarly, a PC can do everything, but there are still TV sticks, gaming consoles, tablets, etc.
PC can’t be as low-friction as a console for gaming. To start playing all you need to do is pick up the controller, press the Home button, TV comes on and you’re back where you left off. All the games in the store are 100% compatible with 0 settings manipulations.
Now, you could build a PC for the sole purpose of playing games on it, and come fairly close to the experience. But you’re gonna spend more and put a lot of effort into it.
Some issues you might encounter:- picking and installing the right OS
- hardware/software compatibility
- controller support
- seamless sleep/wake
- lack of HDMI CEC protocol to control the TV
Whereas a console is a plug-and-play tailored experience that guarantees all of the above to not be an issue.
TL;DR: You can’t just plug your PC to a TV and expect the same result as playing on a console. It will take much more work to get there.
$9? I buy 'em for a buck a pop from Monoprice
Can confirm, is how I do it.
I have a PS4 too, but ever since I got a good PC compatible controller, I only use the console for Rock Band when my best friend comes over 🤷
PC is better, PC with controller is best.
Gaming on a TV sucks and gaming with a controller sucks for majority of game genres. What’s life without strategy games.
Gaming on a TV is amazing if you buy one designed for gaming. Get a good recliner. Keyboard in lap, mouse on armrest (or end table). You’ll never want to go back to a desk ever again. Trust me, I’ve been computing this way for over a decade now. Fuck desks and shitty overpriced office chairs that give you back pain.
Do you have a photo of this kind of setup? I’m very curious how it all looks like
LMAO you’re not far off. For authenticity, I promise that I only partially staged this pic.
Ok that looks fucking comfy. I am inspired to get a good recliner now.
It really is. Great for gaming cause you can just crank the FoV to around 115-120° and have a fully-immersive experience. And say goodbye to having to lean forward to see the action.
I case you didn’t see my other comment, Here are some different angles if you’re interested.
It’s hard to get a good shot of the entire setup due to poor lighting, but here you go. Had to do a panorama to make it all fit. The TV doesn’t look washed-out in person BTW; it’s an OLED.
Edit: Sorry for the imgur link, but every time I try to upload an image to Lemmy, it breaks.
Edit 2: Some different angles for the interested. Did minimal cleanup for authenticity.
Until you get an ultrawide screen. It’s one of those things where once you get it you’ve ruined how things used to be. That extra horizontal space makes all the difference. I don’t play on the TV anymore because it doesn’t matter how big the TV is, it’s still 16:9 and it’s just too narrow. Going from 21:9 to 16:9 feels like going from 16:9 to 4:3. It just feels off putting.
Ultrawide feels so good I’m genuinely sad it hasn’t been picked up by the TV manufacturers. Considering 2.39:1 is a common aspect ratio in cinematography ultrawide TVs would be a near perfect fit as 21:9 comes down to 2.33:1.
Idk I disagree, I used to run an ultra wide but going back to 16:9 just felt like getting more vertical space back rather than the ultra wide providing more horizontal space. I game on an LG C1 and do work on my LG ultrawide now.
It is a feeling thing, you don’t actually get more vertical space because most games don’t change the vertical field of view with the aspect ratio. If you’re playing on 16:9 and you go to 4:3 it should give you more vertical space. But the games I’ve tested the the vertical field of view stays the same. Vertically you see just as much as with 16:9, but horizontally you see less because the aspect ratio gets cropped horizontally. Same applies with 21:9 and 16:9. You get the same amount of vertical space with 21:9 as you do with 16:9, the actual difference is in horizontal space.
The difference you feel is just an illusion. Even in that video I agree that 4:3 really does feel like you’re getting more vertical space. However the cropped sides break the illusion and show that you’re not actually seeing more vertically. But it’s a feeling thing so there’s no wrong or right answer. If you feel like you’re getting more vertical space from 16:9 then you’re getting more from 16:9. I don’t feel that so I appreciate the extra horizontal space.
Yeah seriously; if you want more space, buy a bigger display and increase the FoV. Human eyes have a conical field of view anyway so a more square-like display will fill more of your vision field.
I have an OLED, so all I have to do is turn off the lights, set the resolution to something like 3840x1600, and now the TV is an ultrawide. I do this all the time, especially in games that don’t have an FoV setting. In the dark you can’t even see the black bars.
Fair enough. I haven’t tried that.
I spent lots of time and money on a sick lounge setup but I’ve never ever used it for gaming willingly. I had to force myself to sit down and game there. I love sitting at a desk it’s far more comfortable and natural to me.
I pass out 4 seconds after sitting down in a recliner.
Map game is the ultimate genre.
