LadyCrimson

@Gorgon Yeah, I've been noticing ever increasing vram usage for a bit too, mostly on 'next gen' or AAA games as they are getting pushed out now, but I think it'll become more prevalent even below that, before too long. Outside of "poor ports/poor coding" etc, it's just one of those fast major transitional periods. I'm still trying to hold out until the 50xx period before building a new rig - I think there would be too many bottlenecks or mobo/other issues to just upgrade gpu, from my wants anyway. 2080ti was a 'joke' to some re: performance/cost ratios but hey, at least it had 11 vram, even if it's slower vram, so I'm still marginally pushing thru so far.

This talk of YT/algorithms reminds me - re: my updating Win10, I finally noticed that "news/interest" feed icon in the r-corner of the taskbar, when my mouse randomly moved over it one time, popping up some tall sidebar, and I was like "wtf." Got rid of that via Group Policy disable, posthaste. I'd already gotten rid of previous similar before, must be a new version. This is a desktop, not a mobile device, go away. And...another topic: I saw a review on the film Tetris. Which made me wonder...is there anyone else who has never, not even once, played Tetris? I mean, I know what it is/as pop culture reference, but like many similar popular/fad games, never played it.

People thought for pc gaming it was going to be "16 system ram isn't enough anymore, better get 32" But the real issue will end up being "Anything less than 16 Vram is a toaster/barely minimum 720p req." And 24+ vram is only going to be on the top tier gpu's. Or maybe they'll start selling separated add-on VRAM modules, or something.

Crash Course in Romance - finished it. Skimmed thru bits. It turned out to be less rom-com and more overall family drama with cautionary tales about how terrible it is to over-pressure students. I think they have social issues with that there, like Japan (reputedly, I don't live there) does. The romance bits were fun, the rest well-meaning but often too otp for my tastes. Plus, like about 40% of k-drama's it tossed in a small killer side plot for tension which was not needed. >.> Jung Kyung-ho is still awesome, tho.

Oh, I forgot! I rented Puss n Boots/Last wish last night, too. Definitely leagues above that first movie. I found some of the animation style choices interesting during action bits but not always pleasing outside of action. I thought it had too many groups of chrs so loses focuses a bit here and there. But still...enjoyed it overall. And it made hubby briefly LOL a couple times (which is fairly rare for him while watching a movie), so bonus points. The Nick Cage film meme reference did have me rolling (hubby didn't get that one but I sure did, lol ).

Instead of Narcos, started watching k-drama Crash Course In Romance (what is with these cheesy titles, heh). Jung Kyung-ho is an awesome drama actor - he's been in a lot of the more serious-side dramas lately (like Prison Playbook) but I missed him in trope-y rom-com territory. The series does indeed have some silly comedy although there's a bit too much focus on the teenage and scheming student mothers subplots for my liking so far. Anyway, seems decent starting. And at least the opening episode was totally worth it to see Jung do this:

My old Win7 backup rig (eg, almost never on) still has an old Steam client version on it, in order to keep one or two games at an older version vs. what's downloaded/on the main rig. I just unhook the internet cable from the rig before opening Steam so it can't update itself. But yeah....I don't really care at this point even for that. I think that rig is soon going to go in the emergency use closet, at best. There are still a few people who refuse to go above Win7 even to this day tho - even as a separate gaming-only machine - you see them around.

At 17:00 - customizable difficulty via accessories (that show on-screen, can't hide you're using them). I think my lazy butt likes that way more than just an "Easy/Story" mode. So one can keep some combat elements normalized and others 1-button or slow-down/quicktime-like easy. I wasn't very interested in ff16 (even as an action game, nvm "FF game") but this video sorta makes me interested. Not just for that aspect, but overall too. Sideline: 24:00 - yes you can pet the dog. ...still, I'm not sure. Difficulty customization doesn't mean it'll be fun to actually play through the whole game. Also the way AAA PC releases have been going recently, I feel like I should just get a PS5 be done with it. ...to paraphrase Asmongold: "On console, smooth 3 second load times. On PC, it'll crash." Haha, yea....

