#Framer Components

[bobcatmoran]

I went and took full advantage of being off from work today and Local Movie Theater's "Treat Yourself Tuesday" special to go see "Across the Spider-Verse," and it lived up to everything I'd hoped for and themsome. Amazing characters, both old and new, and it did all sorts of things with animation that I never thought I'd see in a full-length release from a major studio (THE USE OF COLORS AND LIGHTING AND BACKGROUNDS IN GWEN'S UNIVERSE! HOBIE! THAT VERY SUBTLE VISUAL DIFFERENCE IN COLORING AND LINE WEIGHTS WHEN THEY GO TO [GIANT SPOILER]!) It used the medium to its fullest potential, expanding even further on the stylistic range of "Into the Spider-Verse."

I can confirm, though, that this is a very very very bad movie for anyone with visual sensitivities, literally from the first few seconds (they have the studio logos fizzle through alternate versions at a very rapid rate), so heads up on that.

There was one other gal who came alone who was about my age, and we both cracked the eff up at Ben Reilly's introduction. Only complaint is no Toei Spiderman/Leopardon, though I suppose rights to them are a convoluted mess.

I also want to scream about Hobie again, because my gosh, I love the character, love how he's Actually Punk, not just the aesthetic, and I never in a million years thought I'd see a major studio motion picture have a heroic character that looks like him and also that is animated the way he is. There's like, at least 3 different framerates going on with different components, the jaggedy cut-out edges, the occasional bits where it looks like he's been drawn on cut-out magazine and newspaper clippings. So good. (did I mention that this movie is bad for visual sensitivities though?)

Anyway. If you saw the first movie and liked it, GO. Go see it. Heck, if you're ok with flickering/flashing animation and you didn't see the first movie, go watch that first, and then go see this one. Seriously one of the best movie experiences I've had in years.

[gamesception]

So here's the new toy that's been distracting me the last couple days. My decade+ old oversized ASUS gaming laptop finally pooped out several months ago, leaving me daily driving my Steam Deck of all things as my main home computer. And don't get me wrong, the Deck has performed remarkably well in that regard, but I've been meaning to get something a bit fancier for a while. Something that could handle 1440p gameplay at a decent framerate while streaming or recording, can manage image and video editing well, and in particular can run some VR games. I've been interested in VR gaming ever since Lobac posted about some of that a while back, especially with the Meta Quest 2 being a solid headset at a really aggressive cost. With the Zuck giving up on the metaverse, the Quest is likely never going to be cheaper than it is now.

I'd waffled for a while about building a PC, but in the end I psyched myself out and decided to go with a pre-built instead. Yes, that means willfully overpaying for the end product by a few hundred bucks to pay someone else to do the assembly and initial set up for me, but in exchange I only had to research one product instead of half a dozen separate components, plus there's a single warranty where if anything doesn't work it's somebody else's problem to fix it, and I'd only have to deal with a delay.

After watching and reading a bunch of reviews, Skytech seemed to be a decent choice for system integrator, with solid to positive reviews for various prebuilt models they offer, including Gamer's Nexus who tend to be pretty harsh on pre-builts. But it was this review from JustIN Tech that sold me on this Azure 2 model. "Performance equivalent to last gens best, but at half the price" is the exact tag line I was looking for, and after a recent price discount it was just within my $2k range.

In retrospect though, I should have done some more research on the specific components. I'm quite happy with the intel 13600 cpu, and while the included cooling setup is overkill for that chip, that just means I've got some free thermal space to overclock or upgrade in the future. Plus, it's pretty, and I'm shallow. On the other hand it turns out the nvidia 4070ti is not well thought of - generally considered badly overpriced, plus has the extra negetive association of being just a rebranding of the failed '4080 12gb' that was so roundly panned that its release had to be canned altogether. And the PNY model that came bundled in my unit isn't even as nice as the Gigabyte one in the JustIN Tech review. One of the reasons why Gamer's Nexus is the better channel for these sorts of reviews is that they do secret shopper and get the same stuff regular folks get, where as brands know what they're sending to channels like JustIN Tech and can take pains to make the best possible impression by including better components and taking extra care in assembly and packaging.

So what should I have purchased instead? I don't know. Maybe the 'blue' model of the same Azure 2 line, which is three hundred dollars cheaper to swap out the 4070ti for an intel Arc a770, which would probably have been more than enough for my intended use cases. Heck, with 4 extra gb of vram it might have even been better than the 4070ti for me in the long term, and if not then I could use the money saved towards swapping out to a better AMD card next gen. But the blue model comes in a blue version of the case, which wouldn't have made the swirly rainbow rbgs pop as much.

Anyway, while I might have made a different choice if I had done more research, that doesn't mean I'm at all unhappy with what I got! The Azure 2 arrived promptly. The build quality of the system is very nice. No damage, no loose or cross-threaded screws. Everything worked right out of the box when plugged in - including all the various external ports. Skytech certainly did a good job putting it all together. While the 4070ti might not be the most reasonably priced card for its performance level, now that it's here and paid for regardless, it seems like it should be able to do everything I want it to, at least for now. And if I end up replacing the gpu sooner then I would have liked, eh, we live and learn.

And while it doesn't matter at all compared to cost and performance, the swirly rainbow rgb lighting makes me feel like a Real Gamer (tm).

Desk is getting a bit cluttered tho.

As for performance, It's quiet and runs cool while playing my current games at top settings - though my particular game selection (mostly just Elden Ring on max settings with Ray Tracing), and my 1080p, 75hz monitor aren't exactly putting it through its paces yet. A new monitor is one of several upgrades & accessories I plan to get to go with this thing in coming months. New monitor, VR headset, an extra ssd on which to install linux - I figure I'll keep the windows install on the side, on the off chance there are games or utilities I can't get running in Linux down the line.

But anyway yeah, that's what I've been so busy with lately, delaying liveblog posts.

[breakingarrows]

Replaying BioShock 2

When thinking of BioShock 2 I often lump it with the black sheeps of gaming, the sequels that had to follow up on a video game that was immediately regarded as one of the greatest of all time, and as the maligned entry that is secretly the best of the series. The Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, the Far Cry 2, the Grand Theft Auto IV, the Max Payne 3 games of video game canon. Games that often received reevaluation after the hype cycle had undergone its course and reached the point in time in which a game originally rejected and ridiculed by video game consumerists and forum posters becomes heralded[a] as “Good, Actually.” One game I don’t think has fully received its due recompense is BioShock 2. I first played through BioShock 2 in December of 2012 and it was then and there that I knew that BioShock 2 was Good, Actually.

The announcement of BioShock 2 in late March of 2008 was met with a lot of bewilderment. Commentators stated, “BioShock is the game I've enjoyed most in years. I can't see a sequel coming close to matching it but here's hoping anyway.” Sarcastically, “That's exactly what BioShock needed! A sequel!” “I just don't think the game lends itself to a sequel is all. A prequel could be good though.” “I loved BioShock but I can't think of anything I want in a sequel. They'd have to do something totally different.” “If it's not a prequel, don't bother.” “I don't really understand what they can do with a sequel. The story was nicely wrapped up, and the combat/research system will be hard to improve upon.” “If Ken's team isn't involved. No thanks!” “This is like Titanic getting a sequel. Either take the story in a completely different direction not involving Rapture, or a prequel.” Not every commentator was as dour and skeptical, though those that were had every right to be. BioShock was immediately hailed as a work of art after its release in August of 2007, and Take Two was now seemingly attempting to repeat the success with yet another BioShock game created separately from the original team.

Release day reception was mixed to positive. Surprisingly, a lot of posts were spent talking about the multiplayer component, something you can still hypothetically play today, but I will be ignoring. A general consensus was that BioShock 2 was an adequate-to-good followup to the seminal title that was BioShock. “If I had to give it a score, it'd probably land somewhere right around a 7. It's a fun game that gets a lot better the more you play it, but it's lost a bit of the magic of the original's unexpectedness and allure.” Some felt a little more aghast. “just finished it and can't remember any worthwhile level of this game... I'm on tears [sic], this is easily my biggest gaming disappointment ever, this is even worse than Devil May Cry 2.” Most people on forums did what people on forums do and overanalyze and complain about graphical fidelity. From framerate to texture quality to whether or not the PC resolution options constituted “widescreen.”

