tomkatt
@tomkatt@lemmy.world
- Comment on Hollow Knight: Silksong - Release Date Trailer (September 4) 1 day ago:
Of course there’s bugs, it’s a sequel to Hollow Knight. It was all about bugs.
- Comment on LibreOffice is right about Microsoft, and it matters more than you think. 5 days ago:
Micros~1
I see what you did there. 😆
- Comment on A Tech Rule That Will ‘Future-Proof’ Your Kids 1 week ago:
I generally keep to this rule as an adult, for the most part. Yes, I have my phone since it doubles as my alarm, but if I’m looking at a “screen” in bed, it’s an eReader with a warm light. I figure I sleep better that way, without all the blue light.
- Comment on Imagine being a billionaire, running one the most powerful, corporations in the United States, and prostrating yourself to Donald Trump in this very public and embarrassing way. 2 weeks ago:
I’ll bet those boots taste disgusting.
- Comment on I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C 2 weeks ago:
Should I Buy One?
That’s up to you, champ. I’m not your real dad and I’m not trying to take his place. But I’m here for you if you need me.
Love it. 🤣🤣🤣
- Comment on A whole bunch of racing games are cheap at the moment, and there are so many that it's difficult to look through them all. What are your recommendations? 2 weeks ago:
That’s actually something Wipeout did, it’s one of the few things from Fusion that people liked enough for it to be brought back.
Ah, I didn’t know that, I’ve never played the series past 3 and XL/2097.
Just a heads up to, BNG has a 2097 mode as well, with entirely different physics/control. It’s still in dev builds but it seems like the goal is to integrate both styles from OG Wipeout (2085 and 2097) within the game as separate campaigns.
- Comment on A whole bunch of racing games are cheap at the moment, and there are so many that it's difficult to look through them all. What are your recommendations? 2 weeks ago:
Redout is a weird one. It got a lot of comparisons to F-Zero because of the speed but it plays a lot more like Wipeout, or like an F-Zero/Wipeout hybrid. It’s very fast, and the steering mechanics are interesting as it requires using both joysticks to steer through a lot of turns. I like it, but find it pretty difficult. The ships tend to be a bit floaty and the main thing is controlling well to not hit walls as they utterly kill your momentum.
With BallisticNG, it does ape on Wipeout a lot (by design) but it’s an absolute love letter to the series and is extremely polished. It also has workshop support for all kinds of custom tracks and ships.
There are things BallisticNG does though that are really interesting, like solo races where your goal is to go as far as possible without exploding from damage. You can’t use the brakes and it gets faster every few sections. Those are probably my favorite races.
- Comment on A whole bunch of racing games are cheap at the moment, and there are so many that it's difficult to look through them all. What are your recommendations? 2 weeks ago:
Since you mentioned AG racers, check out BallisticNG and the Redout games.
- Comment on The AI bubble is so big it's propping up the US economy (for now) 2 weeks ago:
You can probably just use ollama and import the novel.
- Comment on What's your preferred way of buying games? (digital/physical/physical digital) 2 weeks ago:
I’ve got games ranging from PS2/PS3 going all the way back to the NES and Atari 7800 on my NAS. The PS3 stuff is hit or miss, but everything PS2 and down is great to play today via emulation.
For modern digital games, it’s a toss up. Some have DRM, some don’t. There are games you can buy digitally on Steam, install, and just copy out the folder somewhere else, zip it, and move it to another system to play, it won’t care. Others, DRM prevents it. GOG is good for the DRM free stuff.
Funny enough, I have Madden 08 for PC. Bought it on Amazon many years back. Installed updates, patched the exe, and it’s good to go. It’s zipped on my NAS and completely portable. Last year I even installed it on my Steam Deck, works perfectly, just extract to a folder and launch the game. And it’s still way better than the modern Madden games.
