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New Windows user help

Buy one or more console systems to play games on that will deliver very consistent and enjoyable performance for anything written for that console, with no special hardware requirements that outstrip your new PC in a week.
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Unfortunately i have yet not found any decent simulator be that airplanes, trains or whatever for consoles, these "games" are the only kind of games i bother playing so i am stuck with my PC. Most of the games for playstation-Xbox-gamecube are quite brain-dead "shoot 'em up" games the only thing they use the higher resolution to (or so it seems to me) is to put even more blood and goore into them.

Tell me more about this one! I don't care for shoot-em-up games but love the simulator stuff.
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Well basically you drive a train, ...:D obviously , with quite realistic controllers and there are some tasks you can perform like yard switching, passenger runs or Freight hauling. You can drive both Steam, Diesel and Elictric locomotives and there is a HUGE community on the net for new locomotives - routes - tasks - YOU NAME IT. I have just recently aquired the Game but it is fast becoming my favourite.

One word though, it takes a pretty "strong" computer. It DOES run on my old 650MhZ with 3dfx graphics but only just, I WANT A 3GhZ with 256 on the graphic card.....:D
Here is a screen shot with a GP38 Diesel locomotive.
 
Iconoclast said:
Well I've never bought a multiplayer split screen game, but since so many PC games have a split screen mode I'd assumed they would support multiple controllers too, perhaps they don't. In the case of games with digital control, it's a trivial task in any case to map keyboard keys to controller inputs
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Name a multi-player split-screen supporting PC game. I've never seen one that I recall.
 
If you want it mainly for websurfing and email.

I would choose linux. Staroffice is good, but I would also take a look at KOffice, the KDE office suite.

I have a dual boot system, linux for serios stuff and going online with, and windows for playing games. Actually is quintuplae boot as I have win 3.1, 95, 98 and 2000 as wondows options as not all games are compatible with all version of windows.

As an ex amiga user, I would urge you to take a look at UAE - United Amiga Emulator. basically changes your PC into an Amiga, or an amiga in a window if you do not want it full screen. Pagesetter was the best DTP package I ever used and that was on the Amiga. I have not had any amiga software fall over yet, even games using it. you can use WINE on linux to run most windows software (not many games alas, unless you pay for cadega).

The think is what distro to use. Mandrake, suse or fedora if you want painless setup. Debian if you want to get into geekdom (I use debian). Though if just net and office stuff, try ubuntu linux, based on debian, and quite nice (one of my mates does the installer, so I should recommend it).
 
evildave said:
Name a multi-player split-screen supporting PC game. I've never seen one that I recall.
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Need for Speed III:Hot pursuit
Oh the joy of busting your friends for speeding
 
Couldn't be as good as causing them to wreck into things, as in Burnout 3 for the XBOX, on a ten foot projection on my wall, with surround.
 
evildave said:
Name a multi-player split-screen supporting PC game. I've never seen one that I recall.
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Halo
Toca2
F1 2000
Colin McRae Rally 2

There's dozens of them.
 
And yet... Halo was out on the XBOX for years before it was shipped on the PC.
 
evildave said:
And yet... Halo was out on the XBOX for years before it was shipped on the PC.
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But that has nothing at all to do with your argument either. Are you taking debating pointers from that prat Bill Hoyt? You might just as easily have replied "you're right, there are a lot of split screen PC games", but that would be akin to admitting that there was something you didn't know.
 
You try to start an irrelevant flame war over 'PC Games Are As Good As (or better than) Console Games'... and then you complain when I don't participate in a satisfactory way? Gosh, sorry.

Someone solicited advice. I gave mine, and made a very correct point that to play games on a PC is more expensive than buying a console, so buy a console and don't worry about game/multimedia compatibility on the PC. It's a non-issue.

The core point is still that there's no good reason to spend $2000 (or more) for a 'gaming' PC when you can pay (A LOT) less than $1000 for a very adequate PC and much less than the cost of a new video card for a very adequate game console. No amount of quibbling over petty details changes this fact.

If you're obsessed with PC games and can't piss away your cash fast enough keeping up with 'Recommended PC Hardware Requirements', carry on. The games evolve and improve just as much on a console, but with exactly the same hardware year by year, until a new (and also very cheap) console is offered up to replace the old.

When I hear someone complain about a missing gaming genre, I can't help but feel as unsympathetic as when someone claims they can't stand to hear anything but a particular kind of music, or a kid can't stand to eat anything but hot dogs. Plenty of console games have deep and immersive play. Plenty more have very entertaining and mindless play. Plenty of flight sims and driving sims and yes, bloody-gorey-icky sims available. Grand Theft Auto will keep just about anyone busy for weeks, and you'll probably kill a few innocent bystanders in the process. I never 'liked' driving games, until the RIGHT driving games came around.

