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1 General

Although often associated, computer games are not necessarily video games although all but the earliest video games (such as Pong, which used dedicated analogue circuitry) are computer games. Computer games encompass a broader range of games that do not depend primarily on video display, including text-based adventure games and other interactive fiction.

The generally accepted distinction between a computer game and a video game today is simple: a game will be a "computer game" if it is played on a personal computer (such as Apple Mac, PC, Amiga or Commodore 64), and will be a "video game" if it is played on a computer that is specialized for game playing, called a video game console. Because of hardware differences, a game played on a computer will have some fundamental differences than the same game played on a video game console. One such difference is that on the computer the game player has a wider assortment of direct control s exploiting the full computer keyboard, while video games tend to use more layers of sub- menus, or button combinations via the game controller. The keyboard however does not lend itself to certain gameplay types that are common on consoles, such as fighting gameKung-Fu the first real fighting game Fighting games are video games in which players fight each other or computer enemies with martial arts. Along with fixed shooters, they are traditionally at home in the arcades, and are considered separate from Sportss.

Another distinction between computer and video games arises from the fact that computers tend to have small, high-resolution monitors — they are optimized for viewing at close range by one person — while home video game consoles use a much lower-resolution commercial television as their output device: optimized for viewing at a greater distance with a larger audience. As a result, most computer games are intended for single-player or networked multiplayer play, while many video games are designed for local multiplayer play, with all players viewing the same TV set.

Video games have generally had access to less computing power, less flexible computing power, and lower resolution monitors, than computer games. Before the arrival of 3D graphics cardGeForce 4 4200-based graphics card A graphics card or video card is a component of a computer which is designed to convert a logical representation of an image stored in memory to a signal that can be used as input for a display medium, most often a monits however, dedicated consoles were more advanced graphically then computer games of the time, especially in animation. This is because video game consoles had dedicated graphics hardware, were able to load things instantly from ROM, and a low resolution output would look better on a televisionSee TV (disambiguation) for other uses and Television (band) for the rock band Television is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term has come to refer to all the aspects of television p because it naturally blurs the pixels. Since the arrival of dedicated graphics accelerators on PCs, the trend has been reversed with PCs having an edge in the very high end. Modern computer games can handle a wide range of hardware, and since the needed display resoultion is so low on consoles, even their limited capabilites in terms of CPUThe central processing unit (CPU is the part of a computer that interprets and carries out the instructions contained in the software. In most CPUs, this task is divided between a control unit that directs program flow and one or more execution units that power and RAM doesn't stop computer games from being ported.

Supporting a wide range of hardware is not all roses though. Computer game developers have, especially in the past, spent significant effort towards supporting additional hardware and testing their implementations only to find players whose systems should be able to run a game yet cannot. Indeed, "minimum requirements" specification on computer games is more complex than that of a console where, for example, a PlayStation 2 game is guaranteed to run on a PS2 (in the same territory).