The PC Building Thread

bsmaff said:
If you want to play online games and don't want to convert to using mouse and keyboard you will get your arse absolutly handed to you.

Also there isn't many graphics cards out there which will let you play BF3 at 1080p on ultra settings.

And Jamezinho is right consoles don't run hardly any games at 1080p or even 720p, they use lower resolutions to keep the frame rate up.
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Well that's what I thought, so online shooters might not be an option as I flat refuse to use a keyboard to play games.

As for graphics cards, there are enough around to be able to play the likes of BF3.
 
Jamezinho said:
Ok, a few things to consider:

- The size of the TV doesn't matter if its resolution is 1080p i.e. 1920x1080 pixels. The same number of pixels is displayed regardless of whether it is a 32" LCD or a 60" Plasma. If you sit close to the TV, bigger displays are pointless.

- 1920x1080 (1080p) is the most common resolution used by PC users.

- You can buy monitors that display higher resolutions, for instance 1920x1200 and 2560x1440 are more common. But, the higher the resolution, the more pixels the PC has to render so it is more demanding on the graphics card.

- The benefit of a higher than 1920x1080 resolution is a sharper image that requires little or no anti-aliasing (jaggie reduction). AA can be demanding on the graphics card too (depending on how smooth you want the image to look) so it's a trade off between the two.

- Most console games don't run at 1920x1080 so running at this resolution at a smooth 60fps is a huge upgrade on console graphics by itself.

So, what I'm trying to say is, if you have a decent 1080p TV then it will be perfectly fine. It's what a lot of PC gamers use (me included) rather than dedicated monitors. BF3 at ultra @ 1080p will look stunning, far beyond the 360 version. It is, however, one of the most intensive PC games out there at the moment so you will need at least a mid-range graphics card like a AMD Radeon HD7850 or a Nvidia GTX 560Ti, or an older high-end card. Depends on your budget really.

Regarding 360 controllers.... get one of these and it's just the same as playing on the 360:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Xbox-Wireless-Gaming-Receiver-Windows/dp/B000MGVAAQ
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That's great thanks for the help, it's cleared that up nicely :)

As far as graphics cards go, I've been looking at the 560Ti but I really don't know if a PC is for me. I'd love the extra graphical ability for a range of games, and the ability to mod games like PES beyond recognition, but at the same time if at any point something doesn't work because of driver issues or something starts blue screening, which people I know have common problems with when using PCs for graphic processing with their jobs, well, then, frankly it'd drive me nuts. So I just don't know. Maybe a cheaper option is the way forward, but ideally I'd live a PC that will be better than the new consoles that wont be coming out for a while yet.
 
I played PES 2013 and patched it on my MacBook Pro. That runs perfectly and looks great. The trouble I seem to be having is with the instability of bloody Windows 8. I tried to install Windows 7, but every time during the install it locks up. Not sure what to do. Maybe just wait for the retail version of Windows 8...
 
Suuuuupertalk said:
That's great thanks for the help, it's cleared that up nicely :)

As far as graphics cards go, I've been looking at the 560Ti but I really don't know if a PC is for me. I'd love the extra graphical ability for a range of games, and the ability to mod games like PES beyond recognition, but at the same time if at any point something doesn't work because of driver issues or something starts blue screening, which people I know have common problems with when using PCs for graphic processing with their jobs, well, then, frankly it'd drive me nuts. So I just don't know. Maybe a cheaper option is the way forward, but ideally I'd live a PC that will be better than the new consoles that wont be coming out for a while yet.
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PC gaming isn't like the old days anymore, games tend to just work well for the most part. Sometimes you might need to fix up a file or so but that is rare, and I havent seen a blue screen crash for years now.

Sure, its not like a console where every game works out of the box and you might have to do a small bit of tweaking initially. But its well worth it, PC gaming is just a lot better for me. The graphics alone are a great upgrade, cheap games on Steam etc.
 
I'm mainly moving to playing PES on PC because of the massive editing opportunities. I patched the demo last night and played it, feels and looks fantastic! Now I just need a stable operating system...
 
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Tim7 said:
I'm mainly moving to playing PES on PC because of the massive editing opportunities. I patched the demo last night and played it, feels and looks fantastic! Now I just need a stable operating system...
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Thats cool that your playin PES again. I agree ive downloaded the Jenky Extra Teams unlocker for the Demo and it looks fantastic!

I love the cutscenes and replays they are SOOO smooth compared to the eye sore Jerkiness on the 360 and PS3!

Plus also you can do Level Of Detail settings with PES usually on the PC and make things look even more detailed/sharp!;)
 
DagsJT said:
Don't the crossfire cards give it a big plus though?
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The crossfire is a massive plus as you would get 580GTX performance and the fact he would throw in a monitor for £500 is a very very good deal, but for me personally if it was anything other than an AMD I would recommend anyone to snap it up.

It still is a fantastic price, I just wouldn't touch AMD.
 
