I mean, come on—I’ve got every single setting cranked up to the absolute max, but let’s be real, this game is just incredibly demanding. Besides, PC World published an article just two days ago about running on 3.5GB of VRAM, claiming they didn't run into any issues at that resolution. Honestly, I haven't even hit a game yet that actually stutters on my rig.
RAM shouldn't be an issue at all—it really ought to work without any hiccups. But, you never know, there's always a chance 😁
1. Before you go ahead with the Windows 7 installation, I'd highly recommend checking the motherboard manufacturer's website to see if they actually offer drivers for Windows 7. I've run into a few situations where I tried installing Windows 7 on some older machines and just couldn't find the drivers for the LAN or network card. Since Windows 7 didn't automatically detect or install them, and the manufacturer's site didn't have anything listed for the 7 version, I ended up having to roll back to a different version of Windows entirely. Just a little heads-up so you aren't caught off guard.
2. On the flip side, maybe in your specific case, the OS will just pick up the network card and handle the installation itself—if that happens, then you're golden. 😁
It’s honestly pretty standard—especially if your son is watching videos in HD, or heaven forbid, Full HD. All that bandwidth just gets sucked up by his stream and YouTube. Plus, once you start adding more devices to the Wi-Fi, it’s no surprise things start feeling sluggish.
Next time he's on YouTube, try clicking that little gear icon on the video player and dropping the quality down to maybe 360p or 480p? That should take some of the pressure off the connection.
I totally get where you're coming from—honestly, I’m right there with those people since I picked up a 970 myself. As long as I’m sticking to a "standard" monitor size and resolution—the kind that about 90% of gamers actually use—this card performs flawlessly. Sure, if I ever decide to make the jump to 4K, I’ll definitely need to upgrade to something more powerful, because let's face it, a 970 just isn't built for that level of intensity. So, on one hand, I see why folks with massive high-res monitors run into trouble when their VRAM hits that 3.5 GB limit and things start stuttering; but on the other hand, that doesn't really affect me. Like I mentioned before, my setup matches what most people are playing, so I haven't run into any of those issues. 😁
Just keep in mind that game optimization is a huge factor here—Dying Light is essentially a console port, so we’re likely looking at a patch coming down the line to actually get it running smoothly. If you check out some YouTube reviews, you can see exactly how it performs and at which resolution it starts hitting that 3.5 GB VRAM limit. I still maintain that this card is fantastic for 1080p or 1200p, but anything beyond that? Not really. Especially not for 4K, where even a card like an Intel Core i7 would struggle to keep up.
From what I’ve seen, a few years back, a lightning strike fried every single one of my components too. So, first things first—just grab a new motherboard, but make sure you double-check that the socket matches your current processor. Once you have the board, try hooking up the rest of your parts just to see if the PC will actually boot up..
Sorry I didn't add an EDIT earlier—the forum is acting a bit sluggish today and I really didn't feel like logging back in just to fix it. Anyway, here’s that Linus Tech Tips video. He breaks everything down pretty clearly, so if you're comfortable with English, it's worth a quick watch. It gives a nice, simple overview of how things work regarding that 3.5GB VRAM plus the extra 512MB.
Just follow the steps I laid out and you should be good to go—I’ve run into similar headaches myself in the past, but ever since I started doing this a few years back, everything's been smooth sailing. You might also want to grab VLC media player while you're at it; it really helps. Honestly, what have you got to lose by giving it a shot?
Nobody really points this out, but the gtx 970 actually pulls significantly less power—just something to keep in mind since I always factor that into my decisions. Plus, I really dig how the Asus Strix model keeps things simple with just a single 8-pin connector to plug in 😁
Are you guys kidding me? Seriously, if you're planning to play at anything higher than Full HD, don't even bother looking at a gtx 970. But hey, if you're perfectly happy sticking to 1080p, then go ahead and grab it.
So, I usually grab movies from torrent sites—let's say I'm downloading something like John Wick from YIFY . Once the download finishes, I head over to a site like Subscene to hunt down the right subtitle version—something specifically tagged for "John Wick YIFY," for instance. After I've got the subtitle file, I just copy the movie's filename and rename the subtitle file to match it exactly. That way, everything syncs up perfectly, though you obviously have to make sure you add .srt to the end of the filename . Just to keep things simple for you, here’s an example of how I do it (see image) .
It’s basically useless now—it looks like they finally caught on at Microsoft and stripped that junk out of Windows 8.1 ☕ I mean, look, a Hard Drive is just a mechanical disk, whereas an SSD uses flash memory and doesn't have any "moving" parts. Honestly, once you make the switch to an SSD, your computer feels like a brand-new machine. There isn't a single hardware upgrade that can boost your speed quite as much as an SSD can.
I’ve gotta say, my cousin can be such a pain sometimes—and I mean that in the most literal sense. A few years back, he charged me for installing some cooling fans $50, and what’s really annoying isn't even the money, it's that he didn't even give me a receipt. So, I get home and tell my parents he charged me $50 for about three minutes of work. My folks called him up and were totally fine with paying, but they asked if he could just send over an invoice. He actually had the nerve to act all tight about it... we could have easily called an inspector on him, but honestly, we just didn't want the headache, so we ended up just handing him the $50 anyway.
The whole point of me bringing this up is that $13 the price for an optical drive isn't actually that crazy, even if it truly takes maybe two minutes to set up. But hey, at the end of the day, people have to make a living too, right?
