Katarn

The PS4 controller (V2) is the only quality controller local markets have in stock for the foreseeable future. I need a controller, and I don't know if I feel like waiting a full month before I get the chance to buy another one. I need it for gaming and reading (I use a controller with Xpadder to navigate pages on Acrobat Reader and to highlight text). Priced at over $60, it is a bit expensive for what I believe should be the cost of a controller, however, that is the price of the Xbox 1 controller as well (were it in stock). So it is not necessarily overpriced for the local market. If I am to give that kind of money, it would have to be very high quality in order to justify the purchase. So I have several questions: - How is its compatibility with Windows? I don't mind using DS4Windows. This will obviously be a determining factor. For that price-range, I would like a controller that does not give me trouble with modern games (Gears of War, Halo MCC, Crysis 3, Mankind Divided, Sekiro, The Witcher 3...) - Can I use it to emulate the mouse and keyboard functions on the Desktop? This is also a determining factor, it can be with Xpadder or alternative software; as long as it can imitate mouse and keyboard functions. - How is the track-pad when used in lieu of a mouse? This could be very beneficial and could easily justify the price if it means I can be far away from my desk and still operate the mouse. - Is the gyroscope good and viable? This might be an interesting feature for which I could see myself paying the extra cash. A few followup questions would be: - Is it worth paying double the money I would give for a Logitech F310 if I were to wait a few weeks? - What is its quality, feel, and performance compared to an Xbox 1 Controller? I need to know these things before I make the decision. It is not a cheap controller, but some features like the trackpad and the gyroscope (and perhaps the speaker/mic input) could justify the purchase. Above all would be its quality and its use.

Looking for a replacement for my malfunctioning Logitech F310, I found out about the MSI Force GC20, and I thought it looked very good: excellent reviews, great price, and decent build quality... except for the fact that, according to the comments, it seems that these controllers are at a high risk of the left analog stick malfunctioning after a while: it could be an hour, it could be a few months, but a lot of people have this complaint. On Amazon, it's rating is 3.7 out of 5. 51% of the reviews are 5 stars, and 20% are 1 star: most of the one-star reviews mention the left analog stick. There is one thread on the MSI forum about the issue, viewed close to 6000 times, and it has seen no response from an MSI representative: instead, it has been locked for "being revived". I would like to ask for opinions on the matter. Whether there is a good explanation for the issue (other than bad build quality or drivers MSI has never bothered to fix), and possibly personal experiences with the device (either the GC20 or the GC30). I am interested in the controller since it seems like a great deal, but I want to make the right decision. Any and all input on the matter will be greatly appreciated. Katarn.

It is good that you have picked up PC-building as a hobby. You should keep developing it. With that said, that build is not very viable. First, that is not even close to cheap. And those parts for that price are bad value. Second, the 1050 is not worth overclocking (or even buying in 2020). Third, why side with Intel? Ryzen is the go-to choice for best value. @Plouffe has the right idea. Don't get discouraged from this btw, everyone makes mistakes. I'm sure your next recommended build will feature better parts. EDIT: I just saw your upgraded build, and it is much better. Yes, that one works.

Their free games are a decent incentive. I never would have learned about Oxenfree had it not been promoted by Epic.

So... what action do you recommend taking?

