Building a gaming PC

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

As a gaming platform, viable for players and developers? Not really. It never was and it never will be.

And you are wrong on both accounts. Not only it's viable, it will continue being such. The simple fact of Linux games disproves your claim. I'm not sure what it even means. That developers who release for Linux are stupid and can't figure out it's not viable for them? Clearly, they don't agree with you and are using the market.

 

[doktor_fleck]

And you are wrong on both accounts. Not only it's viable, it will continue being such. The simple fact of Linux games disproves your claim. I'm not sure what it even means. That developers who release for Linux are stupid and can't figure out it's not viable for them? I don't think so.

Yes, the 2% of Linux gamers - the percentage which hasn't changed since forever. It's like saying that Win XP is an amazing system because people are still using it. In other words: because something exists it still does not mean that it's viable / efficient / good. Because Linux as a gaming platform isn't.

 

[sinister.sinner]

Yes, the 2% of Linux gamers - the percentage which hasn't changed since forever. It's like saying that Win XP is an amazing system because people are still using it. In other words: because something exists it still does not mean that it's viable / efficient / good. Because Linux as a gaming platform isn't.

2% sounds rather much. Is it even that high a number?

 

[doktor_fleck]

2% sounds rather much. Is it even that high a number?

It's a Steam number. The platform which at least tries to support Linux gaming. So overall it's probably much less.

 

[sinister.sinner]

It's a Steam number. The platform which at least tries to support Linux gaming. So overall it's probably much less.

Oh, right. Makes sense.

 

[eskiMoe]

Here are the entire stats from Steam hardware survey.

Also I guess MS announcing the extended support for W7 explains those drastic changes between 10 & 7 user bases.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Yes, the 2% of Linux gamers - the percentage which hasn't changed since forever. It's like saying that Win XP is an amazing system because people are still using it. In other words: because something exists it still does not mean that it's viable / efficient / good. Because Linux as a gaming platform isn't.

Didn't I explain to you the difference between percentages and size of the market which is defined by total number of users? So waving around percentages means nothing, for the estimation of market viability. What matters is number of users. If you so like using Steam survey as the source (hint, it shouldn't be used for market size analysis), then you can observe constant growth of number of Linux gamers (who take Steam survey). Ergo Linux gaming market is growing even according to the sources you are using.

Unsurprisingly, it can explain why there is enough user base for growing number of developers who are making Linux games today. The trick of the smaller market is the total cap. I.e. if there are too many games made for a given audience, profits start shrinking, due to "I have a big backlog already, why should I buy game XYZ as well?". It can even affect huge markets like Windows, but smaller ones are affected more.

So, the rate of growth of number of games produced, shouldn't outpace the growth of number of users, this way, it stays viable. Paradox (who are publishers) mentioned this point when they spoke about Linux support.

 

[doktor_fleck]

Ah, then I was too generous with "2%" then. I just cannot wait when all the biggest gaming industry giants just drop everything and start developing games for Linux. Any time now!

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Ah, then I was too generous with "2%" then.

The opposite, too conservative. Successful games with Linux releases show higher percentages of Linux usage than that. On the other hand, flops can have numbers all over the place due to low number of total sales to begin with. Either way - Steam survey is not a good indicator of potential percentage of sales / downloads per OS, because a lot of parameters go into that, which survey doesn't address at all.

And you seem to have hard time differentiating between percentages and absolute values, yet you are trying to argue here about what makes market viable (or not).

 

[eskiMoe]

If you're already developing on Playstation, Xbox & Windows (and maybe Switch too), those figures are still way too low for most devs (or publishers) to stretch their limited resources on Linux. Linux will still probably remain a platform where more PC focused devs can make an extra buck or two. But that's about it.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

If you're already developing on Playstation, Xbox & Windows (and maybe Switch too), those figures are still way too low for most devs (or publishers) to stretch their limited resources on Linux.

I already answered above, they aren't low. And a growing number of developers do it fine, especially when many engines today are cross platform and do a lot of heavy lifting for them, to abstract differences between OS targets. So let me repeat it again. This isn't about "we have no resources" , it's about "we want to focus on the big market because we think we'll get higher return from it". Luckily not everyone is using this logic to exclude users. But the likes of EA of course do, they simply can't understand anything else.

Note, all that is before things like Stadia are even in the picture. Once they are, your point about stretching resources becomes irrelevant completely, since they are already doing all the Linux development for it.

