My thoughts on PC gaming. Coming from the perspective of a console gamer for 15 years.

Hello, as the title suggests I would like to share my thoughts on PC gaming as a whole from the perspective of a console gamer of more than a decade who has made the switch to PC a little over 3 months ago.

Firstly, I guess I should talk about how I got my PC in the first place. I decided that to build rather than buy, as I had a rudimentary understanding of how PCs work, so I researched, and watched video, after video prepping myself for the build, while I saved up for it. I spent about 1500 US $s on a full setup, which included PC parts, monitor, KB&M, OS etc.

The building of the PC itself was rather easy, the front panel connectors were a pain due to my limited eyesight, and the motherboard, CPU cooler, and case I chose paired with my big hands made plugging in the CPU power connector a major annoyance. I would really plug that connector in before mounting the motherboard if I were to rebuild with these parts. But those are me problem so to speak. A real stress causer was the system's refusal to post. This being my first build, I immediately went into full blown 'I must have fucked something up' mode. I tried a lot of things, form reseating the RAM, to checking my CPU pins. I eventually called my cousin who turned me onto PC gaming in the first place, and he told me to reset my C-MOS battery which fixed it. It's a problem to me because all the videos I watched never mentioned the C-MOS battery, which was evident by the fact that I had no Idea what the **** he was talking about, when he said "Reset the C-MOS battery".

The community, well I can't really say much, as I haven't made any friends on PC , not that I'm saying that PC gamers are antisocial, I've just been too caught up with games to really socialize (Boy that sounds a lot worse when it's put into written word). I mean I played Dirty Bomb for about 100 hours when I first got on PC, then a bunch sales happen, and it all got kind of fuzzy which leads me into my next subject.

Price of games. So I have bought twelve games on PC so far, eleven on Steam, and one on Uplay.

Arma 2 complete operations - 6$

Prototype - 10$

Skyrim the special edition - 22$

Fallout 4 GOTY - 27$

Assassin's creed rouge - 8$

Tropico 4 - 4$

Civilization 5 - 11$

Tom Clancy's Into the wildlands - 30$

Dark Souls 3 - 15$

Fallout 3 GOTY - 3$

Fallout new vegas ultimate edition - 6$

Oblivion GOTY deluxe edition - 20$ (This was VERY hard to find any where but steam)

That's around 162$ for twelve games, you just can't do that on console, so it's safe to say I'm VERY happy with the sales

, and in general low prices of the PC gaming market.

The only thing I could think of as a con for me is that I REALLY miss sports games, not FIFA, or Madden, but the UFC, and boxing games (Fight night champion, since it's like the only quality boxing game out there) which don't exists on PC, but that's again a pet peeve of mine, not a slight against PC gaming.

The higher FPS, and graphical fidelity is awesome, but what I really love about this in PC gaming is the freedom to prioritize performance over eye candy, or vice versa. Not much to say not this regard PC is just better, no room for subjective thinking.

So in conclusion, I have had a FAR better gaming experience within my 3 months as a PC gamer than my 15 years as a console gamer. I don't see a reason to ever go back to be honest.

My Rig

-Asus Strix Z270F ATX motherboard

-i5 7600k Quad Core CPU at 3.8GHz

-Asus Strix 1060 6GB OC Edition Overclocked to 01878MHz Boost Clock, and 08808MHz Memory Clock

-Curcial Ballistix Elite 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 RAM

-NZXT S340 Elite Mid Tower Case

-Cooler Master Geminll M4 CPU Cooler

-Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 7200RPM

-EVGA 700W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Non-Modular PSU

-Windows 10 Home OME 64-bit

Thanks for reading.

iLLusionary

PC is the best, but it is still okay to play consoles on the side for the exclusives.

Welcome aboard and like BassMan said no need to completely shove off consoles to enjoy another platform

Thanks guys.

I don't dislike consoles, the final push that lead me to PC was the way the companies behind the consoles treated gamers, and gaming in general.

But like I said before, the only games I would like to play that PC doesn't have are the combat sports games. Also Bloodborne, I'm a pretty big souls fan.

