pc gaming Archives - Intensive Gaming Diary

Some Notes About PC Gaming

Posted on April 6, 2025 by Viljami

With all my video game consoles I am also very deeply into PC gaming. In this blog post I am going to write to you about my experience in PC gaming in 2025. What games do I play, what kinds of hardware and software I use and how can a PC be utilized to also play some retro games be it that they are on any platform including consoles and older PC gaming systems like MS-DOS or older Windows. I am not so deeply involved in Linux or Mac games. I have only played several Windows and DOS games. I think that Linux gaming is a very young field at this moment but things are moving forward all the time. Linux is today able to play many games that were available only for Windows systems earlier. We are not going to go so deeply into Linux gaming as I have at this moment a Windows 10 installed on my PC.

Some old school gamers might be a bit confused since many PC gaming hobbyists are utilizing a game pad today. Originally PC gaming was very focused on playing with a mouse and a keyboard. I once handed a game pad to my friend, he’s a total PC gamer and has been playing for a long time already with a PC, and he just couldn’t figure out how to even put the controller in his hands. He was trying to handle it like it would be a keyboard. This is just to remind you that some PC gaming enthusiasts are very keen on playing with this somewhat old school controlling method. Back in the 90s it was almost impossible to picture someone playing a FPS game with a game pad. This changed when games like Halo and Call of Duty became popular within console gamers.

Console and PC gaming has become closer and closer to each other. There used to be these two separate groups that favored PC or console games. Of course PC even today cost a lot more than consoles. It is somewhat ridiculous that some players demand same performance from devices like Xbox Series X and PS5 that is present in PC gaming. It has been some kind of a law of nature that consoles are cheap to buy and the profits that console manufacturers make are made out of selling software and mainly games for these systems. There are many ambitious and huge games while some games are developed by indie developers that don’t have so much expectations or technical ability in the games they are releasing. I think this is mainly a good thing. Not every game has to be a huge success after all.

I have lots of PC games in the form a DVD or CD-ROM disc. Today it is coming more and more common to see a PC that doesn’t have a optical disc drive at all. Many setups available don’t include the drive at all. My personal solution to this was to first buy an external DVD drive and just recently I got also a Bluray disc drive. It was a bit expensive. It cost me about 150 euros. I haven’t seen any Bluray Ultra HD 4K disc drives that would have been available in any web shop that I encountered online. This is the actual format of the latest video game consoles.

Gamers are buying their PC games mainly from places like Steam and GOG (“Good Old Games”). There is also the consideration about abandonware. This means that some games aren’t available to be purchased at all and the copyright holder doesn’t really mind if someone is sharing the game for free to be downloaded. You can run a search on your favorite search engine, like DuckDuckGo, or some else, to see some of these games. My favorite place to find abandoned PC games is “My Abandonware” that is a website that holds thousands of games. Soe games are tagged as “commercial” and this means that you aren’t able to download them at least from this site. Some popular abandonware games are the original Silent Hill 2 – Restless Dreams, Black and White 2 and Need for Speed Most Wanted.

It is also possible to play many retro games on a PC. This subject is a bit controversial. Some game companies, like Nintendo, are telling us that emulating older systems is piracy and illegal. Some consumers think it is totally all right to play these games that are downloaded from some gaming website. The law says that for example to use a PS1 emulator on a PC you have to extract the BIOS from the PS1 that you own and then rip every game from an original CD that you own. Then you are perfectly legit with this matter. We are not going to go so deeply in this topic ether. Let’s just state that emulation is possible and there are emulators available that emulate devices like GameCube, PS2, N64 and PS1.

When it comes to operating systems Linux has gained some popularity. At October Windows 10 users are forced to update to a Windows 11 system or then pay some more to keep using their Windows 10 systems. Some lucky people just need to update their operating system while others, that don’t have a compatible PC for this upgrade, are going to have to buy a Windows 11 PC.

