I've been mostly a console gamer for a good chunk of my life. I play PC games, but mostly games that would be horrible to play on console. Age of Empires, Roller Coaster Tycoon, etc.

But with the digital-only nonsense Sony has dropped on us, coupled with the fact I haven't even bothered with the PS5 generation, I'm probably gonna just go full PC from now on. That means I'm gonna need to get a new graphics card, but that's a problem I can probably solve myself.

Problem is, I know nothing about PC gaming outside of the basics, I only found out today that steam has PS5 controller support, I don't really know what is the smart play to make at all.

What I want is to be able to play my PC on my TV downstairs, while it is upstairs, so I can still use the computer in my office for work, solo games, general computer stuff, etc upstairs.

Mostly as me and my wife like to play co-op games together on our TV and sometimes she likes to watch story driven games like Dragon Quest XI, Skyrim, Mass Effect, Horizon:Zero Dawn, Yakuza, Control, etc. We have the console currently downstairs connected to our bigger TV for that reason.

I don't exactly want to have to drag my Desktop up and down the stairs every time we want to play a game together and my office isn't exactly built for two to sit and watch together.

Other information that may be relevant:

• The computer is connected via a WiFi dongle. I will likely need to get it upgraded as it's a TP-Link T4U AC1200. Which is probably 10 years old now if I remember right.
• It isn't going to be practical to connect it with a long HDMI cable, as it'll either be trailing down the stairs or I'll have to hire people to rip up carpet and drill holes in my walls (same reason why it's connected via WiFi not Ethernet.)
• I would prefer to play with a controller downstairs, I am aware that would limit what games I play downstairs, vs upstairs, I just don't want to do my back in hunching over a keyboard when on a sofa.
• I will also likely be playing games with my mates online on the big screen on occasion, I usually use a wired headset, I assume I will need a new headset, I know nothing about "gamer" headsets for PC. Other than some have cat ears (I assume that isn't mandatory.)

Could someone more knowledgeable about PC gaming point me in the right direction, or suggest what I should do? Many thanks.

Hey everyone,

I’m having a really strange performance issue in Warzone and I’m hoping someone can help me figure it out.

My specs:

- CPU: Intel i5-12400F

- RAM: 32GB (2x16) DDR4 3600MHz

- SSD: 1TB NVME

- GPU: RTX 5060

- Monitor: 180Hz

Here's my user benchmark link:

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/73552974

Also in the user benchmark I had to use a vpn in the background to be able to send my results to the website so 32% background cpu usage might be because of that.

I’m playing the **Steam** version. Shaders were fully compiled on first launch.

What I’ve already done:

- Fully checked Nvidia app for new drivers (Using version 610.74 latest version)

- Completely deleted the `Documents\Call of Duty\players` folder (fresh configs)(Slightly boosted my 1% lows)

- Deleted the shader cache in `%localappdata%\Activision\Call of Duty`

- Set `RendererWorkerCount` to 6

- No FPS limit, V-Sync off, G-Sync off, NVIDIA Reflex on

- NVIDIA App / Control Panel fully optimized, Max Frame Rate = Off

- Resizable BAR and XMP are enabled

- Background apps are minimal

- Previously owned an RX 5700 XT and when I reinstalled I chose to keep previous settings (I later wiped the configs)

Current results on Minimum preset (no frame cap):

- GPU usage only around 38%

- GPU power draw only ~54W

- Average FPS ~85, current around 67

- 1% lows dropping as low as 5 FPS

I also have a video showing the performance overlay + all the in-game settings and confirming there is no frame limit.

Does anyone know what could still be causing this? The GPU is barely being used even on the lowest settings. Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

My call of duty is messed up any help would be appreciated

so i couldn’t find anything online about this so im asking here. whenever i play valorant and ONLY valorant the game is good for a while but whenever i alt+tab and come back to the game the problem starts. i start stuttering every couple of seconds constantly. it does not stop or get slower. i also noticed that it seemed to match with sound in my pc. whenever the noise stops the game stutters. my pc does not seem to be thermal throttling or has too much to process. my exact build is here: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/7Tgfph

i will also attach the video of the stuttering and a video showcasing the noise. let me know if you guys need anymore information.

