Does your gaming setup really effect your gaming performance?

[SuckyBuilder]

Recently I've gotten back into gaming after a long time and have been playing for a few weeks but noticed that I'm really trash. So I was wondering, could it be my setup? I play with a normal computer(definitely not gaming laptop) barely playable with a cheap gaming mouse. I know this is kinda a dumb question but I need an answer for self satisfaction, .

 

[bignastyid]

Yes, this is why gamers invest $100s to $1000s of dollars into their hardware.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Well, yes. Setup can be an issue. Not always down to a GPU/CPU though. Often depends on what games you are playing too! Examples being First person shooters. A good mouse is always an advantage. It will feel better in your hand and give better on screen movement. They are often programmable so can give an advantage in those types of games. Maybe a steering wheel for racing sims, or a super large curved monitor for RTS style games. They can all give an advantage. As can just playing regularly and getting in some game time. Practice make perfect!

On the hardware side, yes, good components can make a huge difference. Essentially the GPU is the key thing, CPU secondary and ram as a last consideration. Sometimes you need a strong CPU/GPU and lots of ram, to play a particular game with a fluid glitch free experience. If you judge each componnent correctly you can get a good capable system but for a price that worthy.

List your PC specs, mouse etc. Also, what games are you playing?

Similarly I was a big gamer for a long time, and took a break for a few years, and got back into it last year. When i was 35 (i'm now 44!) i was pretty competitive at online gaming, first person shooters, racing sims etc. But after the few years gap, I thought the same - I was atrocious But, it just takes time and some good PC investments, and LOTS of practice to bring results up again. I'm not anywhere near as good as I used to be, but still, i don't finish last in each multiplayer map on BF1. I'm kinda middling, which is okay for an old fogie like me

 

[seagate_surfer]

Hello SuckyBuilder, we all were noob's at one point or another and with practice we got better and our skill level progressed; up to a point where we needed better equipment to reach the next level. The next level is your hardware. Better components will not only give you the benefit of a smooth and seamless gaming experience but will also help you get better. Take for example the HDD. There are several types out there and each one serves its purpose but others are made for gaming. Faster load times, performance, frame rates and heat reduction and increased computer production are some of those benefits. So yes, a good set up will increase your skill not to mention all the benefits of having a good unit. Game on!

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hello SuckyBuilder, we all were noob's at one point or another and with practice we got better and our skill level progressed; up to a point where we needed better equipment to reach the next level. The next level is your hardware. Better components will not only give you the benefit of a smooth and seamless gaming experience but will also help you get better. Take for example the HDD. There are several types out there and each one serves its purpose but others are made for gaming. Faster load times, performance, frame rates and heat reduction and increased computer production are some of those benefits. So yes, a good set up will increase your skill not to mention all the benefits of having a good unit. Game on!

Just to be clear, a HDD/SD does NOT impact FPS in a game. Faster loading times, yes, some performance metrics, yes. Game fps rates, no. That's solely down to GPU/CPU/Ram in that order.

 

[Karadjgne]

No. The cpu is the major factor in framerates, the gpu only changes framerates according to detail settings, resolution, ability.

Yes an SSD/Hdd can impact framerates, as the cpu can only supply the gpu with code as fast as it gets the info from the drive. If an SSD is close to full and forces pagefile issues, fps will go down and load times will become rediculously long.

The bottleneck being the slowdown of info to the cpu, which will only pass that info to the gpu, end result being lower fps, stuttering, freezes etc.

Healthy hdds/SSDs won't impact fps, but not everyone has a perfectly healthy drive.

 

[SuckyBuilder]

Well, yes. Setup can be an issue. Not always down to a GPU/CPU though. Often depends on what games you are playing too! Examples being First person shooters. A good mouse is always an advantage. It will feel better in your hand and give better on screen movement. They are often programmable so can give an advantage in those types of games. Maybe a steering wheel for racing sims, or a super large curved monitor for RTS style games. They can all give an advantage. As can just playing regularly and getting in some game time. Practice make perfect!

On the hardware side, yes, good components can make a huge difference. Essentially the GPU is the key thing, CPU secondary and ram as a last consideration. Sometimes you need a strong CPU/GPU and lots of ram, to play a particular game with a fluid glitch free experience. If you judge each componnent correctly you can get a good capable system but for a price that worthy.

List your PC specs, mouse etc. Also, what games are you playing?

