POSITIVE upbeat PC GAMERS! ;-)

[Steven_RW]

A thread for all the positive upbeat pc gamers that have lived through any or all generations of pc gaming and still have enough energy in their tanks to not waste their day moaning about everything.

Liken this type of pc gamer to people that enjoy a bit of a hobby car and not just a Porsche their dealership changes the oil on and even sets their tyre pressures once a year.

Roll up roll up. Who has enjoyed faffing with their pc and indulging in some 4k, ultra wide or HD high frames per second glory and still has enough enthusiasm to talk about it.

I am in that camp. It may be lonely.

[Steven_RW]

Look - there are three of us! :-)

I've built three pcs recently and one for my dad. Just the faffing and building and setting it up is good fun in itself.

I have spent the last 6 months split between PubG ranked gameplay and chilling out with Skyrim once again. The mixture of faff and gameplay suits me down to the ground.

I've only managed to buy a 3070 as the other 30 series cards prices on ebay are eye watering, so i gave up.

Let's see if anyone else joins us, but they might be tied up in the negative thread. ;-)

RW

[Steven_RW]

Sporky said:

Mastodon2 said:

I guess I can't be in this club as I have a gaming laptop and not a water-cooled tower with RGB disco lights flashing away in it.

Dang it. I've got an AIO cooler for the CPU, but turned all the lights off and my case doesn't have a window. Maybe I can still be an associate member or sommat.

Like on Fury 161, we have enough faith to go around for everyone. Pc/laptop/custom rig, you name it! Nobody judging here.

[Steven_RW]

deckster said:

Nearer 50 than 40 and still gaming most nights. Went through a console phase 15-odd years ago but been exclusively PC for years now. Always have a few games on the go, both single-player and have a small group of friends I do online co-op with a couple of times a week. The reactions are slower than they used to be for sure, and I really should know better than to stay up till 4am because one more mission. And long may it continue.

I also have a minor obsession and slight addiction to building and fiddling with PCs. I've even been converted to RGB and glass cases which this time last year I'd have scoffed at. But now I think I could really use another couple of fans.

Looking good. I built in a Lian Li 011 Dynamic and when my waterblock for my gpu was so tall that the side glass wouldn't go on, I changed to the XL version. More money down the pan but loved every minute of the building and faffing. I didn't have any leds or anything other than what auto turns on with the motherboard till the other day when I finally realised my mobo DID have a spare DRGB header and plugged in my GPU and now it lights up like an alien from the abyss movie.

My latest time sink is trying to fit as many gpus into each case I have as possible. Would have been much easier if I had bought every card identical but it didn't start out with a big collection in plan, so I have been working on that. Been more late nights with a screwdriver in hand than a mouse and keyboard in the last month but its been great fun.

[Steven_RW]

MBBlat said:

Started gaming on a Sinclair ZX80, never been fond of, or any good at, shooters or platform games.

Current playlist is Elite Dangerous, Cities Skyline and Civilisation VI. Always built my own PC’s as well.

Nice - I started with a zx48. Hungry Horace, Fighter Pilot, Horace and the spiders and manic miner etc. Here I am nearly 40 years later and still watching folk completing spectrum games on youtube whilst drinking my cuppa tea ;-)

RW

[Steven_RW]

MissChief said:

I have no idea what you're on about.....


PC gaming almost exclusively for a decade or more and have been building and fiddling for years and years even before that. Mostly play Apex Legends with a little Master Chief Collection in there too

Close encounters of the third kind going on in that there 011 Dynamic! :-)

[Steven_RW]

vonuber said:

Sign me up, been building my own PC's since I nearly melted a pentium 4 in 2000/1 by wiring the processor fan to the chassis fan by mistake.

Edit: oh, current games I'm enjoying:

Horizon Zero Dawn, Control, Sins of Solar Empire and Forza Horizon.

Edited by vonuber on Monday 12th April 23:07

How do you like sins of the solar empire? I got hold of it in a sale (you know the guilty pleasure of a Steam sale purchase..) but have only tried a few mins.

[Steven_RW]

I'm no use at multi quotes, so am just kinda replying to many people in one vague ramble.

This is all great to see.

You can always take a break if your enthusiasm is running low.

I was PubG playing every night for around 9 months. The lads took a break to play something else and I am not that interested in their other game, so just end up messing around with my watercooled build. Looking at new parts, speccing out an upgrade here and there. All good stuff.

