LadyCrimson

Hospital waiting room, waiting. Theres a single flyer mag on a bench. Everyone has phones now I guess. Gosh it takes forever to scroll emoticon list to bottom on the phone.

"Average Betty" - although perhaps I should rename it again to "Metal Mule" I don't like the blue/orange color scheme but take it to the right planet and it'll look better. She's a good ship, but occasionally likes to show off a personality quirk or two. Apparently other planets had their version of dinosaurs, that didn't go extinct.

More NMS blatherings: Went to a space station. Checked the npc pilots ships. One had one with 39 storage slots! But they wanted 33million for it. Since I am a mining/selling fool, I did have it. Barely, I am totally broke now. But then I scavenged the Ugly Boat for 4million and doing so for some reason gave me a ship-inventory-slot mod. So now the new ship has 40. And it's not quite as fugly so I named it "Average Betty." Too bad I can't repaint it. I think the groove for me in NMS is going to be farming billions over and over to collect 12 - I think that's max? - spaceships/upgrading them to the max (I don't care about the freighters). That and finding the perfect Paradise planet with a good supporting 3-4 other planets around it. And maybe eventually, taming a flying pet I can ride. I've seen screenshots. I want one. Oh, after the first "space fight" with some folks, I turned that stuff off. I can barely fly the damn ship without constantly doing accidental loop-de-loops - aiming/fighting in space is basically "no." At this point it's pure sandbox for me. Edit: you can rename your Mining Tool, too. So I did. It is ... MIner69er. *listens to the groans* ...

^ I've had 32 ram for over 4 years now and the only thing that would go near to filling it all up briefly was 7 Days to Die's map generator when it was not optimized yet (eg it's better/not like that now). So again, only certain types of people/tasks would warrant more, imo, even today. And I totally understand the longevity aspect. I try to build like that too. So for a year maybe I have an uber rig but then I spend a lot of years turning stuff down, and down, because what I cared about were certain longevity aspects more than having/maintaining uber.

Or are interested in demanding titles at 1440/4k High/Ultra/RT. And would prefer as much as possible not to have to use DLSS just to get 60-ish fps CPU in a new build is currently, imo, just as important as GPU. Don't cheap out there. I knew when I went big-screen-4k that I'd have to leap more often and higher to keep up, even when I'm not an Ultra (edit) or RT type of person. DLSS has improved a lot since the start but I still don't like to use it. But yeah, if one is using 1080p and won't care about next-gen demanding/snazzy titles/features, 4090 is still overkill.

For the probable price/performance gain, I would say no. If I was going to wait for anything, it'd be longer term and the 50xx at this point. If the only concern is gaming, generally I would say ... no. Except, perhaps, if you're one of those who likes to run a game with 500 mods and mega texture packs. Or, er, maybe if you like having 400 browser tabs open. Or if you constantly do specific non-game software/tasks that are extremely RAM heavy. But for general desktop/office/gaming concerns - nah, there's no need. Ram's also easy to add to or swap later. Well, typically, not familiar with Dell.

NMS - ---the ground vehicle you get for free w/the Base Computer readouts/missions came with 40 storage slots, and you can call it to your location like the ships. ---I was wrong, I got to keep the starter spaceship. It just gets stowed and you can call it back/switch if you want. ---I found the "easy" way to search for lush "Paradise" planets, which sound nice for building a true "main base" vs. the cruddy starter planet I was on, or temp bases just for teleportation/markers. I found one first try, but it's very red-themed, even the grass. I don't like red. I'll keep looking. ---the animals wandering, fighting, killing each other right next to base structures drives me nuts. I built a wall-fence around everything, maybe that'll work. ---the cooking/food stuff, holy cow it's way too much. Seems to be mostly to make money? But way too many resources/farming/animal farming/recipes, not worth it for bulk vs. just mining 9999 stacks to sell. Just for sim-ing? Settlements? I know nothing about Settlements/hirelines and not sure I'll bother.

Hubby got a letter from Bank of America saying his CC something or other was denied. We don't have any Bank of America stuff. >.> Someone took out accounts with BoA in his name etc. Then got red-flagged trying to do stuff with them. We've been very careful/lucky in that all our lives but finally got hit with something. What a PITA.

Side subject: lately I've been thinking that one thing I'm really weary of is the "talking head" syndrome in most crpg's. Click on npc and get long minutes of speech while a talking-head stares at you with its animated lip flapping until the text "choices" pops up, until some of us start slamming the skip button if available, causing amusing face animation stops and starts. Yet I have no idea how to "do it better." I still preferred the full text boxes of the top down old rpg's, or in newer cases, when chrs. talk as you're still running in the world, so it doesn't feel like the game has come to a standstill. There's the idea of it being audio communication, so you can listen while roaming, but while that works for short snippets (ala Borderland/Jack or some FFXV/Tales of Arise party interactions), it works less well for quests, with UI/audio spam (ala Cyberpunk) that may drive you nuts. Plus of course you may miss hearing something.

