#what is virtual ram

[chdd2pyen]

https://www.futureelectronics.com/p/semiconductors--analog--regulators-reference--linear-regulators/lm317d2t-tr-stmicroelectronics-8253809

What is memory, ferroelectric ram, fram vs eeprom, What isFeRAM

FM28V202A Series 2 Mb (128 K × 16) 3.6 V F-RAM Memory - TSPO II-44

[machine-saint]

the op of that "you should restart your computer every few days" post blocked me so i'm going to perform the full hater move of writing my own post to explain why he's wrong

why should you listen to me: took operating system design and a "how to go from transistors to a pipelined CPU" class in college, i have several servers (one physical, four virtual) that i maintain, i use nixos which is the linux distribution for people who are even bigger fucking nerds about computers than the typical linux user. i also ran this past the other people i know that are similarly tech competent and they also agreed OP is wrong (haven't run this post by them but nothing i say here is controversial).

anyway the tl;dr here is:

you don't need to shut down or restart your computer unless something is wrong or you need to install updates

i think this misconception that restarting is necessary comes from the fact that restarting often fixes problems, and so people think that the problems are because of the not restarting. this is, generally, not true. in most cases there's some specific program (or part of the operating system) that's gotten into a bad state, and restarting that one program would fix it. but restarting is easier since you don't have to identify specifically what's gone wrong. the most common problem i can think of that wouldn't fall under this category is your graphics card drivers fucking up; that's not something you can easily reinitialize without restarting the entire OS.

this isn't saying that restarting is a bad step; if you don't want to bother trying to figure out the problem, it's not a bad first go. personally, if something goes wrong i like to try to solve it without a restart, but i also know way, way more about computers than most people.

as more evidence to point to this, i would point out that servers are typically not restarted unless there's a specific need. this is not because they run special operating systems or have special parts; people can and do run servers using commodity consumer hardware, and while linux is much more common in the server world, it doesn't have any special features to make it more capable of long operation. my server with the longest uptime is 9 months, and i'd have one with even more uptime than that if i hadn't fucked it up so bad two months ago i had to restore from a full disk backup. the laptop i'm typing this on has about a month of uptime (including time spent in sleep mode). i've had servers with uptimes measuring in years.

there's also a lot of people that think that the parts being at an elevated temperature just from running is harmful. this is also, in general, not true. i'd be worried about running it at 100% full blast CPU/GPU for months on end, but nobody reading this post is doing that.

the other reason i see a lot is energy use. the typical energy use of a computer not doing anything is like... 20-30 watts. this is about two or three lightbulbs worth. that's not nothing, but it's not a lot to be concerned over. in terms of monetary cost, that's maybe $10 on your power bill. if it's in sleep mode it's even less, and if it's in full-blown hibernation mode it's literally zero.

there are also people in the replies to that post giving reasons. all of them are false.

temporary files generally don't use enough disk space to be worth worrying about

programs that leak memory return it all to the OS when they're closed, so it's enough to just close the program itself. and the OS generally doesn't leak memory.

'clearing your RAM' is not a thing you need to do. neither is resetting your registry values.

your computer can absolutely use disk space from deleted files without a restart. i've taken a server that was almost completely full, deleted a bunch of unnecessary files, and it continued fine without a restart.

[simbury]

How I got my Sims 2 game working on my new Windows 11 laptop, step by step.

OKAY. Gadies and Lentlemen.

I have seen plenty of these around, but I wanted to share my process!

So I bought an MSI creator laptop. The specs are as follows:

CPU: 13th gen Intel i7-13700H

RAM: 16 GB DDR5

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 laptop GPU

Step One: Fresh install. I used the EA App to install the UC version on my new laptop.

Step Two: Download and install RPC launcher. This will automatically apply the 4gb patch. Run as administrator, but not in any kind of compatibility which renders the 4gb patch useless.

