Messages

[Devices]

The only issue I've ever ran into was an ultra slim cable that would be picky about what device it was plugged into. It just wouldn't send a signal. However, it still worked with 95% of my devices.

If the HDMI cable is well built, (eg. doesn't use metals that corrode easily, bad terminations between the cable and the plug, insufficient insulation, etc.) then it will just work as long as both the TV and the HDMI cable are up to spec. Yes, HDMI cables are backwards compatible.

@BLUEVOODU  I would recommend trying out that Monster cable on another TV and see if it works. If it does, then it's your TV that's picky and the HDMI input might not be up to spec. HDMI was fairly new back then and I would not be surprised if LG did not properly implement the HDMI input.

I tend to get all of my audio/video cables from Monoprice. They have a lot of great cables for reasonable prices. I've replaced all of my HDMI cables recently with these -

Monoprice 4K Slim Certified Premium High Speed HDMI Cable 6ft - 18Gbps Black



Here is a list of devices and TVs/Monitors I use these with:

Devices
- PS3 Slim / PS3 Ultra Slim / PS4
- Xbox 360 / Xbox One S / Xbox One X
- Nintendo Switch
- 3 PCs hooked up to a KVM
- Panasonic 4K Blu-ray player
- Elgato 1080p external capture card

TVs/Monitors
- 2010 Samsung Plasma TV 720p/1080i
- 2019 TCL 4K TV
- 2011 Asus 1080p monitor
- 2020 Dell 1440p 165hz monitor (cable only goes up to 60hz but it works)
- 2010? Sony PlayStation 3D TV

I highly recommend them. If you need something that can go higher than 60hz, Monoprice should have some. Do not get Monoprice 2.1 cables as explained in the video of my next post.

The other part I don't understand is ... In Avengers and other movies, Hawkeye melts through enemies like butter.  He had a more rough time in Age of Ultron... resting at the end.  As Ronin, he was doing the same thing.  Maybe he lost some of his care... but he seems to be having more of a rough time fighting in Hawkeye.

As I mentioned earlier, the man is not enhanced. He's aging and all of the battles are taking its toll physically and mentally. He's not infused with super soldier serum, or gamma rays. He's not a demi-god or an alien. He's just a normal dude that has higher than normal eyesight, reflexes and aim.

Tony Stark showed similar problems in Iron Man 3. He just happened to have powerful suits to help him out. Clint has none of that.

His hearing aid is the shows way of showing how human he is along with how difficult it is for him to balance superhero life with his family life.

I accidentally spoiled some things for myself but now I'm hyped for this series. This phase was moving kind of slow but now it seems it's about to be at full force again.

Enjoying it so far. It's nice to have a show that's based on the ground and shows perspectives of those who are not enhanced.

Played The Outer Worlds over the weekend. Finished the Peril on Gorgon DLC and now hoping to finish it within the week. Want to move on to Death Stranding.

Thought it was great. This had some of the best fighting choreography in a superhero movie. The only movie I think is better in that regard is CA: Winter Soldier. The only thing I think that I felt wasn't good was the introduction of the villain. It's the usual trope.

I love upgrading PCs. I think it's awesome that you're keeping it running regardless of the chip shortage. It's looking good! Should last you at least another 2 years.

I plan on upgrading my wife's PC from a 2 core Pentium processor to an i7 4770. Should give the computer a much longer life.

I will say this, once you get a contemporary CPU, that 2060 is going to fly. I went from a i7 4790 to a Ryzen 5 3600X and my GTX 1080 could do 4K in a lot of games all of a sudden.

At the very least, CPUs don't seem to be hit as hard as GPUs.

BOOOOOOOOOO!!!






I knew it was going to happen too. 
The chip shortage is just too much right now. I guess, this gives me more time to save for it.

These games to me were part of my Silver Age of gaming. The PS1/N64 gen was my Golden Age.

I had so much fun playing these games while listening to the in-game radio stations. The Soundtrack makes up about 50% of the memories for me. But the gameplay was just fun and there weren't many sandbox games at that time.