I had taken a huge break after competing in Counter Strike Source and just played PS3 and PS4 for years then I bought a pre-built from ChillBlast. One thing lead to another and my current gaming pc only contains the OS NVME drive from that build. Every single other component has been upgraded :-).

Good times.

As for moving to all white LEDs rather than rainbow RBG, yeah that would suit me as a little light in the case lets you see what is going on.

As for the AIO on the powerful ryzen 5000, 91c still seems a little high. The water in the waterblock should be able to absorb the initial power spike without seeing 90c I'd say. If not, then it is hard to see how an aircooler could ever handle that chip. You confident it is seating perfectly on top of the CPU IHS?

My own current project is a wifi bridge so my mining pcs can run from ethernet rather than wifi for extra stability.

Cheers RW

[Steven_RW]

seefarr said:

I've taken over the living room with mine. The Enthoo Prime is huuuuge

I like the look of that. I started with a fractal meshify C which at the time I didn't realise is actually quite a small case, then a Lian Li 011 dynamic and then the XL version of that same case. Great for watercooling. I then bought a couple of Fractal Define R2 XL cases. A kinda generation older than some of the latest stuff (no room for a 360 or 420mm rad) but the cavernous space made pc building much easier than the smaller other ones I had been working on.

That car chair you have on your driving sim rig is spot on.

How do you like that truck driving Sim? I have been thinking about trying it or one of those snow runner / mud runner games.

Cheers

RW

[Steven_RW]

anarki said:

I've been a PC gamer (I still like consoles too) since the Celeron 300A / Voodoo2 days.

I have a healthly collection of PC parts (both old and new) and happily class myself as a huge geek.

Unfortunately I don't have a Voodoo2 anymore, however I have a dual Slot 1 motherboard with two Cely 300A's as well as about 10 AGP graphics cards from the late 90's early 00's. I have several motherboards, CPU's, etc from that era. It's my favourtite era for PC gaming and hardware.

I love building and tinkering with things, be it PC's, cars, electronics, Lego, DIY, etc.

Nice! In my quest for more doom2 fps from.my dx2 66 I bought a diamond stealth 2 gfx card. Was a big deal.at the time as a school kid

Edited by Steven_RW on Wednesday 14th April 09:26

[Steven_RW]

seefarr said:

It's really nice to build a PC in a big case!

You may need to be a certain type of nerd to enjoy Euro / American truck sims, but clearly I am. Truckin' across the desert with hair metal on the radio just suits me! They're frequently on sale and the base game isn't that much.

Snowrunner (much better than the previous ones) was really good if you're a patient gamer - never has hitting 5mph felt like such an achievement.

These games sound good. Maybe take my blood pressure down a few clicks compared to nail biting pubg.

I'll have a look into them. Cheers

[Steven_RW]

anarki said:

Nice - I don't have anything of that vintage



I've dug out what I could find, I'm pretty sure I have a couple more boxed away somewhere though. I know I've got a geforce 256!

From top left to bottom right:

Voodoo Banshee 16MB
Diamond Viper V770 (Riva TNT2) 32MB
Canopus 5400 PE (Riva TNT2 Ultra) 32MB
Geforce 2 Pro 64MB (maybe 32MB I can't remember)
Canopus Spectra X20 (Geforce 3 with a 263MHz core and 460MHz Mem)
3d Prophet III Titanium 200 (Geforce 3 Ti200)
Geforce 4 Ti4200 64MB
3d Prophet 4500 64MB (Kyro II)
Tyan Tachyon G9600 (ATi Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB)

All of them work flawlessly.

Great collection you have there. Like all the advancing tech, I imagine dragging out some massive modern gpu with a 3 slot thick air cooler and showing that to the proud owner of the latest Geforce 2 pro back in the day. Can you imagine the look you would get? :-) Crazy how things move on.

So do you have an older pc up and running that can take these cards?

[Steven_RW]

superstreek said:

Fun thread, and certainly brings back memories of 386s and null modem cables for a death match, not to mention 3DFX cards, soundblasters and questionable approaches to cooling for that extra few Hz.

I switched to purely console probably around the PS3 era so I guess 2006/7 then weirdly switched to Xbox a while ago which led to gaming laptop to take advantage of Gamepass and now spend most of my gaming time on PC again.

