new to pc games

chrisf-1

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Hi everyone I am looking for some advice on this gaming malarkey the only computer games I have ever played is farmville on facebook and solitaire in windows but talking in the pub the other day awakened my interest I was eavesdropping if you like but 2 chaps much younger than me were in a heated discussion about there prowess in gaming. I am medically retired and dying of terminal boredom and being as I have a computer reputed to be capable of handling all games on the market I thought I might give it a go but what do I need I would think the first thing would be some kind of joystick as I imagine they might be a bit much for for the mouse and possibly some sort of wheel for racing games but I honestly have not got a clue so advice gratefully received thanks Chris
 
Except for racing games and flight sim games, mouse + keyboard > any controller, so there is no need for a joystick. If you look at any sort of competitive PC gamers, or even casual PC gamers for that matter, they use mouse and keyboard, those that did try to use a controller found out why most use a mouse and keyboard, and it is because they got their arses kicked when they tried playing online against those with a mouse and keyboard :p. To explain:

You want a mouse + keyboard for your fps games because you can turn much faster, and will have much faster target recognition with your mouse than you ever will with a gamepad. Also, you need only a few buttons, w, a, s and d for moving (a and d for strafe), r for reload, space to jump, c to crouch, ctrl to prone, shift to sprint, numbers for weapons etc. Basically my point is, those few keys are all around the same area, so you can have your 1 hand for keyboard, 1 for mouse.

For RTS games, in order to move around the battlefield faster and use hotkeys, mouse + keyboard is again, much better. You don't need a lot of keys, but for the speed of response and for precision, mouse + keyboard is better.

For RPG games, there are not enough buttons on a joystick or controller for all of your hot bars, movement, menus etc.

Only time you can really justify a gamepad or joystick is for indie games where you don't have to go very fast, else be left at a disadvantage.

Like I say, for racing, a wheel is obviously better, for fun and immersion, and for the ability to do well. Arrows to work, but they are no substitution, and never will be, for a proper wheel + pedals.

I would also point out, if you don't have one already, invest in a microphone. If you get into a decent gaming clan, be it one just for fun or a competitive one, you will find it a hell of a lot more fun. The gaming community on PC is a lot more tight nit and mature than the consoles are. If you want a group of mature gamers to play with that aren't going to be complaining and talking crap all the time, then a gaming clan is the best way to go. They are pretty much all full of mature gamers (by which I mean generally 18+, sometimes 16+), and those that are started by younger gamers fail because they don't have the time, money or experience, and honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way, it makes the community so much better.

Finally, get yourself Xfire and Steam. Xfire for communication with gamers you pick up a long the way, Steam to get some awesome deals on games on the weekends, sales, and mid-week deals. I've built up over £1000 worth of games over the years on maybe a third of that cost at the absolute most thanks to Steam

Good luck and if you want some people to play with, throw me a pm, I'm co-head admin of a gaming clan and even if you just want to join us for a bit of fun and get to know some gamers, you are more than welcome :D
 
Thank you very much indeed for your kind offer which I may well take you up on but first I would like to try a few games to see how I get on with them people I mentioned it to tell me I must get world of warcraft but after looking on eBay who only seem to have upgrades from the original I guess that is going to be a dear one it certainly seems well known thanks again Chris
 
Thank you very much indeed for your kind offer which I may well take you up on but first I would like to try a few games to see how I get on with them people I mentioned it to tell me I must get world of warcraft but after looking on eBay who only seem to have upgrades from the original I guess that is going to be a dear one it certainly seems well known thanks again Chris

WoW is good if you are into MMO games, but you have to remember you will need £10 for vanilla WoW (the original) + £15 for TBC (Burning Crusade, the first expansion), £25 for wotlk (Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion) and £30 for cata (cataclysm, the third expansion) and then, on top of that, £9 a month subscription.

What sort of games do you like, or would you like to try?
 
Hi again and thanks for your replies, I dont really know what games to try it really is suck it and see, it is starting to look like I will need to learn the gamers language what is MMO thanks again Chris
 
Hi again and thanks for your replies, I dont really know what games to try it really is suck it and see, it is starting to look like I will need to learn the gamers language what is MMO thanks again Chris

MMO = massive multiplayer online, in this case short for MMORPG, massive multiplayer online roleplaying game. It is where there is 1 world (In WoW's case, Azeroth) populated by many people. You will go into game and at any 1 time there will be thousands of people online simultaneously. It is games such as WoW, everquest, Guild Wars etc

FPS = First Person Shooter. Battlefield, CoD, Half Life etc
RTS = Real Time Strategy. Command and Conquer, Starcraft, Company of Heroes etc
TBS = Turn Based Strategy. Civilization etc

I would start out with something that you like. For instance:

If you want to play a single character and stick with it in a fantasy environment, get yourself into an MMO. I would recommend guild wars to try out first because there is no subscription fee. You can go straight in for the big one of WoW, but like i mentioned above, it can be quite expensive just to try. You could always go and set up a trial account instead. You can play WoW for up to 10 days on a trial account, but with certain limitations. You can't go over level 20 and you can't get more than 1 (I think) gold.