That bat file seems the same directory locations and cmd/powershell strings all the articles I saw all mentioned. I could see all those things in cmd and trying to force-uninstall commands etc did nothing. The more current method link seems to be much more registry altering which since I don't understand what it's doing - outside of also putting in that "don't install on update" tweak as well - I'd be more leery of unwanted affects. My Edge install seems to be build 111.0.1661.54 and I'd say that's why the force-uninstall etc. stuff would not take/work. I actually tried to delete all the Edge directories in the Programsx86/Microsoft directory (I backed them up first ofc) - and the darn thing still opened/functioned peachy-keen when I clicked on the start-menu shortcut. Not even an error message (what I was sorta expecting). It must have multiple install locations where the one you can see is a ghost/duplicate or some weird tech thing I have no clue for. >.> I think the integration of Edge to the O/S mainly affects MS "apps" - which I pretty much got rid of most or never use/open, but if one did like using a lot of those, it might be 'bad.' Not sure tho. Not that it matters but I have the Start Menu set up so if I click on it initially all that shows up is C drive link, and I never use the "all apps" view or start programs from it (I always tell programs not to put a shortcut in the start menu), I just type to pop up what I want, or use my taskbar shortcuts, so am not visually bothered.

I finished episode 4 and maybe 1/3 of the fifth. I guess it's actually going to be two episodes per crime/story. The bullying story gave me mixed feelings because on the one hand, the cliched stuff reminded me of some older (cheestastic/better) highschool-rom kdramas in small bits. But on the other hand, I was expecting serial killer, murder etc. vigilante crime and it felt a bit forced/head scratching. I also began to realize I didn't care all that much for the strange broken up pacing the show is doing. I love the lead actor playing all these roles, but I probably won't continue either. Oh well. There are some good ones here and there but episodic crime/sci-fi isn't yet S. Korea's forte. Maybe I'll check out Narcos for the first time, now. Probably won't be my thing but who knows.

Apparently, Last of Us PC Remake is making people wait 40-300 minutes for the 1st "shader compile" to finish (beefier gpu/cpu/ram=less time seemingly). 5 minutes would be fine, maybe 10 at most, but that's just silly. What tf is it with DX12. I so far have not liked the (tech performance) of all DX12 games I've had, especially ones that do the visible shader compile screen at start up. I don't care whose "fault" it may be, it's annoying regardless. Can we smooth this process out please.

^ I was hoping that this would be the last time I'd care, since with Win11 means Win10 updates will now be largely security stuff, not "feature changes" or whatever. But it'd been long enough for me that maybe there was still a bit of "feature" stuff (eg, that games might care about?) involved. No clue. Anyway, it seems to have updated, didn't go haywire. Sadly, no method (powershell, cmd) to uninstall Edge has worked. I'd like it gone if it was possible because I don't like fluff I don't use installed, but it's no biggie. I think everything else about my much modified Win10-Pro looks the same, at least on the surface. >.>

It has been over a year....maybe 1.5 years... *Win10....check for updates...Restart* *PRAYS*

Oh, btw, if you were interested in the RE4-RM, and you have a gpu with 8GB (or less) vram, don't put it anywhere near max settings (especially texture setting), even at 1440, maybe not even 1080. And definitely don't put on RT, unless maybe you have 16+ vram (or maybe it's just a general RT bug, could be fixed later). I will say that I had it at 2GB texture memory for a while and while I did notice a wall texture occasionally being low-res, it was very rare and often too dark for me to notice much anyway, and generally speaking it largely looks the same as when I tried higher. 3GB setting is nicer to use maybe, but I do have 11vram.

I don't mind cosmetics or this newer play a few days early stuff, if it's single-player. With the latter just being a choice of impatience over funds. There's no gameplay reason to spend extra. But online with some element of even minor competitiveness (ladders, "battle passes", whatever), even if it's just bragging rights and cosmetic rewards, it's much more dubious because it gives a distinct advantage to play/level/familiarize early. Now, I don't know what Blizzard is doing, maybe the first season/battle pass won't begin until a week after release day or something, which would make it less of a potential issue/advantage, but eh y'all know what I'm saying. I find pricing the seasons/battle passes more aggravating. I would occasionally do half the season progression in D3 for funsies to get/check out the season benefit/new game feature early (vs. waiting until season end and they dumped it into non-season play) then stop. I'd certainly not pay extra just to do that.

Come on, 7 Days to Die, could we get Alpha 21 please. At this point I don't even truly expect them to ever Final Release the darn game - maybe they will, maybe they won't - but it's been 16-ish months since A20....I'm starting to wonder if it'll be next Xmas. ...I haven't refunded RE4:RM yet. There's this part of me that for reasons unknown (since this is isn't usually my genre) wants to continue playing it, even if I have to cheat to save my sanity. I can't decide.

Two episodes watched. Looks like it's going to be a more "episodic" show, with a main thread but different stories most episodes. The premise of vigilante "taxi" service that helps crime victims in a sort of undercover team operation fashion is a little absurd perhaps but it's well acted/heart wrenching at times. I believe most of the crimes in the show are "inspired" by real crimes from S. Korea. The episodes are more in the 60-65 minute range vs. 45-50.