Similarly I was a big gamer for a long time, and took a break for a few years, and got back into it last year. When i was 35 (i'm now 44!) i was pretty competitive at online gaming, first person shooters, racing sims etc. But after the few years gap, I thought the same - I was atrocious But, it just takes time and some good PC investments, and LOTS of practice to bring results up again. I'm not anywhere near as good as I used to be, but still, i don't finish last in each multiplayer map on BF1. I'm kinda middling, which is okay for an old fogie like me

Appreciate you taking the time give such a detailed response. I use a cheap gaming mouse, $20 and play on Intel Graphics. Yup pretty rough. The game I'm playing is ahem...Fortnite. I'm really thinking of spending more money into gaming cause as I get more competitive it's getting harder to keep up.

 

[SuckyBuilder]

Yes, this is why gamers invest $100s to $1000s of dollars into their hardware.

Straight to the point. I like it!

 

[seagate_surfer]

Correct, they do not impact FPS in a game.

 

[WildCard999]

Well for now since your playing on Intels iGPU you may want to make sure your drivers are up to date which may help a little bit in Fortnite.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

No. The cpu is the major factor in framerates, the gpu only changes framerates according to detail settings, resolution, ability.

Yes an SSD/Hdd can impact framerates, as the cpu can only supply the gpu with code as fast as it gets the info from the drive. If an SSD is close to full and forces pagefile issues, fps will go down and load times will become rediculously long.

The bottleneck being the slowdown of info to the cpu, which will only pass that info to the gpu, end result being lower fps, stuttering, freezes etc.

Healthy hdds/SSDs won't impact fps, but not everyone has a perfectly healthy drive.

I think you are wrong. The info feeding the GPU is from the system ram. Not the HDD/SD.

The HDD/SD loads the date to the ram, the ram feeds the GPU/CPU etc.

edit: sorry, i read your reply wrong. No, the GPU is the determine factor in frame rates not the CPU, seriously? Certainly a high clocked Intel CPU can push frames about 20% higher game dependant, but to say the CPU is the biggest factor is not true.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Well, yes. Setup can be an issue. Not always down to a GPU/CPU though. Often depends on what games you are playing too! Examples being First person shooters. A good mouse is always an advantage. It will feel better in your hand and give better on screen movement. They are often programmable so can give an advantage in those types of games. Maybe a steering wheel for racing sims, or a super large curved monitor for RTS style games. They can all give an advantage. As can just playing regularly and getting in some game time. Practice make perfect!

On the hardware side, yes, good components can make a huge difference. Essentially the GPU is the key thing, CPU secondary and ram as a last consideration. Sometimes you need a strong CPU/GPU and lots of ram, to play a particular game with a fluid glitch free experience. If you judge each componnent correctly you can get a good capable system but for a price that worthy.

List your PC specs, mouse etc. Also, what games are you playing?

Similarly I was a big gamer for a long time, and took a break for a few years, and got back into it last year. When i was 35 (i'm now 44!) i was pretty competitive at online gaming, first person shooters, racing sims etc. But after the few years gap, I thought the same - I was atrocious But, it just takes time and some good PC investments, and LOTS of practice to bring results up again. I'm not anywhere near as good as I used to be, but still, i don't finish last in each multiplayer map on BF1. I'm kinda middling, which is okay for an old fogie like me

Appreciate you taking the time give such a detailed response. I use a cheap gaming mouse, $20 and play on Intel Graphics. Yup pretty rough. The game I'm playing is ahem...Fortnite. I'm really thinking of spending more money into gaming cause as I get more competitive it's getting harder to keep up.

Sadly Intel HD graphics suck, and you can only get so far with them.

Better systems get more fluid results. But still, tools are tools. You need the skills too!

 

[Karadjgne]

Hdd sends code to the ram. Ram ships it to the cpu when it can. The cpu decodes/processes that data 1 frame at a time then sends it to the gpu to paint the picture according to resolution and settings. Repeat. If the gpu is capable of painting that picture 60x a second, it'll demand that data from the cpu. Generally that's plausible. If the gpu is capable of painting that picture 144x a second, it'll demand that data from the cpu 144x a second. If the cpu can only decode and process that data 100x a second, that's all the gpu is going to get, no matter if the gpu is capable of more or not. The cpu could care less what the resolution is because the data is all the same, whatever coding the game engine has. To a cpu 4k and 1080p don't exist, that's all gpu. The only thing a cpu worries about is how many frames per second it can process and ship to the gpu. There are graphics settings that do affect cpus, such as viewing distance and grass detail, but only in so much as that changes the limits needed for process. Turn down grass detail and the cpu only has to send a green blur to the gpu to paint, max out grass detail and the cpu has to apply shape, motion, color details in far greater numbers. Fps tanks.

