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Finally pulled the trigger on a new gfx card.  This is something that I've talked myself into and out of a number of times and I probably should be waiting for the RDNA3 cards but the way I see it 6 years between GPU refreshes is already far longer than I'd originally planned and there will always be something better, cheaper, or both Real Soon Now.   I've been waiting for a long, long time for a new GPU sooo... yeah.

The card is an ASUS ROG STRIX RX 6600XT card that I've seen recently at around $450.  When I saw it for <$300 I couldn't pass it up.  Specs-wise the 6600XT benchmarks at 2x the performance and (key for me) uses about the same power as my current RX480.  Cheaper than what I paid for my 480 all those years ago as well.  The bad news is that this is being sold as an "open box" item.  🙀  At that price you knew there had to be a catch, right?  I'm reasonably certain of the source (semi-local and I've dealt with them before w/o issue) but these days you never know for sure.  Crossing my fingers that a) it actually arrives and b) it doesn't turn out to be a refugee from some bitcoin sweatshop on its last legs.   :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

So of course now that I've bought my new gfx card, AMD announces their RDNA3 cards:D That's ok.  I really did need a new card.  The connectors on the old one were failing and I just could not wait any longer.  If the old card had actually failed then I would have been without a functional computer for some period of time.  That was simply not an option for me.

Anyway, the new cards do look nice.  They're definitely going to make NVIDIA reconsider their 4090 pricing if nothing else.  The top end card, the 7900 XTX has lower power requirements, more memory, lower price, and likely (pending actual reviews/benchmarking) better performance than the 4080.  They don't even require that funky new 12VHPWR power connector that keeps melting.  I'll not be replacing my new 6600XT with either of these new cards just yet but by the time I get around to building my new AM5/DDR5/PCI5 system these will probably be "old" and dropping in price so I'll definitely be looking into these cards for that build.

Edited by efaardvark
4080 vs 4090
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13 hours ago, efaardvark said:

So of course now that I've bought my new gfx card, AMD announces their RDNA3 cards:D That's ok.  I really did need a new card.  The connectors on the old one were failing and I just could not wait any longer.  If the old card had actually failed then I would have been without a functional computer for some period of time.  That was simply not an option for me.

Anyway, the new cards do look nice.  They're definitely going to make NVIDIA reconsider their 4090 pricing if nothing else.  The top end card, the 7900 XTX has lower power requirements, more memory, lower price, and likely (pending actual reviews/benchmarking) better performance than the 4090.  They don't even require that funky new 12VHPWR power connector that keeps melting.  I'll not be replacing my new 6600XT with either of these new cards just yet but by the time I get around to building my new AM5/DDR5/PCI5 system these will probably be "old" and dropping in price so I'll definitely be looking into these cards for that build.

That's one of Murphy's Laws. As soon as you buy a new piece of kit a newer model will be announced the next day! 🙂

But if you hold off and wait for a newer model it doesn't get released for months, if not years!! 😡

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2 hours ago, Animedragon said:

That's one of Murphy's Laws. As soon as you buy a new piece of kit a newer model will be announced the next day! 🙂

But if you hold off and wait for a newer model it doesn't get released for months, if not years!! 😡

I’ve long suspected that I exist only as a plaything of the gods. :)  It doesn’t really matter though.  These cards are higher-end with MSRPs of $1000 and $900.  Not exactly in my price range.  Even at half that price I wouldn’t be buying either one at this point.  
 

That said I’m really interested in seeing performance benchmarks and I’m intrigued by how much memory and video bandwidth these cards have.  96FPS in Assassin’s Creed on an 8K monitor at 60hz is impressive.  Not sure I see the point of even 4K in practical terms but specs-wise that’s a lot of pixel-pushing.  And number-crunching.  I wonder what the 64-bit math throughput is like on these cards?

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We Got This Covered - Latest Gaming News: 'God of War Ragnarok' Reviews Will Come Out Tomorrow
God of War Ragnarok is coming out, wasn't able to pre-order sadly - so some stuff will be coming out of my bank..
Or i'll probably have to play on my brother's PS5! 

It''s initial release date is Nov 9th, 2022...and is an upcoming GOTY being rated 10/10 on IGN, 5/5 on TechRadar and 94% on Metacritic! 
People are debating whether Elden Ring or God of War Ragnarok is the GOTY -- I'm having a tough thought between the both of them. Hopefully God of War is an awesome series, as is the Dark Souls series...so! That just means I gotta test run both Elden Ring and Ragnarok -- and decide myself...

