A Console Gamer’s Odyssey into the Wonderful World of PC Gaming

(This was something I wrote and never published so sometimes I'll have writings that will be old that I'll edit and put up here. Enjoy!)

I’ve been an avid console gamer for most of my life. I’ve had most of the major consoles starting with NES, Genesis, SNES, Playstation and so forth. Console gaming was simple and easy. Buy a system. Buy a game. Connect to the TV and you are set to go. Today, it’s largely the same ( Xbox One tried to be a little different but it was burned at the stake for trying). It may involve internet connection or hardware storage but for the most part, it’s simple. The game works (most of the time).

However, in the mid-’90s my family did own a PC that was mostly used for word processing and light internet usage. We also had a few games for it, though most of them were demos. Doom, Populous, and an interesting port of Megaman X were basically all I played on my PC. Populous worked fine but I didn’t understand it ( I was used to platformers and such). Doom was awesome but it couldn’t run well full screen so I had to shrink the resolution to get a playable framerate and Megaman X worked fine but it wasn’t as smooth as the SNES version. I went over to my brother’s friends house and his computer had a Pentium chip at the time and wow did his games work better than mine. So I knew there was potential but at 10 years old it was a little too much. It was just simpler to stick to console.

Fast Forward to 2010 and I played a lot of PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360. I played all types of games but I started to notice minor things with games in this generation. How some games looked and ran better on 360 than PS3 or vice versa. Some games like Call of Duty 4 ran at 60fps and felt fast and snappy while Halo: Reach ran at 30. This didn’t really change my opinion on either game but I started to wonder why all games can’t run as smooth. Granted I know that more powerful hardware allows for better performance but I was of the mindset that if I am playing a game I’d like to be playing the best version available. I knew about PC gaming but most of my friends were on consoles and in some ways that are more important to me.

PC gaming has always interested me but I was steered away by a few issues (misconceptions?) I’ve always had with PCs. These are personal:

1. Barrier of Entry - If I were to get a PC I’d want it to be built for gaming right out the box. At the time I thought the only way to do this was Alienware and compared to the consoles at the time it was usually twice or even three times the price. I know a PC also has much more utility but I just couldn’t put up 1500. 
2. Keyboard and Mouse vs controller - I love shooters but I’ve only played them on consoles. I’ve tried Keyboard and Mouse a few times but it felt weird with way too many buttons. I know I could plug in my controllers on PC now but it doesn’t take a genius to tell how a mouse has advantages when it comes to shooters so I wouldn’t be on an even playing field. 
3. Friends - Most of the people and friends I know play on PS4 or Xbox. So even if I wanted to get on PC, I’d have to get most of my friends to make the switch and I can guarantee you that most will not. So I’ll either have to find new friends or just play solo and make friends which can be a circus. 
4. Games - This is an interesting topic. Most games today you can play on any device except when it is exclusives like Nintendo games or Sony Games. Microsoft gave PC a pretty nice boost with their Play Anywhere feature where any Xbox exclusive game after like 2016 would also be playable on PC. PC does have exclusive titles such as MMOs and strategy games and also a host of cool indie games. However, I really don’t like the PC exclusives unless they are shooters. Still, you can play most of the biggest and best titles on PC and they are much much cheaper. But we will get into that later. 
5. Compatibility- I’ve messed around with PC games on my laptop. I know it couldn’t run the high-end stuff but even so, there were usually issues sometimes when playing games. Games crashing or not installing correctly or errors that would shut the game down. Usually, you’d have to edit a file or change a setting or download a patch( the patch thing applies to consoles now I know) It certainly was a far cry away from the simple plug and play of most consoles. 

However, I am an open-minded gamer. I was never really into taking a side on consoles and I love gaming. I wanted to see what this PC master race was all about. So thanks to a generous tax return from Uncle Sam, I decided to take the PC plunge.

And wow, I don’t want to go back.

Don’t get me wrong, there were A LOT of growing pains but I have finally reached a point of comfortability and I get it. I see why PC players can be snobbish. Not only do the games look and run better (if you have the hardware) but control wise they are highly customizable for the most part. I’ll explain all of this as I recount my journey and hopefully can help someone getting into this for the first time avoid making the mistakes I’ve made.

A Brave Scary New World.

