(PCGT V) PC gaming is dead, press F to pay respects

[Tafdolphin]

RPS is owned and funded by the company that bought the entire Gamer Network and runs all the PAX conferences. RPS is the only site they own with its own independent income stream outside of advertising (the supporter programme) and now the only one to ban adblock users.

It's...bizarre.

It is bizarre and hasn't made much sense for a while now. The fact that they still moan about ad blockers even for people who subscribe to their supporter program is also ridiculous.

Additionally many people use ad/tracker/script blockers from more of a security perspective than simply a desire to not see annoying ads - some of the gooseberry fool that autoloaded ads can try and do should make anyone block by default! If RPS what me to risk my own security to read their increasingly gooseberry fool content then I'm afraid it's going to be a no from me.

It's so sad. The content is still good, for the most part, but RPS used to be the scrappy little nerd in the corner who was super friendly and knew everything about games. As it's gotten old though it's grown into a techbro wearing an Overwatch t-shirt maniacally grinning whilst telling you a little too enthusiastically how he's still a capital-G Geek.

[Qikz]

Didn't a few sites even start running scripts via their ads/site that meant your PC was Bitcoin mining for them for as long as you were in the sire? Just visiting the pages would cause your CPU to go 100% until you closed the site.

Yup this was a thing. Use adblock people. It still is a thing.

[Lagamorph]

Didn't a few sites even start running scripts via their ads/site that meant your PC was Bitcoin mining for them for as long as you were in the sire? Just visiting the pages would cause your CPU to go 100% until you closed the site.

Yup this was a thing. Use adblock people. It still is a thing.

I don't think adblock actually blocked those scripts, I installed an add on called NoCoin to explicitly block them.

[Peter Crisp]

Didn't a few sites even start running scripts via their ads/site that meant your PC was Bitcoin mining for them for as long as you were in the sire? Just visiting the pages would cause your CPU to go 100% until you closed the site.

Yup this was a thing. Use adblock people. It still is a thing.

How is that even slightly legal?

I asked this in the TV topic but are PC's (without going stupidly expensive) now capable of gaming at 8K?

[Pedz]

Didn't a few sites even start running scripts via their ads/site that meant your PC was Bitcoin mining for them for as long as you were in the sire? Just visiting the pages would cause your CPU to go 100% until you closed the site.

Yup this was a thing. Use adblock people. It still is a thing.

How is that even slightly legal?

I asked this in the TV topic but are PC's (without going stupidly expensive) now capable of gaming at 8K?

I think PC's can run games at 8k. I think Jazzem plays a few at 8k, indie games. I don't think you'd get a good gameplay session with Doom at 8k.

[Sandy]

I asked this in the TV topic but are PC's (without going stupidly expensive) now capable of gaming at 8K?

They're capable of it but it depends what you mean.

You're not going to be able to play the latest, graphically intensive, mainstream game at 8K.

As Pedz said, you could get some low texture, GPU light, title up an running in 8K on a standard card.

So playing the latest COD or Forza at 8K isn't likely to happen on anything you wouldn't need to remortgage your house to purchase. Playing Braid at 8K is probably doable.

[Cheeky Devlin]

I remember the days you could get a decent machine for £600 if you were thrifty with a few parts. There used to be articles about building a PC with better performance than the then current consoles for less cost. Those were the days.

The potato masher /potato masher pro series is still going on YouTube, but even then, the cost of the parts in the machine are higher now than they were when it was built, meaning it would now be more expensive than the "4K" consoles. He still playtests a lot of big new releases on it, and it goes a long way to showing how even a low-mid range set up still generally handles 1080p60fps with ease.

Kind of related, and I go into this a little more in the Emulation thread, but I just bought a refurbed Dell Optiplex 3020 and a GTX 1030 based on this video:


Arrived yesterday and while I've not got the graphics card yet I'm very impressed with how well it managed Dolphin and Citra just using the built in Intel Graphics chip. Citra ran Metroid and Ocarina/Majora's Mask at what appeared to be full speed (At their native resolution to be fair) and Dolphin allowed me to get 40-60fps on F-Zero GX straight out of the box.

I'm expecting a significant bump to the performance once I get the card into it.

All that for the low price of around £190 (Half of that is the Graphics card).

Plus it's small enough that I can easily take it round to friends houses and just hook it up.

Haven't looked at the vid yet, but how would it do with more modern games?

I'm hoping to check that out once I get my graphics card, but it should be able to handle GTA V, Rocket League and some other more recent games with some tweaking to their settings. The 1030 card only has 2GB of DDR5 RAM so it's not a huge amount.

EDIT: That said PC games aren't really the focus of what I want to do with it. It's a nice bonus, but I'm not going to be too annoyed if it's not fantastic. Definitely going to load it up with as much as I can though. I'll probably need to double the hard drive space though. I've got about 2Tb in it right now and I've only got about 400Gb left after putting all my ROMs in. Something like GTA V or Doom is gonna chew through that.

I was thinking it it had retro games on it and was able to play modern games, recently, then I could buy it for the kids and they came stay away from my pc

So I've posted a little bit more about this in the emulation thread, but feel like it would be worth sharing here as well.

