PC Pledging My Allegiance to The Dark Side!

[EasyPeasyLemonSqueezy]

Hello PC gamers!

It's been a while since I last visited the forums. I'm happy to see there are still a lot of familiar faces here! I just finally made the jump from consoles to PC about two weeks ago or so, and I just wanted to pop in and say I'm really impressed with this game so far on PC, especially in comparison to the PS4 version which I put at least 500+ hours into and loved every second of it. 

Here on PC however, this game is truly a whole different beast now, and it was kind of shocking to see just how much it has changed. It's honestly amazing! I'm also really happy to see that the game itself is performing really well on my potato-ish system. The frame rate is very smooth, even with a mixture of medium and high graphic settings, which was very surprising considering I've read countless threads talking about the game being severely unoptimized. Maybe I'm just used to playing this game on consoles? I don't know. Either way, the graphics and performance on PC absolutely BLOWS the console version's out the water, and I'm over the moon to be finally playing the definitive version of a game I cherish.

For anyone wondering, my PC specs are...

AMD Ryzen 3 2300x quad core processor

Nvidia GTX 1050ti

16GB of DDR4 Corsair ram

1TB hard drive

450w PSU

It's a prebuilt PC. My plan was to get a mid-range gaming PC for now, and then slowly upgrade it over time. My first two upgrades will be the PSU and GPU. I'm looking to get a 700w PSU, upgrading the GPU to an Nvidia GTX 1660 Super (there will be a slight bottleneck with the CPU I know), and then topping it off with an SSD for good measure. For those of you who are a lot more "tech savvy" than I am, feel free to give me some tips on upgrades and such because this is still all very new and interesting to me as newcomer to the world of PC gaming.

Thank you Fun pimps! Thank you mods on the forums! Stay safe, and God bless you all.

 

[Laz Man]

Welcome to the light/right side! PC master race!!!! Jking.

Seriosuly tho, glad to have you aboard and just in time for A19 around the corner.  Hazzah!!!!

 

[Liesel Weppen]

It's a prebuilt PC. My plan was to get a mid-range gaming PC for now, and then slowly upgrade it over time. My first two upgrades will be the PSU and GPU. I'm looking to get a 700w PSU, upgrading the GPU to an Nvidia GTX 1660 Super (there will be a slight bottleneck with the CPU I know), and then topping it off with an SSD for good measure. For those of you who are a lot more "tech savvy" than I am, feel free to give me some tips on upgrades and such because this is still all very new and interesting to me as newcomer to the world of PC gaming.

Welcome to the PC.

Why does someone buy a prebuilt PC while already planning to replace many components? You could have gotten better components from scratch and thus avoid the need to change them soon anyway and the whole package would have been better for a some or even lower price.

A good PSU is recommended, however that means good quality not high wattage. If you don't go for the topend Ryzen cpus and not wanting a a 2080ti a 500w PSU is totally sufficient. So even your current 450W are far enough for a way better CPU and the upcoming 1660S. Sadly prebuilt PCs often only contain cheap PSUs, but before changing it, your should take a closer look on what exact model it is.

Since you don't have an SSD yet, that should be the first upgrade. It's also the most valuable, because it doesn't replace a component, but it comes additionally.

If you are happy with your setup ATM, i would not head for a 1660S yet, as the next generation of graphicscards is expected to come in fall.

 

[EasyPeasyLemonSqueezy]

Welcome to the PC.

Why does someone buy a prebuilt PC while already planning to replace many components? You could have gotten better components from scratch and thus avoid the need to change them soon anyway and the whole package would have been better for a some or even lower price.

A good PSU is recommended, however that means good quality not high wattage. If you don't go for the topend Ryzen cpus and not wanting a a 2080ti a 500w PSU is totally sufficient. So even your current 450W are far enough for a way better CPU and the upcoming 1660S. Sadly prebuilt PCs often only contain cheap PSUs, but before changing it, your should take a closer look on what exact model it is.

Since you don't have an SSD yet, that should be the first upgrade. It's also the most valuable, because it doesn't replace a component, but it comes additionally.

If you are happy with your setup ATM, i would not head for a 1660S yet, as the next generation of graphicscards is expected to come in fall.

Thank you Liesel Weppen, you offered some really nice pointers and tips there. 

And yes, I know, it's always MUCH better to build your own rig's rather than buying them prebuilt. But unfortunately that option for me was just not feasible at this moment as it was important to me that I had a computer within a small time frame. I was also starting completely from scratch, too! Not only did I have to get a computer, but I also had to get a monitor, mouse and keyboard, and a new desk as well for it all to sit on. Researching individual PC parts on top of everything else would've just been a little too much for me I feel, given my very limited knowledge on building PC's, so I just opted for the prebuilt route instead due to it being much easier and less time consuming. Plus, the PC I bought was on offer for £500 with Windows 10 already installed and a free year of BullGuard so it seemed like a no-brainer to me considering that was within my budget. 

SSD will be my first upgrade then! Thinking about it now it does make the most sense. The graphics card can wait too, because right now I am happy with how it's performing for the time being. I've tested a bunch of games such as The Long Dark, Mist: Survival, Stranded Deep, Project Zomboid, Far Cry 2 (the best one in the series in my opinion), the original Mafia, Alan Wake (It was on sale for £1.54) and 7 Days To Die. So far they're all running amazingly well on this system and many of those games can be played with the graphics maxed out! It's honestly surpassed my expectations. I'll just upgrade each component one-by-one over time when necessary. Seems like the easiest way to go about it for me rather than just jumping straight into the deep end...

