What are you Playing Now? - What doesn't kill you, gives you XP

[Theonlygarby]

Playing Trails of cold steel 2 and while I like the series, I can't explain why I like the series. 

 

It's very odd how forgiving I am of cheesy dialogue in jRPGs but when I play Starfield I'm like "this is trash writing"  meanwhile, trails of cold steel has a deus ex machina every chance they get.  I just finished act 1 and I think the party has been saved by a random hero like 5 times.

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, kanisatha said:

I thought about this, and although I'm above average on being tech-savvy I don't think I know enough (on both the hardware and software sides) to do a trustworthy job. And with a DIY I would also need to know how to fix/maintain the machine later on for years.

Oh, I should also ammend the cost estimate. Dell currently has an additional discount of $850, so it would actually cost me $3250. Plus free shipping. And since my understanding from Googling is that the 4090 alone is currently retailing at around two grand, that price seems okay for: i9 CPU, 2 TB SDD storage, 32 GB SDD RAM.

If you want it checked properly get the part/ model numbers/ specs- especially for the MB and PSU- and post them to Skeeters Junkyard. Dell, unfortunately, has had a bit of a habit of pairing top of the line seeming components like i9s and 4090s with less glamorous parts that are cheap and nasty and may cause massive bottlenecks. Specifically things like unlocked i9s with motherboards that can't overclock andor completely inadequate cooling or power supplies.

2 hours ago, majestic said:

No, and no. You can always add RAM later, that is fairly easy to do..

But may be unnecessarily expensive, if Dell supplies you a MB with only two RAM slots.

(one of my relatives is on their 3rd Dell PSU, inside a year, hence the skepticism. And being a Dell their custom case is designed so you can't just put in a reliable 3rd party ATX PSU, chalk it up to experience and skip the month of no PC while the PSU wends its way, by ship, from Singapore... though that delay is not one suspects so much of a problem in larger markets than kiwiland)

[BruceVC]

8 hours ago, kanisatha said:

I thought about this, and although I'm above average on being tech-savvy I don't think I know enough (on both the hardware and software sides) to do a trustworthy job. And with a DIY I would also need to know how to fix/maintain the machine later on for years.

Oh, I should also ammend the cost estimate. Dell currently has an additional discount of $850, so it would actually cost me $3250. Plus free shipping. And since my understanding from Googling is that the 4090 alone is currently retailing at around two grand, that price seems okay for: i9 CPU, 2 TB SDD storage, 32 GB SDD RAM.

That sounds more than adequate, I bought a new machine 4 years and I basically made sure it was the " best " hardware at the time ( no such thing really due to nature of hardware improvements )

My objective was ensuring I could run every game at maximum graphic settings and  even 4 years later I can more or less still do that with the exception of a few games like RDR2 on certain advanced settings. But I have subsequently realized most of my favorite games dont need the best graphic settings 

Anyway my main specifications were

• 64 GB of memory : never had to use anything close to that, 32GB would have been fine'
• 2 TB SDD: Good investment around disk I\O speed 
• Geoforce RTX 2080 with 12 GB memory : Probably the best investment around graphic settings but also  not necessary for the games I play 

But your rig looks good 

Edited September 27, 2023 by BruceVC

[melkathi]

@the_dog_days bikini orcs are Pre-order bonus / day 1 dlc

Edited September 27, 2023 by melkathi

[Hawke64]

14 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Hey good folks, I don't want to create a separate thread for this question, but hopefully it also won't be considered too off-topic.

I'm in the process of buying my new gaming desktop computer. As my last two machines were Dell, I think I will just stick with Dell again, as I actually had a really good experience with Dell Support in fixing something with my current machine a few years ago which they did at no cost to me even though my warranty had expired.

The machine I'm looking at has the Nvidia 4090 GPU. Question 1: should I wait for the 4090 Ti?

Question 2: My current customization of the machine is for 32 GB of RAM. Going to 64 GB would add $500 to the already-hefty tag of around $4100. Worth it?

I would welcome any and all thoughts and feedback. Thanks!

32GB RAM and an i9 CPU should be quite enough for gaming. Though, getting more storage space (4TB+) might be reasonable - anything that requires these specs is likely to take a lot of space. Additionally, the PSU, the motherboard, and the cooling system should be adequate. The number and type of ports are probably less relevant if you are not going to upgrade some parts. I have been with my current PC for 8 years as well (I do have a spare one should anything go wrong), so cannot recommend anything more specific.

[kanisatha]

11 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

If you want it checked properly get the part/ model numbers/ specs- especially for the MB and PSU- and post them to Skeeters Junkyard. Dell, unfortunately, has had a bit of a habit of pairing top of the line seeming components like i9s and 4090s with less glamorous parts that are cheap and nasty and may cause massive bottlenecks. Specifically things like unlocked i9s with motherboards that can't overclock andor completely inadequate cooling or power supplies.

