Uhhh but the ps3, wii and 360 are retro, remember the ps4/xbox one launched 10 years ago, gen 7th launched at least 15 years ago. Doesn’t matter if the games are somewhat the same since then
I mean that's just not correct tbh. Modern games don't look any better if not worse. I won't name specific ones as people will always get upset. But generally modern games in max settings 4k look pretty bad compared to older ones.
Aight, to be fair, early 360 games had a bad habit of chasing realism (despite having a poor grasp of the hardware still) and putting brown 'n' bloom over eveything. The result was pretty potato-y
God, I want to buy that game but I know for a fact I have multiple games sitting in my backlog that I also bought on this impulse and haven't finished yet. I'll have to wait till it's on sale lol.
@@SumRndmPenguin i usually pirate games nowadays because they are bad, i did the same but i was like "ok this is awesome they deserve my money" and just bought it full price I dont remember the last time I enjoyed a game this much, its great, i recommend it
@@denikecfor real, I usually quit games after an hour of playing it and not looking back. But BG3 made me unable to stop playing for almost 20 hours now.
@@SumRndmPenguinMaybe it’s a good idea to wait until they release definitive edition then. The game is awesome but unfortunately they cut quite a lot of content from act 3 right before release which screwed up some questlines. It was similar with their previous game and they normally add this content back a year or so after release.
Shadow of War, the sequel to Shadow of Mordor is also surprisingly scalable and a big improvement to the original game. I played it at 30 fps with a measly R7 250 2GB GPU.
you know that games below 2017 is playable on Intel HD Graphic targeting 30fps 1080p... and those old games looks better on LOW rather than 2022's LOW. Low setting (except competitive games) in nowadays gaming is just pure nausea. It forces us to buy a 'budget' GPU, while keep bullshitting us via upscalling and next gen exclusive feature. AAA gaming is just pointless now, they keep crunching workers and give us useless feature such as genital customization... Indie is the only way to get some fun without caveats.
@@spiderjerusalem8505 personally I would rather they put their budget onto something more tangible when playing the game... I mean, genital spec won't even add any immersion whatsoever, and that customization costs time and money. Trends like: Bigger Open World, Cutting Edge Path Tracing, Ultra Detail House in a racing game (Forza), Game Filter (TLoU), custom penis (CP2077 and now BG3) doesn't really add immersion or fun aspect of a game. The dev literally put working hours on these stuff rather than polishing the game. And we rant again because there are bugs and glitches that needed Day One Patch...
@@nickochioneantony9288 honestly, i think the only way for gaming to "become great again" is game decompilers becoming a popular thing. Just imagine exposing all of the game's code, allowing you FULL freedom for content creation/alteration/removal. Fuck it, let the industry die. (I'm not taking fetish/discord weirdos into account, otherwise this utopia i just wrote falls apart in nanoseconds LMAO)
Shaders were far less complex, but there was something nice about the aesthetics of the way those games looked. They were very dependent on the artists' ability to hand paint a really nice diffuse map.
*Now this is my kind of content seeing what budget hardware can do throughout the years seeing as many older games are quite better in most aspects compared to todays games hell i built my pc for the specific reason of playing older games at a bajillion fps while being able to enjoy 60fps newer games*
cloudpunk is something that's certainly caught my eye before but i'm honestly a bit suprised to not see a Deus ex game as the alternative for cyberpunk the 2013 directors cut of human revolution honestly feels like the perfect fit for this sort of video
I considered Deus Ex, but Mankind Divided would have been a bit heavy for this system - plus, I wanted an excuse to play Cloudpunk. It’s a recent indie title, too, which illustrates that modern gaming isn’t COMPLETELY broken.
So cheap in sales too and so well done that I who hates stealth games love the stealth mechanics in Human Revolution. I played it on 360 when it came out and was effing superb. I really should get to dishonoured, I ignored it on 360 and I've been reliably informed that I'm the one who lost out. I have no excuses because Epic gave me a free copy of the definitive edition.
@@walberparker7111 Not in every way at all. They do different things right. I prefer the original, but while the reboots don't scratch the same itch, they're honestly some of the best RPGs to be made in the west in the last decade. Not that there's much competition.
it's funny, in all the testing I've done of games, the ones I enjoyed playing the most are always the simple lighter titles. It's like a focus on gameplay over graphics leads to better games. who would have thought 🤯
@@vlad54rus-a No, you need to manually change in ini settings in Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect\Config. It's a legacy bug, I found a post on reddit from 10 years ago that explain how to fix it.
@@moonknightish That ini tweak was only required to fix Garrus face. I've played this game several times and textures were always sharp as they should be.
Old but gold games are really always there and part of why I find myself hesitant to recommend Arc despite the price cuts. Still, it is nice that even when you have a potato PC there are tons and tons of games that are there that are still wonderful. What's even sadder is TLoU was seen as a terrible port but as the year goes on it might actually be one of the better ones...
This video is genuinely more useful for a lot of people than benchmarks on budget hardware which just can't get playable results for new games. Great job.
As old as i am, i could experience some historic milestones in gaming, starting with eg rtype on amiga, doom1, many snes games. Then black and white or spore for the kids, the settlers. Wonderful creative concepts. I started to play a lot again when bf4 came out. Got addicted. All these deserved the hardware requirements they brought with them. But since 10 years i noticed that the games degraded, priority to hardware hunger and power consumtion, less focus on creative new mechanics, often very badly optimised games that didnt look so much better. Very interesting, the recent overwhelming success of battlebit remastered shows the way: focus on properly working core mechanics and smooth performance on a wide variety of hardware seems to be more important then brutal and soulless increase of graphical fidelity. Think also of inclusion, poor ppl in poor countries who are excluded by stupid dumb AAA hardware requirements. At the end, playing doesnt mean you need the most expensivectoys!
I don't have the time for the next few years (that's what studying chemistry does to you) but if I do land a cuchy 9 to 5 at some point, I'll definitely play through the backlog of great PC games.
The low texture quality of Mass effect is just a loading bug. Crank everything to max, go into game, leave game (idk if savegame is mandatory) and start game fresh (maybe even the pc - for a good measure). The textures of the og masseffect are not THAT bad.
This is what it all about. Marketing has everyone chasing comical frame rates in new games that are objectively bad. Meanwhile, the amount of older games that will run on a shoebox is massive. BG3 is about the only good thing we’ve seen in the gaming space recently, it might even be a "game changer".
