Gaming on the pc: Desk vs couch?

[Gdourado]

Hello, how are you? 

 

So, I have always been a pc gamer and I always gamed at a desk. 

I currently have a 27 inch g-sync 144hz display, a nice mechanical keyboard, a proteus core mouse, Xbox 360 wired controller and my nice speakers and external dac setup. 

 

But recently I got a ps3 to finally do a playtrough of The Last of Us. 

I hooked the ps3 on the living room on my old 42 inch 1080p TV and went through the game. 

 

I have to say I enjoyed the experience of gaming on the couch, with my feet up and on a relaxed posture. 

 

So, this got me thinking about downsizing my build to an itx build on a node 202, sell my monitor, speakers and dac to finance a new 55 inch 4k tv and go all out pc gaming on the living room. 

 

What are your thoughts on this idea? 

Has any of you made a similar switch? 

Are you happy with the results? 

 

Or should I just trash my ikea desk chair and get a new dx racer chair? Would that make a big difference to the comfort of desk gaming? 

 

Cheers and thanks. 

[Meag]

4 minutes ago, Gdourado said:

Hello, how are you? 

 

So, I have always been a pc gamer and I always gamed at a desk. 

I currently have a 27 inch g-sync 144hz display, a nice mechanical keyboard, a proteus core mouse, Xbox 360 wired controller and my nice speakers and external dac setup. 

 

But recently I got a ps3 to finally do a playtrough of The Last of Us. 

I hooked the ps3 on the living room on my old 42 inch 1080p TV and went through the game. 

 

I have to say I enjoyed the experience of gaming on the couch, with my feet up and on a relaxed posture. 

 

So, this got me thinking about downsizing my build to an itx build on a node 202, sell my monitor, speakers and dac to finance a new 55 inch 4k tv and go all out pc gaming on the living room. 

 

What are your thoughts on this idea? 

Has any of you made a similar switch? 

Are you happy with the results? 

 

Or should I just trash my ikea desk chair and get a new dx racer chair? Would that make a big difference to the comfort of desk gaming? 

 

Cheers and thanks. 

This isn't a bad idea, Just be sure to try and get a low response time Tv. Many of them are just unacceptable for games that rely on quick action such as Fps's

[Tartandy]

I like console gaming on my TV, I do it fairly often when playing with friends who don't have decent PC's. PC gaming is fine if you're playing games with a controller, but trying to use a keyboard and mouse is such a pain in the ass.

 

You need something to rest them on, so you're going to have to get something to sit on your knee. Some of the solutions like the lapdog are ... expensive, plus in my use of lap desks I got numb legs after prolonged use of over 30 minutes. Getting up to grab something also becomes a pain as you need to move everything every time you want to get up.

 

I think for consoles they are great, but trying to use a keyboard and mouse I don't think is as comfortable or as easy as just sitting at a desk.

 

Source: I used a lap desk for about 2 years.

[Guest]

If you were gaming on a desk, your back would hurt after long hours of gaming and if you were gaming on a couch, the gaming experience would be more relaxing due to the softness of the cussions on the couch (it also depends on your posture). The advantage of using a gaming chair is that you can adjust what level you choose to sit at whether when sitting on a couch, you cant do anything really apart from just sit there in the same spot (depends if your sitting on a recliner that has the same mechanisms as a gaming chair, with the excpetion it cant spin around).

[Pixel5]

it is not really compare able, gaming on the couch is fine as long as you play games that are optimized for controller usage but the moment you want to play a shooter you will curse the day you decided to do this.

 

if you want the best of both worlds maybe consider steam in home streaming or get a long hdmi cable to plug into the TV when you want to play on it.

[Gdourado]

How much difference would a gaming chair give me comfort wise against my current chair that is both fixed in height and in back adjustment?

[mebaby2]

I build "consoles" from my old main rig parts seeing my tv is a lower resolution then my monitor that way I can have both without extra cost. 

[TheEpicDuck]

35 minutes ago, Gdourado said:

Hello, how are you? 

 

So, I have always been a pc gamer and I always gamed at a desk. 

I currently have a 27 inch g-sync 144hz display, a nice mechanical keyboard, a proteus core mouse, Xbox 360 wired controller and my nice speakers and external dac setup. 

 

But recently I got a ps3 to finally do a playtrough of The Last of Us. 

I hooked the ps3 on the living room on my old 42 inch 1080p TV and went through the game. 

 

I have to say I enjoyed the experience of gaming on the couch, with my feet up and on a relaxed posture. 

 

So, this got me thinking about downsizing my build to an itx build on a node 202, sell my monitor, speakers and dac to finance a new 55 inch 4k tv and go all out pc gaming on the living room. 

 

What are your thoughts on this idea? 

Has any of you made a similar switch? 

Are you happy with the results? 

 

Or should I just trash my ikea desk chair and get a new dx racer chair? Would that make a big difference to the comfort of desk gaming? 

 

Cheers and thanks. 

If you play competetive FPS games this is not a great idea. It works really well for racing games tough. I have resorted to having two computers. one at my desk and one in the tv cabinet. Best of both worlds i guess.

[RoryDash]

6 minutes ago, Gdourado said:

How much difference would a gaming chair give me comfort wise against my current chair that is both fixed in height and in back adjustment?

Get a Noblechair

[Gdourado]

6 minutes ago, RoryDash said:

Get a Noblechair

I said a DX as an example.

I am trying to figure if a gaming chair would be a huge diference.