But may be unnecessarily expensive, if Dell supplies you a MB with only two RAM slots.

(one of my relatives is on their 3rd Dell PSU, inside a year, hence the skepticism. And being a Dell their custom case is designed so you can't just put in a reliable 3rd party ATX PSU, chalk it up to experience and skip the month of no PC while the PSU wends its way, by ship, from Singapore... though that delay is not one suspects so much of a problem in larger markets than kiwiland)

Yeah I also have come across these same points being made by people when I did my research on Dell machines. So that's why I'm a bit torn. From a customer support POV Dell has been very good to me over the years (two Dell machines in a row at around 8 years each), and the machines generally worked fine. But those issues of inadequate power supply and motherboard do worry me.

[Gfted1]

Regarding games that require an SSD, even if I purchased an external SSD, the performance would be hamstrung by the transfer speed bottleneck, right?

[Mamoulian War]

15 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Yes it can certainly come across as overkill. But the reason I always go for as much as I can get when I buy a new machine is that I then keep that machine for a very long time. My current machine is 8+ years old, and that's roughly been my average. So my pattern is to go big and then sit on that machine for longer than most people would before the next refresh, because I'm very pro-status quo/don't like change until change is absolutely necessary, and I also hate the whole process of migrating my stuff from the old to the new.

Heck, even my car is now 16+ years old and definitely needs a refresh. But at current new car prices ... sheesh!!

Edit: CPU is the i9

I am in the same boat, when it goes about computers. But Ram was almost exclusively the only thing, that I have ever upgraded over the years, whenever I had PC. I am 45 and my current PC is only my fifth one since Cyrix was still a thing

Although my tactic was always to go for runners up in benchmarks, as the cost/performance/longevity ratio is in such case always the best. Since I am not paying premium for the hottest fluff on the market.

[Mamoulian War]

6 hours ago, melkathi said:

@the_dog_days bikini orcs are Pre-order bonus / day 1 dlc

Hopefully not hidden in premium lootboxes

[Mamoulian War]

32 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Regarding games that require an SSD, even if I purchased an external SSD, the performance would be hamstrung by the transfer speed bottleneck, right?

it depends on quality of your MB and on the ports it provides.

 

Quote

USB-C is capable of 40 Gbps, perhaps a bit more, but with protocols other than USB 3.x. USB 3.0 is capable of up to 5 Gbps, USB 3.1 up to 10 Gbps, and USB 3.2 up top 20 Gbps.

The issue with USB-C is that it can get down to 480Mbps, if the manufacturers chooses cheap stuff...

EDIT: Oh and of course about the quality of used cables as well...

[melkathi]

16 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

Hopefully not hidden in premium lootboxes

What do you take me for?

EA?

[Gfted1]

34 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

it depends on quality of your MB and on the ports it provides.

Well its a Dell Latitude 3590, so probably not great.  But it does have USB 3.0. 

[Mamoulian War]

4 hours ago, melkathi said:

What do you take me for?

EA?

I do not want to be mean, but you know, mElkAthi sounds pretty suspicious

4 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Well its a Dell Latitude 3590, so probably not great.  But it does have USB 3.0. 

Hmm, 3.0 might be a bottleneck with 5Gbps I don't really know.

 

 

[Zoraptor]

You can't tell without the specs of the drive itself, but a USB drive isn't going to be NVMe/ PCIe gen3/4 fast even on paper and will have worse latency too. About 1 Gpbs in/out seems to be standard for portables so not really close to saturating the theoretical throughput on a USB 3- but I'd suspect fairly close to practical saturation.

Games wise, so far as I'm aware none of them specify the type of SSD required when they're required as a min spec, so far, and I'd say it's likely that an external SSD nowadays will be faster than or at least equivalent to the old internal SATA SSDs. Mileage May Vary, practically. Probably won't be sufficient for DirectStorage stuff in the future though (iirc that requires PCIe/ NVMe by spec).

Edited September 27, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Gromnir]

Play The Lamplighters League Free Demo starting tomorrow, September 28

HA! Good Fun!

[Hawke64]

Unavowed. Finished the game. It was a decent point-and-click adventure with some flexibility regarding the puzzles - there are several companions to take on missions and they provide different options for the solutions. Also, there are some options for the character creation and the quest outcomes. Got stuck once somewhere close to the end (tried to break a bottle against a table, which was not the intended path).

Tried to continue with Batbarian. Died repeatedly. I definitely don't want to replay it from the start, but I am unsure how to continue. Should check all open paths, I guess, considering that it is a Metroidvania.