Modern games on PC these days are having either higher minimum system requirements (such as 10 GB VRAM & above + hundreds GB just to store 1 game), predatory microtransactions, always online even with single player or simply for the sake of pushing 'THE MESSAGE'. Give us games that are low-end graphics card friendly & good gameplay or else, going the emulation route.
You had me at the title. Modern gaming *is* rubbish. I literally play nothing newer than 2015 as of late. Emulation is the staple of my gaming experiences. I picked up a similar system with a 2640v3 and 32GB RAM, but I did manage to slap a cheap RTX 2060 that I managed to snag for £120 on ebay. Solid for some cheap gaming
I agree with the sentiment. I usually wait for a game to go on sale, at least half off. The only exceptions in the last decade or so are games that release under $25ish and Balders Gate 3. That last is what really good games used to be and then some.
While the games are good, there's also the literal classics i want to recommend. 1. Vampire the masquerade:bloodlines 2. The homeworld series, especially emergence/cataclysm(there's a remake of both 1 & 2, very optimized) 3. Total War: Shogun 2, Rome 1 and medieval 2 4. Fallout New Vegas 5. Alien Isolation 6. Saints Row (not the remake) 7. Both Thief 1 and 2 8. F. E. A. R. 9. The Stalker series 10. NFS Most Wanted All complete, great games that any pc after 2015 can run
I picked up a HP Z240 for some budget PC content too. It has very similar specs to this machine, exact same RAM and GPU config. Nice to see what older machines like this can do when playing older games!
I have a question for you, Mr. Iceberg. 😊 While I'm sure the polycount is much lower in Dishonored than new games, I want to know how you can tell it is "low-poly". I don't even see the polygons, or if I do, it's just barely. How do you see the polygons? Where? I thought low-poly meant visible polygons as part of the design, or just PS1/N64-tier, and I'm a game developer. I just see 3D graphics.
wow, I remember talking to you in a random comment section waiting to break 1K! Congratulations on your hard work getting you up and over! I always wanted to build my own pc, but I was intimidated. Still am.
15:53 - a another great suggestion would be the original Deus Ex, as that was the inspiration for Cyberpunk. It also still has a active multiplayer community.
was the snark when referencing people who want to avoid hogwarts legacy really necessary? the whole "all companies who make games have bad track records" doesn't even make sense in this context given that the reason people want to avoid HWL is based on one person and the amount of damage and power she herself can wield? and how she has repeatedly used her success and wealth from Harry Potter to justify herself and her disgusting views?
Did you say 165gb on Star Wars holy hell Fallen Order was great been holding off for the new one as well but love the look back and exactly a good excuse to tackle the backlog
Gaming is one thing where you can easily pay the last 90% of the money for the last 10% of the value. It's often surprising how good games look on low, and how little hardware you need to achieve it.
I think Deus Ex: Human Revolution would've been a better alternative to Cyberpunk 2077. Also, I love Dishonored but Prey (2017) is objectively Arkane's true crowning achievement
Still waiting for the bottleneck test with a 2011 i3 and an AMD 7900xtx. Thanks for the previous bottleneck tests. They were great. Basically, the question is.... What is the slowest CPU that makes sense for a 7900XTX so that I dont have to upgrade from that slow assed cpu that I may have, knowing that buying a slower Nvidia will force me to buy a 7800x3d..... I dont want to be forced by my GPU.
This video legitimately makes me consider selling my 4090. Completely forgot how great and complete the games on the list are compared to the drivel that releases nowadays
What I sought upscaling options as a hope to prolong my GPU from being obsolete, now became as a scapegoat for lazy optimization making my GPU more obsolete.
I just bought a slightly newer P520 with a Xeon 2135, no gpu, for $159. Added a 2TB nvme ssd for $39 (insane deal) and a GTX 1080 for $115. For $335 after sales tax, its cheapest and the most powerful PC Ive ever owned by far on both counts.
If anyone likes racing games, my recommendation would be to revisit Most Wanted 2005 and Carbon for pc. Then get mods to improve the graphics and car selection. If you search youtube theres an overhaul mod with a lot of options. If you want to go even further those two games support racing wheels and pedals for a greater experience. Carbon even has input settings for the individual gears.
Count me in. All I play now are retro games. In theory my two systems 5800X3D+RTX3080 and i5-11400+RX6700XT should be able to play most stuff. In reality it isn't worth the effort of tuning the settings so that 1440p/4K isn't a stuttering mess with this years AAA titles.
I think I've mentioned it here and there in comments across a few videos, but this seems about as relevant as it can get. My 2013 Dell Precision laptop/mobile workstation is fairly similar to this Lenovo; sporting a i7-3720QM (4c/8t @ 3.6Ghz single core/3.4Ghz all-core - 6MB L3 cache), 16GB (4GB x 4) 1600Mhz CL9 RAM, Quadro K4000M 4GB (unlocked vBIOS & OC'ed +250 core/+300 mem - same silicon & similar performance to a GTX 675MX...or the DDR5 GT 1030 desktop GPU) & a 512GB SATA SSD boot drive (Win 10 Pro). I used it for ages, and it's certainly held up better than most people would assume. Once upon a time I used it to play the original Dead Space trilogy, Fallout 3 & NV, as well as a lot of titles from the PS3/360 era @ 1080p/60fps. But most games newer than 2015 typically need to be played at 900p or 720p to have a decent framerate. For example, Black Ops 3 will run at 900p/med and hover between 45-50fps if I lock the framerate. Otherwise it'll climb above 60fps, albeit with noticeably bad lows (probably somewhere in the sub-20fps range). I have since put together a respectable desktop with an R5 5600 + 3060ti, and have a "newer" gaming laptop with an i5-7300HQ + 1050ti (primarily used for older games/light emulation when I'm away from home) so the Precision is now exclusively used for Roblox + Minecraft by my oldest son. Luckily those two aren't much trouble for it (even at 1080p), but I am still looking for some second hand parts to build him a full fledged desktop that will perform a lot better.
I'm playing on a GTX 680 paired with i7 2600K (slightly overclocked), and anything under Direct X 12 -based games, runs great on 1080p. Surprised how well it goes! Plenty of performance.
