Humanoid

The Two Point Hospital cycle has become pretty depressing. The base game was a solid release with a few glaring inconveniences that have mostly been addressed through patches and is strongly recommended. The DLC, on the other hand, is extremely cynical in that each and every one of them is essentially identical but reskinned: three maps, some [new disease], and [new disease treatment room]. It's sad, when they started out there was grand talk about creating a new world of "Two Point" management sims. Yet not even a peep of anything but this endless rehashed DLC. I'd say it's about on the level of Sims Stuff Packs, though that might be a bit generous.

Sounds like the type of game I'd love to play co-op. Alas. Then again Parkitect got it as an update, so hopefully it's well received enough to make co-op builders increasingly more of a thing.

I thought that 1/3 at the end there meant that the new release date was the 1st of March. I suck at Twitter. That said, I've been playing the game in earnest, finally. Only just past the big FUBAR and into the open world content proper for the first time. No technical issues really. Playing a pure stealth character more or less and not sure how I feel about it. Part of it is because I'm already stealth-inclined generally, but the other was that I ended up deciding that the gamepad was better for the game generally but at the same time it necessitated making shooting not the major focus of gameplay. Both the stealth mechanics and level design in that context aren't quite as good as games dedicated to the mechanics, but that's understandable given that it's trying to be many things at the same time. Takedowns are clumsier than they need to be, requiring two commands instead of one striking me as particularly silly (grab first then decide on lethal vs non-lethal). I've long thought that Dishonored, even the first one, already solved the most elegant way to takedown and grab but for some reason it hasn't been shamelessly copied, with both Mankind Divided and now this regressing to jankier implementations. That said, I'm letting myself be immersed, walking around at a moderate pace, following the walk lights, etc. I find myself reluctant to drive because of a lack of parking spots means I can't elegantly leave the car anywhere. Even when I'm in a place with parking spots, I find the game doesn't actually let me use them, which is irritating. Seriously, there's like an invisible wall in front of the parking spot itself. Whyyyyyy?

I bought the USB version of a CH F-16 Fighterstick purely to play Privateer so hey. Design as old as the game itself. Sure, without the nostalgia factor there are probably better buys out there. No twist axis back then, definitely, though I dunno how common it is on modern sticks. Meanwhile I've had a Cougar HOTAS for 20 years but have barely used it - too complex for the games I play - obviously it's waiting for Star Citizen.

For motherboards, B550 offers all most people need. You'd need to run multiple PCI-E 4.0 SSDs to even start getting benefit from an X570 board. Since I was shopping not so long ago, these are my recommendations, so the notes are clearly biased towards the things I find important. Note I've excluded boards with the potentially faulty Intel I225-V LAN chip because even though more recently manufactured boards may have the fixed chip, I wouldn't want to gamble on it. P.S. Bolded the options I liked best. Budget: Asrock B550M Pro4 (no USB-C front-panel header, also lacks BIOS Flashback, so you'll likely need to either borrow a CPU in order to update, or get the store to do it.) Budget with Wi-Fi: MSI B550M Pro-VDH WiFi (oddly it has a USB-C header for the front panel, but no rear USB-C port) Mid-range options: Asrock B550 Steel Legend - probably the cheapest, still gives up Flashback though. Asus TUF Gaming B550 Plus - lacks a USB-C header. Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro V2 - note the V1 lacks a USB-C header. MSI B550 Tomahawk - feature-complete but does tend to cost a bit more than the competitors above. Mid-range options with WiFi: Asus TUF Gaming B550 Plus WiFi - again lacks a USB-C header Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro ax - make sure it's not the superseded Pro ac which has slower WiFi and lacks front-panel USB-C. MSI B550 Gaming Edge WiFi - I went for this personally, but probably would have picked the Gigabyte if it was available at the time. The Gigabyte has more USB ports and better onboard audio. MicroATX mid-range: Asrock B550M Steel Legend - unlike the full sized version, lacks USB-C header Asus TUF Gaming B550M Plus (WiFi version also available) - just like the full-sized it lacks a USB-C header Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro-P - it's weird, they released this improved P version but still chose not to put a USB-C header on it. MSI B550M Mortar (WiFi version also available) - seem the most feature-complete mATX boards either way. If you want X570 anyway: MSI X570 Tomahawk WiFi - relatively small premium for a fully-featured X570 board compared to competitors.

Not sure if that's a PC or a a part of your truck engine.

I'm fine without the butt shots as long as they don't then shift the camera to her uncanny valley face.

Time for us to have "motherGPUs" which bolt onto the case, then the CPU and other functions can live on a daughterboard that plugs into the GPU.

Turns out the solution to this was to set my central monitor in Radeon Software to "Preferred Display". Don't know what that has to do with anything but all is fine now. This was after updating to the 1.40 Open Beta that was released today, but the patch by itself didn't fix anything. There's also an annoying bug in the beta where headlights and dashboard illumination are borked. Oh, and framerate report - there were actually some annoying slowdowns at max everything, but bumping AA down a notch from Ultra to High fixed that.