I too love March of the Eagles and Svea Rike.
Controller yes. They suck (for me) for nearly everything. But gaming on a 240" screen? Hard to beat… I do that on the couch with mouse/keyboard. Just a bit less precise than at the desk
I will die defending kb/m superiority over controllers, mostly because most strategy games are not made with controllers in mind at all. Also because I hate having to wait for a camera to pan around when I can do a
very inaccurate180º in a fraction of a secondYou don’t have to defend or attack any of them. Different use cases fit different devices.
Best example is GTA V. A lot of people using kb/m for the running and shooting, and the controller for driving and flying.
Definitely agree. I used to be a KB/m only person, but have changed my opinion since using a controller for a while out of necessity. Some games are simply better with a controller.
Some are much worse. FPS will never translate well to controller for me. No idea how CoD people play on console. It feels like trying to throw a ball with someone else’s hand by manipulating their elbow.
The newer Doom games play well on a controller because precision movement matters more than precision aiming, so even on PC I play with a controller.
Having an analog stick instead of WSAD makes the movement much more fluid, and a double-barreled shotgun, rocket launcher, or chainsaw don’t exactly require pixel-perfect aiming.
Nowadays you can achieve the same with analog keyboards. Took a bit of getting used to having control over the speed/angle by how deep your pressing the keys but works great.
You take my clicky discrete keypresses and I’ll cut you.
Oh I miss my custom keeb don’t get me wrong, but for gaming it has been an upgrade similar to moving from 60hz to 240hz.
Not having the actuation point set in stone but variable per key is a godsend and made wonder why it took so long to become more mainstream.
Aim assist, generally speaking. That’s how they try and make it “fair” for console users.
I’ve never played a game where aim assist was done well enough for me. It’s either too little or too much. That is probably me though.
Worst example is the Nintendo Switch controller. The triggers are binary so you can’t control your throttle in racing games.
Super Mario Sunshine used the analog triggers on the GameCube to differentiate a partial press where you can move around while spraying water or a full press where you can’t move, and the control stick is instead used to aim.
Consequently, in the Switch port, you can no longer half-press, so emulating the GameCube version is a better experience than playing the official Switch port.
For Sunshine, they mapped RT to half press and RB to full press, so there isn’t really any practical change, except hitting a different shoulder button instead of partially pressing the same one.
I do agree on lamenting the triggers being digital though. I played a lot of Rocket League and the lack of fine grained controls alone was enough to not really enjoy it on Switch.
I still lament the loss of analogue face buttons from the PS2 controller.
It was mostly used on racing games where newer analogue triggers are a lot more precise, but it can make emulating older games tricky.
Yup. 90% of what I play use keyboard & mouse, but some games are straight-up better with a controller.
Honestly, it really depends on the game and what control scheme it was designed for.
Controllers are absolutely dog crap at RTS, and anything else that is heavily GUI based. Controller mouse emulation is zero fun, and some games really need more shortcuts than controller buttons will allow. Highly competitive FPS games need fast mouse response as you observed, but there’s plenty of other FPS titles that are good enough on controller (e.g. Halo).
At the same time, keyboard keys have a different response and feel than controller buttons. Fighting, platforming, and other games make excellent use of what controllers have to offer.
A good example of what I’m talking about is comparing Diablo 2 to Diablo 3. The latter is a dream to play with a controller, and the game mechanics have been streamlined pretty much for that. Meanwhile, Diablo 2 absolutely requires mouse and keyboard to be playable.
You could definitely play diablo 2 with controller with the right maping. The person who first introduced my mom to diablo 2 was actually a paraplegic man she was a home care nurse for. He didn’t have enough motion to use keyboard and mouse properly but he did have just enough finger control that he could play by holding the mouse upside down in his hand and rolling the ball of the mouse with his thumb. That’s practically a joystick at that point. Apparently he was also pretty damn good.
That’s incredible. I happen to use a Logitech thumb-ball mouse, so I’m quite familiar with the concept. Never thought to use a conventional mouse upside down though; that’s incredibly resourceful.
I don’t know if you or anyone else here needs to see this, but this reminds me of Ben Heckendorn who makes custom accessibility controlers. He’s also known for a bunch of stuff, including Bill Paxton Pinball, the Hand-held 2600, podcasts, YT videos, and more junk on his site.
Depends on the game.
Strategy game with a controller = fighting game with k/m.
Yeah, but they’re really hard to use while kicked back on the couch relaxing.
And honestly, I no longer enjoy games that require that level of precision and speed. I play games to relax and decompress after a lot of work, and if the game is complex or difficult enough that a cintroller can’t handle it, I’m probably gonna opt for something simpler anyway.
