PC gaming. - The Bear and Badger

yourfavouriteuncle

Yeah, why don’t you do it for him? It’s good fun and he’ll get better kit at the end of it

GurtTractor

Gremill wrote:

Righto, the kid now no longer wants to build his own PC. He wants to buy off the shelf. He's looking for a gaming rig that he can play decent FPSs on, like Overwatch. Any recommendations? Budget is about £800-£900.

Kow wrote:

Why would he want off the shelf when it's cheaper and much better to build? Build it you and pocket the difference. It's about 3 hours work.

Err tbf I think the market for some components might still be fucked, GPUs in particular. I'll have a look and see.

Sadly prebuilts can be the best value or least hassle option for getting a good rig recently. I still would consider building your own worthwhile for the experience and confidence it gives you, value aside.

GurtTractor

Yep, GPU market is still completely fucked. I got this far but trying to get a reasonable graphics card for reasonable money is a real sticking point -

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£168.00 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI B450M MORTAR MAX Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£59.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£82.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£83.98 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P300A Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case (£49.99 @ Currys PC World)
Power Supply: EVGA BQ 600 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£59.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £504.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-06-07 20:42 BST+0100

Kow

True, I forgot about that. You can probably get a 970 or something, which is cheap and easily runs Overwatch at a decent framerate

Tempy

Gremill wrote:

Righto, the kid now no longer wants to build his own PC. He wants to buy off the shelf. He's looking for a gaming rig that he can play decent FPSs on, like Overwatch. Any recommendations? Budget is about £800-£900.

If he really can't be fucked get on Chillblast or PCspecialist

GurtTractor

GTX 970s seem to be going for £120-£160 atm. Not sure if that's the optimal choice but it's something.

Yeah if you find a decent looking prebuilt just pop the link in here and we'll give it a look, there are some bloody awful deals out there and very poor component choices, it's quite unusual to find a properly well setup and good value prebuilt.

GurtTractor

Right this looks pretty decent, I don't know how good these folks are for build quality, customer service etc but you can get a decent set of parts for a fair price here - https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-observatory-lite-mesh-ryzen-3-3300x-quad-core-4.3ghz-rtx-2060-6gb-desktop-pc-for-gaming.html

I recommend these parts from the dropdowns -

And deselect the Bullguard internet security rubbish, Windows security is fine.

GurtTractor

Chillblast is far more expensive for equivalent parts, PCSpecialist also though not by quite as much.

The above PC would be a good starting point to build upon and upgrade in the future I think, so look for similar machines. Things like the PSU, RAM, storage, and case are all very important for reliability/performance/quality of life and shouldn't be overlooked, most prebuilts will really cheap out on those.

Personally I might try to stretch to the RM750 PSU as it's higher end and will probably be quieter, but either should be fine. Cheaping out on the PSU is a very common mistake with new builders, spending a little more can be the best 'future-proofing' you can do for a system.

GooberTheHat

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view/Overwatch-Extreme-PC/

That's an £800 pc that PC Specialist claim is well suited to overwatch. How does that compare to yours up there hurt?

GooberTheHat

Actually, ignore that. I didn't realise it didn't even have a dedicated graphics card! WTF PC Specialist?

GurtTractor

Wow yeah, Intel integrated graphics is no bueno.

MoesTavern

I got one from AWD myself recently, can't fault it tbh. Arrived within the timescale and works fine. Free delivery too.

RamSteelwood

@grem couple of my mates recently got their kids a pre built gaming rig from a company based near metro centre ( i think). They've been pretty happy with it and service etc i believe. Can get the deets if you'd be interested in somewhere you can complain person

Gremill

RamSteelwood wrote:

@grem couple of my mates recently got their kids a pre built gaming rig from a company based near metro centre ( i think). They've been pretty happy with it and service etc i believe. Can get the deets if you'd be interested in somewhere you can complain person

Oh, yeah, that'd be great.

