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Post by sj on Oct 14, 2022 8:02:10 GMT -5
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Post by sj on Oct 15, 2022 8:40:51 GMT -5
Personally, I'm not even very enthusiastic about PC gaming anymore. The main drawbacks of PC gaming are the exorbitant price of graphics cards and the fact that you have to run (bloated, unstable) Windows OS's.. there are better OS's that just never attained the wide acceptance for some reason or other. Look at how well some of the latest Intel cpu's perform and the reasonable price (relative to gpu's). cpu.userbenchmark.com/Intel-Core-i5-13600K/Rating/4134www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1721753-REG/intel_bx8071513600kf_core_i5_13600kf_3_5_ghz.htmlI'm kinda salty about how much Nvidia & AMD are gouging for gpu's. I could afford it if I really wanted one that badly. But I'm not that hardcore of a gamer and I don't like getting fleeced. It's a matter of principle (why should anyone like getting screwed out of their hard earned money). I hope Intel's upcoming (performance) gpu's disrupt the fu*k out of the gpu market and bring the prices down to levels that make more sense. |
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Post by Coolverine on Oct 15, 2022 15:56:29 GMT -5
Devices like the Switch and Steamdeck are definitely looking more appealing these days, especially with a docking station.
I always liked having a gaming PC though, always enjoyed high-fidelity graphics in games cause it really does elevate it and make it more immersive.
That reminds me, I saw these really cool AR glasses from some company called "Nreal" they're basically a low-profile VR headset that is completely portable. I think they're even gonna work with Steam and Steamdeck.
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Post by sj on Oct 15, 2022 16:54:04 GMT -5
Devices like the Switch and Steamdeck are definitely looking more appealing these days, especially with a docking station. I always liked having a gaming PC though, always enjoyed high-fidelity graphics in games cause it really does elevate it and make it more immersive. That reminds me, I saw these really cool AR glasses from some company called "Nreal" they're basically a low-profile VR headset that is completely portable. I think they're even gonna work with Steam and Steamdeck. The Steamdeck is supposedly a beast of a handheld for emulation too. People have actually installed Switch emulation on Steamdeck and got improved performance out of Switch games. Switch hardware is so outdated at this point, I honestly wouldn't recommend buying one. I'd think it has a year (or two, max) before Nintendo releases new hardware. They held out years longer than other console/hardware mfg's.. seems crazy for them to wait much longer. Also, the Analog Pocket.. this one has programmable FPGA cores (the main draw, imo) and a docking station. store.analogue.co/#pocketThe Analog Pocket user community has already tweaked pre-existing, solidly developed MiSTer (FPGA) cores (SNES, GBA, etc) and adapted them for use with the Pocket. ultimatemister.com/what-is-mister-fpga/ |
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Post by Coolverine on Oct 15, 2022 16:58:38 GMT -5
I think I want to wait for the hardware overall to get better, AMD with their integrated graphics are definitely ahead on that. With Intel doing their own GPU's, their integrated graphics will probably get better too.
The really annoying thing about PC videocards these days is that they just keep making them bigger and more power-hungry. Aren't they supposed to be doing the opposite, making them smaller and more power-efficient while still making them faster? Seems like they just said f*** it and stopped caring. With the way Nvidia's going, I don't think they're gonna last. Just like what happened with 3dfx.
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Post by sj on Oct 15, 2022 17:32:26 GMT -5
I think I want to wait for the hardware overall to get better, AMD with their integrated graphics are definitely ahead on that. With Intel doing their own GPU's, their integrated graphics will probably get better too. The really annoying thing about PC videocards these days is that they just keep making them bigger and more power-hungry. Aren't they supposed to be doing the opposite, making them smaller and more power-efficient while still making them faster? Seems like they just said f*** it and stopped caring. With the way Nvidia's going, I don't think they're gonna last. Just like what happened with 3dfx. Yeah, the overall trend for PC's still leans towards sizing down on the form factor. Hardcore gamers sticking with PC gaming towers to accommodate huge Nvidia cards are an exception. Evidently, Intel sees the writing on the wall and they're ready to capitalize. |
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Post by sj on Oct 15, 2022 17:46:01 GMT -5
Cop,
When you eventually get a new PC, I wouldn't buy one without an M.2 (preferably Samsung brand) as its OS boot drive. It's so much nicer having a PC that boots and loads apps fast. It's perhaps only seconds faster than a standard SSD, but it's still a better experience overall and well worth the extra money imo.