Welcome buddy, though I do suggest keeping around a console or two for exclusives. I regretted giving away my PS4, especially when Bloodbourne came out, and I'll regret it again with Last of Us 2. An being a huge Halo nerd, I'll probably regret also having given away my Xbox One whenever Halo 6 is released.

Anyway, if you built this PC 6 months ago instead of recently, I would have ragged on you for buying a 7th gen Intel CPU instead of an 8th and not including an SSD. But Intel's latest processors have been out of stock for months, and SSD's are overpriced thanks to the NAND shortage.

Have you over clocked your CPU yet? What kind of peripherals did you buy?

Thanks.

Yeah, I gave my Xbone to my sister, and sometimes find myself thinking 'wow I really want to play EA UFC 2' .

I originally planned to get a 1070, a 500GB SSD, and an i7-8700K. But By the time I had saved the 1500 for the setup prices had changed, and many things were downgraded, or cut from the list all together. For example I'm just now getting a desk, and chair (a generic student desk, and the OFM Essentials race style chair) I have the desk, but the I made the mistake of ordering the chair from HayNeedle, and now I have to wait until the 9th, because they "ran" out of stock. playing games from a bed s very uncomfortable, for me anyhow.

As for peripherals I bought the Cooler Master Devastator 2, and I already had the HyperX Clouds 2. The Cooler Master Devastator 2 are meh, the keys K, J, U, and I on keyboard stick when could air is on it for too long which is weird as ****. The HyperX Clouds 2 are awesome very comfortable, and great sound quality. The monitor I bouight is the Acer 21.5" LED HD border-less 1080p 60hz monitor, it's pretty good IMO.

As for upgrading probably an all in one water CPU cooler, then a better keyboard, and mouse, then an SSD, then a faster processor, and maybe a 1080ti.

I've honestly never looked into to overclocking my CPU, I don't know if my CPU cooler is beefy enough for it

@illusionary: You still got much to learn, you over-paid for some of those games. They can be found cheaper outside of Steam.

@GTR12: Well I bought Arma 2, Fallout 4 , Fallout 3, Fallout new vegas, Skyrim, and warband, form G2A.com.

Welcome to PC gaming one of the great things about PC games is the tweaks I suggest trying out PC gaming wiki. I never promote websites but that site has helped me alot through the years and is very helpful for gaming fixes and other info great for newcomers.

@warmblur: Thanks for the info.

You forgot GOG and GMG.

Halo 6 is coming to PC.

@GTR12: The code I got for Warband was for GOG, it was Like 1.24$.

@BassMan: Really? That's pretty cool. I haven't played a Halo game since Halo 3.

Yeah, a good monitor and m/k make or break your experience. Your monitor is good enough, you have a 1060 so you don't need anything better. I suggest a Corsair K70 and either a Corsair M65 or Scimitar depending on what kind of games you play. Logitech and Razor make great m/k's too, Steelseries does as well. Basically any of those 4 companies, and you're good.

Overclocking is simple and is what the k-series of chips are meant for, plenty of videos on youtube that teach you how, but yes you'll need a better AIO if you really wanna push it. Just don't go over the recommended voltage, keep your temps below 85`c, and use multiple programs for stress testing.

@mordant221: I had my eye on the M65 Pro, but I haven't given much thought on what new keyboard I want, but as I have to backspace all the random Js, Ks, Us, and Is that make my writings complete gibberish, I realize that was a grievous error. I'm just glad it isn't effecting WASD or something.

Also I'm aware overclocking isn't that hard, I'm just waiting until I get an AIO.

@illusionary: welcome aboard!

I hear you with the big hands problem; I too suffer from "big hands syndrome" and have difficulty with some of the finer details in building PCs (I have snapped a few plastic parts over the years, sadly), but it is still definitely the way to go. You will save hundreds, if not close to a thousand dollars on bigger builds, as opposed to buying a PC outright. Plus it is fun!

Consoles still have a place in this world, but I find that it is slowly diminishing due to console makers draconian and childish marketing techniques.

