Decline Can you name 5 games that would convince me to buy a new computer?

[cretin]

Its getting to the time where I'm looking longingly at a new PC, but as I jew my way into getting the best price:performance ratio, I find myself asking "what would I even use this for?"

All the games I like to play are anywhere between 10 and 20 years old at this point. I have a backlog of old games to get through yet. And increasingly, I find myself repulsed by what I see in the average AAA release. I have kids now so I can't really do multiplayer games anymore. With the exception of STALKER 2 - which won't be out til december, assuming its even real - there's really nothing I see where I'm like oh shit I want to play that.

Maybe frens at the codex can suggest to me just 5 titles that would justify dropping a stack? Released or upcoming, doesn't matter.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Three applications I need 24GB vram for, each either more fun or more buggy than AAA games: Stable diffusion, kobold ai, microsoft word

 

[spectre]

I can't and I won't.

Still using a 10 year old rig (though I made a point to future proof it back then) and the only thing I upgraded was the SSD and the 970gtx... and I'm still convincing myself if the latter was actually called for.
If you're still on 1080 res and aren't doing anything with AI, there doesn't seem to be much point.

My kid plays MeinKraft, Rayman, Rocket League, Homm3 and some Lego games, so no point here either.

 

[Falksi]

Most would run on an older rig anyway, but out of more modern releases I'd pick:

• Yakuza Like A Dragon
• Persona 5 Royal
• Bard's Tale 4 DC
• Amid Evil
• Nioh

Some nice gaming there tbf.

 

[ferratilis]

If Stalker 2 is the reason to buy a new PC, just wait for it to release, see some benchmarks online, read the reviews, and THEN build a PC based on its requirements and performance. That way you have a clear purpose. Otherwise you can easily spend money on something you might regret later on. This generation of games will be all about Unreal Engine 5, and we're yet to see it pushed in any meaningful way.

As for recommending games that push graphics, it's mostly popamole stuff: Control, Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk, Metro Exodus, Forza Horizon 5 etc. Great games to look at, but whether you enjoy playing them is up to you. The only case where a game impressed me both with graphics and gameplay is Kingdom Come Deliverance, and it's not even using raytracing or anything advanced. Just Cryengine with some good design.

 

[cretin]

Kingdom Come Deliverance

Kingdom Coom is one of the titles I shelved until I could fully appreciate it at 60+ fps. But its pretty much the only one.

 

[tommy heavenly6]

An old thinkpad is everything you need to play what you need to play

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Can you name 5 games that would convince me to buy a new computer?

RPG Codex GotY 2015
RPG Codex GotY 2016
RPG Codex GotY 2020
RPG Codex GotY 2022
RPG Codex GotY 2023

Spoiler

The Witcher III
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
Wasteland 3
Elden Ring
Either Starfield or BG3

 

[Vic]

developers become worse and worse at optimizing their games so even to play an isometric game like Wrathfinder you need a good rig. Playing that game always sets my CPU on fire

 

[ind33d]

the only game you need a decent pc for is 2077, and that's maybe 60 hours long

 

[Luka-boy]

DCS World, if you like flight sims and eye candy. Especially in VR.

 

[Khor1255]

The only rig I use for gaming snd imaging is a 2000s Hewlitt Packard running xp. I can't imagine wanting anything else.

 

[mondblut]

Faster CPU and more memory never hurt. Even a fucking Dwarf Fortress can become a performance hog.

As for graphics, idk, I'm still stuck with 1660 and it's doing fine. Anytime I consider upgrading to something like 3060, I think, "what exactly I'm going to play on it that absolutely requires a newer card with over 6gb vram?" - and I don't.

Ok, kingmaker might become demanding when you use cheats and run a party of 20 at once.

 

[deuxhero]

X4: Foundations.

 

[hayst]

Upgraded my PC a few years ago and haven't really utilized it much. The only games I've played that the upgrade was needed for were Star Citizen, Metro Exodus, and Quake 2 RTX. So yeah pretty much a waste of money. Only thing I still enjoy is the 240 hz screen upgrade.

 

[Skorpion]

Diablo 4 of course

But in all seriousness, no I can't think of any given your taste in games. Simulators and AAA games recently released are the only things that really take advantage of the new cards.
My 1080ti (with 12gig vram, eat it suckers) is still playing everything at ultra or just below ultra fine. I miss out on ray tracing but I dont give a shit about ray tracing so there is that.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

football manager

 

[Late Bloomer]

Fallout 4 (modded)
Fallout 4 (upcoming enhanced super deluxe version)
Skyrim (modded)
Starfield
&
Starfield (inevitable ultra deluxe enhanced anniversary edition)

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Powerful cpus are useful for emulation.

 

[gurugeorge]

CP2077 is the best eye candy around at the moment (not in terms of hyper-realism, but in terms of fairly realistic stylization) and it needs a hunk of a PC to play it comfortably with all the bells and whistles. The game is presentable enough to play these days, well worth a playthrough so long as you know what you're in for (i.e. not really an RPG but a quite enjoyable game in general terms).

Though the Owlcat games aren't that snazzy, they do need a fairly beefy PC to play well too. fps isn't so terribly important with top-down games, but more smoothness is always better. Solasta also does need some power to play smoothly.

Kingdom Come of course.

Baldur's Gate 3 of course, if and when it comes out.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Dude, just install DOOM on your washing machine and kick some ass!

 

[Skorpion]

Actually that brings up a good point, what exactly are you running for a system?
You mentioned playing 10+ year old games fine but now that I think of it that doesn't tell me what you have because it might be a 486 with gigachad levels of gigabit levels of ram so I dunno?
Maybe you should just upgrade to help out taiwan

 

[Great Deceiver]

Buying new parts for new games is completely unjustifiable if you have any modicum of taste. As someone said above, emulators are a good use case if you're into them - more RAM and CPU brute power never hurt.

I still do it because I've been building computers for 30 years, but it's getting harder and harder to convince myself. Last time I bought a GPU was just before the insane price hikes due to crypto and I managed to make enough money using it to mine ETH to pay it off twice over.

 

[ind33d]

Buying new parts for new games is completely unjustifiable if you have any modicum of taste. As someone said above, emulators are a good use case if you're into them - more RAM and CPU brute power never hurt.

I still do it because I've been building computers for 30 years, but it's getting harder and harder to convince myself. Last time I bought a GPU was just before the insane price hikes due to crypto and I managed to make enough money using it to mine ETH to pay it off twice over.

Also driving/flight sims/VR, I guess. But the AAA game market is over. How many games does the PS5 have, two?

 

[cretin]

Actually that brings up a good point, what exactly are you running for a system?
You mentioned playing 10+ year old games fine but now that I think of it that doesn't tell me what you have because it might be a 486 with gigachad levels of gigabit levels of ram so I dunno?
Maybe you should just upgrade to help out taiwan

I have an acer nitro 5 with a GTX 1660 ti and a i7-9750h. 16gb of ram. Unfortunately, acers are shit and this thing has always given me grief, requires very frequent cleaning and repasting.

Lately I'm having an awful microstutter every ~5 seconds in games and its definitely not thermal throttling, and I'm tired of trying to diagnose problems with this bastard so I'm just going to format it and if that doesn't clear up the problem I'll relegate it to a work laptop.