Huh? You’re referring to MGS: Twin Snakes which is exclusive to Gamecube. MGS2: Substance is essentially MGS2: Gold and was released on PS2, Xbox, and PC where it was DVD only.
I’d better be able to pay and download it, damnit!
System specs for Unreal Tournament, released November 1999:
CPU: Intel Pentium™ 200MHz or AMD K6 200MHz or better processor
Memory: 32MB RAM (64MB recommended)
Available HD Space: 300MB (605 recommended)
System specs for Unreal Tournament 2004, released March 2004:
CPU: Pentium® III or AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz processor or faster (1.5 GHz or faster processor recommended)
Memory: 128 MB RAM minimum (256 MB recommended)
Available HD Space: 5.5 GB free
Note that in the four and a half years between releases, the following changes in requirements:
Ram: 32MB to 128MB (4x higher)
CPU: 200 MHz to 1 GHz (5x higher)
HD space: 300MB to 5.5 GB (16x higher)
So it is reasonable to conclude that while people have hardware that is significantly more powerful in order to play a current game sequel, it is not reasonable to assume that they have or would be willing to buy a $20 DVD drive.
Just so we’re clear. :)
Well, more to the point, hard-core PC gamers upgrade all the time. I suspect EverQuest’s audience is rather more mainstream. (Good indication: What percentage of users connect to EQ on a 56K modem?)
Peter[/quote]
Even a “average” gamer has upgrades. Not as much, but they still do. I played EQ when it first came out with a overclocked Celeron(700mhz or something), 128 MB RAM, and a 12MB Voodoo 2. I doubt that would run the game today well. That Lucien expansion pretty much required EQ players to get 512MB of RAM to run the game decently. It happens all the time with PC Gaming, so $30 for a DVD drive(that most places like Fry’s will install for you is pretty much negligable).
We have moved ahead in all areas with PC hardware except the optical drive. Its time to go forward industry.
I predict the industry will shift in the US when we get to 20 CD installs and not before. Of course by that point we’d be talking about 4 DVDs anyway so hopefully we’d have something even more dense to shift to (blue-ray DVD?).
You could easily fit 20 CDs on 2 DVDs. You could even fit them on one DVD if you were willing to go DSDL (dual-sided dual-layered).
Anyone heard how many CDs Doom 3 will be? If a company like id said Doom 3 would only be available on DVD, I wonder how many people would get one then?
not me… how many years has it been since a good id product was released?
Well if you don’t like simple action games, then the answer to your question would be infinity. OTOH, if you do like simple action games, then arguably, id has never released a bad game.
Even a “average” gamer has upgrades. Not as much, but they still do. I played EQ when it first came out with a overclocked Celeron(700mhz or something), 128 MB RAM, and a 12MB Voodoo 2. I doubt that would run the game today well. That Lucien expansion pretty much required EQ players to get 512MB of RAM to run the game decently. It happens all the time with PC Gaming, so $30 for a DVD drive(that most places like Fry’s will install for you is pretty much negligable).
This is too true. The problem with EQ, which has caused more complaining than I care to recall, is that they drastically changed the graphics halfway through. The system specs required with Luclin were 2-3 times more than they were with the original release, and they didn’t really look BETTER than the things before. The new models were ugly. The new landscapes were ugly. The new NPC’s were so amazingly ugly it’s just stupid.
They could have left well enough alone, or they could have done the smart thing and moved processing to the graphics card (which weren’t really so common when EQ came out) and away from the processor. EQ was so amazingly processor heavy it was unreal. Going from a radeon 7000 to a ti4600 gave me almost 0 framerate increase except when there were a bunch of the new style particles on the screen.
Anyway, whatever City of Heroes does, as far as it’s engine goes, everybody else should do too. You need barely anything to run the game and have it look nice.
Yeah, CoH looks damn good. I just wish the view distance was a bit better. The horizon seems awful close all the time.
So it is reasonable to conclude that while people have hardware that is significantly more powerful in order to play a current game sequel, it is not reasonable to assume that they have or would be willing to buy a $20 DVD drive.
If you don’t want to watch movies on your PC and your CD drive works fine, is there a reason to buy a DVD drive? What is going to make a PC owner say, “Hey, I need a DVD drive!” and go out and get one?
All of you guys who bought a DVD drive and installed it in your computer – why did you buy one?
five
Mostly because I had hopes that the industry would start to make use of the extra storage space, and I liked to be ahead of the game, but also because I have a DVD buner in one of my computers for backing up of large amounts of data, so it always helps to have a reader in the other machines.
Just as good a question: Why would you buy a machine today that has a CD-Rom reader instead of a DVD reader like many people do?
All of you guys who bought a DVD drive and installed it in your computer – why did you buy one?
To burn DVD’s. I had no DVD drive on my computer until then.
Well if you don’t like simple action games, then the answer to your question would be infinity. OTOH, if you do like simple action games, then arguably, id has never released a bad game.[/quote]i don’t mean they suck, i mean the last id game i remember playing was quake3 in 1999 (or was it 2000?)
So using a DVD to back up data – that’s a good use. I wonder why more people haven’t upgraded to a DVD burner for that reason?
Is there any other reason to get a DVD drive?
It’s a chicken and egg problem. The best reason would be so you can avoid three or five or twenty CD-Roms, but that’s no use until distributors start publishing games on DVD format in large volumes.
[quote=“Mark_Asher”]
So using a DVD to back up data – that’s a good use. I wonder why more people haven’t upgraded to a DVD burner for that reason?
Is there any other reason to get a DVD drive?[/quote]
Not just back-up. When you are burning huge files, or want to make a high quality backup for a movie… or just want to put 4-5 movies on a single disc, a DVD is a great thing to have.
Probably nothing. But very few people who aren’t hardcore computer users will buy and install new hardware whether they need it or not. Most folks will just wait until they buy a whole new machine. That said, there is no reason NOT to buy a machine with a DVD drive these days. Most new machines–even cheap ones–come with one by default. So why not have one? They play CDs too, and they aren’t any more expensive than a CD-ROM drive.
I got my first DVD drive when I bought my last computer, in 2000. At the time, I noticed that it a good DVD drive cost the same as a good CD drive, so I said “why not?” I really don’t understand why everyone doesn’t have one at this point.
Same here, I’m using SCSI drives and there weren’t any cheap CD models so I got a DVD drive. And today I need it for the MSDN subscription. Encyclopedias, electronic phone books and the like ship on DVDs, too.