My Community
General => Video Games => Topic started by: Late on March 25, 2015, 03:12:18 PM
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Don't put links in the first post, Late...
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So after much umming and ahhing I've finally gotten round to buying a new pc. I'm on a tight budget, and am too scared to build my own.
Includes OS. Pretty much pre-built.
Cube Slim pre-built desktop (http://www.box.co.uk/Cube_Slim_Bing_Series_Desktop_PC_with_Mi_1654305.html) £229
Intel i3 Dual Core 3.5Ghz Processor
Kingston 4Gb DDR3 1600Mhz Memory
500Gb SATA3 Hard Drive & Samsung 16x DVD RW
Windows 8.1 with Bing 64 Bit Preinstalled
Have bought an extra 4 gig ram (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-Technology-ValueRAM-1600MHz-Memory/dp/B008CP5QR2) for £26, and a new kb & mouse (http://www.ebuyer.com/584045-cooler-master-cm-storm-devastator-keyboard-and-mouse-set-sgb-3010-kkmf1-uk) for £27.
£282 all in.
Budget, newb-friendly, and has reasonable upgrade options.
At some point I'll have to put a graphics card in there, but I'm in no rush. The onboard graphics chip is laughable by today's gaming standards, but it massively outperforms my current pc (current pc benchmark 196, new pc benchmark 538).
I'm toying with the 750 ti (low profile, as the case is very slim) (benchmark 3687) - currently around £110. I'll wait for it to drop in price a bit, or weigh up other options, but like I say - I'm in no rush.
I've got a few external hard drives kicking around (mainly WD MyBooks - I think I have a 1.0Tb, a 1.5TB, and a 2.0TB). Fingers crossed I should be able to crack the case on one of those and bung it into this pc. I don't need all that external storage, so it makes sense to put one in this machine if I can, as a second drive. I'm happy to leave the 500GB drive in there as C: for most programs, and put Steam etc. onto the second drive.
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You'll be better of spending a little extra for an i5 mate. Then I think you'll only need a half decent GPU and you'll have a PC at the minimum spec for Oculus Rift.
It's great using a PC upgrade for the first time, if you're anything like me you won't be able to keep the smile off your face for a while lol ;D
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Don't tell people what they'd be better off buying after they've bought something! ;D
With PCs it's all too easy to look at every single component and say "you'd be better off paying a little extra and getting..." but they add up to a lot when you do that. I budgeted myself £250-£300 and I'm happy enough with what I got there for £282.
Like I say, the graphics chip is the main weakness, but it's better than what I currently have (and my current pc plays most games I want it to) and is something that's easily remedied in the future.
With the 750 ti in it it should be a pretty capable budget gaming pc - but I don't intend getting many top end games to play on it. I'll still do most of my premium gaming on the One - but it'll be nice to have something that can take advantage of all the cheap steam keys, though, not to mention my vast unplayed steam catalogue (I have nearly 400 steam games on my account, and have played only about 20 of them). :D
Ordered it at about 1am (last night/this morning), with delivery within five working days. Got a dispatch email at lunchtime today saying it's getting delivered tomorrow. Nice!
The kb & mouse come tomorrow, too, but the ram won't be delivered until Monday. (Annoyingly, I got it from Amazon and I have couple of Prime trials I can activate whenever I need them, but I didn't bother because I didn't think the pc was coming until next week.)
You're right, though - I'm going to be grinning like a Cheshire Cat when I get on it. The old machine was second hand when I bought it nearly eight years ago, it's running xp, takes forever to boot up, the ram is maxed out at 3gb, and it's always crashing. This is going to be such a massive improvement! :D
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Yeah its not a bad price to get a pc + extras too mate..
Its definitely the CPU that kept the price down though.. its not the best in the world... but even with the integrated graphics, it'll have no problems playing older games or less graphic intense games... so you shouldn't have to buy a graphics card unless you want to play newly released games or older graphic intense games on it
Personally I'd be ready to bin the OS straight away though.. Windows 8 is a bit pants, you might struggle at first if you haven't used it before ;D I'm still using Windows 7, but have played around with Windows 10 recently and its much better than 8.
I've got a small 200GB SSD and a 1TB HD in my pc at home - all the stuff that's important gets bunged on the SSD as its less likely to die on me. However I've been bunging games on the SSD as obviously an SSD has its advantages with its R/W speed and now its full to the brim lol.