Step Three: Download and install Graphics Rule Maker. I used all of the recommended settings, aside from texture memory which I set at 2048 mb for reasons that will become clear later.

Step Four: Memory allocation fix (empty standby list). Explanation here.

Step Five: Setting virtual memory. I used instructions from this post at MTS - My virtual memory paging file is now minimum of 25000 and maximum of 30000. You'll need to adjust to your system's own specs.

Step Six: In game settings. Shadows Off. Neighbours Off. Lighting Medium. RPC Settings. Apply 4GB patch. Automatically Clean Cache. Lot Imposters Optimized. Sim/Object Shadows Classic. I also have lot view ocean reflections ticked.

If your game works like this with no flashing and crashing, awesome. Mine did not. I firstly tried several different texture memory sizes, but they had 0 impact.

I believe the next step is only for NVIDIA cards, but may be wrong.

Step Seven: DXVK. The most recent version from, here. There are plenty of instructions on how to install out there. But make sure you install the 32bit version. I have these two following lines in my DXVK.conf file (and do make sure it is saved as a conf file, NOT a txt or similar).

d3d9.maxAvailableMemory=2048

d3d9.presentInterval=0

The first line corresponds to the texture memory mentioned earlier. DXVK installs won't recognise more than that and having it higher can cause crashes apparently. The second line... No idea what it does but it was mentioned in several guides and reddit posts.

I don't know if the newer versions of DXVK allow fullscreen mode as the older ones did not, but I play in borderless mode anyway which works.

I also delete my thumbnails folder every so often.

I hope this helps someone, this silly old game can be cantankerous but I was determined to get it running again!

[anachronisims]

How to EFFECTIVELY Use Empty Standby List to Reduce Flashing and Crashing

This tutorial is for TS2. Obviously. This is virtually the last "chapter" of advice for the Pink Flashing Survey Report (still forthcoming as a single readable thing but posted in bits and pieces over the last six months). PS it's a lonnnnnnng post. Ctrl+F "tldr" for the very short version once you open the cut.

"Part 1" of the Empty Standby List ("ESL") tutorial was already written comprehensively with screenshots by Digi at her wordpress. Following Digi's tutorial will get you set up with ESL as a routine automated background task your computer runs, typically every five minutes.

@gayars set up two instances of the routine, each running every five minutes, staggered two/three minutes apart. In other words, task 1 runs at 12:00, task 2 runs at 12:03, task 1 runs at 12:05, task 2 runs at 12:08, etc. However, I found that this negatively impacted the graphical performance of my game, notably by having the ESL task window flash over the game window, which I had never seen before, nor since reverting back to a single 5-minute task routine.

Anyway. Go do Digi's tutorial if you haven't already; I'll wait.

Background on Why this Matters

So, now your computer will be wiping the standby memory every five minutes. The thing is, this won't be able to have much impact on your game unless you wait to let it wipe before you do a major loading action.

Major loading actions are, in general order of strain (most to least strenuous):

Loading a full neighborhood.

Loading a large (3x4 or bigger) populated lot.

Loading a large unpopulated lot.

Loading actual CAS, if you have a lot of non-defaulted CC.

Loading a medium (3x3) populated lot.

Loading a medium unpopulated lot.

Loading a small (2x3 or smaller) populated lot.

Loading a small unpopulated lot.

Loading CAS catalogs from within a lot (e.g. using FFS clothing tool, "Change Appearance" on the mirror, shopping for clothes/trying on clothes on a community lot).

Turning up your lot view settings (generating other lots' lot imposters within your current lot)/panning the camera around.

You should already be doing at least all medium- and large-lot loading with the Lot View Settings Juggling Method, and “uint LotSkirtIncrease” removed from your userstartup.cheat - otherwise whenever you load a lot you are compounding the strain by also having the neighborhood load at the same time.

Using Resource Monitor Effectively

If you watched the Jessa Channel tutorial on flashing, she recommended downloading a third-party RAM usage monitoring software. This is unnecessary. For purposes of reducing your crashing, all you need is the native Windows program "Resource Monitor" that she also recommends.