The extra ROPS on the K4000 would have to be helping it in some games. Skyrim probably being an example (haven't had a PC built around my 650ti since the GTX 970 came out, but I did play it at 1080p high with ENB and my card had a 1033MHz core clock). 86GB/sec memory bandwidth increased to 134GB/sec is a substantial improvement.
I know just about everyone has probably played it already, but just in case, remember that GTA V / GTA Online released on PC in 2015, being based on a game from 2013, and it can run on almost anything that isn’t integrated Intel UHD graphics. The GTA V story still holds up today and is an absolute gem, and despite its many issues, GTA Online can be a very engaging experience that’s hard to stop playing once you start.
You can also emulate old games that never had a PC release or was a console exclusive with the respective emulator. But like he said with Zelda BoTW, it can be performance heavy, now its recommended between all emulators to have a 6 core processor but 4 core works aswell and is what i use paired with a 1050 2gb, yes 2gb card in 2023. I use RPCS3 and Xenia for PS3 and Xbox 360 emulation respectively but I don't know about the other emulators for PS2, OG Xbox, Nintendo, ect.
To an extent the best emulator overall the most legendary i feel is Dolphin, that's for Gamecube and Wii. Games look good and it's quite frugal for most games. There's only a handful games i can think of that can cause trouble on an older PC, that's the fur rendering in Starfox Adventures and the complete and utter hardware abuse that is Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2 and 3. It requires a little finesse setting it up on weak systems, ideally you'd have DX12 support, less ideally Vulkan, and you want async shader and the first launch can be a little iffy with insufficient hardware. But any last-decade processor and a 1050 is not what i'd call insufficient, it can do with a lot less. For PS2 there's only one choice, RPCS2. There's also Play! but it's somewhat unfinished. Also i feel you can't quite have enough CPU performance (both a good number of threads and IPC) for a handful games, MGS3 in particular, but for the most part it's OK. Xbox OG is still trouble as of last i looked. Xemu is the less broken of the two but needs a modern high-IPC CPU. Most older guest systems, anything non-3D, plus early 3D ones, you just throw Retroarch on there and you're good.
@SianaGearz Right now I don't have any games I want to emulate with the emulators you mention but ill keep them in mind. The processor I have is a i7-7700 so its good just wish it was a i7 8th gen as those is where Intel started to have 6 cores. But hey it could be worse I could be stuck with a dual core. Anyways thanks for the information
I loved this video! Really miss the videos of putting together used amazing price to performance gaming pcs. This one has a great twist of recommending similar classic or alternative games to latest AAA terribly buggy and optimized titles. Very much looking forward to what you select for the cpu and gpu upgrades for that machine. (Personally thinking a e5-1650v4 and rx 5700xt or gtx 1080 ti for the extra vram be some good choices.). Be cool to see also maybe some custom paint job and cabling of the current case (possibly add a window side panel and lighting). Excited for the next videos on it. Great content again and enjoy your down time!
I'm currently playing Bioshock 2, such a good game and the remaster still looks decently well. I primarily play indie games (take a look at Path of Achra or Against the Storm) or older games nowadays . It's really hard to get excited for buggy and hardware-hungry 60 € AAA-games. I also enjoyed Cloudpunk!
I like using the good old Dell Optiplex as a base unit, current version has an i7 4770K and GTX1060 6gb. £250 for the whole build including 250gb SSD. I remember being blown away by Elder Scrolls, a lot of my upgrades back in the day were to play that game better.
The old Assassins Creed games, Far Cry games and even COD games had really good storylines. Modern games are not innovating in storytelling and presentations (especially the ones produced by US companies). Skyrim had great story and even really meaningful side quests. Same goes for all other games from 2010 - 2015.
It’s true even my latest experiment card did not have thermal paste on the entire chip for corners were still shiney and it didn’t want to overclock due to that issue . The card you ask a asrock ARc A770 8gb NITro
The only issue Nvidia has is their god awful pricing. Drivers are fine on Nvidia cards. AMD needs to also quit being diet Nvidia and also up their software support
My brother, I have a laptop. I am facing a problem, and it is when I enter the game and start using the card, it reads 50 watts and the tires are 35, but after one minute, the use of the card drops to 30 watts and the tires settle at 20. I am confused about this problem, how can I solve it
I honestly think the jump between the graphics in the games shown and a lot of modern ones is noticeable but slim for the hardware people are packing today, exceptions maybe being Cyberpunk, FF7 Remake and Ratchett and Clank, maybe. Graphics accross sytems have had a very ps4 type looking vibe for about the last 10 years, despite PC processing going way up. I'm sure there are other examples of good looking games I've not thought of or know but titles provided by other uses will be there to higlight my point more that optimisation is the issue. I'm kind of fuming I treated myself to a 3080, my first ever brand new card, almost got a 3070 but thought about the Vram back before it was a serious issue as I wanted to make sure this card would last and now I'm thinking 10gb Vram right now is the minimum you want to be buying a card with. I'll be gaming back at 1080p in no time...
@@LightMCXx I'm not buying a card for a while so I'll have to see when the time comes but I think the next 2-3 years is gonna shake up the market both on the games and graphics card side of things so I will wait for things to settle and play at 1080p if need be.
I think it's unlikely that you made a choice that will let you down in the foreseeable future. While i find NV's strategy despicable, they are absolutely cutting the amount of VRAM on purpose in the hope to create more upgrade pressure in the future and so that the cheap consumer cards don't cannibalise the workstation market, but as a result there are just SO MANY 8GB GPUs regardless of computational and IO throughput that they have been releasing, that gamedevs will just have to keep them relevant, and the odd exception is effectively a bug. And you have a couple gig extra for more frame/intermediate buffers. Like there's an 8gig 4060ti, imagine that, bloody hell.
Used Workstations with Xeon skylake 6/8 core CPUs, 64GB ram and a GPU look a sweet deal. No idea which is easier to upgrade between the Dell, HP, Lenovo PSUs.
*I had a few Dells and Lenovo, all pretty much the same, I like the looks of the Lenovo better. Made a few videos on my channel with office/Workstations*
When you think about it, the xx60 graphics cards from Nvidia should be priced around $180 to $250. But now, the norm is $350. I'd rather buy from the used market than give my money to greedy companies.
