Be Excellent To Each Other

Well that would constitute 'a really good reason' if it was going to cause an issue, but without knowing what case he's going for or what the layout is inside it it's hard to say whether putting an external drive would make a difference or not.

It was that £600 one from Chillblast. Has anyone had any experience of them? I'm assuming they're reputable from the google search I did.

Yeah Chillblast are solid, and they've been around for years.

I'd still say pay an extra few quid and get an internal drive as part of the build, they'll probably only charge an extra tenner or so?

Don't forget there's the £510 option I posted the review of as well, which for gaming grunt is damn near as good if not better than the £600 one, but a bit on the noisy side apparently.

Hang on, so you reckon the cheaper one is the way to go? I'm doing this tonight so I don't want to cock it up.

The £600 PC won the labs because it offered more expandability, had a better case and produced less noise, whether or not you think it's worth spending another £90 on is up to you. (It also features the hybrid SSHD so you get 8GB of super-fast cache on the drive.)

The £510 has a weaker CPU but a stronger graphics card, it also has a DVD-rewriter drive included in the price.

(Performance wise there wasn't really that much between the two PCs though.)

Overall the £600 PC is certainly 'nicer' and if the extra cost isn't a major concern is probably the better option.

Are these not out yet? I can find some plain 750s, but for the 750 Ti's everywhere's "Not in stock" and "Ships in a month, maybe".

I am thinking of getting a GTX 760 or maybe even a 770, but I see they are already more than half a year old, and I don't necessarily need a new card right here and right now.

Is there anything else in the works? For how long are cards like these "current"?

Right, my credit card has melted away after this purchase and now I'm thinking when it comes I won't have a sodding keyboard to plug in. Tch.

If I do get a wireless keyboard do they come with their own thing that picks up that it's wireless or something?

And how'd I make the PC recognise the xbox controller? Can I get the smaller XBONE controller and get it to work?

I'm not going to be able to just plug it in and play with it am I? Jesus. Steam better be worth it...

Yes.



http://support.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-on-o ... 9747dea136



Nope.

http://support.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-one/ ... patibility



Probably, pretty much.

Any wireless keyboard and mouse combo will come with its own receiver that you just plug into a USB port. I got a reasonable wireless keyboard+mouse from a local supermarket for less than £20 so they don't have to cost a fortune (although that was for the kitchen computer, I'd spend a bit more if they were for my main PC).

For a gamepad I've always just used a wired 360 pad which you simply plug into a USB port and Windows goes off and does the rest in terms of drivers and stuff (no need for calibration or any shit like that like in the bad old days of analogue PC gamepads).

Not entirely sure what the deal is with wireless 360 pads TBH, but AFAIK they're pretty easy to use with a PC as well.

My (admittedly limited) experience with xbone pads suggests getting a 360 one would be the prefered choice even if they did work.

I'm going to play the fuck outta that badger game when this arrives.

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/games/Atomic+Badger+Racing/ ?

I don't think you needed to spend moneys on that...

I bought a wireless receiver for my Xbox pad off eBay and while it was a bit of a faf to get working, it was well worth it.

Why was it a faff? This is what I did:

Plugged in gaming receiver
Drivers installed automatically
Synced 360 pad
Played a game

If you're having to fork out for a receiver, I'd probably still go for the wired pad instead. Unless your sofa is out of wire range, natch.

I think mine is a Chinese knock off. Pros... It was cheap. Cons... I had to force my PC to recognise it.

Ah right, if you get the official MS one it's a breeze. Works perfectly on both my PC and PC partitions.

PC: it just works! ™

I was bloody surprised, I'll tell you.

Mine also works fine on both sides but it does make me re-sync each time i switch between then which I thought was odd - I also had a bit of a faff at the start to get the more 'non microsoft' side of my PC to recognize it but the Microsoft side it was just as you describe - plug it in - wait for the drivers to update and then hit the sync button on that and on the controller.

For those saying just get a wired pad you can but its probably just as cheap to get the wireless box and then you have the advantage of a wireless controller (so no cables for people to trip over) and can re-use your 360 ones

That's exactly why I got it. It was the same price as a wired controller and I already had three wireless ones!

Sat's a PS3 rather than Xbox guy so presumably he'd need to buy an Xbox pad either way. Looking at Amazon the wired pad is £24 and the wireless pad plus official wireless receiver thing is £25 + £10 so the price difference isn't huge.

You can also use PS3 pads but it's much more of a faff and you wouldn't get the nice bonus of the on-screen button prompts in most games lining up with the actual pad.

I've got a 360; didn't I mention this before? I was the BeeX Halo 4 champion at one point thrashing Zaphod and Cookie to the top*.