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Agreed lad. Stick to Intel Core i processors.

As for Graphics cards I was told by a work colleague of mine who seems to know his stuff when it comes to Graphics Cards that SLI'ing or Cross Firing' doesnt give you all that much of a performance enhancement. He said to me I would be better off selling my GTX 580 and getting something more powerful. Now is he talking a load of baloney or to get Battlefield 3 running at 1080P with Ultra Settings on everything running at an average of over 60FPS I will need a better card? If so could one of you guys let me know which card would be best for the money?

Sorry for this long post.
 
m.schumacher said:
Agreed lad. Stick to Intel Core i processors.

As for Graphics cards I was told by a work colleague of mine who seems to know his stuff when it comes to Graphics Cards that SLI'ing or Cross Firing' doesnt give you all that much of a performance enhancement. He said to me I would be better off selling my GTX 580 and getting something more powerful. Now is he talking a load of baloney or to get Battlefield 3 running at 1080P with Ultra Settings on everything running at an average of over 60FPS I will need a better card? If so could one of you guys let me know which card would be best for the money?

Sorry for this long post.
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your work mate is talking crap mate sorry.

Any game that has a official sli/crossfire profile you will see a large performance increase.

SLI/Crossfire has matured alot these years
 
m.schumacher said:
Agreed lad. Stick to Intel Core i processors.

As for Graphics cards I was told by a work colleague of mine who seems to know his stuff when it comes to Graphics Cards that SLI'ing or Cross Firing' doesnt give you all that much of a performance enhancement. He said to me I would be better off selling my GTX 580 and getting something more powerful. Now is he talking a load of baloney or to get Battlefield 3 running at 1080P with Ultra Settings on everything running at an average of over 60FPS I will need a better card? If so could one of you guys let me know which card would be best for the money?

Sorry for this long post.
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Crossfiring and SLI give your computer a massive performance increase these days, the poor performance was when the technology was new. But now you get about 70-80% increase in performance by adding the same card.

If you want to play BF3 on ULTRA settings everything completly maxed out at 1080p only the 680 and the 690 can play the game at over 60FPS.
But then there is nothing wrong with the 580GTX and you won't need to upgrade for a very long time.
 
m.schumacher said:
Agreed lad. Stick to Intel Core i processors.

As for Graphics cards I was told by a work colleague of mine who seems to know his stuff when it comes to Graphics Cards that SLI'ing or Cross Firing' doesnt give you all that much of a performance enhancement. He said to me I would be better off selling my GTX 580 and getting something more powerful. Now is he talking a load of baloney or to get Battlefield 3 running at 1080P with Ultra Settings on everything running at an average of over 60FPS I will need a better card? If so could one of you guys let me know which card would be best for the money?

Sorry for this long post.
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Crossfire can give you a huge boost but a single card will always be better. I was running an ATI5870 so instead of having to fork out £400 for a new card I picked up another 5870 for £100 on ebay and the performance difference is massive. I would assume you could run BF3 on ultra at 1080P with your GTX580 as it is very similar to my Xfire 5870's which run the game fine. I even use FXAA and it still runs fine.
 
Tim7 said:
I played PES 2013 and patched it on my MacBook Pro. That runs perfectly and looks great. The trouble I seem to be having is with the instability of bloody Windows 8. I tried to install Windows 7, but every time during the install it locks up. Not sure what to do. Maybe just wait for the retail version of Windows 8...
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dicth your macbook and buy a proper pc for half teh price u paid your macbook!
 
Nah Jonney if Tim wants a Macbook let him be.

Not everyone are Power Freaks like the rest of us in here!
 
FYI I played BF3 on my new pc yesterday...settings were all set to high and it looked beautiful and played fine.

Just a shame I can't see any badies they camouflage into the walls..
 
jonneymendoza said:
he will have issues playing many pc games mate on a booted windows sector on his mac.

Pc's are far cheaper then macbooks as well.
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He shouldn't have any issues at all with his Mac running games when the machine is running boot camp it is exactly the same as any other laptop running Windows.

But I would say he shouldn't be using Windows 8 as I would suspect he would have loads of problems regarding drivers, as when I put Windows 8 on my test MAC at work and installed the boot camp drivers I had loads of drivers missing and had to do a massive hash job to get it kind of working properly.

As the other problem is Apple always have drivers 2-3 revisions out of date when they produce the drivers anyway.
 
I have a problem with Fifa 12 i was getting a RLD DLL message, so i un-installed it and re-installed it and now it crashes when my controller pad is on. If i take it out it works fine. Any Help will be appreciated. Funny thing the RLD DLL message is gone.
 
jonneymendoza said:
dicth your macbook and buy a proper pc for half teh price u paid your macbook!
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I'd love to buy one of the setup a recommended in here and build it myself but I just don't have the money at the moment. I literally will only play PES anyway!

bsmaff said:
But I would say he shouldn't be using Windows 8 as I would suspect he would have loads of problems regarding drivers, as when I put Windows 8 on my test MAC at work and installed the boot camp drivers I had loads of drivers missing and had to do a massive hash job to get it kind of working properly.