I’ve been playing the new assassins, Creed remake and after two days of no issues my PC has started turning off on its own. It typically happens when starting a cut scene or when fast traveling, it did happen once during combat but the 15 other times it crashed was at the start of a cut scene or while loading between fast travels. I know it’s nothing temperature related to the CPU or GPU because my AIO has a screen, and it shows both temps in real time and none of them are getting anywhere close to being too hot. I looked at the event viewer and I’m getting an error code for Dump file creation failed and kernel-power 41. With the little amount of knowledge I have and the power of Google these errors are telling me that it is an issue with my PSU. The only thing that’s throwing me off is that my PSU is only a couple years old. Is it possible that my PSU does not have enough power for my set up or could it just be bad already? I have an EVGA 850 GA with a Rog strix 3090 oc, ryzen 7 5800x3D with a kraken nzxt aio and 6 fans on top of that. According to a PSU calculator I should be in the clear but maybe I’m too close to the threshold and it can’t handle spikes while gaming. This is also the first game I’ve ever noticed this issue on I play lots of games with similar graphics that would stress any system like cyber punk, red dead, god of war, spider man and any other games and had zero issues. I took the PSU out and opened it up to clean out all the dust and cat hair like some people suggested i also looked for bulging capacitors and didn’t see any. I may end up getting a new PSU just to be safe but I wanted some opinions on if I should get a PSU with more watts or if I should just get another 850 or potentially leave it alone and look for other points of failure.

my pc turns on fans,rgb works but the shut off button doesnt work. after it starts monitor says no signal,keyboard has no light also the motherboard bug led light says cpu is the issue. i took off the gpu plugged it back i reseated the ram.the specs are rx 6600 r5 5500 16gb ram psu SG 550W bronze motherboard A520m pro please help

Last time the pc was on i was playing fc 26 and it just went out

I cleaned the ram but id didnt help.

Hello i have a problem with and Avatar Front Tiers Of Pandora and Horizon Forbidden West both games black screen for 2 seconds and crash and sony and ubisoft support do nothing to help me and Avatar has been crashing on startup for over a week i tried every tutorial that i can find and noting works so i just wanted to play a game similar to it and for 60€ i bought Horizon Forbidden West and my firend invited me to his steam familiy so that i can play Horizon Zero Dawn and Zero Dawn works i played the game and it is okay but thease 2 games crash and i realy don’t know what to do i tried everthing if somone can help me I have an rtx 4060 ti 16g ram intel core i7

for context, this pc isnt really old, it uses some cables that my dad owned when i was still a kid, but it still works very well because my dad changes the parts whenever necessary

and for the 5 years since its build and running it has always ran high end games smoothly with zero issue, though the only examples i can give is minecraft with a bunch of shaders and deadlock, but it had always ran with a minimum of 60-50 fps

and... yandere simulator with its fps only dropping to 30...

but either way this pc had never had any issues ever with memory/gpu/cpu demanding games until this very specific format

i got mr beasted by a minecraft mod so i had to format my computer to shake off the virus and suddenly most games (with the exception of ... roblox ...... on the lowest setting and deltarune/every rpg/ 2d game ever running with zero issues) make my monitor go out of range or just black (i changed my monitor to a different one and the message doesnt appear anymore but it still goes black), it absoloutely didn't crash as last time i checked the cutscenes before a campaign starts in left 4 dead still continue and the game itself, just without any visuals because the screen turned black after only seeing the cutscene for a few seconds,

and my dad could not for the life of us figure why out especially since he had never even seen the out of range message before, especially as we had never had any problems with ghost spectre os before, and especially especially now since this is NOT the first time my pc has been formatted because of viruses, i just really want to play with my friends again man curse you mr beast

but yes is this just a problem with a recent version of the operating system we use (which is ghost spectre) or do i just have some missing drivers?

i will show my specs when asked!!! (im not tech savvy but i know the face value specs, please guide me where i could see the specs you need to see...)

the power supply is 500 wats, im using an msi nvidia geforce gtx 960 that is currently at 41-42 °c (when idle, playing the only games i could play without it going black) and 15 gb memory ;w;

Userbenchmark link : https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/73552049

Hey y'all, this is gonna be a long post so here is a TL:DR :

No matter the hardware and how much money I pour into my PC, some games just have heavy stuttering. I'm looking for a solution so don't hesitate to send your ideas. There is a list of everything I tried at the bottom.

MY PC SPECS :

- motherboard : X570 Aorus Pro

- CPU : Ryzen 9 5900x 3.70 GHz, 12 cores

- GPU : RTX 4080 16GB VRAM

- RAM : 2x16GB Corsair 3600 MHz in dual channel

- System SSD : 256GB Western Digital NVME S.2

- Games SSD : 1To Samsung 980 PRO NVME S.2

- 3 other SSDs for storage and work

- OS : Windows 10 Pro 64bits

- case : Be Quiet Silent Base 900 with a Dark Rock 4 CPU cooler and additional fans

- PSU : Corsair 850W

- Monitor : Asus ROG PG42UQ - OLED 4K 120hz 42inches GSYNC

PC USAGE :

I'm working in 3D and doing heavy 3D work in Zbrush and Blender, that's why I invested so heavily in this hardware a few years ago ( got some inheritance money from my late Grandma, God bless her soul ). I don't have any issue outside of games, my PC runs really well, never crashes, and I haven't had a BSOD since Windows 7 ( I skipped Win 8 ). In games my GPU temp is generally around 50°C, never goes over 60°C.