This is why I can’t play with controllers anymore. I used a steam controller for the souls series and sekiro, with gyro mapped to touching the touchpad. So for fine movement like looking up or down or aiming a bow I could just tilt the controller, and for snap 180° I could swipe my thumb. Now every controller feels super slow.
Imagine playing OSU! with a controller. In fact, try it! Let me know how absolutely miserably it goes. What’s the highest rating map you can beat? I will literally bet $1000 that I can outperform literally anyone who uses a controller in this game. That’s real money that I will fork over to anyone who tries their controller vs my mouse in OSU!.
My brother got our PS3 confiscated for a year because he left bangbros open and forgot to turn the ps3 off, just the TV. Parents found out after we came home from church.
I’m STILL pissed. I was in a MAG clan and when I got it back the game was dead.
MAG was truly a gem that never got the chance to shine. I wish some other developer would try doing something as mad as 256 player matches again.
I remember back around 2010 or so PlanetSide 2 was great for this. Battle maps the size of RPGs, distinct roles and objectives. You could be pushing down the road with the 12 other people you spawned next to, get into a fight with 15 of the other team’s bad guys, next thing you know the focus of the entire battle has shifted to defend your position…
I only got to play a handful of times because none of my friends had a system that could run it, and by the time most entry level systems could, it had died.
Battlebit remastered does 254 player matches (127 vs 127, not sure why they didn’t do 128 vs 128 but it’s close enough). It’s not a very popular game anymore, it was super popular at launch (80k+ players) but is down to peaks of 2k per day. I stopped playing because I’m not a huge fan of fps games, but I got a couple hundred hours in it before the fps fatigue hit me. It died fast (pretty easy to get banned by bogus reports, lack of dev communication, lot of unneeded and unfun nerfs, etc) but was a lot of fun while it lasted.
I was intrigued, so looked it up: they use an 8 bit integer for indexing the players (2^8=256), and one slot is reserved for the server itself.
So that leaves 255/2 = 127 on both sides, the remaining one is not used.
Holdfast has pretty big matches and whilst I haven’t played it in a while, I’m sure there’s still an active community for it as it gets regular updates.
It’s also hilarious as fuck.
Lol, that’s my setup, but with an actual computer, not some dinky console. You wouldn’t belive how comfortable coding on a TV with a good wireless keyboard is. And if I feel like laying back and watching something or gaming? HAHA! Already on the couch BABY! Man, it makes me feel old, but I have no shame. Also have a little lap table, so I can use a mouse for the odd occasion I’m playing something with an FPS camera.
My condolences for your back
My back is the very reason why I ditched desks and office chairs and replaced them with a comfortable recliner and a giant gaming TV. I have yet to find an office chair that didn’t fuck up my back.
A recliner with a pillow behind it eliminates the pain. Not only is it more comfortable, you’re also not leaning forward and to see the action on a tiny monitor anymore. You can just lean back and get your game on. Not having to be hunched over anymore works wonders for your back in of itself.
Condolences appreciated. Luckily I get to walk around quite a bit, because my work and errands are in walking distance, but yea…
As someone who regularly connects their laptop to their OLED TV, I just can’t agree.
Ill watch movies, or youtube videos, or whatever… But word processing, or even web browsing on a TV? Fuck that… Kills my eyes.
Understandable I guess, my gf also doesn’t get my setup. It really shines best when you can control 99% of all actions with a keyboard or controller alone. Sadly can’t do my day job on this setup either, not because it wouldn’t be possible, but because my company uses old ass shitty software that requires you to use clunky UIs. Not an issue with my personal projects tho! :)
After I graduated college and got my first place on my own, I had my desk set up in the corner of the living room with a long HDMI cable strung around along the baseboards and into the TV. It was clean. It was a Vizio 37" panel from 2011 so it had no smart features. I kept a Logitech keyboard/trackpad combo on the coffee table and that’s essentially how I had a smart TV running full blown Windows 8 Pro in 2013. Tired of desk gaming? I got a DualShock 4 and a Bluetooth adapter so all I had to do was turn the controller on and walk to the couch. Sometimes, switching my sound device did mean saving and restarting my game. Some games handled the Alt + Tab to the Control Panel just fine. I put a Blu Ray drive in my computer too so with some software, I used it as a Blu Ray player.
These days, I have 10 TB on board so I keep my movies stored on my disk, and I stream them over my local network. I’d like to build a proper always on NAS one day, but for now, my gaming PC is also my network share.
Hell yea mate! Wonder if it would be possible to somehow over engineer it to automatically switch. Theoretically should be possible, but yea, some games are really stubborn when it comes to sound outputs.
