Ikarmue

Yes, but emulation for the more demanding games usually is asking for something more along the lines of an i7 or the higher end Ryzen CPUs in terms of computational power needed to emulate the PS3's CELL processor. *Persona 5 intensifies* I'm more wondering about a smaller, specific set of games as I'd like to have more singleplayer games installed on my main rig as opposed to my main rig having to shoulder everything until I have more financial breathing room than I do atm. I have a job and everything, so it's not like I got laid off, FYI!

I recently decided to go and salvage some parts from an old build where the mobo bit the dust and see if everything still worked. Thankfully, it did, and under normal circumstances, I'd sell it to someone at work or something and just forget about it then and there. But, thanks to the current situation with COVID-19, I thought about possibly putting this PC to use as a sort of "Arcade PC." Essentially, it'd be used mostly for arcade games, some retro stuff, and fighters that, frankly, are a storage burden on my PC which is running all SSDs. Anyways, these are the specs: CPU: Intel Core i5-4690k RAM: 16GB of DDR3 RAM that's Kingston branded Video Card: Zotac GTX 1060 6GB AMP! My main concern with this build is its ability emulate PS3 games. The ones I have in mind specifically atm (there's probably gonna be some that I forget) are: *Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown *Contra: Hard Corps Uprising *Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax *Jojo's Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle (which may not even work on my rig atm depending on the emulator progress) *Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection *Tekken 6 *Tekken Tag Tournament 2 And that's about it. You might notice that these are games that mostly don't have PC ports or any release on a modern storefront. I'm trying to see if I can get as much stored and running on this PC by itself without having to stress my main rig's storage capacity with games that, Netherrealm Studios aside, probably don't need any more than 2 cores to run at full speed at 1080p, mostly. My main PC can run these games no problem with an i7-8700k and a GTX 1080, for what it's worth. Thanks in advance!

Alright, so I downsized my build to ITX for college and portability, and I was aware that they tie the installation to a device's mobo and not the installation drive (which, IMO, is how it should be). That being said, I already paid $200 to replace my current version of Win10 Pro to the Microsoft Store, and the damn thing is stuck at the titular message. Apparently, I'm not alone, either, based on the Google searches I've done. Some say that Windows 10 activates itself after a few days, others say you have to contact Microsoft Support, and others' advice involves something with Running "slui 3/4." It wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that I paid for the software yesterday that's still not ready to install/renew my license so that damn watermark can disappear and stop taking up so much screen space. I mean, it can't take that long for it to give me a product key to renew my license after a change in mobo...right?

