Category Archives: Hardware

PC Gaming is DEAD, Long Live PC Gaming!

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It’s been a fun week for me regarding PC Gaming. First was a text from my daughters friend. She helped my daughter a lot in school and would come over the house a lot to play Overwatch together. She would play on my back up PC. The one in my previous post where I took some unemployed components and put them together and gave them a second life. The kid had it tough regarding having nice things. So I gave the PC to her and she very appreciative. It’s nice to give happiness to someone who deserves it. When I got the text it made me smile. Not only was she still using it, she upgraded it herself! New motherboard, ram, processor, cooler, and graphics card! I’m really proud of her.

The second was upgrading my friend’s son’s computer with components he got for Christmas. We tried to upgrade it on Christmas Eve but we ran into a snag with a bad motherboard. I felt so bad bad this kid was not going to have a working PC for Christmas day. To make matters worse I was going to be out of state for the next week and wouldn’t be able to get to it until I got back.

So when I returned I went to helping them right away. With the new motherboard it was a breeze. Everything went together without a hitch. Hit the power button loaded the drivers and we were ready to go. They came over to pick up the unit and I showed them what to do when it came to driver updates and care for the machine. His son was so happy he gave me a huge hug. The next day when I saw my friend at work he said his son loved it and was playing games all night.

Building PCs is fun and rewarding. Not only for yourself but when you do it for others as well. Sometimes the PC hobby feels like this solitary thing. Like you are the only one into it irl. Sure I’m involved with many groups online and have many friends there. But as much as I like to play the character of the basement dwelling tech recluse, it is fun to interact irl with people who are into the hobby. Knowing I made some ones day a little bit brighter is a reward in itself.

Laptop Upgrades

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I recently went on vacation and had the opportunity to bring my gaming laptop. I got his as a present from my wife for my 50th birthday during the height of the pandemic. I don’t use it much but this was an opportunity that forced me into a situation where I had to if I wanted to game. I thought about getting a Steam Deck but I’m still on the fence about getting one. But being I already had the Laptop I decided to stick with it. It is a MSI GE75 Raider, one of those you always see pallets of at Costco. Nothing Ground breaking but very capable with some obvious caveats. The 16 gigs of ram and mechanical hard disk would prove to be the things that were frustrating. Playing Cyberpunk 77 at medium settings gave me a solid 70fps and it actually looked really good. Games like Forza looked great on high with about the same FPS. But loading times for games were horrendous. Click the icon, walk away boil some water, and make some coffee kind of bad. Now that I look back I think this was a reason I didn’t use this machine as much as I should have. I was use to such a snappy response on my desktop it was more of a pleasure to use.

So I bit the bullet and ordered 32 gigs of ram, a 2 terabyte NVME, and a one gig SATA SSD. The brands I picked were for nothing else other than the convenience of getting the same day delivery off of Amazon. But TEAMGROUP, Crucial, and PNY are solid brands so I had confidence in ordering them.

Out with the old and in with the new.

I usually hate working on laptops, but taking the back cover off the MSI was quick and easy. For the most part it used the same screws all around with the exception of 2 of them, and the back cover easily snapped off. I knew there was an empty NVME slot and planned to one day to fill it. But being that I was going to take it apart I figured I might as well upgrade everything while I was there. Replacing all the old components with the new ones turned out to be a breeze. I then put everything back together, turned on the machine, and formatted the new drives.

Now I don’t do any science based testing. My perceived experience is worth more than numbers on a spread sheet. I want to click on an icon and have the program open instantaneously. I didn’t have that feeling before the upgrades, now I do. It doesn’t even feel like the same machine, it feels like something new. Programs load fast and stutter in games is gone. It really is a pleasure to use now.

I wish this is something I could have done sooner but to be honest would have been out of my price range at the time. The total cost of the upgrades was just over $200.00 Three years ago a 2 Terabyte NVME would have been well over $300.00 on it’s own. The initial cost of the laptop was $1,500.00, as it is now would been over $2,200.00 with the upgrades. Like I mentioned before not only do I like gaming but building and upgrading computers is also part of the fun. This turned out to be a project in which not only was it fun, it also brought a capable machine into a great gaming machine.

4070RTX Video card upgrade

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I upgraded my video card from an 3070RTX to an 4070RTX. I did this because I noticed the card was running out of V-ram. Which is a shame because it runs games at great frame rate. I first encountered the problem in Forza Horizons 5. The game updated and defaulted all my settings to max. I noticed things looked remarkably better. Especially when I was driving at night, the fireworks at the festivals were amazing. But, I was getting a low memory warning at the top of the screen. Sure enough I opened the task manager and memory was maxing out. Another reason I wanted to upgrade was to replace the 1080GTX card in my back up gaming rig that my wife uses. It was also my birthday and I figured now was a good time.

The 4070RTX is a really good card. Seems like a lot of reviewers don’t like the 4070RTX for one reason or another. One of the things I like about the card is that it only takes up two slots. I was tempted to get a 4070TI, but I can’t see giving up 3.5 slots for a graphic card. The 4070RTX also better on power consumption and has a 22% increase in performance over my older card. To my surprise I really like the NVIDIA reference design, it has a really clean industrial look. The card is built very well, it’s so sturdy I don’t need a support like I did for the 3070 to keep it from sagging. Although I love RGB lights and aggressive design, this card delivers on another level. This card just looks good. The wide wall styling and vent lines look purposeful and accent the lights in the case.

Final Thoughts.

The packaging on this card was awesome. I’d have no doubts this would survive any shipping mishap. The performance of the card is on par with a 3080 and I am fine with that. The extra V-ram lets me get the most of my favorite games and was the primary reason for the upgrade. The aesthetics took me by surprise. I normally go for RGB everywhere but the design looks great. Until the next up grade.

2023: Year of the Stream.

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Live streaming is one of those things that fascinated me, and something I always wanted to try. As I learned OBS (still learning), and acquired gear, I got more excited about streaming. In fact some of the gear I already had. The cameras I’m using are the same cameras I use for my photography, I just bought some cheap HDMI capture cards on Amazon. Building computers is fun and all, but there is a satisfaction that comes with learning a new skill set. I still have much to learn but for a blue collar guy with a regular nine to five I have enough here to share and play my games. OBS is a fun and powerful program to use. Even with my simple take on it, the results are great. The Idea of connecting with people through streaming is very appealing to me. I may be late to the game and a little too old but if I didn’t give it a shot I would have regrets.

New Mic, the Rode XDM100.

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Was really stoked to get this new mic. Really liked the aesthetics and it had a great sound quality to match, too. It replaced a side address and xlr to USB combo. I wanted less components on my desk and the XDM fit the bill perfectly. It sounds amazing, and the Rode Unify software does a great job. It’s nice using OBS and having your audio source already mixed. It comes with a heavy duty shock mount that works really well. Although I’m not big on fancy packaging, this was stellar. Rode paid attention to detail on many aspects of this mic and the way it was packaged was one of them. Definitely gave it a high end feel all around. Unfortunately I do not have the luxury of a studio. So the pick up patern for this mic worked really well in my situation. I have to compete with an oil burner and a washing machine. If you are looking for a mic the XDM100 won’t disappoint.

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