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Pro Tips for PC Gaming (like a Pro)

J

jim-jam bongs

Member
An Urgent Plea From Jimmy Wales

definitely-jimmy-wales.jpg


Hello, I'm Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. We all know that the best thing about the internet is trolling. You should see how many alt accounts I have on Wiki. However my good friend jim-jam has asked me to appeal to you, dear reader, to keep it out of this thread as much as possible.

If you find yourself about to post something along the lines of "console gaming is for retards", or conversely "PC gaming is for nerds and virgins" then know that you are about to drive a hot needle through my gentle heart, and ask yourself if it's really constructive.

---

Thanks Jim. And now on to the info.

Contents

Graphics - Overclocking and Tweaking

Nvidia Inspector Tweaking Guide

Controls and Peripherals

List of PC Games with 360 Controller Support
Convert any controller to a 360 pad
Using a Deal Extreme generic 360 adapter
How to use a Magic Trackpad in Windows without Bootcamp

Emulation

PCSX2 (PS2)
Dolphin (Gamecube/Wii)

Mods

Oblivion mods mega-thread
Fallout 3 and New Vegas
GTAIV iCEnhancer
Crysis
Street Fighter IV

Miscellaneous

Instant cloud saving via Game Save Manager and Dropbox

PC GAF After Dark

Who has the worst specs/Look at my sweet specs
2011 High resolution PC screenshot thread
NeoGAF Steam IDs

---

If you have a thread or a post that you would like added to this list, send me a PM or post it here and I'll try to keep the OP as up to date as time allows.
 
iNvid02

iNvid02

Member
if you wanna use a pad but a game doesn't support it (mostly older games, but newer stuff like mass effect 2 doesn't either) then use something called pinnacle game profiler.

it is expensive at $20 but it auto updates and includes preset profiles for a ton of games. and if they dont have a profile, chances are somebody on their forums made one already.

there are other options like xpadder and joy2key but they are not as user friendly and lack the updates and presets pgp has.
 
R

Rickenslacker

Banned
iNvidious01 said:
if you wanna use a pad but a game doesn't support it (mostly older games, but newer stuff like mass effect 2 doesn't either) then use something called pinnacle game profiler.

it is expensive at $20 but it auto updates and includes preset profiles for a ton of games. and if they dont have a profile, chances are somebody on their forums made one already.
Click to expand...
And if you're looking for free and don't mind making your own configurations then JoyToKey is a good substitute .
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
Download both Ventrilo and Mumble. You get HD quality voice chat. When you make friends, that's where they hang out.
 
J

jim-jam bongs

Member
Good stuff so far. As a companion to Nabs' post about Radeon Pro, I recommend Nvidia Inspector for people on the Geforce side of the fence.

One important thing about Nvidia Inspector: when you open the application it's not immediately apparent where you need to go to adjust settings per game, so if you're having trouble it's just here:

nvidia-inspector.png
 
S

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
ps3padxm52.png


I find myself recommending MotionInJoy [Free Download] very often on these boards since many posters don't seem to realize that their PS3 pad can be used in place of a 360 pad in any game with native support. It'll save you a good $40 or so if you don't own already own a 360 pad. It's also worth noting that you can fully remap the buttons using the program, so you'll never be stuck with using the mushy triggers for aim/shoot.

It's fairly easy to install, all you need is your pad, it's USB cable, and a functioning brain. It also can be used wirelessly if you have a blue tooth dongle.

Step-by-step tutorial videos!
 
C

commissar

Member
I would advise getting a mouse where you can tweak sensitivity on the fly (holding a button and scrolling up or down to change)

The less back and forth fiddling with menus the better :)
 
Z

Zaphod

Member
FRAPS is a great tool to display the FPS in any game being played. This is good information for tweaking the graphics settings in games. It also takes screenshots and movies.
 
I

Ivan A Nguyen

Member
Zaphod said:
FRAPS Is a great tool to display the FPS in any game being played. This is great information for tweaking the graphics settings in games. It also takes screenshots and movies.
Click to expand...
Isn't this in Steam now? I thought there was a way to shoot video in steam.
 
S

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
Anslon said:
Isn't this in Steam now? I thought there was a way to shoot video in steam.
Click to expand...

Steam shots are compressed. Fraps shots aren't so it's still the best choice for PC screenshots.

edit - fuckin A, man
 
Z

Zaphod

Member
Anslon said:
Isn't this in Steam now? I thought there was a way to shoot video in steam.
Click to expand...

