Computer Questions Thread

[DANGERMAN]

why don't you just drag it on to your desktop instead of pasting it, then it'll go wherever you put it

[DANGERMAN]

I tried fitting a CPU the other week, turns out the pins are bent, I need to try to get my money back for that... after paying £80 for someone to look at it. Anyway, 3rd time I've booted it up since getting it back and it wouldn't boot, weirdly trying to repair it wouldn't accept the definitely correct password. Anyway, it's on now but not opening file explorer or showing the C drive, so it looks like the C drive has died now for no explainable reason

 

Fun. Think if I can get my money back on the CPU I'll just buy a new motherboard, CPU, ideally another NVME drive if the board supports it, more ram.                     Then get a new graphics card 

[Maf]

What if I said I had the perfect alternative 

 

[DANGERMAN]

I've already got something that doesn't play games well, thanks though

[Maf]

But!
 

Does it not play games very well at a reasonable price?

 

This is where Nintendo says hello 

[one-armed dwarf]

I had a Samsung drive die ages ago. It lasted no time at all, maybe a year or 18 months, noticed something was wrong with it when pre rendered cutscenes in Mass Effect wouldn't play correctly

 

Not sure what the received wisdom is now when it comes to the best guys to buy storage from but that's the last time I buy Samsung drives

[spatular]

oh man bad luck  maybe you’ve done this already but if not might be worth unplugging/re plugging in the drive and check if it shows up in “disk management”
 

I’m looking to upgrade my pc at the moment too, well have done the cpu and ram already and trying/failing to buy a new gpu, but the problems DANGERMAN is having is making me think just stick to consoles maybe a decent plan.

[Maf]

Since you’re thinking about sticking with consoles @spatular what if I said I had the perfect alternative 

 

[spatular]

yeah switch is ace, already got one

[mfnick]

What a contrast to the readers feature thread this is. Just helping cement the fact I really shouldn’t make the switch to PC yet. 

[one-armed dwarf]

tbf, PC and consoles use the exact same storage technology, if a drive is gonna fail it's gonna fail whether it's in a PC or PS4

 

CPU pins yeah that's some PC specific annoyance

[Maf]

Just like my 4090 had to be sent back and replaced, this stuff can be a ball ache and massive disappointment. The only console to ever break on me was the 360 red ring. But one console in generations vs 1 PC out of 3 is like…it’s variable to say the least 

 

Having said that when it’s all firing PC gaming is hard to touch. My biggest problem with it is me, I’m really lazy.
 

-I feel too old to learn M&KB (I know I could use a controller and do sometimes but I was looking forward to the ‘full’ PC experience before realising this is a hurdle I can’t cross) 

 

-Tweaking settings can get in the way of the game and can be hard to stop, even when the differences are negligible. But when given lots of options and one of the big things about PC is performance, + how much it cost, it’s hard not to want the most out of it. Again being lazy, you can do what I did and just buy the best one and turn all the options on and kind of forget about it, but it’s neither sensible or cost effective (still never saying how much my computer cost 😬), and I still can’t stop myself tweaking options all the time. Too many options can get in the way for me
 

-Mods and things are cool but again the hassle of getting things working is just too much for me. If I need a YouTube video to explain to me how to get the game running the way I want, I’m sort of out already. Some examples like Sonic games make it easy, But that’s the only case I’ve found it to be true. Most of the time it’s just time consuming and then start the game and turn it off after 10 minutes anyway. 
 

-I really, REALLY, like gaming lying down 
 

But all of these things aren’t inherently bad about PC gaming, it’s just my laziness. I’m at the age where I think learning non-essential skills at this point might be too late. Especially when there’s a very easy alternative 

 

Spoiler

 

But it sounds like I’ve helped put people off PC and that’s not what I want to do. I really enjoy gaming on PC. Not to be a dick, but I don’t think you can fully experience Alan Wake 2 on console. It’s so fugly. And I’m not even all digital foundry nit-picking. It’s just not good. Fair enough, these games that are stand out on PC are few and far between. But the more common these struggling console versions get, PC hits this reliable base line in terms of performance. Do you need every game to look that good? No. But the way these consoles are aging, PC leaves an easy option to say “I don’t want to deal with any of that”

 

Very simply for me, I think the real question is can you be assed or not? And for me it just turns out, most of the time the answer is no. It’s not a dig at PC (although I think there are definitely some people gloss over). But for me I just want games to be easy. Not just playing them, but using them in general

 

I wouldn’t say I’d never buy another PC. If there’s some crazy technology that happens maybe I would. But I think when consoles get really good AI upsampling, FSR4 sounds like it could be really good, I think that technology gap will close and consoles will have a lot longer life span in terms of tech and performance and I could see me going back to consoles fully if that happens, as it would essentially eliminate the big thing I like about PC. 

[DANGERMAN]

I'm going to get a refund from Amazon, so I'll just use this laptop (it's got a RTX3050 in it so it's decent)

 

I'll get the next gen of CPU with a new board, maybe just match the RAM that I have to double it. 

[Maf]

Is there a way to make Nvidia app just download all drivers automatically? Everytime I put the PC on I have to update everything manually 

[DANGERMAN]

I don't think so. It's probably better it doesn't anyway incase you boot a game without realising the drivers are changing