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Do you have an OS preference now that you're about 8 months in?

I would like to get a Macbook pro next time but I feel that it would be underused since I also have a decent desktop. The Air is doing just fine for me.

@CreepinDeth evidently there was something different in the game's manufacturing that changed. Probably later copies included something in the game that initiated the update? Maybe earlier copies had a broken place in the code?

The way I could see that happening is if the wrong product code was used. However, not sure how that could happen with Nintendo checking and approving the games. Also, I don't think the patch would work on the broken copy if that were the case. If it did, then the broken copy would have no problem initiating the download of the patch.

Another reason why digital backups are necessary. Servers that provide patches are not going to be around forever and in these cases leaving games completely unplayable.

So this fairly big youtube channel, JRPG Life, might have discovered the problem with Puzzle & Dragons Mario Edition.

They purchased a few loose copies. Some of them apparently ended up downloading an update. Once that happened, their original copy worked.

Sounds like there might be a patch that's required but not all copies initiate the download? That is pretty weird as well but seems like that's what's happening.

It's a good video. The link below should start at the point where they start loading up P&D. The video is a decent watch as well.

Timestamp is 12:50 if the link doesn't work.

I'm thinking of putting a CDG meet up every week on the calendar. 

We used to do this on our previous format a long ago.

We did?!

I genuinely don't remember. I'd do it but would depend on when.

I think I know what it is.

I have some extra extensions on my browser. It blocks certain things from rendering for extra security. Might whitelist this site.

Maybe... 

I've seen that picture before and I don't agree that Nintendo fits in regular generations anymore starting with the Switch.

@Grindspine Whatever it is you posted, I can't see it. Just a blank post on my end.

Finally watched this a few weeks ago. It was okay. I give it 6/10. There were some good ideas here and there but seemed like it was just a way to introduce...

Spoiler: ShowHide

adamantium

into the MCU. Don't know if this was the right movie for that. And as much as I like Giancarlo Esposito, he feels shoehorned in.

People are now getting banned for inserting used games? This is not the only place that I have read this, there are also YouTube videos.


https://www.reddit.com/r/Switch/comments/1lut61s/switch_2_users_be_careful_buying_used_switch_1/?embed_host_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgamerant.com%2Fswitch-2-ban-used-games-why%2F

Last I heard this might not be true. A lot of the stories seem to be repeats of the original, just posted on other sites.

If Nintendo truly has this capability, I don't think they would have waited until now to start banning consoles. People have been dumping their carts for years. This would've been done a long time ago and we would've heard more stories.

I think some people aren't telling the full story.

Nintendo still sucks though for how they're handling "piracy."

@CreepinDeth  --> That generally was the older WEP that you needed.  What you can do... you can chain an older wep router to your more secure setup via LAN cable... and just feed your WEP devices that way.  I wouldn't keep it on if you're in a populated area.  However, that's how I used to do things.  I believe it's still achievable these days.

That's a cool workaround but I would need the older WEP router, which I no longer have. It's okay though, no reason to connect those devices online anymore.

@CreepinDeth just purchased this game last week I do not know the history of the game.

It's possible the game sat around not being played by the original owner and then probably sat around some more until you bought it. Not sure if you can fix it. I would recommend returning it if the return policy is still in effect.

@CreepinDeth --> Thank you for your feedback!  If you had to vote, would you vote to keep it for another week or revert to the old theme?  I'm looking for another theme as I'm not sure we will be able to return to the older theme unless it's updated... OR if I have the time to create something like it from scratch, OR create something newer from scratch

I actually do like it a little more than the previous theme. I think the previous theme, although decent, felt a little outdated.

How long has it been since it's been played? Did the cart work for a while and now has stopped working while it's been in your possession?

Something that has been coming up lately on the internet is that there is now a "best practice" to boot all of your carts at least once every 5 years or so to keep them from corrupting. Just like computer SSDs, they need to be powered with electrical current in order to help prevent that. If they are not powered for years then they can corrupt.

Not sure if this might be your case, but the older the NAND that hasn't been played much, the more likely you would encounter this.

None of my DS consoles can connect to the internet anymore. Not sure why.

Could be that your router is just too modern. I remember my PSP wouldn't connect unless I downgraded the password security to one of the older, less secure types. My current router doesn't support this anymore.

Nintendo is anti consumer and gamers really need to boycott them. That plus the USB C encryption and bricking consoles remotely...

Unfortunately they won't. Gamers are notorious for caving in. Now, for the record, I do have one. I would prefer I didn't but it is what it is.