 

[attibozs]

Looking to build my first pc, I'm pretty set on the following configuration:
MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX (Either this or The ROG STRIX B450 WIFI)
Ryzen 5 3600X (Sadly the non X version is out of stock in the store I'm going to buy from)
Sapphire RX5700 Pulse
Kingston 2X8 GB 3200 Mhz Hyperx Xmp
FSP 650W Hydro G
Western Digital 500GB Blue SSD+Toshiba 1TB HDD
Deepcool Tesseract SW

I have an old AOC 1080p 60 HZ Monitor, may upgrade in the future, but i'm not keen on it as long as it works just fine. Is this a solid build? I'm not sure about the PSU, and the motherboard. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[doktor_fleck]

If you are not planning to store huge amounts of archive data (like photos, music) then I would suggest to drop the SSD+HDD combo and go with single 1TB SSD instead.

 

[eskiMoe]

I already answered above, they aren't low. And a growing number of developers do it fine, especially when many engines today are cross platform and do a lot of heavy lifting for them, to abstract differences between OS targets. So let me repeat it again. This isn't about "we have no resources" , it's about "we want to focus on the big market because we think we'll get higher return from it". Luckily not everyone is using this logic to exclude users. But the likes of EA of course do, they simply can't understand anything else.

Note, all that is before things like Stadia are even in the picture. Once they are, your point about stretching resources becomes irrelevant completely, since they are already doing all the Linux development for it.

Can you list these developers? Or at least name a few most notable ones? Because if you can't get big companies like EA, Ubisoft, Capcom, Namco& Bethesda on board, Linux will never become a viable gaming platform for the majority of people.

 

[Triffid77]

Looking to build my first pc, I'm pretty set on the following configuration:
MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX (Either this or The ROG STRIX B450 WIFI)
Ryzen 5 3600X (Sadly the non X version is out of stock in the store I'm going to buy from)
Sapphire RX5700 Pulse
Kingston 2X8 GB 3200 Mhz Hyperx Xmp
FSP 650W Hydro G
Western Digital 500GB Blue SSD+Toshiba 1TB HDD
Deepcool Tesseract SW

I have an old AOC 1080p 60 HZ Monitor, may upgrade in the future, but i'm not keen on it as long as it works just fine. Is this a solid build? I'm not sure about the PSU, and the motherboard. Any advice would be appreciated.

How much you paying for the PSU? Its not a bad PSU but around $100 id suggest a Seasonic Focus instead. More $, a Seasonic Prime. (Focus is good enough, if you have more $ put it elsewhere)

Echo what Dockter Fleck said above. Ditch the hybrid drive and get a 1tb SSD. If you need mass media storage, also get a HDD.
O/S and software on SSDs, media storage on HDDs. 500gb fills up way too fast. If you fill up your 1tb (liking to have quite a few games installed), chuck another 1 or 2tb SSD in the system. It doesnt have to be NVME

Mobo, get the features you need. Dont need to spend crazy bucks.
Check out Newegg, B&H photo and other online retailers. If youre not aware, www.pcpartpicker.com is a decent pricecrawler.

Its a decent system. Assuming one has decent cpu, by far the most impact is the monitor and the GPU to drive it.
Why i recommend non-curved 32" 1440p 16:9 monitors. Even for your grandma running a recipe spreadsheet. 21:9 too narrow, also hefty price premium and requires more GPU power to run. 3440x1440 (21:9) VS 2560 x 1440 (16:9).

32" 16:9 will blow your socks off coming from a minuscule 24". They start at $219 for a 75hz AOC model at best buy.
Id also get a used 1080ti from ebay for around the same price as a 5700. Waaaay better.

 

[metalmaniac21]

Id also get a used 1080ti from ebay for around the same price as a 5700 5700 XT. Waaaay better

No. Today, used 1080 ti in newer titles crawls back to performance level of new 5700 XT. And in older titles, framerate exceeds 48-75hz freesync limit anyway. While costing well above 400$, up to and beyond 500$ in fact, on ebay. You know what also costs around 460-500$? RTX 2070 Super.

This 1080 ti meme should be put to rest already.

 

[doktor_fleck]

Yeah, I plan to replace my GTX 1070Ti with RTX 2070 Super next month. From my budget perspective it's the best compromise between cost and performance. I just hope that my CPU won't bottleneck it too much.

 

[metalmaniac21]

I just hope that my CPU won't bottleneck it too much.

What is your CPU?

 

[doktor_fleck]

What is your CPU?

It's i5-6600K

 

[metalmaniac21]

It's i5-6600K

Ouch. It will, in fact it bottlenecks 1070 Ti right now as you read this message. You have to find a way to fit i7 9700(k)f or i7 8700(k) into your existing motherboard (it's possible). RTX gpus are huge suckers for multithreaded cpus with DXR enabled.