See attached.

MOSTLY though, I've been playing disc golf. The local course has stadium lights over the short 9 hole course on weeknights and I've been competing at a semi-professional level. With the shoulder injuries I've had, I've had to learn to play ambidextrously and last night I got my first left handed ace (hole in one).

When I say local course, it's 5 minutes away, and is the only course with lights in the state, and has 3 of the top 100 18 hole courses in the USA on it's premises. Arguably the fanciest disc golf place in the state. Pretty friggin cool to be local to, and had no impact on where we bought our house. *cough*

Balatro.

I see cards in my minds eye, I see cards in my sleep

I put some time in on the demo. Haven't had time for the full release but next time I'm on the road and need something my laptop can play? I'm all about it.

Still working through Baldurs gate 3 when I can, and messing with The Finals besides. Fun ftp shooter. Very clean, great environmental destruction, and the maps change constantly, with multiple variants of each. Simple class assignment (small/medium/large characters) makes it a great game to just drop in and frig around in. Also completely objective teeam based with 3-4 teams of 3 competing.

Apart from Tetris 99 and Switch Sports, I don't actually use my switch. I got one of the original switch runs that can be modded/hacked for a good deal on ebay, and I own TOTK on cart. I just ripped the whole shebang onto my PC because I refuse to play a AAA open world high end RPG at 720p 30fps. I've got TOTK running pretty flawlessly at 4k 60fps on my PC. Some areas have a dip, and there are a few weird issues, but overall it's such a better experience. On the switch itself, the occasional drops to sub 20fps were what I would call unplayable. If the new switch can use DLSS to keep framerates high, I'm all about it.

Thankfully, some of the huge pushes this generation are 120fps and variable refresh rate. I refused to get a PS5 until I had a monitor that could do those, as I'd be wasting the potential. 2 years ago I got the LG C1 48" OLED and it has been amazing for everything. No signs of burn in yet, and any weirdness is corrected by the automated 'pixel cleaning' routine.

Variable refresh rate (NVidia GSync and AMD Freesync) cannot be overemphasized. VRR is better at 40fps than raw 60-70fps, just because of the better frame timing consistency. No tearing, no judder, just an intelligent connection between monitor and GPU pipeline, syncing the current framerate to the monitor.

I think going with a specific AI upscaling algorithm for the new switch it'll be much harder to get consistent performance out of any emu-lators, and I think impossible without an nVidia GPU. As these 'AI' algorithms become more hardware dependent (chat GPT runs on NVidia), I think manufacturers are going to be able to sequester the market to the extreme determent of the consumers.

Even right now, wanna do AI locally? NVidia tensor cores. anything else? 1/3 that efficiency at best.

Fun thing, the word emu-lator without the dash still auto translates to "computer program of dubious legality". For the record (Mods), I did it all 100% legally and I own the hardware, I ain't no pirate.

Asking any AI for anything subjective is gonna be a bad time. Have you compared the free perplexity results against Bard and GPT?

The scary thing is that in this day and age, 'objective' facts are being obfuscated by the media for clicks, and a lot of AI's will take any stated fact as fact. They aren't great at dealing with comparing and contrasting sources for the best result. AIs specialize in making anything it thinks is a fact sound like a fact.

Also, probably 90% of "AI" branded stuff is just a gimmick in a package. It's all just really stupid trained algorithms. Honestly, I think the artistic and visually interpretive aspects are the strongest right now. The 'AI' algorithm for NVidia's DLSS is so flippin' good. It's ability to upscale and interpolate new frames constantly surprises me. I have a 4K OLED monitor and if a game has DLSS, I'm hard pressed to see a difference between native and balanced. Here are the native render resolutions that get upscaled to 4K, for reference.