As for Game Key Cards, in general the only difference in terms of functionality, it's not much different than a cart that has all of the data on the ROM. You need the cart to play the game. There's no going around that whether it's a key card or full card. If you lose or sell either one, you won't be able to play it anymore. It's virtually the same.

Now, that still doesn't excuse the practice. It's a waste of plastic first off. If the data is going to be entirely dependent on servers, then don't put out a "physical" version. Second, it's a waste of storage space. The cart having all of the data means I don't have to eat up my internal SSD or one of those new Micro SD Express cards that are a lot more expensive than regular Micro SD cards (which wears down eventually based on the amount of writes you put on it.) If I'm already paying $70 or $80 for a game, give me all of the friggin data.

Not bad, I think. Some of the headers and whatnot seem to dominate the space though. Like for example above where the Home/Search/Calendar/Members buttons are. They seem a little big.

I've had the Switch 2 now since the 10th. Didn't open it for a week, lol. Finally booted up Mario Kart last weekend and it was fun. It's Mario Kart, so not much new other than prettier tracks and being able to drive around the world. That part is actually really cool.

The HDR is as convoluted as a bunch of people have said. To get good, accurate HDR you need a TV that can do HGIG Dynamic Tone Mapping. Which not many LCD TVs do. It's mainly an OLED feature from what I've seen. I would've thought that a company like Nintendo would've actually gone and done this the right way but seems like they just slapped it on to have a bullet point on the box. (This only affects docked mode on a TV.)

Overall though I do like the feel of the console itself. It feels good in the hand in terms of texture and the size of the screen is nice for someone with not so great eyes like myself.

I'm personally stoked for this movie. I've been coming around to it. It's not because it's a huge cast and they got the Russo Bros. back, but because this will be a reset for the MCU that is badly needed.

Even if the movie turns out meh, the movies that come after can have a cleaner slate and not have the phase 4 slop dragging them down. Can't wait.

My wife managed to snag a Mario Kart bundle from Target. What a pain the butt that whole experience was.

I will say that it looks like Nintendo is starting to jump on the performance train a little bit. And of course, now that that has happened, prices have jumped.

At this point, it's clear that they want you to go fully digital now. "Physical" carts are mostly just now keys to play the digital version. Reports from Japan are saying nearly all of the 3rd party games are key cards. Not sure how I feel about that. It's great from a reselling stand-point, but it's only temporary. Eventually servers will get shut down.

And then there's tariffs on top of all of this. Going to see how things play out before I start building a library. This might just be a way to play Nintendo games for me and nothing more.

I vote for an undated Master Topic!

Recently finished all of the original Netflix Daredevil show in preparation for Born Again. Season 3 is a solid season and I'm glad I went back to it.

@BLUEVOODU Seems the same. Unless I have manually followed a topic/board or I'm tagged, I don't get alerts.

@CreepinDeth chromebooks updates are based on the year that the laptop was released. Meaning that if it sat on the store shelf for a year before you purchased it, you have lost one year of service. The one that I am using will receive its last update June 2031. They can extend it. I have an old Lenovo, my first chromebook, that was extended until June of this year. It was the laptop in which I learned all about chromebooks. I am not sure about ChromeOS Flex. I am sure it would be totally different than the chromebooks. Just remember the ChromeOS is accessed by your gmail password. Or at least the chromebooks are.

It's interesting that they have the end of date right down to the month. For most software, normally it's just until a certain release version, but the fact that it's June 2031 is very specific (even if it can't be extended.) That's still a good amount of time at least.

@CreepinDeth @BLUEVOODU i am presently using my Macbook Pro mid 2012 to type this. It is running MX Linux based on DEBIAN. I use it daily. I also use my chromebook daily. I have a Mac Mini late 2012 running Sanoma 14.7.4 using Opencore-Patcher on an SSD with 16 gig ram. That is my desktop. I am seriously thinking about switching it over to Linux when the updates run its course on Sanoma. But that is still undecided.

I updated my late 2013 Macbook Pro with Open-core Patcher to 15.4 Sequoia. It's such a nice machine that it seemed wasteful to not update it to something more modern and secure. The M series Macs these days are sooooo nice though. I'm glad I have both.

so... still thinking of Linux as your daily driver like @CreepinDeth ?

Linux has been my daily driver for a few years already. I do have a few Windows machines (my gaming PC and a couple of laptops) due to work but I haven't really needed to make those machines my daily driver. There is the odd thing here and there. For example, just today I had to format a USB stick to NTFS because I wanted to transfer some Xbox screenshots. It's nuts that Microsoft requires NTFS just to move some files around but it's required for the console to see it.