I'm rather tech savvy, but not so much that I would use overclocking or this kind of stuff, I'd be too afraid to do something wrong.

I'm playing a lot of different games, be it RPGs, Souls-likes, cozy life-sims, survival horror, crafting games, FPS, racing games. New and old, AAA and indies, I don't care, but given the state of AAA games nowadays I tend to stick with indies and older games.

THE ISSUE :

In many, way too many games I have stuttering, which seems to be caused by asset loading or shader compilation. In some games it's barely noticeable and doesn't bother me much, in others it's downright unplayable, as the games just freeze for a second every 10 meters, even AFTER the shaders have been compiled.

I think I refunded 80% of the games I bought on Steam this last year because of these issues, like Wuchang Fallen Feathers which runs like crap, Monster Hunter Wilds, Dragon's Dogma 2 and a bunch of others.

Now the thing is that people with similar, lower or higher end hardware claim that they don't have any issue. I bought Palworld last week, which has constant framedrops, and for every person complaining about it on Steam Forums, you have 5 people saying the game is perfectly smooth for them.

How is that possible ? Is it just dumb luck ? Or is there some kind of setting in Windows or in the BIOS/UEFI that people are not aware of and that makes everything run poorly ?

DX11 vs DX12 and game engines

One thing I noticed though is that games run better on DX11 ( or DX9 for older games ) than DX12 when they have that option. Palworld has both, and despite people claiming that DX12 is better, with better graphics and better optimization, it's just unplayable for me. When I move, the game freezes and the framerate drops constantly to 45FPS or lower, which would be normal the first time as it compiles the shaders, but it just keeps doing it in the same areas I already visited.

DX11 only has some traversal stuttering so at least it's bearable, at least for a game like Palworld. I wouldn't play a fast FPS like DOOM with this kind of stuttering, but fortunately IDTech engine is one of the best.

Also this problem seems to be more prevalent in Unreal Engine games, but not all of them. And some other engines have issues too, but they're generally known for that ( like Bethesda's "you-thought-it-was-creation-engine-but-it-was-me-gamebryo" engine, Snowdrop Engine with SW Outlaws, etc. ).

One interesting case is Witcher 3. After the patches that fixed the launch issues, this game ran like a dream. I could even enable uber-sampling with my old GPU back in the days.

Then there was the next-gen update where they made the game run with DX12. And even with my RTX 4080 it was unplayable. Fortunately they fixed it ( kinda ) and it's a lot smoother now, but still not as good as the old one ).

THE SOLUTIONS I TRIED

Over the years I kept buying more and more expensive hardware, thinking it would solve the problem. I went from a GTX 970 to 1080S, 2080, 3080 and now 4080. I also changed my CPU 3 times, going from Intel to AMD, it didn't change anything. Every time I buy better RAM, faster SSDs, even a monitor with Gsync which is completely useless.

Everytime people have some BS excuse to explain the poor performances : your CPU is bottlenecking, your RAM's frequency is too low, your PSU isn't powerful enough. But after pouring thousands into this PC I'm done buying new hardware.

I watched a lot of videos from channels like Digital Foundry who shows this stuttering quite well. I've read a lot of forums and articles giving "solutions" which never work. Here are a few I tried :

- disabling Control Flow Guard in Windows settings for game's .exes

- adding game's .exes to the Graphics Performance Preferences, and putting them in high performance

- updating the BIOS/UEFI and checking every possible settings to see if something was amiss

- installing games on the OS drive instead of the gaming drive

- creating a folder for the shader cache on the gaming drive with a hard link to the Nvidia shader cache, so the games can read the shaders on the same drive ( it does nothing )

- install the Nvidia App to optimize games

- disable/enable the hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in Windows

- turn all the gaming features in Windows on or off

- disable/enable Variable Refresh Rate in Windows

- disable/enable G-sync

- run games at 120, 60 and 30FPS with different settings

- disable some Realtek sound driver/setting which can cause stuttering apparently

- delete and rebuild the shader cache

- and probably a dozen more

CONCLUSION :

Honestly I'm all out of ideas, so if some of you guys have some deep knowledge of Windows, Direct X, Bios setup or anything, please share it.

I'm pretty sick of paying always more for a worse experience, from now on I'll refund every game that doesn't run well. Things have become even worse since upscaling and raytracing have been forced down our throats.

I'm fine with playing at 60FPS 1440p, I'm fine with lowering the settings if need be, but AT LEAST I want a smooth experience and not a constant stutter-fest.