Quality: 2560x1440p
Balance: 2227x1253p
Performance: 1920x1080p
Ultra Perf: 1280x720p

It's good enough that the new Switch is going to be using the same 'Tensor AI' cores on the custom NVidia Tegra processor for upscaling, and I betcha it'll be downright competitive, as Sony and XBox both use AMD hardware, and use AMD FSR for upscaling. FSR is improving constantly, and it's nice to play God of War Ragnarok at 90fps, but if it was on NVidia I would barely notice the upscaling where FSR can have some really ugly artifacts. I hope that they add the new FSR 3 Frame Generation technology on consoles soon, as it will really breathe life into them as they age and games push further into the 30FPS max range without upscaling. FSR is generally inferior though, as it takes from the GPU overhead as it doesn't have specialized pipelines specifically for that kind of 'AI' upscaling work.

Just did a little research on the Rabbit R1.

It's effectively a stripped down phone (specs wise) that uses an always on connection to act as basically a better version of the other major "AI" assistants. For $200 flat, it seems like a decent device, and I can see devices like it actually helping visually impaired people.

If all the integrations work flawlessly, it could definitely be a fun tool.

I use all android, have multiple google home/nest devices in the house. I don't need any of them, but they simplify stuff around the house (thermostat control from bed, dimmers for lights and controlling them). If I'm doing chores it's nice to have my podcasts/audiobooks playing synced on every one of them in the house. It should be noted that Google does keep stripping functionality from the default assistant, and most believe they will switch to a subscription based AI service (Bard) for all Nest devices to have 'improved functionality'. I'd argue that Nest devices get less reliable every year. Commands I have been using for 4 years just don't work any more, and it's integrations with music and TV commands are total garbage now. I can't trust it to play the correct song any more. If I say "Hey Google, Play Flowers by Miley Cyrus". It'll say, 'ok, Flowers by Miley Cyrus, playing on Spotify." then either the wrong song or a whole incorrect playlist starts. It's bad now. Rant over.

One thing I have decided though, is that I will not depend on any 'cloud connected' service. Partly because I'm out in the boonies, but partly because I'd rather just have analog backups and options for everything. Any cloud service or smart home integration I use is for convenience only. I've heard too many horror stories of trying to get Apple, Google, or IFTTT routines to be reliable, but a single authentication error in the pipeline can break the whole chain.

Only for the latest parts, with watercolors.

And AI device? Not a program? Or are you grabbing a higher end NVidia A-series graphics card?

Snare is using it in the MChat 2.0 thread under general to expand artwork.

I toy with it a little, but it's pretty much a novelty to me still.

Nibbles is the best. Look at those beautiful flesh wings, he's his own mauling tent now.

Pre-skinned? Booooooring.

But totally badass.

Sheit's gorgeous.

The successful hunt is a foregone conclusion. The skinning is what we're after.

Sounds like things are going well for you Alex! 

Living your dream, kind of jealous.

Yes. Imp skinning.

If you use AI as a hobbyist, I'm all for it. It's the people who try to use it commercially or alter/steal other's work with it that piss me off. The extension of the watercolor is actually really friggin neat.

I like the frog a lot.

Just noticed the capitalized bobcat and also realizing I haven't heard anything from the comedian of the same name in ages. Is he worm food? Tell us John.

He's directing and writing mostly. He is 61 years old, and his only product of note for 2023 was being a guest voice on 'The Patrick Star Show", which I didn't know existed and upsets me. Why do spinoffs have to be 'The (insert character's name) Show'? They could have called it Star Power, or Star Power Hour.

Also hey I'm between jobs right now. Working sucks.

Not my Bobcat skins!

This is the best Rez ever.

Hi all, sorry that I haven't been here, I think the issues came after the server was automatically upgraded to a new version of PHP.  I will try and sort things soon.

Hope you are all doing alright.

Thanks Abe! Hope things are good on your end, too!

Oh, hello Abe. I'm doing okay. Remember when I was ten years old? That was wacky. I'm thirty-three now. We're all currently embarking on a journey to hell in order to find you.

See MChat v2.0

We're so close to hell. Snare, was your drawing of the next issue in progress when he came back? Did you actually open the portal?

Merry Happymas everyone and don't forget, X landed on spikes and turned into bubbles for YOU.

I'll be sure to sacrifice him many times more.