If you want to play a shoot em up game, go for CoD4. Although it isn't the newest CoD, it is the most played still, and it is the most played game after WoW, and it is easily the best (in my opinion, and a lot of others)

If you want a realistic first person shooter, either get battlefield 2 and download project reality mod (project reality is free), or get Operation Flashpoint

Racing game, depending what type of racing games you like, either Need for Speed (for an arcade style racing game), DiRT2 (for a rally, but arcadey game), F1 2010 (for a proper racing game, but not exactly realistic), or rFactor if you want a very realistic racing game.

If you want an RTS game (commanding quads/units etc), either command and conquer, but honestly, 4 was a bit of a dissapointment, Starcraft, which is meant to be a great game, but I can't comment first hand, I've never played it or got it, Company of Heroes, which is an exceptional game, you definitely get your money's worth or, if you prefer turn based, Civ 5 is a very, very fun game
 
Thanks again Aastii for your translations I guess there must be hundreds more but I imagine the more involved you get the more obvious they become I will browse around a bit more and probably give it a go tomorrow. How about hardware all I really know about my computer is that it is supposed to be the dogs whatsits for gaming I bought it last year from a young chap who was of to university so needed a laptop which I had so we did a swap I think I got the better deal but each suited the other for purpose it is a dell 720 xps with 1tb hdd with dual core duo and soon to be 8 gig ram in fact this week but 3gig at the moment, O/S WIN 7 Ultimate 64 bit so I think and hope it is a good starting point your opinion would be worth hearing as I imagine by the way you explain things you have been where I am now and have the T shirt. Thanks again Chris
 
It should be good for playing any game at all, however depending what system you have, it may be on low - mid settings. If you have a black system with an 8600GT, the 8600GT is a good card still, however is showing its age quite a bit now. If you have any of the others though, you are on an 8800GTS or 8800GT, which are still great gaming cards and will handle mid-high settings no problems.

The only other thing that may hold you back is that certain games are starting to utilise more processor cores. If you have a Core 2 Duo instead of Core 2 Quad, you may find playing games such as GTA4, Battlefield : Bad Company 2 and a lot of upcoming games. You will be able to play them without any problem on your dual core, however you will find that you won't be able to achieve highest settings with it.

All the games I listed though, CoD4, Guild Wars, all the racing ones, all the RTS ones, they will be great games that will play on mid - high settings, again, depending on which particular system you have.

If you want to find out exactly what you have, download CPUz from here, it will tell you the exact components that you have in your system
 
Hi again sorry I have not got back to you but it seems my Dell could not take the upgraded ram I put in and the power supply has given up on me if anyone knows where I can lay my hands on a 1kw PSU for a Dell XPS 720 I would be eternally grateful thanks Chris
 
Hi again sorry I have not got back to you but it seems my Dell could not take the upgraded ram I put in and the power supply has given up on me if anyone knows where I can lay my hands on a 1kw PSU for a Dell XPS 720 I would be eternally grateful thanks Chris

Contacting Dell directly or ebay are your only ways of getting one

You don't need 1KW though, a 500W unit would, for your current system, be plenty, 650W for an upgraded system.

Like every company, Dell want to spend as little as they can to make as much profit, meaning that their components are cheap, which, when you have a cheap PSU, is a disaster waiting to happen, as you found out. You get a half decent unit though, and it can be rated for half of what your other was, but be a much better unit. With low quality though, comes poor protection, meaning that when it blows, there is more chance of it frying other components in the process, so there is a chance that not only has your PSU blown, other component/s have been cleared out too.

To fix it without going through Dell or ebay will mean more costs which I'm sure you aren't happy to hear about - you will need a new case too, and with that, a new motherboard, but if you get a new board, you will be getting one with an outdated socket, meaning that any upgrades you do will be very outdated upgrades.

The reason for this is because Dell do not use industry standard parts. Everything in your standard system is ATX, you get a mid or full ATX case which can take uATX or ATX motherboards and an ATX power supply. In your system though, they are using BTX, which means the motherboard holes are drilled differently, so you would have to drill your own mounting holes in a new case to fit your current board, else buy a new board, and a standard power supply will not fit into your current case because of the shape of it.

Your hard drives, CPU, video card and optical drives are all fine to keep, though like I say I wouldn't recommend keeping your CPU, but the rest would not work, put simply, it is the reason why for a gaming system, which needs upgrading to keep up to date, buying prebuilt is not the way to go.
 
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