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I'm still on Vista, might switch to 7 at some point. I tend to stay away from Windows versions until Service Pack 2 is available, too many vulnerabilities otherwise.
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First time I've ever owned a legal version of Windows tbh. Will stick with 8 until the free update to 10 later this year.
Have had a little bit of experience with 8, and definitely prefer 7, but I'm happy to give it a proper try. Can always "classic shell" it effectively back to Win7 if I don't take to 8.
Have been watching the price of SSDs drop over the last few years and toyed with getting one, but windows 8 boots so quickly I figured SSD should be low priority for me. Not that I worry much about boot speed - the computer only gets turned off about once a month.
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First time I've owned a 'legal' version of Windows too. I've used quotes there because the version I have is a legitimate copy, which updates and everything...but it's an OEM version that someone leaked from Currys or Dixons lol ;D :P
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https://steamdb.info/calculator/76561198118728924/?cc=uk
Some scary stats there.
£4396 Current account value
591 Games owned
1,832h Hours on record
18.3h Average playtime
491 Games not played
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That's crazy... ;D
Mines much more moderate... (except the playtime.. lol)
£166 Current account value
23 Games owned
3,718 Hours on record
247.9 Average playtime
8 Games not played
https://steamdb.info/calculator/76561198008188829/?cc=uk
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It won't show me mine :(
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Try logging in to steam from that page harv.. mine didn't work until I did that - I think because I hadn't set up a vanity URL or whatever that is.
It's not entirely accurate on the games not played.. it says 8 on mine.. but there's quite clearly only 6 without a game time logged.
Then out of those six - 2 of them are betas (which came with the full game I did purchase - so why would I play them).. and 1 is a resource archiver for FM2014.
So there should only be 3 I haven't played.. and they are some of the older Sid Meier games.. and I only downloaded them because they came free with the Civ add-ons which is actually what I wanted.
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Yup, I tried that last night but didn't work. Oh well, I know that there's a load that I haven't played but I'm waiting until I get my Rift before I play some of them, I've got 34 games in my library that are either native Rift compatible or can be played in VR via VorpX.
I'm certainly not going to be short of games to play when I get my Rift in November. I'm also planning to get Dreadhalls, Chronos, Edge Of Nowhere, The Climb, Adr1ft, Windlands, P.O.L.L.E.N., Albino Lullaby and Esper 2 at some point.
Should have some cash from my Mum for my birthday in October and for Christmas which is going to help me get my Rift in November and some games for Christmas. ;D 8)
Out of all of those games I'm looking forward to playing Dreadhalls the most, it's supposed to be bloomin terrifying lol :o :P
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Finally upgraded my pc last weekend after my last one blew up about a year ago, this was my shopping list - I was going for Mid.. it's probably a highish mid-range pc:
Processor Intel Core i7 8700k 3.7GHz Socket 1151 Processor
Fan CoolerMaster MasterAir MA610P RGB CPU Tower Cooler
GPU Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1060 WF2 6GB
Motherboard Asus LGA 1151 STRIX Gaming Z390 Motherboard
SSD Samsung 970 EVO V-NAND M.2 500GB SSD
Memory Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 3200 MHz
PSU Corsair RM750x Gold Modular PSU
Case CoolerMaster MasterCase MC500Mt Mid Tower Case
Plus I bought two monitors
Monitors Phillips 273V7QDAB 27†HD IPS Monitor x 2
Few pictures of the build and next to my old shitty pc:
(https://i.ibb.co/NZb15Lx/20190112-141713.jpg)
(https://i.ibb.co/nQhD9Sy/IMG-a15bae1c1a8691cdc421dee69bc22381-V.jpg)
(https://i.ibb.co/sqtNZRP/IMG-7d858e36cebde5fe857b9612b4e7ab2d-V.jpg)
Need to get an extender for the CPU cable though so I can use the cable management system properly, then tidy up the rest of the cables and I also didn't plug in the 3.1 USB front header because I wasn't sure what it was at the time lol.. also need to install my other normal hard-drive.
I haven't really given it a good stress test yet because I'm become addicted to Civilization again lol... knew I shouldn't have started playing.
