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If I Build a New Computer Do I Need to Buy My Games Again

Did you ever upgrade, build, or buy a PC simply then you could play one detail game?

(Image credit: The Irregular Visitor)

At that place's a new generation of consoles on the horizon, but here in PC land we're sorta always in the midst of upgrading, right? It's a blessing and a expletive, really. It's great to take the option to boost functioning with the new GPUs and CPUs that are constantly coming out, simply at that place's definitely some appeal in buying a new panel and so getting a seven year-or-and then break before you have to buy anything else.

Sometimes a particular game tin push button you into upgrading your PC, or edifice a new PC, or even just flat out buying a prebuilt. Something you badly want to play that your current PC tin can't handle, or at least that it tin can't handle on max settings.

So that'south our question this week: Did you always upgrade, build, or buy a PC just so you could play one particular game? Which game was information technology? Below you lot'll find our answers and some from members of the PC Gamer Forum. Sound off with your own answers in the comments below.

(Prototype credit: Blizzard)

Steven Messner: World of Warcraft

If anyone who knows me is surprised by this, you lot don't know me that well, haha. My first real gaming PC ever was built entirely so that I could beginning playing World of Warcraft dorsum in 2004 when it became all the rage among my friends at school. I was working at A&West then, slinging burgers as a greasy 14 twelvemonth old, and I desperately wanted a proper gaming PC so I saved up equally much as I could and for around $500.

I bought myself an AMD Athlon 64x CPU and some Nvidia 128mb graphics card alongside 512mb of DDR2 RAM. Fifty-fifty at the time information technology was far from high stop, only it was more than than enough to play World of Warcraft and that's all I really cared about. I didn't know what I was doing, and so we had to invite a family friend over ane afternoon to help me set information technology all up. It went pretty smoothen. The worst role was that, by the time we were finished and I had installed everything, I had to endure the painful procedure of installing WoW using its four separate CD-ROMs. The process easily took over an hour and past the time information technology was washed, I had just enough time to create a Dwarf Hunter earlier my mom mercilessly sent me to bed.

Thus began an extremely unhealthy habit of waking up equally early as 3am each morn and then I could sneak in a few hours of WoW before school. That estimator was my first real gateway into PC gaming, so it'southward an peculiarly fond memory for me.

Phil Brutal: Apex Legends

This game and my old CPU were not pals—with regular crashes to desktop as it consistently hit most-100% apply. Likely I could have troubleshooted the event more than than actually did, but I felt I was due an upgrade and this was just the excuse that I needed. Obviously a new CPU meant a new motherboard, and then I just kept adding components to the basket until I'd essentially purchased a new PC.

Jacob Ridley: Skyrim/The Witcher 3 mods

I've never upgraded for a specific game per se but I accept pursued an upgrade in guild to run Skyrim and The Witcher 3 with even more ludicrous mods installed. You lot have to dream big if you're aiming for high-res textures and 28 ginormous horses rendered on screen all at the same fourth dimension, and my ageing Radeon R9 390 and four-core CPU at the fourth dimension just wasn't going to cut it.

Alan Dexter: World of Warcraft

It's non the instance at present, but for many, many years my PC was kept bang up to date with the latest hardware for ane game: Earth of Warcraft. The latest graphics card? Check. Lashing of RAM? Damn correct. Stupid fast storage? Bank check. Big expensive screen? Got information technology. And bar a few games I'd have to install briefly for work, the merely constant through all of this was WoW. I had to have the prettiest boars to kill, otherwise it merely didn't work for me. What'southward that? Nvidia Ampere is going to be out in time for Shadowlands? Don't listen if I practise...

(Image credit: Square Enix Europe)

Tom Senior: Last Fantasy 7

Information technology was the dawn of the 3D era, and my computer couldn't handle it. Suddenly PC gamers had to purchase whole new chipsets—"graphics cards"—to slot inside our machines to render the fabled "polygons" that promised a new age for gaming. The large game that I couldn't play was Final Fantasy 7. The second pre-rendered backgrounds were fine, merely one time I entered a 3D boxing the world became a slideshow. The characters looked okay, merely anything resembling a texture looked weird and wrong—likewise dark, or distorted. I never fabricated it to the 3D world map, but I retrieve my computer would probably accept melted.

My saviour arrived in the class of the archetype Voodoo two graphics card. This affair had a core clock of 90Hz and eight cute megabytes of onboard retention.

After a fraught setup and much driver wrangling, FF7 suddenly ran similar a dream. I played it for a hundred hours and it became one of my favourite games ever.