I have been using a MacBook lately as a daily driver.  I should make a topic on this.  TLDR, some life events happened recently... so I'm working with this right now.  I can say, I am able to use Linux, Windows OR MacOS for my daily driver LOL.  Still not 100% on the iPad... if it had visual studio code capabilities (without haven't to do it remotely...), I think the iPad would have a potential to take over some tasks.  I was using the iPad integrated with AWS Cloud9... but they have since decided to kill the service.  I still have access, but it will eventually go away. Therefore, I'm looking for something else.

You should make one. I bought my first Mac in 25 years a couple of weeks ago. Best Buy was clearing out the M2 Macbook Air and I jumped on one. I've started getting into refurbishing laptops and PCs. Would be a cool topic to have.


@retro junkie How long do you have until you no longer get critical updates to ChromeOS? I'm thinking of turning an old, under-powered office PC into a chromebox with ChromeOS Flex.

There are still quite a few people who feel the need to actually touch and see the product they want to buy. The closest Best Buy to me has a good amount of people in it whenever I go to pick something up. People really like to see the TVs first hand as well as appliances. It's just not the place for media much anymore unless it's games. The fact that Best Buy hasn't gone under yet shows that it has enough diversity of gadgets to withstand Amazon. The stores will probably get smaller though as they cut staff but they'll probably use the leftover space for more online order inventory.

As for music, I still try to buy CDs when I can. I have an old computer specifically for ripping and playing back music. I connected a Digital Audio Convertor and headphone amp to it. I put on my fancy headphones and I'm in bliss. 

In the car, I just stream to my dash through bluetooth. My car is old and so is the sound system so no need to have the best audio there.

Happy New Year!

Finally - What are your gaming resolutions for 2025?

Mine's simple, just play more games!

I also want to clear out some of my backlog. I'm starting with trying to finish at least 5 games.

Merry Christmas!!

They only gaming thing I got was the new Indiana Jones game. I'll play it once I finish The Last of Us II.

I hope you have a wonderful vacation time!

Thanks, you too!

So it sounds like you're going to have a lot of fun!    What's in the agenda and what are you starting with 1st?

First on the list is to install Fedora and then give it a proper test drive to see if I like it. If I do, I'll dive in fully and start using that machine to code a little bit. If I don't, then might try another Ubuntu distro for it. I've read that Ubuntu is actually the distro that is used by the Android Open Source Project so might even just use that.

After Christmas I'll be updating some of my laptops and might install Elementary OS on one of them or if I really like Fedora, install that on it as well.

I'm also thinking of trying an Arch distro but not sure yet. I think I'll keep it simple for now.

I was hoping to turn one of these old machines as a file server but Christmas has my wallet tapped at the moment. Will be buying some hard drives later and then installing a Linux server or TrueNAS. I picked up a COMPTIA Networking book for cheap and plan on teaching myself some of that as well. I was I had a whole month off, lol. 

Tomorrow is my last work day of the year. I'll have two weeks off and will be using this time to try out Fedora Workstation and probably one other distro. I have two old Dell XPS machines that can not be upgraded to Windows 11.

I'm going to see if I like them as well as try to do some very basic development. I've been wanting to teach myself to code again and I think this will be a good time and I hear good things about Linux being developer friendly.

I'm also going to bust out my Raspberry Pi that my wife got for me a few years ago and tinker with it.

 

What happened to first-party and console exclusive games?

They don't make enough money anymore.

EDIT: To elaborate more, it's basically what I said in my original reply. Games are so expensive to make these days that locking them down to a single console is actually a money losing proposition.

Just look at all of the publishers/developers who have gone back to Steam despite the fact that Epic provides a better cut of the money. You have to reach as many customers as possible to make your money back and net a profit.

The only 1st party that actually bet on the right horse was Nintendo. They stopped chasing the fidelity train. Sony and Microsoft are stuck with having to produce even more powerful hardware to entice customers to keep coming back. Gamers want the "best" graphics so that's who they have to cater to. And when you're chasing graphics, your budget skyrockets.

Has anyone else watched this yet? I have to say, this is the best TV series based on a comic book since Daredevil Season 1. It's soooo good. I'm not a colin Farell fan but he's nailing it.

I'm selfishly hoping that Matt Reeve's The Batman becomes canon in James Gunn's DCU.

Ohhhh, I see what you mean now. The Zelda one seems cool.

I'm looking into something like this case:  https://amzn.to/4gztaB

Doesn't look like your link works, so can't see which one you chose.

I honestly haven't seen a case that holds a high amount of carts. The one I have holds 8 total.

This one looks like it can hold 20 carts. It's only $17 before tax.

https://a.co/d/2DisDBL