Topic: PC Gaming

Finally upgraded to Windows 10, and... it's fine? Not having any issues so far.

I have the Xbox app installed and am planning on joining GamePass, so I guess this means I'm part of the Xbox family again.

@Ralizah yeah i never had issues with windows 10. sure it has privacy issues, but the OS itself is great and it works well for me. i guess some people just don't understand how to properly use a PC. those people will have issues with any PC though

I never understood the hate for Windows 10 either. The most complaints I've heard are these supposed unannounced updates but I've never encountered them. Windows 10 warns you plenty of time before there are mandatory updates coming and you can choose to install them overnight or when you're not using your PC. Only when you ignore these updates for too long (weeks) will Windows 10 force them on you.

@TheFrenchiestFry Sorry to drag you over here, but I wanted to ask you about it and not pull the other thread off topic. I saw you mentioned you got a Dell G5 gaming laptop. How are you liking it, and what config did you get? I'm thinking about getting one. Almost pulled the trigger when one with a 2070 went down to $1200, but chickened out in the end, haha.

@klingki I actually have the RTX 2060 config with a 9th gen core i7. However only the cheapest RTX model was at stock on Best Buy, so I had to get an external SSD since the onboard storage had a 2TB HDD but only a 128GB SSD, with a good chunk of it already reserved for OS stuff

After MANY years of lacking the funds / justification to do it right, I finally built my own gaming PC earlier this year (probably should have waited a little longer for the RTX3000 series but OH WELL - there's always going to be something bigger and better just around the corner, so not much use losing sleep over it)

Went with:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
RTX 2070 Super
16Gb 3200Mhz RAM
1Tb SSD
2Tb HDD
500Gb m.5 NVME

In retrospect the nvme was a probably waste of time/money for my usage but my motherboard supports them and I had an "OO SHINY" Purchasing Moment.

So far it hasn't caught fire or exploded so I think I did a decent job building it. It plays everything I've thrown at it real nice, and I just upgraded to a 1440p 144hz monitor a couple weeks ago too and it handles that like a champ.

By the way - unrelated, but if anyone's after a Halloween game, the excellent SOMA is currently available on GOG for something like €2.50. Absolute steal.

@TheFrenchiestFry Any issues? Or are you generally pretty happy with it? I'm probably looking at a pretty similar build, though I may splurge for an upgrade here or there if it's affordable. I'll be keeping an eye out for what deals happen on Black Friday.

@klingki It's actually pretty solid. I don't generally care about ray tracing or anything like that, so I was basically trying to get ahold of a laptop with that card just for pure performance increases, and it's pretty good on that front. I did try Quake II RTX out of sheer curiousity and it actually performed pretty stably at 60fps with RTX on, but for the stuff I generally play on Steam like DOOM, FFXV and Nier Automata that are fairly graphic intensive it actually handled those games wonderfully at 60fps while at the highest graphics presets.

@TheFrenchiestFry Thank you, that is good to know!

Bought Control on Steam today, after buying the cloud version on Switch. I was always going to buy the Steam version, but I couldn’t resist having access on the console I’m always playing.

Using mouse gyro didn’t work, it deactivates all other buttons. So I had to use mouse joystick mapped to gyro. Usually I hate the mouse joystick, because it just doesn’t quite feel as smooth as a real mouse input mapped to gyro, but for this particular game actually works pretty well. In Outer Worlds, I switched to all keyboard inputs mapped to the Steam controller to get mouse gyro to work (The issue is having controller inputs mapped at the same time as a mouse input because a lot of games don’t like that, but you can ALWAYS just map it as keyboard and mouse inputs to get flawless gyro, it just sucks because it takes time going through the menu and figuring out which command keys need to be mapped to buttons, even if there is a default template that has most of the basic actions from common keys mapped).

But ya, it’s great. Using an RTX 2080 ti with i9 9900k, was getting 4k with DLSS turned on on highest settings. Assuming it’s capped at 60fps because there was no option to set frame rate. Unless it’s unlimited, which it may be.

I'm pretty sure it's at least supposed to be 60fps, @JaxonH .... Yours should manage that pretty well but I heard a lot about it not doing so well on some PCs at least Let us know how it goes, though!

