Anyone else a PC gamer? Share IDs for Steam and more

[BetaWolf47]

I know this is a strange place to talk about PC gaming. We're all huge console gamers here, for the most part, from Odyssey to Wii. I recently decided to become a PC gamer since I'm displeased with this generation of consoles: Xbox 360 is too unreliable, Wii has a bit of an odd selection, and PS3 has its own issues.

It's surprisingly not as expensive as most people think to be a PC gamer. You can build a gaming class system that can play all of the latest stuff for about $600. Granted, that's still not as cheap as $150 for a Wii or $300 for a PS3, but finding PC games for chump change is easy thanks to things like Goodwill and Steam.

PC gaming does have its drawbacks though. Due to DRM, it's difficult to buy games used. Since brick and mortar copies of games are increasingly becoming identical to digital downloads, they're not as collectible on console titles. Still though, the hobby has its own charm.

Add me on Steam if you're on.

[Sinizar]

I know this is a strange place to talk about PC gaming. We're all huge console gamers here, for the most part, from Odyssey to Wii. I recently decided to become a PC gamer since I'm displeased with this generation of consoles: Xbox 360 is too unreliable, Wii has a bit of an odd selection, and PS3 has its own issues.
Add me on Steam if you're on.

I own all the consoles but I am mainly a PC Gamer. I like all the gadgets and upgrade options that come with being a PC Gamer. Shop the Steam Sales for deals on games, and join some local LAN Party groups. Where I live this one is every 6 months and it is big. www.awollan.com

Xbox 360 unreliable? You must be talking about the old design...

[WCP]

I just built my first gaming PC in a long, long time about a week ago. Last time I built a gaming PC was very early 1999. Then the Dreamcast hit the scenes, and I dropped PC gaming like a bad habit (actually played a few PC games in 2000 and 2001, but definitely stopped when I got the GameCube and Xbox)

Almost 12 years later, I just built a gaming PC. So far, I've only tried a handful of games. I started off, just downloading a few PC demos. So far, the demo that has impressed me the most is Bulletstorm. I'll definitely snatch that up as soon as it drops below $20. That's the nice benefit of PC gaming. While buying used PC games is a crapshoot (actually worse than a crapshoot), you can get the new games either by download or disk for pretty cheap if you can be patient. There are so many older great games that I haven't played on the PC, that I can afford to take my time and wait to find games on sale for ridiculous prices. Unfortunately, I missed out on a ton of steam sales. I should have opened up an account and started buying games even though I didn't have my PC built yet. I was thinking I should wait and download them directly to my new rig, but didn't realize that I could just buy them right then, but download them on my new PC later. Dumb move on my part, because I missed out on some crazy sales.

I've been watching the sales since, but haven't seen any amazing deals on any of the games that I've been trying to get. I did snag both Far Cry 2 and the original Far Cry from Amazon for like $13. Far Cry 2 was 8 bucks, and the original was 5 bucks. If you have a high end PC, you can turn up the effects on Fry Cry 2, and it looks considerably better than the 360 version I had before. I haven't been able to get the original Far Cry to work yet. I think it has something to do with Windows 7 64-bit.

I bought a couple of used PC games off Craigslist, and kinda got screwed on the deal. I got Modern Warfare 2 and Civ 4. Civ 4 seems to be working fine, no DRM issues so far, but I'm just not sure it's my type of game. (it's a great game, no question, just not sure I want to sink ridiculous hours into it). The other game, Modern Warfare 2, is linked to this other guys Steam account, and he told me that I could just transfer it to my account, but after emailing Steam Support, supposedly that is not possible. Apparently once a game has been linked to a steam account, it's basically linked to that account forever, and you can't transfer it to somebody elses account. I'm trying to get ahold of that guy to see if he can refund me. He seemed like a cool dude, and I don't think he was trying to screw me on purpose, I think he was just as clueless about the DRM situation as I was.

Anyways, I've learned my lesson pretty quickly that buying used PC games is like wishing upon a star. The chances of successfully dealing with whatever DRM it has is pretty sketch-tastic.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Well, my main "console" is the PC, so...

http://steamcommunity.com/id/Foxhack

I'm also "FoxhackDN" on Games For Windows / XBox Live because some idiot registered Foxhack back in the XBox days, and it hasn't been unzombified since. I don't run the client often, my PC slows down a bit with it on.

[Gapporin]

There's also a Steam username thread over here ---> http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=150125

[BetaWolf47]

Thanks Gapporin. Please add my Steam ID to the first post.

What are your guys' system specs by the way? I have:

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 260
Graphics: Radeon HD 5770 1 GB
Memory: 4 GB DDR3 1600
Motherboard: ASRock M3A770DE
Sound: Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Titanium Professional

Wishing I had gone with a quad core processor or a Intel Core.