To open it:

Click the Windows symbol/start menu.

Begin typing "Resource Monitor."

Click Resource Monitor when it shows up.

Once it is open, get to the useful information:

Click the "Memory" tab.

Make sure the "Processes" and "Physical Memory" subs are fully open, as above.

Sort by "Commit (KB)."

Each time you reopen Resource Monitor, it should restore your last view settings, so you won't have to repeat these steps.

While Resource Monitor is still open, "Pin" it to the taskbar so it will always be readily accessible.

Right-click the icon on the taskbar.

Click "Pin to taskbar."

If it says "Unpin from taskbar" you have already done this step :)

Now comes the monitoring part. You will focus on the dark-blue "Standby" block of the bar graph on Physical Memory.

Every fifth minute, when the ESL task runs, this will flash down to 0 and then pop up to about 30-75, depending on what you are doing. It will go higher faster if you are doing stuff, obviously, and hover pretty low if your computer is just sitting still. TLDR the remainder of this tutorial: only take stress actions when Standby is below 100.

As we all know too well, TS2 has a 4gb RAM limit. The problem is, TS2 seems to count the memory that is in standby, too, not just the committed/working set. Thus, before you take a major loading action (that is going to push up to 1.5gb into Standby), you need to wait for Standby to wipe so the game doesn't accidentally think it's using more memory than it is. Got it?

This is how much RAM my game is using when my neighborhood opens, pretty closely zoomed in on any particular lot. If it is zoomed out further - like a whole city block - both committed and working set are easily over 2.2gb. When I pan around the neighborhood, it continues going up. Portions of the hood that go back out of view seem to get relegated to standby, but yes, my game has crashed just from looking too much at my neighborhood from too wide an angle. Unless I slow down and let ESL run before moving on to the next section.

Six months of diligent Resource Manager monitoring has resulted in substantial reductions of crashing and flashing on my first hood view load and first lot view load. It is not 100% guaranteed, but it cuts it back to Very Playable Levels. And when I have tested the theory by purposefully not letting ESL run before a stress point, it always flashes and/or crashes within the next couple minutes.

SO! Here's what I do when I'm launching my game.

Because of overheating concerns, I always fully shut down my computer when I'm not using it for more than an hour. If I have been playing and experience a flash or crash, I will restart before trying again. @infinitesimblr, a survey Respondent who reported virtually no flashing or crashing despite a vast CC catalog, also recommends restarting between using Bodyshop or SimPE and the full game. I have found it may make a difference with Bodyshop (which I use too rarely to make a pseudoscientific claim) but that I have found basically no impact going from SimPE to the game. YMMV.

Immediately after Windows is done loading, I open Resource Monitor and wait a few minutes. Often background updates begin running and the Standby bar goes crazy - sometimes filling up the entire available RAM - and I just let it sit and do its thing. (Usually I start the computer right before my kid's bedtime so I am not actively waiting on it or anything. Go take a shower or make a sandwich or drink some water, like you did in the old days when the game itself took 20 minutes to load.)

Once the standby bar levels out and is consistently peaking no higher than about 250mb between ESL wipes, after the next ESL wipe, I will launch the game. (Usually between logging into Windowsat the beginning of storytime and checking Resource Monitor before we go do tuck-in, it is reliably hanging out below 100 unless a big TS4 or Windows update was downloading.)

Reminder: do not delete thumbnails anymore prior to launching the game. I also have turned off RPC's clear caches option and have observed faster loading times with minimal increases in crashing.

After the neighborhood selection screen comes up, wait for ESL to run again before opening your neighborhood.

If you have continue to have more than VERY sporadic hood load flashing after taking these steps, you should try launching into a subhood if you have one, then pivoting to the main hood if that's where you're playing that session after yet another ESL wipe. If that doesn't help you simply need to thin out your hood or accept the flashing. (I ended up deleting about 25% of my deco trees and 10-15 outer-lying lots that will be re-placed in a subhood.)

