Pc gaming geeks needed!

Tropez

Idiophreak wrote: »

Meh, it's horses for courses, innit.

I'd much rather play racers or Fifa on my xbox, I'd rather play FPS or RPG on the PC. I find the xbox much simpler to get on with for online play, too.

I tend to play more on the xbox now, just because it's so much cheaper than continually upgrading the PC. I think you have to be quite a hardened gamer to get value for money out of PCs these days - and as OP said they just wanted to smack stuff with a sword, I thought it was worth mentioning just in case

I think value for money really depends on how many games you buy - as you say, hardened gamers would benefit more. Of course, with an Xbox you've got more choice as far as renting games go but people like me who constantly change which games they play meaning that it might take me a year or more to complete a single game it makes more sense to buy games and in that sense I think the PC is a better investment.

I built my PC myself and it cost me about £550 and it hasn't been upgraded in any way since I built it in 2009. My Xbox cost me £200. But with Xbox games generally costing about £10 more than their PC equivalent and the number of games I buy I would hazard a guess that the money I've saved by buying PC games would make up for the difference in build cost vs the cost of the Xbox had I been buying the games on the Xbox instead.

I'm with you as far as FIFA goes although that is mostly because EA won't release the latest versions on PC, instead FIFA 12 on PC is FIFA 10/11 from the consoles and I'm not paying full price for an outdated game. My Xbox is basically there for games that either won't get a PC release or won't get a PC release for a long time (Red Dead Redemption, for example) although I did make the mistake of buying LA Noire two weeks before the PC release was announced thinking Rockstar would stick to their usual routine of making PC players wait months!

Online play isn't something that generally interests me (although I do confess to playing WoW from time to time) but those games that I have played online I've had no issues with... but I only play online with friends anyway so have little/no experience with lobbys and the like.

Still, I am happy enough with my Xbox, especially now they've got more streaming video services.

Tropez

montsie wrote: »

Something like Fifa or racing I'm 100% with you about the 360. It's a better experience with an open field of vision. All my games are RPG and very involved - when I say smacking with a sword...I mean of course a highly customised "magic sword" that has been forged to exact specifications and matches my studded armour :P

I have to ask...

Do you play World of Warcraft and if so did transmogrification make your year?

montsie

I don't purely because my friends literally stopped living outside of the game and I'm worried about that happening to me! Being a dark elf is way cooler than being a PA!

Plus...my machine was never good enough....but now....hmmmmm

Tropez

montsie wrote: »

I don't purely because my friends literally stopped living outside of the game and I'm worried about that happening to me! Being a dark elf is way cooler than being a PA!

Plus...my machine was never good enough....but now....hmmmmm

Haha! I had a friend who got a little bit too addicted to WoW... you could tell it was getting problematic when he would login and then do nothing but wander around one of the cities jumping... Nothing else to do but jump...

I, on the other hand, might play semi-regularly for a little while then take a break for a couple of weeks because I want to do something else. Much more sensible than jumpy-jumpy!

JamesK10

montsie wrote: »

Hi guys!

I'm looking to buy a new PC for playing Skyrim and Witcher 2 on (my current 5 yr old machine is struggling!)

I know nothing about building (even though I know it's cheaper) I was hoping somebody could suggest a nice pre-build (or 2) for under £1500?

Thank you!!

For instant advice, buy Custom PC magazine, which has been out for a week with the headline "Build A Skyrim PC". Those specs can be a basic guideline although they chose a Pentium processor, which is one of the budget lines now. Move up the range and then whatever you choose (the i2500k being the best a year ago but now there might be something else) should run Skyrim and anything else coming along for a while.

For Pre built computers, where are you in the country, if it's the Midlands and you're bothered about going to a physical showroom where you can look around, then have a look at CCL and Novatech.

http://www.cclonline.com/

http://www.novatech.co.uk/

- the latter having been around for 20 years. Also can you wait until April or so? Normally you would have got brilliant hard drive prices, but not any more due to the floods in Thailand. It might bring down the price of other components just because of Easter sales though.

Power supply wise get a good branded one, Whether that's by Antec, FSP, or Corsair, nowadays it's as important as the graphics card in my view.

montsie

Tropez wrote: »

Much more sensible than jumpy-jumpy!