[uuuhhii]

pc shriek at main menu of almost every game

is the fan broken or something

[Bartimaeus]

26 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

pc shriek at main menu of almost every game

is the fan broken or something

That reminds me when of when I played a retro-ish indie game, there was inexplicably no FPS limit on the pause menu, so anytime I paused my FPS would go up to (I believe) >10,000 and my GPU would instantly reach max temp while very audibly screaming out in mortal agony. I gave them a bad review on Steam that specifically called out that issue for it and they fixed it a week later, and since I did like the game, I changed my review to a positive one. The system works.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Malcador]

Replaying X-Wing.  Having my displays break due to damage,while immersive and suitably punishing for getting shot up, is annoying.  Also, maybe I need a better joystick, utterly awful fine control with my current one, wonder if it's just a DOSBOX thing with a USB stick, but given it's the el cheapo Logitech one might not be

[Gorth]

9 hours ago, Malcador said:

Replaying X-Wing.  Having my displays break due to damage,while immersive and suitably punishing for getting shot up, is annoying.  Also, maybe I need a better joystick, utterly awful fine control with my current one, wonder if it's just a DOSBOX thing with a USB stick, but given it's the el cheapo Logitech one might not be

I play X-Wing (and Tie Fighter etc.) with my old Saitek x52 pro. Works like a charm (and yes, it's USB)

[Gorth]

On 9/27/2023 at 11:10 PM, Mamoulian War said:

Although my tactic was always to go for runners up in benchmarks, as the cost/performance/longevity ratio is in such case always the best. Since I am not paying premium for the hottest fluff on the market.

An approach that worked very well for me the last 30 years

Get the second best on the market and use it until it's obviously obsolete. It gives me a number of "golden years" where it's close to state of the art at half the price of state of the art. Also, except my Alienware laptop, I've built every PC myself, cherry picking what parts I wanted.

[Wormerine]

19 hours ago, Malcador said:

Replaying X-Wing. 

I played X-Wing Alliance only. I really need to dish out some money on a flight stick. I am itching to replay Freespace’s - those were amazing Space Combat games.

[Malcador]

12 hours ago, Gorth said:

I play X-Wing (and Tie Fighter etc.) with my old Saitek x52 pro. Works like a charm (and yes, it's USB)

Hm definitely my stick then. Shame I didn't hang on to my older Wingman Extreme, only thing broken there was the fire button as opposed to one of the axes like I normally do. 

Glad I still remember the control scheme from a 30 year old game, good use of brain space

[LadyCrimson]

I still don't know if I "love" NMS, but I will say this: if you like endless free roam exploration it's definitely a great time sink. Sure all the planets are vaguely the same after a while, but it still feels rewarding because suddenly you find a huge cave to get lost in, see a landscape formation, islands, sunken holes that you've never see. You're unlikely to ever explore even 5% of a given planet tho ... just take off and go to another one, or a new solar system. Saw one video where a guy land-ran the circumference of a planet and it took 25+ real time hours.

---if you have a quest or icon mark that's kinda far away, better off time-wise going to space and warping back to it vs. surface flying.
---tried the "car" that is basically a mech suit. Could be handy in some cases but overall, still don't like mechsuits.
---too many markers etc. can = a cluttered solar system icon skyscape. Makes me not want to place many beacons or even a teleporter-only base computer.

At any rate, I think NMS is going to get paired with 7 Days to Die in terms of sandbox games that I can return to/waste multiple 100/s or even 1000's of hours on over several years.

[Hawke64]

Icey. A hack-and-slash action game with meta commentary on game development. The keyboard controls are rebindable, the mouse is not supported, the progress is saved at check points. It did not seem possible to change the difficulty level after starting the game, while the "true" ending seemed to require to collect all achievements in order to unlock, which in turn required to replay the game with its rather inconvenient restart system (could not interrupt a run, but could start from an unlocked location). The narrator was slightly annoying (intentionally) and sometimes spoke too slowly (unintentionally; also the lines are not skippable).

There are several bosses. The combat system in general should be good - there are combos, dodges, "parries", it is possible to change the direction between attacks, etc., but the enemy movesets (attacks and speed) felt somehow unpleasant. It was entirely possible to get stunlocked/juggled by lasers and be defeated rather quickly, despite the i-frames and armour, while being unable to see which foe was attacking. On a positive note, there is no contact damage. The new attacks and other upgrades can be unlocked for XP earned by defeating enemies or finding chests (unless the optional path chosen leads to an ending).

I guess, collecting the remaining achievements should take about 1-2 hours, while the game up to this point has taken 3, but I'd rather let it be. That is to say, it was fine, not deep or outstanding, but playable.