How about the issues of performance? How powerful PC can run the latest games and how much does it cost? I have currently a systems that has 16 GB of RAM, a video card memory of 8 GB, a lousy CPU that actually isn’t compatible with Windows 11 or 12 and a 2 TB SSD drive (along with a 250 GB SSD that holds my Windows 10 system files). I also recently bought, finally, a screen that is 28 inch and can display 4K resolution graphics. I am going to upgrade to a PC that has at least 64 GB of RAM, 2 TB SSD, and a video card that has 8 GB of video memory. Also I need good and compatible CPU. This system should be able to run games like the new Silent Hill 2 and Final Fantasy 16. This kind of a computer is going to cost me about 1300 euros. I bought my old PC with a price of 750 euros back in December of 2020. So, it is already a kin do f time also to update my computer to enjoy some modern PC gaming. I think this is all this time and we’ll see in a new blog post later.

Alone in the Dark Series

Posted on February 7, 2024February 7, 2024 by Viljami

I have played lots of games during my whole lifetime. I just thought that it might be interesting for readers of this blog if I would write about Alone In The Dark game series. They might not be the best of the best in survival horror at the moment but their influence to this genre is huge. There is also a new Alone in the Dark game getting released in 2024.

The first game in this series was published in 1992. If you were playing it back when it was released I think there is a chance that you played it on a PC. Some of the first three games of Alone in the Dark were also released for PlayStation during 1990s. There are a total of seven games in the series.

What makes the influence huge was how the camera angels were adjusted. It made the game a scary one. Also the game utilises 3D graphics in a way that was never ever seen back in 1992. The most popular game that took influences of Alone in the Dark was Resident Evil and it was released in 1996 at least for PC and PS1. I obtained a book about RE some time ago and I am hoping to get to read it soon. I just have to finish the book that I am currently reading so I can begin with the book. It is called “Itchy, Tasty” and it is written by Alex Aniel.

Games in the series that were released during the 90s were of good quality in the standards of the games of that era. I think it might be a waste of your time to get back to them seriously. Well, maybe if you want to experience something old. There might be a retro feel in them.

So, is there a game in this series that would be a nice game to play even today? If we take a look on two games that were released in 2001 and 2008 we can figure an opinion for this question. Let’s face it. These two games are poor games. They don’t live up to standards and they defnitely don’t match my expectations. Out of these two the one released for PS2, Alone in the Dark – The New Nightmare, is better but it isn’t in any way a great game. It has also received a score of 66 out of 100 in Metacritic.

While these two games weren’t so good there are of course excpectations gathered towards this new Alone in the Dark game that is set to be published this year (2024). The genre of survival horror might bem rising its head again since there are rumours about new Silent Hill and also Resident Evil games getting released soon. There was already a short Silent Hill game released recently. It was only for PS5 and its name was Silent Hill – The Short Message. The game was released for free and it takes maybe three hours to complete. So, it is a short game for the fans.

One of my favorite game shops is saying that the new Alone in the Dark will be released in 19th of April. It will be released for PS5, PC and Xbox Series S/X. You can buy the PC release for example from Steam. The game has received open and cheerful welcomes and many fans are expecting this game to be good. For now we must wait for some more information. There are some trailers and early previews of the game avaialble online. You can also order it in advance if you wish to play it as soon as is possible.

The Certain Appeal of PlayStation 1

Posted on November 1, 2023 by Viljami

What does PlayStation 1 offer that makes you just pick up the controller and play? It was released almost 30 years ago. I still find that it has a lot to offer even compared to modern game consoles.

I can only try to describe what it felt like playing PS1 back in the day. We, gamers, were excited. Technology was new and it was advancing at a high speed. You could literally see how games became more and more realistic. It was the dawn of three dimensional game environments.

Sound quality reached also the level that was offered by the CD format. There were many electronic music artists that produced some cathchy musical vibes to these new kinds of video games. CD-ROM as a platform for video games offered game developers way more space than everyone was used to. Games became more complex and gamers started to spend more time playing. Little by little it came acceptable for grown ups to play games, also.

PC games were also developing. It became clear that computer gaming offered several strategy games and also some very good first person shooters. You really didn’t play FPS games on a console. The first FPS console game is often considered to be GoldenEye 007 that was released in 1997 for Nintendo 64. The point where FPS really conquered consoles and made them break out from only being playable with a keyboard and mouse to getting controlled with a gamepad became when Halo was released for Xbox.