One common thread was that people found the game very hard, with low health packs, Eve hypos, and ammo pickups throughout, leaving them having some difficulty getting past the combat scenarios. Reviewing my footage of my hard mode, no-vita-chamber playthrough, while I did die exactly four times, I did find that I was very often handling a surplus of health, Eve hypos, and ammunition of each type for my arsenal of weapons. In the rush of release, the thrill of opening that shrink wrapped piece of plastic with an unmistakable “new game smell,” these terminally online forum posting freaks had blown their way through the game to their own detriment. This was not a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This was not even a Killzone 2 or a Gears of War 2. This was BioShock 2. In this game in order to effortlessly glide from one combat scenario to the next you have to be slow, thoughtful, and most importantly thorough. You have to check every room and avenue, loot every dead-body-marking lockbox, hack every safe, peruse every locked off area, and then you will have accumulated so much health and ammo that you will force yourself to waste plasmid uses and bullets just so that you can keep looting. BioShock 2 was not hard because it didn’t give you enough health and ammo, BioShock 2 was hard because you didn’t seek out and find enough health and ammo.

Engaging with the combat in BioShock 2 is an overall improvement on the original due to now being able to simultaneously wield and fire a weapon and plasmid at the same time without swapping between the two offensive options. In BioShock you would have to choose between equipping a plasmid or equipping a weapon as your on-hand utility. In BioShock 2 you already have both active and simply have to choose which you want currently equipped in each hand, left is dedicated to plasmids, and right to guns. This makes combat much more active and engaging as your combinations of attacks work more efficiently when both plasmid and weapon can be triggered with the touch of a button. Electrifying an enemy and then bashing with the drill, lighting an enemy on fire and then letting loose a heat-seeking rocket, spearing an enemy before pulling it and shooting it back in with telekinesis, and insect swarming with any weapon’s special ammo as the swarm keeps them in place stunned. Overall the minute-to-minute gameplay of BioShock 2 is better than the original, and the weapons are adapted to fit into your status as a Big Daddy which I appreciated.

BioShock 2 culminates with two encounters that are the epitome of the two scenarios you have been engaging with over the course of the game. The first is a battle against two Big Sisters, the face of the game and one of its best contributions to the overall BioShock entity. They are as hard to kill as a Big Daddy but much more agile and capable of dealing damage. The second is a wave defense, a culmination of the optional but suggested scenario to guard a Little Sister who is harvesting Adam from predetermined corpses littered throughout the map of each level. These defensive scenarios allow you to utilize alternative trap ammo as well as trap plasmids at chokepoints and around the general area of a corpse before putting the Little Sister down to begin the harvesting. During my most recent playthrough I had built up such an arsenal that I could easily just sit back in a corner and allow the plasmid and ammo traps kill every single splicer that attempted to interrupt the harvest. These segments are completely optional but due to their surplus Adam rewards make it something that should be engaged with. Adam is the currency for purchasing new plasmids, upgrading plasmids, and gaining more health, eve, and active plasmid slots, making them the most useful resource in the game. These defense segments also allow you more opportunities to research the different enemy types after you’ve unlocked the camera. Research bonuses are how you get some of the best gene tonics such as the upgraded Armored Shell, Drill Vampire, and Fountain of Youth tonics.

Defending Little Sisters from splicers also prepares you for the battle against Big Sisters, as you’ll learn they only appear once every Little Sister has been dealt with in a level. This allows you to pick which vent by which to resolve the Little Sister decision and prepare the surrounding area accordingly. The subsequent fight was always thrilling as Big Sisters were most often the reason for my death. Mixing and matching defense and offensive options makes a playthrough feel more varied as you bounce from fighting splicers in a new area to looting, fighting a Big Daddy, placing a Little Sister for a wave defense, and repeating.

More critically than in gameplay, BioShock 2 succeeds in telling a compelling story with its characters. Whereas in BioShock the main story was highly regarded for its Big Twist, there wasn’t much more to it than that twist. The characters in BioShock were the highlight, each a twisted and morose individual whose personality made each level memorable up to the moment you killed them and moved on in the dark ride of Rapture. It all culminated in an ending sequence that everyone mostly ignores when talking about its successes, because after the twist it didn’t have anything worthwhile left. BioShock 2 has an idea and executes on it fully for a much more satisfactory whole.

In BioShock 2 you are an example for your adopted daughter Eleanor to learn from. By watching how you decide to deal with not only the Little Sisters but with specific characters who antagonize you throughout each of their levels she will ultimately make a decision that determines the type of ending you receive. This reflection of action is indicative of how our own children learn from us, whether we are aware or intend for it or not. Children are always watching and will pick up on mannerisms you might not even recognize until they perform it. Tantrum throwing objects is a reflection of our own frustration, and imitation-as-play reinforces everyday actions as routine. Eleanor learns from the player and through a more complex flowchart of points compared to the original game, will make the final decision of whether Sofia Lamb, Eleanor’s mother and your main antagonist throughout the game, lives or dies.

The original BioShock’s “moral choice dilemma” was a black and white decision between saving or killing Little Sisters. Killing Little Sisters would net you more Adam in the short term but saving them ended with an overall larger number of Adam to spend on gameplay abilities, making salvation the desired route to take. Sparing or killing a child is not a real moral conundrum, it is a simplistic decision given weight only by the empty words of marketing. BioShock 2 muddles the mechanical reward to its benefit. The maximum overall Adam you can gain is a mixture of saving every Little Sister until a certain point where you gain a tonic that gives you more Adam for harvesting, at which point you use them to gain Adam from corpses before killing them yourself. The decision to kill or spare a child is still cartoonishly simple for a moral decision, but is at the very least made more complex by the mathematical equations behind them. Retaining the save or kill decision reads much more like certain features from Fallout 3 carrying over into Fallout: New Vegas. That is, as a consequence of restricted development time and inheriting another studio’s data within which to chisel your own familiar but new (and superior) piece of art.

More thoughtful choices in the game come in the form of the named characters whose fate is determined by the player. The first character you meet is Grace Holloway, a woman who was entrusted by Sofia Lamb to watch over her daughter Eleanor while Lamb was imprisoned by Andrew Ryan. Holloway failed and Eleanor was inducted into the Little Sister program and bonded with your player character, Delta. Holloway hates you for this. Next is Stanley Poole, an agent for Ryan who was responsible for the flooding of Lamb’s retreat in Dionysus Park and Eleanor’s induction into the Little Sister program after she caught his work as a double agent. Lastly is the tragic character of Gilbert Alexander, a scientist who underwent a radical experiment on behalf of Lamb that left him transformed into an inhuman organism and left behind audio logs prior to his descent into madness that would teach a would-be savior how to deliver him from his current state.

The fates of these three characters, combined with the player's decisions for the Little Sisters they encounter will lead to one of six endings. Thanks to this flexibility it is entirely possible to get a “Good Ending” with Lamb dead, or a “Bad Ending” where Lamb lives, or a “Neutral Ending” where you killed each character and had a mixture of saving and harvesting Little Sisters. My preferred choice of ending is saving all the Little Sisters and only sparing Holloway, as Poole deserved death for his crimes and Alexander was a mercy killing at his own request. Holloway is a traditional misguided henchman duped into villainy, Poole is a classical self-serving villain, and Alexander is a tragic figure whose death is more of an assisted suicide than an outright murder based on vengeance or justice.

Lamb’s fate is not up to you directly. You do not push a button on the controller to decide whether she lives or dies. That is left up to your adopted daughter, Eleanor, to decide, based on the decisions you made up to that point in time. She learns from you as a child learns from their parents. It's a much more compelling undercurrent to the game than the original’s “would you kindly?” being a conceit of a player character lacking agency in most games. Even with the flowcharts explaining the criteria for each ending, the unseen complexity underneath the various avenues available to the player upon their first playthrough means that the ending they receive will be a much more honest reflection of themself put on display by the actions of Eleanor.