It is the only way to experience the gaming medium as a form of art: seeing how the visuals convey (and interact with) the world, seeing and experiencing the story as it unwinds and affects the player and the universe, developing feelings for virtual characters on the account of their narrative and their role in the gameplay, and indirectly interacting with the developers as you interact with their idea behind the product (think leading the player into certain situations, be it scripted or unscripted). I don't see why you would say that. There are tons of non-competitive single-player games that challenge the player and have their skills increase. Have you played Doom 2016 on Nightmare? Or any of the Halo games on Legendary? Even Call of Duty campaigns "strain" your skills if you crank up the difficulty to Veteran. In fact, most single-player games rely on the player having the right kind of skill in order to progress. That is actually how it started; the "non-challenge" part is a relatively recent thing. This is why you see older games like Blood being very challenging even on normal, whereas newer games reserve the challenge for either the toughest difficulty setting or New Game+. Not really. Plenty of these games are replayable. RPGs especially so. Moddable games can stay relevant for years (Skyrim is a decade old and people still play it). Replayability is not about skill alone. It could be about alternate choices in narrative or mechanics, re-experiencing bits of the game, or just having fun with modding tools. Competitive titles are kind of worse in this regard if you think about it - playing the same few maps over and over (this is why I quit CSGO). It is one thing to watch something, and it is entirely different to experience it. This is why you don't read the summary of a book instead of reading the book itself, and why you don't read the spoilers of a movie instead of seeing it. Moreover, it is also why you can enjoy a book or a movie even if you do know how it ends. Looking at a cut-scene of US Marines landing on the beaches of Normandy may sound bland, but it is going to feel much different if it is you, the player, doing it, moving from cover to cover and dying over and over in the process. Or having to scrounge for resources in a horror-survival game because otherwise you are not going to survive. This can be made even more engaging if the narrative embellishes the significance of what you do. I used very general examples here because I don't want to accidentally spoil something for a person who might be reading this, but do know that there are some very specific examples of events in video games that can only make an impact on the player if they get to experience them while playing as opposed to passively watching. It's interesting to see this post, as I have a similar sentiment as yours, but it is reversed, as it is about competitive games, which I've heard others share as well. To me, competitive video games are a waste of time: something in which you can invest and practice as you would any other skill or art (playing an instrument, working out, learning software), except that, unlike those things, it is not a real skill. I've tried to get into competitive gaming, but if I am to practice something daily, I would rather practice my guitar. So I quit CSGO and only play multiplayer games that have a similar quality as singleplayer. Namely, the experience - like Rising Storm 2, which scratches my itch for feeling the hectic Vietnam death-simulator. With that said, I understand how much better it feels to defeat an actual opponent (a human player) as opposed to AI, so even though it's not my cup of tea, I can see the appeal of competitive gaming in regards to the pleasure of outplaying an opponent. I hope this clarifies why a lot of us like single-player games and stay away from competitive. It comes down to personal preference and the kind of time one wishes to invest in the medium, and I will emphasize the fact that, if video games are to be regarded as art, they can only achieve this status through a superb single-player experience as opposed to competitive gameplay (which categorizes them as e-sports).

Hello. I'm using an Antec GX500 Window Blue case. It came with three fans: one front intake, one side intake, and one back exhaust. I find the side-fan annoyingly loud. It gets very irritating, especially when I'm trying to do some work on the computer and I prefer silence. It is not connected to the manual controls on the top of the case, so I can't even manually turn it off when I don't need it, as I do with the other fans. It's a constant drone at all times. So I considered moving it forward as an additional intake fan. But I read that the side-fan is the most important fan for regulating temperatures and that frontal fans don't do much at all. So I'm not sure if I should. Plugging it into the manual controls would be an extremely inconvenient task, as the GX500 has very bad cable management and truth be told, I'm not sure it's possible. I thought about putting it as an exhaust fan up-top, but, again, I'm not sure if that will achieve anything. So what should I do? Is this loudness the result of it actually spinning more than the other fans, or is it just the fact that, as a side-fan, it is inherently louder due to its positioning? Is it better to move it up-front or top? If so, where? How much do I sacrifice in coolness if I do? Any way to regulate the speeds? (I tried SpeedFan, but it doesn't work; fan connectors are 3-pin btw) Or is it better to just live with it? (I don't think I should, I mean, a system this expensive should have the quality-of-life aspect of not annoying me with the noise) In case it matters in terms of production of heat, my components are: R5 3600 Sapphire Pulse RX 5700 XT Antec Edge 550W Silence Defined 80 Plus Gold Peace

If we're talking vanilla, the ones that come to mind are Metro Exodus and Battlefield V. COD WW2 was also strangely impressive when the filter didn't get in the way. I can't talk about MW as I haven't played it. I would also add the Resident Evil reboots. But, I'm curious - what are the system specifications required to run the ultra-realism mods discussed here? When I first played GTA V on a 7th gen i5 and a 1060 6GB, I was baffled at how bland the graphics looked (tbh MGSVPP looks much better) and how insanely demanding it was (could play at mostly Very High, and still choppy). What system did you use?

I think there is something wrong. I don't know if Speed Fan is incompatible with my motherboard (MSI B450 Tomahawk Max) or something else, but I am not seeing anything of what is in the video. Under Configure, the Temperatures tab shows only the three hard drives (even though one of them is an NVMe, not an HDD). The Advanced tab is empty. So is everything else under Configure, except for Options. When I check Advanced Fan Control, the Add button is greyed out. The only field that is not completely empty is the Exotics tab, which shows my CPU cores alongside my three drives. Readings shows neither % fan speed nor RPM. It shows no fans. Just the three drives and their temperatures. The program does not recognize my GPU either. The bottom half of the Readings tab is completely empty (no place to enter values or the little arrows) - it is literally empty. In fact, there is nothing in that tab I can click other than the "Configure" and the "Minimze" buttons. Other tabs are not much better.