Not if you use an Apple PC it's not. They're recognised as a Bluetooth device and the drivers are already installed.

Fair enough, you just need to spend a tenner on the wireless thingy and you're sorted then!

Sweet, although I've got the big long wire which'll sort me out in the meantime.

I bought a cheap USB dongle from eBay to try and connect my 360 wireless pads to the PC. After a lot of faffing, my controller was fried. I have no idea what happened to it but I can't get it to even switch on, let alone connect to anything else.

May just have been bad luck, but I'm wary of non-official ones after that.

I still remember you being part of the dreaded team blue on my first halo 3 rocket race. (with a headset)

It were awesome.

I have possibly found some answers here: http://www.itworld.com/hardware/397985/ ... r-expected

So probably better to hold on a couple of months and see what the new chips will be like price/performance-wise.

My peeeeeceeee, is in the "Build & Test" stage. Exciting this, isn't it? ('No' - everyone).

God know how long that'll take, mind.

18 months.

This shows Performance for cards http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gam ... 107-7.html

Ironic as I got rid of my 690 for Titan last year!

What is the quietest-best GPU? It needs to be better than my HD 4850 and not ULTRA LOUD[2] like the current one is. (No idea what the current db level is -- anyone got a sound meter?). I'd prefer quietness over graphical-beefiness

I might buy this:
Sapphire Radeon R9 270X VAPOR-X Boost OC AMD Graphics Card - 2GB
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-sapp ... 1280-strea

as it's both beefy and quiet. e.g. :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2w0MuEdraA

(benchmarking websites list it around 38-40 db). Looks nice and quiet, though it's longer than my current one and I might need to get the measuring tape out at home..

Can I do quieter for the same amount of money?

If you want really quiet and low-power, then the 750ti is now available, draws all its power from the PCI-E lane and runs super quiet - only £109. Nice short card too, so will fit in any case but does cover two PCI slots with the cooler.

Perfect for 1080p gaming if you're not amazebothered about maxing everything out at 60FPS.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... ubcat=1854

The R9 270X is a more powerful card but comes in at £150-£160, it needs 2x6 pin PCI-E power connectors, and you'll want one with a custom cooler on if you want the sound of silence when it's under load. (Again covers two PCI slots, which I'm guessing your 4850 does anyway.)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... ubcat=1982

750ti is a bit underpowered for my purchasing tastes. From looking at benchmarks etc it's almost 25% worse than the R9 270X, but it does save me £50. So I did the natural thing and bought a GTX 760 for £30 than the other one.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-Nvidia-TF-P ... B00DJPPCLK

It's a better in terms of performance vs the R9 270x and only a bit more expensive. And the MSI TF fan "gaming" edition thingy also has a very low amount of fan-noise compared to other cards, so reviews and things tell me. So I went for that. (Also: It looks like nearly _ANY_ graphics card I buy today would be quieter than the vacuum-cleaner that is my HD 4850. Infact I knew someone who used to have a HD 4850 and their model (can't remember what it was) was also quieter. Obviously the XFX one I bought just sucked).

I am looking at that specific card as well. Just might go all the way and get the GTX 770, though. Right now I am playing the waiting game.

I now have a Logitech G27 Steering Wheel to use on Assetto Corsa. It's a bit good, the difference between this and my old wheel is quite significant.
I'm fucking awful at driving with it though It's weird how the ability to drive a manual car in real life is an unconscious act for me, yet trying exactly the same thing on a game has basically got me back to as if I was learning to drive again.

I was always struck by this as well. I can drive a normal car to the required level but the few times I've tried a steering wheel with a driving game I've just spazzed around all over the place then given up.

Try adding in a clutch pedal and a H gate shifter into the mix too. I eventually made it round a lap...

Go nuts and get a GTX 780!

*checks price on amazon*

Hmmmmm. Nah.

Hmmmmm. Nah.

Hmmmmm. Nah.

I'm much better with a wheel. No problem with the H gate and clutch on my G27.

Make sure you set it up right.

I'm setup ok, my issue is remembering to press the clutch, or brake while I'm changing gear, or turn after I've changed gear, etc...

It's all just a bit much

Have you got Assetto Corsa, by the way?

I haven't, no. I don't agree with early access games as a general rule. I made an exception for DayZ.

Is it good?

It's an incredibly good sim, but there is fuck all game behind it at the moment.

480GB SSD (and a bloody good one at that) now down to a frankly ridiculous £160.

Deal of the Day at Ebuyer.

Bonkers cheap, two years ago it was about £1 per 1GB, and the first 960GB SSDs were around a grand.

(As an example, I paid £160 for my 128GB SSD in November 2011.)

I think it's the same price on Amazon isn't it?

In America, I think.

Who was thinking of buying one? They should buy this one.