Some guy landed his ship near my small base. He had 5 more ship storage slots, so I bought it. It was much boxier and uglier tho, so I had to rename it Ugly Boat. For a second I thought I was going to get to keep two ships, but the starter one disappeared when I ported out/back to the planet. Between that and a few more backpack slots, I feel ok on earlyish storage for now. I'm at the stage in NMS where I'm not entirely sure if I love the game or just sorta like it. On the one hand, for me, great chill sandbox. On the other hand, not quite enough motivation to do the sandbox if one isn't into the base building or ship combat etc. which is the main reason to find/horde resources or work on upgrades. I've tried to do more questing, not feeling it - akin to not feeling it in Bethseda games, really. It's currently a cool game tho - depends what you want/like to do is all. And checking new planets for scenery gazing/exploration could soak up a lot of time just on its own. Edit: oh I guess there will be ground vehicles. The Base Computer gave me a mission that gives one I think, but I need some resource I don't have yet.

I didn't spend much time looking at anything, when I turned it on, but I was amused that the automobile traffic still liked to pile up here and there and just sit there for seemingly no reason. And/or would only start moving if I started to approach, that type of stuff.

Finally got to watch Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Much better than the 2nd one, although the end action/heroics/fights etc. became a little ridiculous - and over-extended - even for GotG. Very video-gamey. And the CGI of Groot's new look didn't come off that well, imo. Still, mostly entertaining/fun, for the the series. The first one is still the best one.

No Man's Sky - so apparently terrain regenerates at some point. Or sometimes it doesn't, but sometimes it does? In other words, don't try to dig out/make underground rooms/bases. >.> I need a mod that removes all the HUD with a hotkey vs. having to go in and out the main menu constantly to change it. I don't know why games don't always make that sort of function hotkeyable vs. graphic menu option.

Can you give me an idea how far into the main questline that might be? eg, pretty early, 1/4, 1/2. 3/4 etc Story wise I never made it farther than the, uh - trying to avoid spoilers just in case - the start of that mission with Jackie. Which I know isn't that far. I spent most of my 25-30 hrs. just farting around, as usual.

I know zero about that, re: spinal degeneration potentials, I'll ask hubby if he's looked into it. The doc spent like 45 minutes with hubby outlining the conditions and possibilities but probably if it's not done/covered by the hospital he wouldn't mention it. He did mention the spinal fusion but heavily did not recommend it - I wouldn't either, to me that sounds like a last resort type of thing. Hubby's mobile enough for day to day, so if pain can be managed life could be "all right" overall. But all those car/handy man tools/supplies etc. are probably going to be dumped.

No Man's Sky - I do have some minor irritations. --the KB/M keybinds are often terrible, imo. Yes you can remap them but still terrible. As in, awkward at times. --For some reason when in the Galaxy warping ship map I cannot path a route with the KB/M. But the controller works for that just fine, so I keep switching back and forth. On the flip side, there was one function that didn't seem to work using the controller, even tho game was telling me to press this - when I did, it didn't work. Which is why I used the KB/M. --the Technology additives for some stuff, like more suit poison resistance, that needs to recharge with batteries - the battery lasts like 3-5 minutes in use, which it often is in use constantly if the planet atmosphere is of that hazard or something. It's ridiculous, why even bother. --I like exploring planets, resource gathering, treasure hunting, randomness. Although I could see it becoming repetitive after a while, like most such. --I love the visual look/style, the animals, all of that. --the language/word learning is kinda neat. --hate the space flying/travel re: control, I'm going to avoid that as much as possible. --I have zero curiosity re: the main quest/mystery and all the mumbo jumbo they're tossing around. Edit: not an issue for me at all, just saying it's not that type of game.

You could just get a 2TB to put the O/S and a few or several certain games on and still use HDD for less demanding games and anything else you want. 2TB Samsung EVO sata's these days are $130, US$, like this one. https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Inch-Internal-MZ-77E2T0B-AM/dp/B08QB93S6R Which would be perfectly fine for gaming. Obviously prices are going to vary a bit depending on exact model/brands but overall it's pretty cheap these days. But that's what I still have/do - 1tb nvme for o/s programs, 2tb sata for games, and two 4tb HDD for storage and other.

Since I don't have it installed on an HDD, I can't really say. I think I noticed save loading times felt a tad longer even on my SSD, then before, but that could be faulty memory. I've seen Steam-forum posts saying it runs just fine on their HDD's, just the load times got even longer. EDIT: That's for the base game tho. The new DLC might be different.

