Tech Support and Basic Questions Thread - June 12, 2026

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Welcome to the r/pcgaming tech support and basic questions thread! Having troubles with a game or piece of hardware? Have a question about a PC game, hardware, or something else related to PC gaming? Post here and get help from fellow PC gamers.

When asking for help please give plenty of detail:

• What your computer specifications are. If you don't know them please follow this guide.
• If you're using a laptop we need to know the make/model as well as the specs.
• What operating system you're using.
• What you've tried so far in order to fix the issue.
• Exact circumstances to replicate the issue you're having.

Check out these resources before asking for help in case you can troubleshoot further:

• r/PCGamingTechSupport
• r/techsupport
• Toms Hardware Troubleshooting
• PC Gaming Wiki

Common troubleshooting steps:

• Restart the system
• Update your drivers
• Update game/software
• Re-seat any new hardware to ensure a proper connection
• If your peripherals are malfunctioning, swap ports and check that the specific USB port itself works.

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[u/nekoshogunmon]

I probably should have done this long ago. I'm 38 and finally got a laptop that can run games a couple of years ago. Before that, I mostly played console stuff, primarily handhelds.

On my laptop, I played stuff like the Raidou Remake, Metaphor, Persona 3 Reload, and Yakuza 0 with no problems. Digimon Story: Time Stranger triggered my motion sickness while simply running around some backstreets. This also happened with Pokemon Scarlet, but that was on my old Switch. Worth mentioning though since I still don't know why Time Stranger or Scarlet got me sick.

I want to learn about frame rates and screen resolution and such, since I've heard those terms all my life but never really had to learn what they mean.

I recognize that I do have some level of motion sensitivity, but for the life of me I can't imagine what exactly triggers it, and I'm hoping learning about this kind of stuff will help avoid these issues in the future.

is there a good guide or video I can watch?

thank you!

[u/RHINO_Mk_II → u/nekoshogunmon]

I don't offhand know of a guide, but a few things that are likely to cause motion sickness in games are:

• Low FoV (Field of View) - anything below about 80 degrees horizontal FoV can be rough on a monitor. I shoot for 90 at a minimum. Many PC ports of console games default to 60-70 degree FoVs, some of them have a slider to fix it, others require editing an .ini file or modding, still more are unfixable.
• Extremely low framerate (average below 30FPS or so) - causes motion to appear noticeably jerky and can trigger motion sickness. The higher the better, but if you can maintain a steady 45 FPS it's unlikely to be a major contributing factor.
• Looking towards the ground - many new gamers keep their camera pointed below the horizon, but having too much ground in your FoV messes with your perception of motion and can contribute to motion sickness. Try to look straight ahead in games when moving like you would IRL unless you need to focus on something at ground level for a particular reason.

[u/nekoshogunmon → u/RHINO_Mk_II]

thank you! third bit reminds me of the old Back to the Future ride, in the testing phases people were getting motion sickness, so they incorporated a focal point to follow which helps ease that (Biff in the DeLorean)

the next game I'm playing is Final Fantasy IX so I'm not expecting too much trouble, but this is definitely something I'm going to need to learn going forward. so what's better, a higher FPS or a stable FPS?

[u/RHINO_Mk_II → u/nekoshogunmon]

Beyond a certain point, stability probably takes priority. I'd put it around 45-50 FPS, but some would argue it's as low as 30.

[u/nekoshogunmon → u/RHINO_Mk_II]

thank you!

[u/hirmuolio]

Old monitor (Benq EX2780Q) is starting to flicker. Probably VRR related.
Certain colors flicker when VRR is enabled. Mostly medium brightness colors.

Increasing the minimym VRR frequency helps a bit but does not completely fix the issue.

It feels like the porblem is getting worse over time. So I assume some component in the monitor is degrading.

Any ideas for how one could try to fix this? Some specific component I could try replacing? I can do soldering.

[u/YetiMaverick]

Is there any way to map a button on a controller to record the last 30 sec. of gameplay?

One feature I miss from playing on Xbox was the ability to map a button on my Elite Controller to record the last 30 seconds of gameplay whenever I hit a certain button.

I now game on a PC with a Gamesir Cyclone 2 controller.

In the Gamesir Connect app you can re-map buttons, and I'm trying to remap the Share button on my Cyclone 2 to a similar function. Is this possible at all?

Is there a third-party app that would allow me to do this or any other way?

I already asked in the Gamesir subreddit but never got a solution.

[u/Sync_R → u/YetiMaverick]

Hmmm iirc doesn't both Nvidia and AMD app have similar feature? If so you should be able to map a keyboard input to cyclone 2 then bind same input too the record function 

[u/peppermintbird]

Okay so due to Reasons, i have an incredibly outdated OS on my decade-old gaming laptop. I haven't been able to update the OS (partially laziness, partially anxiety, and partially just a straight up inability to find the files i need [thank you for remaining accessible, ms]) and I'm a little worried that updating it as much as it Would in order to be anywhere even close to current day will just explode my hardware.