As an additional clue, see ' GEEZ!! I just want to transfer some videos to DVD!!!!' for more evidence that a general purpose PC is not the best or least expensive all around solution to every 'problem'.
 
evildave said:
You try to start an irrelevant flame war over 'PC Games Are As Good As (or better than) Console Games'... and then you complain when I don't participate in a satisfactory way? Gosh, sorry.
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Once again Dave, I have said NOTHING at all about whether I consider a PC to be better or worse than a console for playing games. If I've not even claimed one platform is inherently better than another, how could you possibly construe this as trying to start a flame war. The complaint I made is that whenever one of your assertions is shown to be false you just ignore that and begin ranting about something else entirely.

evildave said:
Someone solicited advice. I gave mine, and made a very correct point that to play games on a PC is more expensive than buying a console
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And you made many completely fallacious points as well, and it was these points that I was refuting.

evildave said:
If you're obsessed with PC games and can't piss away your cash fast enough keeping up with 'Recommended PC Hardware Requirements', carry on.
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Again, I've not even alluded to preferring one platform over another yet. This is a critical thinking forum, you're supposed to argue against things I actually say, you're not supposed to just invent my point of view out of thin air and then argue against it.

evildave said:
As an additional clue, see [...] for more evidence that a general purpose PC is not the best or least expensive all around solution to every 'problem'.
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Who the hell ever claimed that it was? Are you just arguing with yourself here?
 
Fight, fight, fight. You wanna be alpha geek? Fine. Be alpha geek.
 
evildave said:
Fight, fight, fight. You wanna be alpha geek? Fine. Be alpha geek.
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Er, no. This is an argument, not a fight, and arguments are a requirement of any debate, we're not in primary school any more.
 
Driving Sims:
The sim du jour is Burnout 3. Before that it was the Grand Theft Auto games. I like to crash the cars more than drive them. Or maybe I'm not that great a driver.

[55 Driving Games on XBOX

Flight Sims
Secret Weapons Over Normandy, Crimson Skies, Wings of War, various space games.

Actually GTA Vice City has both driving and helicopter flight. Stealing the attack helicopter is really worth it. Halo has driving and flight, too. Lots of fun toys to play with in the same game.

Something like 'Project Gotham' where you're not allowed to scratch your perfect make believe car is a pain in the butt to play versus a game like Burnout 3 or GTA, where they keep giving you more cars to destroy, er 'drive'. After all, they're free. (OK, in GTA you're stealing 'em, but they're still FREE)

That's just the XBox, I'm sure a PS2 fanboy could chime in with another pile of games that are exclusive to that platform. Oh... GTA San Andreas already shipped on the PS2. What do you want to bet there is more driving and flight simulating in that one?

And sure, you could play 'Crimson Skies' on the PC, but an XBox or PS2 only costs $150. What did that gaming PC cost, or the upgrades to keep your PC game-worthy?

Granted, 'Halflife 2' will ship November 16th, but Halo 2 will ship right about the same time.
 
Flight Sims
Secret Weapons Over Normandy, Crimson Skies, Wings of War, various space games.
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Yes that sounds convincing, trouble is that it is not flying sim's like the Microsoft Flight simulator series but merely flying games. They can be fun i agree but i prefer autenticity. I have tried GTA - - - but find them disgustingly violent.

My favourite sim's at present are Microsoft Train Simulator and Microsoft Combat Air Simulator and i dabble with "Aces High" once in a while. They are all "real" simulators.

I know, i know, some of them is made by the evil Gates-corporation, sorry....... but they are the best on the market.:p

Ohhh BTW i find car racing games utterly boring but then again, i am a bit of a nerd.:D
 
You find racing games boring? Me too!

I like car crashing games myself. Grand Theft Auto is really only as 'disgustingly violent' as you make it, and what little actual racing happens tends to occur on optional story side-tracks. If it's your thing to pick up a 'ho', bang her and kill her, then it's 'disgistingly sick and violent'. Except for a few missions, throughout most of the game you never have to harm a single soul, if you take your time and drive carefully, you can go hours and hours without hurting anybody... you could even stop at every red light... but what's the fun in that?

Burnout 3 has a nice mode where all you do is try to wreck other cars, or wreck them faster than your opponent(s), and a simulation mode where you cause the hugest possible chain reaction collisions. Fun stuff. What that game is missing is... pedestrians, blood and ejected bodies. A little road kill would spice things up a ton. If you wanted it realistic, when you collide with a gasoline truck at 200+ miles per hour in rush hour traffic, there would be dead, charred bodies. And live, charred bodies.

If sitting on the runway waiting for tower clearance to take off, climbing to altitude, flying, flying, flying, flying watch the GPS, and the altimiter, flying, flying, flying, then getting clearance to land, going into a pattern and making your descent, landing and parking the plane is your thing, have fun. 'Authenticity' smacks too much of the 'real world', and I personally play video games to act out fantasies and take out my aggressions, not to do more of the same boring junk I do in the real world.

Microsoft probably has some code in there to narc you out to the FBI over the internet if you fly a plane into a building by now.
 
If sitting on the runway waiting for tower clearance to take off, climbing to altitude, flying, flying, flying, flying watch the GPS, and the altimiter, flying, flying, flying, then getting clearance to land, going into a pattern and making your descent, landing and parking the plane is your thing, have fun. 'Authenticity' smacks too much of the 'real world', and I personally play video games to act out fantasies and take out my aggressions, not to do more of the same boring junk I do in the real world.
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I said "Combat Flight Simulator" right? Nowhere in the real world can i strap into a Hawker Tempest MK V and go out looking for TA 152's in the skies over Germany or protect Flying Fortresses from ME110's and FW190's in a P51D Mustang and DO IT UNDER VERY AUTHENTIC CONDITIONS. These planes are about as difficult to fly as the real thing and that is very satisfying when you get good at it.
My son has "GTA Vice City" for his PS2 and i have tried it a couple of times but it really is boring me stiff, sorry. Give me a good REALISTIC WW2 dogfight anytime.
 
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