Andrew Ryan has become part of video game canon as one of the most compelling antagonists encountered in games. He is the industrialist founder of Rapture, the setting which so bewitched everyone in the first BioShock. The largest hole left by BioShock that its sequel would have to somehow fill would be that of its main antagonist. How could you top Andrew Ryan? BioShock 2 addresses this issue in two ways. The first is that it still includes many audio logs from Andrew Ryan so that you can once again be regaled by his charisma and ego stroking monologues. BioShock 2 also does some retroactive addition with the introduction of Sofia Lamb, a psychiatrist who seeks to create a utopia using her ideology of “collectivism” in direct opposition to Ryan. She is now known as one of the great figures of Rapture, going so far as to even have debated Ryan publicly over the future of the city and being included in a photo of “Rapture’s Best and Brightest: 1952”

Just as Eleanor’s ending decision is a reflection of the player, Sofia Lamb is a mirrored reflection of Andrew Ryan[b]. Both spouted ideological babble in order to bring themselves into power, but neither were willing to separate that power from themself. Ryan founded Rapture so that people could be free from regulation by government or religion, so that anyone could do what they wanted. This propaganda didn’t include the asterisk that stated all this was fine, so long as Ryan stayed on top. The original BioShock is the story of how Ryan’s ideology of freedom fell once his position as top dog was threatened. Sofia Lamb is very much an altered reflection of that same grasping at power. Her “collectivism” is riddled with “common good” sentiments but all with her at the top with no equal or superior authority. Lamb is happy to sacrifice the individuals in her quest for the greater good, exemplified through Holloway, Poole, and Gil. Holloway was manipulated into serving Lamb out of guilt rather than adoration after the abduction of Eleanor, Poole’s allegiance was known to Lamb prior to the drowning of Persophone making her implicitly guilty in his actions, and Gil was coerced into serving as a test tube. Lamb strips everyone of their humanity and turns them into pawns to be manipulated and moved around according to her will. She may be the complete opposite in terms of beliefs but she is as hypocritical as Ryan, ruthlessly more so as she rules not by force but by love. Throughout the game you will come across adoring murals painted in her honor, she refers to her followers as the “family,” and pressures people to carry out her will as examples of their devotion. Ryan is a tyrant, a familiar and often used person to fight against in all forms of fiction. Lamb is much more sinister, having a morally uprighteous front belying a rot of egomania.

This utilization of coercing through adoration most similarly correlates in my own life to the use of religion and “God’s” will to push an individual's agenda onto others. Some of the latest media to tap into this insidious form of religion would be Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass in the character of Bev Keane played by Samantha Sloyan and on a more systemic level in Under the Banner of Heaven miniseries based on the book by Jon Krakauer covering the 1984 murder of Brenda and Erica Lafferty. Navigating a murder case involving deeply Mormon families included multiple conversations about faith and “Heavenly Father” as coverage for decisions and in-action that very much harkened back to my own years in service to the church my family attended. Lamb’s many audio logs recording conversations with followers and frequent propagandizing on speakers as you walk through Rapture gave me similar feelings of repulsion. She’s the type of person to stab you while smiling and explaining why this outcome was the best thing that could happen to you and fighting it will only hurt those you love.

Lamb’s indifference to all of those around her extended to her own daughter Eleanor, who wasn’t a person as much as another tool by which to achieve utopia. Lamb never loved Eleanor, she loved the promise Eleanor held as the ultimate mechanism towards whatever Lamb's version of utopia was, most likely something like Human Instrumentality with herself as god. Eleanor, lacking a mother, was nonetheless a person with feelings and opinions. She rebelled against her mother constantly. The more Lamb tried to control Eleanor’s growth the more Eleanor chose the opposite. When Ryan imprisoned Lamb, Eleanor was left with Holloway who cared for her with more love than Lamb did. That love, however, was more a substitute for Lamb than genuine care for the girl. Holloway loved to serve Lamb, and watching over Eleanor was a duty to be performed in that devotion. The loss of Eleanor was less the horror of losing a child and more the horror of having failed Lamb.

With you, Subject Delta, she had more of a parent than before. It may have been a parasitic relationship created to harvest Adam above all else, yet despite this, the mute Delta was a better parent than anyone Eleanor had before. Compared to the motherhood of Lamb, a life bonded to the protector Delta gathering Adam was more freeing and fulfilling than as a subject to the utopia project.

Parenthood is a recurring subject throughout BioShock 2. Andrew Ryan’s audio logs begin with his pondering of fathering of a child, not knowing his son would one day kill him. Holloway talks about how Lamb offering up Eleanor fulfilled her desire for motherhood that was denied by her infertility and the forced disappearance of her lover. A series of audio logs tell the story of a father named Mark Meltzer whose daughter was kidnapped by a Big Sister and his descent into Rapture in an attempt to recover her that ended with him as a Big Daddy you can fight and slay. Lamb and Eleanor’s relationship makes up the core of the game’s drama, with you serving as the imprint Eleanor acts upon. Our forward momentum is a reaction to Eleanor’s love for us in the form of a father/daughter relationship. However, there is also a more utilitarian reason for your desire to reunite with Eleanor and it is due to the Little Sister/Big Daddy bond you share. Brigid Tenenbaum briefly returns in the beginning stages to inform you that death awaits if you do not once again get into contact with Eleanor. This muddies the bond between you into less of fatherly love and into a resolution to live. The dual motivation continues for a majority of the game, as each roadblock puts the player more at risk of death from separation (with flashing red seizures reminding you of this despite it being a fraudulent threat as the player character will never actually die) and blossoms a concern and care for the one who calls you father and leaves gifts behind for you, pushing you ever towards a reunion.

Eleanor reports that Lamb is continuing the utopia project despite the disruption caused by the Little Sister programming, and Alexander serves as a grim warning for what fate might befall her if Lamb gets her way. After your climactic fight with two Big Sisters you are stopped one last time by Lamb smothering her own child in an effort to sever the bond and kill you. She is partially successful, the link is broken but you still live, though bound. Eleanor continues her rebellion by turning herself into a Big Sister after a unique section in which you control a Little Sister and gather the required materials for this transformation. While playing the Little Sister you view Rapture through their eyes. Everything is pristine and heavenly. You’ll occasionally get flashes of reality reinforcing the vast gap between what a Little Sister sees and what everyone else does. Corpses are literal angels, the walls are furnished with expensive decorations, curtains adorn every wall, and splicers look like they might have when attending the 1958 New Year’s Eve party. The finale has you fighting alongside Eleanor as she becomes a summon via the final plasmid slot. The first time I played the game in 2013 I very rarely brought her into the action out of a naive fatherly concern for her safety. This recent time I summoned her often as I recognized the mechanical and narrative fulfillment of her rebellion against Lamb reaching a climax as she now had the means with which to fight back physically whereas before it was all posturing and subterfuge.

BioShock 2 is a game I keep thinking about every now and then years and years after that first playthrough both for the mark it left on me and how underappreciated it still seems to be. Unlike Wind Waker or Sons of Liberty which were lampooned but eventually underwent a reevaluation in the culture writ large to become Game Canon, BioShock 2 remains in the shadow of both its predecessor and successor, and even its own DLC add-on expansion, Minerva’s Den, which had its own success completely separate from BioShock 2. Developer 2K Marin would eventually be handed what would become The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, itself a failed internal project within Irrational Games first handed off to 2K Australia before becoming a 2K Marin project and whose commercial failure would lead to 2K Marin’s closure in October 2013, two months after the game’s release.

Something entirely forgotten between my initial playthrough in 2013 and finishing my recent replay was that my wife and I had decided to name our baby daughter Eleanor in December of 2020. I had already known the connection to The Last of Us’ Ellie when my wife presented the two name options she liked the most but it wasn’t until I booted up BioShock 2 again in order to complete a replay and begin working on this essay that I was met with the audio log of Sofia Lamb discussing her daughter “Eleanor,” and I was hit with a realization that this game forgotten by a majority of the gaming public was now made much more personal to my own life. The lessons taught by the game, of children learning from those they love, bears true and reminds me that my own daughter is watching and learning whether I’m aware of it at the moment or not.

[a] As with all audiences, there are segments that will have always loved a game, segments that still hate it, and segments that don’t really care one way or the other about it. Grand Theft Auto IV was highly rated and sold millions but has mostly been lost in terms of cultural relevance.

[b] I appreciate another subtle reflection in that the first BioShock your transportation between various sections of the city was by Bathysphere, a small private vessel and underwater equivalent to the car. In BioShock 2 they are discussed as a reason for the death of the Atlantic Express railway system, your mode of transportation in the sequel. This reflects the rise of private motorized vehicles, and the machinations of the automobile industry, destroying public transport systems above, as well as serving as icons of each antagonist's ideology.

[fierce-trait]

you made me want to try ts3 so bad, but i have a 2012 mack book pro and ts4 already installed and i know ts3 is kind of laggy and slow on laptop.. so you think it will be even slower? idk but i'd really like to play it

hey luv! if you have enough space i say go for it~ What makes TS3 slow and laggy is the fact that the new components from recent PCs are not recognized by the game, i think you'll be fine :) i have no idea how to limit framerates on a mac system but i think due to your laptop being from 2012 you should be fine since TS3 was still active and ongoing at that year. 💖 i remember playing TS3 when I was little back in 2011-2012 and i think it ran good due to the game supporting the graphics card, etc.