- Comment on What's your preferred way of buying games? (digital/physical/physical digital) 2 weeks ago:
Digital everything. Books, games, movies, TV. I don’t want a bunch of physical stuff cluttering my space.
I do prefer things I can archive to my NAS whenever possible though. I make exceptions for gaming with Steam, but all my books, video, and music are locally stored, I don’t like streaming services as an indefinite solution.
- Comment on Amazon is considering shoving ads into Alexa+ conversations 2 weeks ago:
It’s really just that only Amazon uses AZW3 and KFX. KFX is DRMed to hell, and I’m not sure about it, but most AZW3 files are just DRM wrappers for EPUB anyway. This is why the KindleUnpack plugin for Calibre can strip out EPUBs from most AZW3 files and retain formatting without needing conversion.
Basically, AZW3 and KFX are for Kindle, and only for Kindle. EPUB is an open standard that literally every device that’s not a Kindle uses.
- Comment on Good racing games on Steam? 2 weeks ago:
No worries. I’ve heard of BeamNG but don’t own it and am not familiar with it to recommend. I mean BallisticNG, it’s an AG racer in the style of the Wipeout games.
- Comment on Amazon is considering shoving ads into Alexa+ conversations 2 weeks ago:
No, Amazon took away the “Download and transfer via USB” option when downloading your books. Making it more difficult to strip DRM, but also to conveniently add it to multiple devices.
Regarding sideloading EPUBs with Calibre, it’s not really doing that. Under normal circumstances Kindle can’t read EPUB format at all, so Calibre will convert it to a native format, either MOBI or AZW3 generally. But with a jailbroken Kindle and KOReader, you can actually read EPUBs natively. I’ve actually converted my entire collection to EPUB and deleted the AZW3 and KFX files.
- Comment on Amazon is considering shoving ads into Alexa+ conversations 2 weeks ago:
Depends on the model and firmware, but for most, Winterbreak is the current method.
Do note if your Kindle is updated to version 5.18.x currently it’s not possible to jailbreak. There is ongoing work on a new exploit though, and a new jailbreak method (or update to Winterbreak) is expected later this year.
- Comment on Amazon is considering shoving ads into Alexa+ conversations 2 weeks ago:
I never found much worth watching on Prime, to be honest, even before the ads issue.
As for Prime, I still benefit from the Prime shipping, but a lot of stores on Amazon ship free now even without Prime, and given where I live, 2-day shipping is not a thing. It’s usually more like 4 to 7 days. I’m generally in no rush either way.
My main benefits were shipping and books, plus free games on Prime and GOG. But now the shipping is almost irrelevant, they’ve screwed the book thing, so all that’s left is the games, many of which I won’t even play.
- Comment on Good racing games on Steam? 2 weeks ago:
How’s Redout 2 compared to the first one? I have the original, but have been on the fence with the sequel.
- Comment on Good racing games on Steam? 2 weeks ago:
- WRC 7, 10, Generations
- Dirt Rally 2.0
- Rush Rally Origins
- New Star GP
- Forza Horizon 5 (I don’t own this one, but hear it’s very good)
- BallisticNG
- Wreckfest (don’t own this either but I’ve played it in the past)
- Assetto Corsa
- Assetto Corsa Competizione
- Descenders
- Grid Autosport
- Redout
- Automobilista 2
- V-Rally 4
- Sebastian Loeb Rally Evo
These vary between arcade and simulation racing, and things in between. For some (Assetto Corsa games, Automobilista, WRC and Dirt Rally games) a racing wheel is highly recommended.
- Comment on Amazon is considering shoving ads into Alexa+ conversations 2 weeks ago:
Not this one. I’ve been a Prime member for many years out of convenience (and because I live in the rurals and need to ship a lot of things to the house). Amazon completely fucked it up for themselves with regard to my subscription this past year or two, I’m done.
