5 ms·

Whatever you do, avoid the console version at all costs. A friend told me about this game, and I thought it would be perfect for my (then) 10 year old. We go

Whatever you do, avoid the console version at all costs. A friend told me about this game, and I thought it would be perfect for my (then) 10 year old. We got it for the PS4, and it was nothing but frustration. The biggest controls were complex and confusing when mapped to the PS4 controller, you couldn't install mods, and the game was buggy, frequently crashing and corrupting saves. We finally got the PC version (which I run under Wine on FreeBSD), and it works much, much, much better.

swiley 9y ago
I don't understand console games now. I used to buy them because they worked without an internet connection, and the devkits usually provided their own (well written) primitives and game engines so bug-free (or seemingly bug-free) games tended to be the norm. Now everyone just writes things in unity and the DRM forces you to have a reliable broadband connection, I don't see the point anymore.
- Rudism 9y ago
  My only computer is a Macbook Pro running Arch Linux (which is my ideal setup for getting work done). In general it struggles to achieve unplayably low framerates in the small selection of games that even run on Linux. Given that I want to play games, my options are to spend a bunch of time and energy researching, price-shopping for parts, and building out what would likely be a $1000+ dedicated gaming Windows PC, continuing to funnel time and money into upgrades as games demand more and more horsepower; or pick up a $250 current-gen console at Walmart, knowing that it'll be able to handle anything I throw at it, and only worry about upgrading several years from now when some game I really want comes out on a future generation console. As someone with a limited entertainment budget, the latter option is by far the more attractive option.
  - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
    Dual-boot Windows. Your MBP will do fine.
  - vultour 9y ago
    I bought the PS4 recently to play Crash Bandicoot, great game. Other than that, I just don't understand how people play anything else other than racing games with a controller, that thing is absolute trash for actually "controlling" anything. I build a new PC approximately every 7-10 years and so far my computers handled everything fine. My current one which I'm about to replace has a first gen i7 and a GTX480 and they worked perfectly with pretty much any game. I'm about to replace it, probably with a 7700k and 1080Ti which should again last for quite a while. The only reason why I'm replacing it at all is because some random component on the motherboard started overheating so I finally have a good reason to upgrade. > spend a bunch of time and energy researching This is a terrible argument, I know jack about hardware yet am able to build a relatively decent computer. It's not rocket science, a couple minutes of looking through your local computer shop should give you a good idea what sort of components are good or bad. You can also throw your build into PCPartPicker which will generally let you know if something is wrong.
    - quacker 9y ago
      > I just don't understand how people play anything else other than racing games with a controller Oh, not up to the challenge of playing games with a controller? /s But seriously, adjusting controller sensitivity/etc to your liking and practicing helps a lot. You can also turn on aim assist in most shooters (it's usually on by default, actually). There are plenty of great PS4 exclusives that it'd be a shame to ignore simply because you think they're unsuitable for controllers (depending on your taste - Horizon Zero Dawn, Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us, Nier Automata, Nioh, Ratchet and Clank, The Last Guardian, Persona 5, Gravity Rush). That said, there definitely are plenty of games that have terrible console controls (especially bad ports, like Kerbal) and I've never seen an RTS done well on a console.
    - munchbunny 9y ago
      > I just don't understand how people play anything else other than racing games with a controller Don't forget top-down and fighting games. RPG's too. But if you're talking about games that have a first/third person aiming component, yeah, mouse and keyboard are better, but if you're stuck with a controller, you just aim a bit differently. You have to rely more on strafe-aiming, sweeping, and movement prediction. It's usually not so bad the controller is a reason to give up on otherwise good console-only games.
- simias 9y ago