For Skyrim you can go up to 99fps without physics issues. Uncap the fps via config file (or Steam command evidently), then cap the fps with your Nvidia or AMD drivers to 98fps. Done. You should now be at 98-99 fps at all times.
talkin bout a "cyberpunk" style classic, i would also recommend omikron, the nomad soul. it is from the same studio which developed detroit: become human
Was Hoping to see a 'Alternative to Overwatch 2' With Team Fortress 2, but alas, it was not here. Nevertheless, I *COMPLETELY* Agree that Modern PC Gaming is Rubbish. In fact, I'd go a step further and say a *Gaming Crash similar to 1983 NEEDS to Happen.* The Gaming Industry is Full of Corrupt AAA Industries that are obsessed with Cash Grabs over Quality of Games, and the Indie Industry is Mixed to Good depending on who you ask. The Only Way to Weed out the Grain from the Chaff is to let it Burn in the Sun with its own obsessions. Nevertheless, I was surprised by the Games that you brought up here, and it is SOLID Proof that Gaming on a PC Does NOT Need to be Expensive. Great work on this, Iceberg! Looking forward to whatever you put out next!
I kind of hate Team Fortress 2 enough that even with Overwatch (1) discontinued, i wouldn't be inclined to play TF2 at all. I would play Unreal Tournament 2004 and Splitgate though. Also a game that is officially defunct but continued as private servers, S4League.
Games are so badly ported you question why I build a pc when a ps5 or xbox seems appealing. Or studios just tell there audience to shut up and be happy that the small updates.
I played Fallout 4 without stutter on a R7 240 1 gb ddr5, now i have a rx5600XT which weights around 2kg but i honestly don't know why modern games need so much firepower, i still play older games on integrated graphics and they are flawless while also looking good(Flatout and Knights of Honor come to mind).
Man, I remember playing it on the 360. It ran like junk, but it was fun enough o ignore. Now, going back, it's rather a shame the game has terrible audio system. From the "Thief" studio, it is rather sad how much of a downgrade it is in the sneaking aspect. Still a fun power fantasy romp though.
This video could also serves as a nice list of recommendations fro the Steam Deck, to be honest. Especially BoTW, all Bioshock and Dishonered Games run great on it and really don't look that bad on the small screen. For me the Steam Deck is actually only a device to enjoy Pixel Art Indy Titles and very, very good classics, like the ones mentioned. Who would have thought that dated games can be a joy again on a bloody handheld?!? Amazing!
A lot of talk about v-ram everywhere ( not this video topic ) But I was wondering about the 970 vram issues in 2014. The legendary 3.5 +0.5 GB Is there possible to use the full 4GB Or is the 0.5gb perma banned Im curious about it It has not ever been talked about at all After that Nvidia fiasco
I keep looking into a upgrade from my current Titan Xp, but not only is everything far too expensive for not enough of an upgrade, but no upgrade even fits in my computer anymore. Guess I'm skipping another generation of gpu's...
Surprised you think that's so coming from a Titan Xp - a 6950XT or used 3090 would be twice as fast for £600 or thereabouts , probably half of the cost of an original Titan Xp. Anything less isn't worthwhile in my opinion
9th gen console ports are of course going to be more demanding, but that's no excuse for such poor optimization. If cards of the RX 6700/3060 Ti levels struggle to run them at 1080p/60fps, it was essentially released unfinished.
Why does it hurt to hear someone describe the 360 Era as "potato graphics"
AM I GETTING OLD?!
Zoomers are already calling it retro which is pretty funny since games haven't changed at all since that era, even ps2 era if we want to be specific.
Uhhh but the ps3, wii and 360 are retro, remember the ps4/xbox one launched 10 years ago, gen 7th launched at least 15 years ago. Doesn’t matter if the games are somewhat the same since then
@@EnkirexNot really retro will always be for me starting with NES up to PS1, everything else feel and look too modern
I mean that's just not correct tbh. Modern games don't look any better if not worse. I won't name specific ones as people will always get upset. But generally modern games in max settings 4k look pretty bad compared to older ones.
Aight, to be fair, early 360 games had a bad habit of chasing realism (despite having a poor grasp of the hardware still) and putting brown 'n' bloom over eveything. The result was pretty potato-y
BG3 showed me that I'm not used to playing good games anymore
God, I want to buy that game but I know for a fact I have multiple games sitting in my backlog that I also bought on this impulse and haven't finished yet. I'll have to wait till it's on sale lol.
@@SumRndmPenguin i usually pirate games nowadays because they are bad, i did the same but i was like "ok this is awesome they deserve my money" and just bought it full price
I dont remember the last time I enjoyed a game this much, its great, i recommend it
@@denikecfor real, I usually quit games after an hour of playing it and not looking back. But BG3 made me unable to stop playing for almost 20 hours now.
This. I would recommend BG3 every single day of the year
@@SumRndmPenguinMaybe it’s a good idea to wait until they release definitive edition then. The game is awesome but unfortunately they cut quite a lot of content from act 3 right before release which screwed up some questlines. It was similar with their previous game and they normally add this content back a year or so after release.
Shadow of War, the sequel to Shadow of Mordor is also surprisingly scalable and a big improvement to the original game. I played it at 30 fps with a measly R7 250 2GB GPU.
Raytracing beefed up system requirements for all games... Everyone hypes it as black gold of gaming...
you know that games below 2017 is playable on Intel HD Graphic targeting 30fps 1080p... and those old games looks better on LOW rather than 2022's LOW.
Low setting (except competitive games) in nowadays gaming is just pure nausea. It forces us to buy a 'budget' GPU, while keep bullshitting us via upscalling and next gen exclusive feature.
AAA gaming is just pointless now, they keep crunching workers and give us useless feature such as genital customization... Indie is the only way to get some fun without caveats.
@@nickochioneantony9288, but the game with genital customisation that came out in 2023 IS pretty good, gaming highlight of last 20 years even 🤔
@@spiderjerusalem8505 personally I would rather they put their budget onto something more tangible when playing the game... I mean, genital spec won't even add any immersion whatsoever, and that customization costs time and money.
Trends like: Bigger Open World, Cutting Edge Path Tracing, Ultra Detail House in a racing game (Forza), Game Filter (TLoU), custom penis (CP2077 and now BG3) doesn't really add immersion or fun aspect of a game. The dev literally put working hours on these stuff rather than polishing the game.
And we rant again because there are bugs and glitches that needed Day One Patch...
