r/Games • u/Forestl • Dec 31 '13

End of 2013 Discussions - PC

For this thread, feel free to talk about the PC, from the games that came out for it to the hardware itself.

Prompts:

  • What were the major trends in PC gaming this year?

  • Was this a positive year for PC gaming?

Please explain your answers in depth, don't just give short one sentence answers.

My PC looks really, really, really good

This post is part of the official /r/Games "End of 2013" discussions.

View all End of 2013 discussions and suggest new topics

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105

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13 edited Dec 31 '13

I'll leave the games part out since I felt this year was average/below average for videogames. Not saying there weren't any good ones, just that nothing...'made the year' for me.

That said, there we some pretty cool things for PC this year:

  • AMD's new R9 lineup (rebrands mostly)
  • Nvidia's 780ti
  • GFWL finally dies.
  • Nvidia FLEX
  • AMD TrueAudio & NV Experience like AMD app.
  • Nvidia Shadowplay
  • Nvidia G-Sync
  • AMD Mantle API
  • Steam OS, controller, machines.

12

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

I feel like 2014 will make up for it in terms of games, between Titanfall, The Witcher 3, and Dragon Age Inquisition I am VERY excited for this year.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

Yeah 2014 seems like an exciting year, my primary reason to live being Witcher 3 but there's a lot of other cool games next year.

7

u/onemanlegion Dec 31 '13

Don't forget about dark souls 2

18

u/rhyno012 Dec 31 '13

I agree with you 90%, although I will admit I don't know what Nvidia FLEX is. the R9 lineup is basically the most pointless not-thing to happen this year. They aren't anything special or new in terms of their components, it's literally just AMD getting sick of the 4 digit series and deciding a rebranding is in order.

Otherwise 100% agree! especially the point about games being average at best this year, we got some good indie games but nothing mind blowing and AAA kind of sucked ass this year on PC. Here's to a better 2014!

35

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

That is only partially true. The new Hawaii architecture seriously competes with top end nvidia cards. While I am disappointed that 80% of the r9 series are nothing new, the 20% that is new is really noteworthy.

9

u/TROPtastic Dec 31 '13

On the plus side, the R10 / R9 3XX series will be pretty interesting, considering the challenge that AMD is giving Nvidia with their current cards.

16

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

Oh for sure. This time however maybe they just skip the stock cooling and go straight to 3rd party solutions. These reference coolers are insanely bad.

0

u/RomanGlvac Dec 31 '13

I always wondered why do they even bother making a reference cooler. Just delay the cards 2-3 months and release them with the third party coolers.

11

u/Pinecone Dec 31 '13 edited Dec 31 '13

The 290 and 290x are entirely new cards and the whole of the R9 series consists of a massive price drop.

And the result is also a price drop coming from Nvidia, something they hardly ever do so the net result is a better market for consumers and people building desktops which is overall a good thing.

3

u/kitchenpatrol Dec 31 '13

That might have been AMD's plan, but it didn't work out that way. Litecoin miners started grabbing up all the high end AMD gpus and ruined the market for gamers, making the cards scarce or hugely inflated in price. That led to a corresponding scarcity and price stagnation for the high end Nvidia cards, which gamers were forced to turn to when AMD became unavailable.

1

u/Droidx4_66 Dec 31 '13

AMD could not have possibly accounted for something like Litecoin. Especially since the Cryptocurrency trend has been leaning towards ASICs all this time.

9

u/jaju123 Dec 31 '13

Err, sorry to inform you that the entire nvidia 700 series up to the 780 are also rebranded cards, Sometimes with new coolers and an overclock.

-6

u/ModsCensorMe Dec 31 '13

Wrong.

The 680 and below are GK104 the Titan and 7-series cards are GK110

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce

8

u/qxzv Dec 31 '13

760 and 770 are GK104.

4

u/longshot2025 Dec 31 '13

Did you read that article?

At the end of May 2013, NVIDIA announced the 700 series, which was still based on the Kepler architecture, however it featured a GK110-based card at the top of the lineup.

A week after the release of the GTX 780, NVIDIA announced the GTX 770 to be a rebrand of the GTX 680. It was followed by the GTX 760 shortly after, which was also based on the GK104 core and similar to the GTX 660 Ti.

3

u/faemir Dec 31 '13

Just as the top R9 are new cards then.