Your PSU tips/suggestions have been noted, too. Cheers for that!

 

[Gazz]

Ah, welcome to the dark side! Our browsers have cookies!

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Building a PC is like Lego for adults. Watch a few tutorials, read the manuals and all should be good. Thankfully the times of molex connectors and CPU heat sinks that kinda needed brute force to get installed are over.  Getting a prebuilt PC and upgrading it, is a good start tough.

And like already said, don´t cheap out on the PSU and don´t upgrade before the new stuff releases this year.

 

[EasyPeasyLemonSqueezy]

Ah, welcome to the dark side! Our browsers have cookies!

Haha! Thank you, Gazz. I missed your humour.

Building a PC is like Lego for adults. Watch a few tutorials, read the manuals and all should be good. Thankfully the times of molex connectors and CPU heat sinks that kinda needed brute force to get installed are over.  Getting a prebuilt PC and upgrading it, is a good start though.

And like already said, don´t cheap out on the PSU and don´t upgrade before the new stuff releases this year.

Duly noted!

 

[Liesel Weppen]

Just ask if you want to buy anything. I think even on this forum are enough people who can recommend good stuff and also explain why it is good and another one less good.

May be even an advantage if there are not so many people here. In specialized forums often there come so many answers that you are afterwards even more confused.

 

[EasyPeasyLemonSqueezy]

Just ask if you want to buy anything. I think even on this forum are enough people who can recommend good stuff and also explain why it is good and another one less good.

May be even an advantage if there are not so many people here. In specialized forums often there come so many answers that you are afterwards even more confused.

Absolutely!

This was one of the main reasons I came back to the forums actually, because I know there are a lot of knowledgeable people here that know a lot about PC's and hardware. If I ever need to call upon someone for help in the future I most certainly will, perhaps someone like SylenThunder since I know he'd be more than happy to give me his undying assistance, I'll just have remind myself to catch him at a time when he's well caffeinated as I know how he gets when he's not had his morning cup of tea. Trololol!

Are there any tips you can give me on in-game graphical settings? I've read that the "reflection" options are still a little unoptimized on PC, and that it's best to turn those off which I have. What does UMA textures mean? Would you recommend turning those down to the lowest and increasing texture quality instead, or vise versa? I'm still in the tweaking phase right now and I'm trying to find the best and most optimal settings that isn't going to put unnecessary stress on my system.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

 

[Ti2xGr]

Textures seem to be hit or miss for me with no rhyme or reason. I can often leave them full, but on occasion, I just have to kick them down to half to achieve my 60FPS. Shadows & reflections - I just shut off. I've also had issues with water quality on large bodies of water. It can sometimes just tank my frame rates. I consider the rest, personal preference. Personally not a fan of motion blur and depth of field, but to each, their own.

 

[EasyPeasyLemonSqueezy]

Textures seem to be hit or miss for me with no rhyme or reason. I can often leave them full, but on occasion, I just have to kick them down to half to achieve my 60FPS. Shadows & reflections - I just shut off. I've also had issues with water quality on large bodies of water. It can sometimes just tank my frame rates. I consider the rest, personal preference. Personally not a fan of motion blur and depth of field, but to each, their own.

Hmmm, interesting.

I think I'll turn the water quality all the way down then because I've also noticed some slight issues there as well. Shadows will definitely be staying on, though! The game can look a bit bland without them in my opinion. I'm not much of a fan of the motion blur and depth of field either, so I have those turned off too, but I've left the Sun Shafts on. Gotta love Sun Shafts!

I've also turned the UMA textures all the way down, and increased normal textures to Ultra. Not sure if that's recommend but everything looks great and runs smoothly so I guess I'm good. The rest are on a mixture of medium and high for now.

 

[strask]

Congratulations on graduating to PC! As you have already observed, for this game at least (and really, for almost all of them that aren't console exclusive), PC hardware is king. As you make progress on your hardware adventures, keep in mind that eventually you may grow frustrated with Windows 10 and decide to graduate again to linux, on the same hardware. So just think about that some, and as you add components over time, or purchase games to run, consider whether those components work well under linux (almost all do, there are some exceptions especially in peripherals like complicated gaming keyboards/mice/etc, where the basic functionality works but extended/extra functions may not)  or whether that $60 game you are buying will run after moving to linux (most will, even if not officially supported, but I tend to prefer games like 7d with official, native linux versions). The whole linux adventure likely comes a while AFTER your first PC has been around some time though, unless you are completely naive about windows as well. If that's the case, you should consider learning gnu/linux instead of investing time learning the sad mess that is windows 10.

I've also turned the UMA textures all the way down, and increased normal textures to Ultra. Not sure if that's recommend but everything looks great and runs smoothly so I guess I'm good. The rest are on a mixture of medium and high for now.

UMA was used for zombies for a while, but I think none of the current zombies are UMA, is that right? Anyway the impression I have is that currently, this setting would only affect how player characters and maybe traders look.