sp3tr4l

@sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨They should suffer⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Do the humane thing and just abort them in the womb with an adblocker.

  If you are using some apo where that isn’t possible, stop using it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨China Just Turned Off U.S. Supplies Of Minerals Critical For Defense & Cleantech⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  For what its worth, CyberPunk 2077 is … an alt history that diverges from our own … at some point in the 1960s I think?

  Like… the Soviet Union still exists. In 2077.

  Point being: The ‘Japanese megacorps taking over much of the American economy’ fear of our own 1980s is very, very much a big part of the lore/universe.

  Pondsmith published the first version of the lore in 1988 as the TTRPG ‘Cyberpunk’, originally set in 2013, and this kept getting added to and expanded with subsequent editions.

  Arisaka is… well hopefully without spoiling too much, Arisaka corp is basically run by a Japanese fighter pilot ace who pretty much swore eternal vengeance on America after Japan got nuked and lost the war, and his idea of how to do this includes figuring out how to become immortal, so that he can continue to run a megacorp that ultimately usurps American sovereignty and turns the country into his neo-corpo-feudal subjects.

  You can get almost all of that by playing through the Corpo intro character path and actually watching the informative slideshow thing in the elevator and on walls/screens in the … megalobby, so hopefully thats not too spoilery.

  Also in Die Hard it is Nakatomi Plaza iirc, Nakatomi being the name of the fictional Japanese corp.

  Anyway woo random trivia.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Alternate solution: Live in a studio apartment lol?

  Yeah, you’re on top of this and know your shit.

  I just originally wanted to point out that there are generally workable solutions in case you had no idea… but yeah, you know your shit, and with games that need both super low latency on input registry and display output… yep, basicslly you still gotta go wired.

  … Maybe get swoll, or put your existing PC on some kind of wheeled base, set a cable management situation with the living room TV and your room monitors and controller for just… moving the PC around?

  Yeah I can’t think of much more than thag

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That all sounds about right, yeah, a DisplayPort cable would work… but basically yeah, there aren’t many (any?) TVs that have DP … ports, and a long DP cable can be fairly pricey…

  A … relatively cheap wireless solution might work if you dropped the resolution down to 2K or 1080, but it sounds like you’re going for 4k?

  But Im just spitballing, sounds like you know your setup and have looked into this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah, true, thats fair, with the input latency.

  There may be more effective solutions to that, but that gets complicated fast depending on a lot of technical factors, layout of your home, budget constraints, etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  1: I agree that the remaining exclusives are still annoying, but it is quite a far cry from the 00s and early 10s, where … with some notable exceptions, basically only shovelware corpo IP slop was not console exclusive, and the norm was largely based on picking a console for a its game library as a huge factor, as almost everything super popular/good was exclusive.

  2: You… know you can set up some kind of streaming box or other wireless solution from your PC to your living room TV, right?

  I used to just carry my rig into the living room and hardwire connect it to my TV for certain occasions… now there are many ways to just do that wirelessly.

  I rocked a multi monitor set up that also included the TV in my room for a while as well, all hardwired, would just set up the TV as an optional 3rd monitor to put on movies and lounge on my bed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft has created an AI-generated version of Quake⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  How to actually do games preservation:

  Reform IP laws.

  Mandate open sourcing of hardware and software architectures after some period of time. 10 years? 5 years after no more of that hardware/software is sold? Yes texhnicalities are insanely complicated but you get the idea.

  Oh, how about government funding for emulator development? We fund libraries that preserve books, and movies, and other stuff.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft has created an AI-generated version of Quake⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hit detection doesn’t work, going into pure darkness makes the AI hallucinate to the point it distorts the map layout, npcs will teleport around ot just disappear… runs at like 640p at maybe 20 fps, textures are a blurred indistinct mess…

  Oh and it requires basically a super computer to run this.

  Brilliant.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Not just Switch 2: ESA warns Trump’s tariffs will hurt the entire game industry⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Gaming has not been ‘fine’ since:

  Hypercaptialist corporate acquisitions have basically bought all recognizable IP/dev studios and manage them under an increasingly smaller number of actual parent companies who own increasingly huge numbers of IPs/dev studios, and then basically all of these companies are absurdly mismanaged by corporate nonces who make bank, and game devs are routinely overworked and underpaid.

