Returning to PC gaming: A GamesRadar Editor's tale of madness, pain and wonder

I'm saving up for my own update at the end of the summer. Bringing my mid-range rig to high-end. Very excited for it. Hopefully you get all your problems sorted out. You could try verifying the game caches through Steam, might be a software problem you've got rather than hardware.

We multiplatform gamers welcome you back into the PC fold with open arms and open hearts. You may wish to do a full diagnostic on the machine, make sure everything's going good. Grab a copy of SpeedFan and check the SMART data on your drive and the overall temp of the internals. Dust that sucker out, of course. Ensure drivers are all up to date. Defrag. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera. --- @HotCyder: I wish NewEgg had a UK equivalent. I'd send you there. ._.

So, any PC gamers know a good computer that could run Valve stuff I could buy for just around £300? I'm definitely not interested in building my own computer.

I love my PC gaming but to be really honest(and I'm going to get crucified for this even though it's just an OPINION-it's right, naturally, but it's till an opinion)the one thing you found so exciting is the one thing that I no longer use(if I don't have to)even though it puts me at a massive disadvantage in multiplayer shooters:I no longer like using a mouse. Now, don't call me mad but , to me, they're the reason I usually play on line on console these days. PC just doesn't feel as even a playing field with people painting out scenery, highlighting enemies, everyone having different tech and the advantages that can bring, everyone also enters into the "arms race " of the ever improving gaming mouse/key set ups etc, etc and to me with most folk using the same gear, down to the controller by and large, on console it just seems a more true test of skill to me-that's all. However, I'd go further and say that my mouse set up is just TOO good. i'm too good with it and I can do things at a TOTALLY unrealistic pace and it kills the immersion to me-not to mention playing on two separate planes often just feels, IDK, a bit daft. I've ALWAYS gamed on PC and ALWAYS(til last year) used a mouse and keyboard because I was a bit of a "win baby" and wanted any edge I could get(a lot of my PC gamer mates HATE me for this!)but as a true, fair test of skill it really doesn't feel as good as Live or PSN. Christ, I don't even use a mouse now for co-op like L4D(though playing that on the 360 feels like the biggest con ever compared to the PC, mod friendly version!)much to my mates chagrin! Apart from that, you're right my Houghton and a truly open platform does allow for more quirks even if PSN/iiware/XBLA HAVE come a long way. the MW2 server debacle also worries me about PC gaming support and whether people at EA and Acti and the like want to squeeze our fun but as it is we have some great stuff that, contrary to popular console owner belief doesn't need a $4000 rig to play. I built my decent rig(with little tech knowledge-I'm a gamer not a PC nerd with much clue!)for Crysis for £450 with parts picked up hither and thither at good prices and have since upgraded a few bits and bobs, sound cards, an i7 and other doohickeys but even then didn't need to break the bank. All you need is a mate who has a clue and some patience-because any PC is unstable compared to consoles and Macs but these days it's better than it was even if we aren't getting the graphical/tech leaps we used to as more and more games appear on all systems with HD. Thing is you miss out a ,lot by not checking out PC gaming and if you're just getting interested or want to try it, why not have a go? Even a pretty average PC will run MOST games at a decemnt framerate f you do your settings right and alittle messing about might see you playing games that you never knew existed and didn't ever think you'd be able to run either. Have a go folks! I do think it's worth bearing in mind what I say about mouse and keyboard, mind, as it's not very realistic even in game and that very speed of action with m/K can drag some of us OUT of the action even while improving our effectiveness in the game and in MP I like to think that both me and the next guy have got basically the same tech these days-mainly since I stopped being so over competitive as I felt that maybe I was winning more because of the little edges I had going on tech and mouse wise. Never messed about for my own gain with console settings, though, honest!

Hi Hamdrew, I got myself a gaming keyboard with the keys slightly curved in a more natural hand position and it makes a massive difference, aswell as stopping aching finger sundrome when playing for hours on end. There are loads about so it dosent have to be expensive, I cant recommend it enough. Welcome to the world of PC gaming, you will never look back! (exceot after spending 3 days getting the f**king thing to work, maybe)

i had the same thing happen to me with my pc from 2005.

