Some IT guy, IDK.
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While I get why they want to do all online accounts, no. Just no.
Ironically, for business users, online accounts are basically the way the industry is moving. Some integration with Azure active directory (now known as “Entra ID” - a useless rebranding of the exact same product), you can connect systems using someone’s email, and it can tightly integrate with your work email account on Microsoft 365, and everything just kind of fits together.
This prevents admins from having to go and do prep/setup on each system and/or maintain a library of system images with all the standard settings for the organization, since connecting with AAD/Entra can also enroll the device into Intune and those policies are just as powerful, if not more powerful than what you can do with images and prep; just now is entirely automatic.
For home users, it’s less about the convenience of system management and more data harvesting of their clients. The irony is that a lot of the business versions still have an option to bypass the online account (usually by selecting an option that you will be joining a classic domain).
So business has the option and largely, business is moving away from it, and home users don’t, but that’s something that a large number of home users want.
The only thought I have on it is that: bitlocker is enabled by default on many newer versions of Windows, by signing in with your M$ account to the PC, those bitlocker keys are backed up. If you don’t use an online account, it’s up to you to back then up, and users either don’t do that, or do it in such a way that it’s ineffective, like saving the recovery key to the very drive that needs that key to unlock it in the event of a problem.
I’ve seen more than one person fall victim to their own lack of knowledge and understanding when bitlocker is enabled, and Windows update screws their boot sequence to the point where they need to do a recovery, which requires the recovery key, which they do not have. It basically makes all of their data inaccessible, and gigabytes of data, just from the people I’ve known affected by this, has already been lost as a result.
I hear what you’re saying, but, there have been some pretty significant improvements to Windows, generation after generation.
Windows 10 finally seemed like they were on the right (and hopefully final) track with the direction of the operating system. Probably the last big improvement was to bring basically everyone to 64 bit.
XP moved us from the 9x kernel to the NT kernel that’s used in Windows today. Vista introduced security features and driver updates that help to keep systems free from many common root kits. 7 brought in a very standard UI, that would be the basis for things going forward, 8/8.1 existed… Then 10 basically uplifted everyone to 64 bit as a default.
Of course this is far from a complete list.
What did W11 add that we didn’t have before? A TPM requirement? Ads? AI slop/shovelware/spyware?
I won’t be doing pretty much anything about it. I have 10 pro, I don’t really give a shit about what Microsoft thinks I should do. My computer is behind a firewall, and bluntly, it’ll be a while before the security issues become such a problem that I need to go and upgrade.
However. I already did the legwork. I went out and upgraded the hardware TPM 1.2 in my system to TPM 2.0, and I picked up some (relatively cheap) Windows 11 pro product keys. I can upgrade if I want.
I also have access to W10 LTSC, so I can always pivot to that if I need to.
I get the security and other concerns with Windows 10. I do, but the windows 11 changes, to me seem like they’re changes for the sake of things being changed. Windows 10’s user experience was already quite good, apart from the fact that every feature release seemed to have the settings moved to a different location (see above about making changes for the sake of making changes). IMO, as a professional sysadmin and IT support, the interface and UX changes have made Windows, as a product, worse; it is by far the worst part of the upgrade process and I don’t know why they thought any of it was a good idea. I also hate what M$ has done with printers, but I won’t get started on that right now.
For all the nitpicking I could do, Windows was, for all intents and purposes, exactly what it needed to be, between Windows 7 and 10. There hasn’t been any meaningful progress in the OS that’s mattered since x86-64 support was added. Windows 10 32 bit was extremely rare, I don’t think I ever saw it (where W7 was a mixed bag of 32/64 bit). Having almost everyone standardized on 64 bit, and Windows 10, gave a predictability that is needed in most businesses. The professional products should not follow the same trends as the home products. If they want to put AI shovelware and ads into the home products, fine. Revamp the vast majority of the control panel into the settings menu, sure. But leave the business products as-is. By far the most problems that people have with Windows 11 that I hear about, relate to how everything changes/looks different, and/or having problems navigating the “new look” or whatever the fuck.
Microsoft: you had a good thing with Windows 10, and you pissed it all away when you put out the crap that is Windows 11.
Stop moving shit around, making controls less useful, and stop making it look like the UX was designed by a 10 year old. Fuck off.
I went out of my way to get a TPM from my systems OEM. I’m a tech, I’ve built dozens of machines without issue. I personally use a Dell, because I can’t be arsed to deal with it for my own kit.
Granted, the Dell I’m using can easily fit the HEDT description, but still.
I’m still using Windows 10 because fuck Windows 11. I am forced to use that shit for work and I hate it. I’m constantly in need of stuff from the settings/control panel to fix other people’s shit, and every time I go to settings, shit is somewhere different, buttons are moved or entirely missing… It’s a right fucking mess.