When I tried to Play, the launcher was a tiny black square, and would crash/not launch. Pondering this, I remembered another game has a similar issue recently and the solution was ... to click on the game's .exe Properties/Compatibility, and make sure the "Run as Admin" box is not checked. For whatever reasons some games/coding sometimes don't like that now. Anyway ... the 2080ti/9900k 4k performance wasn't far from what I expected/not that different. eg, at Native, 50-60 if no RT, falling to 30-40 if I turned the RT-water reflections on (not the sun and other one). If I used DLSS-Quality, bump the range up by another 8-10 or so. And it all certainly has a bit more visual polish, imo. Not mega-improved, but it's noticeable. I do think the base DLSS 3.5 (no frame gen etc. for me) looks a lot better than 2+ it had on release, cleaner, at least on-screen (screenshots still have that softer look, ofc). Those RT reflections are even prettier then before. I didn't notice any major artifacting but one, I don't have the extra RTX settings and two, I didn't run around that long. Note: the game, for me, installed the base nvngx_dlss.dll as version 3.1.1. So I manually replaced it with the 3.5 one. The dlssd.dll and dlssdg.dll's are the ones that are 3.5 on install, which I don't need since I can't use that tech.

^ I've seen others (in comments) discussing re: ghosting. Seems a little dependent on settings, where some might work better for some or the opposite for whatever reasons - frame generation on/off (if you can do that), that ray reconstruction on/off etc. I was considering reinstalling the game and finally trying it again, with years of updates, but the graphic stuff means little to me since I still have a 20xx. But I'll probably get curious if it all means better or worse performance on the (now) middling side.

Hubby had his round with the back specialist. In colloquial terms, "You're boned." ... pun not intended. In some cases there is apparently no more cartilage, so it's essentially bone rubbing bone when he moves no matter what. There is no fixing that. Meaning even if it feels somewhat better at times, he can't/shouldn't do anything re: excess movement stress/wear even at small levels, like he was hoping (example: light gardening/handy man-ing). Pain management is about it. So next week they're going to try a short term local anesthetic (not steroids) in the area, as a test to see if it helps with pain. If it does, the steroid injections might work/help. If it doesn't, no point in the steroids. Anyway, I think hubby is - understandably - pretty down. Not just about pain/discomfort but the "even if it feels better, shouldn't/can't do anything" because there's a pretty high danger of it becoming even still worse. Thus I'll continue to be the strong person re:shopping/lifting/moving and whatever else. I also have a great talent for writing checks to get others to do things for us.

No Man's Sky ...go into a cave, expecting a not too large area (all the others I'd found weren't huge). Saw minerals I wanted. Kept going forward to mine them and it turns out this cave was ginormous, seemingly never-ending caverns and twists, as if it maybe continued under half the planet's crust. Long time later I ran out of bag space with maxed 9999 stacks and tried to make my way back out. There's no mini-map in the game. It's dark. I thought I'd kept to a fairly straight path, not taking side turns and I tried to backtrack. But ... I got lost. I wandered and wandered, realized I hadn't been this way or that way yet from unmined thingies. The compass markers of the surface did not help much since I hadn't taken note of what and where before going in. ...after 20 minutes of ever increasingly desperate wandering, I finally remembered something - I took the terrain shaping tool out and blasted a tunnel upwards out to the sky. I think that's the worst that I've ever been "lost" in a game, ever. And it was glorious.

No fancy ship or base, no pet/mount and I haven't spent time trying to get extra kewl or original images yet. But here's some scenes/bits that I liked.

Trying to speed the gamestages up, so now I've built my first tiny hut-base in No Man's Sky. And the tutorial keeps going for more basics. Which led me to start reading wiki's (apparently I'm not too far from the tutorial end I guess). I'm not sure I like the sound of all the long-activity/routes for having more than a single base-storage chest, increased suit inventory slots, base-building skills/crafting much beyond super basic. For me, sounds like days and days before I'd get anywhere near it so I could think mostly about "sandboxing" vs. questing. Can those of you who've played this game tell me if it's as involved/long as it sounds, or if maybe one storage box per base claim enough - so I could just skip it all? I wasn't planning on making giant/artistic bases or anything so I could probably skip/avoid all that line. Gotta have more suit inventory tho....

No Man's Sky: Bought a Site map at some small ship base, like a treasure map I guess. Made a destination marker. "Travel time: TWENTY HOURS?" .... got in my ship and hit the takeoff/fly button for the 1st time to check. "Two hours?" ... "Is that in real time?" Apparently, no it isn't. But it was still maybe 15-20 minutes of pressing W+Shift (boost speed). During that flight - the first time I'd used the spaceship - I remembered why I don't tend to play spaceship games. Controlling movement/pitch/direction of ships with their windshield PoV is something I never "get good" with. At most I may get to a point where instead of a fall-down drunk seeming driver, I'm only a fairly tipsy driver. I don't get motion sickness or anything, but it's very annoying, lol.