What side of this debate am I on if I have a dedicated gaming PC that stays plugged into the TV, that I interact with exclusively through a gamepad? Or my buddy who plays Xbox on a monitor at his desk? This isn’t about PC or console, this is about couch vs desk.
puts couch in front of desk
Checkmate
done, now what?
Then you have the Steam Deck which can easily serve as both.
I can even stream my PS5 to it if I want to watch TV and play Bloodborne.
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I understamd the simple joys of conaole gaming. Spending a day building a pc vs 3 cables on a console. But (in AUD) $1200 for the PS5 Pro vs $800 for a capable PC i built with my students???
Not to mention you need to pay to use the internet that you’re already paying for. Fuck Microsoft for starting that trend.
Spending a day building a pc
That’s the joy though
How are you spending a day building a new PC though? :( I’m always done in 30mins - 1 hour max :(
For me, it’s a several hour process. I enjoy the cable management, for one thing. I like to handle each component as carefully as if I’m assembling a nuclear bomb. Idk, it’s a fun therapeutic process that I like to take my time with.
Well, except for the last one I built. Which is basically just crammed in however I could get stuff to fit. Had to bust out the angle grinder for the graphics card to make it in. Had to relocate the hard drive cage. Cable management is just enough so they aren’t rubbing on any fans. I have rubber shims wedged under the Blu-ray drive to prevent rattling in the stupid tool free drive bay. It’s a disaster in there. But it usually doesn’t get over 70C in game, so I’m not going to mess with it.
But it usually doesn’t get over 70C in game, so I’m not going to mess with it.
So not an Intel build then?
I’m just salty as fuck that my last build randomly temp spikes for no goddamn reason that I can discern (and I just so happen to have one of the newer chips folks are complaining about).
Hah, nope it isn’t an Intel. I’m currently fighting with my wife’s old workstation that I’m trying to use as a Linux gaming rig. It has an i7 9700 in it, and it just does not want to run under 82C in game. I replaced the old thermal paste, added two (larger) case fans, and moved the HDD to improve airflow. I can try a better low-profile cooler, but I really don’t know if that’s going to do it either. Short of water cooling, which would mean new case as well, I don’t know what to do.
Maybe it’s time you got into SFF PCs. Or maybe it’s best you don’t.
Already looked into it, and see no reason for it. I don’t particularly care a few liters more size of my PC, my home can handle it. Additional cost = not worth
Last time I spent like 4 hours just to swap a graphics card. Granted 3.5 of those hours was me accidentally snapping off the shitty plastic spring things that were holding the heat sink that was right next to the graphics card on and then having to dig through all my spare screws and parts and shit to fashion a replacement means of holding that heat sink back on and then removing the motherboard to actually install them and reinstalling that. That was a fun sunday evening, and then I learned that the graphics card wasn’t even causing the issue I was trying to solve…
You reallydont need ps5 pro for antyhing. Ps4 pro was a scam and so is ps5 pro. Normal ps5 is more than capable enough
I came to PS4 late (was PC gamer for years prior and hadn’t had a console since PS2), and I got it for I think 399? Maybe 299? It was definitely not a rip off and I played the shit out of it. I enjoyed it, and the PS exclusives enough, that I got a PS5.
Is a Steam Deck plugged into the TV and a set of bluetooth controllers a PC?
Yes, and it’s glorious that you can do that (just like with a normal PC, just with less portability. People keep forgetting that couch play with a controller is totally a thing on PC too)
It’s pretty close to the console experience, I would say… Though it definitely is not as powerful as PS5 (and possibly PS4 Pro)
What console. Custom SFFPC hooked to the TV!
Just add porn to the gaming. Have fun. ;-)
Need to get one of those hands free gizmos.
It’s about playing with your friends but I also despise default sticks as an analog input lol (especially coming from a mouse).
Either shape it to conform to my thumb like the cheapo one on the 3DS, or give me a Dpad.
Aside from the ergonomics, there are a ton of games out here commiting the grave sin of mapping analog to digital inputs.
Nintendo even got rid of the dpad entirely, so now you have no option but to use the crappy c-sticks for everything. It is a pain to use in something like smash bros which 99% of the time takes 8 directional inputs, not a continuously variable swipe.
What kinda space mutant hands do you have where the 3DS of all things was comfortable?
I even played Zelda with the stylus, such was the shape of Nintendo’s handhelds.
Nintendo even got rid of the dpad entirely
Uh, Switch has D-Pad…
Bazzite ez
I find game controllers hurt my hands, but mouse and keyboard does not
From my perspective it’s the keyboard that is painful!
Then you are lost!