I will say, gaming in general keeps getting better and better.

All* Xbox games will be coming to PC

*not sure if it really is all, but pretty much all of them. Part of Microsoft's new "vision".

Don't forget Humble Bundle

Wow, no one posted "cool story bro" or "blog it." I'm shocked.

@mrbojangles25: Yeah It was a ton of fun building my PC. I remember when I first learnt about PC gaming, I never really took all that seriously. I was always aware it was real, but no one even mentioned it in my circles so I never gave it much thought, and only ever played MapleStory when I was a kid. So being largely ignorant to the PC market I went to Alienware, and almost bought the Area 51, it's a little scary to me, to think of how close I came to grossly overpaying.

I approach anything from Microsoft that involves gaming with a healthy amount of skepticism. Though like I said before the only console exclusive games I really want to play are the combat sports games, and Bloodborne. Bloodborne is a victim of shitty bushiness practices, and combat sports games, such as the Fight Night, and UFC series, are not released because of "low" demand (Even though 12000 people signed a petition). Both of these have something in common, they both prove that the people in charge of large portions of the gaming industry are just out of touch trust fund kiddies, more interested in stacking cash than the hobby they are trying to slowly strangle.

@NoodleFighter: I know of both HumbleBundle, and Green Man Gaming, I just haven't used them yet.

@attirex: I would not respond, unless this person, and I have a legitimate issue with one another. I try to ignore blatant attention whores.

Gotcha, just letting yah know, Humble also gives out free games every month so you might see something you like being given out for free by them.

@NoodleFighter: Now I didn't know they gave free games out every month, thanks for the info.

@illusionary: Origin, Uplay and GoG give out free games as well so keep an eye out for them as well

@NoodleFighter: Origin, and Uplay give out free games? EA's Origin, and Ubisoft's Uplay? That is way out of character for them. But then again Origin access seems strangely pro consumer for EA as well, to the point that I was legitimately suspicious when I first heard of it.

@illusionary: Yeah they give them out but a lot of the EA games are pretty old I got some games like Syberia 2, Battlefield 3 and The Sabotuer for free from them. Earlier this month Uplay gave out Watch Dogs, Assassin's Creed Black Flag, and World In Conflict for free.

@NoodleFighter: Really? That's a bummer as I have Uplay because of Wildlands, but I haven't played it in a while so I haven't been on Uplay in a while. this is a bummer because I'm actually a huge fan of how the AC series handles naval combat in this era, I haven't seen any other game that handles this subject well.

Thanks for the info.

Incorrect, its not every month, its every week, some are repeat freebies, but its way more often.

Edit: Wrong website, ****, its IndieGala that gives it out every 2-3 days, I have some stupid insane amount on Steam, of which I've only played 1/10th.

Yup.

Uplay have also given away Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and The Crew on occasion.

GoG recently gave away Grim Fandango Remastered.

Origin always have its On the House freebie games.

It's been a while since Steam gave away freebies.

They gave a game out 2 days ago... How is that not recent?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/283880/Heroines_Quest_The_Herald_of_Ragnarok/

And Kingdom: Classic 8 days ago

PC gaming needs some time to get used to....

It'll only get better once you grown more used to it :P

Try and get into star citizen and elite dangerous, although these days elite is on consoles..Love space games star citizen will come on its own this yr, Now that it has its own system finally, Dont listen to the naysayers also..Dont forget to pick up diablo 3, starcraft 2, destiny 2..Welcome to the pc brother..Ive always been both.Although i dont own a console atm. Sold my p4 2 years ago do to lack of games..May buy a system or 2 this year.How ever i do wish ea would suck it up an start putting things on the pc. Like madden an other games, years ago they had madden only a port though not the real game, they went cheap.If they brought all there sport games to pc.They would find themselves a awesome market..Its eas loss not ours..Plus the 3d market is starting to pick up..Recently bought a vive an im wowed over it..