The screenshot thing was just added to steam. Since I just used FRAPS for the FPS I didn't even know it had the video thing in it until I watched the GTIV mod video the other day.
 
B

BobsRevenge

I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Hamachi

This beast sets up virtual private networks like it isn't a thing. Set up a network and have your buddies join and bam. You're playing any multiplayer game you want. LAN over the internet.

It is also helpful to couple with Mumble/Murmur to set up private servers for free.

Essential software.

edit: btw, the Jimmy Wales angle is goddamn hilarious and I love it. Fucker convinced me to donate $25 one night when I was trashed.
 
N

Narag

Member
jim-jam bongs said:
Screenshots only at this stage, and they're horribly compressed JPEGs. Fraps is still the king.
Click to expand...

I felt so foolish that I didn't realize the compression issues until I'd uploaded like 200 screenshots. Oh well, live and learn.
 
A

adam.chance

Neo Member
Thanks, to everyone contributing. I am the target audience of this thread and I am looking forward to what other tools or tips I should be aware of.
 
G

gdt

Member
D3Doverrider eliminates screen tearing. It's like a dream. Have had issues with a game or two though. Just disable it for those.
 
J

jim-jam bongs

Member
Narag said:
I felt so foolish that I didn't realize the compression issues until I'd uploaded like 200 screenshots. Oh well, live and learn.
Click to expand...
Steam is still a great fallback solution if you don't have Fraps around, but yeah I was a little crushed when I saw all those artifacts. They really need to give you the option to capture uncompressed images and only compress them if you upload them to your cloud storage. We get the high quality captures and they don't have to worry about the bandwidth needed to host 3mb+ images, everyone's a winner.
 
C

ctrayne

Member
jim-jam bongs said:
An Urgent Plea From Jimmy Wales
Click to expand...
:)

Small, obvious contribution: use D3DOverrider. It comes with RivaTuner, but you can just copy the D3DO folder and delete RT if you don't want to use it. D3DO is a must-have and one of the first things I install on a new PC. Use it to force Triple Buffering and V-Sync, then turn off V-Sync inside the game you are playing. Almost without fail it will be better and faster than the game's version.

Other must-haves for me include CCleaner and Intel's SSD tools if you have an SSD.

EDIT: Was beaten on D3D. Ah well.
 
G

gdt

Member
GavinGT said:
Friends don't let friends use ATI/AMD video drivers.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I learned that with The Witcher 2. First driver out the gate killed my performance. Had to System Restore to get my FPS back.
 
I

I NEED SCISSORS

Banned
Nabs said:
radeoniyfr.jpg

http://www.radeonpro.info/en-US/

It's a great tool to manage your ATI graphics settings on a per-game basis. Don't bother with CCC again.
Click to expand...

Adding to this - it's ideal for old games because you can use it to manually disable cores. Some games don't run too well with more than one core (FEAR, Splinter Cell).

You also don't have to use D3DOverrider because it can do triple buffering for you, or FRAPS because it can take screenshots and show framerates.

It's the ultimate all in one.
 
U

Uriah

Member
Turn off mouse acceleration. It is on by default in windows. In order to fully turn it off, you have to edit the registry.
 
S

SneakyStephan

Banned
Turn off mouse smoothing in windows control panel and you will embrace the mouse/keyboard combination much faster.

It's on by default in win7 for some bizarro reason.
control panel -> hardware and sound -> mouse (under devices and printers) -> pointer options (or whatever the middle tab is called in english) -> tick off the option to 'improve precision'

Make sure to turn this option off (and any mouse acceleration option) in the software of your mouse if you have one that comes with it's own drivers (logitech setpoint or the razer mice for example).

Also turn it off (and any acceleration/vsync option) in the options menus of all your games.

I can't stress the importance of these steps enough, the difference is enormous (1:1 feel for your mouse movements vs laggy loose feeling).

edit damnit uriah!
Oh well, it deserves to be said twice for stress, and mine's more elaborate.
double edit: damnit forgot about the reg edit.
 
K

kamspy

Member
L

Ledsen

Member
So I tried that "cloud save" thing on my Baldur's Gate 2 save directory. What happened was it deleted all my saves and put a "save" folder in my dropbox that contained two empty folders with the same names as two of my save games. Great. Luckily I keep a backup.