I actually picked this up a long time ago on a previous sale and never got around to playing it. Right now at Halloween should be a good time to give it a go.
Picked out a couple games from the Halloween Steam sale. Got Resident Evil 1 & 0 HD. Played this version of RE 1 back on the Cube, but want to again in HD and I never did find 0 back then, so seemed a good time to try it out. And got the Resident Evil 2 Remake. I keep hearing how good it is, so here's hoping it lives up to the hype. Also got God Eater 3, a series I never heard of until I saw it come out for Switch. Figure a Steam sale is a good way to check it out. And finally, also got Star Wars The Force Unleashed, another game from a while back I always meant to check out, but never seemed to find the time.

I have a huge Steam backlog from all the sales that I'm going through. One I just finished is The Talos Principle. I really enjoyed that game, it was a real thinker in many spots. They did a fantastic job with it.
I also had to play Half-Life 2 again (only this time I played HL2 Update). All this time and I still love that game.

Hi. New guy over here (and not a very english fluent guy, sorry). I have some problems building my pc. I will be very grateful if you can help me.

I wanted to pair a Ryzen 5 3600 with a GTX 1660 super. However, due to stock problems, 3600 is no longer available. That leaves me with these three options:

1) Pair a 3600x with a GtX 1660 super.

2) Go down to a Ryzen 5 2600 and pair it with RTX 2060.

3) Go down to a Ryzen 5 2600 and pair it with RX 5600 XT.

Which one is the best for you?

Thank you very much

My son is going to be 9 next month and for about a year he has been asking for a computer to play Minecraft. With Black Friday coming up we will probably look at getting a good deal on a cheaper laptop because he definitely doesn't need a top-of-the-line rig, just something for school work and Minecraft, but I'm just wondering if there is anything we definitely need to be sure to get specs-wise. I'm guessing Minecraft is not the most intensive game, but I do at least want to make sure he can play it. Thanks.

DISCLAIMER
at anyone who wants to buy/build a pc right now:
not a good timing. new GPUs (RTX 3000, RX6000 series) will be out of stock for a long time due to production being effected by corona. some ryzen processors are also hard to find, but there are many alternatives when it comes to CPUs.

@Chers get the ryzen 5 2600. it is still a very good cpu and should be fine for the next years. as for gpu i dont think the first RTX cards are worth it. especially not the 2060 as you will get "low" fps while using ray tracing. rather just wait to get a 2nd gen RTX card or one of the upcoming RX6000 from AMD, but it will be super difiicult to buy them. so right now i would recommend the rx 5600 xt.
also make sure you have some fast RAM. ryzen CPUs really benefit from that. i would suggest 2x8GB ddr4 at 3000mhz or higher.

@Xyphon22 these are the recommended specs for minecraft java edition:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz / AMD A10-7800 APU 3.5 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 8GB
GPU: GeForce 700 Series or AMD Radeon Rx 200 Series (excluding integrated chipsets) with OpenGL 4.5
HDD: 4GB (SSD is recommended)

how much money do you wanna spend? minecraft is quite old at this point and doesnt need the most modern parts to run well. would be easier to recommened something if you can specify your budget and if you want your son to be able to play some other stuff in the future.

anway i would suggest to try to get more than 8gb of RAM. 2x8gb would be better, but i dont know if it is easy to get dual channel ram for laptops. if your son doesnt mind, i would suggest buying a desktop pc instead. you can get more for your money and kids these days should get used to a proper work environment in my opinion
as for storage a single ssd should be enough for your son. so 250gb or 512gb SSD i guess.

@6ch6ris6 Honestly ray tracing ain't really that hot on any of the first gen RTX cards, especially for more intensive games like Control and Metro Exodus. the 30 series cards are the only ones that can probably hold up a stable framerate with RTX on. You buy an RTX 2060 specifically for performance gains at higher settings at a budget friendly price, and it's excellent for that.

Tnak you very much, guys. I really appreciate your help.

Nioh 2 is coming to PC ....

Oh nice Nioh 2 is finally coming to PC just like the first one. If you haven't already picked it up it's definitely one of the best Souls-likes I've played in recent memory and a nice change of pace from Koei Tecmo making games about one man armies mowing down everything in sight

Alright, so I asked above about a PC for my 9-year-old son to play Minecraft, but now I have questions about Minecraft. He has it on Switch, but is it as safe on PC? He likes watching videos of other people playing (his favorite is Preston Plays, I don't know if he is super popular or not), and now he is talking about creating his own servers and mods and things like that. Is that something that is possible and safe for a 9-year-old without strangers coming in and doing whatever strangers on the internet do? Does Minecraft have parental controls that can block these things? I don't play Minecraft or on the PC much, so I don't know how servers and the like work. Thanks for any help/advice. He really wants this for his birthday/Christmas, but my wife and I need to feel comfortable with it before we buy him one.