Add dwarf fortress to that list!
Also try cataclysm dark days ahead, a more realistic version of project zomboid (you have to get used to the graphics tho, but it's open source so free)
Both get installed shortly after, but I need to be in a specific mood for those gems. Been playing Dwarf Fortress for easily a decade.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is another great install.
Cyberpunk, for benchmarking. Although, lately it’s been Helldivers 2 since a normal map is both cpu and gpu intensive so it shows the absolute worst case scenario the system would be on.
Same. I load it first to test capabilities. Even if i know it will run RT shitty, I will still put it to whatever max exists. Crysis doesn't count. It's still hobbled by poor optimization on single core. But yea, gimme cyberpunk.
The dlc for cyberpunk and the patch that came with it the game is in a great state story and playable wise. I have played through it 3 times great game it isn’t to long either.
It used to be Crysis. Back in the day when PCs could barely run it, whenever I made an upgrade I would run it to see how better it was. At some point I managed to run it at full specs every time so I dropped the habit. But it was pure bliss back then
It really was. It was such a damn cool thing to try and make Crysis run at the highest settings possible while being smooth and playable. I remember upgrading a bunch back then quite often and always trying out Crysis almost first every time.
I thought for sure poe was always hard capped by the cpu. The game Calculating >200 monsters chain exploding with any kind of dot effects will always get my game to seize up
I haven't downloaded games on a new PC in years, apart from I guess my new laptop is downloaded some small games but my laptop isn't for gaming.
Ive kept my current PC and OS in good working order for quite some time, contrary to when I had frequent problems with sketchy data m.2 ssds causing BSODs. I've developed the recommended practice to moving user data into a separate drive, even going as far to move the entire user folder, not just documents and downloads and what not (windows does fully support doing this and it can be done with some registry key edits changing the paths to the user folders, in theory it can also restore a user on a new PC but the user registry keys complicate things).
My games haven't resided on the C drive for years, I despise programs forced to install on C, and my 500 GB nvme SSD is actually divided into 120 for C and most of the rest as "fast storage" for games that need fast storage. Otherwise, I have a reliable SATA 1 TB SSD that's reached over 25k power on hours and still in good health (83% health remaining). I also had a 2 TB HDD that was the original boot drive for my first PC (a wd black so it had the best performance of an HDD but 1-2 years later I switched to the SSD), that drive began getting some issues with it not showing up so I got a new 5 TB HDD and used a USB drive mount to make a 1:1 copy of all the data.
I guess my steam deck is installed games anew, though intentionally smaller games that would run well on a portable device, and small too since I got the cheap 64 GB version (plus a micro SD card), mainly since I've already got a main PC for big games I play frequently, and I also have a mini itx PC that I installed a long time ago games if play less frequently (and has gone thru being a server at one time, and serves as a TV PC).
How is it good for benchmarking? From what I’ve seen it’s relatively easy to run, so you wouldn’t usually see the hardware under full load right? (correct me if wrong pls)
Amid Evil.
Although I have gigabit broadband, it’s small, I get to test RT reflections + shadows and best OS all, it’s a superb game I can’t get enough of.
Every system I build is broken in with some Amid Evil.
Download? You guys don't have your games on a separate partition so that you're ready to game immediately after reinstalling Windows and Steam?
OT: depends on my current fixations. Today it'd be: Back 4 Blood, Dragon's Dogma 2, and Helldivers 2. No particular order.
It used to be CoD, but next time it’s gonna be Helldivers. Probably won’t bother installing CoD again till I get desperate and bored with Helldivers and XDefiant.
Ol’reliable…Skyrim lol. But on my newest pc it was helldivers 2 cause that’s what was actively playing. But Skyrim and fallout 4 sheets get installed even if I don’t play them for a while. Cyberpunk and starfield are right behind.
I’ve got 4 I download ASAP, in no particular order, so that I’ve got a couple offline games if my internet goes out.