EDIT WAIT HOLY FUCK I DON'T HAVE A BACKUP OF THAT FOLDER WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK

Edit2 ok I had a very recent system restore point, crisis averted!
 
J

jim-jam bongs

Member
Ledsen said:
So I tried that "cloud save" thing on my Baldur's Gate 2 save directory. What happened was it deleted all my saves and put a "save" folder in my dropbox that contained two empty folders with the same names as two of my save games. Great. Luckily I keep a backup.
Click to expand...

:O

Ouch, sorry mate. I've not had that experience personally, but I'll add a note to the OP about making a backup of your stuff just in case.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
I'm subscribing to this.

Anyone know of a good solution to somehow standardize mouse settings in games? I have a G5 mouse, and I am currently using the logitech mouse software and the gaming sofware for my g13 keyboard, where oddly enough the mouse isn't supported in the gaming software.

I started playing Mass Effect 2 for the first time and my mouse was super sensitive even setting it to LOW in Mass Effect 2's menu. I had to go into the mouse settings and turn the Top of the 3 mouse speeds on my mouse to the normal speed I like on my desktop, and then when in Mass Effect 2 I set it lower. Is there a better way to go through this?
 
Y

Yasae

Banned
jim-jam bongs said:
Good stuff so far. As a companion to Nabs' post about Radeon Pro, I recommend Nvidia Inspector for people on the Geforce side of the fence.

One important thing about Nvidia Inspector: when you open the application it's not immediately apparent where you need to go to adjust settings per game, so if you're having trouble it's just here:

nvidia-inspector.png
Click to expand...
I also found out that you have to run it as admin to get the compatibility frame. Very important when forcing AA on certain games (Dead Space, Mass Effect 2 etc.)
 
L

larvi

Member
Any tips for making non ideal resolutions (i.e. other than 1920x1080) on my 24" Dell LCD monitor not look like ass? My eyes aren't good enough to see text a lot of times at the highest resolution, for my general Windows use I can increase the font size but that doesn't work for games. I keep going back over to one of my XP PCs with a 21" CRT where I can set the resolution to whatever I want and it still looks good to play a lot of my games.
 
L

Ledsen

Member
iNvidious01 said:
doesn't system restore only bring back system files and not your data?
Click to expand...
It's true... My 30+ hour bg2 save... It's gone :(

EDIT WAIT NO I KEPT À SEPARATE BACKUP IN ANOTHER FOLDER THANK YOU BASED FORESIGHT
 
N

NIN90

Member
jim-jam bongs said:
Then it's simply a matter of finding the save folder for the game, and selecting the sync option:
Click to expand...

Haha, good one!

-----

Get X-Mouse if you want to bind Mouse 4 and 5 in games that don't support them.
 
iNvid02

iNvid02

Member
NIN90 said:
Haha, good one!
Click to expand...

c/users/localdisk/documents/appdata/roaming/porn/user/user/local/game/pc/bin/savedata

is it so hard just to put all save data in my documents
and while im on it, fuck you chrome. installing yourself in some hidden folder in appdata somewhere, whats wrong with program files, everyone else uses it
 
J

jim-jam bongs

Member
Ledsen said:
It's true... My 30+ hour bg2 save... It's gone :(

EDIT WAIT NO I KEPT À SEPARATE BACKUP IN ANOTHER FOLDER THANK YOU BASED FORESIGHT
Click to expand...

lol good news man, you get to keep the wise label after all :D

iNvidious01 said:
c/users/localdisk/documents/appdata/roaming/porn/user/user/local/game/pc/bin/savedata
Click to expand...

See? It's so easy ;)

iNvidious01 said:
is it so hard just to put all save data in my documents
Click to expand...

And a vote for this, I like the My Games thing in Windows 7 which at least a few games have started using.
 
A

Arklite

Member
RivaTuner has been mentioned a few times and, since this wasn't obvious to me, I'll add that it can also be used to view graphics card temperatures within a game. Useful if you're having heat problems with a new card and/or making tweaks.
 
F

Foliorum Viridum

Banned
Arklite said:
RivaTuner has been mentioned a few times and, since this wasn't obvious to me, I'll add that it can also be used to view graphics card temperatures within a game. Useful if you're having heat problems with a new card and/or making tweaks.
Click to expand...
MSI Afterburner is good for this too.

It's what I use to stop my 6950 melting itself. I always bump the fan speed up when playing a demanding game.
 
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