[ndpreservation]

Framing and Display

Today’s frame shops offer an overwhelming array of materials and options to select from when framing artwork. A knowledgeable framer will take the time to thoroughly explain the benefits and limitations of each material and will guide you in making appropriate choices to achieve a beautiful and protective finished product. But how do you know who to trust? Here are a few tips to help you be an informed consumer, as well as how to safely display your piece to preserve it for years to come.

A frame protects artwork in a few different ways. It creates a secure package to house the work, protecting it during handling, and shielding it from direct contact with dust, dirt, or oily fingers. Frames are available in many materials and finishes including wood, metal, and plastic to suit the artwork and coordinate with the surrounding area. In addition to the frame itself, artwork may also benefit from a quality mat. A mat serves an aesthetic purpose and can add color, dimension, or texture to enhance the piece. It is also functional as it isolates the artwork from coming in direct contact with the glass, or glazing. Since the mat is in direct contact with your work, it is important to select a good quality material. Look for mat boards made of cotton rag, or that are at a minimum free of lignin, an organic compound that is unstable and breaks down into acids, causing rapid yellowing and embrittlement in paper, which will transfer to your artwork. Terms such as “lignin-free, acid-free, or archival” can guide you to better products, but they can also be misleading, for instance, acid-free materials can become acidic over time if they contain impurities such as lignin. 

Artwork may be attached to a mat with a variety of hinging methods. It is important to choose a method that can be easily removed and will not damage the work over time. A water-soluble adhesive like wheat starch paste is commonly used with lightweight kozo paper to hinge paper-based works directly to a mat. Pressure-sensitive adhesives like tape, even “archival” acrylic-based tapes, are not appropriate for direct contact with artwork since they are difficult or impossible to remove without damaging the artwork. Most pressure-sensitive tapes do not age well and can stain your material as they decay and yellow over time. Other safe hinging methods such as photo corners or similar supports can be effective for matting without requiring a permanent attachment, allowing for easy removal from the frame should that be needed in the future. Ask a professional to direct you to the safest products for your application.

Another important component of a frame is glazing. Glazing protects the work from exposure to the surrounding environment and also affects how the artwork will be seen. Glazing may be glass or acrylic, but either material may be enhanced with coatings to reduce the most detrimental and commonly overlooked risk to artwork: light. Sunlight entering through windows and interior sources of light can fade pigments, dyes, and some inks. Watercolors are particularly prone to light fading and benefit from UV-filtered glazing. Anti-glare glazing is another option, not to be confused with UV filtration. Anti-glare coatings help to reduce glare that interferes with viewing of the work. There is a tradeoff, however, as these coatings can create a very slight blurring effect that may be unsatisfactory for some viewers. Acrylic glazing can be advantageous since it weighs less than glass and is safer if broken and for this reason, it is often preferred for larger works. On the other hand, acrylic can build up a static charge and should not be used with dry or loose media such as charcoal or pastel that may be attracted to its surface.

Carefully considering where to display your framed artwork is equally important. It’s best to hang artwork where it will not be exposed to significant sun exposure, as visible light promotes chemical decay and fading. Damage from light exposure is related to the intensity and cumulative duration of light exposure. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation, which is emitted by the sun and some artificial light sources, is especially damaging. While UV-filtered glazing can significantly reduce fading and chemical deterioration of materials, it is not a fool-proof form of protection. It’s best to hang artwork where it will not be exposed to direct sunlight or other intense light forms. All forms of light can be damaging, and light also creates heat, which accelerates chemical processes. Even modest increases in temperature can increase the rate of decay, particularly in organic materials such as paper, textiles, and leather. 

Fluctuating temperatures in areas with poor climate control (e.g. attics and basements) can cause expansion and contraction of materials which over time may appear as cracks, cupped or flaking paint, or distortions in the surface of the object. Adding humidity to the mix dramatically increases expansion and contraction. Materials such as parchment are especially sensitive to high and low humidity conditions, which can cause cockling, cracking, and shrinking as the material swells and contracts with changes in moisture. These changes may not be immediately obvious but can result in significant and permanent changes. Give careful consideration before hanging treasured family heirlooms where temperature and humidity are unregulated. A reproduction or inexpensive print may be a more appropriate choice for riskier locations such as bathrooms, above or below an air vent, near stoves, or walls that are subject to direct sunlight. 

While the increased cost of framing your artwork with high-quality materials may not be necessary for everything you’d like to hang on your walls, for valued items that you would like to last, the investment will pay off in providing for their long-term protection and preservation. 

[tirsden]

Build storage, you say? But why, when there are all these lovely holes around! I suppose the framerate will suffer at some point, but I still don’t have the components for the better storage containers, so holes-in-the-ground it is. I started with that pretty much right off (first pic), and the holes are still going strong 7 hours in (last pic).

Not sure how I missed Astroneer but I have it now. May it burn many happy hours of sandboxing.

[already-14]

This work belongs to a wider camp of visual discursive exploration through photography, although it could be considered as a plastic work. Analogical black and white photography is the way I can expressmyself. I want to create a reflexive photography that aspire to create an imaginarium. Its origin came from not only intelectual, but a plastic experimental concern, that doesn’t reject the track of Human: loneliness, time through time, loss… I work in an alchemical way. At the laboratory is where there is an interpretation of a process and a return to the origins.The use of alchemical components or external to the photographic way that lead to a disarray, to a dissolution of the shape and creation of another one in a construction-deconstruction process. Breaking of the defined, the delimited and apprehensible. Shadows, glaze, simulation, ambiguity… Until it gives an irrecognizable image but also strange.Symbolic. That takes position in the current time and create meanings.

(via LEONOR BENITO DE LA LASTRA | LIFE FRAMER)

[asklittlepip]

That’ll do, rig. That’ll do.

This is HITMAN 2′s benchmark @ 1080p : 240 Hz, with every setting on Ultra or otherwise maximized, under DirectX 12 mode on an EVGA RTX 3070. Except for motion blur, cause screw that. And I’d be using HITMAN 3, but that’s currently an exclusive to that store that shall not be named, so screw them as well. Doom Eternal’s numbers are about triple these, and my framerate jumps into the 4-digit range sometimes in Fallout 4, including hitting over 4000 on the title screen and some load screens, so, yeah.

I was going to use Speccy to show off my system’s stats in a nice, neat way, but it seems to freak out and display 16 CPUs and other inaccuracies, so if anyone has a recommendation for a good (hopefully free!) way to summarize a PC’s components, let me know!

[annakie]

After starting my new job in the fall, I have uh.. upgraded my rig a bit.  I joked on Twitter the other day that it’s name is now “The Wind, Baby!”

Boring computer talk and some stats under the cut.

I have the same case, but I’ve swapped out nearly every other component of my machine in the last couple of months... including the video card.  Look, I know that the 3090 FE isn’t technically a “Gaming Card” (even though it was advertised as such) and Gamers Nexus tore it to shreds for the claims, but I’d been trying to get a 3080 for MONTHS and I was actually able to find a 3090 FE at retail price (on Best Buy’s website and picked it up in-store), it was the only thing available and I was tired of waiting so uh... yeah.  It took me awhile to justify pulling the trigger and I almost didn’t go pick it up. 

It’s not the card I wanted, but I decided to keep it, and I’m now happy with that decision.

I justified it to myself by telling myself I’m gonna skip the 40XX series all together so really I’m spending the same amount on this card as I would have for two XX80 cards.  Plus I sold my 2060 that I had before to offset the cost a bit more.  The pricetag was still insane for a single piece of hardware but... welp.  I can have a little insanity, as a treat.

Setting literally everything to ultra and getting amazing framerates is really nice, though, gotta say.

My biggest regret is that the FE series don’t have RGB.  Like, it looks very sleek and high end, and yeah there is that little bit of white lighting, but I really would have liked pretty lights like my 2060 RTX had.  I know I could add a light strip or something but it’s not the same.  Also worried that I may need to buy a brace, though most people say you don’t need it.  IDK.

Also, I need to buy other fans for the front case fans, which you can’t see in the pics because the ones I have were pretty nice fans when I bought them, but they’re also just like, static purple LEDs (which are invisible to the naked eye but the purple is clearly visible in those pics) and I’d like to be able to control the colors a bit more.