Was thinking of doing a build but as getting a graphics card here is crazy a custom pre build is on the cards, seems excessive for a few hours FPS or driving a week (Xbox X, Laptop & desktop) but it is slippery slope.

Davie

:-) Yeah the serial cable that you connected two pcs directly with had to be wired differently so that it worked. A regular serial cable for some peripheral didn't work. I can still remember typing sersetup.

Excuse me for flooding the thread but i looked up the old commands to run a sersetup.exe modem or null modem game. The lads in the moany pc games are too much effort thread would have a fit at all this...

MODEM PLAY

---

When you want to play a modem or null-modem game, you need to
run SERSETUP.EXE which is the device driver for DOOM's serial
communications mode. The parameters are as follows:

-DIAL tells the program which number to dial, if you're going
to do the calling.
-dial

-ANSWER puts your modem into Answer mode so someone can call
you and play DOOM.
-answer

-COM1, -COM2, -COM3, -COM4 specifies which COM port your modem
or serial cable is connected to. Very important!
-com1

-8250 tells SERSETUP to set the UART to 8250. Just in case your
16550 UART is acting up at the higher speed.
-8250

-IRQ sets the IRQ for the COM port.
-irq

-PORT sets the COM I/O port that SERSETUP uses to communicate
with your modem. To use hexadecimal, such as the number 0x3f8, you
would type "-port 0x3f8".
-port

-<#> sets the baud rate of your COM port, overriding the value in
the MODEM.CFG if you're running a modem game. Legal values are
9600, 14400, 38400, 57600.
Example: -14400

Note that to run a null-modem game, you must have a null-modem
cable plugged into a serial port on both computers and each
computer runs SERSETUP.EXE with a -COM# parameter as well as
any General Parameters. Do not use the -ANSWER or -DIAL
parameters, or SERSETUP will think you're using a modem. To get
a null-modem cable, go to CompUSA or Radio Shack and say,"I need
a null-modem cable to run a DOOM multiplayer game."

VERY IMPORTANT!
You will need to run the SETUP program and select Choose Modem
from the Network/Modem/Serial menu so you can set your modem
init string correctly. Merely select the modem and press Enter
and SETUP will create a new MODEM.CFG file that corresponds to
your modem (the MODEM.CFG file is used by SERSETUP for initing
the modem.)

If your modem is not in the list, you will most likely need to
edit the MODEM.CFG file in the DOOM directory. The first line
of the file is an initialization string that:
* Turns off error-correction
* Turns off data-compression
The MODEM.CFG file has a Hayes-standard init string like this:
AT Z S=46 &Q0 &D0
You just add your own commands after the "AT Z " if your modem
doesn't work with these settings -- dig up your modem manual for
the correct settings.

The second line is a hangup string used when you quit DOOM.

The third line is the baud rate at which you want your COM port set.
The legal settings are: 9600, 14400, 38400, 57600.

If the modem connection isn't working when you call your friend,
have him call you instead. Try setting the modem to GENERIC (in the
SETUP.EXE program) if your modems don't connect.

If you STILL can't get the modems to connect, both of you should
run your favorite COMM programs and connect with 9600, no error
correction and no data compression. Then quit the COMM program
and keep the connection going. Then just run SERSETUP with a -COM#
parameter (as if you were running a null-modem game) since you're
already connected.

If you had trouble connecting, but figured out some settings that
work, please fax them to us at [phone] so we can expand our
modem init string database and perhaps have the SETUP program ask
you for your modem type in a future version of DOOM.

[Steven_RW]

BrettMRC said:

I remember the heat haze coming off my Apocalypse 5D card!

Classic :-)

I remember my counter strike source pc (core 2 duo e6600 iirc) behaving strangely and opening it up to find my Arctic Freezer 7 cpu cooler completely filled solid with dust hehe.

Good clean out and she was back at full power again. No dust filters on those old pcs.

[Steven_RW]

anarki said:

Heres some man maths:

B450 motherboard £65-75 (most support 2nd, 3rd and 4th gen ryzens so potential to upgrade further down the years)

Ryzen 5 3600 (can be often had for around £150) 6core/12 thread brilliant 3rd gen CPU

16GB DDR4 3200 - often available for around £70

Honestly you won't regret the upgrade. It will be a night and day difference to your current CPU and all for less than £300

Reading this with interest and amusement at the unchecked TVR spending vs the realistic PC budget. :-) Add £75 to £150 for a PSU. Corsair RM850x at £135 being an exact example of quality.