[riderpool]

im running an intel core i5 with 4 gb ddr3 ram, a ATI 5770 1gb card and an air cooled pc.

my steam tag is

kamen_rider_ryuki

[calthaer]

I've always been a fan of PC gaming, although I do think that PC gaming had its golden age around the mid 1990s. The early 2000s didn't have a ton of amazing games apart from a few big titles like Neverwinter Nights. Now that Steam is making indie distribution a lot easier, there are a bunch of gems coming out - and Steam has them on the cheap. Aquaria is one that I liked that I haven't quite gotten the time to get around to yet.

Not at home, so I'll have to post my steam ID (which I'm pretty sure is calthaer) link and system specs later in an edit. I built my PC in early 2008 (I believe) around the concept of making it a decent gaming rig that is completely silent. The previous PC I built in late 2001 had too many fans, and sounded too loud to really enjoy the games - especially when they were quiet ones like the Thief games.

[Cornelius]

I love PC gaming, but I've found myself in sort of a trap for a couple years. I built my last rig some time ago and don't even remember the processor it has, but I know it has a Radeon 9800 Pro, which was pretty sweet at the time. Actually, now that I think of it, it is actually a lower version that I re-flashed to make it identical (?) to a 9800 pro. Don't remember exactly how that went. I only pay close attention to specs and all that when I actually need to in order to build a new machine, so the hardware is definitely not a big interest of mine.

So what happened was I brought that super loud w/ fans everywhere rig into the living room w/ an ethernet cord across the house in order to play Half Life 2 on my big HDTV. It was awesome, and we immediately came to depend on having a computer hooked up to the tv. Fast forward and my father in law gave me a slightly slower, but silent water-cooled Sony Vaio that became our TV computer and now HD HTPC. I was pretty much in shock to discover how loud the other machine was, and there was just no going back for the living room. And I just can't bring myself to go play on the other machine on a regular sized monitor and no surround sound, etc.

I probably should do what calthaer has and build a silent gaming machine, but I end up with so little time to play anyway, that it doesn't seem worth it. Portal 2 is really making me want to, but I have it on PS3/Steam, so I may just play on PS3 (though I hate controllers for FPS).

Sorry for the wall of text!

oh, my steam tag is... please hold, steam is updating (again)... screw it, I'll edit it in later.

edit: tag is bvanwink

[Kitsune Sniper]

My crappy computer specs:

CPU: Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition (2.6 Ghz)
RAM: 3 GB Ram
Video: "256" MB GeForce 8400 GS video card (craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap, but it's all I could afford)
Audio: Creative Fatal1ty sound card
Bigass ASUS HD monitor with no drivers (good, yeah, but not having automatic correction sucks)

I need a new system. Wish I could afford one.

[BetaWolf47]

Anyone have any good PC gaming finds though? Goodwill sells unsold PC games from Target and Wal-mart from time to time. I've found a good 10 sealed modern PC games in the past few months for $3-$10, the most recent being Assassin's Creed 2.

[WCP]

Here's my specs. I just built this thing like 2 weeks ago now.


i5 2500K - currently at stock speeds, but will overclock soon
Cooler Master Hyper 212+ cpu cooler
Asus P8P67 motherboard - standard version (not deluxe or pro or LE)
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600
Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti SOC 1 gig version
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1 TB
SeaSonic S12II 520 Bronze 520W 80 PLUS BRONZE
Antec 300
Windows 7 64-bit Proffesional


I spent right around 1 grand total.

[BetaWolf47]

Dang WCP, that system's a beast. Added you back on Steam BTW.

[calthaer]

This is the system I built a few years ago. It's so quiet that it's really only audible when you put your ears right up to it. Not the most powerful thing in the world - even back when I built it (the silent vid cards were a few models behind the latest & greatest), but it has played just about anything I want without any hiccups. The monitor is a large-ish Samsung TV that has a max res of 1360x768,which is really fine for me at this point - so the video cards have no real problem cranking out good framerates. I'm also rarely running super-intensive games; still working on Morrowind. It did wonderfully with Half Life 2 and all its episodes, though, as well as Bioshock. If it ever stutters with something, I'll consider upgrading, but...after having a system with noisy (and annoying) fans, I wanted a ninjabox, and this is definitely one.

AMD Phenom 9850 quad-core 2.5GHz
Thermalright Inferno IFX-14 heat sink (it's a bit of a beast and barely fit in the case)

ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe Motherboard (5.1 sound built-in; I hate Creative Labs' stuff and have had problems with their drivers)

8GB RAM (can't remember the brand; I upgraded this later when I switched to Win7 x64 Ultimate)

2x Asus GeForce 9600 GT Silent (fan-less video cards)

2x Western Digital 640GB hard drives, mirrored

Antec Black P182 Case w/ Nexus Damptek case insulation (noise dampening throughout the case, with a panel covering the front, too, to dampen DVD-drive noise...this case is awesome, and I may never need another one)
3x Nexus Quiet 120mm fan
Zalman 850W Noiseless Power Supply

I also have a server downstairs running Windows Server 2008 x64 and a RAID 10 array for some shared drives where I store files to access over the domain (music, emulators, etc.).

I'll post my steam ID in the other thread. I'm curious about those who use water-cooling...don't those sometimes use compressors for cooling which can be somewhat loud? Are the water-pumps loud? How audible are those things?