PC and Console Gaming Setup

My Main Work/Media/Gaming PC ‘studio.local’ Ryzen 7 9800X 3D CPU GIGABYTE B850 AORUS ELITE WIFI7 Motherboard with 2.5Gbits/sec internet and on-board Wifi7 Be quiet! Straight Power 12 1000W power supply, ATX 3.0, 80 PLUS Platinum Cooler Master MasterAir MA824 Stealth CPU Air Cooler Samsung 990 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD, 4 TB, PCIe 4.0, 7,450 MB/s read, 6,900 MB/s write, Internal SSD Fractal Design North XL Charcoal Black Mesh G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo EXPO RGB 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C30 6000MHz ASUS GeForce RTX 4070 12G DUAL EVO OC Gaming Graphics Card - 2550MHz Boost Clock, GDDR6X, PCIe Gen 4, DLSS 3, HDMI 2.1a, 3 x DisplayPort 1.4a (Supports 4K & 8K HDR) * 12th Gen i7 CPU 1x 1TB SSD that I use as a system drive for legacy reasons 10Gb/sec fibre optic network card Keyboard and Mouse 8Bitdo Retro Mechanical Keyboard, Bluetooth/2.4G/USB-C Hot Swappable Gaming Keyboard with 87 Keys, Dual Super Buttons and Super Stick for Windows and Android - ISO UK Layout - C64 Edition 8BitDo Retro 18 Mechanical Numpad, Supports Calculator Mode, Bluetooth/2.4G/Wired Numpad for Windows and Android - C64 Edition LOFREE TOUCH PBT Wireless Mouse with USB receiver, Bluetooth, Wired Connection, Rechargeable, 4000 DPI with OLED Screen Compatible with glass surface for Mac Windows PC Notebook/Block Retro White Gray Monitor and Other accessories ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM gaming monitor ― 32-inch 4K QD-OLED panel, 240Hz, 0.03ms (GTG), G-SYNC compatible, custom heatsink, graphene film, uniform brightness, 99% DCI-P3, True 10-bit, 90 W Type-C 29 inch ‘Tate Mode’ portrait mode LCD VA 144hz refresh gaming monitor with Gsync 2x Genelec 8020 DPM speakers Logi USB headset with noise cancelling microphone Logitech Key light for web cam calls LogiTech C920 web cam R0de Procaster mic with boom, roll cage and muffler Network cabinet with rack-mounted Mikrotik fibreoptic 10Gb/sec router, switch and a Presonus 1824i USB-c sound interface that is connected to the PC. Ergonomic Equipment Flexispot E7Pro Motorised Desk with 2x ergonomic monitor stand arms Flexispot BS14 ergonomic chair with headrest Flexispot standing desk mat Wooden rocker balance board 360 style balance board Fenge Dual Monitor Stand, Monitor Stands Riser for 2 monitors, 42.5 Inch Wood Desk Shelf with Storage Organizer and Cable Management for Office Desk Accessories Black FIFINE Microphone Arm Stand, Boom Arm Stand with Desk Mount Clamp, Screw Adapter, Cable Management, Suspension Scissor Mic Stand for Boom Stick Microphone, for Podcast Streaming Gaming Studio-BM88 (for R0de mic) Quntis Monitor Light bar with RGB Backlight, 40cm Computer Monitor Lamp with Dimmer and Color Temperature, LED Touch Control Gaming Screen Light No Screen Glare and Eye Protection for Home Office Media PC Software dbPowerAmp CD Ripper (lifetime licence) MakeMKV for ripping CDs and Blu-rays (lifetime licence) AnyDVD HD (lifetime licence) for ripping DVDs and Blu-rays 4K Video Downloader (lifetime licence) for ripping videos from Youtube etc Imagemagik for creating GIFs and command line batch graphics manipulation and conversion FFMPEG for command line batch video manipulation Movavai Video Editor 2022 Sony Vegas 19 Video Editor for more complex video edits Aseprite Pixel Graphics and Animated Gif Editor Sonarworks SoundID Reference - speaker and headphones environmental EQ software. Audacity Audio Editor for editing and mastering mixes uploaded to Mixcloud Hye Sync (official app) for syncing Phillips Hue lights to movies, games, etc PlexAmp and Plex for streaming audio and video from my Plex server at highest quality VLC for video playback HandBrake for transcoding and compressing video OBS Studio (open source) Resolume Avenue 7 for visuals for my DJ stream Resolume Wire for creating custom beat-synced visualisations for my stream Paint.NET open source graphics program for simple crops and photo editing Aiseesoft Blu-ray Player (lifetime licence) for playing unripped Blu-rays on my PC Bome MIDI Translator Classic (lifetime licence) for translating MIDI events to key presses - useful for complex streaming setups Various free emulation tools for decrypting/anti-DRMing copies of video game console optical disks and getting them in a playable state for use in an emulator Reaper DAW (shareware licence) Ableton Live 11 Suite DAW Filebot for renaming and organising media files My Gaming Laptop ’legion.local’ Lenovo Legion 5-15IAH 2022 i7 12th Gen 64GB DDR5 RAM 2x 2TB NVME M.2 4th Gen SSDs Nvidia Laptop 3070TI Cooling Gaming Laptop Pad Gaming Setup I share this setup between the Media PC and the Gaming Laptop. I have a 4K HDR KVM switch and a USB 3.0 KVM switch so I can quickly switch between the two. ...

June 26, 2023 · 13 min · David Craddock

My Home Retro Arcade Setup

I’ve always wanted an arcade machine in my home. But I could never really afford one, in terms of time and space. Recently I thought to myself, “I’m not getting any younger”. So I built an arcade setup mostly just using the things I already had in the home. Games The ROMs I have are all stored on my file server upstairs. I can get around a 3gbits/sec connection via my 10gbits/sec home network, so there is no performance ‘hit’ in streaming them off the network drive - it has similar speed and latency to a physical drive. Which is handy, because my ROM collection is way too big for the storage on my gaming PC. ...

5 min · David Craddock