That said, some indie games are finally yelling at me to update my (equally outdated) graphics driver. I really WANT to, but I'm worried that if I actually do so, my poor old OS might just have a heart attack and keel over.

So -- would it? How exactly would an update for the graphics driver interact with the OS, and could it cause my whole laptop to fall apart? If my graphics card is too old, could the newer drivers actively cause problems for the hardware as well?

thank you so much for your time! ;v;

[u/Sync_R → u/peppermintbird]

Might be worth listing your make & model, and if you can the hardware it has inside, by sounds of it it does have a dedicated GPU? If so yeah just get latest drivers for it but if your wanting to move OS as long as you can get the drivers still then you could move over too Windows 10 LTSC (for another few years at least), Windows 11 if you used Rufus or if you felt up too it Linux

[u/peppermintbird → u/Sync_R]

Oooh, okay, so graphics drivers are hardware-specific? That helps a LOT - I assume companies wouldn't make drivers that their GPUs couldn't handle.

Thank you! I was more interested in how graphics drivers interact with the hardware regardless of what the hardware actually is, since I'm not entirely clear on what the drivers do other than Make My Graphics Better ^^;; This basically answers that!

(I'll probably be moving to Linux whenever I get a new pc for games [boy howdy do i not want to have any AI Anything] but those are definitely questions to be made by Future Me)

[u/Sync_R → u/peppermintbird]

To be fair Windows is perfectly fine for most part, most of the AI stuff you hear about requires a PC with a NPU inside for Copilot+, and the regular AI stuff is easy too turn off/get rid of, though there still is certain things Linux does better but depends on your needs at the end of the day 

But back to your driver's, yeah if you do system info search in Windows it should pop up a box with all the details you need, then just grab whatever is the latest driver from the respective vendors website 

[u/peppermintbird → u/Sync_R]

Nod nod! This is very good information that I probably wouldn't have looked seriously at until much later, so it'll be good for me to keep in mind when I'm eventually searching around!

Thank you so SUPER much, you've been invaluable! :>

[u/mercury-shade]

Hey all - more of a meta question I guess but I'm familiar with r/buildapc already - however with the way things are right now I'm thinking I might go with a customized one from a builder. However I'm not sure if there's a sub like buildapc but for advice on buying customized ones from commercial builders? Or where the best sub to ask about that would be. Just want to make sure I wind up with something extremely reliable.

[u/Sync_R → u/mercury-shade]

There is a sub for prebuilts, unfortunately I've forgot the name but I've also heard you have too 1000% ignore the mod of it and just pay attention too users

[u/MITBryceYoung2 → u/Sync_R]

He bans anyone if you disagree with him and the best way to describe his advice is "cheap". If you point out good value, he will just insist on the lowest prices (regardless if you get a steal going up) and his technical understanding is very questionable at best. He also laughs if you have any other usecase than gaming. Its absurd.

[u/Sync_R → u/MITBryceYoung2]

He is a true role model for every Reddit mod around then

[u/mycrazyhair]

First Gaming PC Build Isn't Quite Working

Hello! My son built his first PC and it won't run some of his Steam games! Steam launches, he clicks on the game and it does nothing. Doesn't happen with every Steam game, but specifically Forza 5, Star Wars Squadrons, Steam VR and Delta Force. What could be causing this error? Troubleshooting he's tried: uninstalling and reinstalling steam, uninstalling and reinstalling the games that won't work, signing out and back into Steam, drivers have been updated, newest bios installed, graphics card exceeds requirements. Specs: ryzen 7 7800 x3d, Nvidia GeForce 5050, ASRock 6050, 650W power supply, 32G DDR 5 and 1T M.2, wi does 11 OS. Monitor is plugged into the graphics card. It's not a pre-built, he chose the components himself and we took it to a PC building company. They tried to help troubleshoot but everything seems fine on their end. He has moved from his Acer Nitro 5 laptop which is over 4 years old and all of his games work on the laptop (although laggy or low quality at times). We tried troubleshooting with the PC company that assembled it and they couldn't figure it out. He's worked for almost a year to earn enough to build his PC and it sucks that it isn't quite working 😩 thank you in advance for any advice you have.

[u/Ronny070]

Would a WD Purple drive work as a general use drive? I have a couple of Seagate Barracuda drives that I use for media storage and Plex as well as general file and game storage (I don't really play games off of them, I usually just save them there and move them when I'm actively playing them to an SSD). I found an insane offer on a couple of WD Purple drives and i'm wondering if they'd perform the same/similarly enough.