@@nickochioneantony9288 honestly, i think the only way for gaming to "become great again" is game decompilers becoming a popular thing. Just imagine exposing all of the game's code, allowing you FULL freedom for content creation/alteration/removal. Fuck it, let the industry die. (I'm not taking fetish/discord weirdos into account, otherwise this utopia i just wrote falls apart in nanoseconds LMAO)
Shaders were far less complex, but there was something nice about the aesthetics of the way those games looked. They were very dependent on the artists' ability to hand paint a really nice diffuse map.
Well said
love to see a tech guy finally abandon current day slop and play a good game for once, nature is healing
*Now this is my kind of content seeing what budget hardware can do throughout the years seeing as many older games are quite better in most aspects compared to todays games hell i built my pc for the specific reason of playing older games at a bajillion fps while being able to enjoy 60fps newer games*
cloudpunk is something that's certainly caught my eye before but i'm honestly a bit suprised to not see a Deus ex game as the alternative for cyberpunk the 2013 directors cut of human revolution honestly feels like the perfect fit for this sort of video
I considered Deus Ex, but Mankind Divided would have been a bit heavy for this system - plus, I wanted an excuse to play Cloudpunk. It’s a recent indie title, too, which illustrates that modern gaming isn’t COMPLETELY broken.
So cheap in sales too and so well done that I who hates stealth games love the stealth mechanics in Human Revolution. I played it on 360 when it came out and was effing superb. I really should get to dishonoured, I ignored it on 360 and I've been reliably informed that I'm the one who lost out. I have no excuses because Epic gave me a free copy of the definitive edition.
It would have ran just fine
The original deus ex is superior in every way anyway
@@walberparker7111 Not in every way at all. They do different things right. I prefer the original, but while the reboots don't scratch the same itch, they're honestly some of the best RPGs to be made in the west in the last decade. Not that there's much competition.
it's funny, in all the testing I've done of games, the ones I enjoyed playing the most are always the simple lighter titles. It's like a focus on gameplay over graphics leads to better games. who would have thought 🤯
Mass Effect 1 textures are that low res because there is a bug. The original PC game of 2007 has textures in higher resolution than that.
I bet he just forgot to restart the game after changing graphical settings. The default settings have everything at low.
@@vlad54rus-a No, you need to manually change in ini settings in Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect\Config. It's a legacy bug, I found a post on reddit from 10 years ago that explain how to fix it.
@@moonknightish That ini tweak was only required to fix Garrus face. I've played this game several times and textures were always sharp as they should be.
Old but gold games are really always there and part of why I find myself hesitant to recommend Arc despite the price cuts. Still, it is nice that even when you have a potato PC there are tons and tons of games that are there that are still wonderful.
What's even sadder is TLoU was seen as a terrible port but as the year goes on it might actually be one of the better ones...
This video is genuinely more useful for a lot of people than benchmarks on budget hardware which just can't get playable results for new games. Great job.
As old as i am, i could experience some historic milestones in gaming, starting with eg rtype on amiga, doom1, many snes games. Then black and white or spore for the kids, the settlers. Wonderful creative concepts. I started to play a lot again when bf4 came out. Got addicted. All these deserved the hardware requirements they brought with them. But since 10 years i noticed that the games degraded, priority to hardware hunger and power consumtion, less focus on creative new mechanics, often very badly optimised games that didnt look so much better. Very interesting, the recent overwhelming success of battlebit remastered shows the way: focus on properly working core mechanics and smooth performance on a wide variety of hardware seems to be more important then brutal and soulless increase of graphical fidelity. Think also of inclusion, poor ppl in poor countries who are excluded by stupid dumb AAA hardware requirements. At the end, playing doesnt mean you need the most expensivectoys!
Man, the CPU of that Lenovo build is faster than the one in my desktop, but the GPU is worse than the one in my laptop.
Based as always, iceberg. Love your commentary and your perspective on tech
I've been wanting to upgrade my 5700xt for like a year and there's nothing. I've basically given up looking.
Really love your channel,
as someone with an old / not old ryzen 2600 and gtx 1650, rtx 4090ish content is getting old lol.
Videos like this are going to become more important for future gamers to explore the genre.
I don't have the time for the next few years (that's what studying chemistry does to you) but if I do land a cuchy 9 to 5 at some point, I'll definitely play through the backlog of great PC games.
The low texture quality of Mass effect is just a loading bug. Crank everything to max, go into game, leave game (idk if savegame is mandatory) and start game fresh (maybe even the pc - for a good measure).
The textures of the og masseffect are not THAT bad.
What a GORGEOUS GPU this quadro is. I'm in love.
I have a feeling it may be up for sale soon ;)
Texture quality in Mass Effect (2007) is bugged, and what is shown is the equivalent of the “very low” setting.
There are fixes though.
This is what it all about. Marketing has everyone chasing comical frame rates in new games that are objectively bad. Meanwhile, the amount of older games that will run on a shoebox is massive. BG3 is about the only good thing we’ve seen in the gaming space recently, it might even be a "game changer".
Its just shit, cause of greed and no optimization.
Modern games on PC these days are having either higher minimum system requirements (such as 10 GB VRAM & above + hundreds GB just to store 1 game), predatory microtransactions, always online even with single player or simply for the sake of pushing 'THE MESSAGE'. Give us games that are low-end graphics card friendly & good gameplay or else, going the emulation route.
You had me at the title. Modern gaming *is* rubbish. I literally play nothing newer than 2015 as of late. Emulation is the staple of my gaming experiences. I picked up a similar system with a 2640v3 and 32GB RAM, but I did manage to slap a cheap RTX 2060 that I managed to snag for £120 on ebay. Solid for some cheap gaming
Same
I agree with the sentiment. I usually wait for a game to go on sale, at least half off. The only exceptions in the last decade or so are games that release under $25ish and Balders Gate 3. That last is what really good games used to be and then some.
It really should say modern AAA gaming is trash. There are a lot of great games not made by the big publishers that have come out
@@crestofhonor2349 Peak internet comment
While the games are good, there's also the literal classics i want to recommend.
1. Vampire the masquerade:bloodlines
2. The homeworld series, especially emergence/cataclysm(there's a remake of both 1 & 2, very optimized)
3. Total War: Shogun 2, Rome 1 and medieval 2
4. Fallout New Vegas
5. Alien Isolation
6. Saints Row (not the remake)
7. Both Thief 1 and 2
8. F. E. A. R.
9. The Stalker series
10. NFS Most Wanted
All complete, great games that any pc after 2015 can run
I picked up a HP Z240 for some budget PC content too. It has very similar specs to this machine, exact same RAM and GPU config. Nice to see what older machines like this can do when playing older games!