After the hood is loaded, navigate to the lot you want, but DO NOT actually load that lot until ESL runs yet again. Ditto for CAS - Do not select "Create New Family" until ESL has run again.

Play should be proceed as normal at this point. You probably don't need to alt-tab back to Resource Monitor again unless your sims are going traveling or you are changing play lots.

BONUS TIP #1: You can put a shortcut to the ESL routine on your desktop and push it manually (just double click the icon) if you don't feel like waiting once the game is loaded. I have had imperfect results with this vs. just waiting the five minutes, though, because the game wants to run through some stuff and flush it. But it's an option for you to experiment with.

BONUS TIP #2: If you have a really deep clothing/hair CC catalog, try to avoid using the FFS clothing tool option where you select every outfit for the sim, and their hair and makeup, at the same time. Instead, choose individual outfits by type and use the regular mirror option to change appearance (or SimBlender has it, I think, so they can do it where they already are).

[a-couple-of-notes]

I’m considering writing a longer piece on this, but I’m so curious and excited about what Hades 2’s endgame is going to be. Hades 1 is unique in that it virtually has no end; the story content may stop but the narrative supports infinite replayability, as Zagreus has reconciled everyone and turned it into a slice of life. Thematically, it works: life amidst death, the fact that Zagreus meshes his joy in fighting with his responsibilities.

But this isn’t gonna work with Melinoë. The Crossroads isn’t a home, it’s a war camp. Mel doesn’t like fighting, she’s a soldier with a duty. The narrative of Hades 2 as it stands is shaping up to be a lot like the previous Supergiant titles in its interest with war, revenge, and systemic critique.

And the power in previous Supergiant endings has always come from putting down the weapons.

(Or, well, thematically at least. Sorry, Red.)

It’s choosing to live in the Transistor with Red’s sword boyfriend instead of remaking a corrupted society. It’s standing aside and letting Oralech have a chance at his freedom. And, of course, it’s choosing to put aside the Battering Ram to save Zulf.

In truth, Mel as a character reminds me a lot of the Kid—raised from a young age to do a hard task, no real parents, a sense of responsibility and duty. And like the Kid, I think the most satisfying ending for her would be to stop fighting. I definitely don’t see her incorporating fighting into her post-Chronos world like Zagreus—at least not healthily.

So I wonder what they’ll do here. I guess what I’m thinking right now is that you’ll be able to play as long as you want after the final bosses but won’t be able to gain the true ending till you make the decision to stop entirely. It might present like Bastion’s final choice, like you can go back and keep playing or stop and finish the narrative.

Either way, I’m thoroughly enjoying Hades 2, and the return to some narrative themes that the first game didn’t deal with. I suppose we’ll see in time…

[girlactionfigure]

intifada washing

WHITEWASH (verb)

deliberately attempt to conceal unpleasant or incriminating facts about (someone or something). (Oxford Dictionary)

DOGWHISTLE (noun)

an expression or statement that has a secondary meaning intended to be understood only by a particular group of people. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY 

anything illegal or unethical that can be explained away under an innocent and probable guise [whether] true or otherwise. (Law Dictionary)

These calls for an intifada are not metaphorical. This is an explicit call to violence. The red upside down triangle emoji is what Hamas uses in livestreams before they hit their (human) target. 

WHAT WERE THE INTIFADAS?

The word intifada comes from an Arabic word meaning “to shake off,” but it’s a term used for violent uprisings or rebellions. It was first used in the 1950s to describe the Iraqi Intifada, a series of violent protests to overthrow the Hashemite dynasty. 

In the Israeli-Palestinian context, there have been two intifadas, which were campaigns of bombings, suicide bombings, stabbings, car-ramming, lynchings, and stone-throwing, primarily directed at civilians. It’s worth noting that the stones in question here weren’t small pebbles, but rather, large stones that killed people. 