It'll be on EA Play basic in a year or so. Now whether they'll finally enable EA Play on Game Pass PC in a year remains to be seen...

So then, the first game I christened the new PC with was Age of Empires 2, a game I first played on a Pentium 3. Obviously that didn't let the system stretch its legs, so I tried some other things. Euro Truck Sim 2 in Eyefinity mode unfortunately exhibited some graphical corruption, so that put the kibosh on that plan. This got me a bit worried, but no such symptoms appear in single-display mode, or when I fired up the Hitman 2 benchmark, so I'm putting it down to a possible driver issue - if it persists once the Iberia expansion releases I'll be pretty annoyed though. Anyway, to ensure things were truly working properly, I finally fired up the big one, Cyberpunk 2077. It's been a long wait, I know. I chose not to continue with the character I had created previously because I didn't like the idea of having a boss, so I started as a Nomad this time. I've only gotten up to the timeskip in the prologue but the game looks good, and performs well at maximum non-RT settings. I didn't run any metrics, no frame-rate counter or anything, but judging from eye I think I've landed on the right amount of power for the system because I don't see any reason to reduce any settings at all. EDIT: I also freaked out a bit as The Witcher 3, which had just installed, failed to launch. Then Rogue Legacy also failed when I tried it to see if Galaxy was working properly. Turns out both needed to be repaired, odd.

Time for an update, it's been over five years since the last one. Core: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Noctua U14S MSI B550 Gaming Edge Wifi 4x8GB Crucial Ballistix 3600MT/s CL16 Sapphire RX 6800 Nitro+ Fractal Design Define 7 White, no window 750W Bitfenix Whisper M Storage: 1TB WD Black SN750 2TB Crucial MX500 960GB Sandisk Ultra II 256GB Crucial m4 Pioneer BDC-207DBK Blu-ray combo Peripherals: Topping VX1 DAC/amp Monitor Audio Bronze 2 bookshelf speakers Philips Fidelio X2 headphones Logitech MX Master mouse Das Keyboard 4 Ultimate, Cherry MX Brown keys Tai Hao Miami keycaps 27" Asus MG279Q 27" Dell U2715H 27" Dell U2711 (dying, replacement order for a Dell S2721DS on the way) CH Products F-16 Fighterstick USB Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar XBox 360 Wireless controller for PC Logitech G920 Driving Force wheel

The card arrived, so the build is now properly functional. Still have to move the old SSDs and optical drive over, but it's effectively done, having slowly accumulated these parts since October. God, modern video cards dwarf absolutely everything. Makes this full-sized ATX board look like microATX, and the case interior looks tiny. All including the RGB is completely irrelevant though, because... Yes it's staying in the dining room for now while I install Windows, make sure everything works correctly, and transfer the old bits.

It's a gaming card with a green PCB, imagine that!

So this project made a liar out of me, said I wasn't going to do the build just yet, but I was going to start out today just updating the BIOS as preparation. Ended up going all the way to a bootable system just for my peace of mind. Overall it's one of the stranger things I've done, plonked in my old 8800GT with one non-working fan on the Accelero S1 cooler that's on it. Had to cable tie the fan wire out of the way and plug it into the motherboard, but it turns out that was the broken fan so no matter. Reckon this'll be a bottleneck? Slight hitch in that I plugged the thing into a old TV because that's what's in the dining room where I did the build. The BIOS screen came out all corrupt whenever I selected an option, and I worried for a moment that something was seriously wrong. However plugging it into an actual monitor seems to work properly, so crisis averted. Booted into Peppermint from a USB stick to test, and no problems there either. I'm not going to install Windows until my video card arrives next week so that's it for now I guess.

I did find it strange that the same store restocked the entire Sapphire range at the same time, yet only put a $10 difference between the Pulse and the Nitro. I probably would not have bitten on the Pulse at that price, just like I turned down a Powercolor Red Dragon for the same price last week. That said, overclocking probably isn't going to be a thing for me with this system, at least not for now. Possibly the opposite actually, I'm strongly considering operating the CPU in permanent Eco mode. I'm resisting the heavy airflow trend and sticking the thing in a Define 7 with just the stock fans, so I'd rather not pump too much heat into it. I'll probably leave the video card at stock though, unlike the 290X which I run with a power limit underclock. Finalised specs (unless something turns out to be DOA): Ryzen 7 5800X Noctua U14S MSI B550 Gaming Edge WiFi 4x8GB Crucial Ballistix 3600 CL16 (black, non-RGB) Sapphire RX 6800 Nitro+ 1TB WD Black SN750 Fractal Design Define 7, white, no window 750W Bitfenix Whisper M Reusing my 2TB Crucial MX500 and 1TB Sandisk Ultra II SSDs. Weighing up whether to bother with my two 256GB SSDs. Keeping my Blu-ray combo drive too.