I set the lights (and entire case) to a Tom Servo theme for now though, and I’m happy with it, but eventually I’ll probably do other things with it.  Maybe need to dig up a few other small toys that won’t obstruct airflow to theme it out with.  Why isn’t there a Kaidan action figure!? 

Putting this here more as a reference for myself when people ask what my hardware is so I don’t have to go back and pull the list from where I bought them anymore:

Motherboard: MSI MAG Z490 Tomahawk Gaming Motherboard Processor: Intel Core i5-10600K Desktop Processor CPU Fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition CPU Air Cooler RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200MHz C16 LED Desktop Memory - Black (I replaced the fan with one of the ones below.) GPU - GE Force RTX 3090 FE Case: NZXT H500 - Compact ATX Mid-Tower Case PSU: CORSAIR - RMx Series 850W ATX12V 2.4/EPS12V 2.92 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply - Black Fans: 3x (soon to be 5x) Cooler Master MasterFan MF120

Monitor 1: ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28" HDR Gaming Monitor 4K Monitor 2: ASUS VE278H 27" Full HD 1920x1080 2ms HDMI VGA Back-lit LED Monitor Headset: Logitech G935 Wireless DTS:X 7.1 Surround Sound LIGHTSYNC RGB PC Gaming Headset - Black, blue Mouse: Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse, RGB Backlit Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 for Business - Wired (It’s not cool but I don’t care, I love me this keyboard and have bought many of them over the years and need to find a backstock of more of them.)

Storage:

C:\ Samsung 840 Series SSD 250 GB for Windows and misc. programs installed, and one day when I’m not lazy this one is going away and my C:\ will be moved to this one here below...

1x WD_Black SN750 1TB NVMe Internal Gaming SSD

B:\ 1x WD Black 2TB Performance Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch  - WD2003FZEX   (Slow but reliable storage for pictures, media, backups of stuff from old hard drives, general file / archive drive.)

G:\Games - Samsung 850 EVO 500TB SSD for video games… only about 50gb free on this one.

M:\ (M for MassEffect) - another 250gb Samsung 840 Series for all 4 Mass Effect games + Mods, also all three Dragon Ag games and The Sims 4 are on there too.  I’d move The Sims off if it wasn’t such a hassle.

S:\ - Samsung 860 QVO 1TB SSD… More gaming storage

V\: Video Games - 1TB SSD for EVEN MORE Video Games…  I think this is also Samsung, but not 100% sure.    Actually filled this one up with Fallout 4 mods last week and had to... delete games. 

Yeah I’m not upgrading a damn thing for like 3 to five more years.  Except maybe going up to 32gb RAM. :p

And of course, the second game I’m playing with this beast is Fallout 4.  Still, heavily heavily modded with 4k textures and other big mods and it’s been running smooth.

The first game was Cyberpunk 2077 and no regrets.  It was freaking beautiful and I can’t wait til it gets patched up and some more content added so I can play it again.  I had decided to preorder the game (I let myself preorder one thing a year, this was it for 2020) and blacklisted the game both here and on twitter so I didn’t see most of whatever controversies people keep talking about.  Game ran decent for me on my 2060 with RTX on, and runs amazing now. Honestly the prettiest game I’ve ever played, and I had a lot of fun with it.  I still log in and just drive around sometimes to see all the pretty.

REALLY hoping the Mass Effect remaster has RTX.  Can’t wait to see the game in 4k, maybe looking even better than ALOT makes it look.

And that the modders can make their mods work with it, too.

[marje]

Queering Motion Graphics

video essay

Tutor: Else Lagerspetz

1920×1080 px

8 min 28s

Queering Motion Graphics is a series of black and white video notes that question normatives in the field of motion graphics from a queer perspective. It showcases six components – frame, framerate, kinetic typography, eased motion, motion hierarchy, and character walk cycles – that can be taken into account when analyzing motion graphics projects. Some of the questions that the project inquiries are, “Why must the video be in a rectangular frame? What is an odd motion? How does the video feel in the eyes and the body of the viewer?”

Besides charting some seldomly asked questions about the field Queering Motion Graphics also celebrates the unappreciated and the overlooked parts of video and animation creation.

Queering Motion Graphics is available on Youtube and Vimeo video platforms.

Special thanks to Berit Silvia Kondratjev for voguing choreography

Kuidas õppida kväärilt animeerima? on Müürileht

Queering Motion Graphics on Tase’21

[seo-news-bangladesh]

What Intel’s image-enhancing AI means for the gaming industry?

Intel recently unveiled a deep learning system that turns 3D rendered graphics into photorealistic images. Tested on Grand Theft Auto 5, the neural network showed impressive results. The game’s developers have already done a great job of recreating Los Angeles and southern California in detail. But with Intel’s new machine learning system, the graphics turn from high-quality synthetic 3D to real-life depictions (with very minor glitches).

And what’s even more impressive is that the Intel’s AI is doing it at a relatively high framerate as opposed to photorealistic render engines that can take minutes or hours for a single frame. And this is just the preliminary results. The researchers say they can optimize the deep learning models to work much faster.

Does it mean that real-time photorealistic game engines are on the horizon, as some analysts have suggested? I would not bet on it yet, because several fundamental problems remain unsolved.

Deep learning for image enhancement

Before we can evaluate the feasibility of running real-time image enhancement, let’s have a high-level look at the deep learning system Intel has used.

The researchers at Intel have not provided full implementation details about the deep learning system they have developed. But they have published a paper on arXiv and posted a video on YouTube that provide useful hints on the kind of computation power you would need to run this model.

The full system, displayed below, is composed of several interconnected neural networks.

The G-buffer encoder transforms different render maps (G-buffers) into a set of numerical features. G-buffers are maps for surface normal information, depth, albedo, glossiness, atmosphere, and object segmentation. The neural network uses convolution layers to process this information and output a vector of 128 features that improve the performance of the image enhancement network and avoid artifacts that other similar techniques produce. The G-buffers are obtained directly from the game engine.

The image enhancement network takes as input the game’s rendered frame and the features from the G-buffer encoder and generates the photorealistic version of the image.

The remaining components, the discriminator and the LPIPS loss function, are used during training. They grade the output of the enhancement network by evaluating its consistency with the original game-rendered frame and by comparing its photorealistic quality with real images.

Inference costs for image enhancement

First, let’s see that, if the technology becomes available, whether gamers will be able to run it on their computers. For this, we need to calculate inference costs, or how much memory and computing power you need to run the trained model. For inference, you’ll only need the G-buffer encoder and image enhancement network, and we can cut the discriminator network.

The enhancement network accounts for the bulk of the work. According to Intel’s paper, this neural network is based on HRNetV2, a deep learning architecture meant for processing high-resolution images. High-resolution neural networks produce fewer visual artifacts than models that down-sample images.

According to Intel’s paper, “The HRNet processes an image via multiple branches that operate at different resolutions. Importantly, one feature stream is kept at relatively high resolution (1/4 of the input resolution) to preserve fine image structure.”

This means that, if you’re running the game at full HD (1920×1080), then the top row layers will be processing inputs at 480×270 pixels. The resolution halves on each of the lower rows. The researchers have changed the structure of each block in the neural network to also compute inputs from the G-buffer encoder (the RAD layers).

According to Intel’s paper, the G-buffer’s inputs include “one-hot encodings for material information, dense continuous values for normals, depth, and color, and sparse continuous information for bloom and sky buffers.”

The researchers note elsewhere in their paper that the deep learning model can still perform well with a subset of the G-buffers.

So, how much memory does the model need? Intel’s paper doesn’t state the memory size, but according to the HRNetV2 paper, the full network requires 1.79 gigabytes of memory for a 1024×2048 input. The image enhancement network used by Intel has a smaller input size, but we also need to account for the extra parameters introduced by the RAD layers and the G-buffer encoder. Therefore, it would be fair to assume that you’ll need at least one gigabyte of video memory to run deep learning–based image enhancement for full HD games and probably more than two gigabytes if you want 4K resolution.

One gigabyte of memory is not much given that gaming computers commonly have graphics cards with 4-8 GB of VRAM. And high-end graphics cards such as the GeForce RTX series can have up to 24 GB of VRAM.