  MTX became the new norm / the mobile gaming scene exploded (basically concurrent phenomena)

  Nvidia/Unreal decided that actually, having efficiently coded lighting that runs on moderately priced hardware is stupid, what you actually want is horrifically inefficient lighting that runs on absurdly expensive hardware, and then Nvidia plasters a bunch of AI Frame Gen/Upscale all over that foundation to further enforce their monopoly.

  … Like, yes, there are still great indie or AA games, but those are the exception to the rule.

  The overall industry is a fucking nightmare for anyone who works in it, and from the consumer perspective, we keep getting overpriced, overproduced iterations of the same basic game… sandwiched on the other side by an avalanche of garbage tier indie slop/scams. Something like 80 to 90 % of the games listed on Steam are that, and they are constantly fucking with their algorithms to be able to actually detect them and filter them.

  … It also doesn’t even matter if you personally will never own a high end gaming PC.

  All the AAA game dev studios need them to develop the games. And now those are all 30% more expensive, at least. Oh and all of the employees cost of living just jumped 30% as well, I am totally sure that their wages will increase to compensate this. Oh wait no, they’ll actually lay them off even faster and exploit them even harder.

  Game dev in America is going to largely grind to a halt, with again, the exception of a few, now even smaller in number, amount of new games that can be developed with much less powerful hardware, or an even smaller number of AAA titles that quintuple down on MTX, addiction based pricing models.

  But uh hey, basically every other industry in America is utterly fucked too.

  Leisure/luxury expenditures crater the hardest during a depression. Which is what we are looking at. Not a recession for a year or two, no, this is a gonna be a decade of you learning how to cook with rice and beans, sewing your clothes back together because you can’t buy new ones, where your Xmas gift to your kid is decent shoes, not a game console.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  … You’re right.

  People get abaolutely addicted to mtx, and at this point, you’d have to societally treat mtx, and legally regulate mtx like cigarettes, to actually address the problem.

  Todd may have… invented the potion, or uncorked the bottle… but way, way too many people just keep gulping it down.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Pretty much haha.

  I have distinct memories of… actually having to look away when Alyx first gets sent through Kleiner’s teleport in the beginning of HL2…

  Because my piece of crap eMachine could not handle the scene, when your view is centered on Alyx.

  It would ctd every single time time, the 100% reliable work around was to look at the ground before the screen flashing/color inversion thing happens… I’m pretty sure my rig just could not handle that ‘negative’ effect on top of the … bloomy, glowing sparks/lightning from the teleporter, at the same time.

  Other than only that scene in particular, the game ran well, lol.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Its Todd’s fault.

  Fucking horse armor.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I remeber seeing my lifelong, die hard Nintendo fan brother, play BotW.

  After watching for about 30 minutes, I said something like ‘oh neat, its like an open world, version of a Zelda game, with more voice acting, open world item durability mechanics, and Garry’s Mod style physics/build nonsense!’

  I meant it in earnest. I did think this was neat, though maybe the item durabilty values or mechanics could have been tweaked a bit, seems like you often spend a bunch of time just re-grinding for good weapons that break too fast, with no repair mechanic.

  But he thought this was entirely an insult.

  He rarely played non Nintendo games, hated online multiplayer and never played an open world survival craft game, had never played GMod, and seemed to actually think these were all revolutionary game design concepts.

  Meanwhile I’d been a mostly PC gamer since like 2003, played too much GMod, DayZ (back when it was an Arma 2 mod), and had even written some fairly comprehensive game modes (mods, basically?) for GMod, and had… just in general played a much wider variety of games.

  When he decided to finally get a gaming laptop, he found Black Mesa when it formally, fully released for $$$, and he entirely did not believe me when I said that I had actually chatted with some of their dev team before, waaaay back when Black Mesa was just an insane dream of a bunch of HL2 adjacent dorks, many of whom talked and argued on ModDB and the old Facepunch forums before Garry nuked them.