Yeah, it's no wonder these forums have gone dead. Someone posts a freaking opinion and it's like "blog it"! I've even seen people get criticized for talking about games - that's right apparently on a "game discussion" forum it's supposed to only be about politics and future predictions!

I almost miss those days and the couple of guys who always posted "blog it" in every thread and for every topic type.

Almost.

Usually I just wanted to choke the life out of them.

@Gladestone1: I've heard of Star Citizen, and Elite Dangerous, I played Diablo 3 on console A little, I might get it again, but I am going to keep a VERY healthy distance away form Destiny 2.

VR however, I really didn't have that big of an interest in even before I nearly went blind. Now I just don't think it would be possible.

Ooops. My bad. It's under Free to Play which I immediately assumed to be multiplayer games or games full of microtransactions. Steam should make a separate menu item similar to Origin's On the House.

Yeah I would say not all F2P games are that bad, just look at Dirty Bomb, but then someone could easily say just look at APB Reloaded.

@illusionary: The funny thing about PC gaming is that, once you get used to a certain resolution and FPS, playing the console version of the same game feels a lot like playing a cheap, budget version of that same game.

PC is better than console in many aspects, still, console is somewhat easier to move from place to place rather than a pc

@cyrill: Kind of I guess, but I've seen very small mini ATX towers that have handles, and everything.

@cyrill:

Yeah I get that, as I was watching my sister play Skyrim the spacial edition on her Xbone at 720p and I immediately noticed the difference.

A few days ago I got Horizon Zero Dawn, Mass Effect Andromeda, Superhot, Yakuza 5, Megaton Rainfall, Arkham Origins, Raw Data, Thumper, Trine 3, Metal Gear Rising, Undertale, Statik, Mirror's Edge, Firewatch and the Nioh Season Pass on PSN for around 150. It's called a sale. There are tons of them on each system. Those oh so cheap PC games are a total myth. Especially Steam is insanely overpriced when there's no sale. On consoles you don't have to wait for that because you can actually buy games used all the time. Congrats anyway.

The parts of my new desktop will arrive in 1-2 weeks. 1080Ti, 8700K, 1440p 144hz monitor, etc. I built the last one around 7 years ago so I'm pretty excited. I don't think it will turn me into an elitist snob though.

No, it's really not a myth. Console sales are rather rare in my experience. Also, the prices are determined by the publisher, so platforms shouldn't have anything to do with it, but due to the business practices of console manufacturers it's not a big leap to assume that they would be more prone to do sales on PC, as they make more money per sale on PC than console., I'm not entirely sure why, most likely to do with royalties, and charges by console manufactures that can be comparable to highway robbery. Either that or they believe that they can take advantage of console gamers more easily than PC gamers like Bethesda does .Maybe I missed it, but I've never seen a games like the Witcher 3 GOTY for 8$ on console.

Pre-owned games? They are nice for the retailer, as no one else makes a dime off them. Though in my experience they are usually only like a 5% deduction, though then again in every city I've lived in on the east coast of the USA GameStop has had a monopoly on this trade, so maybe it's just my area.

That's awesome. I'm a little jealous, I would love to have a 1080Ti. But about it turning you in to an elitist, just be you, I've been called an elitist, and I think I'm a pretty nice guy. I think people just want to insult others to try and give themselves false higher ground in an argument, and use a word they view as harmful that will also demean the other party's points.

They are getting more and more common. Microsoft discounted most of their digital catalogue TWICE in the last 45 days.

Given, the discounts are not as deep as they would be on Steam, or other resellers, but they are still pretty good.

I picked up Final Fantasy XV, which is a really weird game by the way, for CAD $20. Not bad.

I defend the argument that PC gaming is better in every respect, but I concur. If you want a gaming platform at a low initial cost, both the Xbox One and Playstation 4 are a good deal right now.

@lucidique

and to that point I think consolers should reflect on adverting that they are the walmart bargin bin option. That is usually not something to brag about.

Welcome to the PC Master Race!

There are a LOT of consoles in trailer parks.

@illusionary: think how popular boxing is now a days and fight night is still the last major boxing game made it's so frustrating