Silly question, but where do you download your PC games?

[jamescianciolo 0]

Hello! New here 

So I bought my first ever laptop (a Lenovo Legion 5i Gaming Laptop, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 8G, 16” WQXGA Display, Intel Core i7-14650HX, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 2560x1600 px, Windows 11, Luna Grey) for personal use, work, online courses and of course…playing video games!! 

But I’ve never played video games on a PC before, so where do I start?

I registered on Steam but I don’t know if I should download the Steam apps and buy the games there or buy the games directly to their website. Where do you storage the games?

What controller do you use?

Do you do modifications to your PC/laptop before playing a video game?

Sorry for my many questions. I’m a newbie when it comes to video games on a PC but I’m so excited to start! I’m curious to play Wuthering Waves, but I also want to try AAA games if my laptop can handle it. I was told it can so I hope so!!

Any help is greatly appreciated! slope game

[sandemc 3]

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I registered on Steam but I don’t know if I should download the Steam apps and buy the games there or buy the games directly to their website.

If you want to play the games you buy on Steam, you have to download their client app.
 

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Where do you storage the games?

The games are stored on your hard drive (so the 512GB SSD you have in your case, but you can likely extend it if you look up guides online).

If you're asking where do the purchased games go, the ownership of the game is attached to your storefront account, so it doesn't matter where you buy them, you can always download them as long as the service is still available.

There are also other storefronts other than Steam, though Steam is most popular for reasons, I'll go over the popular ones:

• GOG, they offer games that aren't attached to anything (no external clients, no internet, etc). You can just buy and download games directly from their website and "own" them, so to say.
• ZOOM, kind of the same as above but they go a step further with enhancing old games.
• Epic Games Store, sometimes may offer better deals in terms of prices and they rotate free games weekly. They're treated poorly in the gaming space for various reasons though (scummy exclusivity deals, awful client, etc), but I say it doesn't matter if you can actually have value from them.
• Xbox also sells their games on PC, but I wouldn't recommend buying games from them, rather, if you want, they offer a PC Game Pass subscription that allows to "rent" a library of games. Great for newcomers to gaming, IMO, as you can try out a huge variety of games for pretty cheap.
• EA sells their own games, so does Ubisoft, on their own storefronts (but do note they sell on Steam aswell). Usually no benefit to buying on their store separately, though. Ubisoft has their own subscription if you're interested, and EA has theirs too but it's available on Steam too.
• Humble Bundle sells games for one of the above storefronts (sometimes with better deals), but they also offer a subscription with monthly games (usually several the value of the subscription) and they sell bundles that contribute to charity and the games in said bundles are higher value than the price.
• Prime Gaming offers a subscription that gives you a bunch of games and bundles periodically - you redeem them on the above platforms, aswell.

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What controller do you use?

That comes down to your personal preference. The most effortless ones to use are the ones utilizing XInput (Xbox gamepads themselves, 8BitDo controllers, etc.) but they're slightly limited - mainly, they don't offer gyroscope functionality. Other controllers can be made to work with PC games aswell, but you'll require some layer pretty often (Steam Input, DS4Windows, etc.).


 

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Do you do modifications to your PC/laptop before playing a video game?

You can, but it's not necessary and can lead to poor results if you're not experienced. Usually, just updating your GPU drivers is enough: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/ (just download GeForce Experience or NVIDIA App).

 

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I’m curious to play Wuthering Waves, but I also want to try AAA games if my laptop can handle it.

You can play WuWa by going to their website and downloading their PC client (press on the Windows button) or on the Epic Games Store.

As for other games, your PC is plenty for pretty much any game out there, don't worry about it much

[H0TL1N3 0]

Hey there!

Kind of new to posting on PC Gaming Wiki, but I do use it for my gaming needs from time to time and wanted to reply to this question.

First off - yes, your laptop will very happily handle modern triple-A games with these specs, the only thing that might be a limiting factor would be the SSD capacity. If you're not planning on storing a ton of games at once, it may suffice, but you might look into options for expanding your storage if need be.

A controller might be needed for some games, but is not necessary, a keyboard and mouse will be enough most of the time. If you want to play games using one, the easiest route would probably be an Xbox One / Series gamepad, but you can use any third-party XInput ones and Dualshocks as well. Just google the name of your controller and see if there are any compatibility issues with them and how to get them to work.

Steam is the place for most games on the platform, but it isn't the only one - there's also Epic Games Store, the EA and Xbox apps, Ubisoft Connect, Rockstar Game Launcher, GOG.COM, the list goes on. Just look for the game you want online and see what platform you can download it from.

To store games using Steam, you will need to download the app to your PC. Get any game you want - go for something like Counter-Strike 2 or DOTA 2 if you need a free one - and add them to your library from their store pages. From there, you can install it from your library. Steam will suggest the drive for downloading the game, all you have to do is make sure you have enough space for it.

As far as I understand, Wuthering Waves can be downloaded either directly from the homepage of the game or through Epic Games Store. I would personally prefer to download it from EGS to keep all the games in one place, even if it will install an additional launcher for it too, but the choice is yours.

Hope more people will reply to this thread to get you geared up and ready to go. Good luck!