Looks like I might just watch it this weekend on Disney+. I thought the 4K Blu-ray was coming out the same time but it's two weeks later. So the end of the month.

Linus over at Linus Tech Tips started a challenge to make Linux their daily driver for a month. Part 1 is out.

I was hesitant about this upgrade, but it honestly looks good to me. Still not sure if it's a day 1 purchase for me but I'll definitely get it at some point.

Releases on Nov. 11th.

I think it comes out in early November. I didn't want to go into a theater to watch this so waiting for the 4K Blu-ray to release to watch it.

was wondering why they did not make more.

Money. Women superhero movies were thought to be low money makers in the box office. Wonder Woman changed all that.

This movie was supposed to come out years ago but it got caught up in internal studio politics.

I don't understand why they chose this route.

It mimics the comic book art style. It's not for everyone but I personally love it. I think it allows the show to be more fantastical than using traditional 3D animation.

Millions of people have used their console as a DVD/Blu-ray player.

The PS2 was a big hit because it doubled as both as well as having awesome games. It was most people's first DVD player since the technology was fairly new in 2000 (it was definitely mine.)

The PS3 was recommended by home theater enthusiasts since it had the best blu-ray playing capabilities and was cheaper than most stand-alone blu-ray players at the time by almost hundreds of dollars. It's a big reason why blu-ray is the standard format these days and not HD-DVD.

If you want to be a minimalist consumer of video entertainment, consoles offer everything. Streaming and blu-ray playing in one box.

Resurrection time!

This topic is a year old now. I managed to get an RTX 3070 Ti at Best Buy last Friday. Stood in line for about 5 hours. I got there at around 4:45AM and I was about 70-80th place in line. I was one of the last ones to get that particular GPU. The 3080 was gone way before the tickets got to me.

Well, I'm set for a while now. Probably won't upgrade until another 3 years. This card has no trouble running anything I throw at it at 1440p.

It really is difficult to be excited about games when hardware to play them is out of reach for most.

Personally, this makes the Switch a little more enticing. It's relatively easy to get and even though the games are not pushing max framerates and resolution, just simply for gaming it's pretty decent.

The new Metroid looks really cool and the rumors that Metroid Prime is getting a remake is exciting for me.

I'm on the Pixel 5. Haven't really had a reason to switch to anything else. Has a top of the line camera and runs stock Android OS.

Would like a Pixel 6 but just spent money on other things so I'll wait a year or two before I upgrade again.

I'm really enjoying it. Loved the Captain Carter episode. I'm hoping some of these turn out to be seen in a proper MCU movie.

[Official Linux Ports]

@CreepinDeth is there a difference that you are noticing between using Windows and linux for gaming?

There are a ton of differences that mainly involve the OS and how you go about playing games that don't have official Linux ports. However, once they run, there's not much differences. I'll try to outline a few.

Official Linux Ports
The only official ports that I've tried so far are the latest Tomb Raider trilogy games (Tomb Raider (2013), Rise of the Tomb Raider & Shadow of the Tomb Raider.)

They run pretty well and don't need much tweaking. However, I learned about CPU Governors trying these out as I got a message from the game saying that my CPU is not set for Performance which could cause issues. So I installed CPUFreq and I can switch it on the fly from the desktop.

Overall though, it's as simple as installing Steam and then installing the game. It's good to go just like on Windows.

Windows version on Linux
Steam has come a long way to have Windows versions run on Linux. You do have to set in the preferences that you want to use Steam-Play and select the version of Proton you want to use and you're usually good to go. Proton is a WINE compatibility layer that has been modified by Valve to help games run on Linux. There is also Lutris which helps you play games that are not acquired through Steam but I haven't tried that yet.

I've played Doom (2016) and even the original DOS Tomb Raider from 1996 and both ran with no fuss. I have yet to try out more but, so far, it's been fairly painless.

I did try Batman Arkham Asylum but that one requires some tweaks to Proton to run. Don't feel like doing that right now though.

There is currently a site called Proton DB which is a database that lets you know which games work with Proton and those that still need work from Valve to become playable. Valve is looking to have 100% compatibility by the time the Steam Deck releases.

