You try and build a PC to play the most demanding game you have in your library, but that's not the case for me. I built a system costing around $2,000 over a couple of years, and it's primarily used to play a game that barely scratches the surface of the available performance. That game is OldSchool RuneScape, and I've been playing (on and off) for approximately 18 years, though I've been a fan of the MMORPG for almost 30 years, since starting as a wee lad with friends at high school (that's sixth-grade to many of you).

What's inside my PC?

$2,000 goes a long way

Powering everything is the trusty AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, a super-powerful 16-core CPU with 32 threads to work with. With the ability to boost up to 5.7 GHz under the right conditions, this is an absolute monster for gaming and workflow. This CPU is cooled by the Be quiet! Silent Loop 3, a 360 mm liquid all-in-one (AIO) kit bolted to the inside of the impressive Be quiet! Light Base 600 LX. To top everything off is 48 GB of DDR5-7200 RAM from G.Skill with its gorgeous Trident Z Royal design.

For gaming, I'm rocking the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, which was a notable upgrade over my RTX 3060 Ti, though I did run with the 7900 XTX for a short while after reviewing that GPU. AMD made this decision easy thanks to its impressive gains with RDNA 4 and FSR 4. Coupled with the fact that my system was already powered by the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, returning to Team Red was an easy decision, though I haven't used an AMD GPU inside my primary gaming rig for many years.

Fully built, this PC costs around $2000 with prices set to MSRP. You can absolutely locate a few parts at more reasonable prices, especially the 4 TB Sabrent Rocket Q SSD. These specifications don't have any trouble pushing through even the most demanding games. Cyberpunk 2077, Grand Theft Auto V, and The Witcher are all installed and run beautifully, so too do Baldur's Gate 3 and a few other PC titles I dabble in here and there. But it's Old School RuneScape that sees the most playtime, usually while I'm doing something else outside of work.

Why I continue playing this ancient MMORPG

OldSchool RuneScape (OSRS) is a 2007 backup of RuneScape 2, known simply as RuneScape. I lost connection with the original game, which originally launched in 2001, as did millions of others, when a few major changes were applied by developer Jagex. At school, it was always a dream of mine to work at Jagex — I even applied for a job more than a decade ago. OSRS became a reality after a community poll and is still available and actively developed alongside RuneScape. Games have advanced over the years and now offer some truly breathtaking visuals, but one cannot simply ignore nostalgia.

Although you have to use a client to connect to RuneScape and OSRS, this wasn't always the case. All you needed was a browser and a working internet connection, which is what helped the game explode in popularity through the 2000s. The same goes for now, but it's not simply nostalgia that keeps people engaged. Although that certainly plays a part, there are plenty of new players in OSRS. It's the game, the mechanics, the community, and the updates that keep us all logging in. The system requirements to play OSRS, as detailed on Steam, are incredibly lenient. Here's what you'll need:

• A 64-bit processor and OS.
• Windows 10 or macOS.
• Intel Core i3, AMD 2.4+ GHz or better.
• 4 GB of RAM.
• At least Nvidia GeForce 400x, Intel HD 4x, or AMD Radeon 7xxx.
• 200 MB of available storage space.

Yes, that's right, just 200 MB of internal storage space. Although you'll save more as additional client and game data is downloaded, it still makes my 4 TB Sabrent Q game drive seem terribly overkill. Thankfully, I have a few other Steam games installed, but OSRS barely touches the ADM CPU and GPU. Even with the infamous 117 HD plugin enabled through the unofficial RuneLite client is no match for the system specs. But this allows me to crack on with other tasks while the game runs in a window off to the side. This could be watching a show or YouTube video, getting creative, writing some code, or even playing another game.

It just pains me that there's still no official Linux support and you have to jump through a few hopps to get everything working. That's not even Jagex's fault as the platform RuneScape and OSRS run on, which some other big name brands also rely on, simply doesn't support the platform.