  … He also did not believe me when I told him I actually met, and took a picture with Ashley Burch at PAX, back when she was just Ash from ‘Hey Ash Watcha Playin?’, waaay before she became the voice of Aloy, and she and her brother did panels at PAX.

  Same with Jonathan Coulton, the guy who wrote the ending songs for Portal and Portal 2, which my brother now finally discovered in like … 2022? When he finally got a gaming laptop.

  I had the pictures, from a decade ago at that point, but he was so convinced I was lying he wouldn’t even look at them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, yes, but you need a … fairly out of comparable price range to a console, pc, to be able to emulate … most wiiU forward games? depending on specific game, your definition of a playable frame rate?

  I was trying to mostly focus on the ‘console wars’ aspect of the whole thing, and how official releases that were console exclusives a decade ago on an Xbox or PS… basically those all just come out on PC a few years later now, though there are a few exceptions to this, I think.

  Bringing emulation into the discussion makes the comparison exceptionally complicated, because PCs vary so much, in so many ways, and of course the legal … dark gray area, and how its often considerably more complicated than just plug and play.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah, my American is showing, assumed you were ‘one of us’ lol.

  Apologies.

  But uh yeah… we are completely fucked lol.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Genuine question: How is MarioKart 10 different from MarioKart 9? Or 7? Or 4?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You know the tariffs mean the Switch 2 may actually now cost $600, not $450, right?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Note: before tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The Nintendo fanboys/girls are the real, true, ‘winners’ of the console wars mindset, the last holdouts.

  Almost nobody really gives a shit anymore to tie their personalities to Sony or MSFT… because basically, console exclusives don’t really exist, and almost everything is on PC as well.

  But Nintendo? Nope. The company still holds a death grip on their inhouse titles being exclusive to their consoles, and the nostalgia/stolckhom syndrome is apparently the strongest with the Nintendo crowd.

  It took almost a decade for people to finally be able to admit that GameFreak is basically incompetent. You could not say that even 5 years ago w/o a deluge of insults.

  The cope is strong with these ones.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Switch 2 mouse mode (such potential)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I suggest you check out Decky FrameGen.

  The technicals are … very complex, but the upshot is: It basically injects FrameScaling/FrameGen modes into games that don’t officially support them on AMD hardware.

  So… I’ve done this with CP2077, and if I understand this right, basically it injects FSR3, but under the DLSS settings under the game’s options menu… and it works better than the game’s current officially supported FSR 2 for the Deck.

  Elden Ring may also be able to benefit from it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Switch 2 mouse mode (such potential)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yep, I already said the Switch 2 makes sense if all you care about is playing Switch 2 games.

  I am not trying to aruge that the Deck is just hands down, inherently superior in all cases, for everyone.

  I hope there’s a way for you to put parental controls on your 12 yo’s Fortnite account’s ability to buy microtransactions, and that you have enough time to teach them how to identify and disregard all the dark patterns in the game that encourage irresponsible spending habits, as well as resist all the social peer pressure that comes with an MTX heavy game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Switch 2 mouse mode (such potential)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The offical dock is $80, but you can get the Baseus Dock for between $30 and $40.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Switch 2 mouse mode (such potential)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Point by point:

  1: I mean, I guess? I do not even have a mouse myself right now… but if I needed just a cheapo one for basic use… you can get something functional for $20 or under, a basic mouse you’d get for a work laptop type thing.

  2: People have all kinds of ‘unusual’ Deck set ups.

  The mouse dongle you just mentioned wouldn’t… really make that much sense, as … you can just hold it… and use the touch pads… or the touch sensitive screen itself…

  But its actually not uncommon for people to dock their deck, sync it to a controller or M+K, and then stream it to a smart tv, or a dumb one via a dongle or direct connection to the dock. No, you’re not gonna get true 4k on any non retro game, but a good number of people do something like this.

  3: … As compared to…? Your minimum 3x more expensive PC you can upgrade with even more money? Another console/handheld you… can’t upgrade?

  Unless the Switch 2 can play Cyberpunk 2077 at better than 45 fps, with graphics basically medium/high, I don’t see how the Deck is ‘showing its age’ compared to other similarly priced handhelds.

