It’s Nem jnr’s 9th birthday soon and there’s two things he’d like – a graphics card with video capture built in (so he can make minecraft videos…) and a dog fight type flight sim – probably something fairly arcade style rather than fully authentic – both for PC

Suggestions? A card that could run elite dangerous would be a bonus (for me!)

TIA

Current spec :

Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
6GB DDR3 Memory
1TB Hard Drive
Nvidia GeForce GT 620 1GB Graphics
Wireless AC + Bluetooth v4.0
Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit Operating System

Both AMD and Nvidia now bundle software for recording your gaming. You can also download other apps that do the same.

Minecraft is not that taxing so ~ £100 graphics cards are more than fine e.g. AMD RX560 or Nvidia GTX1050. Those would also be able to run Elite on lower settings.

If you have a budget around £150-£175 then a 4GB RX570 would more than meet your needs and your CPU shouldn’t have problems keeping up for 90% of games out there. An nvidia 1050Ti or 1060 would be the other option.

There are loads of flight sims available. For a gaming/dog-fighting one world-of-warplanes seems to have fans. I have not tried it, but it’s free (with paid for add ons).

[video]https://youtu.be/6HzRBOBHn4Y[/video]

If that’s too arcade like il-2 1946 would probably run on your current card and cost less than a tenner from gog.com and be a good intro into a proper ww2 sims (it has more recent successors).

If its fast jets DCS world is free for the base install with the more basic add ons quite reasonably priced (but I’d recommend one of the better GPU’s for that). Whilst it has got some simplified aircraft and missions it can still take a while to master and has some very realistic add ons that require a lot of effort to learn;

[video]https://youtu.be/GgfKVIife4U[/video]

EDIT – some people might question DCS for a 9 year old… however I got my 7 year old daughter to land an SU 27 on the Admiral Kutnetsoz with a few of the difficulty settings turned down. It was great fun 🙂

Good suggestions above.
Putting a more powerful graphics card in will be the single biggest upgrade.

How may sticks of ram are you running, 6gb seems an odd amount?

If there’s budget to spare look at going to 8gb, and possibly getting an SSD drive.

What’s your budget?

i think this is the real benchmark for flight sims:

http://www.sopwith.org/

As above, if you have 4Gb + 2Gb then a pair of 4Gb sticks will give a boost as they can operate in dual channel mode, then sell the old sticks. If you have 4 mem slots, make sure they go in the matching colours slots.

As has already been suggested, Nvidia have software which will enable you to capture video and upload.

The base spec of the CPU looks okay, it’ll run Minecraft with no problem (but so will a Raspberry Pi), a 1TB graphics card is the bare minimum for gaming these days, but as others have said an upgrade here will be the single biggest expense. It’s easy to go OTT, a 1050Ti will probably be fine, or a 1060 will be good for a while yet.

A memory upgrade is also a very good plan – 8gb is probably the minimum.

As above, you no longer need a specific output on your card to record games. I don’t know about the AMD offerings, but NVidea’s Geforce Experience allows you to screen grab, record and stream games (although this functionality is also available in Windows 10’s Game Bar).

My humble Geforce 760 is great at playing a lot of games at high settings; the much newer equivalent, the 1060 is pretty pricey but reputedly about twice as fast. I’d have thought that a 1050 would suit your needs (they start at about £100 for a 2Gb model).

As above I’d go with the 1050Ti as it’s only £20 or so more than the non-ti and has twice the ram.

a 1TB graphics card is the bare minimum for gaming these days

Either that’s a typo or I’m way out of touch with gaming rigs. 1Gb presumably?

and a dog fight type flight sim

War thunder. Still easily playable in arcade and realistic mode with a mouse and keyboard, rock hard in simulation mode.

http://warthunder.com/en

I prefer it to world of warplanes, as the flight model is less arcadey.

Thanks all.

So, looking into this, will the current power supply cope? It’s 360w but several of the graphics cards seem to have 300w requirement. The current card has no separate power supply and is passively cooled.

If that’s the case are there any cards that don’t need separate power but will be able to do the video capture?

Or have I got mixed up?

Nvidia 1050, possibly the Ti version sounds about right with out checking the power requirements.
for nvidia 1060 and the AMD equivalent rx580.. You’ll probably want a better power supply unit.

1050ti is the best option for no extra power requirements. Check which version though, some cards do have 6 pin power and some don’t.

Something like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01M8M5T4T/?tag=pcp0f-21

Anything better and you’d be wanting a better PSU.

Try war thunder it’s free to play. Has all the planes from the 1930s to mid Cold War. Multiplayer online.

Looking at the cost, I.might back off the requirement to be able to play Elite.

As such, is something like a GT 730 going to be up to the job?

Nope, 1050 really is low end for playing half decent modern games. The 730 is probably not much better than the integrated GPU on the I5-4460.

OK thanks again. I’ve gone for that Zotac 1050ti

Guess I’ll have to get elite then 🙂

Hi,

The 1050Ti will be more than enough. I play ED on a GTX970 with triple monitor and the settings set fairly high. The FPS drops when it’s busy but network lag is normally the limiting factor at CG’s.

For Flight sim, I play the refresh of IL2. It’s not an arcade game, more a sim but it is the best out there.

See you in the skies/space.

BTW, Get yourself an EDTracker…

I don’t know about VR – I’ve tried a few games and while they’re impressive, I’m not sure that they actually add to the game experience – maybe need to experiment now.

EDTracker is a £45 (£8 if you are handy with a soldering iron) motion tracker that sits on your headphones/headset and gives you up/down left/right and tilt view. It’s not VR but adds so much to the game.

VR is something I would love but can’t justify the cost for many years to come.