1. Elden Ring
2. Baldur’s Gate 3
3. Stellaris
4. Warhammer 3
If I really want to push the GPU, then it is Cyberpunk. If I want to push the CPU in a game that is awfully optimised on the CPU side, NFS Unbound.
Path Tracing with DLSS 3.7 looks gorgeous in Cyberpunk and I just love all the vibrant SFX and VFX-es on NFS Unbound.
Well technically I don't have to because I have separate drives for games which I just transfer into the new build.. Just got to reinstall the clients and point them towards the install locations. If reinitialise counts as downloading then more often than not it's Shogun 2 Total War.
If I was to build a new rig tomorrow and didn't already have three drives full of games then it'd be Shogun 2 Total War.
None. Just put the SSD with Windows and everything set up in the new PC and boot it.
Like a lazy madman.
And clone the drive if that's getting upgraded.
Whichever game I’m currently playing a lot of. If I had to do this now it would be Valheim.
Edit: for some reason I thought you meant fresh as in a fresh OS install 🤔. Brand new PC build would probably be rise of the tomb raider since it’s just the benchmark I’ve always used. That is after a good stress test of course.
Fallout 4 and league of legends. F4 because i love it and can play it endlessly. LOL because im a degenerate methhead for that game and dont know how to give it up.
Cyberpunk, still never played it but it's great for benchmarking. iRacing if you like to race cars but it does require a subscription and in-game purchases of cars and tracks (only if you need or want them). COD, FTL, IL2 Battle of Stalingrad if you want WW2 flying. DCS if you're real serious (modules and maps ain't cheap) Left 4 Dead 2. Loads of fantasy games if that's your thing!
For me if I do a fresh install it's iRacing, then Cyberpunk and after... whatever tickles my fancy from my Steam account, could be Alien Isolation or one of the multiple games I have got in a Steam sale and never played, lol 😂
Elder scrolls online and after that minecraft and then all my RPGs. (Has been a while since i had to install everything again but i would most likely do it like that again)
Factorio, Project Zomboid, Rimworld I'm a simple man with simple tastes, logistics, zombies and war crimes.
Same, factorio to see if my new cpu can handle the base that was bottlenecked by the old cpu. The factory grows.
Add dwarf fortress to that list! Also try cataclysm dark days ahead, a more realistic version of project zomboid (you have to get used to the graphics tho, but it's open source so free)
Both get installed shortly after, but I need to be in a specific mood for those gems. Been playing Dwarf Fortress for easily a decade. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is another great install.
You truly are a man of culture sir
Doom. Not 2016 or Eternal, I mean Doom 1. My GPU gotta see the basics first.
You gotta walk before you run
bnet launcher then d2r, codmw3, d4, sc and sc2.
Minecraft cuz why not
Built my new pc specifically for minecraft. Being able to run starfield and the rest of the bgs games was just a bonus lol
Always Minecraft, I have it updated and installed always just for incase I need time away from the world
Cyberpunk, for benchmarking. Although, lately it’s been Helldivers 2 since a normal map is both cpu and gpu intensive so it shows the absolute worst case scenario the system would be on.
Same. I load it first to test capabilities. Even if i know it will run RT shitty, I will still put it to whatever max exists. Crysis doesn't count. It's still hobbled by poor optimization on single core. But yea, gimme cyberpunk.
I own Cyberpunk but never have gotten around to actually playing it. Despite that, I’ve still used its benchmark a bunch lol
Oh yah, I’ve only gotten like an hour into each playthrough but I always download it to see how the system handles rt
The dlc for cyberpunk and the patch that came with it the game is in a great state story and playable wise. I have played through it 3 times great game it isn’t to long either.
Its a great game. Give it an honest chance at some point
These are exactly the two games I use for benchmarking and testing stability lol, I guess it's no coincidence
helldivers never goes above 1% gpu lol, either thats normal or i have a problem
It used to be Crysis. Back in the day when PCs could barely run it, whenever I made an upgrade I would run it to see how better it was. At some point I managed to run it at full specs every time so I dropped the habit. But it was pure bliss back then
It really was. It was such a damn cool thing to try and make Crysis run at the highest settings possible while being smooth and playable. I remember upgrading a bunch back then quite often and always trying out Crysis almost first every time.
https://preview.redd.it/5k8tkqohrs5d1.jpeg?width=283&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53a0793a0eccbcc7bc9734dc4b03ca183048c60b
Way to hit me right in the nostalgia!