On Thursday I ordered a 5800X from Overclockers UK, and impressively it arrived today, with a public holiday in between as well. It's more than I had planned to spend on a CPU, but 5600X stock has completely dried up, and OCUK don't ship that overseas anyway (nor anything above the 5800X either). I could justify it because OCUK does not charge the 10% tax on behalf of the Australian government, and therefore the price ends up being a rather good $610AUD. This compares quite well to the MSRP of the 5600X which is $469, and the local 5800X at $699 (with street prices trending at $749). So with that done, I now have everything except the video card ready for my new build. Truthfully though, I can't be bothered building it right now if I have to transfer my existing 290X over, so they'll sit on the shelf while I decide what to do. It figures that just as I've made peace with the idea of spending $1200 on a 6800XT, the street price goes up to nearly $1400. So I'm pretty stuck at the moment. EDIT: Screw it, ordered a Sapphire 6800 Nitro for $1110 AUD. Don't want to age myself any further by overthinking it.

Trying the new civs in the forthcoming AoE2 expansion arriving later today (there's early access to the civs for purchasing now). I think something's gone slightly awry with my unit scaling however... Pictured are the old paladins from the year 2000, alongside the Burgundians' unique unit, the Coustillier. Similarly, the Burgundian castle sports brand new architecture: No doubt one of my mods are to blame, but amusing nonetheless.

I want it to be Vernon Roche and instead of magic signs, you'd select from various profanities to use during battle.

More co-op filler. - No Man's Sky. Loaded into the starting planet. Froze to death while trying to figure out the UI. Got bored walking several minutes to do tutorial fetch quest. Moving on... - Monster Hunter World. Absolutely worthless in co-op because you can't do the story in co-op mode unless you've already done each mission solo. Moving on... - Forza Horizon 3. Irritatingly makes you do an hour or two of solo content before allowing you to go into multiplayer. But it's cute, in a sort of uncanny valley Australia sort of way. Probably worth a few more sessions. One out of three ain't bad I guess?

Holiday time means local co-op time, and this year's titles were two EA games, courtesy of EA Play on Game Pass. Buy Game Pass (TM) today! Ahem. First up was Unravel 2. Gorgeous and adorable little platformer with fun physics, albeit fairly short, and at the end of it I couldn't make heads or tails of what it was meant to be about. I'm sure it was supposed to be something deep and meaningful about the human condition or something but in the end we just ended up scratching our heads. There are a bunch of challenge levels as "extra" content, but we didn't end up doing any past the first couple because of the overly punishing retry penalty - there are no checkpoints in these levels. Second was A Way Out. You've probably heard of the mandatory co-op gimmick of this game, but I can say I'm glad for it, it works out rather well even during the times that one player is doing filler content while the other is experiencing some story sequences. I admit at first I was concerned that the gameplay might be too much of a Telltale-esque QTE-fest, but mercifully that did not end up the case, and the gameplay was fairly varied throughout. Indeed I'd almost say it more resembles Mario Party than The Walking Dead. The storytelling and acting is ...adequate, classic gritty B-movie stuff, and there are some clownshoes contrivances especially towards the end, where it also starts to abandon any pretense of realism by veering into 80s action flick territory. _____________ After all that, I'm back home now, and a couple of days ago I ordered an Xbox Sex direct from Microsoft, who must have had a containerful of them dock in the country as they were, shockingly, in stock for hours. It arrived today, and as I test I fired up Overcooked. Level loading times are 2-3 seconds, an order of magnitude better than on my sister's XboneS. Worth the $750AUD already.

Go for two separate cables instead, it'll be more stable that way. Having multiple connectors for video cards per cable is sort of a compromise for people who run multiple video cards, which isn't something that really happens much these days.

The Dell S2721DGF with relatively frequent discount codes can drop to about 300 quid. Same panel as the LG 27GL850 (LG make the panel), but easier to find discounts on the Dell.

Solid, balanced build. If you have some things to think about: - The case doesn't have a USB-C port. If that would be something useful to you, look to (looking at other mesh type cases) the Corsair 4000D, Phanteks P500A, Fractal Design Meshify S2 (or the newer Meshify 2, but expensive), or be quiet! Pure Base 500DX. - I think the Cooler Master 212 line, while long having been the budget king, is starting to show its age. Of other products in this price range, consider the Arctic Freezer 34 (cheapest), be quiet! Pure Rock 2 (quietest) or Arctic Freezer 34 eSports Duo (best performance). - The Corsair RMx is slightly better than the plain RM and it looks like it can be had cheaper, or at least same price.

X570 has more PCI lanes, but that only matters if you want to run more than one PCI-E NVMe SSD, when a typical PC these days runs none. Generally speaking they just have more of what you already get, more fast USB ports, more SATA (if they choose to configure it to maximise that) ...and also more noise because they have an extra fan cooling the motherboard. Choosing a motherboard is largely down to picking one that has the features you need. Number of slots/ports (be it PCI-E, USB, M.2, SATA, whatever), Wi-Fi/Bluetooth inclusions, Gigabit Ethernet vs 2.5Gbit Ethernet, the quality of the onboard sound chip if you need to use it, Thunderbolt support, LED bling, etc. This tier list is based on US pricing but can give you an idea of what the more well-regarded boards in each price bracket are, plus any notable shortcomings of individual models that may not be immediately obvious, such as missing a USB-C front panel header.