Hey, don't misunderstand. I'm not bashing consoles or anything. I used to be a console owner myself. It's just that, with how quickly the emulators for the previous gen systems are coming along, (people have beaten Persona 5, a game released in 2017, on RPCS3!) I just am posing an honest question as a PC user on a, let's face it, mainly tech forum. I'm looking for a discussion here, not a typical "consoles are better than PCs or PCs are better than consoles because reasons that have been listed all over the Internet" topic that's been done on every gaming forum ever. What you describe is a barrier of entry to PC gaming. I experienced it myself when I was saving everything I could to build myself a PC 2 years ago. I decided to save as much money as I could, and had to sell some of the more recent systems in my collection, (that I have since gained back now that I have a job, I didn't have a job then) and all I could afford was a Pentium G3258, GTX 750 Ti, a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, and some RAM. There were other items, obviously, but I remember asking for a HDD and PSU for my birthday and Christmas that year. Thanks to having a lot of patience, (I was in college at the time, and didn't have as much time to play games as I used to) I was able to put together a PC. Then, I did some incremental upgrades here and there before getting a job (upgraded to an i5 and got a much better case), and making upgrades has only become easier ever since. Yeah, they cost a lot at first, but when it comes to games, once you start buying games on Steam and GOG, you can reinstall them on as many machines as possible as long as it doesn't have some DRM like "you can only install this game 5 times or have it on 5 different devices because we don't want to lose money to pirates." Just because you buy a PC doesn't mean you have to buy a whole new library of games. I had bought a lot of games and/or collections of games on Steam that I had no way of running on my craptop at the time because I knew I'd be able to play them in the future when I did get a PC that could play them. Because of those investments, I felt getting a gaming PC was worth the asking price. Of course there's going to be hardware problems, but every object, no matter how common or rare, will naturally break down or end up not working for whatever reason. One of my older brothers had to send in his 360 several times because of the Red Ring of Death. I had to replace the RAM I initially bought with the PC with better RAM that hasn't given me any problems I am aware of since. The Switch, a system with a concept that I absolutely adore, has had various hardware issues that makes Nintendo's stance on NOT backing up save games a disastrous idea. Yeah, it's to "prevent homebrew" a problem that was only because of them using old PowerPC architecture. Steam, as much as I like that they finally introduced refunds, 2 hours is a little stringent with games that tend to have a ridiculously long intro before your character gets to free roam and see what the game is actually like sometimes. There's some examples for both consoles and PCs of problems that affect either the hardware or software end of the experience. Yeah, PCs have a lot of problems, but if you plan it out right, it can be just about as convenient as a console. Also, 4K (3840x2160) is just a buzz term. Truth is, it's only twice the resolution of 1920x1080. Besides, the "4K" offered on the One X is probably only going to be for indies or "upscaled from 1080p 4K." Actual, uncompromised 4K at 60fps for consoles is a long ways away. I know that I am perfectly fine with 1080p since, for most of my childhood, I was stuck with 480i TVs and whatever my older brother let me use as a PC monitor. That being said, it is easier to set up a console by a long shot. It's just that, as someone who is saving up to go to university so he can get his bachelor's, I just see a PC as a more useful investment if you just want to have one machine to play just about everything that's not on PS4, which, let's face it, will get emulated at some point down the road. The Switch, IMO, may be the most convenient console I've seen in years, essentially coming with two controllers that can be used in different orientations and that functions like a Wiimote from what I understand. Yeah, it's still gimmicky, but it's a gimmick that the set top console simply can't duplicate. I just hope future devices like it (if Nintendo can keep the momentum going for the system) learn from the Switch and strive to be better.

Anyone who is interested in emulating the PS3 via RPCS3 may want to consider an i7. Yeah, the emulator's in development, but I tried to play Persona 5 on my i5-4690k with a 4.3 GHz OC, and it was kicking my PC's ass. I only made it to as far as when you get to fully explore the first palace when you have a full party before quitting, as battles become a lagfest to the point where I just decided to wait and see how things are looking with the Intel's CPUs tomorrow (after benchmarks, obviously). "But wait, I thought emulators preferred stronger individual cores to weaker, more numerous cores?" Not anymore with RPCS3, so I come to find out on the subreddit for the emulator. I would consider Ryzen, but I want to wait and see if they can do better with Ryzen 2. As much as I like more cores, I'd like the high IPC count to come along with it, you know? Point is, quad cores may be on the way out if Ryzen is driving change in the market to where the consumer version of the i7 has 6 physical and 6 hyperthreaded cores now!

Definitely recommend waiting. I have a Haswell CPU, and my RAM is untransferrable to newer mobos. Hell, I'd wait until next year before upgrading if you want a monumental upgrade. Nvidia will probably have a newer set of GPUs out then, but we'll have to wait and see.