But it is also worth noting that 3D games consume much of the graphics card’s resources. Games store as much data as possible on video memory to speed up render times and avoid swapping between RAM and VRAM, an operation that incurs a huge speed penalty. According to one estimate, GTA 5 consumes up to 3.5 GB of VRAM at full HD resolution. And GTA was released in 2013. Newer games such as Cyberpunk 2077, which have much larger 3D worlds and more detailed objects, can easily gobble up to 7-8 GB of VRAM. And if you want to play at high resolutions, then you’ll need even more memory.

So basically, with the current mid- and high-end graphics cards, you’ll have to choose between low-resolution photorealistic quality and high-resolution synthetic graphics.

But memory usage is not the only problem deep learning–based image enhancement faces.

Delays caused by non-linear processing

A much bigger problem, in my opinion, is the sequential and non-linear nature of deep learning operations. To understand this problem, we must first compare 3D graphics processing with deep learning inference.

Three-dimensional graphics rely on very large numbers of matrix multiplications. A rendered frame of 3D graphics starts from a collection of vertices, which are basically a set of numbers that represent the properties (e.g., coordinates, color, material, normal direction, etc.) of points on a 3D object. Before every frame is rendered, the vertices must go through a series of matrix multiplications that map their local coordinates to world coordinates to camera space coordinates to image frame coordinates. An index buffer bundles vertices into groups of threes to form triangles. These triangles are rasterized—or transformed into pixels— and every pixel then goes through its own set of matrix operations to determine its color based on material color, textures, reflection and refraction maps, transparency levels, etc.

This sounds like a lot of operations, especially when you consider that today’s 3D games are composed of millions of polygons. But there are two reasons you get very high framerates when playing games on your computer. First, graphics cards have been designed specifically for parallel matrix multiplications. As opposed to the CPU, which has at most a few dozen computing cores, graphics processors have thousands of cores, each of which can independently perform matrix multiplications.

Second, graphics transformations are mostly linear. And linear transformations can be bundled together. For instance, if you have separate matrices for world, view, and projection transformations, you can multiply them together to create one matrix that performs all three operations. This cuts down your operations by two-thirds. Graphics engines also use plenty of tricks to further cut down operations. For instance, if an object’s bounding box falls out of the view frustum (the pyramid that represents the camera’s perspective), it will be excluded from the render pipeline altogether. And triangles that are occluded by others are automatically removed from the pixel rendering process.

Deep learning also relies on matrix multiplications. Every neural network is composed of layers upon layers of matrix computations. This is why graphics cards have become very popular among the deep learning community in the past decade.

But unlike 3D graphics, the operations of deep learning can’t be combined. Layers in neural networks rely on non-linear activation functions to perform complicated tasks. Basically, this means that you can’t compress the transformations of several layers into a single operation.

For instance, say you have a deep neural network that takes a 100×100 pixel input image (10,000 features) and runs it through seven layers. A graphics card with several thousand cores might be able to process all pixels in parallel. But it will still have to perform the seven layers of neural network operations sequentially, which can make it difficult to provide real-time image processing, especially on lower-end graphics cards.

Therefore, another bottleneck we must consider is the number of sequential operations that must take place. If we consider the top layer of the image enhancement network there are 16 residual blocks that are sequentially linked. In each residual block, there are two convolution layers, RAD blocks, and ReLU operations that are sequentially linked. That amounts to 96 layers of sequential operations. And the image enhancement network can’t start its operations before the G-buffer encoder outputs its feature encodings. Therefore, we must add at least the two residual blocks that process the first set of high-resolution features. That’s eight more layers added to the sequence, which brings us to at least 108 layers of operations for image enhancement.

This means that, in addition to memory, you need high clock speeds to run all these operations in time. Here’s an interesting quote from Intel’s paper: “Inference with our approach in its current unoptimized implementation takes half a second on a GeForce RTX 3090 GPU.”

The RTX 3090 has 24 GB of VRAM, which means the slow, 2 FPS render rate is not due to memory limitations but rather due to the time it takes to sequentially process all the layers of the image enhancer network. And this isn’t a problem that will be solved by adding more memory or CUDA cores, but by having faster processors.

Again, from the paper: “Since G-buffers that are used as input are produced natively on the GPU, our method could be integrated more deeply into game engines, increasing efficiency and possibly further advancing the level of realism.”

Integrating the image enhancer network into the game engine would probably give a good boost to the speed, but it won’t result in playable framerates.

For reference, we can go back to the HRNet paper. The researchers used a dedicated Nvidia V100, a massive and extremely expensive GPU specially designed for deep learning inference. With no memory limitation and no hindrance by other in-game computations, the inference time for the V100 was 150 milliseconds per input, which is ~7 fps, not nearly enough to play a smooth game.

Development and training neural networks

Another vexing problem is the development and training costs of the image-enhancing neural network. Any company that would want to replicate Intel’s deep learning models will need three things: data, computing resources, and machine learning talent.

Gathering training data can be very problematic. Luckily for Intel, someone had solved it for them. They used the Cityscapes dataset, a rich collection of annotated images captured from 50 cities in Germany. The dataset contains 5,000 finely annotated images. According to the dataset’s paper, each of the annotated images required an average of 1.5 hours of manual effort to precisely specify the boundaries and types of objects contained in the image. These fine-grained annotations enable the image enhancer to map the right photorealistic textures onto the game graphics. Cityscapes was the result of a huge effort supported by government grants, commercial companies, and academic institutions. It might prove to be useful for other games that, like Grand Theft Auto, take place in urban settings.

But what if you want to use the same technique in a game that doesn’t have a corresponding dataset? In that case, it will be up to the game developers to gather the data and add the required annotations (a photorealistic version of Rise of the Tomb Raider, maybe?).

Compute resources will also pose a challenge. Training a network of the size of the image enhancer for tasks such as image segmentation would be feasible with a few thousand dollars—not a problem for large gaming companies. But when you want to do a generative task such as photorealistic enhancement, then training becomes much more challenging. It requires a lot of testing and tweaking of hyperparameters, and many more epochs of training, which can blow up the costs. Intel tuned and trained their model exclusively for GTA 5. Games that are similar to GTA 5 might be able to slash training costs by finetuning Intel’s trained model on the new game. Others might need to test with totally new architectures. Intel’s deep learning model works well for urban settings, where objects and people are easily separable. But it’s not clear how it would perform in natural settings, such as jungles and caves.

Gaming companies don’t have machine learning engineers, so they’ll also have to outsource the task or hire engineers, which adds more costs. The company will have to decide whether the huge costs of adding photorealistic render are worth the added gaming experience.

Intel’s photorealistic image enhancer shows how far you can push machine learning algorithms to perform interesting feats. But it will take a few more years before the hardware, the companies, and the market will be ready for real-time AI-based photorealistic rendering.

[vuejs2]

"Advanced animation patterns with Framer Motion" by @MaximeHeckel walks you through how propagate animations throughout several components, how to orchestrate complex layout transitions, and lots more https://t.co/kalQqZD6DD

[chanceywxy757]

How the 10 Worst GTA Online Money Generator from GTA5MONEYGEN.ONLINE Fails of All Time Could Have Been Prevented

Doubters have actually implicated publishers of abusing lawsuits, overemphasizing the damages done to knock rip off designers out of commission as well as frighten others. However, there's little doubt that online cheats impact many players, not just the ones who install them-- and authors can rely on that fact tipping lawful choices in their support. Since the moment of composing, cheating and also modding the tale mode element of GTA 5 is fair game, yet the online setting is a various story. Take 2, the game's publisher, has a tendency to relocate promptly, shutting down one cyberpunk after one more.

You can obtain all tools in the game conveniently, yet limitless ammo isn't feasible. There is no way to get limitless money through cheats in GTA 5. You'll have to make use of legitimate ways to generate income in GTA 5, such as buying the stock exchange. Though several of the hacks are not harmful, there are still a lot of gamers who take cheats as well far and mess up the game environment for everyone else. So today, Superstar Studios and Take-Two Interactive have actually made a massive leap to removing these cyberpunks.

Some gamers claim that they were illegitimately captured in the reset wave, while others are directly up ridiculing Superstar for not capturing them, or stating that their accounts still have millions left in the financial institution. Some are excusing the use of the problem by defining GTA Online as a grindy game, or are stunned that Superstar would go this far, as opposed to simply erasing the cash. Others are confused that Superstar would establish such steps when the MMO has, in their view, a lot larger disloyalty issues coming from malicious players who proactively attempt as well as destroy other people's games. Nonetheless, in spite of this, unfaithful remains to be a large problem in Grand Burglary Automobile Online, and recently it's only become worse. Gamers are clearly tired of Superstar's pretension, as well as especially the lack of interest they've offered to fixing the game's various free money problems. This implies that players who use cheats to add large amounts of money would have the ability to influence supply rates for non-cheating players as well, and Rockstar can't have that. It would skew the balance and negatively affect the game experience of gamers who don't wish to consider using cheats.