IGN never fails though!
4xJ8XB3bi888QTLZYdl7Oi0s.thumb.webp.4d3cc1a86fcd7abad43335bcc091817b.webp

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Gamers Nexus has a close-up look at AMD's reference-design RX 7900XTX.  I like that the physical form is a lot more reasonable than the 4090.  The 4090 is a freekin' 4-slot card!  At $1600 and given the electrical power requirements the 4090 is simply out of bounds for most builds (and pocketbooks).  AMD said one of their design goals for their new cards was for people to take out their old card, put in the new one, and power the system back up.  No rebuilds.  No motherboard or power supply upgrades required.  Just plug it in and go.  The new card does require 300W, but 200+ cards are already out there.  This can use the existing power supplies & connectors and the form factor is a much more reasonable 2-slot size.

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On 11/4/2022 at 4:26 PM, PogFrog said:

We Got This Covered - Latest Gaming News: 'God of War Ragnarok' Reviews Will Come Out Tomorrow
God of War Ragnarok is coming out, wasn't able to pre-order sadly - so some stuff will be coming out of my bank..
Or i'll probably have to play on my brother's PS5! 

It''s initial release date is Nov 9th, 2022...and is an upcoming GOTY being rated 10/10 on IGN, 5/5 on TechRadar and 94% on Metacritic! 
People are debating whether Elden Ring or God of War Ragnarok is the GOTY -- I'm having a tough thought between the both of them. Hopefully God of War is an awesome series, as is the Dark Souls series...so! That just means I gotta test run both Elden Ring and Ragnarok -- and decide myself...

IGN never fails though!
4xJ8XB3bi888QTLZYdl7Oi0s.thumb.webp.4d3cc1a86fcd7abad43335bcc091817b.webp

Usually the best way to do it is decide for yourself, especially when critics aren't consistent. There's been a few games I've tried for myself that I liked but the reviews were horrible for. lol So, can't always go with what reviews say from my own experience. They're still a nice go-to though for input.

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Investor sues video game studio over buggy 'Cyberpunk 2077'
Cyberpunk is about to be 2yrs old. 
This is really just stupid in my opinion - it is still a fresh game - and it BOUND to be buggy...

Although, I do understand being an investor into the game...but It's a mindset you need to understand that it is still a fresh game that only came out about 2yrs ago. It was released Dec 10, 2020 - so - it's going to be it's 2yr anniversary soon...

Love Cyberpunk...

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5 hours ago, PogFrog said:

Investor sues video game studio over buggy 'Cyberpunk 2077'
Cyberpunk is about to be 2yrs old. 
This is really just stupid in my opinion - it is still a fresh game - and it BOUND to be buggy...

Although, I do understand being an investor into the game...but It's a mindset you need to understand that it is still a fresh game that only came out about 2yrs ago. It was released Dec 10, 2020 - so - it's going to be it's 2yr anniversary soon...

"Only" 2 years and still buggy.  :veryangry:  This is a big reason why I don't pre-order.  When a company releases a game I like for a price I like then I'll buy it.  But I buy a game to play it, not be an unpaid beta-tester and wait 2 years for bug fixes.  Never mind release day.  Half the time all the bugs aren't even fixed by the time the company execs decide they've wasted enough resources and drop support to move on to the next big money-grab.  Pre-orders enable this egregious behavior.

As for the stock-holders.  I honestly could not care less about their profits.  They aren't complaining about the game having bugs, just that they didn't get the money they were told they'd get.  That's another big problem with the industry.

As an aside, there's a similar - though much more serious - problem in the chinese real estate market.  It seems that a lot of people gave some shady developers a lot of money up front for a product that didn't meet expectations.  Sometimes a product wasn't produced at all.  Sound familiar?  Pre-orders are a Bad Idea.  Wait until the product is released.  If it does what you want for a price that you're willing to pay then you can buy it.

Edited by efaardvark
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Finally got my Xbox back, and played some OW 2. 
Healers are so squishy now, and it's quite difficult to play Zen and Lucio. Seriously. Although, I do have some techniques to keep myself from dying. Like having my girlfriend help me stay alive :D...although, I do have over 100 hours on Lucio, and 213 hours on Genji - and a total of 1,000+ Hours on OW itself.

Overwatch is a fun game, yet, I find it dumb that you have to buy the currency now, and battle pass. 
Although, that is what makes OW 2 free. 

Changing the subject, I do think battle passes will change gaming - battle passes are becoming more prominent in gaming, like Warzone, Fortnite, Halo Infinite, Genshin Impact, Apex Legends, etc. It's becoming something more...odd, I guess. And I assume it's to keep the game free, and to get more money. 