I've got until August and exam results to find something affordable - depending on how things go for him...

superflyninja

GurtTractor wrote:

Chillblast is far more expensive for equivalent parts, PCSpecialist also though not by quite as much. The above PC would be a good starting point to build upon and upgrade in the future I think, so look for similar machines. Things like the PSU, RAM, storage, and case are all very important for reliability/performance/quality of life and shouldn't be overlooked, most prebuilts will really cheap out on those. Personally I might try to stretch to the RM750 PSU as it's higher end and will probably be quieter, but either should be fine. Cheaping out on the PSU is a very common mistake with new builders, spending a little more can be the best 'future-proofing' you can do for a system.

Ill echo that. I could only get a cheapo PSU building my pc and the fucker wouldnt power anything connected on SATA. Went for a slightly more respected crowd and that fucked up after a couple months. Finally the EVGA ones came back in stock and been happy with that since.

Kow

Who is Mobies on Epic/ Discord etc?

Nina

Does anyone here use gamepass just on PC? I've looked a few times, but it always seems a bit behind on the amount Xbox gets.

I did want to get Flight Simulator a go for some reference material, and PC gamepass is just $1,00 now apparently, so should probably just get it for a month.

edit, also, I have an Xbox account somewhere, which I assume I will need to use gamepass, but B doesn't have one. Does he play on mine or make an own, to use the same subscription?

GurtTractor

Yeah it's worth a punt for a pound, I think I've done a couple of trials of it now, as there's also Gamepass Ultimate. I've only subscribed occasionally, otherwise I wouldn't get my money's worth with the way I play games.

Nina

Just had a look through the list and it seems pretty decent, not a big fan of the subscription model personally.

PC is my least played platform, and with B having bought so much good stuff on steam I don't really need another endless supply of things I likely won't play. Could be nice to give Forza and Sea of Thieves a proper go, only played demo's of those.

Should give it a better look tomorrow.

Facewon

I have it on pc. It's fine. Handy for the odd AAA that doesn't discount enough on steam.

b0r1s

It’s a solid offer but I had reliability issues with it. Had to keep running shell scripts to get games to work as it kept losing the certificate. Pain in the arse tbh. Other people have had other issues with it. Poor form from MS not having a reliable solution especially as they are advertising the shit out of it.

Facewon

That is true actually. Was worse on old laptop, but have had the odd glitch on the new one too. If it was my main source of games I'd probably be more annoyed.

Kow

There's some decent stuff on there if you have time to play any of it. I find these days that having access to a huge number of games isn't any kind of benefit really, so getting into a sub model isn't good value for money at all. A dollar for a month is definitely worth having a look at, just don't forget to cancel.

b0r1s

Have to admit Kow’s right. I mean I pay for it and don’t get enough use out of it regardless of the value. What it’s great for it trying out stuff that you may not normally play and I’ve had relatively good value out of that.

acemuzzy

I play it a reasonable amount on birth PC and Console. Some games I just find better on one platform over the other, it suit the mood I'm in, or there's sight divergence of catalogue. But yeah if you don't play much on pc and don't have a console, the value vs purchasing stuff will go down pretty fast!

I've not had any issues with certificates or anything though, which I'm sure would also sour the experience
...

b0r1s

It wasn’t running the script it was the fact I’d have to reboot my pc after that was the annoying bit. Admittedly that was a few months ago so they could have fixed it.

superflyninja

I had awful trouble with Gamepass on Pc. It just wouldnt install or play games for me with the odd exception. MS support couldnt help. Lo, a recent update fixed it but I dont use it now because Ive activated Gold->GP conversion on a side account on my xbox and could be arsed sorting it out on pc. But some great games on there for sure.

Cant wait to try Civ6.

Nina

All good info, pretty sure B can add another script to the ones he's running currently to turn off all windows features he doesn't want at start up.

Will give it a go for a dollar and cancel. If it's good enough I might get it on a monthly basis if I ever want to jump in a Forza or Sea of Thieves game.

bad_hair_day

Desperation has me cap in hand, asking for advice with this VR issue!

Every Steam or Oculus Store game drops from the default 90 FPS to less than half that even when still. Started around a month ago and at my wits end. Any clues chaps?

GooberTheHat

Have you updated all your drivers?

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