Lately, I have been dwelling on a subject that has been bothering me in regards to gaming and how much money I spent on it. With the emulators for the Wii U and the PS3 making the progress they have in such a short period of time, (so quick, that ATLUS is making a big deal out of the potential RPCS3 has to hurt the game's sales) as well as certain games coming to non-exclusive platforms (Killer Instinct 3) I have to ask: what is the point of the media center console anymore other than to function as a glorified DVD player that happens to have some exclusive games? About the only thing that you can lay claim to is convenience and not having to worry about controllers locking up Steam after closing a game (why does Steam do that?) or having to worry about whether your system is strong enough to play certain games, and it being relatively easier to bring to a friends house. You can say exclusives for systems that haven't been emulated yet like the PS4 and the Switch, but let's be honest: outside of some games that I'd be reaching to reference that are not titled Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, or the Last of Us Part II, I don't see much else that is an actual exclusive to the system. So that we're clear on definitions here: exclusive means it has no official port to any other system, PC included. Here's all of the other PS4 "exclusives" that have a version for either the previous gen systems or PC: Persona 5, Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami, (those two's PS3 versions didn't come out over here, but it still isn't an actual exclusive in my book) Beyond: Two Souls, Gravity Rush, Journey, the Danganronpa games, Heavy Rain, Final Fantasy XV, any of the deluge of ports (*cough* ahem, I mean, remasters) and almost all of the indie games guaranteed to be on PC or other systems in some form or another. Of all of the specific examples listed here, that only leaves 4 actual exclusives for the PS4, with the last one not even being out yet, and around 10 games for the crossplatform/crossgenerational releases. Yeah, some of the crossplats/crossgens or categories of games I mentioned here may have bad PC ports, if they have one at all, but that's not the point: even if a PC port is bad, someone will eventually develop an emulator that, as long as the developers keep revising and updating said emulator, the games will be playable forever in one form or another. Not to mention, how many of these games are a part of one of those "played one game, played them all" franchises? For example, I beat the original version of Yakuza 2 for the PS2. I decided that, since I heard that the other games (that aren't remakes of older games or spinoffs) had recaps so I could follow the plot without having to play the other games, and that it's a yearly series in Japan, I decided to jump into the latest game that was available to me at the time: the 5th game, in 2017, a game from 5 years ago whose localization didn't make it over here until after three years of it's original release date in 2012. (WARNING: this one does not recap the previous games) The fighting is better, but still mostly the same (though there is more than just one playable character) there is pop-in everywhere, and the frame rate struggles to maintain 30fps. Same goes for Persona 5, though from what I've seen, that one looks like a massive improvement over the repetitive borefest that was the PS2 Persona games, IMHO. (I liked the story, characters, and music, but the "dungeon" in Persona 3 wore its welcome out quickly when nothing was happening in the game, and social link stuff was for NG+ for all practical intents and purposes, and Persona 4 was better, but still somewhat repetitive, and the cutscenes tended to drag) Now, with Yakuza 0 and the remake of 1 on PS4, since those games were originally made for PS3, they run much better at a smooth 60fps on the Slim...something that could be achieved if you play through the games when RPCS3 inevitably is able to emulate the PS3 better with all of the bells and whistles that Dolphin and PCSX2 have and know how to use cheats or patches to have the games run at a frame rate they weren't originally set to run at and if you have the hardware to do so. That sounds like a lot more work than just buying the system and playing it on there, but let's think about it: how much money do you save by not buying a game console? Maybe it's just because I'm about to make a big financial commitment (car or college), but these thoughts have had me looking at how much dust my consoles have collected lately and going "yeah, I'm selling this soon." Yeah, you have to buy a lot of equipment to rip the images of the games off their original cartridges, discs, or whatever storage medium, but once they're on your hard drive, and if you're good at backing things up, you ain't losing those files any time soon. That, combined with the big backlog of games I have, makes the question of "Why should I buy this console for a handful of games when I have 50+ games on Steam I could be playing instead," even if some of those games I bought in collections aren't games I have any desire to play anytime soon. (i.e. I bought the first three Far Cry games plus Blood Dragon even though I have no desire to play the first one and especially the second one if the glitches I've heard about that game are true) Now, with the Switch, even though I think it's a marvelous idea with a flawed execution, (32GB of storage, the cartridge tax, the various hardware issues regarding the joy-cons, the Switch online app, and the dubious future for ports of third party games that aren't indie games just to list a few) as long as Nintendo doesn't try to innovate for innovation's sake, they may have a concept that I have been wanting for a long time: portable gaming on the go that's very comparable to playing games on set top consoles. We haven't seen anything like that I can remember other than maybe the Sega Nomad from way back then, even if the Energizer bunny had a hand in the portable marvel's (for the time) development. The only thing that could trip them up would be if the GPD can make a better version of the GPD Win that has actual, clickable joysticks and at the very least a GPU worth mentioning would be good enough to be capable of playing even most of the 7th gen if not all of it. I know that sounds ambitious, but some people like yours truly don't just sit at home anymore, and the idea of a console you can easily bring with you and can easily play games with one other person with is so cool to me, and I am always tempted to get the Switch, but decide to wait until I have sold my other non-PC systems first. Not to mention, I can take the Switch anywhere with me to play the game if I'm waiting at the doctor's office or something. After that comprehensive wall of text, I must ask: what is the point of the set top box console that is an "all-in-one" entertainment hub now that most of everything is digital when, if you want a Blu-ray or whatever form of storage media becomes popular in the future, you can just get a device that costs less than a used slim PS3? tl;dr - with most of the games being available for PC these days, and considering how the PS4 and XBone are essentially the PS3.5 and the Xbox 360.5(?) using proprietary hardware based off of chips used in actual desktops and their game library, what is the point of consoles now that aren't portable?

