PC gaming is a hassle and don't know how people prefer it.

[gamevet]

My 5th year into PC gaming and I'm liking it a lot so much so almost 2y ago I had to get my first video card. Ha-ha gamevet might remember how that went with bricking the last system and all trying to update the BIOS because needed UFEI support for the 1050 Ti but in the end really like this newer system much better.
I've had some problems along the way one notable would be Arkham Knight where it needed to be reinstall it plus all data needed to be found and deleted too (but the save file) because using the in game benchmark would corrupt it and this happen twice. Other smaller stuff like Bass Pro Shops: The Strike needed to be run in 640x480 than trying to figure out what resolution setting looks best on a 1080 monitor.
But for the most part it has gone well. However I do almost live to fix and tinker with things.

I will never use an Xbox gamepad but found the Logitech F710 be great also to SegataS it has a rumble on/off button on the face of it.

I made the mistake of buying a AGP graphics card, for a PC that only had PCI slots. I didn't know that not all PCs had an AGP slot.

I think my 1st build was in 2010. I started out with baby steps on learning how to build my own PC. The 1st step was replacing the Pentium E6300 (Core2duo) with a Q9650 (Core2quad) in my HP media PC from 2009. A year later I bought an Nforce SLI motherboard, moved the Q9650 over to it and added a second GTX 460 for SLI. A couple of years later I put together the 2500K rig I have in the living room and then in 2014 I put together my i7-4790K rig that I have in my Game Room/office. I'm hoping I can get at least another 3 or 4 years out of my 4790k rig. The motherboard it has is one of the best I've ever seen, outside on the expensive enthusiast CPU (X99 etc) boards



My current issues are with every time that Windows 10 updates. I have to redirect the PC sound back to my sound card and tell the PC where to find the drivers for my game pad. PC gaming is not noob friendly.

[EyeDeeNo76]

What's that Creative Labs? My Realtek onboard audio will sometimes switch to NVIDIA HD audio after a NVIDIA driver update and I guess is common occurrence.
Where's the PSU? You have a spinner where the PSU should be.

Just for a ha ha here's my bland stock-ish system.

DSC01480.jpg
Lenovo 710-25ISH IdeaCentre with a i5-6400 Skylake ~ Win10 H 64 1803
Lenovo 3642 Motherboard Intel H170 ~ BIOS FWKT91A 6/28/2018
FSP Group FSP250-30AGBAA 250w 80 Plus Bronze
EVGA 04G-P4-6251-KR GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Gaming ~ Precision XOC 6.0.9
G.SKILL F4-2400C15Q-4GNT Value DDR4 4x4GB Kit (Running 2133 as can't XMP on H170)
Seagate ST1000DX001-SSHD-8GB Hybrid Drive 1TB + Seagate ST31000524AS Barracuda HDD 1TB
Pioneer BDR-209M Blu-ray Burner

AOC E2475SWQE 23.6'' 1ms TN 1080p 60Hz Monitor via Athena CLH-DP0612MM28 DP + Samsung UN32J5500AF 31.5'' TV via Belkin F8V3311B15 HDMI
Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II

[TrekkiesUnite118]

If we were still in the DOS era I could understand the issue, but we're not. PC Gaming is easier than ever to get set up and going on even the weakest of boxes these days thanks to Steam, Origin, Windows Marketplace, etc. The only time I've run into issues these days is trying to run something really old from the Windows 95 days.

[gamevet]

I have issues trying to get Knights of the Old Republic to work with Windows 7 Trekkies.

What's that Creative Labs? My Realtek onboard audio will sometimes switch to NVIDIA HD audio after a NVIDIA driver update and I guess is common occurrence.
Where's the PSU? You have a spinner where the PSU should be.

Just for a ha ha here's my bland stock-ish system.

Hey, it gets the job done!

The PSU and my SSDs are on the back side of the case. It's a Corsair Air 540. It's like a reverse mullet, with the party in the front and business in the back. The sound card is a Creative Labs 3D Recon - Fatality Edition. I have a Turtle Beach DSS connected to it using a TOS and I sometimes use Turtle Beach X12 headphones for surround sound.








Windows 10 64 bit

i7-4790K @4.7Ghz
Corsair H110 Closed loop CPU cooler
Asus Z87-WS motherboard (I got it for $85, it retailed for $325)
16GB DDR3-2133 Kingston HyperX Savage memory
EVGA GTX 1080 Classified
Crucial MX300 500 GB SSD (Boot)
Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD
OCZ Agility 250 GB SSD
Samsung 850 Evo 500 GB
Crucial MX300 750 GB SSD (pretty much for Steam)
Corsair AX-860 860 Watt 80+Platinum PSU (Paid less than $100 for it)
Corsair Air 540 case
$20 DVD burner
27.5" Dell 1440p/144Hz G-Sync (TN)Monitor
Creative Labs 3D Recon - Fataliity Edition Sound card
Turtle Beach DSS Surround Sound processor for headphones.

[Leynos]

10 years ago I was all into the million blue LED's and lights and shit. Now I think I would want something that was sleek and simple with no windows or LED. I do like backlit keyboards since I am awake all night tho.