Dishonored really shows how bad Arcane messed up on Redfall
I have a question for you, Mr. Iceberg. 😊 While I'm sure the polycount is much lower in Dishonored than new games, I want to know how you can tell it is "low-poly". I don't even see the polygons, or if I do, it's just barely. How do you see the polygons? Where? I thought low-poly meant visible polygons as part of the design, or just PS1/N64-tier, and I'm a game developer. I just see 3D graphics.
wow, I remember talking to you in a random comment section waiting to break 1K!
Congratulations on your hard work getting you up and over!
I always wanted to build my own pc, but I was intimidated. Still am.
15:53 - a another great suggestion would be the original Deus Ex, as that was the inspiration for Cyberpunk. It also still has a active multiplayer community.
Crazy to see this becoming a big channel! I started watching at under 2k subs - watching the ride up has been so cool; keep it up!
YOU CAN NEVER HAVE ENOUGH RAM!
was the snark when referencing people who want to avoid hogwarts legacy really necessary? the whole "all companies who make games have bad track records" doesn't even make sense in this context given that the reason people want to avoid HWL is based on one person and the amount of damage and power she herself can wield? and how she has repeatedly used her success and wealth from Harry Potter to justify herself and her disgusting views?
Really enjoyed the descriptions of all the games, especially the Battlebit review 👍
Thanks!
its crazy how good NFS Hot Pursuit (2010 release not the remaster) looks running on even a 650ti or similar gpu, if not even on 7th consoles.
I should really replay Tombraider
Did you say 165gb on Star Wars holy hell Fallen Order was great been holding off for the new one as well but love the look back and exactly a good excuse to tackle the backlog
155. Yes, it’s a monster. I’ve had to download it like 3 times so far, ‘cos the EA launcher doesn’t like it when I move drives between PCs.
Gameplay on those games is horrible nothing going to top off the Jedi Knight Outcast/Academy
@@IcebergTech holy smokes that's dedication and giving the old isp a workout haha
@@Dregomz02 idk maybe I'm just a total star wars casual and I am but I had fun with it I thought it was a good game
Gaming is one thing where you can easily pay the last 90% of the money for the last 10% of the value. It's often surprising how good games look on low, and how little hardware you need to achieve it.
*Great stuff, I've got a P520 with a RX570 4GB in mine* ❤
Have you tried the rx 580 2034sp? It's literally 3 times stronger than the gt1030 and it's priced below $100
I think Deus Ex: Human Revolution would've been a better alternative to Cyberpunk 2077. Also, I love Dishonored but Prey (2017) is objectively Arkane's true crowning achievement
Still waiting for the bottleneck test with a 2011 i3 and an AMD 7900xtx.
Thanks for the previous bottleneck tests.
They were great.
Basically, the question is.... What is the slowest CPU that makes sense for a 7900XTX so that I dont have to upgrade from that slow assed cpu that I may have, knowing that buying a slower Nvidia will force me to buy a 7800x3d..... I dont want to be forced by my GPU.
Baseline 5600 is just a 5600x that didn't boost as high as AMD wanted, they're much cheaper.
maybe the 5600x or 5800X3d
This video legitimately makes me consider selling my 4090. Completely forgot how great and complete the games on the list are compared to the drivel that releases nowadays
Don't do it man. This is a pretty expensive GPU that everyone want it.
What I sought upscaling options as a hope to prolong my GPU from being obsolete, now became as a scapegoat for lazy optimization making my GPU more obsolete.
I just bought a slightly newer P520 with a Xeon 2135, no gpu, for $159. Added a 2TB nvme ssd for $39 (insane deal) and a GTX 1080 for $115. For $335 after sales tax, its cheapest and the most powerful PC Ive ever owned by far on both counts.
Willing to see the rtx 2070m from AliExpress or CMP 40hx GPUs which are the same as 2070 but with much cheaper price
Neither do I use nor am I looking for budget hardware at all, but it is so interesting to see how much one can do with yesteryears hardware.
If anyone likes racing games, my recommendation would be to revisit Most Wanted 2005 and Carbon for pc. Then get mods to improve the graphics and car selection. If you search youtube theres an overhaul mod with a lot of options. If you want to go even further those two games support racing wheels and pedals for a greater experience. Carbon even has input settings for the individual gears.
Count me in. All I play now are retro games. In theory my two systems 5800X3D+RTX3080 and i5-11400+RX6700XT should be able to play most stuff. In reality it isn't worth the effort of tuning the settings so that 1440p/4K isn't a stuttering mess with this years AAA titles.
Dont be lazy my man keep posting your video , i love your contents !
I think I've mentioned it here and there in comments across a few videos, but this seems about as relevant as it can get. My 2013 Dell Precision laptop/mobile workstation is fairly similar to this Lenovo; sporting a i7-3720QM (4c/8t @ 3.6Ghz single core/3.4Ghz all-core - 6MB L3 cache), 16GB (4GB x 4) 1600Mhz CL9 RAM, Quadro K4000M 4GB (unlocked vBIOS & OC'ed +250 core/+300 mem - same silicon & similar performance to a GTX 675MX...or the DDR5 GT 1030 desktop GPU) & a 512GB SATA SSD boot drive (Win 10 Pro). I used it for ages, and it's certainly held up better than most people would assume. Once upon a time I used it to play the original Dead Space trilogy, Fallout 3 & NV, as well as a lot of titles from the PS3/360 era @ 1080p/60fps. But most games newer than 2015 typically need to be played at 900p or 720p to have a decent framerate. For example, Black Ops 3 will run at 900p/med and hover between 45-50fps if I lock the framerate. Otherwise it'll climb above 60fps, albeit with noticeably bad lows (probably somewhere in the sub-20fps range). I have since put together a respectable desktop with an R5 5600 + 3060ti, and have a "newer" gaming laptop with an i5-7300HQ + 1050ti (primarily used for older games/light emulation when I'm away from home) so the Precision is now exclusively used for Roblox + Minecraft by my oldest son. Luckily those two aren't much trouble for it (even at 1080p), but I am still looking for some second hand parts to build him a full fledged desktop that will perform a lot better.