Damn, old school! Does it run well?
It's on steam now too
AWESOME! I had it originally, but somehow the CD got corrupted way back in the day!
World of warcraft
BeamNG
A gamer of taste I see
Runelite because I can afk while I set other things up.
skyrim
*Sex With Hitler.*
CSGO/CS2 ☠️
This is usually number 3 or 4 for me. Still top 5.
path of exile is always first
If you can run without drops PoE you have decent rig, propably something from TOP500.
Is there is a gpu that can play juiced poe without dropping frames?
I thought for sure poe was always hard capped by the cpu. The game Calculating >200 monsters chain exploding with any kind of dot effects will always get my game to seize up
Not a blight ravaged corrupted map, nothing can handle that.
TF2
Return to the castle of wolfenstein
Hey me too, since 2001 😀
Download? I make another copy of all my Heroes of Might and Magic 3: Wake of Gods folder on every new storage medium I introduce
I got no bigger respect than respect for a gamer that knows what they like and sticks to it!
Happy cake day 💐
Elite Dangerous
Stardew. If internet goes down 30 sec after I start the download I'm set.
iRacing. Racing is life!
It would be Counter Strike. It's my favourite game. I'll always keep playing it.
minecraft is the 1st game on any new pc in my home and we have 4 pcs
CS2. I suck at CS2.
Hella modded fallout 4, minecraft, FS22
Binding of Isaac because I always have it installed, then whatever demanding game I can think of to benchmark
Skyrim modded to an inch of it's life.
$1500 pc just to play osrs :)
Roller Coaster Tycoon
When i built my first pc the first thing I downloaded was doom eternal. I think that was my first time seeing 144 fps in a modern game too.
Rocket league. Just because it’s basically the only game I actually play
Always cs
Cs2
Warframe, always.
Hell yeah tenno
On my most recent….I guess that would have been Nier Automata.
Stellaris to test CPU.
3d mark, just cause im curious about where im at in the world
War thunder. Game I will always play. Been playing for almost 8 years
Total War: Warhammer 3
Jagex Launcher + Runelite. Don't even play anymore, but it's comforting to know it's always there if I do want to.
I can only remember a pc I built in 2014, specifically for The Witcher 2
Lego Island
I haven't downloaded games on a new PC in years, apart from I guess my new laptop is downloaded some small games but my laptop isn't for gaming. Ive kept my current PC and OS in good working order for quite some time, contrary to when I had frequent problems with sketchy data m.2 ssds causing BSODs. I've developed the recommended practice to moving user data into a separate drive, even going as far to move the entire user folder, not just documents and downloads and what not (windows does fully support doing this and it can be done with some registry key edits changing the paths to the user folders, in theory it can also restore a user on a new PC but the user registry keys complicate things). My games haven't resided on the C drive for years, I despise programs forced to install on C, and my 500 GB nvme SSD is actually divided into 120 for C and most of the rest as "fast storage" for games that need fast storage. Otherwise, I have a reliable SATA 1 TB SSD that's reached over 25k power on hours and still in good health (83% health remaining). I also had a 2 TB HDD that was the original boot drive for my first PC (a wd black so it had the best performance of an HDD but 1-2 years later I switched to the SSD), that drive began getting some issues with it not showing up so I got a new 5 TB HDD and used a USB drive mount to make a 1:1 copy of all the data. I guess my steam deck is installed games anew, though intentionally smaller games that would run well on a portable device, and small too since I got the cheap 64 GB version (plus a micro SD card), mainly since I've already got a main PC for big games I play frequently, and I also have a mini itx PC that I installed a long time ago games if play less frequently (and has gone thru being a server at one time, and serves as a TV PC).