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Post by Babel-17 on Oct 15, 2022 19:00:06 GMT -5
Cop, When you eventually get a new PC, I wouldn't buy one without an M.2 (preferably Samsung brand) as its OS boot drive. It's so much nicer having a PC that boots and loads apps fast. It's perhaps only seconds faster than a standard SSD, but it's still a better experience overall and well worth the extra money imo. And make sure it's a 1 TB sized drive or larger. Microsoft has disgraced itself by being all over the map on what people need for Windows 11, and OS upgrades past that, but at one point they insisted that a 1 TB Windows drive is mandatory for Windows 11 to permit itself to be installed. I have that, so I never worried about it.
And a fast NVMe drive might also be helpful once Microsoft pumps magic smoke into Windows 11.
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Post by Emig5m on Oct 15, 2022 19:13:57 GMT -5
Cop, When you eventually get a new PC, I wouldn't buy one without an M.2 (preferably Samsung brand) as its OS boot drive. It's so much nicer having a PC that boots and loads apps fast. It's perhaps only seconds faster than a standard SSD, but it's still a better experience overall and well worth the extra money imo. And make sure it's a 1 TB sized drive or larger. Microsoft has disgraced itself by being all over the map on what people need for Windows 11, and OS upgrades past that, but at one point they insisted that a 1 TB Windows drive is mandatory for Windows 11 to permit itself to be installed. I have that, so I never worried about it.
And a fast NVMe drive might also be helpful once Microsoft pumps magic smoke into Windows 11.
Um... I have Windows 11 on a 128GB m.2 partition. |
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Post by sj on Oct 15, 2022 22:32:48 GMT -5
And make sure it's a 1 TB sized drive or larger. Microsoft has disgraced itself by being all over the map on what people need for Windows 11, and OS upgrades past that, but at one point they insisted that a 1 TB Windows drive is mandatory for Windows 11 to permit itself to be installed. I have that, so I never worried about it.
And a fast NVMe drive might also be helpful once Microsoft pumps magic smoke into Windows 11.
Um... I have Windows 11 on a 128GB m.2 partition. Did you perform a manual install (trim the bloat & spyware, so to speak) during setup? |
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Post by sj on Oct 15, 2022 22:35:18 GMT -5
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Post by sj on Oct 15, 2022 23:35:08 GMT -5
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Post by sj on Oct 16, 2022 0:39:58 GMT -5
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Post by Babel-17 on Oct 16, 2022 2:55:01 GMT -5
And make sure it's a 1 TB sized drive or larger. Microsoft has disgraced itself by being all over the map on what people need for Windows 11, and OS upgrades past that, but at one point they insisted that a 1 TB Windows drive is mandatory for Windows 11 to permit itself to be installed. I have that, so I never worried about it.
And a fast NVMe drive might also be helpful once Microsoft pumps magic smoke into Windows 11.
Um... I have Windows 11 on a 128GB m.2 partition. My memory was faulty, except about Microsoft being inconsistent.
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Post by sj on Oct 16, 2022 13:42:06 GMT -5
I think I want to wait for the hardware overall to get better, AMD with their integrated graphics are definitely ahead on that. With Intel doing their own GPU's, their integrated graphics will probably get better too.The really annoying thing about PC videocards these days is that they just keep making them bigger and more power-hungry. Aren't they supposed to be doing the opposite, making them smaller and more power-efficient while still making them faster? Seems like they just said f*** it and stopped caring. With the way Nvidia's going, I don't think they're gonna last. Just like what happened with 3dfx. Linus Tech Tips reviewed the Intel ARC gpu's. Long story short.. Intel ARC plays DirectX 12 games at about RTX3060 levels (at almost half the price). However, it performs poorly in older games built around earlier versions of DirectX because the ARC hardware only supports DX12 and earlier versions of DX are handled through software/drivers (chewing up CPU cycles, taking a dump on performance). Linus still encouraged ppl to buy ARC if they can make it work for them, pointing to Nvidia's price gouging and the need for more competition in the gpu market. |
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Post by Coolverine on Oct 16, 2022 13:51:45 GMT -5
Even if they have issues with old games that's still very impressive and hats off to Intel.
I have problems playing older games in general anyway, always run into problems. Last time I tried to play KotOR, my character wouldn't move no matter what I did. I remember reading somewhere that it has to do with playing the game with a very high refresh rate, never got around to trying to fix it though.