On any Windows 10 system, I go to control panel, find the appropriate item, such as programs and features, or network and sharing center, etc… And all the controls are there, working, and haven’t changed in any meaningful way since XP.
The thing that Microsoft seems to have abandoned is sent semblance of consistency. They’re so deep in the shit with their CD/CI with the settings panel that for every feature build of Windows 10/11, the settings menu will have options in dramatically different locations. The main difference between 10 and 11 here is that, in Windows 10, the control panel was still in one piece. In Windows 11, several control panel icons now take you to the settings menu “equivalents” to the cpl you’re looking for.
This is particularly bad with printing. Omg. How tf do I check/change the fucking driver in use for a printer in the fucking Windows 11 settings menu? If I go through what’s left of the control panel, and go to devices and printers, I get taken to the settings menu for devices which includes a section for printers, so I go into printers, and I have to hunt down a moving target for where tf they put the button to open the control panel printers and devices dialog, which seems to change weekly. Then I can open the printer settings dialog and see what driver is in use on the advanced tab, or what fucking port it’s connected to… Which, when you deal with network printers, is a pretty fucking important piece of information. Then, half the time the printer port is a fucking wsd, and I have to go spelunking into the registry to find it’s fucking IP address.
Wsd ports are fine right up until they fuck up, which happens frequently, TCP/IP ports don’t really have any problems at all. So why the fuck are we moving everyone to fucking wsd ports? Where is the benefit? Explain Microsoft! Explain!
It’s so goddamned frustrating to use as a technician. A lot of this stuff doesn’t really apply to steam users or home users in general, because these menus aren’t really looked at a lot. So the TPM requirement is the usual suspect for people’s frustrations with Windows 11.
I wouldn’t give nearly as much of a shit if they would just leave things where they are. I would only need to learn where the buttons and knobs and dialogs are once, and that would be it. But they have a bug shoved so far up their ass about making “improvements” that I can’t rely on anything staying where it is.
Yeah, the gifted card I’m using is a 2080 Ti. My friend that gifted it, went from a dual 2080 ti SLI setup to a 4090 IIRC, he kept one for his old system so it’s still useful, but gave me one of the two since SLI is dead and he doesn’t need the extra card in a system he’s not frequently using.
11G of memory is an odd choice, but it was a huge uplift from the 3G I was using before then. I had a super budget GTX 1060 3G (I think it was made by palit?) before.
I still have to play on modest settings for anything modern, but my only real challenge has been feeding it with fresh air. My PC case puts the GPU on a riser with front to back airflow and very little space front-back and top/bottom. The card uses a side intake, which is fairly typical for GPUs, which is basically starved for air if I install the card normally. For now, I’ve got it on a riser, sitting on top of the system with the cover off, so my GPU is in open air. Not ideal. I need to work on a better solution… But it works great otherwise.
I have a 20 series card, albeit one of the higher tier ones, and I probably won’t be upgrading this year. I probably also won’t be playing any new AAA titles either.
It’s fine to have an older card, but nobody in that position should be expecting to play the latest and greatest games at reasonable framerates, if at all.
It is the way of things.
I am personally rather miffed about the fact that if you want any performance from a GPU, you basically need to spend $800+. Even though some cards are saying they’re available for less, they almost never are, either due to scalping or greed (which are kind of the same thing), or something else like idiotic tariffs. I don’t have nearly a grand I can burn every year to upgrade my GPU the last GPU I bought was a 1060, and my current card was a gift. I haven’t had a budget for a decent GPU in many, many years.
When I upgrade, I’m likely going Intel arc, because the value proposition makes sense to me. I can actually spend less than $600 and get a card that will have some reasonable level of performance.
Earlier than they thought?
How long did they think it would take before RT was a requirement? It was introduced with the GeForce 20 series more than six years ago.
For technology, six years is vintage.
The only people this should affect is people still using GTX 10 and 16 series cards. I dunno what’s happening with AMD/Radeon. Since they were purchased by AMD the banking schemes have gotten to be more and more nonsensical, so I always have a hard time knowing WTF generation a card is from by the model number.
In any case. Yeah, people using 5+ year old tech are going to be unable to play the latest AAA games. And?
Has there ever been a time when a 5+ year old system can reasonably play a modern AAA title without it being a slide show?
Yeah, I have a ton of time into HL/HL2/CS:GO/Audiosurf/PvZ
Pretty much all of that was lost.
I did a quick Google search and according to some commenters on websites, the great reset was around 2010.
