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Essential pc software

Notaskwid

Notaskwid

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,652
Osaka
So I got a new (used) pc. I've owned laptops and the like before, but never a big desktop pc. What would you say are some of the essential software for some gaming, maintenance, etc, beside the obvious ones (Steam, web browser...)
And btw, is it true that CC cleaner is not reliable anymore? What are the alternatives?
 
Loxley

Loxley

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,607
7-Zip - for unzipping files
WhoCrashed - Great for if/when your computer BSODs or crashes and you need to identify what the source of the crash was
 
DocSeuss

DocSeuss

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,784
Widescreen Fixer and Flawless widescreen are both essential for making bad ports run good.
 
ss_lemonade

ss_lemonade

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,648
Treesize or windirstat for viewing what files and directories takes up the most space in your HDD/SSD
 
Agent_ShortBus

Agent_ShortBus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
671
VLC, tikione steam cleaner, malwarebytes, flawless widescreen if you have an ultra wide monitor. Remote desktop so you can control your pc from your phone.
 

Deleted member 7450

User requested account closure
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,842
Notepad++ - For cfg/ini edits

Everything - For a non garbage windows search

QTTabBar- Tabs on windows explorer. Plus a bunch of useful customizations and shortcuts (file preview just by hovering the mouse for example)

Archi's Steam Farm - Farming Steam cards. Secure and reliable

Tixati - Absolute best torrent client.

Internet Download Manager - Totally worth the price. Holy shite, it is the best download manager that was ever conceived.
 
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Pixieking

Pixieking

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,956
I prefer Media Player Classic over VLC, but I acknowledge VLC is more liable to play whatever you throw at it, I just don't chuck arcane files at MPC.

I still like Winamp as a music player, and a patched final version is available to download on the official forums.

Idle Master if you're looking at cashing in on Steam Cards.

MP3Tag for tagging of various music files (though there's probably better out there, I just don't care enough to look).

EAC to rip CDs, and FLAC and FLAC Frontend to convert the WAV files to lossless .flacs. Though a lot of people swear by Foobar, and that would play your music, too.

Borderless Gaming (available on Steam for a small fee, or on the dev website free).

HWMonitor for checking hardware temps.

KeePass as a password manager.

Crystal Disk Info to check hard drives.
 
Toad King

Toad King

Member
Oct 27, 2017
940
Chicago
  • Chrome or Firefox obviously.
  • VLC or MPC-HC for video/audio playback. Foobar2000 if you want a more featured music player.
  • 7-Zip for any archive file ever.
  • Paint.NET for a good image editor. Not quite Photoshop but a lot more usable than GIMP will ever be.
 
Dinjoralo

Dinjoralo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,137
Something I've found very useful; Join, by Joaoapps. It's like Pushbullet, except you only have to pay once and you can make it open websites directly in another devices browser.
 
Pellaidh

Pellaidh

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,164
Some that haven't been mentioned yet:

ShareX for easily taking screenshots/gift and automatically uploading them to the internet. A must have if you ever want to post your screenshots here, for example.

DS4Windows if you ever want to use a Dualshock 4 controller on your PC

Autohotkey to quickly set up scripts that let you for example rebind keys on games that don't support it, or to make holding one key count as pressing it multiple times (which is a must for games that want you to mash buttons). Also has a ton of advanced functionality if you want to get into it, and you can find scripts for various games online.

Something that isn't Acrobat Reader for reading PDFs. I like Evince because it's small, fast, and without any extra garbage.

NoScript or an equivalent JavaScript blocker for your browser. Lets you block malicious internet scripts, as well as Google's tracking scripts and the like. Can be a bit of a pain to set up (since it defaults to blocking everything, and some sites use a ton of scripts that are required for the site to work). But with things like scripts embedded in adds that install viruses or use your PC to mine cryptocurrency, it does provide some much needed safety. Particularly if you're going to be visiting more sketchy parts of the internet.
 
Pixieking

Pixieking

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,956
Pellaidh said:
DS4Windows if you ever want to use a Dualshock 4 controller on your PC
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

May or may not be worth it, depending upon if you can get the DS4 working through Steam. They added the functionality for using DS4s, and I've read that some people have no problems at all getting there's to work, whilst others have a bit more hassle.

Edit: Here's a guide.
 
Premium Ghoul

Premium Ghoul

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,359
Australia
Vashetti said:
Also I cannot praise this site enough: https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Home

Type in pretty much any PC game you can think of and there'll be an article for it with essential tweaks, performance fixes, links to mods, tips, etc.
Click to expand...
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Yep, I check this before starting any PC game for the first time. It's an incredibly valuable resource and it can save you a lot of time when trying to get old (or even new) games running properly.
 
BuBu Jenkins

BuBu Jenkins

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,063
Nvidia inspector

for nvidia gpu owners its essential to have this since it offers a wider selection of options over the defualt nvidia control panel
 
BAN PUNCHER

BAN PUNCHER

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
4,945
300px-Bonzi_Buddy.png
 
Conkerkid11

Conkerkid11

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
13,945
Pixieking said:
May or may not be worth it, depending upon if you can get the DS4 working through Steam. They added the functionality for using DS4s, and I've read that some people have no problems at all getting there's to work, whilst others have a bit more hassle.