That is one reason I don't feel like dealing with always online gaming, when said game can still be solo'ed/single-player-ed. Even when it becomes more stable, from work or less people playing, I've had enough latency/lag spike deaths and disconnects, thanks. Or those times when servers are down and you cannot play your ... SP/solo game. Just make it a MT MMO and stop pretending/have done with it, Blizz.

C-romance-drama - The Oath of Love (ugh, that title...): medical crisis/romantic melodrama, sometimes funny, sometimes touching, typical rom. chr. tropes, the lead's parents arc was almost the better chr/story. Mostly, it was good for lazy chair/bed tablet-screen consumption. Typical C-drama where best-friend secondary chrs. get almost as much (very separated) screentime/story as the leads, which in this one I largely FFWD thru because they were boring/who cares. Thus 29 episodes is more like 14, that way. Main story, 7/10, the rest, didn't care. Next up: K-drama, crime/thriller/vigilante, Taxi Driver. Main lead is Lee Je Hoon, who was fantastic in 2016's Signal (a sci-fi element, crime/thriller), so I must check it out. If I like it, it has two seasons (2nd season is ongoing?). I'll watch this one on the big TV. Still re-watching: The Mentalist - somewhere in mid-season 2 by now, keep getting distracted tho.

All the videos I've seen re: the Druid is that sure, it can kill/do everything but it's the clear speed (vs. the other classes and while not needing very specific gear pieces) people are complaining about. If your long-term goal is to level up a chr to max level and then farm endlessly for paragon and gear/upgrades/craft, or climb a season Ladder, you want a fast clear speed. If you don't care about that/aren't in a hurry, and simply enjoy Druid skills/style play, nothing wrong with it. But I'm sure Druid will get buffed and Necro/Sorc get nerfed before release.

There is a rudimentary photomode in RE4-M but this is a frame from a video. I did like the in-game scenes integration (that I saw), it didn't feel interruptive and was paced/flowed very nicely.

^ I'll just watch/skim Asmongold's 6 hour Necro video, then I don't have to play the game. I found a cheatengine thing for RE4-M, so I played a little longer. It's not the sort of game where it's still fun even if cheating, since it's basically all combat/confront moments but at least I could see more of it within 2 hrs to judge whether I'd like it enough to gitgud. I do kind of like the game, the two chrs. I've met so far, but I don't think I'd want to spend the time to figure out how to not die 10 times per fight. Not the fault of the game, just my skillz/mentality. It definitely looks great, has a nice horror feel (lots o' gore kills if you don't turn it off), little things/goals to do between confrontation areas. Very linear but has a minimal exploration feel. But I'm too lazy, so I'll probably refund it. It's cinematic enough, maybe I'll watch MKIceandFire story walkthru of it. ...in another 10-15 years I'll probably always just sit in my recliner and watch videos like that vs. actually playing anything. Hahah.

RE4-Remake: Reach the first village. Try to "fight off" a dozen and more of baddies. Run out of ammo, can't figure out melee fast enough. Die, die, die. Try to avoid/semi-stealth baddies. Die. Wait are they respawning?? Die. Try to kill some baddie with a chainsaw who pops up at some point. Die. Finally manage to defeat chainsaw-thing. Run around the place looting. Oh look, a cute pig! It attacks me. Die. Exit Game? Yes. ...I know it's 99% that I simply suck at l2play stages iof this sort of game, but first PC game where the microseconds between seeing a (controller) prompt, pushing the button, and game reacting to pushing the button feels very sluggish/off. That is not helping. Also, everything is a bullet sponge, even direct shots to the face. ...I do like that there's a minor crafting element (I think that is new to this remake?) so there is more to pick up/collect then just ammo/weapons.

From the original game, much visual improvement/definitely looks "modern" far as I can tell. The remake is already on PS5 etc tho and from what I can see it likely won't look tons better on PC - the usual extra lighting/shadow type improvement. So you could just look at videos from PS5 to get a general idea.

RE4-Remake. I was bored. Installed. Set settings. Start new game. Two cutscenes, then standing somewhere. Take four steps. Crash, with my TV screen turning two-toned blue with any windows on it being squished (like a resolution/scaling/display error), which goes away if I turn on/off/on the TV. Repeat 20 times as I fiddle. Verify game integrity, seemed to reinstall something, no more crash. Ok, whatever. Per usual since I want to run in 4k, I don't have RT on, mostly High settings, mostly 50-60fps. Never played the original so don't know how it compares visually but it looks pretty good here. TV screen still turns that two-tone blue when I exit the game however. No clue. The game? I dunno, I investigated then "escaped" the first grimy hut, found a save typewriter, and that's it. The crash stuff wore me out.