Jumpy-jumpy is the best! Like teabagging in halo....life doesnt get better

montsie

JamesK10 wrote: »

For instant advice, buy Custom PC magazine, which has been out for a week with the headline "Build A Skyrim PC". Those specs can be a basic guideline although they chose a Pentium processor, which is one of the budget lines now. Move up the range and then whatever you choose (the i2500k being the best a year ago but now there might be something else) should run Skyrim and anything else coming along for a while.

For Pre built computers, where are you in the country, if it's the Midlands and you're bothered about going to a physical showroom where you can look around, then have a look at CCL and Novatech.

http://www.cclonline.com/

http://www.novatech.co.uk/

- the latter having been around for 20 years. Also can you wait until April or so? Normally you would have got brilliant hard drive prices, but not any more due to the floods in Thailand. It might bring down the price of other components just because of Easter sales though.

Power supply wise get a good branded one, Whether that's by Antec, FSP, or Corsair, nowadays it's as important as the graphics card in my view.

thank you very much! I'm London based sadly but I definitely need a pre-built!

vyle

I've just finished Witcher 2 (amazing game) and I ran it on most of the higher settings, but with depth of field, ultra textures, and motion blur (which was ugly anyway) switched off. It looked awesome, but on highest settings was a bit of a slideshow.

My setup is an ATI 85850, Intel i7, 6gb RAM, with two monitors (one at 1080p, other an old 4:3 monitor which I use for notes when writing).

My PC runs most other games on the highest settings with no issues whatsoever, even the likes of Crysis 2, but Witcher 2 is notoriously demanding. The xbox version looks so far to sport the graphical fidelity of witcher 2 on mid to low settings.

OP, if you do get it, make sure you update to witcher 2 2.0 because it increases performance so that it's so much smoother than on initial release.

As for skyrim, I've got stacks of mods ready for when I begin it, something you cannot get on the console versions. Can't wait.

Lastly, not really a tech question, but something to bear in mind: witcher 2's opening section is far too hard for its own good, and is very restrictive. Once you survive the dragon's assault, and get out to Flotsam, it becomes awesome. It's a shame you've got to wait, though.

montsie

Ok so...how's this for a build?

I dont understand motherboards :S but this comes in at £1,221.05 built...


Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz Quad Core Processor
Corsair 16GB 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Vengeance Memory Four Module Kit
Asus P8Z68-V LX Socket 1155 Motherboard
120GB OCZ Agility 3 2.5" Solid State Drive
1TB Samsung SpinPoint F3 HD103SJ Hard Disk Drive
KFA2 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 1280MB Graphics Card
Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x Blu-Ray Combo Drive
Coolermaster Elite 334
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 - 80 Plus Bronze Certified 650 Watt High Performance Power Supply
1 Year Return to Base Warranty
TP-Link TL-WN781ND 150Mbps Wireless Lite N PCI Express Adaptor
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (SP1)

montsie

vyle wrote: »

I've just finished Witcher 2 (amazing game) and I ran it on most of the higher settings, but with depth of field, ultra textures, and motion blur (which was ugly anyway) switched off. It looked awesome, but on highest settings was a bit of a slideshow.

My setup is an ATI 85850, Intel i7, 6gb RAM, with two monitors (one at 1080p, other an old 4:3 monitor which I use for notes when writing).

My PC runs most other games on the highest settings with no issues whatsoever, even the likes of Crysis 2, but Witcher 2 is notoriously demanding. The xbox version looks so far to sport the graphical fidelity of witcher 2 on mid to low settings.

OP, if you do get it, make sure you update to witcher 2 2.0 because it increases performance so that it's so much smoother than on initial release.

As for skyrim, I've got stacks of mods ready for when I begin it, something you cannot get on the console versions. Can't wait.

Lastly, not really a tech question, but something to bear in mind: witcher 2's opening section is far too hard for its own good, and is very restrictive. Once you survive the dragon's assault, and get out to Flotsam, it becomes awesome. It's a shame you've got to wait, though.

thank you for the heads up!! I bought it as a pre-order so excited then realised I couldn't run it! Just started a new job and my salary increase has let me stash some away so only...a year having to wait!