Spawn Golf Cart.

Said player then obtains charged an insurance fine due to the fact that they are "responsible" for "ruining" an additional gamer's cars and truck. Moreover, that unjustly criticized player obtains "bad sport" points, increasing their opportunities of entering into even worse servers with even more cyberpunks. If the track has a visual alongside it, try continually driving on and also off it, weaving backward and forward. Somehow or one more, this controls the physics of the game, boosting your auto's top speed. This strategy is known as "curb improving" and "kerb enhancing," as well as it's a lot more effective on PC, where you can get greater framerates. Of the lots of methods to generate income in GTA Online, racing seems like one of the much less criminal ones.

Based on the previous video games we are aware of what to anticipate from the Grand Theft Car 6 Cheats. Staple rip off codes like "Lower Wanted Level" and also Unlock All Weapon" are nearly guaranteed to be in the game. Many players are on the up and also up, grinding away or making use of Shark Cards to make cash money, however there are lots of cheats, also. Some are fun, briefly altering the look of other gamers in the entrance hall right into a sphere, yet others go a little bit too far-- be via making use of god mode or spawning limitless money. To make one of the most money in GTA Online as fast as possible you want to resource top-range automobiles and then market them on at the highest possible cost. This can be achieved by cheating the game right into only offering you distinct, premium lorries that aren't replicates. There is no way to obtain limitless ammunition by means of cheats in GTA 5.

The cheats listed below isn't for normal variation of the game. They will certainly work just if your port your game to PS4 from previous generation console. However, programmers of GTA 5 really did not add money rip off to the game. Right here, we have actually gathered for you the recognized rip off codes for GTA 5 on PlayStation 4!

Rockstar constructed these tools to handle their own livestreams or various other events.

This set of cheats are all targeted in your personality, so if you happen to're trying to spawn completely different automobiles to get round after that do that list of cheats proper right below.

Select which cheat to appoint to the LT/L2 faster way toggle.

Below you will the exact same cheats equated for the PS3 version of Grand Burglary Automobile 5.

This can likewise create the in-game Initial Person Speedometers on the PS4/PC/Xbox One version of the game to exceed their regular limitations, exposing that HGVs are capable of speeds of approximately 150 mph.

With each time you enter the cheat, time will certainly decrease even additionally.

Nevertheless, when it comes to GTA Online, you can obtain banned for using cheats to obtain a benefit over other gamers If you're a proud owner of Xbox One or Xbox 360, after that utilize these GTA 5 cheats sequence on your Xbox console to include some crazy components in the game. When it comes to GTA 5 cheats as well as codes, you can use them on PS3, PS4, Xbox One/360, and also PC. However, you have to understand the right command to make a specific cheat work. So, if you're starting with GTA 5 without understanding of cheats as well as codes, then do not worry.

Gta 5 Cheats: Vehicle Generate Cheats.

If, for one reason or another, you can not make use of Grand Theft Vehicle 5 cheats, then attempt utilizing an option method to apply cheat codes. As an example, if you're using COMPUTER and you can not apply cheats via key-boards, after that try utilizing the cellular phone to apply the cheats. Regrettably, no, there is no GTA 5 money cheat to obtain easy in-game cash. Much like various other players, you will have to strive to make some cash in Grand Burglary Automobile 5. It's very unlikely that you will certainly get prohibited for using GTA 5 cheats in the story campaign, specifically if you are playing offline.

The 'Enhanced and Improved' version of GTA 5 for PS5 and Xbox Collection X was introduced in mid-2020 and would certainly represent the third generation of consoles that the game will feature on. Its announcement as well as ultimate launch will certainly guarantee that GTA followers are amused up until GTA VI has an official date. Normal recipients of this promotion may wonder why they haven't gotten their free $1 million this month. The system to distribute the money has changed, and also we have all the details. As such, the game was re-released on last-gen, and it's also involving the PlayStation 5 as well as Xbox Series X for one more round.

Keep reading as we run through all GTA 5 rip off codes, including information on just how to activate each gameplay tweak regardless of your favored platform. Respecting its forebears, the GTA 5 cheats system does without a doubt involve numerous button inputs, with codes and also phone keypad series for COMPUTER as well. If you've ever before wished to make individuals explode with your fists or generate a BMX GTA 5 Online Generator from gta5moneygen on the top of a building (we have actually all existed) then you have actually concerned the best area. GTA 5 cheats will certainly aid you get one of the most out of Superstar's near-limitless digital playground.

[baronland]

Tips For Ranking Up In Pubg And Pubg Mobile

Crowley considers that playing games in a means which are far removed from how that they're actually meant to be played basically produces a fresh game. He utilizes Naughty Dog's best-post-apocalyptic-game-to-have-that-bit-with-giraffes-of-the-last-generation The Last of Us for instance. View Distance just affects the distance where items in the landscape get left in and does not have an impact on when automobiles or players become left in. Our preferred setting for View Distance is Low, however, in the event that you can spare some additional FPS don't hesitate to crank it greater. This setting will return to a personal taste. In the previous shadows from some other players would not be left in Very Low and Low, nevertheless thanks to an optimization they do. Not merely do shadows occupy a great deal of processing power and lower your framerate however they are also able to reduce visibility by making it more difficult to see in buildings that are darker. 

In case you are unfairly treated or hurt by a different client, you have the right to inform and ask others to abide by the Rules of Conduct.

If you are getting stuck or plateauing though you're raising the quantity of time you are playing PUBG, then think about implementing the aforementioned tips.

You will practically have the ability to modify your goal by moving your cell phone.

Following a few games, you are going to determine which gun you are most comfortable with.

But if you end up not able to prevent confrontation or are only feeling somewhat reckless, you will find several best practices for living the experience.

Taking things slow whilst playing may make you very far, even when you're bad at shooting. But do not confuse this with swimming as most of us understand biking is looked down upon in most games. It was only when I started queueing along with different players whom I began to learn the manner of this game. Part of what made it easier wasn't just that they shared with the tips that they learned along the way, but falling in having a teammate or a whole squad requires some of the strain off you. Rather than you against 100 other players, it is you and a couple of teammates from 25 other teams. When there are a lot of folks, you are able to loot for a team, observe one another's backs, and vote decisions on the fly. As with other battle royale-style games, every PUBG match begins with 100 players falling from a plane over an island. Also Read How To Get Better Pubg Stats With Pubganalyzer

How To Improve Aim

He posits that when most of the players in a match of PUBG ceased shooting each other and chose to roleplay as chimps rather, it'd violate the game. But no one knows what would occur because a minimum of one person will constantly wish to do murder before the final minute.

You will virtually have the ability to modify your goal by moving your cell phone. Aiming is about being exact once you want it the most. It is possible to put your sensitivity to lower values to be certain that you don't unintentionally aim at random places while attempting to take an opponent down. You will also have to produce a reasonable compromise as you'll want speed whilst scouting around. There is an assortment of vehicles that you could use from the game. Read More About Improve Pubg Visibility Guide

New Pubg Mobile Map Is Literally Just Killhouse From Call Of Duty 

Nevertheless, if you are concealed and see somebody coming to your construction, you may often startle them and catch them off guard by hurrying them. Should you give them the time to put in your construction and they guess someone is indoors, despite the fact that you're concealing and prepared, they might still get the jump on you or throw a grenade inside.

I saw a few videos of people playing the game, and I understood I was doing something wrong. Or, instead, not incorrect, but something which has been preventing me from performing well in the components I was doing exactly the worst at. I could not win a gunfight to save my life--literally--which meant that the careful planning and loot collecting I did was constantly for nothing. I had been always making top 20 or even 10, and sometimes even top 5, but heading for the gold looked from my reach.

There's a really great probability that other members of your competitor's team are all around and can ambush you as soon as you do this. We have seen this happen a few times, and thus don't create this newcomer mistake.

If you are a beginner, steer clear of high traffic areas. Anytime you find a major bunch of buildings, then it is best to not land there. Should you encounter heavy fire in one, assess the automobile gym, whether it is low or the automobile begins smoking, then bail after possible. Audio in PUBG is much more important than sight oftentimes.