I’ve been on steam since the early days, I think I installed it around the time that blue shift came out? I forget. But back then, if you had any HL2 title, and you put that into steam, you would get what is now known as “the orange box” (more or less). So, yeah, I got a bunch of valve games basically free and I’ve only expanded that collection.
Recently I’ve tapered my spending on games because life/work/family doesn’t allow me a lot of time to play. Which is probably why I like satisfactory so much. If I get an hour, I can build my factory, save it half complete and go back and continue building later.
The biggest thing that I feel like SF has going for it, is that they give you all the tools, tell you the objectives and let you figure everything else out. You have 100% control over how you accomplish the task at hand. You can save/quit anytime you would like, and there’s no demands to get things done in a particular timeframe.
You can save halfway through a build, and you’ll come right back to where you left off. Most games now-a-days are match based, once you’re in a match, you feel obligated to finish the match, and there’s seasons or limited time objectives that you must play a minimum amount in order to even have a chance of getting… There’s just so much pressure, micro-transactions, and effort required.
We’ll be waiting a while.
They split the original game into three parts. Remake, rebirth, and re-something? IDK.
Rebirth, aka FF 7 remake part 2 (of 3) is coming to PC soon ™. They’ve officially confirmed it and published minimum and recommended specs to play it. So it’s a waiting game for that right now, and it’s not even the end of the story.
What’s next: they’ll put out part 3 as a PlayStation exclusive in a year or two, plus or minus 1-3 years. It’ll be exclusive for about 2 years. So we might get all three parts on PC by … 2032? Maybe sooner?
Unless you own a PS 5, you’ll be waiting a while. If you do, you’ll still need to wait to get all three, but it will be less of a wait than the PC people, like me, will have.
I feel like a game like Borderlands needs to lead, not follow. They took some risks with BL3 that did not pay off, but the playability of the game was significantly improved.
Naming a character “skibidi” is moronic in the sense that, this is already a meme. If it get put in the game, they’re just trying to be cool for the sake of it. It’s a very “hello, fellow kids” kind of thing.
Borderlands, instead, should have some creativity with what’s being said and done in the game. Take a look at Tina for a second. When she’s introduced, she’s unapologetically strange. You either work with her on that level, or not at all. IMO, that’s why Tina is a fan favorite. The absurd and borderline insane statements she constantly makes is the reason that she is so well liked. She makes sense in an almost frightening and sociopathic way… And we love that about her.
Going to the length of dragging Gen Z memes into the game for no good reason isn’t going to help, and will, in all likelihood, make things very bad. It’s just, in bad taste, lazy, and a cop out IMO. With such interesting and absurd stuff already in the game, like butt stallion, CL4P-TP, BNK-3R, and more than I could possibly think of or remember that are amazing… They’re going to stoop to a pop culture meme instead?
Borderlands is about being weird and original with stuff, and some things really work, others, not so much. And that’s what made the series great IMO. They took chances, and went out on a limb for a joke, sometimes literally.
I mean, who can forget shooty mcface? That’s a footnote in a quest and it’s honestly really funny, weird and something that sticks with you. That’s what Borderlands should be. It’s not some meme pop culture reference machine.
The big thing with steam is that it had, what was, at the time, a leading developer, valve, behind it. So it was a no brainer to manage your valve games.
As other games were added to the service it just became convenient to pick them up on steam.
Now, I consider a game “not released on PC” unless it’s on steam.
Honestly, I didn’t expect that Epic would be okay with this.
It’s nice to see, and bluntly, after a game has gone through all the different stages of buying and owning, why not make it free? Makes it that much easier for nostalgia nerds to have awesome LAN parties.
I don’t think this makes up for the long list of consumer hostile things that Epic has done, but it doesn’t hurt.
The next thing I’d like to see is to have games open sourced when stuff like this happens and the game is well into obsolescence. At least someone can pick up the mantle that studios don’t want to have anything to do with, when it comes to making the game compatible with newer operating systems, or alternative operating systems (like Linux, though I think UT supported Linux), or so that it can be built for new architectures like Apple’s new arm based silicon.
There’s no profit in the game anymore, so just let people have it so they can fix what you don’t care about anymore.
I’m not going to defend Ubisoft here.
I will make a comment about NFCs. Basically, if you’re trying to validate a set number of items in a digital market, NFTs are not the worst way to do it. In the context of a video game, it would be that you have the NFT for, let’s say, a limited character skin, associated to your game profile/account/whatever. As long as that token is attached to your account, you get access to that skin. If you trade it out, you lose access to that skin in the game… As an example.
NFTs would accomplish that goal, while being (at least in theory) decentralized, and in theory it’s immune to errors and exploitation.