[Flygon]

Consoles are a pain for my own cramped living circumstances. Needing different machines for different games, and then there's the whole fragmentation issue and...

By this point, I've just stopped caring. If there's anything that aint coming out on PC*, I guess I'll just never play it.

*Of course, the Mega Drive and Master System are forever hooked up!

[cabear]

yeah i've never had near the amount of issues playing on PC, hell GOG and Steam make playing a breeze. maybe if you're using pirated stuff yeah it takes a little longer to setup but shit's so cheap nowadays it's almost not worth it. consoles are cool, but i can't even remember when i turned on my ps4, yet today i was rocking doom 2016, wolfenstein 2, cuphead and arma 3 on my tv using my nvidia shield. plenty of options out there, though it does cost more.

[Leynos]

^ Never pirated a game. Always have bought them.

Btw for those with soundcards. Why?! Not much point anymore. The early 00s..sure I guess. In 2018..seems like it would be for placebo effect and kinda shocked they still make sound cards.

[gamevet]

^ Never pirated a game. Always have bought them.

Btw for those with soundcards. Why?! Not much point anymore. The early 00s..sure I guess. In 2018..seems like it would be for placebo effect and kinda shocked they still make sound cards.

You'll get better signal to noise ratio with a sound card, unless you buy a really high end motherboard. Creative Sound cards support the Dolby Digital Live license, while you'll have to pay for the license for most onboard sound chips. You also have support for features like Scout Mode, where you can hear the footsteps of an enemy approaching you from behind.

[Leynos]

I was wondering why this thing came with Dolby stickers. Just thought it was one of those made with such and such sound.

[Orchid87]

PC gaming is the best way of gaming, after retro CRT gaming.

XBox and PS4 just don't cut it.

[ITViking]

If we were still in the DOS era I could understand the issue, but we're not. PC Gaming is easier than ever to get set up and going on even the weakest of boxes these days thanks to Steam, Origin, Windows Marketplace, etc. The only time I've run into issues these days is trying to run something really old from the Windows 95 days.

There were significant changes from Windows XP to Win Vista & Win 7, and then again between Win 7 & Win 8/10 that cause a lot of issues for people installing Win XP software on newer systems. Most of them relate to changed installation & save locations, and can be rectified with use of the OS compatibility settings. But some require the use of a patch. Many people wouldn't know that you can run the game installer file specifying "run as Win XP, or Win 7 SP1" (etc).

Many games fail on the software requirements check simply because of the way the check was designed, and lack of knowledge of newer OSs'. Example, if the requirements check is looking for Win XP or WIn 7, it might fail because it doesn't recognize Win 10 as a newer OS capable of running the program. So using a compatibility mode tool, you can essentially have the OS lie to the game and tell it "Yup, this is Win XP SP3".

[Team Andromeda]

PC is just a hassle compared to consoles Sure PC's have got a lot better but there still is nothing like how with a console it press a button on the pad and play the game.

[EyeDeeNo76]

You'll get better signal to noise ratio with a sound card, unless you buy a really high end motherboard. Creative Sound cards support the Dolby Digital Live license, while you'll have to pay for the license for most onboard sound chips. You also have support for features like Scout Mode, where you can hear the footsteps of an enemy approaching you from behind.

This pre-built Lenovo came with Dolby Digital Plus Advanced Audio installed even has a case badge ha-ha. Not that it's perfect I can still hear the 1050's coil whine through the front audio jack if hook up my Sennheiser HD 280 pro headphones for the back one don't know that one has the GigaWorks speakers and don't hear it over them.
The Lenovo Legion line (and others?) comes with Atmos with I think the multi-channel digital audio equipment hardware also.

From what I read you are not alone with broken Creative driver issues after a Windows 10 update.

[CrossBow]

Well, I've been a PC gamer since I got my first computer back in 1988 (Pretty spiffy 286 it was back then!). My current system has been very stable for me and quite flexible. Only now with video editing and with 4k gaming ability is it starting to really show its age to me.

I'm using an old Intel motherboard I've had for about 7 years now that still uses a 2nd gen Sandybridge i5-2500k that runs at 3.8 - 4.2ghz depending on what it is doing.

I do still use and have always used sound cards since I bought the first Adlib for my 286 back in 89. Currently I have an SBzx installed. For me my motherboard didn't come with onboard audio and the discrete sound cards have always provided better audio quality than any onboard I've heard. True creative's drivers are a royal pita sometimes but it is actually my GTX1070 that causes windows to default to nVidia audio now. So yes I occasionally have to switch it back and disabled the other stuff it detects from time to time but as was said before, PC gaming now is MUCH easier than it was in the DOS era. I wasn't kidding about needing different boot diskettes to play certain games. Heck just to play Wing Commander 2 on my 286 bitd required me to use a boot disk and remove everything else from the hard drive because I only had a 20MB HDD in that system. Wing Commander 2 fully expanded (for the best performance) required like 18MB and actually a bit more.

I remember the fun I had when I would try to use separate wavetable sound cards etc and have to play with IRQs and the like. All the fun in playing with mem maker and finding all the tweaks to address space to get everything you could loaded into hi-mem XMS.

So yeah, I would say it is much easier today to PC game than it really ever has been.