[DnFx91]

i solved a similar problem with steam streaming, i love my gaming rig setup and the posture that comes with it, but alas i grew up in the 90's and still have a real soft spot for couch gaming on a TV. So i just grabbed a small form factor PC, chucked linux mint onto it and use it to steam stream, also have a PS3 and a retropie on the downstirs TV too

[Ezzy-525]

This is the exact usage case that Steam's In-Home Streaming was made for. No need to compromise and have one or the other.

 

Have your rig setup at a desk for hardcore FPS (and use as an actual computer)...then in-home stream to a low spec HTPC connected to your TV for those immersive story games.

[Pixel5]

25 minutes ago, Gdourado said:

I said a DX as an example.

I am trying to figure if a gaming chair would be a huge diference.

gaming chairs like dx bullshit are just a huge money grab that are sold for high prices cause people buy it for the look.

if you really want a good chair better look for a high quality office chair, they are designed to sit on them for hours and are certified for this.

 

I am right now sitting in an 650€ office chair at work which is now about 5 years old and i can sit for hours without any problems.

 

the reason why people think these gaming chairs are any good is because lets face it 90% of the people here probably sit on a chair that cost below 50€ so it is to be expected that a 300€ gaming chair is much better but its still very bad for its price.

[RoryDash]

49 minutes ago, Pixel5 said:

gaming chairs like dx bullshit are just a huge money grab that are sold for high prices cause people buy it for the look.

if you really want a good chair better look for a high quality office chair, they are designed to sit on them for hours and are certified for this.

 

I am right now sitting in an 650€ office chair at work which is now about 5 years old and i can sit for hours without any problems.

 

the reason why people think these gaming chairs are any good is because lets face it 90% of the people here probably sit on a chair that cost below 50€ so it is to be expected that a 300€ gaming chair is much better but its still very bad for its price.

True about DX racer, however I bought a Noblechair back in February, and it is the best chair I have ever used, after huge and questionable amount of hours spent in it.. I am probably better for it

[AshleyAshes]

Why not both?

 

My workstation is an i7 4930K with R9 390X, but my old workstation is on the 4K TV as an HTPC now, an i7 3770K with HD 7950.  GPUs and other stuff from the current workstation will just eventually get hand-me-downed to the HTPC to boost it's specs over time.

[Nuluvius]

4 hours ago, Gdourado said:

Has any of you made a similar switch? 

We used to game and work in our home office (upstairs) which consisted of two fixed desktops each with a quad monitor setup and a decent chair but since having kids and getting a dog it became impractical. We since switched to laptops and couchmasters (and docking stations that never get used)... We also have multiple varieties of consoles, HTPCs, Chromecasts and other assorted tech connected to our TVs (yes multiple).

4 hours ago, Gdourado said:

Are you happy with the results? 

Far better and much more pragmatic... For us. We can game and work from home right with the kids if they are off or all of us can just have a big LAN party right there in the living room... I'd say that it depends on your situation though, what you want and where you're at in your life.

4 hours ago, Gdourado said:

Or should I just trash my ikea desk chair and get a new dx racer chair? Would that make a big difference to the comfort of desk gaming? 

Seriously never get one of those things, they are for man-children. If you want ultimate comfort in a chair then it has to be Aeron. I have sat in a great many chairs over the years that I've been a Software Engineer, I also suffer from a bad back and nasty rectal issues, but this chair is absolutely the best that one can obtain.

[AshleyAshes]

And yeah, some gaming is just better on the couch, even if you're using a PC.  Final Fantasy X on Steam, at 4K via a Radeon HD 7950, with surround sound, and a pink Xbox Controller.  You can't expect me to play this at my desk.

 

[TVwazhere]

4 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

and a pink Xbox Controller. 

The most important part!  

[AshleyAshes]

2 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

The most important part!  

I wanted to get that more playful vibe that N64 controllers had with their range of color options so I got colored replacement shells for my 360 controllers to make them cheery and more interesting.   When you have four friends over playing split screen PC games on the TV it's also a lot easier to have colored controllers instead of only knowing the controller number by looking at the LED ring.

[TVwazhere]

2 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

I wanted to get that more playful vibe that N64 controllers had with their range of color options so I got colored replacement shells for my 360 controllers to make them cheery and more interesting.   When you have four friends over playing split screen PC games on the TV it's also a lot easier to have colored controllers instead of only knowing the controller number by looking at the LED ring.

Agreed, I often purchase colored controllers for my gaming consoles (since theyre usually the same price) It's much easier to say "You have the green one" rather than "look for the one with three LED's lit"

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, TVwazhere said:

Agreed, I often purchase colored controllers for my gaming consoles (since theyre usually the same price) It's much easier to say "You have the green one" rather than "look for the one with three LED's lit"

This inspired me to order orange and blue shells, just in case I need controllers #5 and #6.   I'm sure that 360 replacement shells won't be on eBay forever, especially with how the 360 hardware is discontinued.

[Automobili3XF]

Personally i prefer to play on the couch, big screen, good distance, outstanding sound setup. 

It sucks that my living room is still being built, i just can't wait to play my games on it!

I mean, who would deny this? 

 

 

[Yoinkerman]

Couch pc really only works with controller games.  Keep that in mind

[Gdourado]

1 hour ago, Yoinkerman said:

Couch pc really only works with controller games.  Keep that in mind

Right, but today most AAA titles on the pc are multi platform titles that just run at higher framerates and with added detail on the pc. 

So I think controller support is pretty spot on these days.

[Gdourado]

My biggest indecision is in that I know a 55 inch 4k image is probably stunning.

but than I am afraid I'll miss the smoothness and responsiveness of the 144hz display and gsync.

 

Also, 55 inches is huge, but my couch is also almost 2 meters away from the tv.

a lot further than the 50 to 60 cm/s my head sits from my 27 inch display, so I don't know if in the end I would end up with a greater immersion...