All of that being said: there are much better ways to accomplish the same with less. Any blockchain, by its very nature, will eventually become a slow, unmanageable mess because anything written to the ledger is immutable. So the ledger will continue to grow and grow and grow until it’s so large that it’s unmanageable, slow as shit, and just garbage to try to use/work with.
For shit like digital art or whatever, NFTs make even less sense. All you’re actually buying is essentially a receipt that you paid money to someone for the receipt. It’s a lot like going to a store to buy air. You pay for it, get your receipt and now you “own” some air. The only thing that proves you “own” air, is the receipt. If you lose the receipt, oh well, you can’t prove you “own” the air anymore, but you’re still 100% able to use the air, to fill your lungs, and breathe for another day, whether you “own” it or not.
The only difference with a “web3” game is that owning the NFT may give you access to stuff inside the game that you otherwise wouldn’t have.
Great in concept, horrible in practice.
I would expect that Gabe is trying to hedge his bets and make the company more of a co-op, where several key figures in the company as well as himself, own the majority, so that there’s accountability in what everyone decides.
That way if someone’s kid ends up inheriting stock in valve, there’s a way to block them out of major decisions if there’s a need to.
If that’s indeed what’s happening, then it’s a very long-term play by Gabe. He’s looking so fast ahead, so that long after he’s departed the company, the values that make valve great (and successful) will endure.
It gets really good when you get smart splitters. You don’t even need to really progress much in the game to get there, you just need to fill out the caterium tree in the mam. Then you can have one input for all your biomass stuff and smart splitters that take it to the constructors that will convert it to biomass, then into the constructors that will convert it to solid biomass, then into the burners. 👍
I used to build such lines in update 8 that output to a bin and I’d grab it for the burners… Just collect whatever biomass I can while I’m out getting things done and dump it every time I get back to the hub area where it was setup with the burners. It was a little ritual I had. The input on biomass burners will really cut down on how much time I have to think about it.
:)
I’m playing 1.0 now, I just unlocked smart splitters, and I have to rebuild my biomass processing as a result.
There’s also the dimensional depot which I rushed to, and that’s a complete game changer. Finally got enough materials to just set it up on my production lines, and I’m planning to add one for biomass, so I always have a little biomass in the depot for when I’m out and about and a drop pod needs power.
I want to go back and play through the whole series again, but the nuances of the older games that were fixed in the more recent games always throws me.
I play on PC and it’s very very obvious that kb/mouse was an afterthought for some of the games… I just hate doing fps with a joystick/thumbstick.
Either way, I’ve redeemed this for all of my copies of Borderlands. So the next time I log in, I should have golden keys for days.
The movie, that came out like, a month ago?
I was always planning to watch it when it went to streaming/home video kind of release. I rarely go to the theatre anymore.
I’m also waiting on the same for the new Deadpool + Wolverine movie…
Considering the little I’ve heard about it so far (trying to avoid spoilers), it seems like I should skip the Borderlands movie, but I’ll probably still watch it.
This is something that simply, should not happen. This kind of mishap should have been weeded out during R&D.
I won’t say any more on it right now, and I definitely won’t excuse the behaviour. I do, however, want to give advice to anyone affected.
If you can RMA, then do it. If you just don’t want to deal with all that, and you want it fixed, whether you’re directly affected, or if you just have a hot/slow GPU, I strongly recommend redoing the thermal material. You don’t have to go all out with fancy phase change material or anything (though, that is definitely an option if you want to spend the money on it), but repasting shouldn’t be difficult.
My recommendation is to do a small amount of research and try to find something that’s not too expensive that is hopefully non-conductive, so any screw ups don’t end your card. If you can get thermal pads that are the right size, you might as well replace those at the same time.
Most of the time, getting the cooler off is simply a matter of taking off the backplate, unbolting the cooler from the GPU chip location (remove the tension bracket), then carefully pulling it apart, and disconnecting any fan cables/RGB as you go.
Clean existing thermal compound off with tissue/paper towel, etc, then clean and polish the surfaces (both the GPU and the cooler side) using alcohol, generally isopropyl, and either a microfiber cloth or something else lint free. In a pinch, q-tips work. Both sides should be a near mirror finish when you’re done, though, depending on the cooler, it may not have been machined to a near-mirror, so just clean it until your cleaning cloth/qtip comes away mostly or completely clean.
Once cleaned, apply new compound, fix any thermal pads and reassemble (reverse of disassembly). Be very careful when reattaching the tension bracket to move in a criss-cross or “x” pattern, always go opposite of whatever one you just tightened, and tighten everything just a little as you criss-cross the plate to ensure equal pressure across the cooler. Everything else should be trivial in terms of order.
Once everything is tightened and secure, reinstall the card and test.
Dunno why it’s even rated M. Seems high for what it is