PC Gaming - General discussion.

Thread title explains itself. Just talk about PC gaming and anything that has to do with it in this thread. Feel free to talk or brag about your gaming PC if you have one or even if you don't currently own a gaming PC, still feel free to post if you want to talk about PC gaming. Believe it or not, my gaming PC is a gaming laptop but a very good one at that. Pretty much as powerful as some gaming desktops, runs my games very well. Even runs Battlefield 3 at max settings without a problem. Pretty much had no trouble running games on it. Asus G74S, NIVDIA GeForce GTX 560m. Got the machine in November 2011.

edited 10th Feb '12 9:55:09 AM by HappyComputerist

My big ugly slab of black steel has a HIS AMD 6870 1Gb GDDR RAM graphics card, 6 GB of OCZ DDR 3 RAM, a Foxconn Flaming Blade motherboard, a Samsung 1TB hard disk and an Intel gen 1 i7 920 processor inside it. It goes like the clappers, has enough fans in the case to get a 747 to takeoff speed and is just as noisy. I love it. I built it on my own. It isn't perfect, but it is all mine.

Won't overclock worth a damn though. Comes with the motherboard being a refurb second-user model I think.

Huh, wish I had a gaming PC.
I've been wanting to give that hat collecting game a go...
I just don't know what to get though. Its a market that, for the most part, is completely foreign to me.

edited 10th Feb '12 9:50:29 AM by Zeromaeus

I'm on an Asus laptop with a GTS 360M with 1 gig of dedicated video memory and 8 gigs of DDR3 RAM, a 500 gig HDD, and an i5 M430 @ 2.27 GHz. It's a bit old, but, then again, most of the games I play are relatively old, or at least not brand spanking new, so it does what I need it to pretty well. It was pretty boss for a ~$1000 laptop in June of 2010.

edited 10th Feb '12 9:53:48 AM by Balmung

TF2 doesn't really require a gaming monster machine to play, but it is really good to run on a high-end gaming PC anyways. (Runs at 60 FPS, probably even more, for me at max settings. You can probably run it on a medium-end computer at toned down settings though.)

edited 10th Feb '12 9:57:37 AM by HappyComputerist

My current computing device is incredibly... utilitarian.
I bought for specifically what I needed it for. That is to say, I use it for college work and only for college work. That's what its good for and that's all its good for.

Now that I have some extra disposable income, I'm looking at the computer market and I don't know what I'm seeing.

I play games on my Laptop that I really shouldn't. Steam sales lead me to playing games that are rather more tortous then their console versions to play, but rather cheaper.

It's missing the point to play a frustrating game isn't it? Ugh, but the bargains!

My machine is rather high-end. Nvidia GT440, Intel i7, Windows 7 Home Premium, 8 GB of RAM and some fairly fancy peripherals (Logitech gaming mouse, I think, and AKG headphones). My machine also has the ability to let me put up to two SATA hard drives on carriers and slot them into the computer (no opening the case required-there's a sliding panel to allow access) and an Intel Rapid Storage program handles all of that. Not that I use that feature for gaming, but I like to think of it as pretty dang novel, considering that I cannibalized the hard drives from my last computer.

edited 10th Feb '12 2:52:47 PM by RocketDude

I am feeling really inadequate right now.

• Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P 2.0
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (3.0 G Hz for the time being, until I can figure out how to make 3.2 G Hz 8x400 perfectly stable)
• 8 GB DDR-2 800 (4*2 GB, motherboard maximum)
• Galaxy GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB
  • Sun GDM-5410 (21" FD Trinitron G1)
• Creative SB X-Fi Titanium HD
  • Stax SR-202 + SRM-212
• 4.5 TB worth of hard drive space (500 GB + 1 TB + 1 TB + 2 TB)
• PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

It's been through several upgrades, but I'm still using the same CPU, motherboard, GPU, and PSU I originally built this system with four years ago. Wasn't expecting this kind of longevity, that's for sure.

Only now do I feel like it's time to replace the 8800 GT, and that was after I helped a friend get an Alienware M18x loaded to the gills. i7-2820, 16 GB DDR 3-1600, dual GTX 580Ms in SLI, dual 256 GB SS Ds in RAID 0...it doesn't quite run Crysis at a constant 60 FPS on Very High DX 10, but it's close enough that I don't care. Graphics cards have finally advanced enough to where it's worth it to get one, and it only took four years instead of the one year it used to back in the late 1990s-early 2000s.

