Is It Time To Upgrade?

Being a PC gamer has a lot of benefits. The two biggest ones for me is I don’t have to fight for one of the TVs to use a console hooked up to them and there are lots of great deals. PC gaming also allows optimization of the graphics to improve the experience as well as modding to add features to a game that can be used for all sorts of things.

I’ve been gaming with Teletraan-1 for three years now, going on four next January and one burning question I often ask myself is when would be a good time to upgrade?

I’ve started to notice that for some games I want to play, my PC only met the minimum essentials to run a game and not the recommended ones. This may not seem like a huge issue, but because I’m quite conscientious, it feels like one to me.

For example, games like Asterigos: Curse of the Stars, The Eternal Cylinder, Lies of P, and Elden Ring all said, according to the Can You Run It tool, my PC met the minimum requirements to run those games. However, they did say that I should consider upgrading my processor and video card if I want to meet the recommended requirements to have the ideal experience when playing.

I remember playing the Asterigos demo a week before the game’s release. The rule of thumb is any intensely graphic game, I check to see if my PC can handle it by downloading the plugin from that website which analyzes all my specs to see if they meet the requirements. I forgot to do this with Asterigos, probably because the game was love at first sight for me and I was eager to give it a try.

When I played the demo, I didn’t tweak any graphic settings and had no performance issues. Then it wasn’t until after I bought the game did I compare system requirements to my own and it became concerning about how the full game would run for me.

What’s also funny is The Eternal Cylinder recommended system requirements I did not meet according to the website, but one of the suggested video cards under that tab is the exact same one I have! I had no performance issues when playing that demo either.

Friends and family said I had nothing to worry about as I could simply play with the settings to ensure a smooth performance. I never had to do much of that, until now, but it seems like it’ll become a necessity if I want to play these types of games.

But, when I played Hellblade, although my computer met all the requirements, I had to play with settings quite a bit to improve FPS. So perhaps it just depends on the game.

I chatted with one of my fellow bloggers who said there’s no point in upgrading components if they still work and if you can still run 90% of the games you own. So, I won’t upgrade this year, and likely not next year either, but it’s still worth considering soon. Ever since this PC of mine was built, there hasn’t been a single game that does not meet even the minimum prerequisites, so I may just be overanalyzing everything if I see a game I like and it only meets that minimum, I just might need to tweak the settings.

It’s good to aim for the recommended necessities to run a certain game, and if you don’t, it doesn’t mean your rig can’t run the game at all, you’ll just need to do some configuration. Now if your computer doesn’t meet the minimum and recommended specs, then yeah don’t try to run whatever game it is because while it may load just fine, it won’t run well when you play!

It’s also not the best time to upgrade since there’s still a supply shortage and I’m pursuing my driver’s license at the moment, so my next big purchase will certainly be my first car. Plus, when I do upgrade, I think it would be better if I had my own car first so that way I can drive to Canada Computers with the tower and do all the work myself.

That’s my gamer rant for the day, it’s been on my mind for a while, I’m sure I’m not the only one who expresses concern over this. Again, I probably have nothing to worry about for now, but it never hurts to start considering this now.

👽Emily