I installed Speed Fan. But other than the the temperature of the hard drives and CPU usage, the Readings tab shows nothing. I don't think it recognizes the fans (or anything else other than the hard drives for that matter)

That is an informative read, but it's from 2018, and it is about Ryzen 2, not 3. It also does not have the AMD High Performance setting. I game and work with Blender 3D, among other CPU intensive software. Should I just switch from one to the other depending on what I do? There is also a slider in the Power & Sleep settings menu. Currently the slider is in the middle. Should I slide it to the right (towards Best performance) or leave it as it is? I tested it last night with Metro: Exodus, and apart from the game slowing down to 45 FPS (on both settings) without the CPU going much over 50% utilization, I can't tell if there's a difference.

I checked the fans. The side intake fan is plugged directly into the motherboard, and the front and rear fans are plugged in the manual fan-controllers near the top of the case, which is itself plugged into the motherboard. This also explains why, when using the controller, the front and the rear fans turn off/slow down, but the window fan keeps going at full speed. Considering that turning off the front and rear fans does not make the case significantly quieter, could the window fan be the one to blame for the majority of the noise? Could you recommend me some?

Yesterday I got my new system. The Case I am using is an Antec GX 500 Window Blue (I thought I had ordered the windowless Black version, but this one is the same except for... well, the window). It is loud. According to specs, the GX 500 should have had the same noise levels as my previous case - yet it does not. It is significantly louder. Sound Meter, the app I use to measure noise levels, shows 45 db. Online reviews measured the noise levels at 35 dbA at 100%. It seems that the fans are running at full speed. I have no way of knowing if they are 100%, but... it sure sounds like it. The GX 500 has manual fan controls (only one of which seems to have any effect btw), but it doesn't make much of a difference whether I set the fans to low, stop, or high speed. It is still very loud. Any ideas what could be causing this issue? How can I tell the exact speed of the fans (and more importantly, how can I control it)? How do I know it is the case fans, and not the CPU cooler, the PSU cooler, or the GPU coolers that are making so much noise? Relevant system specs: CPU: Ryzen 5 3600 GPU: Sapphire Radeon RX5700 XT Pulse PSU: Antec EDG 550W Gold Plus (Silence Defined, btw) ps: if at all relevant, I am using a Samsung 970 NVMe, and two Western Digital HDDs. I think the PC became louder when I installed the storage disk, a Western Digital Red 2TB 5400 RPM.

Is it a good idea to leave the power plan on Balanced, and just change it to High Performance whenever I'm rendering, working, or gaming? Does High Performance over-clock the CPU automatically, or does it just allow it to work at its default clock, i.e. does Balanced run at lower than the default specs? Doesn't High Performance wear out the CPU? What qualifies as "the cooling" and a power bill that "isn't killing me"? Will I get a substantially higher power bill if I go for High Performance?

I just got a Ryzen 5 3600. I have a quick question: Is there a consensus on the best power plan? How big of an impact on performance does one experience with the AMD Ryzen Balanced plan (which is what it was set to by default) over the AMD Ryzen High Performance plan? Thanks

Thank you for your replies @Saksham and @Tan3l6 I now know not to order two NVMe's right away. Would you recommend me a good SATA SSD for that system? Alternatively, what is the cheapest (and hopefully decent) motherboard that could support an NVMe with which I could replace the H110? It is ok if that board requires a more recent CPU like the i5 8400 or the R5 2600. I'd be fine replacing the CPU as well. This last one is just an idea, I don't think I will do it unless the replacement is reasonably priced for what it is, but I'm open to suggestions.

I saw your reply immediately after replying to Saksham. So what would you advise if it's 100% incompatible? Getting a new MoBo for that system too?

That's just the thing. Some sources show that it does support NVMe, others are silent on the matter. I will be giving this PC to my father, and he intends to work in Blender 3D (creating 3D assets, animating, some rendering), and gaming. He might venture into texturing as well, which would require an image editing program like Photoshop, and maybe something like Corel Draw and Adobe Page Maker for some other projects.

I might be getting one or two (or if things get complicated one of each) of these two SSDs (SX 8200 512GB and 970 EVO 250GB). I want to put one in my old i5 build, but I'm not sure if the motherboard could support it. It is a "glass cannon" build with mid-range CPU/GPU and everything else being as low-cost as possible. So the motherboard is Biostar H110MGC. The information I find online is inconclusive. So, will it support either of the two NVMe SSDs listed above, and would it be reasonable to put them in an i5 / 1060 6GB build? Thanks

