Here's what the PC Gamer forum is discussing this week

This week on the PC Gamer forums, the art and design team Atomhawk have taken over the forums as part of our Studio Spotlight, the community shares the best video game romances, our fondest memories of playing with a guild/clan, the new troubleshooting sub that solves all your PC problems, fiddling with the settings when starting a new game,  and we ask the forum how they hold a controller when gaming. 

We also have an ongoing giveaway for a Cyberpunk 2077-themed GeForce 2080 Ti graphics card worth a staggering $1,600. The competition is open until June 1 and you can enter over on the forum's giveaway post. 

The General Hardware sub has been busy with its three PC build competitions. They are on the hunt for the best and cost-effective PC builds for $500, $1000, and $2000 and have narrowed it down to a handful of builds per price limit. The deciding vote on who wins each category is down to a community vote, so make sure to check out each rig and cast your vote in the poll. 

Here's what the forum got up to this week:

Studio Spotlight: Atomhawk 

Atomhawk took over our forums this week, answering questions and giving insights into some of their previous projects like Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition and XCOM: Chimera Squad. Atomhawk's Canadian studio director Chris Rowe took to the forums giving an insightful peek into the process behind creating concept and production art. To see the full list of threads, check out the Studio Spotlight section of the forum. 

Question: Hi Chris, thanks for joining us and taking the time to hang out! Atomhawk has done quite a bit of work but out of some of the more recent projects which have been your favorite?—CParsons

Answer: One of the great things about Atomhawk is that you get to work on so many different projects across a wide range of styles/genres/platforms etc, that there's always something cool going on! On that note, some of my favorite recently completed projects at Atomhawk include the likes of "Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition", "Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order", "FIFA 20", "Mortal Kombat 11" and "Empires & Puzzles".—Atomhawk Chris

Here's a link to the list of Atomhawk's threads.  

Romance in games

Community member tombeir started a forum thread asking for everyone to talk about their favourite game romances. From star-crossed lovers to iconic duos, was there a character that stole your heart from the get-go, or a pair of characters that were just perfect together? Make sure you comment on the thread, and quickly before it descends into a massive debate between The Witcher's Yennefer vs Triss.

The romance in the Witcher 3 between Yennefer and Geralt was good enough for me that when I arrived at Kaer Morhen and heard Yennefer was mad at Geralt and throwing chairs around I really didn't want to go up there and face her.—Inspireless Llama

Baldur's Gate 2 was one of the first RPGs which featured romances with NPCs. The romance with Viconia is still considered one of the better in history of the genre. You should check it out.—Sarafran

Here's a link to the thread. 

What is your fondest guild/clan memory from any game?

A guild that quests together, stays together. Being part of a close-knit guild is like no other feeling when gaming, and LCarson asks the community to share stories of their fondest memory playing with a guild/clan. If you have any memories or adventures you would like to share, check out the thread over on the forums. 

Mine is simply the fact that I have been part of the same gaming guild for well over 20 years. It has been a great ride, and my best friends arose out of the relationships we formed way back in the 90s. We've played a lot of games together, met every year in a huge rental house in various locations..—LCarson

Running a small guild in Dark Ages of Camelot called Lords of Camelot. We had about 12 members so not a full sized guild, but enough to go into Realm war as a small mercenary group and capture a keep every so often. Was a good amount of fun without being too serious on the guild politics that always ruined it for me in games like Everquest.—xmasthief

Here's a link to the thread.

The forums new troubleshooting section

The forums are a great place to go if you're having hardware troubles, and now we have a special section where you can go to get help. The new troubleshooting sub is specifically for you to post your PC problems and have community members help you find solutions. The sub is already full of threads and we'd like to give a special shout out to community members Oussebon, Inspireless Llama, and Kaamos_Laama who have done an amazing job helping those in need of hardware assistance.

All the knowledge here is coming from other players who care as much about being able to play as you and is dedicated toward becoming a one-stop-shop for finding solutions to known problems or asking about issues you're experiencing.—Mknott

Here's a link to the troubleshooting sub.

What's the first setting you change when you start a new game?

For this week's question, Chris asks what settings you immediately change when you first boot up a game? Depending on our computer build and personal preferences, diving into the options menu is the first thing you do when starting a game. Do you remap the controls, turn subtitles on, turn V-sync off? Let us know in the thread. 

Depth of Field OFF! Depth of field is a nice way to get the viewer's eye on something at a certain depth. Makes great sense for, say, a character portrait where you want people looking at the character. Games rarely use it well, though.—Zloth

I go to options, crank all the graphic settings all the way up but turn off motion blur and depth of field off.—I Will Haunt You

If it’s a game that is better played with a controller I always check the Steam Controller community layouts to see if I should try out a different configuration.—McStabStab

Here's the thread, and some answers from the PC gaming staff can be found here.

How do you hold a controller?

A straightforward question at first, but how you hold a controller could be completely different from someone else. Jody's weekend question asks the community to share how they hold a controller when playing in games using this image for reference. The top-left controller in the picture is a technique called The Claw, with the one on the bottom-right being a joke, or is it? Let us know how you hold a controller in the thread. 

I've always used the straightforward controller guy. Part of the reason is that I have an xbox360 controller. Admittedly I haven't tried the other grips with it probably because I've not needed to. Put me in front of a beat-em-up or a competitive environment and I might change my tune very quickly.—Johnway

I never really thought about it, but apparently I hold my thumbs on the sticks, middlefingers on the triggers and indexfingers on the R & L buttons.—Bierbarbaar

Here's a link to the thread.

Top threads this week 

What was the first video game you remember playing?
Is anyone here playing Escape From Tarkov?
What was the first type of monitor you ever had?
Will there be a Mass Effect 4?
Next Elder Scrolls game Wishlist?