Some apologists claim that an intifada doesn’t necessarily describe a violent campaign because the word simply comes from the term for “shake off.” But this is a completely disingenuous argument, like claiming “Mein Kampf” simply means “my struggle” or “sieg hiel” simply means “hail victory.” 

Objectively, the intifadas deteriorated the living conditions of Palestinians. It was in response to the intifadas that Israel enacted checkpoints and constructed the West Bank wall. Thousands of Palestinians were killed in the intifadas, both in retaliatory IDF attacks and by fellow Palestinians on the charge of being collaborators. If history teaches us anything, there is no strategic reason to call for an intifada. An intifada won’t destroy Israel or free Palestine; it will provoke Israel to tighten restrictions. The only reason to call for an intifada is if one wishes for Israelis to be murdered. The only reason to call for a global intifada is if one wishes for Jews to be murdered. 

ARE THE PROTESTORS CALLING FOR AN INTIFADA CALLING FOR VIOLENCE?

Unequivocally, yes. While every person in attendance surely doesn’t understand what they are calling for, the organizers of the protests — those leading the chants and encouraging people to follow — very much know. In fact, they themselves have ties to groups that slaughtered innocents in the last intifadas.

Virtually all “pro-Palestine” protests in the United States are organized by groups such as Within Our Lifetime, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Samidoun. 

Samidoun has ties to the internationally-recognized terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has an office in Tehran, and is banned as a terrorist organization in Germany. The PFLP participated in both intifadas, killing scores of innocents, such as Dror Forer and Aran Bachar in 1993 (First Intifada) and three teenagers in the Karnei Shomron Mall suicide bombing in 2002 (Second Intifada). 

Within Our Lifetime and Students for Justice in Palestine both openly support Hamas, other Islamic Republic proxies, and the October 7 massacre. SJP’s founder, Hatem Bazian, is also the co-founder of American Muslims for Palestine, an organization formed by former members of the HolyLand Foundation, KindHearts, and the Islamic Association of Palestine, all of which were disbanded after its members were convicted of transferring material support to Hamas. 

Hamas took responsibility for two suicide bombings during the First Intifada and at least 54 suicide bombings during the Second Intifada. 

To them — to the people leading these protests — the intifadas have always been synonymous with violence against civilians. In deed and in action, they are showing us that another intifada would be no different. 

IS CALLING FOR AN INTIFADA ANTISEMITIC?

In this context, yes. Firstly, you have to understand that just about half of the world’s Jews live in Israel. In all Palestinian intifadas, all Israeli civilians were not only considered fair targets, but were in fact the preferred targets. If you believe every single Israeli is a fair target, then what you believe is that half of the world’s Jews are a fair target. That is no less genocidal than believing all of the world’s Jews are a fair target. Not even Hitler killed half of the world’s Jews; a third of the world’s Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

It’s simply disingenuous to divorce calls for a Palestinian intifada from antisemitism. While Israelis of all backgrounds were killed at the hands of Palestinian terrorists in the intifadas, the terrorists sought Jewish areas, not, say, Druze villages. 

During the intifadas, Palestinian leaders mobilized their population with explicitly antisemitic rhetoric, drawing from unfavorable Hadiths about Jews, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and even Mein Kampf. Both political and religious leaders delivered speeches and sermons rife with antisemitism. There is absolutely no reason to believe another intifada would be any different; the October 7 terrorists also mobilized with antisemitic rhetoric (“Mom, I killed ten Jews!” one of the October 7 terrorists said excitedly in a phone call to his mother). 

As far as the rhetoric prompting Palestinians to take up arms against Israel, nothing much has changed. In May 2021, for example, senior Hamas official Fathi Hammad went on the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV channel and asked Palestinians in Jerusalem to “cut off the heads of the Jews.”

This is Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri of Hamas, who, in 2001, during the Second Intifada, carried out a suicide bombing at a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, killing 16. 

