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"Belldandy Demonstrates Why PC Gaming Sucks"

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Sat 01/03/03 at 19:16
Regular
Posts: 787
Okay, after Friday's fun little trip to GAME Nottingham I ventured back today to pick up Command And Conquer Generals. The idea controlling the US military and ahhnilating all opposition finally broke my enforced no PC game buying rule. So, handed over the money, get home, install it, run it, start first mission. PC crashes on loading and goes to desktop with "Serious error occurred". I install new drivers, get Dirext X 9, reinstall, get the three patches for it, try again..."serious error occurred"

Look to the internet for help - now just over two hours since returning from Nottingham and closest I've got to gaming was playing snake on my nokia whilst it installed.... find the problem on the tech support pages, find that Westwood blame it on many things, mostly the end users PC's, offer no explanation, and claim it is rare. Search for term on Google, find it is so rare that every C+C Generals forum out there has at least a topic about it, so not rare.

Get fed up, return to Nottingham - now third time in two days, get money back, will not be buying any PC game ever again....

Morals of the story;

Xbox isn't a PC, it lets you play games for starters.
GAME still suck.
Erm........

~~Belldandy~~
Tue 04/03/03 at 19:42
Regular
"I'm sooooo happy"
Posts: 8
I've got C&C Generals and it works great. There are no problems for me.
Tue 04/03/03 at 19:39
Regular
"Gamertag Star Fury"
Posts: 2,710
Goatboy wrote:
> And it sounds like an obvious suggestion, but have you taken that copy
> back and swapped it?

I took it back and got a refund instead, and preordered Lord Of The Rings Two Towers for Xbox.

Whilst the PC can be a good gaming platform, I'm returning to;

PC - internet sites, email, uni work
Xbox / Dreamcast - games, online gaming

Tis the simpler thing.
Tue 04/03/03 at 18:09
"Lemon eyewash"
Posts: 194
MGS: Substance - want this

Toejam & Earl 3 - doubt i'd get it, fun game though

Capcom vs SNK 2: EO - want this but not at £40!

Panzer Dragoon Orta - didn't like the demo, not my kinda game

Lord Of The Rings: Two Towers - looks cool, i'll play tests sav's copy first LOL

Dead Or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball - i want this coz errr i like volleyball ;)

House Of The Dead 3 - on the maybe list ;)

Steel Battalion - if i had somewhere to put it! and 100 odd notes hanging about.

Shenmue 2 - sold!
Tue 04/03/03 at 16:33
"High polygon count"
Posts: 15,624
Star Fury wrote:
> You obviously missed the sarcasm intended when I typed that..... and
> IB how can a system that has that spec, all the driver up to date,
> latest Direct X, plenty of spare HD space, and was formatted a week
> ago, and runs every other game and application I have, be shoddy ? It
> isn't, it's crap coding


> but Westwood reckon it is people using systems below the minimum spec



Two points to make...

1. P4 1.7GHz, 256Mb RAM, GeForce 3 64MB graphics, Soundblaster Live! audio, DirectX 8.1 ... My PC is well above the 'minimum' spec, and marginally below the 'recommended' spec, and runs the game perfectly well.

2. Westwood didn't actually make this game.


It's not down to crap coding at all - it's down to something (though who knows what) in the PCs of those with the problems.

It's an inherent fault of the PC platform, simply because there are so many possible combinations. With the best will in the world, there's no way any developer can guarantee compatibility with every combination of hardware.

In fact, the fault may not lie with the game at all - it could simply be down to a driver or file which Windows itself has installed for your specific combination of hardware. I've had a couple of games in the past from other developers which always crashed at a certain point, and no patch was able to to rectify the problems, so I took them back.

It happens, but it's rare, and in my opinion, doesn't necessarily mean that the developer is at fault.
Tue 04/03/03 at 14:40
Regular
"Infantalised Forums"
Posts: 23,089
Wow, EA sending out shoddy software.
Again.
Tue 04/03/03 at 14:03
Regular
"A man with a stick"
Posts: 5,883
I think this argument is silly, and something I'd expect from Top Score or Update, which is why I can't be bothered entering yet another debate about who's machine is superior.

But I will say this, westwood didn't make the new C&C game, indeed, westwood where disbanded by EA a few months ago so it was EA Pacific who handled the development. What's the relevance here? Well it's EA for one thing, and they have a long history of releasing half-finished, half arsed developed games for not only the PC, but consoles as well.

Don't put PC gaming down just because of one game, especially one which I here is a bit crap.
Tue 04/03/03 at 13:57
Regular
"Infantalised Forums"
Posts: 23,089
Star Fury wrote:
It isn't, it's crap coding because obviously some combinations of
> components cause a problem, as many other people are getting the same
> problem but Westwood reckon it is people using systems below the
> minimum spec, well mine isn't. It's a mute point though, as I don't
> have the game anymore.
---

EA have a habit of doing the same thing, hence a boycott of EA products.
Lionhead had similar probs with Black and White.
And it sounds like an obvious suggestion, but have you taken that copy back and swapped it?

I had Creature Isles and it locked time after time after time, I read the forums and saw loads of people with similar problems. But I swapped the game over and it worked perfectly.
I just had a shoddy copy.
Tue 04/03/03 at 13:48
Regular
"Chavez, just hush.."
Posts: 11,080
Yup, Star Fury's PC is crap!

Westwood and the 'old' games that they made were good!

Red Alert
Tiberian Sun
Red Alert 2
Tue 04/03/03 at 13:43
Regular
"Gamertag Star Fury"
Posts: 2,710
Goatboy wrote:
> Still ironic that you buy a game purely so you can live out your US
> fantasies only to find it doesn't work.
>
> Works fine on mine if that helps. Shoddy game though, you aint missing
> anything

You obviously missed the sarcasm intended when I typed that..... and IB how can a system that has that spec, all the driver up to date, latest Direct X, plenty of spare HD space, and was formatted a week ago, and runs every other game and application I have, be shoddy ? It isn't, it's crap coding because obviously some combinations of components cause a problem, as many other people are getting the same problem but Westwood reckon it is people using systems below the minimum spec, well mine isn't. It's a mute point though, as I don't have the game anymore.
Tue 04/03/03 at 13:34
Regular
"Infantalised Forums"
Posts: 23,089
Hur hur...you said workman

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