Oh, and if you must know what input devices I use:

• IBM Model M (Lack of 2KRO aside, it's the best keyboard I've ever used. The only thing that might surpass it is the older, capacitive IBM Model F in its 122-key version.)
• Logitech G500 (It feels nice, has plenty of buttons for me to use, and as a mid-high sensitivity user, I don't seem to move the mouse fast enough to make the Avago 9500 sensor malfunction. That said, I have considered the Razer Naga and Cyborg MMO 7 a few times, if only because I wouldn't mind having even more buttons.)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 wireless gamepad + USB receiver (Used for XInput titles primarily, but older games built around DirectInput gamepads work far better with an Xbox Controller S, a spliced adapter cable, and XBCD drivers...or a Logitech Dual Action.)
• Microsoft SideWinder Force-Feedback 2 Joystick (What it lacks in extra buttons and hat switches, it more than makes up for with a tight centering force and precise, non-jittery axis inputs. Perfect for Old-School Dogfighting, and in fact, it's a Cult Classic stick, along with the older SideWinder 3D Pro.)
• Microsoft SideWinder Force-Feedback Wheel USB (Not the most feature-filled of wheels, but certainly more satisfying to drive with than a gamepad or flight stick, and also not nearly as expensive.)
• NaturalPoint TrackIR 4 (A head-tracking unit I find indispensable for combat flight simulation. Frees up a hat switch for better tasks, increases immersion, and most importantly, increases situational awareness. It also makes clickable 3D cockpits much more usable.)
• 3Dconnexion SpacePilot (Bought this as a one-handed successor to the old Spacetec SpaceOrb 360. Unfortunately, it doesn't provide me with the fast Descent turning speeds I'm used to, but it's a very nice device for 6DoF games otherwise. Really helps with Independence War, if you know how to set up the controls just right.)

• Microsoft SideWinder Strategic Commander (Bought one of these on eBay yesterday, in the hopes that it'll save me from having to rebind almost every game I play from WASD to ESDF. It's unlike the Belkin/Razer Nostromo N52, Logitech G13, and similar devices in that it's more like a joystick with a left-handed mouse handle and lots of buttons, which provides the potential for analog movement.)
• Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar + RCS pedals (I had a set for a long time, modded to the gills. Hall sensors everywhere, save for the stick being pre-modded with a force transducer more akin to the real F-16 stick. Had to sell it for cash when funds got tight, though...at least with a near-top-of-the-line setup like that, you get back most of what you pay for.)

Okay, enough about input devices...I've generally favored PC gaming for the sheer flexibility and customization it brings (plus it's impossible to get combat flight sims anywhere else), while not really bothered by the complexity. It helps that I've been doing it long enough to remember the days of having to manually set your address, IRQ, and DMA for each new game installed unless you like playing deaf.

If you are looking for a computer and you don't mind getting your hands dirty building the thing, your best bet is to get at the bare minimum a motherboard with the intel Sandy Bridge chipset on it. Asus, Asrock, Gigabyte, Foxconn and MSI make some really good boards. Look for socket 1155 boards from any of those manufacturers. Next step is deciding what you want to do with your computer. You could go mad and buy an unlocked core i7 processor, the 2600K model which has more bells and whistles than your average marching band, but is hideously expensive to go with the features list. Or go for a core i3, which is much more basic yet is still surprisingly quick along with it.

There is a list of all the current socket 1155 cpus on wikipedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_bridge

so have a look and see what features you fancy. Whether or not you want graphics capability on board the cpu or not, that kind of thing. Also Tom's Hardware Guide (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk) is a ferociously good website, it covers the whole motherboard/cpu spectrum better than I can and the writers do a really good job of matching your available budget with kit to match it.

I know some people love AMD mainboards and processors, but, at the moment, and for really the first time in a long while, they are not really competing in the same ballpark as Intel. In fact, they are getting their arses kicked.

Their graphics card division, the former Ati, are a different proposition. I wouldn't use any other brand at the moment.

Computershopper.com is your best friend if you're looking for a computer and don't know what you're doing.

After a trip there, hit Newegg.com at the right time for some cool deals.

By now I'm at the point where the best birthday gift my parents can give me, if they even care to anymore, is a budget to play with while shopping on Steam.

On a less hardware and more game-related note, is anyone here interested in getting some Descent or Hexen II co-op going?

Given the age of those games, just about anyone can run them now.

Considerably the ugliness of console wars I figured it's about time I dusted off this thread to remind people there is another way.

Umm wouldn't this still be considered necro-posting? And besides, even the rabidly pro-console fanboys are beginning to acknowledge that the PC's lifespan has been greatly lengthened, thanks in part to games like League of Legends, World of Tanks, DOTA 2, the hordes of MM Os out there, the entire online collection of Steam, etc..

Pity this revival doesn't include some of the older simulator games. Would be nice to see a couple of high-quality gunship or fighter simulator games in the market again.

I thought making redundant threads was considered a great to sin then mear necromancy? Isn't it policy to open up all old thread then new ones with the same content?

Of course a lot has change the last two years. Computer processing power has effectively doubled for the average desktop and the rise of downloadable games means there's a market for quality retro and Indie titles that simply didn't exist a few years ago

Anyway how's everyone's Farmville going?

edited 27th Feb '14 5:18:16 AM by joeyjojo

Er, unlike other forums generally it's expected to necron thread here...

From what I heard Farm Ville is still going...and strangely the first game earns more than the 2nd I think...

Farmville's creators hit the sweet spot with the first one. Some folks may think trying the same trick twice was being cheeky.

Speaking of PC Gaming, anybodye else remember this:

Wireless adapter for Xbox One controllers on PC.

edited 10th Jun '15 3:29:01 AM by AnotherGuy

I remember them being oddly filled with viruses, corrupted files, as well as incomplete games, but not much else.