Also tried to play Freelancer again but after installing it, Windows 10 keeps making the entire game folder read-only. That makes it impossible to set custom resolutions and aspect ratios, or install mods. You'd think that Microsoft would have Freelancer on their app store but it's actually considered abandonware now.
*edit* I can actually remember when the first Radeon came out, it could do 32-bit color really good but 16-bit color was not exactly perfect. Ran good, just had some minor artifacting. Intel's ARC having issues with older DX reminds me a lot of that.
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Post by sj on Oct 16, 2022 15:31:10 GMT -5
Even if they have issues with old games that's still very impressive and hats off to Intel. I have problems playing older games in general anyway, always run into problems. Last time I tried to play KotOR, my character wouldn't move no matter what I did. I remember reading somewhere that it has to do with playing the game with a very high refresh rate, never got around to trying to fix it though. Also tried to play Freelancer again but after installing it, Windows 10 keeps making the entire game folder read-only. That makes it impossible to set custom resolutions and aspect ratios, or install mods. You'd think that Microsoft would have Freelancer on their app store but it's actually considered abandonware now. *edit* I can actually remember when the first Radeon came out, it could do 32-bit color really good but 16-bit color was not exactly perfect. Ran good, just had some minor artifacting. Intel's ARC having issues with older DX reminds me a lot of that. btw, Linus also talked about ARC outperforming Nvidia and AMD in video encoding. It supports hardware acceleration in all the major encoding formats. People who do mostly media/content creation or both (video editing and gaming) might actually prefer ARC, assuming they don't choose the market dominate Apple products for that sort of thing. |
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Post by sj on Oct 16, 2022 15:53:03 GMT -5
Gog.com sometimes does a better job than Steam of updating those old games to play well on modern Windows.
Also, "Nvidia Profile Inspector" graphics tuning app has preconfigured profiles for many of the older games (including KotOR). The app even lets you peek at specific settings they tweaked to get the game running stable.
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Post by Emig5m on Oct 18, 2022 19:42:27 GMT -5
Um... I have Windows 11 on a 128GB m.2 partition. Did you perform a manual install (trim the bloat & spyware, so to speak) during setup? Updated from Win10 to Win11 through Windows Update. |
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Post by sj on Oct 19, 2022 12:23:31 GMT -5
Did you perform a manual install (trim the bloat & spyware, so to speak) during setup? Updated from Win10 to Win11 through Windows Update. That's brave of you, unless there's nothing critical on your PC. I'm sticking with Win10 as long as it's supported. If/when I switch to Win11 or 12, I'd create a backup and perform a clean install. |
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Post by Emig5m on Oct 26, 2022 18:58:13 GMT -5
Updated from Win10 to Win11 through Windows Update. That's brave of you, unless there's nothing critical on your PC. I'm sticking with Win10 as long as it's supported. If/when I switch to Win11 or 12, I'd create a backup and perform a clean install. I should probably suck it up and do a clean install this winter when I have time since I've been basically upgrading over top of my install since Windows 7 lol. The problem that I face is the time consumption that it takes to install and set up every single app and game would take months. What I would normally do is just install and setup on a per-use basis but still, just installing one app I have to track down my key, activate, go through all the settings to point to the correct directories and in the case of video editing, re-add all the plugins and such....takes forever. That's why I've been just taking my chances updating over the old OS. Hell, I don't even un-install mobo drivers anymore when I upgrade parts lol. I just let Windows re-detect or manually install the crap for the new hardware upon first boot with it lol. And strangely enough I run into minimal problems like when everyone was complaining about the PC version of Horizon running like crap or not even starting it ran great for me from the beginning and I felt bad when I seen people reformatting their entire system to no avail....heh. |
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Post by ForRealTho on Oct 26, 2022 22:01:10 GMT -5
I upgraded to Windows 11 a few days ago, no issues so far. Was about 5-10 minutes of "wow this looks different" now I am fine. It might be placebo but it feels like DayZ runs smoother.
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Post by Coolverine on Oct 26, 2022 22:39:17 GMT -5
My Windows update is still telling me that I need to enable TPM before it can install Windows 11, but as far as I know it's already enabled. Not sure what else it's looking for.
I bought a new SSD (Samsung 2TB 970 EVO Plus) so I'm gonna end up doing a clean install at some point, maybe it will work after that.