Fps is governed by the cpu. Resolution governs the gpu. The only relationship the gpu and cpu share in fps is the gpus ability to demand, whether that's lower or higher than the cpu can supply.

That said, to answer Op, yes your setup affects performance. But not ability, just the limits. For example, I own a Dell factory mass produced 2button mouse. It's near indestructible, old as the hills and still works great, it's on its 5th pc now. However, being only 2 button, it means my other hand has to spend more time punching keys, I must move the cursor around more to click on menus etc, when a multi-button mouse could have macros set to do the same thing. The most obvious is in 3rd person view, the scroll wheel zooms in/out on the view. With just 2 buttons, I have to let go of wasd keys, cross the keyboard and use the page up/down buttons manually. Constant dance. So a better mouse would increase my gaming performance, I'd Dodge faster, move better, have better zoom control for snipers etc. Same goes for mechanical keyboards, some are hard press keys, some are soft press, some have loud clicks, some are silent. If you have a soft touch, and fast fingers, a loud click/hard press keyboard will drive you nuts. Or if you have masher type hands and prefer to know exactly when the key is activated a hard press/loud click keyboard would be perfect.

So while absolutely Yes, setup affects performance, it's not so much what it is, but how it applies to you.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hdd sends code to the ram. Ram ships it to the cpu when it can. The cpu decodes/processes that data 1 frame at a time then sends it to the gpu to paint the picture according to resolution and settings. Repeat. If the gpu is capable of painting that picture 60x a second, it'll demand that data from the cpu. Generally that's plausible. If the gpu is capable of painting that picture 144x a second, it'll demand that data from the cpu 144x a second. If the cpu can only decode and process that data 100x a second, that's all the gpu is going to get, no matter if the gpu is capable of more or not. The cpu could care less what the resolution is because the data is all the same, whatever coding the game engine has. To a cpu 4k and 1080p don't exist, that's all gpu. The only thing a cpu worries about is how many frames per second it can process and ship to the gpu. There are graphics settings that do affect cpus, such as viewing distance and grass detail, but only in so much as that changes the limits needed for process. Turn down grass detail and the cpu only has to send a green blur to the gpu to paint, max out grass detail and the cpu has to apply shape, motion, color details in far greater numbers. Fps tanks.

Fps is governed by the cpu. Resolution governs the gpu. The only relationship the gpu and cpu share in fps is the gpus ability to demand, whether that's lower or higher than the cpu can supply.

That said, to answer Op, yes your setup affects performance. But not ability, just the limits. For example, I own a Dell factory mass produced 2button mouse. It's near indestructible, old as the hills and still works great, it's on its 5th pc now. However, being only 2 button, it means my other hand has to spend more time punching keys, I must move the cursor around more to click on menus etc, when a multi-button mouse could have macros set to do the same thing. The most obvious is in 3rd person view, the scroll wheel zooms in/out on the view. With just 2 buttons, I have to let go of wasd keys, cross the keyboard and use the page up/down buttons manually. Constant dance. So a better mouse would increase my gaming performance, I'd Dodge faster, move better, have better zoom control for snipers etc. Same goes for mechanical keyboards, some are hard press keys, some are soft press, some have loud clicks, some are silent. If you have a soft touch, and fast fingers, a loud click/hard press keyboard will drive you nuts. Or if you have masher type hands and prefer to know exactly when the key is activated a hard press/loud click keyboard would be perfect.

So while absolutely Yes, setup affects performance, it's not so much what it is, but how it applies to you.

That's just bizarre: 'The only thing a cpu worries about is how many frames per second it can process and ship to the gpu'

I'm literally scratching my head on that one!

By your statement, all the GPU does is 'paint a picture', and the CPU does all the calculations and only sends data to GPU to draw on screen. Of course this is not correct. The GPU does the calculations. That's what GPU's do. They take the data fed from CPU/Ram and the GPU does all the work, then outputs to the screen.

Anyway, it's gone on a complete tangent now, enough said.

 

[toshibitsu]

My main desktop is a custom water cooled Ryzen 7 2700x, 32gb ddr4-3200, Asus gtx 1080 ti oc, Samsung 960 evo 250gb x's 2(raid - Windows install), Toshiba x300 4tb 7200rpm(storage).
So far I don't notice much difference in this system and my other desktop(i5-4690k, 16gb ddr3-12800, Evga gtx 1070 ti ftw2, Mushkin 500gb 2.5" ssd[windows install], WD black 2tb 7200rpm[storage]).

Then again, the only games I've played on the new system so far are Left 4 Dead 1 and Rainbow Six Siege...
I'm anxious to get one of those new G-Sync HDR monitors once they become available.