I would give you three answers: The 5700 is the better deal over the 2060 Super as it is significantly cheaper, but it performs similarly. If you are looking for a deal, i.e. to save money, go AMD. The only reason to go nVidia would be if you are either in a very desperate need of ShadowPlay, or whatever software you use is biased towards nVidia (most notably its CUDA cores). If you can extend your budget to the RTX 2060 Super, and have no need of nVidia's specific features, I think it is a good idea to look into the RX 5700 XT. The Sapphire Pulse will cost you the same (or even slightly less) than the Gigabyte 2060 Super, and it will perform significantly better. It costs ~$50 more than the non-XT version, with enough difference in performance to justify the price difference, which is also around the price of the new COD, and I think it is better to invest those money in performance and get the game separately, instead of getting a game for the value that could have given you much better performance. If you want both performance AND the game, the 2060 Super is the way to go. I think this is the most relevant answer to your conundrum. You will get better performance (not to mention CUDA cores and hardware encoder) and can get the new COD for free. The 5700 would not perform as well as the 2060S (very close, but not the same). The 5700 XT will require that you pay an extra sum for COD. But the 2060 Super will give you performance comparable to the XT version for $60 less (note that those $60 are the price of the game at launch, not the cards themselves). So I think you would get the best bang for your buck with the 2060 Super. And I am saying this as a 5700 XT user, so I can assure you there is no product-bias in my response.

I think it's safe to assume that it will last until at least the second half of November. There is no way of knowing, but I don't see why they would stop the promotion early. The parts are still new, still being bought, and still in competition with nVidia's products, who also try to allure with game deals. I think that a jump in prices is more likely to happen than game deals expiring (though I wouldn't expect a jump in prices either, except for specific models like the Nitro+). Now, if you are asking about the specific game deals, then I can't really tell. They may change next month with the release/promotions of other hot games, but that is not necessarily a bad thing - unless you really want to choose between Ubisoft's absolute mess and Gearbox's moderate mess. It also depends on the retailer, i.e. if the retailer has that kind of deal with AMD in the first place, and/or (probably) if they plan to maintain it. For instance, I will be buying an all AMD build (R5 3600, RX 5700 XT), and I am entitled to NO games, as AMD has that deal with NO retailers neither where I live nor to any country close to where I live. That's quite unfair, and almost discriminatory, but - [rant interrupted due to not being on-topic] - I think you'll be fine. As long as the retailer has it good with AMD, you should be able to get free games and Xbox Game Pass come November.

Recommend me some. As long as the model is available at Siewert & Kau, I should be able to get it (https://shop.siewert-kau.de/storage). Yes, it is available. I can't tell the price, but, going from NewEgg and Amazon, it should be significantly less expensive than either the 860 or the 970. Any reaosn to go for a SATA drive over the SX8200? Also, I forgot to mention in my previous post (in case it is relevant to my choice of SSD): the system I'm building is an R5 3600 RX5700 XT build with a 1TB 7200RPM HDD and a 2TB 5400 storage. It is intended for Blender 3D (modeling, sculpting, texturing, rendering), game design (UE4), video editing (YouTube quality), and gaming.

I was originally going to get the 970 250 GB (NVMe) over the 860 250 GB, but I have noticed that there is a 500 GB version of the 860 for around the same price. Is it the better deal? I've been told here that I am unlikely to notice the speed difference between the two, at which point I have started wondering if it might be a better idea to get the one with more space instead. Is this the case, or should I still go for the 970 250GB over the 860 500GB? Thanks.

Yes and no. I did mention games. I do intend to install games on the 1TB disk. I also mentioned pathways of programs (for instance, unfinished Blender file pathways to .png images which make up their PBR textures). So while I will have Blender installed on the SSD, I would like to know if the files themselves will know to look for the linked textures in their native drive, as their locations will be unchanged. I am also interested to know if the old OS will be taking up space on the 1TB disk. That would cripple its storage potential by some 50GB.

What about the change of motherboards? I am migrating from an Intel machine to an AMD system. Won't that affect the old disk(s), especially the one with OS? Time is an issue, but not a big one. However, I can't see myself cloning a 2/3 full 1TB disk to a 250GB one... unless I misunderstand the meaning of cloning one disk onto another. I plan to have the OS, programs (Blender 3D, Unreal Engine 4, misc.) on the SSD. I will also probably install a game or two on it (probably games with otherwise long loading times). Speaking of - is it a good idea to max out the space on an SSD? (say, leave only 50GB free or smt) My old HDD should be only for hosting files on which I am actively working (like baked textures, models in the making, non-archived clips) and games. This spawns a few questions: - will the change of disks, provided I do not perform a fresh install, keep the pathways of its files? It would be nice if it did. I'd hate to reassign everything to every unfinished Blender project from scratch. - what happens to software like Microsoft Office, which is already installed on my old system, and will probably come with the new? Will I have two instances of the same programs? - if I decide not to format my old disk, should I at least uninstall its programs? How about the OS taking extra space afterwards? I am asking this because I want to give my current system to my father once my new configuration arrives. Since I will be opening both computers to get the storage drive anyway, I thought if it might be a good idea to swap the 1TB drives (give my father the new 1TB and take the old 1TB for myself) so I can keep all of my pathways. He'll have a brand new HDD, and I will get to change systems without doing a lot of file-management in the process.