@ATE412: Dude, there's only four panels. If canv.as users didn't have the attention span of a speed-addicted goldfish, my reply would've dwarfed this entire thread :D

@tingle007: does anyone know the source for this?

@Jarod: i just started watching the 2005 version. did i miss anything great or should i skip anything or what?

@Anonymous: People are still fighting over console vs. pc? Why not own both? I do and get the best games on each platform. There debate over. Don't be poor, get a job and get both.

@Anonymous: deal. what kinds of gaming computers do you recommend? what brand?

@Crazydave21216: if you're really going for gaming just build it yourself. building your own computer isn't difficult, it's just a little tricky in a few places, but there are tons of people out there who know how and can help you.

@dmauro: I thought that's what the monocles were for... ?

@Anonymous: Maybe trying to play Red Alert or GTA or something.

All the same, you're gonna want 98SE for preference.

@lukesdrad: what ... er.... were you going somewhere with this?

also, which generation of Atari? VCS, 400/800, 5200/7800, XE, ST/STE, Lynx, TT/Falcon, Jaguar?

@Anonymous: Because there's never been a new generation of games consoles with little to no backwards compatibility ever since the dawn of time? Er OK.

If your PC is a decent spec already, then it's good for gaming for at least a couple years, and after that you either crank the graphics quality down for a bit, or progress immediately to gradual, piecemeal upgrading, maintaining compatibility with about 15-20 years of back catalogue and gaming evolution at any one time. 30 years, for the more compatible titles. and you can emulate pretty much any previous-gen platform you care to name, sometimes even current ones.

@Anonymous: in other words, what this guy said.

mind that i haven't kept my own one up to date as i srsly can't be bothered with the modern gaming scene when i'm still not up to speed on all the classics of the PS2/XBox1 gen. bumped up the ram and disc to make windows use more comfortable, but otherwise it's the same rig as 6 years ago. though that's largely because it's a laptop and so it's basically impossible. still more flexible and upgradeable than a console, but not the full fat experience.

plays everything upto and including the orange box quite nicely though. which puts it sort of on the Xbox1/360 cusp.

but, that's always how it was, and still seems to be for the people I know who are still PC gamers. all the show-offs with the cold cathode lit cases and water cooled quad-SLI cards are just that... ricers with too much money. a real gamer PC is a fairly ugly box that stays mostly hidden out of site, mid-high range CPU, decent amount of quickish memory, some kind of hard disk (if your HDD speed makes a serious impact on your gaming smoothness, you haven't got enough RAM), and a single decent video card, all dependent on how much money you have to spare. considering most people still wish to have a "real" PC in their lives for internet, media downloads, etc, you shouldn't consider the full system cost but how much extra it is vs a vanilla browsing client box... and it's only about as much as a console a few weeks after launch day, then.

@Anonymous: "and you can emulate pretty much any previous-gen platform you care to name, sometimes even current ones"

That's not really true at all. Dolphin, the GCN/Wii/Triforce emulator, is the only even remotely worth-while last/current-gen console emulator. PS2 emulators suck ass and even PSX emulators suck ass for the most part. As far as I know there is no Xbox emulator that works...

Unless your idea of playing video games is at 12fps with no sound. Then you can have the time of your life.