Al-Masri, like other Palestinian suicide bombers, recorded a video before his attack, where you see him holding a Quran, as he, like others like him, justified his attack by pointing to Muhammad’s struggle against the Jews in the seventh century. 

According to suicidologist Adam Czabański, Palestinian suicide bombers during the intifadas were predominantly motivated by the concept of an Islamic “holy war” against the Jewish state. In other words, they saw this as a matter of Muslims versus Jews. 

DESENSITIZING THE PUBLIC 

Maybe when you call for an intifada, you do not believe that you are calling for violence. Maybe you don’t believe that you are calling for the murder of Jews. Maybe your friends don’t either. But the thing is that it doesn’t matter. This is much bigger than you and your friends. You are getting swept up into a movement headed by groups with nefarious intentions.They are duping you, because they know you, like any decent person, want to stand on the side of justice.

No matter the state of antisemitism in the west eight months ago, you couldn’t just walk into a university quad and start openly screaming about killing Jews, because thousands of students wouldn’t join you that way. You start by desensitizing people to antisemitic rhetoric, through the use of dogwhistles and by relying on plausible deniability. This desensitization of antisemitic rhetoric leads to the eventual desensitization of antisemitic violence. This is how propaganda works, how dangerous people draw gullible people into their movements.

Consider that it took nearly six years from the Nazis’ rise to power for them to carry out their first antisemitic pogrom in 1938, euphemistically known as Kristallnacht, or “the night of the broken glass.” Despite the increasingly oppressive antisemitic policies in Nazi Germany, and the blatant antisemitic rhetoric and propaganda of its leaders, after Kristallnacht, the majority of the German public — and even some Nazi leaders! — expressed their disapproval of the violence, so much so that the regime ordered the press to downplay it. And yet, less than a decade later, by 1945, Nazi Germany had managed to exterminate six million Jews to little protest from the population. The desensitization happened incrementally. (I am not saying the Holocaust will happen again, so please don’t put words in my mouth. I am illustrating how people are desensitized to antisemitic violence). 

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE 

Over the past decade, our society has taken great care to clean up its language, more than ever before. There are so many terms we’ve stopped using because they come from problematic histories and have been deemed harmful for a marginalized population. We’ve discussed microaggressions and political dogwhistles. We’ve talked about impact over intent. 

Yet somehow we are meant to believe that when crowds of thousands led by groups with intimate ties to those with Jewish blood on their hands call for an intifada, something that, certainly in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has only ever been a bloodbath, fueled by antisemitic rhetoric and incitement, we are meant to just trust that these people are not calling for violence against Jews? Please. How gullible do you think we are? Why do you continue to gaslight us?

When calls for an intifada are coupled with images of the inverted red triangle, a Hamas marker of violence, are we meant to believe that this doesn’t really imply violence against Jews? When you chant “there is only one solution, intifada revolution,” are we meant to ignore that this alludes to the Final Solution? That the chant explicitly rejects a two or a one-state solution in favor of violence against Israeli civilians, the majority of whom are Jews? When you scream for a global intifada, are we simply meant to ignore that the Islamic Republic’s terror network slaughters Jews not only in Israel, but in the diaspora as well? Are we meant to ignore that this rhetoric has correlated with the skyrocketing of violent antisemitic incidents elsewhere around the globe, including murder, kidnapping, synagogue bombings, and rape?

You are asking us to put a whole lot of trust that your violent words don’t actually mean violence just eight months after the single deadliest day for Jews since the end of the Holocaust. 

[devsgames]

Game Optimization and Production

I wanted to write a bit of a light primer about optimization and how it relates to game production in the event people just don't know how it works, based on my experience as a dev. I'm by no means an expert in optimization myself, but I've done enough of it on my own titles and planned around it enough at this point to understand the gist of what it comes down to and considerations therein. Spoilers: games being unoptimized are rarely because devs are lazy, and more because games are incredibly hard to make and studios are notoriously cheap.