I've got an electric adjustable desk. I could stand all the time.

But I generally only do it when company comes over.

The true goal of the comic. Call out everyone's worst personality traits. Kind of.

I provide the most sustenance. I'll sacrifice a back muscle or two.

Or a whole Xero.

You're making me blush. 😊

Is that giant caviar?

good to know actually. hate to see that you've become a nerd though

I have a degree as a high school biology teacher.

not that i've ever used it

Fermentation likely means yeast, wrong kind of fungus, bucko. Houses need multicellular fungus 'round here.

🫡🫡

You act like you're the law 'round here.

Yeah, I mean who has enough hors d'oeuvres for 10,000 pictures of anime women? Even if 2D waifus only take 1/1000 the food of regular waifus....

I'm clicking but nothing is happening

Edit: @John it's actually a 10700F and not a K, which is slightly annoying 'cause that was put in during the emergency repair I mentioned and I didn't get asked what CPU I wanted or what I actually do with my PC. I guess the store assumed an F was fine because I had my own GPU but I actually have a use for a K to decrease render times in things like Adobe. But otherwise it's perfectly fine. Basically running everything on Ultra, even games that gave me problems on Low/Medium haha

Oh yeah, quite a difference. K is good if you have the cooling, but thankfully most new processors self-overclock depending on their available cooling and voltage headroom.

I would only pick an F-SKU if I had to though, as having integrated graphics is a godsend for troubleshooting.

Still, 10700 gonna be solid for another few years for games, as long as you're not chasing 150+ framerates. Most games are gonna be limited by GPU.

I know the struggle of 'tv-as-a-monitor'. No sleep mode, no auto wake, settings can be wonky. Gotta either hit the power button or have the remote handy. Really really good monitors are getting dirt cheap now though as OLED, MicroLED, and Quantum Dots start to get in the affordable realm. Regular 1440p IPS 27-32' monitors are getting sub $250 in the states.

The 10700k is pretty rock solid. I can imagine most games on the 6750 XT are running close to max settings on even 1440p.

I've got 4k for the main screen (an LG TV, so all the TV issues plague me) and the 6750 XT is punch for punch with my 3070 so I know most games are running at least really solid. I'm running into issues with only having 8GB of VRAM so the 6750XT having 12 is HUGE for a lot of modern games. My saving grace is the Nvidia DLSS for a lot of games, or just running games at ultrawide so I still get the 1-1 pixel goodness but only half as many pixels rendering (which on OLED keeps the black bars actually black instead of glowy which is nice).

I can imagine Genshin is maxed out, haha.

Uh huh.

Anyway after ~8 years I finally updated my GPU (and RAM and storage) from an old GTX 970 to a Radeon RX 6750 XT last night. So while I have a lot of little specifications and stuff to take care of I'm finally back to some of the games that I could run but were giving me headaches like Cyberpunk. Feels good doing that myself after building the PC (my first build) so long ago.

A good choice!

That card is a huge upgrade. What CPU are you running with it?

I tried Genshin on PC and only got maybe 3-4 hours in. You make me want to try it again, but being an adult sucks and I've got too many friends jonesing for me to play Baulder's Gate 3 with them. I'm lucky if I get 5 hours in on videogames a week lately, I've been spending all my free time disc golfing as a hopeful semi-pro.

I feel like when it came back we could edit. Huh. How long has that been an issue?

Also, I was able to log in a new device recently, got a new laptop for work and logged in without issue. Maybe Chrome's cookies synced and treated the browser the same?

I haven't tried to edit my profile since Snare made my glorious new picture and gave me my signature quote.

It's just 3D art. The sweat is palpable.

Work has been hell lately and I just want to play it 'easy mode' so I used a save editor and only modded my existing resource amounts, instead of duping, and I can finally fight Gleeocks. Even still, lots of food and they are such fun/difficult fights. Way harder than any of the first 4 dungeon bosses.

Looking forward to having time/capacity to play more than 2-3 hours per week and actually finish the game.