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Post by Emig5m on Oct 27, 2022 20:15:23 GMT -5
My Windows update is still telling me that I need to enable TPM before it can install Windows 11, but as far as I know it's already enabled. Not sure what else it's looking for. I bought a new SSD (Samsung 2TB 970 EVO Plus) so I'm gonna end up doing a clean install at some point, maybe it will work after that. You need TPM for your bunghole! |
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Post by Coolverine on Oct 27, 2022 20:38:59 GMT -5
My Windows update is still telling me that I need to enable TPM before it can install Windows 11, but as far as I know it's already enabled. Not sure what else it's looking for. I bought a new SSD (Samsung 2TB 970 EVO Plus) so I'm gonna end up doing a clean install at some point, maybe it will work after that. You need TPM for your bunghole!  |
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Post by Cop on Oct 28, 2022 10:40:13 GMT -5
FIRE! FIRE!
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Post by sj on Oct 31, 2022 10:36:20 GMT -5
Here's a good deal on a prebuild with an RTX 3090 gpu.. well, it's a good deal compared to buying a RTX 3090 and parts for your own build. Gone are the days of saving money by building your own PC. Companies that sell prebuilds must be able to obtain the gpu's at msrp or lower, then they don't price gouge as much on the gpu (as compared to the consumer purchasing a gpu separately). deals.dell.com/en-us/productdetail/figi |
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Post by Coolverine on Nov 1, 2022 6:20:46 GMT -5
Here's a good deal on a prebuild with an RTX 3090 gpu.. well, it's a good deal compared to buying a RTX 3090 and parts for your own build. Gone are the days of saving money by building your own PC. Companies that sell prebuilds must be able to obtain the gpu's at msrp or lower, then they don't price gouge as much on the gpu (as compared to the consumer purchasing a gpu separately). deals.dell.com/en-us/productdetail/figiLooks classic, like a sleeper case. Reminds me of how PC's used to look and also I like how it comes with an optical drive. |
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Post by sj on Nov 1, 2022 10:57:17 GMT -5
Here's a good deal on a prebuild with an RTX 3090 gpu.. well, it's a good deal compared to buying a RTX 3090 and parts for your own build. Gone are the days of saving money by building your own PC. Companies that sell prebuilds must be able to obtain the gpu's at msrp or lower, then they don't price gouge as much on the gpu (as compared to the consumer purchasing a gpu separately). deals.dell.com/en-us/productdetail/figiLooks classic, like a sleeper case. Reminds me of how PC's used to look and also I like how it comes with an optical drive. The optical drive (if you need one) is a good selling point for PC towers. I had a "slim" optical drive on an older Toshiba laptop and found that the CD's/DVD's didn't always seat properly. By the time you realized it, you scratched the shit out of a disk. I ruined a Diablo II CD that way. Blizzard (customer service) was cool enough to set me up with a digital copy at no cost (years after I had purchased the game). Of course, this was years ago, before DII: Resurrected. I also looked at Dell's "OptiPlex 7000 Tower" (it accepts DDR5 RAM, so I figure it'll be compatible/upgradeable to Intel's 13k series cpu's). You can customize the hardware of the Optiplex prior to purchase, so I was curious if I could select the most barebones options and upgrade w/ superior aftermarket parts for a better price. i.e. set everything to barebones (8GB RAM, weakest cpu) and buy better replacement parts for it. But it came out to be $300-400 more expensive than the XPS Desktop. That's with a lesser gpu (RTX 3080) too, because no better gpu is very attainable or affordable at the moment. However, all the other parts (Seasonic PSU, better low-latency RAM, Intel 13k cpu, etc) that I found (to upgrade the OptiPlex) would be better than the stock XPS Desktop. The Optiplex (or other DIY rig) could almost be the better option, if only individually sold gpu's would come down in price. Seems it's next to impossible to find an off the shelf 3090 gpu (let alone at a good price) in order to beat the value of XPS Desktop w/ 3090 at its current asking price. Well, the cheaper components of the XPS Desktop could always be upgraded later on if needed. |
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Post by Coolverine on Nov 1, 2022 11:10:43 GMT -5
I still have an optical drive, one of the last times I used it was when my internet went out and I decided to put on some DVD movies. My case is the Lian Li PC-9F from around 2010-2014, they don't make them like this anymore. It has 2x USB 3.0's on the top/front panel, also an eSATA port which is interesting.
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