  I think the only point is that console hardware tends to be cheaper than a PC with similar performance due to the mass manufacturing. Also the games only target one platform so you don't have to mess with the settings to get decent performance (if the devs do their job correctly, that is). I agree that console gaming is not really attractive nowadays if you're not on a budget and don't mind missing a few exclusives. >the devkits usually provided their own (well written) primitives and game engines so bug-free (or seemingly bug-free) games I don't think that's quite right, I think the main reason games seem buggier nowadays are because: - Nostalgia goggles, some games were utterly broken even back in the day, we just don't remember those. - Games are a lot more complicated these days, it's easier to test Pacman than GTAV. - You can now patch games so "going gold" is not that much of a deal anymore. Back then if your Nintendo 64 cartridge shipped with a game-breaking bug you were screwed. - Even though the games themselves are overall more complex, gamedev is also more accessible thanks to Unity and other frameworks. That lowered the bar for game devs and as a result the average skill level is probably lower than it used to be. In my experience the "well written primitives" is a myth. Older console (anything up to the 16bit era) hardly had any primitives to speak of, you just wrote assembly and talked to the hardware directly. Later consoles had a kernel or "BIOS" but it's really not as good as you could imagine. To take the PlayStation for instance, the BIOS is a piece of crap with poorly optimized code and buggy functions. Just read a bit trough http://problemkaputt.de/psx-spx.htm#kernelbios http://problemkaputt.de/psx-spx.htm#kernelbios to get a taste. FileSeek: Movement from the eof is incorrect. Also, movement beyond the end of the file is not checked. FileGetc: For some strange reason, the returned character is sign-expanded; so, a return value of FFFFFFFFh could mean either character FFh, or error. strstr: After rejecting incomplete matches, the function doesn't fallback to the old str address plus 1, but does rather continue at the current str address Since the PlayStation doesn't have a MMU many games actually hotpatched the BIOS to fix some of these issues or add functionality.
- goldfire 9y ago
  Console dev kits for major platforms never included game engines, and the primitives included with older console dev kits, if any, were often ignored because more custom versions were required to get the desired performance. What's happened to the console ecosystem is a whole bunch of different things. More accessible tools (e.g. Unity) and platform holder development programs have gotten more developers who are less experienced and not as well funded onto the console platforms. Availability of easy online patching has lead to physical releases, which have to be finalized months before the actual release date, being intentionally left incomplete, with gaps to be filled in by a release day patch. Changing technology cycles have made console generations blurrier. And yes, online DRM has become a thing, although I'm not sure that's quite as onerous in practice as you suggest; it's not like current consoles just refuse to run any games while offline. That's not an exhaustive list. The appeal of consoles is what it has always been, they're still the easiest and cheapest way into modern video games. But it's true that some of the advantages over the PC platform have begun to erode.
- setr 9y ago
  I used to buy them because local multiplayer Now we have the controllers, but no games The whole thing is just dumb
Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
>which I run under Wine on FreeBSD No luck with linuxemu?
tomswartz07 9y ago
They have a native Linux version? Why running it under Wine?
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  Probably, FreeBSD. Besides, last time I looked the native Linux version was still 32 bits only. KSP has many problems with 32 bits platforms.
  - tomswartz07 9y ago
    They do have an x64 build as of about a year or so ago. Maybe even a bit longer than that.
    - JdeBP 9y ago
      The fact that Linux is not FreeBSD is still a major stumbling block for the idea that drewg123 should not use a compatibility shim and just run the Linux version, of whatever bitness, though. (-:
      - tomswartz07 9y ago
        Understood, and agreed. :)
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      Well, even if drewg123 won't benefit from that, it's good to know that there is a 64 bit version for linux already. Thanks.
- drewg123 9y ago
  The last I tried, it did not run on FreeBSD. The 32-bit version crashes immediately after a failed mmap() The 64-bit version has issues with nvidia GL libs that I didn't try to get past. Wine just worked. There has been some work recently with mmap and linux compat, so I will retry again when I have the chance..