Your poor PC cant play HL2. poor little guy. I love my PC, i would gladly sell all my consoles to keep my PC kicking.

Welcome home brother... *wipes away a small tear* I recommend you play Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines once you have your source powered game issues sorted (it was the first game ever released using the engine... and it shows) if you haven't already. Buggy as hell but with a couple of patches... 12 in total, it will be... well less buggy, but hey you're on a pc now, buggy is a type of personality rather than a solid barrier.

I would 'return' to PC gaming, but I'm short on cash at the moment. Why must the economy crash when it's most inconvenient for me!

hamdrew- Just stick with it and it will soon become second nature. I hate myself for recommending this, because it drives me absolutely crazy, but I have a friend who uses the arrow keys instead of WASD. Maybe it would be easier for you to start off learning that way, since there are no other keys nearby to distract you. Then once you get comfortable with the arrow keys, you can just imagine "W" as "Up", "A" as "Left", etc.

@GamesRadarDavidHoughton I hope you see this but you should probably right-click on HL2 and click on proporties, then defragment it (hell, defrag you're whole computor) and VERIFY GAME CACHE FILES! ALWAYS do this if you don't play something in a long while AND when you install a game! I bought Bioshock 2 during this sale and The game didn't work because I DIDN'T VERIFY the GAME CACHE FILES. There were 130 MBs of files that the Install didn't install! *nerd rage - over*

My PC struggles with Civilization 4. I would like to be a PC gamer but ive no where near the funds of tech no-how :(

I'm recently converting from console to PC gaming, I've just got to wait for some money to fall into my hands :) Also, I'm having a really hard time getting adjusted to the "WASD" keys to move around. Any tips to get used to it???

Welcome home, Dave. Welcome home. I recently had a PC gaming "rebirth" like you, and it was amazing. I still play some of my old console games, but I forgot how much I loved the PC

I started as a PC gamer and now I'm a console gamer because of the very same issues that David mentioned in this article. It's *not* part of the game. When I purchase a game, it should install perfectly for whatever OS I'm currently running, and it should play without any issues whatsoever. I know that's not a reasonable ideal, but that's what I want. That's why I switched over to consoles for the majority of my gaming. I go out and buy a 360 or PS3 game, I pop it in and I'm playing right away. No need to worry about whether my system will handle it, or whether it'll hate my Radeon card while preferring a geforce instead, etc, etc. It just runs. And it runs as well as everyone else that owns the same console. That's what makes console gaming great. I actually like my copy of a game being the exact duplicate as everyone else's. On the flipside though, I do like the fact that (with a bit of effort) you can still get really, really old PC games to run on the newest machines. I'm pretty sure Wolfenstein 3D wasn't designed to run in a dualcore 64-bit Windows 7 with 4gb of ram, but it does. That's an 18 year old game. Stuff like that is why I still keep my PC up to date even though I do most of my gaming on console.

Im a 360 gamer, and i have two pc's and my gaming one always crashed every 5 minutes, then I eventually decided to dust it out and it works perfectly, but it will rarely run games made anytime after 07, with the exception of Sins of a Solar Empire...

My first and last console was the N64. Since then, I became a devout PC enthusiast and I haven't looked back. Still, it's been torture hoping and wishing for a PC version of Red Dead Redemption.

I should be getting a good gaming rig here in the next week. Ive never been huge into pc games cuz my old pcs were crap.

Ahhh yes. I went through this about seven months ago. I finally got a new pc, decent graphics card. And I played some, but it didn't really suck me in. Then came Steam's Holiday Sale (keep an eye out for it this year, its just like the summer sale!) and I was back. Sure, when a port comes out you need to make sure good, or not like Force Unleashed which wants 30 gigs of my hard drive, but its nice. Being able to adjust settings, go into config files and alter things, mods. About the only thing I can play on consoles anymore are a few Wii games that actually make ok use of the controls, or are light gunners, and fighting games. Welcome home.

Yea man, i built my pc for $450 and it runs all my games at max power! But my monitor only goes up to 1280x1024 and they still look better than 360 and PS3. I have to thank bittorrent for most of my games tho ;)