PC Gaming

Skyrim is good on the PC, I played on it at a friends so I would certainly buy that which is able to play on Windows 7. You can use steam if you want to buy it straight from the computer but obviously you won't have the disk if one of your friends wanted to lend it. Windows 7 should be able to play most recent games on it.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

It's good, but scary as hell.

All i know is comming from first person shooters on PC, going to PS3 for FPS sucks balls. i hate analog sticks for aiming. I don't get it. and i just don't get how anyone can say its remotely better. Keyboard and mouse is smoother and easier than analog sticks. Therefore PC gaming has a slight edge. Plus RTS games

That doesn't give us much info on the PC performance. What we would need is that graphics card (you can find that by looking in Control Panel, then Hardware and Sound, then Device Manager - it should tell you under Display Adapters what your video card is), the RAM, and the CPU performance. What is needed is going to vary somewhat depending on the game.

Personally, I don't have a significant preference toward either console or PC. I have had an XBox 360 for years and have stacks of games. Approximately a year ago, I decided to build a gaming PC and have enjoyed it equally. I like that they both offer something slightly different.

In terms of technology, a top-end gaming PC is far more powerful than any of the existing consoles. Quite honestly, a top end gaming PC right now is more potent than the hardware proposals I've seen for the next generation of consoles. However, that advantage is mitigated by the reality that games are not advancing as quickly, meaning there are few titles that can take advantage of the edge in technology. This is partly because there are fewer PC-exclusive titles than previously. Game developers try to maximize profits by releasing titles that are ported across 360, PS3, and PC. That means that the version for PCs is not going to be much better than the console versions, at least not "out of the box".

The PC-exclusive titles tend to fall into two areas - MMORPGS and games that don't tend to adapt well to console (sports sims, some Real Time Strategy games). One of the reasons I built a gaming PC was that I enjoy a number of titles that don't translate (and/or are not available) on console and my laptop wouldn't run them very effectively. So I built a system that can run whatever I throw at it. It was not top end when I built and certainly not now, but I have yet to really challenge it and max out what it can do.

I mentioned before that most ported games on PC are not going to be much different from the console versions "out of the box". And therein is the greatest advantage of PC gaming - mod-ability. Most good games have strong communities of support that release a lot of mods that allow you do everything from have new maps to import real vehicles/locations to significantly upgrade the graphics of the game. There are already tons of stuff available for Skyrim. The Natural is a PC gamer and he has posted some awesome pics of what his modded version of GTA IV looks like on his system - it doesn't even look like the same game as on console. When I first build my PC, I bought Morrowind (an Elder Scrolls game from 2002) for something like $8 and then applied a bunch of mods. It took a bit of work but the result was a ten-year old game that looked pretty amazing.

Consoles do have an advantage in regard to being "plug n' play" - you don't have to mess with downloading the latest video drivers and so on. Its not something I've run into any real problems with on my PC - the only significant trouble I had was getting the mod package to work on Morrowind, but I was able to contact the developer and he helped me set it up.

Idk if you're an FPS guy, but I heard Battlefield 3 was awesome on PC. I'm more of a console guy, so just going by what I heard. Honestly the last PC game I played was Far Cry: Instincts

there's a website you can check that will tell you if you can run certain games at minimum and recommended settings.

Can You RUN It | Can I run that game | Game system requirements

Originally Posted by Big Papa

That doesn't give us much info on the PC performance. What we would need is that graphics card (you can find that by looking in Control Panel, then Hardware and Sound, then Device Manager - it should tell you under Display Adapters what your video card is), the RAM, and the CPU performance. What is needed is going to vary somewhat depending on the game.

Intel HD graphics
RAM - 6GB
Processor - Intel Core i5-2430M CPU @ 2.40GHz

I was thinking of getting LA Noire and Batman: Arkham City, will that support those games?

Thanks for the advice guys.

Good process and a good amount of RAM. Not sure how potent that integrated graphics processor is. That will be the possible bottle-neck. Good chance you could run both Batman and LA Noire but at nowhere near max graphics settings. Check out the link that Duke provided to see what it indicates.