- Removed the ability to download and sideload Kindle books
- Ads in Prime Video
- Followed by even more ads in Prime Video
- Now this, and I don’t even own an Alexa device
I’m done. Subscription is cancelled. Video was already trashed, but I barely used it. Now though… I’ve jailbroken the Kindles, converted all my books to EPUB, and installed KOReader. Wasn’t a hard transition since I’ve had a Boox device as my main reader for some years now anyway. I’ve started buying my books from Kobo and other sources.
Looking into other services for online purchases and shipping. It’ll be less convenient, and I’ll still buy from Amazon in the event I have to, but I’d like to minimize that now.
- Comment on Octopath Traveler 0 – Announcement Trailer 3 weeks ago:
The main story points are further apart level-wise, leading to more grinding. There’s also more fluff side story content involving multiple characters instead of just one. Which isn’t bad in itself, but none of it is actually optional because of the leveling curve.
The way it was done, the story beats for individual character plot arcs are very far apart. 30 hours in, I only had a few characters through the second parts of their stories.
- Comment on Octopath Traveler 0 – Announcement Trailer 3 weeks ago:
I really like the first one, but OT2 felt very padded. At 30 hours I think I was less than halfway through the game. I got frustrated and put it down, never got back to it.
- Comment on YSK: Deezer, the music streaming service, is owned by a company whose Founder and CEO is a Russian Oligarch with connections to the Kremlin and donates to the American Republican party. 3 weeks ago:
I dunno, Qobuz seems pretty fucking solid, and still allows for purchasing your music directly in FLAC and other formats. What drama is there about them?
- Comment on true friend 5 weeks ago:
Has something similar with Bacardi 151 back when I was in college. Me and two friends were playing cards and drinking, losers take a shot. We went through a huge bottle in like 30 mins. I was just utterly blasted, I’d never drink so much in my life. Thought I might die of alcohol poisoning.
I stayed completely sober for like 5 years after that, and some 20 years later I still rarely drink.
- Comment on Vintage gaming advertising pictures: a gallery 5 weeks ago:
Sony had some fucking weird ads back in the day.
- Comment on We did it everyone, the future is here! 1 month ago:
I little of column A, a bit from column B, I suppose.
- Submitted 1 month ago to [deleted] | 5 comments
- Comment on The Trump Mobile T1 Phone looks both bad and impossible 2 months ago:
Is this provided via T-Mobile or did he just rip off T-Mobile’s logo font?
- Comment on The Trump Mobile T1 Phone looks both bad and impossible 2 months ago:
Is this provided via T-Mobile or did he rip off T-Mobile’s logo font?
- Comment on Why do low framerates *feel* so much worse on modern video games? 2 months ago:
True, but even that is higher than the latency was on the original systems on CRT. My previous comments were specific to display tech, but there’s more to it.
Bear in mind I can’t pinpoint the specific issue for any given game but there are many.
Modern displays, even the fastest ones have frame buffers for displaying color channels. That’s one link in the latency chain. Even if the output was otherwise equally fast as a CRT, this would cause more latency in 100% of cases, as CRT was an analogue technology with no buffers.
Your GPU has a frame buffer that’s essentially never less than one frame, and often more.
I mentioned TVs above re: post processing.
Sometimes delays are added for synchronizing data between CPU and GPU in modern games, which can add delays.
Older consoles were simpler and didn’t have shaders, frame buffers, or anything of that nature. In some cases the game’s display output would literally race the beam, altering display output mid-“frame.”
Modern hardware is much more complex and despite the hardware being faster, the complexity in communication on the board (CPU, GPU, RAM) and with storage can contribute to perceived latency.
Those are some examples I can think of. None of them alone would be that much latency, but in aggregate, it can add up.
- Comment on Why do low framerates *feel* so much worse on modern video games? 2 months ago:
F-Zero X ran at 60 fps. Also Yoshi’ Story, Mischief Makers, and probably a few others.
Also the PS1 has many games that ran at 60 fps, too many to list here in a comment.