I'm going to be up front about PCSX2, Dolphin, cemu, and RPCS3: Be prepared to do a lot of tweaking of the settings for each individual game, especially with PCSX2, which, unfortunately, seems to have slowed down in development from what little I've read on the forums, and the fact that the most recent non-beta version is nearly a year old if I remember right. Dolphin doesn't have this problem since you don't have to keep switching between Software and Hardware mode to get certain games to work correctly in my experience, and many of the games, especially as of the most recent non-beta version of Dolphin, don't require as much tweaking to work correctly. Be prepared to look up how to fix whatever issues you're having with a game that you're trying to play upon first running the emulator. As for cemu, it is getting a lot of progress in a short period of time, but you're going to need a LOT of space on your HDD for the games, DLC, updates, etc.. Not to mention, there are still plenty of issues that are in need of fixing, like sound emulation. RPCS3? Honestly, just go and buy a PS4. With all of the exclusives that have been remastered or got a cross generation release, you may as well get one so you can also have a functional media center. (Unless if you're going the HTPC route) I say this because while you may see stuff like "PERSONA 5 RUNNING AT 4K ON RPCS3," the emulator clearly still has a long road ahead of it before it becomes complete, and it's hard to say whether the wait will be worth it considering the current state of game releases these days. P.S. If you're looking to get into Wii emulation, you better get whatever official Wiimotes and accessories from the store ASAP, as I can imagine stores are desperate to get rid of them due to the Switch not using the Wiimote.

So, I just updated my PC and, after restarting, the CPU was at 100% usage, and I heard a lot of rattling from my PC. I have an Intel i5-4690k OC'ed at 4.1 GHz, with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO as the cooler, with my case being a Phanteks Enthoo Pro M. Is this something to worry about and, if so, what could be the problem? My PC boots off of an SSD.

I've heard of them. Would I have to order a heatsink with two fans, and would you know how to tell what size the heatsink needs to be so that way I don't order the wrong size of a dual fan heatsink?

Well, my Zotac AMP! GTX 1060's fans fell off due to faulty engineering on Zotac's part. (I know other people seem to have had this issue, so I know who I am not buying from ever again) To save myself some money, I was wondering: what custom GPU cooler could I get to replace the fans? Because the video card isn't dead, and I'd rather not have to go and buy another one if I don't have to. If there are many GPU coolers, I'd like some recommendations, as I have looked into what's available and don't know who is and isn't reputable. Problem pictured here: P.S. I bought this card during that time when the stock of GTX 1060's at retailers was drier than the Sahara desert. As such, I don't know I can RMA it. Besides, I'm not so sure that Zotac will even be respectful of the request, considering that, from what I understand, EVGA is the only one interested in good customer service. Thanks in advance!

Topic. After a pair of Logitech Z323 speakers failed on me (clicking noise, something to do with the subwoofer), I have decided to write Logitech speakers off in search of a better pair. I prefer to spend under a $100, but after this debacle (and considering the fact that I am trying to save for college), I am willing to go $50 over my budget if necessary. I was considering the $100 Bose Companion III speakers as a replacement, as none of the reviews for it on the Best Buy website mentioned anything about sound distortion according to the keywords mentioned. But I was curious if anyone had a recommendation for a different set of speakers. Oh, and these speakers need to have a headphone jack on them, as well as be able to adjust the volume. I also only want 2.0 or 2.1 speakers. Thanks in advance!

OK, I am observing a disturbing trend with programs on stored on my two HDDs. I also have an SSD, which some programs are stored on, but not many, as it's only a 120GB SSD. Anyways, the programs that I notice are suddenly taking a while to load up are emulators and Steam. Steam will sometimes crash after closing a game, or it will crash after my attempt to log in, and emulators just take longer to boot up than they used to. Is something wrong with one or both of my drives?

Not wanting to take the risk with such a large sum of money. If this was, say, a used mouse or something, then no problem, but used monitors? Who knows if the seller is lying about it working or not, you know?

Damn it...Oh well. Guess I'll have to wait until they become more affordable then.