I'm playing on a GTX 680 paired with i7 2600K (slightly overclocked), and anything under Direct X 12 -based games, runs great on 1080p. Surprised how well it goes! Plenty of performance.
We need more of this, part 2 or even a series would be nice
The extra ROPS on the K4000 would have to be helping it in some games. Skyrim probably being an example (haven't had a PC built around my 650ti since the GTX 970 came out, but I did play it at 1080p high with ENB and my card had a 1033MHz core clock). 86GB/sec memory bandwidth increased to 134GB/sec is a substantial improvement.
Glad I found this Channel. 🖖🏻
I know just about everyone has probably played it already, but just in case, remember that GTA V / GTA Online released on PC in 2015, being based on a game from 2013, and it can run on almost anything that isn’t integrated Intel UHD graphics. The GTA V story still holds up today and is an absolute gem, and despite its many issues, GTA Online can be a very engaging experience that’s hard to stop playing once you start.
You can also emulate old games that never had a PC release or was a console exclusive with the respective emulator. But like he said with Zelda BoTW, it can be performance heavy, now its recommended between all emulators to have a 6 core processor but 4 core works aswell and is what i use paired with a 1050 2gb, yes 2gb card in 2023. I use RPCS3 and Xenia for PS3 and Xbox 360 emulation respectively but I don't know about the other emulators for PS2, OG Xbox, Nintendo, ect.
To an extent the best emulator overall the most legendary i feel is Dolphin, that's for Gamecube and Wii. Games look good and it's quite frugal for most games. There's only a handful games i can think of that can cause trouble on an older PC, that's the fur rendering in Starfox Adventures and the complete and utter hardware abuse that is Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2 and 3. It requires a little finesse setting it up on weak systems, ideally you'd have DX12 support, less ideally Vulkan, and you want async shader and the first launch can be a little iffy with insufficient hardware. But any last-decade processor and a 1050 is not what i'd call insufficient, it can do with a lot less.
For PS2 there's only one choice, RPCS2. There's also Play! but it's somewhat unfinished. Also i feel you can't quite have enough CPU performance (both a good number of threads and IPC) for a handful games, MGS3 in particular, but for the most part it's OK.
Xbox OG is still trouble as of last i looked. Xemu is the less broken of the two but needs a modern high-IPC CPU. Most older guest systems, anything non-3D, plus early 3D ones, you just throw Retroarch on there and you're good.
@SianaGearz Right now I don't have any games I want to emulate with the emulators you mention but ill keep them in mind. The processor I have is a i7-7700 so its good just wish it was a i7 8th gen as those is where Intel started to have 6 cores. But hey it could be worse I could be stuck with a dual core. Anyways thanks for the information
8:28 Oh come on, man! Don't tell me you're that mindless. Hahahaha!
I loved this video! Really miss the videos of putting together used amazing price to performance gaming pcs. This one has a great twist of recommending similar classic or alternative games to latest AAA terribly buggy and optimized titles.
Very much looking forward to what you select for the cpu and gpu upgrades for that machine. (Personally thinking a e5-1650v4 and rx 5700xt or gtx 1080 ti for the extra vram be some good choices.).
Be cool to see also maybe some custom paint job and cabling of the current case (possibly add a window side panel and lighting).
Excited for the next videos on it.
Great content again and enjoy your down time!
I'm currently playing Bioshock 2, such a good game and the remaster still looks decently well. I primarily play indie games (take a look at Path of Achra or Against the Storm) or older games nowadays . It's really hard to get excited for buggy and hardware-hungry 60 € AAA-games. I also enjoyed Cloudpunk!
I like using the good old Dell Optiplex as a base unit, current version has an i7 4770K and GTX1060 6gb. £250 for the whole build including 250gb SSD. I remember being blown away by Elder Scrolls, a lot of my upgrades back in the day were to play that game better.
Mirror's Edge does also make a really good alternative to Cyberpunk 2077
Deus Ex: Human Revolution also.
The old Assassins Creed games, Far Cry games and even COD games had really good storylines. Modern games are not innovating in storytelling and presentations (especially the ones produced by US companies). Skyrim had great story and even really meaningful side quests. Same goes for all other games from 2010 - 2015.
Since you mentioned Quake, may I also mention Quake 2, since it now has been released as an enhanced port like the original from Nightdive.
Yes, I just saw that. I’m a bit overspent on games this month, but I can probably afford £8!
It’s true even my latest experiment card did not have thermal paste on the entire chip for corners were still shiney and it didn’t want to overclock due to that issue . The card you ask a asrock ARc A770 8gb NITro
Its like nvidia and amd devs going from genious brains to potato brains .
The only issue Nvidia has is their god awful pricing. Drivers are fine on Nvidia cards. AMD needs to also quit being diet Nvidia and also up their software support
My brother, I have a laptop. I am facing a problem, and it is when I enter the game and start using the card, it reads 50 watts and the tires are 35, but after one minute, the use of the card drops to 30 watts and the tires settle at 20. I am confused about this problem, how can I solve it
Check you're using the right power cable.
I honestly think the jump between the graphics in the games shown and a lot of modern ones is noticeable but slim for the hardware people are packing today, exceptions maybe being Cyberpunk, FF7 Remake and Ratchett and Clank, maybe. Graphics accross sytems have had a very ps4 type looking vibe for about the last 10 years, despite PC processing going way up.
I'm sure there are other examples of good looking games I've not thought of or know but titles provided by other uses will be there to higlight my point more that optimisation is the issue.
I'm kind of fuming I treated myself to a 3080, my first ever brand new card, almost got a 3070 but thought about the Vram back before it was a serious issue as I wanted to make sure this card would last and now I'm thinking 10gb Vram right now is the minimum you want to be buying a card with. I'll be gaming back at 1080p in no time...
Go for AMD
@@LightMCXx I'm not buying a card for a while so I'll have to see when the time comes but I think the next 2-3 years is gonna shake up the market both on the games and graphics card side of things so I will wait for things to settle and play at 1080p if need be.
I think it's unlikely that you made a choice that will let you down in the foreseeable future. While i find NV's strategy despicable, they are absolutely cutting the amount of VRAM on purpose in the hope to create more upgrade pressure in the future and so that the cheap consumer cards don't cannibalise the workstation market, but as a result there are just SO MANY 8GB GPUs regardless of computational and IO throughput that they have been releasing, that gamedevs will just have to keep them relevant, and the odd exception is effectively a bug. And you have a couple gig extra for more frame/intermediate buffers. Like there's an 8gig 4060ti, imagine that, bloody hell.