If I can think of anymore, I'll post them.

So now I might jump back to Zorin OS. Version 16 has just been released and the developers are claiming it's now much more gaming friendly. It honestly looks pretty good.

I was already thinking about dual booting Zorin and Pop!_OS. Pop for gaming and Zorin for daily driver. Might not have to anymore.

Zorin OS 16

Might jump on this weekend on Xbox. I played it last weekend and it was decent. Definitely had a L4D feel but slightly updated.

Not sure how I feel about the card system but maybe if I jump back in it'll make sense. If anybody else is playing on Xbox I'll see if I jump in over the weekend.

New impressions from people other than IGN have gone up -




As for this being a Switch killer, I don't think it will be. I deliberately tried to be a little click-baity with the title and the reason why I have a question mark in the there as well.

However, I do think it will affect the Switch negatively. For example, a lot of PC gamers have a Switch and double dip on games because they want the portability. Now, they can have a portable PC and not have to double dip on games. Which could cause some developers to not even bother with a Switch port. Also, online multiplayer is free. Sure, it's fairly cheap for a Nintendo Online subscription but it's one less thing to buy.

I'm also excited about this because it pushes Linux gaming forward. Valve is putting in a ton of work towards the kernel and other software making it a viable alternative to Windows. Especially since Windows 11 is not going to support a lot of hardware pre-2019 or so. Which is pretty crappy.

@BLUEVOODU - I've heard good things about MATE. I've also been reading that KDE has come a long way and is very nice now too.

I would like to try something other than GNOME. From all of the reading I've done, the developers of GNOME tend to be a little arrogant and seem to want to dictate what you should or shouldn't have. Which seems to go against the spirit of open-source/Linux.

I believe SteamOS 3.0 will be KDE, so I plan on installing that once it releases.

@BLUEVOODU - I don't believe it's that bleeding edge. System76 still does a lot of testing before they release updates (and sometimes hold them back a few days, if necessary) but because they also cater to gamers, they try to make getting drivers and other libraries easier and automatic.

They are Steam/WINE/Lutris friendly.

@BLUEVOODU When you say desktop, do you mean the desktop environment like Gnome, KDE, etc? Or do you mean distro?

I don't really have a favorite of either one at the moment. I'm in the testing phase of my linux adventure. Started out with Zorin which uses Gnome and if I didn't want to game, it would be my daily driver. However, since I want to game on my machine, I installed Pop!_OS. It also uses Gnome so not much different than Zorin.

As for apps, Steam is a big one. I also use Firefox and Google Chrome. I wish I didn't have to use chrome anymore but there are some sites that I need that don't seem to like Firefox. I also installed Discord, Wine and Winetricks (for gaming purposes.) For game overlays, I installed Goverlay so that I can see my framerates and CPU/GPU usage in games. Although, I'm having a little trouble having it appear on games right now.

Here are the apps I've installed so far -

• Steam
• Wine/Winetricks
• Discord
• VLC
• OBS
• KDENLIVE
• Goverlay
• GIMP
• qBittorrent
• Google Chrome

Pop!_OS is a relatively new distro. It's only been around for like 3 years I think? System 76 (the developers of Pop!_OS) also make hardware that is tailored with their distro. It's actually really nice hardware.

So I had to switch from Zorin OS over to Pop_OS. Turns out Zorin 15.3 is based on Ubuntu 18.04, and since I also plan to game on this machine, makes it too old for my needs. It's actually a nice OS and if you don't plan to game it's solid.

Switched over to Pop_OS since they are still supporting 32bit libraries that are required for Steam and automatically installs the latest Nvidia drivers for you if you happen to have one of their graphics cards. So far, so good. It uses Gnome so it has a lot of the aesthetic features of Zorin. I'm enjoying it so far.

Greetings from Zorin OS!

I finally got my spare PC going and installed Zorin on it. Enjoying it so far. Feels much cleaner and minimalistic than Windows. Haven't done much yet. Just getting it all setup with software that I might need.