Steam sales / general PC gaming chat

[RJM77]

Proper Steam winter sale starts tomorrow apparently.

[EdgarusQPFC]

http://www.greenmangaming.com/

Valve complete pack £12.49

Phenomenal deal for countless classic titles

[Zanetti]

Got my new laptop a few days ago and it's a total monster. Been playing Battlefield 4 and Guild Wars 2, both maxed out and it handles them with no problems at all, it doesn't even make any noise and it's still cool to touch after hours of play. BF4 gets around 40-50FPS and GW2 around 60-70 normally, down to 35-40 when there are lots of players on screen.

The spec is;

i7-4710MQ quad core

GTX 860m

8GB ram

With a nice big 17.3 inch screen and an SSD drive.

[Tamdunk]

Got my new laptop a few days ago and it's a total monster. Been playing Battlefield 4 and Guild Wars 2, both maxed out and it handles them with no problems at all, it doesn't even make any noise and it's still cool to touch after hours of play. BF4 gets around 40-50FPS and GW2 around 60-70 normally, down to 35-40 when there are lots of players on screen.

The spec is;

i7-4710MQ quad core

GTX 860m

8GB ram

With a nice big 17.3 inch screen and an SSD drive.

That must have cost a fair whack!

[Zanetti]

That must have cost a fair whack!

Was roughly £850... worth it IMO. I know I could have got a desktop for much less but I need the portability!

Edited December 25, 2014 by Zanetti

[EdgarusQPFC]

Didnt do too shabby on the steam sales, spent around £60 and got

Metal Gear Rising
Battlestations: Pacific
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist Deluxe Edition
Alan Wake Bundle
Dead Island: Epidemic - Gifted to me by a friend
Batman Arkham City GOTY
Orion Dino Horde - Gifted to me by a friend
Alien: Isolation
The Evil Within
Valve Complete 2012 pack:

• Counter-Strike

• Team Fortress Classic

• Day of Defeat

• Deathmatch Classic

• Half-Life: Opposing Force

• Ricochet

• Half-Life

• Counter-Strike: Condition Zero

• Half-Life: Blue Shift

• Half-Life 2

• Counter-Strike: Source

• Half-Life: Source

• Day of Defeat: Source

• Half-Life 2: Deathmatch

• Half-Life 2: Lost Coast

• Half-Life 2: Episode One

• Half-Life Deathmatch: Source

• Left 4 Dead

• Half-Life 2: Episode Two

• Team Fortress 2

• Portal

• Left 4 Dead 2

• Portal 2

• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Euro Truck Simulator 2
Saints Row IV Game of the Century Upgrade (all dlc for the game for £2)

Edited January 3, 2015 by EdgarusQPFC

[Capitão]

I posted this in the laptop advice thread on the technology forum but I wonder if anyone in here could help me out.

I'm looking to get a new laptop soon and I'm trying to decide whether or not it would be worth it to pay a bit extra for one that I can play games on. I've had a look on PC World, among other places, and while the gaming specific laptops are out of my price range they have cheaper ones which I think might be ok.

This is the one I'm looking at http://www.pcworld.c...-pdt.html#cat-0

I don't know a great deal about minimum requirements and that kind of thing but I've done a bit of googling and it seems that this should be able to run most games okay, although I'm not sure about the graphics card. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

I'm not looking to play everything on high settings and I'd be playing some older games like Fallout so I just need it to be good enough to run quite smoothly. I'd probably be willing to spend about £500 maximum but ideally a bit less than that.

Any input would be appreciated.

Any thoughts? I've done a bit more googling and it seems like maybe the graphics card would only be able to handle games like minecraft but the processor and memory is okay but to be honest I'm really not sure.

[Tamdunk]

It depends on why you need it. If its space/portability then get a laptop, but that one will struggle to play many games. If you're serious about pc gaming then get a desktop. Good graphics cards are big and while you can get gaming laptops, they tend to be very expensive. I got a fairly cheap gaming pc, but upgraded the motherboard cpu and graphics card. Had it a few years and it still works well.

I have a laptop too, but mostly use it for djing, its pretty old and has 0 graphics capabilities. Games just don't run on it.

[Capitão]

It depends on why you need it. If its space/portability then get a laptop, but that one will struggle to play many games. If you're serious about pc gaming then get a desktop. Good graphics cards are big and while you can get gaming laptops, they tend to be very expensive. I got a fairly cheap gaming pc, but upgraded the motherboard cpu and graphics card. Had it a few years and it still works well.

I have a laptop too, but mostly use it for djing, its pretty old and has 0 graphics capabilities. Games just don't run on it.