Used Workstations with Xeon skylake 6/8 core CPUs, 64GB ram and a GPU look a sweet deal. No idea which is easier to upgrade between the Dell, HP, Lenovo PSUs.
*I had a few Dells and Lenovo, all pretty much the same, I like the looks of the Lenovo better. Made a few videos on my channel with office/Workstations*
Atomic heart is actually pretty good
Unique setting, a unique nuke dukem type of voice acting and one liners which are pretty funny and it looks good
Yeah, I love it so far! Bout to get back to it after this video, it's quite funny and i dont really get how people find it "offensive".
"It glides along here.." I got the reference my friend. Long life to voodoo
When you think about it, the xx60 graphics cards from Nvidia should be priced around $180 to $250. But now, the norm is $350.
I'd rather buy from the used market than give my money to greedy companies.
For Skyrim you can go up to 99fps without physics issues. Uncap the fps via config file (or Steam command evidently), then cap the fps with your Nvidia or AMD drivers to 98fps. Done. You should now be at 98-99 fps at all times.
Hey, the force unleashed was a pretty good game imo
Dishonored is such a well optimized game that it runs basically at Max settings on a UHD630 igpu albeit at 768p
It blows me away how much better these games run. I know they're older, but dang, my 5600 xt can run most of my backlog on ultra apparently.
Also there's a alternate low-spec version of Doom Eternal it's called Ultrakill, super fast paced and fun if Anyone's interest.
talkin bout a "cyberpunk" style classic, i would also recommend omikron, the nomad soul. it is from the same studio which developed detroit: become human
This RUclips channel is very underrated
Was Hoping to see a 'Alternative to Overwatch 2' With Team Fortress 2, but alas, it was not here.
Nevertheless, I *COMPLETELY* Agree that Modern PC Gaming is Rubbish. In fact, I'd go a step further and say a *Gaming Crash similar to 1983 NEEDS to Happen.*
The Gaming Industry is Full of Corrupt AAA Industries that are obsessed with Cash Grabs over Quality of Games, and the Indie Industry is Mixed to Good depending on who you ask.
The Only Way to Weed out the Grain from the Chaff is to let it Burn in the Sun with its own obsessions.
Nevertheless, I was surprised by the Games that you brought up here, and it is SOLID Proof that Gaming on a PC Does NOT Need to be Expensive.
Great work on this, Iceberg! Looking forward to whatever you put out next!
I kind of hate Team Fortress 2 enough that even with Overwatch (1) discontinued, i wouldn't be inclined to play TF2 at all.
I would play Unreal Tournament 2004 and Splitgate though. Also a game that is officially defunct but continued as private servers, S4League.
Games are so badly ported you question why I build a pc when a ps5 or xbox seems appealing. Or studios just tell there audience to shut up and be happy that the small updates.
I played Fallout 4 without stutter on a R7 240 1 gb ddr5, now i have a rx5600XT which weights around 2kg but i honestly don't know why modern games need so much firepower, i still play older games on integrated graphics and they are flawless while also looking good(Flatout and Knights of Honor come to mind).
I miss the days when games came out and it was actually playable.
I played Dishonored back in 2013 on a ATI radeon 5000 series card. Man that was a bloody good game!
Man, I remember playing it on the 360. It ran like junk, but it was fun enough o ignore. Now, going back, it's rather a shame the game has terrible audio system. From the "Thief" studio, it is rather sad how much of a downgrade it is in the sneaking aspect. Still a fun power fantasy romp though.
@@Greez1337 360?
@@hrishikeshparab1236it came out on xbox 360 as well. idk about ps3
@@CountlessPWNZ aaah xbox....got it 👍
HD 5000 GPUs probably chewed through Dishonored 1
This video could also serves as a nice list of recommendations fro the Steam Deck, to be honest. Especially BoTW, all Bioshock and Dishonered Games run great on it and really don't look that bad on the small screen. For me the Steam Deck is actually only a device to enjoy Pixel Art Indy Titles and very, very good classics, like the ones mentioned. Who would have thought that dated games can be a joy again on a bloody handheld?!? Amazing!
hey, whats your intro music? it sounds really good
Unicorn Heads: ruclips.net/video/x7gNHCsD-XY/видео.html
looking forward to the followup vid. i have a soft spot for old prebuilts because they're what got me into pc gaming.
A lot of talk about v-ram everywhere
( not this video topic )
But I was wondering about the 970 vram issues in 2014. The legendary 3.5 +0.5 GB
Is there possible to use the full 4GB
Or is the 0.5gb perma banned
Im curious about it
It has not ever been talked about at all
After that Nvidia fiasco
Nice video. Btw do you know any good tutorial about cemu and running breath of the wild on pc?
When he said "neon-drenched future dystopia" I thought he was gonna bring out Far Cry: Blood Dragon. Me sad.
Have you ever thought of making a Discord server for your community to discuss hardware and other things?
I've been playing older games I didn't play before, DOOM 2016, Wolfenstein games.
Iceberg Tech: Modern PC Gaming is Rubbish
Me having a decent job and can finally afford a gaming PC: 💀🗿
Meh, you don't have to take my word for it, I'm just a muppet with a platform!
I think the best alternative to cyberpunk would be Deus Ex but that would be another immersive sim game on this list
The constant upgrading gets old quick sticking with my 1080ti forever lol
Loved this video. That cpu cooler on the machine looked quite professional
9:09 morrowind recommendation would've been hilarious.
I keep looking into a upgrade from my current Titan Xp, but not only is everything far too expensive for not enough of an upgrade, but no upgrade even fits in my computer anymore.
Guess I'm skipping another generation of gpu's...
Was thinking of getting one to replace my Titan X may just for a 3060 12gb tho
I have a similar feeling. I've got a Fractal Node 202 which works better with blower-style GPUs... that no one makes any more :(
Surprised you think that's so coming from a Titan Xp - a 6950XT or used 3090 would be twice as fast for £600 or thereabouts , probably half of the cost of an original Titan Xp. Anything less isn't worthwhile in my opinion
9th gen console ports are of course going to be more demanding, but that's no excuse for such poor optimization. If cards of the RX 6700/3060 Ti levels struggle to run them at 1080p/60fps, it was essentially released unfinished.