Wes Fenlon: Emulationnnnn

In late 2010 I was running on an outdated Cadre 2 Duo and an as outdated graphics carte, and a friend offered me an exciting GPU upgrade: a GTX 260 Core 216. Now this card was already outdated, simply it was a lot better than what I already had, and on a hand-me-downwards upkeep. But when I went to install it, I discovered a problem: my power supply didn't accept the necessary power cables to run information technology. Later on a trip to Fry's and a new case and PSU, I was upward and running, but that halfway upgrade got me itching for something more substantial. And so in 2011 I spent existent money to buy the brand new i5-2500K, a Cooler Main Hyper 212 EVO, and a 128GB SSD kick bulldoze, a PC that lasted me a adept v years (with more GPU upgrades along the mode, of course).

A big driving force for me upgrading at the time was the emulator Dolphin, and the idea of existence able to run Wii and GameCube games at a sparkling 1080p resolution instead of the fuzzy 480p they ran on the original hardware. I overclocked the 2500K every bit high as I reasonably could at the time. Hitting 4GHz was exciting, because in the early days of the emulator raw speed and single cadre performance made a big deviation. When I built my new 2500K machine I also bought a specific model of LG DVD drive that could read GameCube and Wii discs, and I ripped my entire collection to ISO images. I yet have those disc images on my HDD (and that bulldoze in the cupboard somewhere).

Andy Chalk: All of them

I don't retrieve all the specifics also as I wish I could, but this is basically the merely reason I've always purchased, congenital, or upgraded a PC. I splurged for an 80286 instead of the cheaper 8088 for my first PC and then I could become a improve Microprose sim experience. I bought a 386—a Fujikama, I think—to play Doom. I bought a DX4/100 for something specific too, maybe Quake? Afterward that information technology gets even hazier, because I was opting for private upgrades more often that whole builds: A Voodoo 2 for Convulse 2, a TNT bill of fare for Return to Castle Wolfenstein, I call up I ditched my Adlib carte for a Soundblaster sixteen for TIE Fighter. Man, that thing sounded sweetness. Those were the days.

Chris Livingston: I don't think I've ever upgraded for simply i specific PC game, only I've definitely bought a few consoles just to play one particular game. I bought an NES simply so I could play The Legend of Zelda, I bought an N64 to play Zelda 64, and I bought a Xbox 360 just so I could play Red Dead Redemption. They were all worth it. I've held off since and then, but I'm sure it's just a thing of fourth dimension earlier I'1000 wooed into buying a Switch or a PS4 but to play something I can't go on PC.

From our Forums

(Image credit: CD Projekt Cherry)

Drunkpunk: The offset PC I ever congenital was to play Star Wars: Galaxies back when it outset came out. I had been a PC gamer earlier that, only hadn't had i in a few years and never built one myself. I bought some cheap parts from a friend, but they weren't compatible and so I got to learn a bit of what worked with what and purchased some replacement parts. I've been building my own PCs always since.

RIP SWG, you were a game alee of your time.

Zloth: Nope, never did that. I'll commencement having to turn down settings in games, interesting hardware will come up out, sometimes fifty-fifty a new Os will put on pressure level. Eventually, I'll finally take the time to read up on the latest hardware and buy a fresh, new PC. (Then I'll more than-or-less ignore hardware once again until the adjacent cycle starts.)

Mazer: I once had to make a major upgrade to my PC in social club to play an entire generation of games. I was one of the 7 people stupid enough to buy a Geforce4 MX 460, a very mid range graphics carte du jour that was completely absent whatsoever texture or pixel shading tech which started becoming part of basically every game from Popular: Sands of Fourth dimension onwards. I was and so irrationally pissed that I got my next ii GPUs from AMD instead out of spite.

I also only left Windows XP for Windows 7 in order to play Only Crusade 2 which needed DX10 to function.

Krud: I had never washed that until Cyberpunk 2077 was looming (at the time I thought it might come out in 2018/2019, but conspicuously I was style off). And while technically I didn't build information technology JUST to play that, it was a key motivating factor.

Since then information technology has fallen behind the curve a bit, so I upgraded the video carte du jour and got a better SSD, fingers crossed that this will exist sufficient. It was proficient enough for RDR2, at least. (I didn't pull the trigger on a more expensive ray-tracing card even though CP2077 is said to support that at the showtime. That could be something I'll experience the second playthrough, maybe.)

And yes, I realize it'southward a scrap foolish to prep for a game that nobody knows the ideal specs for, but I have to brand purchases when the funds are there. ("Why not concord onto those funds until you lot know?" Good question, hypothetical person. Two reasons: one, I all the same needed/wanted a new PC anyhow, and Cyberpunk 2077 being on the horizon was a convincing argument to both myself and my married woman. And ii, held funds in my feel have a addiction of being diverted to other things that come up in the meantime.)

Hey folks, love mascot Coconut Monkey here representing the collective PC Gamer editorial team, who worked together to write this article! PC Gamer is the global authority on PC games—starting in 1993 with the magazine, and then in 2010 with this website you're currently reading. We have writers across the US, UK and Australia, who you tin can read about here.

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Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/did-you-ever-upgrade-build-or-buy-a-pc-just-so-you-could-play-one-particular-game/

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