As the other problem is Apple always have drivers 2-3 revisions out of date when they produce the drivers anyway.
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I would quite happily install my legit copy of Windows 7 that I bought, but for some reason when I try to install it, EVERY time it freezes after rebooting and trying to "complete the installation". Same place every time. Odd that Windows 8 installs fine though. I think I will look into it more tonight as I agree with you it would be much better and more stable to be running Windows 7.
 
Such Intel snobbery in here! I've had an AMD CPU for the last few years and they're excellent, never have any problems with them and performance is excellent. Also prefer ATI over Nvidia as I prefer AF to AA.
 
Tim7 said:
I'd love to buy one of the setup a recommended in here and build it myself but I just don't have the money at the moment. I literally will only play PES anyway!


I would quite happily install my legit copy of Windows 7 that I bought, but for some reason when I try to install it, EVERY time it freezes after rebooting and trying to "complete the installation". Same place every time. Odd that Windows 8 installs fine though. I think I will look into it more tonight as I agree with you it would be much better and more stable to be running Windows 7.
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I know your problem very well.
When you get the black scree turn your machine off then hold down the alt key and then select the Windows CD from the boot menu.
When the splash screen appears just click 'Next'
On the next screen click 'Repair your computer'
Next click 'Use recovery tools that can help fix problems' and click next



Next click 'Command Prompt'
When commmand prompt loads type the following:

c: enter
cd\windows\system32\drivers enter
del atikmdag.sys enter



That will fix your problem.

Sorry for crap pics they were taken on my phone.
 
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It's this kind of stuff that makes me wonder whether I should go for a PC or stick to consoles. They may not be half as good as a top PC but then I don't wanna spend half my time wondering why stuff crashes. My girlfriend had a beast of a PC built to cope with 3D rendering in Autocad, and it blue screens whenever you open up Spotify. I really want a PC but I'm not sure if I'm ready for the world of pain they seem to bring with them.
 
Suuuuupertalk said:
It's this kind of stuff that makes me wonder whether I should go for a PC or stick to consoles. They may not be half as good as a top PC but then I don't wanna spend half my time wondering why stuff crashes. My girlfriend had a beast of a PC built to cope with 3D rendering in Autocad, and it blue screens whenever you open up Spotify. I really want a PC but I'm not sure if I'm ready for the world of pain they seem to bring with them.
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PC's don't bring any pain, they bring joy and make you wonder why the f**k did I ever buy a console.
They rarely blue screen now and when they do it is user error and rarely actual system error.

I have never liked using consoles as it is like stepping into a time machine and going back 8 years in time. As when I play on my PS3 I think I am playing on a PS2 as I do think the graphics are that bad on consoles and the loading times remind me of the Spectrum days.

There are problems when building a PC for the first time, putting it together is easy, the hardest part is to configure the BIOS and install Windows and get that configured correctly but once that is done you can use Acronis and back it up to a different drive or Partition. Then if something goes wrong restore the backup and good as new.
 
Suuuuupertalk said:
It's this kind of stuff that makes me wonder whether I should go for a PC or stick to consoles. They may not be half as good as a top PC but then I don't wanna spend half my time wondering why stuff crashes. My girlfriend had a beast of a PC built to cope with 3D rendering in Autocad, and it blue screens whenever you open up Spotify. I really want a PC but I'm not sure if I'm ready for the world of pain they seem to bring with them.
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As bsmaff said, it's pretty painless. Apart from a couple of schoolboy errors, my build was pretty straightforward, installing Windows is quick and easy, and then it's a case of installing a few drivers off discs or online and you're good to go.

The result is that I've got a system that offers all the benefits of a console with all the added benefits of a PC. Put it this way, I've had my rig for three months and in that time I've not once played on my PS3 or 360. Once you get used to all the goodness PC gaming brings, it's hard to go back.
 
PC's THESE days are relatively painless! Christ I remember back in the days of having to run MEMMAKER to free up enough Extended Memory just to run SWOS like!.... Those were the days!
 
bsmaff said:
I know your problem very well.
When you get the black scree turn your machine off then hold down the alt key and then select the Windows CD from the boot menu.
When the splash screen appears just click 'Next'
On the next screen click 'Repair your computer'
Next click 'Use recovery tools that can help fix problems' and click next

That will fix your problem.

Sorry for crap pics they were taken on my phone.
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Wow, thanks mate! I'll try this later tonight!
 
jonneymendoza said:
he will have issues playing many pc games mate on a booted windows sector on his mac.

Pc's are far cheaper then macbooks as well.
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I'm going to have to disagree there, it's a native Windows install so why would he have problems playing games? The only bottleneck is the GPU, but you already know what you're getting into when you buy a laptop.
 
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