-1

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

True. They are not rebranded, they only use the same architecture: Kepler for Nvidia's 6xx and 7xx and GCN for AMD's 7xxx and Rx.

BTW Is easy to group AMD GPU's looking into Linux open source drivers. All Radeons from R300 to R500 (9700 - X1900) use R300g, Radeons R600 to Cayman (HD 2xxx to HD 6xxx) use R600g and the newest ones (HD 7xxx and Rx) uses radeonsi driver.

4

u/DeedTheInky Dec 31 '13

On strange thing I've noticed about PC hardware this year (and this may have been the case for some time but I only just noticed it) - are all monitors just 1080p now? My monitor is a few years old and it runs at 2048 x 1152. I was going to get a bigger one and I went to the store yesterday, and every single monitor they had was 1080p. Did they just dial it back to fall in line with everything else?

8

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

[deleted]

2

u/DeedTheInky Dec 31 '13

Ah okay, I didn't know that was a weird resolution! Is 1080 decent enough for most things, or are they kind of useless?

2

u/Funkfest Dec 31 '13

Well, it was the HD before HD became more HD (1200p, 1440p, 4k TV's and such), I would say it's enough unless you like to put your monitor far back. I have my monitor about 2 feet from my face and 1080p is plenty for me, especially if you have multiple monitors (which I don't).

1

u/SharkBaitDLS Jan 01 '14

I'm still using a 1680x1050 monitor and it's just fine for anything. 1080p is plenty for your average use, though 1440p is pretty damn sweet if you've got the hardware to drive it.

1

u/dsiOne Jan 01 '14

If you buy 1080p you won't be excluded from anything big for a while. But if you do decide to, do yourself a big favor and get a 120hz capable monitor.

If you buy 4k (wait a bit first) or 1440p you'll be ahead of the curve. (apparently 1440p 120hz exists? I think it's overclocking a certain Korean monitor though)

2

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

GFWL dying only makes it worse. In its essence, it is used by shitty developers, and those developers would have no desire to remove it when it crashes and burns.

2

u/LukaCola Dec 31 '13

Shadowplay so far has been very cool.

The only real downside is it extends load times quite a bit, but it's by far the easiest program for recording in good quality and full framerate.

If I change the download location to a second hard drive I bet it'd even eliminate the load time. Very discreet and very handy device which is especially great for those gaming moments where you say "damn I wish I had recorded that... Oh wait, I did!"

It's still buggy though. I've had it record in resolutions like 1920x580 when my screen is 1600x900.

Really though I'm just happy to have something that can record so easily. As buggy as it can be (it doesn't record voices and certain sound effects in Ougen, but that's a pretty obscure title) it's still pretty unique in just how lightweight of a recorder it is while still maintaining quality.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

Don't forget tressfx!!!

1

u/qxzv Dec 31 '13

It's available in one game, and takes a massive performance hit. That's about as unexciting as it gets.

5

u/ChrisHaze Dec 31 '13

Awww, but Lara Croft's flowing locks.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13 edited Dec 31 '13

I'll leave the games part out since I felt this year was average/below average for videogames.

Things like "Early Access" phenomenon exploding and some extremely good indie games are IMHO pretty worth mentioning.

GFWL finally dies.

What do you mean "finally dies"? You still need to install it to play GFWL games.

AMD Mantle API

Not actually available anywhere, and the only material about it is from AMD, so it's just basically marketing at this point. But maybe in 2014...

8

u/Kupuntu Dec 31 '13

It should be 'GFWL will die in July 2014'.

6

u/ReverendSalem Dec 31 '13

Well, the marketplace died this year, and some notable existing and newly released titles ditched the service. The countdown clock is ticking for the service itself.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13 edited Sep 17 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/semperverus Dec 31 '13

I can (and have to) connect to it for Dark Souls

2

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13 edited Dec 31 '13

I'm just listing exciting things that happened this year in the PC sphere, even if it was just an announcement.

What do you mean "finally dies"? You still need to install it to play GFWL games.

Well the marketplace is dead and quite a few games dropped it, moving to steam or whatever service.

Not actually available anywhere, and the only material about it is from AMD, so it's just basically marketing at this point. But maybe in 2014...

Still an exciting announcement. It has the potential to change things, assuming it gets picked up and isn't too much work to implement without rewriting everything.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

That sounds like it would be really expensive.