EVEN FAR CRY 6 WILL HAVE A SEASON PASS - ...sigh. 
Battle passes..odd, yet, I have no opinion - other than I am confused and set aside.

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So I used to play a lot of an ASCII-gfx, tile based game called Rogue.  This was back in the days before GUIs and there were actually quite a number of these sorts of games... Moria, Larn, Nethack, Angband (or the Zelazney/Amber version "Zangband").  Most of them got their start on and followers from large multiuser mainframe systems, most of them unix-based and connected to users on "dumb" terminals.  Even today these games still have a following and are even still being developed.  At the top of the heap (IMHO) is a game called "Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress".  Or just Dwarf Fortress if that sounds a bit of a mouthful.  :D  This game has gone way, way beyond simple text-based dungeon crawling however.  The dungeon-crawl mode (called "Adventurer" mode) is still there but to me the much more interesting mode is "Fortress" mode, which is .. more complicated.  In fact, Dwarf Fortress in Fortress mode is more of a construction and management simulation these days.. more along the lines of The Settlers or even SimCity, though without the roads and rail and if the city were being built by dwarves under a mountain and dealing with trolls (and much, much worse if you dig too deep in the wrong places) were part of the deal.  The problem with DF is that the text-based menu and display system is rather user hostile.  It takes a bit of dedication to get into and even longer to get good at.  There's a HUGE amount of depth and lore to the game but most of it is buried under mounds of ASCII "graphics" that most modern players can't be bothered to give a second glance.

Well, I just found out that the DF "engine" is getting a GUI makeover by the developers, Bay 12 games.  OK, actually maybe not so much a makeover as just getting a GUI.  :) According to Steam it goes on sale December 6th.  If city-scale construction and (micro)management with a bit of unit-level combat and lore you can get lost in sounds interesting then I recommend checking it out.  If it works on Linux (via Steam's Proton) then I'm going to have to get it.

Edited by efaardvark
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So I'm looking at the GPU part of the Steam hardware survey, as I do from time to time, and I note that even "now" (as of October) the top 3 video cards listed are the GTX 1060, the RTX 2060, and the GTX 1650.  Between them they have about 20% of the installed gamer base.  If you add the RTX 3060 and the 1050TI in the 4th and 5th slots respectively then that adds another ~10%.  The top AMD "card" is actually "radeon graphics", which is a catch-all for built-in gfx on portable CPUs.  The top AMD card (that's actually a card) is the RX 580, which is only slightly less ancient than my recently-departed RX 480.

I guess not many of the gamers out there are upgrading their GPUs.  Certainly not enough to move the needle much on the installed base.  Kind of makes me wonder what NVIDIA thinks they're doing coming out with something like the 4090.  Do they think that people who are so strapped for cash that they're still using their 10- and 20- series GPUs will suddenly rush out to pay $1600 for the 4090?  Or $900 for the 4080?  I just don't get it.  Maybe they're thinking that once their 40-series lineup is fleshed out with the 4070 and 4080 offerings then that will become the new mainstream.  Given the announced specs and pricing on those cards I -highly- doubt it.  Only around 10% seem to be using their 30-series cards after all even now, 2 years after release.

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  • 3 weeks later...

New hero released for Overwatch 2! 
Ramattra (Origin Story)
Ramattra-portrait.webp.6f3d17305185b8a4051a7f6ac6604c8f.webp

Ramattra is a somewhat squishy tank in my opinion, that really does need the help of supports. 
Although, he is seriously OP, BUT, does take skill - and patience. 
His Abilities are quite the catch too, and shocking once played, or played against!

Enjoy the new Hero my fellow Overwatch Players!

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Like usual I'm playing back and forth between several games at the moment. Most notably, I'm playing Pokémon Violet. Even with the update patch I still get a fair amount of slowdown and glitches. It's still a huge improvement compared to when I bought it on launch. Good lord the game was barely playable back then.

I also picked up Dark Souls Remastered and got my butt whooped. I'm really not used to action games with such slow paced combat.

The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt has also been lifted from the back of my backlog. Aside from being unable to skip the recaps, I really enjoy the game so far. Mixing swordplay with magic is much more fun that I imagined.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Watching a how-to on building a minecart cannon in Dwarf Fortress... useful against both goblin armies and megabeasts!

 

Also, I did not even know that unicorn farming was a thing in DF..

 

Edited by efaardvark
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  • 4 weeks later...

Looking into what's coming up in terms of simulation games this year.  Of course I'm mostly interested in KSP2 but there's a few others in there that look interesting as well..

 

 

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