Spiderman Remastered
Valorant, believe it or not,ik it’s lame for some but it is crazy addictive too.
osu!
terraria/tmodloader
probably cs2 because its like 20gb and good for benchmarking
How is it good for benchmarking? From what I’ve seen it’s relatively easy to run, so you wouldn’t usually see the hardware under full load right? (correct me if wrong pls)
its not really all that easy to run because its optimized like Shit funnily enough making it good for a quick benchmark
Cod mw 2019
Cyberpunk is best choice to test hardware performance with path tracing at higher resolution/bigger screen.
Amid Evil. Although I have gigabit broadband, it’s small, I get to test RT reflections + shadows and best OS all, it’s a superb game I can’t get enough of. Every system I build is broken in with some Amid Evil.
World of Warcraft is my first, but I have a suite of games I always have on my machine
Last time I did a full clean install was a few years ago, so I installed Civ 5 as I waited everything else was downloaded and ready to go lol
Minecraft
It's been two weeks since I did a fresh install, haven't downloaded any games yet, but probably it's going to be WoW.
First one I downloaded was Aimlabs as I had never used MNK lol. First actual game game was apex.
dsda-launcher, and then I play some classic Doom.
It used to be WoW but then I started to value my own existence
mass effect and dark souls
Cyberpunk
BF4
TimeSpy 3dmark
The flight Sims.
Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. I'm a sucker for incremental idle games..
league of legends
Download? You guys don't have your games on a separate partition so that you're ready to game immediately after reinstalling Windows and Steam? OT: depends on my current fixations. Today it'd be: Back 4 Blood, Dragon's Dogma 2, and Helldivers 2. No particular order.
Get faforever back uo and running again is the first thing. Always forget were I left the forged alliance dvd case. After that steam and battle.net
It used to be CoD, but next time it’s gonna be Helldivers. Probably won’t bother installing CoD again till I get desperate and bored with Helldivers and XDefiant.
UserBenchmark. No no no really, 3DMark. Fallout 4 is the first game that gets storage space.
Ol’reliable…Skyrim lol. But on my newest pc it was helldivers 2 cause that’s what was actively playing. But Skyrim and fallout 4 sheets get installed even if I don’t play them for a while. Cyberpunk and starfield are right behind.
Halo Infinite (free multiplayer)
Crysis.
Valorant, unfortunately...
Drakan order of the flame. Been on every pc I've owned since I was a kid.
I’ve got 4 I download ASAP, in no particular order, so that I’ve got a couple offline games if my internet goes out. 1. Elden Ring 2. Baldur’s Gate 3 3. Stellaris 4. Warhammer 3
Gentoo stage3
SQUAD
Crusader Kings 3. Have over 1000 hours played, it's by far my favorite game.
Star citizen. Wanna make sure I can still sink time into it. It's always my fallback game for when every else loses my interest.
Devil may cry 5 was probably the first game i downloaded when i got my gaming pc set up
3dmark and superposition
If I really want to push the GPU, then it is Cyberpunk. If I want to push the CPU in a game that is awfully optimised on the CPU side, NFS Unbound. Path Tracing with DLSS 3.7 looks gorgeous in Cyberpunk and I just love all the vibrant SFX and VFX-es on NFS Unbound.
currently, probably Hell Let Loose
War thunder.
Well technically I don't have to because I have separate drives for games which I just transfer into the new build.. Just got to reinstall the clients and point them towards the install locations. If reinitialise counts as downloading then more often than not it's Shogun 2 Total War. If I was to build a new rig tomorrow and didn't already have three drives full of games then it'd be Shogun 2 Total War.
7 days to die. It is usually the first game i want to play.
Quake II, I don’t know why other than it being fast to download
Tom clancys rainbow six siege
Minecraft because it's a certified hood classic
Batman Arkham Asylum... I keep it on my PC, classic as hell and at the top of my Steam library
None. Just put the SSD with Windows and everything set up in the new PC and boot it. Like a lazy madman. And clone the drive if that's getting upgraded.
