Ask Lemmy

I rarely use my computers for games. Occasional bomb squad game with my wife. That's about it. I use it a lot for watching things, and coding a lot, related to work/personal projects and such. It was weird for me to find out most people that spend a lot of time on computers here are doing it because of games. Not because computers are fun to work with.

Yeah, I like gaming but lately I don't have the time for it and just like you I've switched to in person tabletop as it has the added benefit of interpersonal interactions face to face.

Anyway answering your question, yes I use it a lot, sometimes more or less depending on my job situation but mostly browsing, illustration, emails and 3D software make about 80% of my computer time.

Work: Video editing. And browsing the web! Andddd a lot of video games lol

Funny thing I thought about when coming back home..

My work laptop has been used more for gaming than my gaming pc has, and inverse of that my gaming pc has seen more work done than my work laptop

Why? I don't fucking know why it just is

What’s a computer?

• I work with computers, so: work
• I mainly consume media (tablet, phone) or read (e-ink) these days.
• Raspberry Pi handles my home automation, and I’m always futzing with it
• my laptop plays games about once a month or taxes once a year

I have my primary daily driver laptop running Arch for web programming and writing, my side laptop running arch for monitoring services and writing, my server computer running (again) arch that I use for web dev and jellyfin streaming, and my work laptop running Ubuntu for server management. Not to mention my chromebook for paper weight, and my wife's laptop on Win10 she uses for design stuff. Nobody running games outside of my xBox One.

I do love games, but most of what I do at my computer is maker projects. CAD, 3d printing, electronics design, coding. Lately I've been building a puzzle box for my niece's birthday.

Interestingly, I did upgrade my GPU a year and a half or so ago (to a used 3070, I'm not made of money) and since then the main thing I've used that GPU for is actually AI experiments rather than games. E.g. for the puzzle box, I got Stable Diffusion to generate images for a puzzle for me. It's four images, and when you combine them in the right way they reveal a fifth image. I don't think I could have done the same puzzle without AI.

I do still play games, though. I'm just kind of off the big budget stuff these days.

My primary use is photo editing for a photography hobby. I shoot wildlife and upload photos to iNaturalist. I shoot sports for a local junior college and an adult baseball league.

I don't watch a ton of movies, but it also serves as my Plex server. I leave it off unless I want to watch something though.

There are games on it, but I rarely get that itch anymore. In my teens and 20s, 1000 hours a year would have been a slow year. It's probably more like 0-100 a year now.

Technically my primary computer activities are gaming, but these days I game exclusively on the Steam Deck or the tablet (for mobile games)...

My most speced-out computer was actually purchased for work related reasons. I wanted a decent GPU because I thought I'd be working in deep learning. Well current job doesn't require training models and I was required to use a dedicated work laptop so... This high-spec one I mainly use for just about everything else other than gaming

I mostly use my laptop for coding, language learning, and watching TV series. I do play games on it but rarely, I got enough consoles and handhelds and I prefer using them instead of the computer, I'd use the computer if I want to play a game for a console I don't have tho.

I use an HTPC that happens to be powerful enough to be a gaming PC, I also have a media server facing the internet for use on the go.

Most of my pc use nowadays is for media consumption and analog to digital conversion for backups (VHS to HDD and eventually M-Disc for long term storage).

I do a bit of emulation, most of that is done with an ARM handheld PC but it's an SP form factor and I don't really think it counts. I do a bit of PS2 emulation as well on my HTPC but mostly just to verify good rips of my physical games which I have backed up.

Photo editing and uploading, maintaining my sports club's website, video calls to family members, watching films and TV. Do word puzzles count as gaming? I do Quordle and Octordle every morning. I also have an ancient laptop running Linux; I'm trying to work myself up to switch the computer over come October.

Main uses for me are coding, bookkeeping, email, office apps, and general web browsing. I haven't played games in years. Not how I prefer to unwind these days anyway.

Photo editing. As a helping tool for guitar with Guitar Pro and Songsterr and HX edit. I also spend a fair bit of time on my homelab, configuring servers, networks and maintaining my self hosted empire.

I mostly use my computer for Discord, watching videos, and just generally browsing the web. I'm not a huge gaming person, although I was as a kid. I don't know how to code or anything, though...I have a healthcare related job.

My computer isn't good enough to run a lot of games anyway. It's a laptop from around 2018 that I have hooked up to a keyboard, mouse, and second monitor.

I havent been gaming lately, I like playing with 3d software like blender, messing around setting up websites with vps and learning to setup my own fediverse instances, might go into local webdev or do some dropshipping, might do nothing with it, just fun to learn.

I game a decent ammount, but else I use my computer to organize my photos, do some web design, research stuff, test the odd thing a VM.

I need to get a NAS...

I mean, I play a lot of games, but the time I spend coding for work and coding for not work is definitely greater time spent gaming.

I'm mostly using my PC for photo work, drawing, writing, and programming.

Most of my game time is on consoles (Xbox Series X and Switch).

I rarely play PC games, and they're usually PC-friendly by design (e.g. heavy use of keyboard/mice, ready availability of neat mods) or distribution (weird indie shit®).

Oh and emulators. Recently started dumping all of my GameCube and Wii games, and I have to say Dolphin is just bloody incredible.

Love setting up servers and home labing. Working on setting up a Pixelfed server now

My partner and I have some high end gaming machines and play games maybe once a week or every other week. Our computers’ main use is downloading movies and shows and playing them for us!

I used to play 40+ hours a week, but that was like a half-decade ago.

Anyway I'm just wondering how common it is to use computers more for coding and other technical non-game stuff.

I'd estimate gaming is <5% of my use, probably lower.on my PC

Id say maybe <10% on my phone

I have no console. I had a WiiU as my last one and sold it during Covid as I never iswed it.

Have been thinking aboit a Steam Deck

Am old as fcuk, used to wrote my own games in machine code on my Commodore 64.

These days, my home PC is mostly used for consuming media, editing my own media, and (at least this time of year) business and tax paperwork. Games are definitely not my primary use.

Check out https://lemmy.world/c/selfhosted

I'm 54 and don't game at all on my PC, it is used only for coding, a Beelink SER5

So I do all my software development on my work pc at the office and the one at home.

My personal computer, which is heavily over specked, is used to play Minecraft, Factorio, and RDR2. I do use for non gaming stuff too though, but that’s mainly 3D Printing.

I really don’t game a lot as don’t feel like using the computer when I’m off work and I’m into rock climbing in free time.