The games that you preferred to play on PS1 were games like Gran Turismo, some early games of Need for Speed series, Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. These games had a combination of action, cool looking graphics and an excellent playability. This is how games of PS1 were presented and this is why they are still causing me to feel this endless joy and also nostalgia still after all these years.

Today I have a PSOne console along with my PS2. As you probably read form that earlier post I have been struggling a bit with my PS2. I currently have my PSOne in storage but I am thinking of moving it to my setup once again. It has luckily functioned very nicely since I bought it back in 2017.

I have a strong history in playing video games with PS1. It was important gaming console and it shaped my knowledge in video games and made me go deeper and deeper. It wasn’t my first gaming console. That spot is taken by Sega Mega Drive. I did play some PC games on DOS before I got to play with consoles.

It hasn’t always been clear in my life that games deserve a spot in my life. That is why I sold my PlayStation 1 back in 2000. I didn’t know if playing video games would make me progress in my life. I also sold all my games that I had. I think I had maybe 30 games back then. I do regret this. If I have to think something positive about this I can at least think that I made the buyer happy.

Today I have bought nearly all games I used to have back in to my collection. This featured image related to this blog post displays my current PS1 games collection. I have recently added games to it and it keeps getting new games to it all the time. I might have to update this image soon.

PlayStation 1 sold over 100 million copies. Its production was discontinued in 2006. You can still get your hands on a PS1 gaming console. You can get a used console for a bit below 100 euros. You can also get your hands on an emulator like ePSXe or DuckStation. For being a legit gamer you must rip these rom files that you use to play from game discs that you own. You also have to copy your BIOS from PS1 console that you own. And otherwise you are basically breaking the law. One other way to play PS1 games that I have to mention is to buy a PlayStation Classic console.

Could This Be The Answer?

Posted on June 3, 2023 by Viljami

With all these hardware consoles you get a sense that there could be an easier solution. This answer would be in this case one single personal computer connected to the 4K telly with a single HDMI cord. It would take only one HDMI port. This isn’t a hallucination. There already are several computers available for this task. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the power that one modern PC today holds can handle almost any gaming console emulator from NES to PS4.

You would need one PC. This would cost something from 300 euros to several thousands of euros. You would also need a controller. I prefer Xbox Series S/X controller when it comes to emulator gaming. If you would like to change a controller between systems you would need to assign keys over and over again. You could be able to make a profile for every controller of every system. However it would be easier to play all systems with only one controller.

The first thing you need with this kind of setup is a reliable Linux operating system dedicated to emulation. At first it seems I would choose Lakka OS. It is a nice emulator that allows you to run several different emulators of different gaming systems. After setting up you don’t need to actually unplug your controller or get to your keyboard at all. So, I prefer Lakka OS. There are other operating systems available, like Retropie, Recalbox and Batocera. The last mentioned can be run from inserted USB stick without any other kind of installation.

If you want to play emulated games on systems like GameCube, PS2, original Xbox and Sega Dreamcast, you will need a powerful computer. I would say that you need more than a Raspberry Pi 4 can provide. I am not going to give you detailed specifications here. We can of course check what are the recommended requirements for an emulator like PCSX2. We can get to a conclusion that you would need at least 8 GB of RAM and a GPU with something like 4 GB of VRAM and capability to run DirectX 11 or OpenGL 4.5. Well, what about the processor? The processor would need to support AVX2, have a rating of 2600 and have four cores with or without hyper threading.

This kind of an emulation station could be your solution to this very interesting question. As prices of games are ricing this would make your wallet heavier at least for a while and enable you to play lots of retro game content. There is of course also the question about breaking every copyright law that exists. This is a difficult matter. Let’s just say that it is not legal to load hundreds of games from internet for free. While this is illegal there seems to be very few choices. You can pay hundreds of euros of games that cannot or are very hard to rip to ROM file and play with your emulator. Some emulators need also the BIOS of the system they are emulating.

Nintendo has been busy bringing its retro content available for those that have an online Nintendo account. You can probably figure how popular retro games currently are. It must be stated that it would be nice, for us game hobbyists, to be able to somehow get our hands to this content for a reasonable price. Playing original games on original hardware is becoming more and more expensive. And it must be said that game consoles don’t last for several decades and must be at some point at least repaired.