this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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I’m a 30 year old woman who’s only really played card and puzzle games on my phone. Im considering new hobbies. Is it worth trying to get into video games for the first time. Where would I even start.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Yes. It's a scalable hobby, and can run from virtually no cost to why-are-you-burning-money. But you can do a lot in gaming with little monetary investment.

There are lots of budget indie games that are lots of fun, and if you find out you like gaming and want to try more fancy titles, you can always upgrade hardware.

Minimal entry: your current pc. Install steam, and buy/try what you like, returning it if it's too slow/doesn't work.

Light entry: get familiar with your pc's ram size, hd/ssd size, cpu speed/type, and graphics card. Use that to ensure your pc can handle the game by looking at the game's minimum requirements.

Medium-heavy entry: Upgrade things.

  • ssd if you don't have one. The difference between that and spinning disks is night and day. If you wished things loaded faster, get this.
  • 8 gb graphics card in the $150 range, amd or nvidia-based. Get this if you want a smoother experience / if you can notice individual frames happening. You don't need the most expensive tech to play most games that are out there.
  • Genuine XBox or PS4/5 controller. These standard controllers are generally pretty solid and durable. $60ish
  • new cpu ($$$, and may not even be an option): most games won't be processor-bound. But some are cpu-heavy. Get this if you really want to upgrade overall, or have a particular title in mind that needs it. Or..
  • Low-mid range gaming computer ($900 ($600-$1500)): wait until you want to do a pc upgrade, and get a low-end gaming computer. I recommend Lenovo LOQ or Legion. Lenovo in general has provided laptops that don't fall apart on me, and that's not something I can say about most computer manufacturers. That said, keep them long enough and you'll have to replace the keyboard - but that's every laptop out there that I've run across.
  • or: go crazy and buy everything all the time at the moment it his the market because it is a game or has "game" written on, near, or associated with it (not recommended)