[Steven_RW]

I'm thinking about having a look at this defence grid game after it has been talked about here.

[Steven_RW]

Squirrelofwoe said:

Steven I've just realised you are the poster I was chatting to recently in the Bloodborne PS4 thread! I'm still battling through that at the mo so the PC upgrade isn't a massive hurry just yet.

Ah yes. The finest of games.

I remember ignoring all the dark souls series and then finally relenting. Walking into my Game store and asking them which one I should choose between Dark SOuls 2 Scholars of the First Sin and Bloodborne. The staff member said to try Bloodborne as it was made from the ground up for the Ps4.

Nearly broke me as I hadn't even watched a youtube video on a souls game and had to work out even the most basic stuff from scratch. Now I have completed the lot several times over! I'll gladly await your updates.

As for the PC thing. If you buy some second hand parts you can see your own second hand parts and the "price to upgrade" in total is really not too bad. You can then hover around in the tech that is a couple of years old and continue that way without costing too much. Your 208x gpu can just be sold on ebay unless you want to build up a second machine. I've currently got my main gaming machine that started out as a i9900Kf and a 2080ti EVGA FTW3 on a custom loop.

Due to mining it now has 3x2080ti sitting in there. I built up a second pc with my spare parts and my original gtx 1080. It then was replaced with a 2080ti and then added a second 2080ti. I have also got a 3rd machine with a mobo and cpu again bought second hand from ebay and it is also running 3x2080ti with a fourth one sitting there ready to go in this weekend. The CPU that I have been buying from ebay for these machines (I have parts for a 4th machine here) are intel i7700 either the 7700k or regular depending on what prices are available. I know that this cpu paired with a 2080ti would make for a really nice gaming experience so I decided to go down that route. All 9 of the 2080ti were bought second hand.

I'd just build a little txt document or excel spreadsheet and start listing out all the parts I had and all the parts I needed and building up the true cost of the next step. Works well for me to get my head round exactly what I am buying in to :-).

[Steven_RW]

3sixty said:

Then getting my Voodoo card and playing Fatal Racing and Destruction Derby and it was like nothing I had ever seen before.

Edited by 3sixty on Friday 16th April 01:08

That moment happened for me when I was playing quake 2 with onboard 3d rendering and then I went to a mates of a mates uni flat and they had voodoo cards with 3dfx accelerator cards (iirc) and the graphics and lighting where in another world. I knew I needed to find a way to up my budget as their version of Quake 2 didn't look anything like mine!!

[Steven_RW]

Wing Commander on my IBM PS2 Model 50z and a few others including Monkey Island and Xenon 2 megablast. My uncle worked for IBM in Silicon Valley so brought these games over as gifts. ALl were great but Monkey Island was such an eye opener as I had never really played a game like that.

Then on to a DX2-66 for Doom and then Doom2. Loved it but of course at that point you always dreamed of having generous/rich enough parents to buy a Pentium 60 or Pentium 90 but I knew I was lucky to get to use the family DX2 66 anyway.

Command and Conquer played till you realised your mouse hand had gone cold from the number of hours you had your wrist extended playing that game till dawn. I've gone on the journey of a PC not being as good or fun as an amiga right through to it being the most competent machine on the market.

That pic of the old CRT above looks to be DE_Inferno on Counter Strike 1.6 (or an earlier variant of Counter Strike 1.x).

We had ran a BBS from the DX2-66 and I had my own telephone line in my bedroom. Genesis BBS 01786 825368 24/7 28.8k zoom modem. Page SysOp for doom deathmatch hehe. Run with a BBS software called remote access iirc. Great times and an insane amount of messing around to get that all to run reliably.

RW

[Steven_RW]

3sixty said:

Yep, I think the issue is even worse over here though. They are literally not selling any cards unless you buy it as a built PC to the extent where people are buying 2k-3k PCs just for the graphics card and trying to offload the rest. The only card they will sell you is a GT710 on its own, its ridiculous

That isn't too far from what it is like here at the moment. During trawling for 30 series graphics cards I have had prebuilt pcs from PC Specialist, HP Omen and Chillblast all sitting specced up in my basket and sat there doing some hard man maths trying to decide if I could make it work by selling on the components i wouldn't need. It is tough times in the hardware world.