swiley 9y ago

I don't understand console games now. I used to buy them because they worked without an internet connection, and the devkits usually provided their own (well written) primitives and game engines so bug-free (or seemingly bug-free) games tended to be the norm. Now everyone just writes things in unity and the DRM forces you to have a reliable broadband connection, I don't see the point anymore.

Rudism 9y ago
My only computer is a Macbook Pro running Arch Linux (which is my ideal setup for getting work done). In general it struggles to achieve unplayably low framerates in the small selection of games that even run on Linux. Given that I want to play games, my options are to spend a bunch of time and energy researching, price-shopping for parts, and building out what would likely be a $1000+ dedicated gaming Windows PC, continuing to funnel time and money into upgrades as games demand more and more horsepower; or pick up a $250 current-gen console at Walmart, knowing that it'll be able to handle anything I throw at it, and only worry about upgrading several years from now when some game I really want comes out on a future generation console. As someone with a limited entertainment budget, the latter option is by far the more attractive option.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  Dual-boot Windows. Your MBP will do fine.
- vultour 9y ago
  I bought the PS4 recently to play Crash Bandicoot, great game. Other than that, I just don't understand how people play anything else other than racing games with a controller, that thing is absolute trash for actually "controlling" anything. I build a new PC approximately every 7-10 years and so far my computers handled everything fine. My current one which I'm about to replace has a first gen i7 and a GTX480 and they worked perfectly with pretty much any game. I'm about to replace it, probably with a 7700k and 1080Ti which should again last for quite a while. The only reason why I'm replacing it at all is because some random component on the motherboard started overheating so I finally have a good reason to upgrade. > spend a bunch of time and energy researching This is a terrible argument, I know jack about hardware yet am able to build a relatively decent computer. It's not rocket science, a couple minutes of looking through your local computer shop should give you a good idea what sort of components are good or bad. You can also throw your build into PCPartPicker which will generally let you know if something is wrong.
  - quacker 9y ago
    > I just don't understand how people play anything else other than racing games with a controller Oh, not up to the challenge of playing games with a controller? /s But seriously, adjusting controller sensitivity/etc to your liking and practicing helps a lot. You can also turn on aim assist in most shooters (it's usually on by default, actually). There are plenty of great PS4 exclusives that it'd be a shame to ignore simply because you think they're unsuitable for controllers (depending on your taste - Horizon Zero Dawn, Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us, Nier Automata, Nioh, Ratchet and Clank, The Last Guardian, Persona 5, Gravity Rush). That said, there definitely are plenty of games that have terrible console controls (especially bad ports, like Kerbal) and I've never seen an RTS done well on a console.
  - munchbunny 9y ago
    > I just don't understand how people play anything else other than racing games with a controller Don't forget top-down and fighting games. RPG's too. But if you're talking about games that have a first/third person aiming component, yeah, mouse and keyboard are better, but if you're stuck with a controller, you just aim a bit differently. You have to rely more on strafe-aiming, sweeping, and movement prediction. It's usually not so bad the controller is a reason to give up on otherwise good console-only games.
simias 9y ago
I think the only point is that console hardware tends to be cheaper than a PC with similar performance due to the mass manufacturing. Also the games only target one platform so you don't have to mess with the settings to get decent performance (if the devs do their job correctly, that is). I agree that console gaming is not really attractive nowadays if you're not on a budget and don't mind missing a few exclusives. >the devkits usually provided their own (well written) primitives and game engines so bug-free (or seemingly bug-free) games I don't think that's quite right, I think the main reason games seem buggier nowadays are because: - Nostalgia goggles, some games were utterly broken even back in the day, we just don't remember those. - Games are a lot more complicated these days, it's easier to test Pacman than GTAV. - You can now patch games so "going gold" is not that much of a deal anymore. Back then if your Nintendo 64 cartridge shipped with a game-breaking bug you were screwed. - Even though the games themselves are overall more complex, gamedev is also more accessible thanks to Unity and other frameworks. That lowered the bar for game devs and as a result the average skill level is probably lower than it used to be. In my experience the "well written primitives" is a myth. Older console (anything up to the 16bit era) hardly had any primitives to speak of, you just wrote assembly and talked to the hardware directly. Later consoles had a kernel or "BIOS" but it's really not as good as you could imagine. To take the PlayStation for instance, the BIOS is a piece of crap with poorly optimized code and buggy functions. Just read a bit trough http://problemkaputt.de/psx-spx.htm#kernelbios http://problemkaputt.de/psx-spx.htm#kernelbios to get a taste. FileSeek: Movement from the eof is incorrect. Also, movement beyond the end of the file is not checked. FileGetc: For some strange reason, the returned character is sign-expanded; so, a return value of FFFFFFFFh could mean either character FFh, or error. strstr: After rejecting incomplete matches, the function doesn't fallback to the old str address plus 1, but does rather continue at the current str address Since the PlayStation doesn't have a MMU many games actually hotpatched the BIOS to fix some of these issues or add functionality.
goldfire 9y ago
Console dev kits for major platforms never included game engines, and the primitives included with older console dev kits, if any, were often ignored because more custom versions were required to get the desired performance. What's happened to the console ecosystem is a whole bunch of different things. More accessible tools (e.g. Unity) and platform holder development programs have gotten more developers who are less experienced and not as well funded onto the console platforms. Availability of easy online patching has lead to physical releases, which have to be finalized months before the actual release date, being intentionally left incomplete, with gaps to be filled in by a release day patch. Changing technology cycles have made console generations blurrier. And yes, online DRM has become a thing, although I'm not sure that's quite as onerous in practice as you suggest; it's not like current consoles just refuse to run any games while offline. That's not an exhaustive list. The appeal of consoles is what it has always been, they're still the easiest and cheapest way into modern video games. But it's true that some of the advantages over the PC platform have begun to erode.
setr 9y ago
I used to buy them because local multiplayer Now we have the controllers, but no games The whole thing is just dumb

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago

>which I run under Wine on FreeBSD No luck with linuxemu?

tomswartz07 9y ago

They have a native Linux version? Why running it under Wine?

marcosdumay 9y ago
Probably, FreeBSD. Besides, last time I looked the native Linux version was still 32 bits only. KSP has many problems with 32 bits platforms.
- tomswartz07 9y ago
  They do have an x64 build as of about a year or so ago. Maybe even a bit longer than that.
  - JdeBP 9y ago
    The fact that Linux is not FreeBSD is still a major stumbling block for the idea that drewg123 should not use a compatibility shim and just run the Linux version, of whatever bitness, though. (-:
    - tomswartz07 9y ago
      Understood, and agreed. :)
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    Well, even if drewg123 won't benefit from that, it's good to know that there is a 64 bit version for linux already. Thanks.
drewg123 9y ago
The last I tried, it did not run on FreeBSD. The 32-bit version crashes immediately after a failed mmap() The 64-bit version has issues with nvidia GL libs that I didn't try to get past. Wine just worked. There has been some work recently with mmap and linux compat, so I will retry again when I have the chance..