Edit: Here's a guide.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I personally think their DS4 integration is shit, because you need to enable Big Picture Mode.
 
BeI

BeI

Member
Dec 9, 2017
5,974
I'd say MSI afterburner + Rivatuner and / or AMD / Nvidia inspecter. Not just for monitoring performance, but also for limiting it. Sometimes I like playing games at a solid 30 fps, and you can use the above options to manage that in various ways. With AMD, it's also possible to setup a hotkey (Chill) and get games to switch between a 30 and 60 fps lock without even tabbing out.

I tend to play with a controller a lot, so a solid level of performance is usually preferable to a stuttery 30-60 fps mess.
 
Mister X

Mister X

Banned
Dec 5, 2017
2,081
CCleaner

Oh btw, the new Opera browser is a must. Built in free VPN, ad blocker,...
 
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Apples_mmmmmmmm

Apples_mmmmmmmm

Member
Oct 25, 2017
52
I enjoy Fences for organizing my desktop, while still allowing me to have like a billion icons that I can easily get to.
 
N00MKRAD

N00MKRAD

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
1,376
- 7zip (can extract and compress anything)
- Paint.NET (the sweet spot between MS Paint and Photoshop)
- Everything (Like Windows Search, but 500 times faster. Indexes your entire drive within 10 seconds. Limited to NTFS though.)
 

Deleted member 11018

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,419
A good reputable antivirus, one of your choice. (I'm Kaspersky since antiviral toolkit pro, but i am not one to force commercial things on oneself).

I second NoScript for your browser, if you want perfect control of what part of a site runs and what does not. Preventing most of malicious redirects and useless tracking... that said, you'd have to be dedicated :) It's amazing how many sites try to mine cryptocurrency from your computer, and they don't even care enough to masquerade their scripts names xD

Virtual BOX/Virtual PC, if you want to experiment with old things without risking to destroy your windows, or want to completely seal off your internet browsing.
 
KainXVIII

KainXVIII

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,282
Total Commander - fuck windows explorer.
Daum PotPlayer (with lavfilters and madvr) - best and most robust video player.
4k Video Downloader - i like to download 4k/60fps yt videos (from DF, for example) and watch it later.
Foobar2000 (audiophile edition)/AIMP
Deluge for torrents (but i seeking for alternatives..)
Daemon Tools Lite for mounting iso files.
IrfanView for image viewing.
Munt - for playing old games with MT-32 emulation.
ScummVM/Dosbox - old games emulation.
SteaScree - uploading Steam screenshots for games that does not support overlay.
VMware Workstation - playing old windows games under win98.
 

NIN90

Member
Nov 6, 2017
565
WinDirStat if you got limited space on your SSD(s) and need to analyze how to make room.

Controller Companion is great if you want to use your desktop from your couch. Very customizable. It's paid but cheap and worth every penny.
 
MilkBeard

MilkBeard

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,780
If you've got Windows 10 (probably earlier ones too), look into disabling Windows Telemetry (basically they are just collecting info on your computer and sending it to microsoft, it works every once in a while and can tank your HDD while it's working).
 
Echo

Echo

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
6,482
Mt. Whatever
RTSS, Afterburner, Nvidia Inspector.

If you're smart you don't need Anti-virus/malware. You should get uBlock Origin and NoScript though, browsers which do not support these addons are trash and should be discarded immediately.

VLC is for heretics. Use MPC-BE x64 and educate yourself on Codecs/Hardware decoding. MadVR/Reclock with decent hardware is insane (in the best way) with regards to video quality/processing.

As others have said PCGamingWiki is truly invaluable, I used it before playing anything that wasn't an indie.

Definitely Cheat Engine for messing around in single player games.

Durante's GeDoSaTo.

The final build of Winamp is still the best lightweight and customizable Music player/organizer.
 
Krvavi Abadas

Krvavi Abadas

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
1,254
Videoland
People have already mentioned DOSbox, but if you want a way to use it without dealing with a command prompt, try D-Fend Reloaded.

ImgBurn is a great program for dumping discs. Particularly for emulation. As it can easily be used to dump PS1, PS2, PS3, (Assuming you have a proper Blu-Ray disc reader, and the time to manually decrypt and extract each individual disc.) SEGA CD, and SEGA Saturn games. Just be careful when installing it because the official installer is bundled with adware.

While there is a (completely optional) application to go along with it, i'd highly recommend creating a GOG.com account. Even if you aren't interested in buying games from them, they have a service that lets you link your Steam account to them and periodically allows importing select games to your GOG account if you already own them on the former, since all GOG games are DRM-free. It basically means you get a free backup copy of the game to download and archive just in case Steam goes down.

Conkerkid11 said:
I personally think their DS4 integration is shit, because you need to enable Big Picture Mode.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You don't, actually.
Go into settings > controller > desktop settings, and you can configure it into functioning like a standard Xinput controller as long as Steam is running in the background.
 
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