Basically my GT 1030 came through a week or so ago and it's turned the system into a legit emulation powerhouse. PC games run about as well as you would expect for the spec, with more recent, heavy stuff requiring lots of tweaking and dropping of quality settings to run acceptably (Or at all). But I can run FIFA 19 at a playable level, as well as GTA V, Rocket League and a few others so it'll do for a system that's hooked up to the same TV as my XB1X and PS4 where I get better performing versions of these. Obviously the further back you go the better it runs PC games, with anything 360/PS3 era running pretty damn well and often at 1080p/60fps depending on the port.

Emulation has been a revelation though. I'd already said how impressed I was with Dolphin and Citra without the GT 1030 card, so it was even more impressive when I was able to crank up the resolutions and get pretty much flawless performance from both of them. Even managed to get 4K out of Dolphin. PCSX2 runs pretty damn well too, though I will admit I've not spent too much time with it just yet.

But for me, the biggest surprise was just how well it handles Cemu. I had absolutely no expectation for it to run Wii U games. At best I expected sub-10 framerates and constant crashing. So imagine my surprise when I get Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, New Super Mario Bros U, Super Mario Maker (With online functionality), Captain Toad, Twilight Princess HD and many others running at a mostly stable 60fps. Even more so when I got Breath of the Wild to a state that's probably on-par-with if not slightly better it's native Wii U performance. There are some crashes within games and lengthy load times in places, but considering that I wasn't looking for it to run this system at all it's genuinely blown my mind how well it handles it.

RPCS3 however was a bit of a write off. I could boot Demon's Souls, but it kept crashing and I never quite managed to get it in game. I've not completely given up on it, but it's not anywhere near Cemu levels on this system yet.

It's definitely got me thinking about a few upgrades for it down the line. RAM is the first obvious one as 4GB just limits my options too much. Getting it up to 8GB will be a good start. Beyond that I'm considering a bump to the CPU as this will have the biggest impact on emulation and definitely help push a couple of the more intensive Cemu titles into more playable territory (Tokyo Mirage Sessions is a good example) as well as give RPCS3 a helping hand. If I can get another low power, SFF GPU with more RAM then I'll definitely consider that as well. The 1030 is a phenomenal card for the price, but 2GB Video RAM is very limiting.

[Zartan]

For all of you that swore that hats ruined TF2:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018 ... g-to-steam

[Knoyleo]

For all of you that swore that hats ruined TF2:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018 ... g-to-steam

[Jazzem]

Metro 2033 free on Steam until Friday 26/10 (presumably at 6pm)

[Pacman]

For all of you that swore that hats ruined TF2:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018 ... g-to-steam

I bought TOB in 2007 purely for Portal and never touched TF2... only just realised now why it's been in my Steam list all these years.

[Trelliz]

For all of you that swore that hats ruined TF2:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018 ... g-to-steam

All good things must come to an end, but it seems TF2008's end came particularly quickly, as the mod's newly-approved Steam page has now been removed.

According to an email screenshot shared on the mod's Discord server, it appears Valve has U-turned on its decision to launch the mod on Steam. The reason cited is the modder did not sufficiently prove they were creating "a mod of TF2 and not just repurposing leaked code". The email did not rule out the possibility of the mod returning once the modder had sufficiently demonstrated the code used was not leaked.

[Tafdolphin]

Murderous Pursuits, a game similar to cat and mouse murder sim The Ship (from the very same devs) is free for keeps on Steam at the moment

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/1 ... -giveaway/

[Squinty]

Metro 2033 free on Steam until Friday 26/10 (presumably at 6pm)

AH FFS

[Rightey]

Just a reminder this came out 10 years ago...

[<]:^D]

me feel old

[Ironhide]

I only played it for 3 hours, I liked what I saw but couldn't come up with a workable control setup to actually survive combat with multiple enemies.

VATS should have made the game playable for me, and it almost did, unfortunately my mouse skills are somewhat limited these days and I kept inadvertently aiming at the floor or sky while trying to turn round to target enemies behind me.

[Lagamorph]

I only played it for 3 hours, I liked what I saw but couldn't come up with a workable control setup to actually survive combat with multiple enemies.

VATS should have made the game playable for me, and it almost did, unfortunately my mouse skills are somewhat limited these days and I kept inadvertently aiming at the floor or sky while trying to turn round to target enemies behind me.

Have you ever tried the original Fallout 1 and 2? They're not really up to much graphically these days, but all movement and combat is turn based so might be a bit more accessible control wise.

[Ironhide]

I only played it for 3 hours, I liked what I saw but couldn't come up with a workable control setup to actually survive combat with multiple enemies.

VATS should have made the game playable for me, and it almost did, unfortunately my mouse skills are somewhat limited these days and I kept inadvertently aiming at the floor or sky while trying to turn round to target enemies behind me.

Have you ever tried the original Fallout 1 and 2? They're not really up to much graphically these days, but all movement and combat is turn based so might be a bit more accessible control wise.

Only if Ironhide is cool with being one hit killed by a rat in the very first encounter..

I have played it (briefly) and that did actually happen.

That's not why I stopped playing it though, the 640x480 resolution made the in game text unreadable when played in a window, which I need to do to use my onscreen keyboard.

[Squinty]

I love Fallout 3. Really fond memories of it.