You can't research the map with no other players, therefore the only means to do this is to leap into other places and sometimes to pull your chute and float further away from the airplane's path. Utilizing vehicles allow you to go across the map faster, but it is going to also inform enemies which you're coming. As soon as you make it into a little circle with approximately 30 players left you to need to abandon the automobile unless you're in a huge open area and you intend to run people over to get a circle or 2. Considering that"PUBG Mobile" is a survival game, the only way players can boost their likelihood of living is by anticipating the worst at all times. It's sensible to place the crosshair on the screen correctly to minimize the amount of moves players will need to make when confronting an enemy. The aim is just one of the most essential items to acquire a gunfight from PUBG Mobile. Having a fantastic goal, players may knock almost any enemy, it matters not whether they're better or not.

[fostersffff]

Can Xbox win next gen?

Thank you for asking me this anon, I’ve been dying for an excuse to talk about console war stuff.

With what we know right now? I don’t think there’s a fucking chance.

To begin, based on what I’ve seen, Sony genuinely internalized their lessons from the PS3′s wack ass cell architecture by talking with developers about what they want out of the system, which has led to people like Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney- a man who could not possibly have less of a reason to pick sides in a console war- praising the PS5 and talking about how incredible it is, whereas Microsoft has made A Very Strong Box... perhaps even History’s Strongest Box.

A Very Strong Box would be perfectly fine, but there’s a problem: because they have said and reconfirmed that the Series X isn’t going to have any first-party exclusives for at least the first few years, every game is going to have to run on an Xbox One, and Microsoft just discontinued the One X, meaning that games are going to have to run on the One S. This will result in one of two things happening: either they’re going to primarily develop for the Series X and downgrade games for the One S, which will almost certainly result in HILARIOUS jank like the PS3 version of Shadow of Mordor, or they’ll develop for the One S and just crank the hell out of the settings for the Series X, which will absolutely result in incredible resolutions and framerates, but model/texture work won’t be nearly as impressive as it could be. Compare the reception of Halo Infinite’s graphics versus the the big-budget stuff on the PS5 showcase like Ratchet & Clank and Miles Morales. Plus, in either situation, first-party games won’t be able to be developed around having a Solid State Drive, the benefits of which are immediately apparent if you go watch that Ratchet & Clank trailer- the only way they can get environmental swapping like that without loading screen is because of an SSD.

Speaking of SSD, there’s another problem: Microsoft has yet to formally announce the Lockhart, which according to leaks is a budget Series X, and we know it exists because there are references to Lockhart in the Windows 10 OS. There’s a possibility that one of the budget cuts Microsoft will make is using a standard optical hard drive instead of a SSD. This would cripple not just Microsoft but possibly the entire industry for the whole generation, because for as good as those PS5 games look now, they’re only going to look better down the line. A possible future is that third-party developers won’t take full advantage of SSDs since they’ll want to make sure their games will run well on everything, and as a result Sony’s first-party output will blow everything else out of the water because they know they always have an SSD. Even if the Lockhart does have an SSD and make cuts elsewhere like the PS5 with no disc drive, a lower spec Xbox Series console almost certainly means that developers are going to be required to make sure it runs on both, which will just cause more issues for them. I guess the positive side to both of these problems is that they are technically consumer friendly- making sure people who don’t want to upgrade to a Xbox Series console will still be able to play games like Halo Infinite, and making sure people are able to afford some kind of upgrade even if they can’t afford the Series X- but I don’t think most people are thinking of it like that, especially when the pomp and circumstance around a new console generation has always been about how much better the new hotness is.

On the subject of new hotness, Microsoft’s marketing strategy is very bad. Xbox has never had the best names, but this holiday Microsoft will have the Xbox One S, the Xbox Series X, and whatever they call the Lockhart, presumably the Xbox Series S or Series L. Maybe you and me can distinguish that with relative ease, but there’s going to be no shortage of tech illiterate parents and grandparents stumbling over themselves to remember what their kids wanted, or kids writing down and asking for the wrong thing, or even people buying for themselves trying to remember if it’s a One X or Series X or Series One or whatever. And we know this kind of thing is a problem because it 100% contributed to the Wii U’s abysmal sales. The other aspect of their marketing strategy is that they really... aren’t doing much to celebrate the Series X being new hotness. They’ve announced the Series X UI is going to be identical to the Xbox One, and just by looking at game boxes you’d have a hard time knowing if the Series X is a brand new console or just an enhancement the One X because of how identical it is:

Same banner, same smaller black banner advertising what console to use, little white text in the top right advertising graphical fidelity. It’s nearly identical. Compared with the reveal of what PS5 boxes will look like:

It’s still blue plastic, but check out what white banner and black text! No more “Only on Playstation” text so there’s less to distract from the box art! Even if you want to argue that no one but turbo nerds really care about the boxes- and you’d be correct to do so- there is something to having them look even slightly different to signal “THIS IS NEW!” Also, going back to marketing, Smart Delivery is a terrible name for Cross Buy/“you own it on the old thing and the new thing”, and they’re not even enforcing that name for consistency despite featuring it heavily in their advertising because EA is calling it “Dual Entitlement”, which is actually still a better name:

Also, the OPTIMIZED FOR SERIES X sticker. Madden 21’s box art is already fucking awful enough without also needing that big ol’ OPTIMIZED FOR SERIES X sticker making it an even bigger mess.

Then there’s all those studios they bought up: your tastes may differ, but the only studio in that bunch that I think can produce worthwhile games is Obsidian. Ninja Theory’s got Hellblade but not much else, Double Fine is going to be a fucking money pit because Tim Schaffer just revealed they were going to CUT ALL OF THE BOSS FIGHTS OUT OF PSYCHONAUTS 2 BECAUSE THEY SPENT ALL THEIR MONEY ON JACK BLACK until they got bought and funded by Microsoft, and the other studios they acquired like inXile and Compulsion are kinda just… fine. Even if they did have an absolute killer’s row of developers, I think about what Rare’s been doing since they were acquired (although people seem to like Sea of Thieves now that it’s had some updates, and I sincerely hope Everwild is as cool as it looks), and I think of this recent quote from the head of Xbox Game Studios:

“It’s kind-of a phased thing. Take Compulsion. They’re working on their next game and have spent the last year on early ideation. I try to keep us as far away from that as possible. And then, as it starts to get exposure within the organisation, feedback will come in and things will start to steer. But it’s important to leave them alone for as long as possible, until they’ve got something that can walk on its own. And then there’s no shortage of feedback within Xbox.” (emphasis mine)

… which makes me think about what happened with Platinum’s Scalebound, a game that somehow transformed from a single-player action RPG to an online multiplayer hunting(?) game and was cancelled because Platinum just couldn’t meet deadlines and am overwhelmed with dread.

The last thing is to think of that really just completely undercuts Microsoft is that fact that all of their Xbox games are also going to be playable on Windows 10. Obviously, gaming PCs are more expensive than consoles- even if both consoles wind up at a super high price point, getting comparable or better performance on a PC will cost just as much, or more- but it still cuts out a portion of people who might otherwise be persuaded to buy an Xbox if they wind up with a lot of good exclusives.

I think the only things Microsoft can claim as an inarguable advantage is the fact that the Series X is A Very Strong Box... perhaps even History’s Strongest Box, and that Xbox Game Pass is an insanely good deal (but again, Windows 10). Right now, they also have the Xbox One’s backwards compatibility baked-in, which is excellent, but Sony could potentially pull out the “PS5 can play PS1-4 games” card, which would nuke Microsoft’s “largest launch line-up in history” from orbit. Their only other possible advantage would be price, which is why despite the fact that we’re roughly four months out from launch, we know nothing about price of either console. I think they’re playing chicken to see who reveals their price first, and how low they can go before it would be suicide for the other company to go lower. And- this is wild, baseless speculation, but fuck it- Sony recently announced they’re increasing production of launch PS5’s up from 6m to 9m. It’s true that gaming sales have actually gone up despite/because of the current state of the world, but who knows what things are going to be like in four months, and either way the average person still probably can’t afford a huge purchase… which could mean that the PS5 isn’t such a huge purchase. I don’t know the cost of the PS5 components, but Sony might be willing to go absurdly low and sell at a loss for a while just to put Microsoft in that position, where they literally can not go lower than them (or they COULD, because Microsoft as a whole has theoretically infinite money, but I can’t imagine them wanting to accept that much of a loss).

tl;dr: Naw, man.

[flavoredgames481]

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