So I did my research into PC gaming. I didn’t want to build a computer from scratch - I wasn’t on that level yet and I wanted it shipped ready to go. I set my budget to around 800-900 dollars and I was going to try an Alienware Alpha but my friend said to go with Cyberpowerpc as I can get a similar computer for much cheaper and I agreed. So I checked out the website and they were having a sale (little did I know that site always claims to have some sort of sale going on). They offered these Vapor line style of computers that were made to mimic consoles. Easy to plug and play and I figured that would be a good transition point so I chose the middle of the road model for about 700 dollars. However, I knew some of the parts weren’t quite as good as I wanted them to be so I did a few upgrades. I chose to upgrade to the GTX 970 graphics card from a GTX 960 and Intel i5 4460 from an i3. I didn’t quite know how much better those were but they were in my budget and probably the most important thing at the time. My order was processed and I was ready to embark on this new gaming journey.

So the day of the delivery I took the day off from work because I knew I absolutely wanted no distractions as I set this up and figured it all out. Turns out this was ill-advised, as my package didn’t ship until 7 PM. Anyways, it arrived and I was smiling ear to ear. So like a gaming console, it comes with a wireless controller, wireless mini USB keyboard (which didn’t work well), HDMI cable, and power cable. As soon as you power up the computer and start Windows, it launches Steam Big Picture. Steam Big picture is basically Steam’s version of a console operating system which is easily controlled by a controller so that you don’t need a keyboard. You can access the steam store to buy games or download any games you already own from the client. It also has a browser as well. It can be a little cumbersome at first but it works fine.

I actually owned quite a few games on Steam thanks to Humble Bundles (if you don’t know what that is, I heavily suggest looking into it). So my first instinct was to load up a 3d game that couldn’t run well on a standard laptop so I chose Burnout Paradise. Once I installed it and loaded it up, I was a little underwhelmed. The game didn’t look much better than it did on my laptop so I decided to look at the settings and they were on low. I jacked them up to the max and the game hit a blazing fast 10-15 frames per second and was basically unplayable. I tried Crisis 2 and same problem ( that game was on the lowest settings). Now I was upset.

So I am little computer savvy and decided to check out my drivers and hardware to make sure the computer was connected and instantly I discovered that my computer was running on integrated graphics. Basically, if you aren’t aware this is usually part of the CPU and it’s capable of limited gaming but nothing close to that of a dedicated GPU (graphics card). So I emailed the company that I ordered it and they said that the GPU probably got disconnected during shipping and that I could try to connect it back myself or send it back to have it done. I was already upset at this point and I said I would fix it myself. They said it was pretty easy and I said I’ll figure it out. I opened up the computer and the GPU connector just need a little push and it was in. I powered up the computer and after realizing I had plugged it into the wrong HDMI port ( I know…noob), I finally played Crisis 2 again and set it to max settings and it ran perfectly. I was hooked. I was elated that I fixed the little hardware issue and that the game looked fantastic.

Trouble in paradise

So for the next few months, I purchased a few games on PC like the Witcher 3 and Tomb Raider reboot and loved playing those games with high settings and 60 FPS at 1080p. I was playing the Witcher 3 ( which is one of, if not the best, games of this generation) and adding to my 100 plus hours and then click…my PC turned off. I thought maybe my computer was using up too much electricity because sometimes it actually would short out the power in the apartment. Turns out that the problem was the fan on the power supply. The thing just stopped working and without that, the computer won’t properly cool itself or even just apply the appropriate power to the motherboard. At this point, I was upset because this expensive computer I bought just stopped working. At least, I knew that computers are much easier to fix than consoles so I took it to a store and a guy put a replacement fan in that would temporarily work but that I would need a new power supply soon.

Buying Computer Parts

Do your research. The power supply I bought was too large for my case, but I was a feen to start playing again so I unwisely just had my PC case open with the parts exposed just so I could connect everything. Though I didn’t ruin any of my parts, you don’t have to be a scientist to know that this is dumb. Eventually, about 2 years of trouble and small upgrades I decided to do it right and pretty much build a PC from scratch.

I used PCpartpicker ( a fantastic website for saving money and building a custom pc) and purchased a case, motherboard, AMD Ryzen 5 2600, GTX 1070, 16 GB 3200 ram and put it together from scratch. It was a little touch and go at times but with the help of youtube, I successfully built my computer and it works perfectly. Here she is -








Not the best pictures but it’s almost a pride thing. I built that. Even though it isn’t that difficult. I know my cable management needs work but right now it runs fine so I am happy. Eventually, I will definitely get into my experience of playing games on PC and why I enjoy it so much.

Overall, I want to state that though I do prefer PC gaming, it isn’t without its faults and everyone has their preferences. It isn’t as simple to set up as consoles and it’s a bit more expensive if ( though you can get similar performance to modern consoles at around the same price if you are crafty) but if you take the time out to learn it and such you will not be disappointed. It’s much easier than ever to get into and just has too many benefits (many of which I didn’t go into but I will). Better graphics, better framerate, mods, and cheaper games. If you're a console gamer… think about it!