  Decky FrameGen is pretty neat. I think I managed to tweak mine up to an avg of almost 55 on the benchmark, and thats without mucking around in CET to squeeze out even more.

  4: I absolutely understand buying a Switch 2 is your best option if you want a very straightforward, doubleplus legal, and expensive way to play Switch 2 games.

  Like, if you’re super dedicated to current era Nintendo games, sure, fine, yep, get a Switch 2.

  But if you just like games in general…

  5: Pretty much yeah, I agree. Its possible to get it working with a Deck, but its gonna be a lot more hassle, and you’ll need peripherals, yep.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Switch 2 mouse mode (such potential)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  wait wait wait.

  Fucking… what?

  … Are they trying to preempt the expected ‘GTA 6 MSRPs for $120, base edition and breaks all video game pricing’ thing?

  I’m seeing $80 for Mario Kart World.

  puts on eyepatch and peg leg

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Switch 2 mouse mode (such potential)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So… its $50 more than an LCD, 256 GB Steam Deck (the Switch 2 is also LCD).

  A Deck has two touchpads that work as mice.

  And you can buy a real mouse with those $50 bucks you saved.

  Oh right and it has a bigger screen, can run almost every modern to ancient PC game, and basically every retro game if you can handle an EmuDeck or RetroDeck guided installer, oh and it also just is a computer that does everything a mid tier linux laptop can do.

  It can even run Switch games, and probably will be able to run Switch 2 games in… what, 2 years? 3 years?

  I’m really not trying to rain on the parade here, but uh… yeah I do not understand the cost benefit analysis on a Switch 2 vs a Deck unless:

  You really, really want to play Switch 2 games soon

  OR

  The Switch 2 somehow has vastly superior performance to a Steam Deck

  … I kinda doubt that last one being the case, but the specs aren’t out yet (afaik) so I guess it is possible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My grandma passed away and my aunt sent me a selfie of her, my uncle, and my deceased grandma in the hospital bed, is it normal that I'm put off by this?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It always sucks to have to cut off or go no contact/ghost absurd family members… but after a long pattern of concerning, manipulative and/or abusive behavior… that’d you really only put up with because they’re family… after a while, that reason/excuse becomes worthless.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My grandma passed away and my aunt sent me a selfie of her, my uncle, and my deceased grandma in the hospital bed, is it normal that I'm put off by this?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Reading the main post and other comments you’ve made giving more context, IMO you are correct, your aunt is a narcissistic sociopath.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When Your Threat Model Is Being a Moron⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Its actually perfect. No notes. No possible improvements.

  This deserves some kind of award.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tired of dating apps?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly, this takes more effort and is more creative than making a profile on a dating app.

  It is also pretty honest.

  … I don’t think this is likely to actually work, due to the obvious red flags, but it is probably more likely to actually work than doing this same thing on an app.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Civilization 7 Outlines Crucial 1.1.1 Update as It Struggles to Compete on Steam Against Civ 6 and Even the 15-Year-Old Civ 5⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  np! =]

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Civilization 7 Outlines Crucial 1.1.1 Update as It Struggles to Compete on Steam Against Civ 6 and Even the 15-Year-Old Civ 5⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Aw, been a while since someone’s complimented me, thank you!

  Yes, I too fucked up the city planning stuff a good deal until eventually… it clicked.

  It isn’t the same game as Civ, a lot of the sort of ingrained ideas you don’t even realize are baked into your subconcious from playing Civ a lot… will lead you to knee jerk, make the kind of ‘well obviously i do this in this situation’ decisions…

  and yeah, then get slapped with ‘nope, no workey’.

  But… if you stick with it… just like you probably did, many moons ago, with Civ, you can absolutely get much more skilled.

  Its funny you bring up stellaris… i spent like a month just utterly failing until that ‘click’ moment.

  Then, a few months of ‘i am actually decent at this’ and then a few more months till ‘actually this is boring because i win by stupid margins every time on anything but the most absurd difficulties, and in those games its pretty much a completely random dice roll of surviving early game or not due to the absurd early game ai bonuses… and then by mid to late game, the AI is just literally too stupid to engage in 80% of the micromanagement strategies i am using to snowball’.