It does need to be a laptop for space/portability and I've also got an Xbox so I can't really justify getting a desktop at the moment. I'm needing a new laptop and really gaming is a bit of an after thought for it and when I saw that one I thought maybe it would be able to run some games at least on lower settings.

Do you think it's just the graphics card that's the issue with it? If that's the case then do you think I'd be able to get a decent replacement for relatively cheap or would you be talking hundreds? Like I said I've got an Xbox so I'd really be looking to use it for games a few years older like Fallout/Skyrim and maybe some pc exclusives if that makes any difference.

[placidcasual]

I posted this in the laptop advice thread on the technology forum but I wonder if anyone in here could help me out.

I'm looking to get a new laptop soon and I'm trying to decide whether or not it would be worth it to pay a bit extra for one that I can play games on. I've had a look on PC World, among other places, and while the gaming specific laptops are out of my price range they have cheaper ones which I think might be ok.

This is the one I'm looking at http://www.pcworld.c...-pdt.html#cat-0

I don't know a great deal about minimum requirements and that kind of thing but I've done a bit of googling and it seems that this should be able to run most games okay, although I'm not sure about the graphics card. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

I'm not looking to play everything on high settings and I'd be playing some older games like Fallout so I just need it to be good enough to run quite smoothly. I'd probably be willing to spend about £500 maximum but ideally a bit less than that.

Any input would be appreciated.

Any thoughts? I've done a bit more googling and it seems like maybe the graphics card would only be able to handle games like minecraft but the processor and memory is okay but to be honest I'm really not sure.

I bought the same laptop on October. It's been fine for me. It runs stuff like Football Manager perfectly. I haven't tried many new games on it, but the likes of Empire Total War runs fine on it with all the settings turned up.

[Capitão]

I bought the same laptop on October. It's been fine for me. It runs stuff like Football Manager perfectly. I haven't tried many new games on it, but the likes of Empire Total War runs fine on it with all the settings turned up.

Thanks for the info. I think I'm just gonna go for it.

[Tamdunk]

Thanks for the info. I think I'm just gonna go for it.

Hey, thought I posted a link showing some frame rates in my last post but I clearly didn't, sorry. Did u get the laptop? is it working OK?

[Capitão]

Hey, thought I posted a link showing some frame rates in my last post but I clearly didn't, sorry. Did u get the laptop? is it working OK?

Yeah I did get it, I've had some mixed results so far. I tried to start GTA IV and it was saying there was only 27mb of GPU memory available even though the graphics card has over 1gb. Apparently this is because intel integrated graphics on windows only reports a small amount of memory and then allocates more as and when it's needed, unfortunately some games only read the smaller number and then don't run properly. I got a mate to look at it and he see if he could sort it but he said that basically there's nothing you can do.

The Walking Dead runs fine though so it's only certain games it affects. I'm gonna wait until there's something that interests me on sale on steam and see if it will work okay. I don;t want to spend too much money if it could end up being wasted.

[Capitão]

Oh and has anyone played Fallout 3 or New Vegas on Windows 8.1? I've read that people have had some bother getting them to work on Windows 8, particularly Fallout 3.

[GingerSaint]

Oh and has anyone played Fallout 3 or New Vegas on Windows 8.1? I've read that people have had some bother getting them to work on Windows 8, particularly Fallout 3.

I have Fallout 3. Had to download something and play with the settings but I'm incompetent and was still able to do it so it's not hard.

[Ramagamma]

Oh and has anyone played Fallout 3 or New Vegas on Windows 8.1? I've read that people have had some bother getting them to work on Windows 8, particularly Fallout 3.

I've had zero problems running both on 8.1

[Kujabi_Kujabyou]

Square Enix sale on this weekend, some great deals as well. Just picked up FF IV for £5, already got 7 and 8. There's also Tomb Raider, Deux Ex, Hitman, Soul Reaver all for under £5 and a shit tonne of other games. My wallet isn't going to be a happy chappy tonight.

Edited February 7, 2015 by Kujabi_Kujabyou

[Tamdunk]

So I got Grim Fandango remastered (no auto save tho, dangerous) but I forgot how stupidly hard those games are. It's got pretty great characters so far though and I'm quite enjoying it. Expect I'll probably be using a walkthrough for the majority of it though

[NorthernLights]

Summer sale has started. Xcom is cheap if you're mad enough to have not played it yet. Homeworld is 60% off as well which is tempting.

Good news is that this will be the first sale with refunds in effect. You can get a refund within 14 days of buying a game as long as you have played less then 2 hours of it. I'm sure we've all bought stuff in the sale and later regretted it.

[Homer Thompson]

Does this sale have anything new in it? Ive been more and more disappointed with their sales lately - always the same stuff