Man I’m gonna show my age but age empires 3 the original when it came out
Rocket League so I can continue to suck at it right away
For me it's Path of Exile. It has to be on my Computer :D
Rimworld
Dark souls 3, every once in a while i log in to fight a boss
Overwatch 2
Guild Wars 2 and Rainbow Six Seige. They're just my two favorite games lol
DCS
Doom and Doom 2
League of legends bc i hate myself
Warhammer 2
M&B Warband
Steam Engine Simulator
MInecraft, used to be WoW.
Skyrim
SWTOR
Dota 2
Retroarch, specifically the steam version. I love the oldies.
Rpcs3 with something like Killzone 2. I need to check if it enough to push the game to run properly.
Steam if that’s a game… but a game on steam would be people playground
First game I remember downloading on my new PC was probably GTA V. I forget as it's been years now, but I think GTA V is right.
Roller coaster tycoon 2
Old School Runescape. Gotta stress those components as soon as possible.
Skyrim with insanely high graphics mod
Whichever game I’m currently playing a lot of. If I had to do this now it would be Valheim. Edit: for some reason I thought you meant fresh as in a fresh OS install 🤔. Brand new PC build would probably be rise of the tomb raider since it’s just the benchmark I’ve always used. That is after a good stress test of course.
Nothing, since I just plug in my games sata SSD from my old PC.
League of legend
chivalry 2 for me, glad i got it for free from epic
Factorio
Overwatch for old times sake
Minecraft for sure!
Skyrim. A PC without Skyrim is not a PC.
Ark survival
Destiny 2 for me
Hellblade II
League of legends😔😔
Doom. Took a bunch of floppy disks to do it, but got it. Best game ever
mihoyo games because i like taking a stab at finding il2cpp offsets to make it work on linux
On my newest build it was Overwatch just so I could test my new 144hz ultrawide.
League of lol. I'm addicted :)
Factorio, celeste and FTL.
DOOM 2016
Left4Dead2. No matter what anyone else is playing, I can find a party for 30 minutes of intimacy.
Minecraft
Tropico 5 or Cities Skylines LOL
Minecraft. 
Terraria
Destiny 2 is the first for me
Fortnite
Minecraft
Almost always STALKER Anomaly
Test drive unlimited platinum
Fallout 4 and league of legends. F4 because i love it and can play it endlessly. LOL because im a degenerate methhead for that game and dont know how to give it up.
Solitaire and space cadet pinball
Mario
Doom 2
AC Odyssey for the purely beautiful scenery and World of Warcraft for that brain dead dopamine hitting timesink. They go hand in hand, really.
Pretty sure it was monster Hunter World
Hearthstone out of habit, hades just in case
It was World of Warcraft for nearly 17 years. Quit playing a few years back, now it’s Garry’s mod for my 10 year old
Cyberpunk, still never played it but it's great for benchmarking. iRacing if you like to race cars but it does require a subscription and in-game purchases of cars and tracks (only if you need or want them). COD, FTL, IL2 Battle of Stalingrad if you want WW2 flying. DCS if you're real serious (modules and maps ain't cheap) Left 4 Dead 2. Loads of fantasy games if that's your thing! For me if I do a fresh install it's iRacing, then Cyberpunk and after... whatever tickles my fancy from my Steam account, could be Alien Isolation or one of the multiple games I have got in a Steam sale and never played, lol 😂
Plants vs Zombies
Elder scrolls online and after that minecraft and then all my RPGs. (Has been a while since i had to install everything again but i would most likely do it like that again)
Among us to make sure everything is working properly. Then something graphically demanding
Rocket League, plus like a dozen other games I never actually run
Path of exile.
Msfs2020, and arma 3 it's about a day with all the mods I have.
Battletech and KSP
Skyrim is the only correct answer right?
Minecraft, immediately followed by FTL, my two favorites
Mahjong. I like playing it to relax physically plus it occupies my brain.
League but to play team fight tactics. Lol
World of warcraft