Gaming PC?

[AnythingNotEverything]

Right you clever people - my 13 year old DS is out fixing me and I need your help!

He plays a lot of minecraft (and xbox), and likes to record gameplay. He says he needs a gaming PC as he can't play minecraft on his laptop and have other windows open, such as Skype (to chat to his team) and something to record everything.

He currently has quite a basic laptop.

So, does he need a gaming PC for this? They look pricy but he has some savings.

If he does, have you any idea where I go next? He keeps talking about Alienware - is this a good brand?

TIA

Have a look at www.pcspecialist.co.uk - I can't recommend them enough. They came to me by word of mouth and it was a real leap of faith for me to place an order.
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Minecraft is not a particularly processor intensive game. Perhaps doing all these things simultaneously might slow things down on a budget laptop but I seriously doubt he needs proper 'gaming' machine for this.

You might want to look at upgrading the current machine with some extra RAM or a new graphics card or spend some sensible money on mid range machine. Alienware and other top end brands are really only necessary for the cutting edge of gaming.

That's what I wondered Pedro. He thinks he needs NASA grade technology ...

And Milly, thanks for the recommendation.

It may be worth investing in something decent at this stage. Not sure yet ...

I didn't know Alienware, but just looked them up and prices go from £900 to £2K.

Does he need to take it around with him, as a desktop can be upgraded with new boards, etc to make it more powerful in the future?

Do you (and he) know about Raspberry Pi? This is a £25 computer that needs a TV or monitor, and a keyboard, but it is to help people learn programming, so then you can create your own games. In the long term, probably a more valuable skill than just PLAYING someone else's games:

www.raspberrypi.org/about

I've got a gaming PC, though it's a bit out of date now. It can still run WoW & Skyrim on the highest settings plus other programs at the same time.

It cost me just over £200 because my friend built it for me - I just paid for the bits. My friend said it would have cost much, much more if I had bought it pre-made. I kept our old monitor and later bought a 24" one from Argos, was about £120.

Does he or you know anyone who can build PCs? Took my friend about 2 hours, I paid him in beer and dinner.

"Alienware and other top end brands are really only necessary for the cutting edge of gaming."

And Alienware are more mouth than trouser - the reputation is better than what they deliver, there are better options at that (high) price point.

Interesting - thanks!

My friend said it would have cost much, much more if I had bought it pre-made.

I'd be interested to know what you got for 200 quid. Generally speaking you don't save much on self builds any more. It used to be the case you could save a bomb but not these days.

Minecraft is (with the latest update) much hungrier on graphics card performance than it used to be. Most standard laptops have the most basic graphics card and that's probably where the performance problems are cropping up. Gaming systems require good (read: expensive) graphics cards.

Alienware a pricey and, since they're owned by Dell, not really that much better.

I would look long and hard at his current gaming setup. I always tell my clients that they should either do console gaming, or PC gaming, but not both due to the huge cost implications. With console gaming you're spending about £350 for a console that will last 5 years but games cost £50 a pop. With PC gaming you're spending about £1,000 for a computer that will last 5 years but games cost about £35 a pop. A gaming PC is far more of a hobby - picking and installing parts, configuring, tweaking and overclocking, replacing parts a few years later - and if your son isn't interested in that, I would be inclined to tell him to stick to his XBox gaming.

Flatpackhamster, can I ask your advice about my son's set up for minecraft? He reckons he's getting 30fps if he's lucky, he's got a 2.5yr old Dell Inspiron i5. Various specs, if I'm reading the invoice properly, are 2.30ghz processor, 1gb nVidia GeForce GT525M graphics card, 6gb ram and 640gb hard drive. Is there anything wrong with that or could we/should we upgrade the card or just buy something else in March which is his birthday? And does fps vary with internet issues too? We're in Australia and he's playing online with mates back in the UK.
Thanks!

ravenousbugblatterbeast

^Flatpackhamster, can I ask your advice about my son's set up for minecraft? He reckons he's getting 30fps if he's lucky, he's got a 2.5yr old Dell Inspiron i5. Various specs, if I'm reading the invoice properly, are 2.30ghz processor, 1gb nVidia GeForce GT525M graphics card, 6gb ram and 640gb hard drive. Is there anything wrong with that or could we/should we upgrade the card or just buy something else in March which is his birthday? And does fps vary with internet issues too? We're in Australia and he's playing online with mates back in the UK.
Thanks!^

Hi Ravenous,

His machine's performance will be reasonably similar to mine. My machine is about 5 years old but the processor's performance is comparable to his i5 Inspiron, but my graphics card is much faster.

With full graphics settings on (maximum render range and fancy graphics) I get 20-25FPS. I can achieve 35-40FPS by dropping the render range. Render range means how much of minecraft's world the computer loads, so you can see further with a longer render range.

There are several things that he can do to improve his FPS. The first thing is to reduce the render distance from 16 chunks. Another is to turn off/down the fancy graphics settings. There's a free program called Optifine which he can use to tweak these settings to get better performance.

FPS won't be affected by internet speed.

If he's got a desktop PC rather than a laptop, it would be possible to replace the graphics card and that is the most cost-effective way to improve gaming performance on a machine of this type. Let me know if he is and I'll have a peek around for you. There's a sweet spot for price/performance which shifts all the time and I haven't checked what it is since I replaced my graphics card 6 months ago.

Ah thanks, so it's partially self-inflicted due to him wanting snazzy vistas etc. It's a laptop, so no chance of a new card. In due course he's after an Alienware in classic style over substance fashion, but we'll probably get a desktop something in any event as we already have a couple of screens to use.

Thanks again!