BTW Majikn, I agree. Until this point I've been just vibing with standard resource amounts but upgrading the armor was the biggest hurdle. Enemies doing like 8-10 hearts of damage is insane, and a maxed out armor set getting that down to like 1-2 hearts makes it feel more like a Zelda game instead of dark souls.

I beat the game, and duping makes the game 1000x more playable.  I don't think I could play it without the dupe trick now.  The game is really good but the grinding is just too extreme.  The only difference in naturally farming/grinding and the dupe trick is I save 5 hours gathering materials.

I'll probably dupe a ton of stuff before I reconnect the Switch in case I do ever decide to 100% it.

Yeeeeeah, I wanna try to beat the game without glitches/dupes. I've got a mod collection for the 4k and stuff that has a whole folder of cheats that I could use to give myself all of anything I want. Once I finish the main story I'll max materials/money and just knock out the rest of the stuff grindless.

I'm running Tears of the Kingdom right now.  I like it, but it reminds me of all the things I hated about BotW.  Unlike with BotW though, I've kind of got my fix of endless exploring and meandering and will probably play this one more straight through the story.  I don't see myself clocking in another 130 hours in this one.

So how did that work out?

I finally caved and got a switch, but I REFUSE to play a modern game at 720p 30fps. SO I did it all legally, and got a first gen switch, used the hack software recovery hack, modded it, ripped the keys and game, and am playing Tears of the Kingdom at 60fps 4k. Except the "computer program of dubious legality" (Yuzu) is still a work in progress so sometimes I deal with some stutters or a drop to 40fps.

Can't wait for the 120fps mod if it ever comes.

Oh and the game is amazing. It's been years since BOTW so it's like visiting a friend that has grown up. The detail and level design is mostly excellent, I love that eventually there is a way to cheese every puzzle. I've got 3 dungeons done and I'd guess I'm halfway through(?) The whole newspaper arc does a lot to make the world feel alive and like things that matter are happening all over. I'm generally 25/75 on main quest and side stuff respectively. Took one night and just unlocked the whole map (overworld and sky at least, ##### the gloom), took a night to get all the fairies, sometimes I just relax with exploration and side missions.

I find a lot of internet content I'd binge on is getting boring/repetitive and I just jump on TOTK for an hour or two.

This is a really cool thread, I've enjoyed reading your stories. MMM is a very unique part of my personality and I believe that is crystallized and indelible. Nothing could give the feeling of this place and those times again, it's functionally impossible. So keeping up with you folks and seeing you all grow is still something I'm invested in.

I don't think it could be put any better. This place is always going to be a part of me and every time I load my browser it's one of the sites I check. I get a deep spark of excitement when I see new content here.

I love this board, this community, and you, whoever reads this. but like you know in that like that comradery way probably

Ok.

I am astounded.

Thoroughly impressed.

Yesssss. Glad to see this again!

It's because of his war crimes, and
 

HE'S CALLED THE BLUE BOMBER BECAUSE HE'S BLUE

A Canadian flower. Generally much less pretty and often ground up to use in ointments.

Topically

I miss this comic strip so much and I'm glad the MMM is back.

I want to see how snare defuses this situation. It's dicey and topical.

And that relates to friends how?

Aren't we besties?

: TheRedPriest  10 January 2023, 17:25:47

Friends don't let friends play on PC.

Bold of you to assume any of us have friends.

Last I checked the MBoard has 304 members.

Having a real giggle with God of War and Bugsnax, but right now Returnal has me hooked. It's got co-op~

Though I'll probably get it on PC when it comes out to play with friends.

*Implying it will come out in your lifetime*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

I'm 33, I have time! I'm not Rez!

I've been avoiding this for a long time now with the hope that I'll avoid spoilers for when it releases but this popped into my feed today and I checked out the first 9 minutes or so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pk-DsDpiBo

I'm very impressed by that intro stage.

And yes... they're STILL working on this.

Scrubbed through this, didn't wanna spoil too much because I want to play this so friggin bad right now.

Real pumped about this game, looking forward to the release! It looks like it will hit all my nostalgia tickle spots real hard.