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Nice! I love building new machines, that moment when you turn it on and you realise how much faster it is than your old one is an awesome feeling lol ;D
Means you can get a Rift now and experience the wonders of VR :P
Don't make the mistake of getting one of those cheaper Windows MR headsets though, they're mid-range headsets at best because the tracking is pants.
The Rift now has a permanent price cut to £349, if we were living in the States I'd be able to give you a Referral and you'd be able to get 10% off but they're not doing that here in the UK yet which is a pain in the arse >:(
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Yeah....
I have zero interest in any kind of vr gaming though.
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Yeah....
I have zero interest in any kind of vr gaming though.
Yup, but it's one of these things that you don't understand the amazeballs of unless you actually try it though. And even then it may be a little too early for you to be truly blown away by it because of the binocular/swimming goggles effect that the current headsets have due to a small FOV. Once you're immersed in a game though you completely forget about it, same goes for the low resolution too.
Once Microsoft jump onto the VR train though, as long as they don't fuck it up given what they've fucked up in the past (both Kinect and HoloLens) in terms of hardware, you'll end up not playing flat games again. It really is that much of a game changer, especially with cockpit games and horror games.
People that haven't tried VR try to compare it to 3DTV and 3D films at the cinema but they haven't got a clue. Here's the difference:
(http://i.imgur.com/DwUPIIH.jpg)
You WILL be interested in VR gaming at some point because you won't have a choice, it's the direction that the gaming industry and the entertainment industry is going in. In 10-15 years VR headsets will be as common in homes as DVD/Blu-Ray players and once you get your first one you'll say, 'NOW I know what Harv was going on about years ago!' ;D ;D ;D
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But I have tried it.. Samsung Gear.. I hated it and made me nauseous after about 2 minutes.
You've been saying VR will go mainstream for the past 3 years in a row now... I also remember you saying that the Wiimote was the most accurate controller in the world at some point... yep... just saying ;)
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He doesn't need vr, Harv.
He's married - so seeing but not touching a naked lady is already covered... ;)
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It won't go mainstream for YEARS. That's why I said 10-15 years before everyone has one in their home. I've never said that it would go mainstream in such a short amount of time.
There are going to be 3 stages to mainstream adoption:
1) Enthusiast gamer adoption. People like me who buy high end PC components to build a new machine every 3-5 years. This demographic is quite happy to pay a premium price to become an early adopter. This is the stage we're at now.
2) Mainstream gamer adoption. The type of gamers such as your good self who build or buy a mid-range PC for gaming and play mainstream PC and console games such as GTA, Assassin's Creed, CoD etc. Most of these people won't want to pay a premium price to play in VR, the sweet spot is around 200-300 quid/dollars for them to buy in.
3) Mainstream consumer adoption. Your average household that doesn't necessarily own a PC powerful enough to run VR. The sweet spot price for this demographic is under £100. This demographic is the hardest to crack because the technology currently isn't there to have a powerful and decent standalone headset at a decent price. The Oculus Quest is an ideal type of headset for this group but at £399 It's way too expensive.
As for GearVR that's at the low end of the spectrum in terms of quality. It's a 3DOF headset so it doesn't have positional tracking, could be why you were having issues with simulation sickness.
Like I've said, you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about when stage 2 of VR mainstream adoption happens. It's already started to a certain extent with PSVR, and will continue when Microsoft eventually jump in and have it on their console too. It's not going to be high-end, PSVR is mid-range VR due to the tracking, and I'm fully expecting Microsoft to cock things up as far as the hardware is concerned just like they did with Kinect and HoloLens lol :o ;D
As for motion controls, they're a key part of VR and once VR is adopted by mainstream gamers such as your good self you'll see very few gamepad only and non-VR games being released in about 5-10 years time.
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He doesn't need vr, Harv.
He's married - so seeing but not touching a naked lady is already covered... ;)
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
VR Porn is awesome, but not very realistic cos the young ladies in question don't slap me across the face and threaten to call the police :( ;D
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He doesn't need vr, Harv.
He's married - so seeing but not touching a naked lady is already covered... ;)
Yeah but she'd be fuming if she found out who I've been touching lol
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He doesn't need vr, Harv.
He's married - so seeing but not touching a naked lady is already covered... ;)
Yeah but she'd be fuming if she found out who I've been touching lol
:o ;D ;D ;D