I would have preferred split-screen too. There's nothing like playing with a buddy who's sitting next to you and sharing all the unique moments. My friends all depend on me for their gaming anyway, none of them owns any consoles or a PC fit for games.

Anyway, I finished the game with an AI partner and the gameplay kept me hooked till the end. The only thing I felt should have been done differently is that when the two characters are close, I should have been able to pick up an item from a character's inventory with the mouse and drop it on the other's without having to go through options like "Request" or "Give". It made no sense when your partner's AI. But I guess there have to be sacrifices for ports.

Sep 24, 2009 -- 10:37AM, Native Dialect wrote:

I think you missed the part about appreciating the resource efficiency of this game. It would require too much to run this game with split screen play.

It's a feature present in the console version, isn't it? In which case, you're the one missing something.

Sep 24, 2009 -- 3:29PM, pkt wrote:

Sep 24, 2009 -- 10:37AM, Native Dialect wrote:

I think you missed the part about appreciating the resource efficiency of this game. It would require too much to run this game with split screen play.

It's a feature present in the console version, isn't it? In which case, you're the one missing something.

PCs have to run a full OS rather than just a kernel, as well as additional programs running in the background. Consoles do not, therefore some things are a bit more taxing if you want to achieve the same result in some cases.

Sep 25, 2009 -- 12:31AM, JackAxe wrote:

for reference, modders were able to enable the split-screen mode on the PC version of L4D.  So there's probably a way to do so on the PC version of RE5.

Wow that's sweet, I wish that would happen with RE5 but I highly doubt it simply because Valve games have the most dedicated modding community I've ever witnessed but there's not a whole lotta (modding) love for Capcom games on PC.

Sep 26, 2009 -- 1:38AM, JackAxe wrote:

Sep 24, 2009 -- 10:37AM, Native Dialect wrote:

PCs have to run a full OS rather than just a kernel, as well as additional programs running in the background. Consoles do not, therefore some things are a bit more taxing if you want to achieve the same result in some cases.

True, but current PCs are several factors more powerful than any consoles and really aren't limited in the same respect. So the extra overhead required for its OS isn't really a factor now days, especially not with games that are balanced to play well on a dated console.

The 360 and PS3 are both using tech that's about 4 years behind PCs now and it shows. This is why my mid-range PC(Core 2 Quad + GTX 275) can push RE5 at an average of 60 fps at a higher detail level and resolution than either console can manage -- and without screen tearing.  The 360 pushed about 30 fps at a lower resolution and detail level, where as the PS3 has problems maintaining that frame rate and often dips into the twenties at even a lower detail level.

When it comes down to it, it's the consoles that are taxed more when running a split-screen mode, as their resources are limited compared to newer PCs.

You have a quad core processor where as an XBOX 360 has a tricore processor. That pretty much undermined your arguent right there. You have a GTX 275 where as the PS3 runs what? A 7800GTX derivative card. In fact, you proved my point. A more inferior console can run the same games as a superior PC, because less resources are needed to get about the same performance as a more powerful PC. PCs multitask at all times, even when the user is not actively doing anything. A console pretty much does one thing at a time. You can't minimize the DVD player in an XBOX and play Halo. You can do this on a PC however.

Consoles pretty much do two things at a time. Run the kernel for its OS and run the game. Nothing else. And even then, there are a lot of console games now that are starting to not support split screen play (again, Burnout Paradise comes to mind).
If all PC ussers were running Radeon HD  5 series cards (when they come out) and have the latest i7 Core processor with 64bit Windows and 8GB of RAM, then it would probably be no problem, but until then, they do what they can. I mean I am hardly a Capcom rep or IT, but some of these things seem like obvious conclusions.