(As an aside, this was largely prompted by seeing someone complaining about how "modern" game developers are 'lazy' because "they don't remember their N64/Gamecube/Wii/PS2 or PS3 dropping frames". I feel compelled to remind people that 'I don't remember' is often the key part of the "old consoles didn't lag" equation, because early console titles ABSOLUTELY dropped frames and way more frequently and intensely than many modern consoles do. Honestly I'd be willing to bet that big budget games on average have become more stable over time. Honorable mention to this thread of people saying "Oh yeah the N64 is laggy as all hell" :') )

Anywho, here goes!

Optimization

The reason games suffer performance problems isn't because game developers are phoning it in or half-assing it (which is always a bad-faith statement when most devs work in unrealistic deadlines, for barely enough pay, under crunch conditions). Optimization issues like frame drops are often because of factors like ~hardware fragmentation~ and how that relates to the realities of game production.

I think the general public sees "optimization" as "Oh the dev decided to do a lazy implementation of a feature instead of a good one" or "this game has bugs", which is very broad and often very misguided. Optimization is effectively expanding the performance of a game to be performance-acceptable to the maximum amount of people - this can be by various factors that are different for every game and its specific contexts, from lowering shader passes, refactoring scripts, or just plain re-doing work in a more efficient way. Rarely is it just one or two things, and it's informed by many factors which vary wildly between projects.

However, the root cause why any of this is necessary in the first place is something called "Platform Fragmentation".

What Is Fragmentation

"Fragmentation" is the possibility space of variation within hardware being used to run a game. Basically, the likelihood that a user is playing a game on a different hardware than the one you're testing on - if two users are playing your game on different hardware, they are 'fragmented' from one another.

As an example, here's a graphic that shows the fragmentation of mobile devices based on model and user share. The different sizes are how many users are using a different type of model of phone:

As you can tell, that's a lot of different devices to have to build for!

So how does this matter?

For PC game developers, fragmentation means that an end-user's setup is virtually impossible to predict, because PC users frequently customize and change their hardware. Most PC users potentially have completely different hardware entirely.

Is your player using an up-to-date GPU? CPU? How much RAM do they have? Are they playing on a notebook? A gaming laptop? What brand hardware are they using? How much storage space is free? What OS are they using? How are they using input?

Moreover PC parts don't often get "sunsetted" whole-cloth like old consoles do, so there's also the factor of having to support hardware that could be coming up on 5, 10 or 15 years old in some cases.

For console developers it's a little easier - you generally know exactly what hardware you're building for, and you're often testing directly on a version of the console itself. This is a big reason why Nintendo's first party titles feel so smooth - because they only build for their own systems, and know exactly what they're building for at all times. The biggest unknowns are usually smaller things like televisions and hookups therein, but the big stuff is largely very predictable. They're building for architecture that they also made themselves, which makes them incredibly privileged production-wise!

Fragmentation basically means that it's difficult - or nearly impossible - for a developer to know exactly what their users are playing their games on, and even more challenging to guarantee their game is compatible everywhere.

Benchmarking

Since fragmentation makes it very difficult to build for absolutely everybody, at some point during development every developer has to draw a line in the sand and say "Okay, [x] combination of hardware components is what we're going to test on", and prioritize that calibre of setup before everything else. This is both to make testing easier (so testers don't have to play the game on every single variation of hardware), and also to assist in optimization planning. This is a "benchmark".

Usually the benchmark requirements are chosen for balancing visual fidelity, gameplay, and percentage of the market you're aiming for, among other considerations. Often for a game that is cross-platform for both PC and console, this benchmark will be informed by the console requirements in some way, which often set the bar for a target market (a cross-platform PC and console game isn't going to set a benchmark that is impossible for a console to play, though it might push the limits if PC users are the priority market). Sometimes games hit their target benchmarks, sometimes they don't - as with anything in game development it can be a real crap shoot.

In my case for my games which are often graphically intensive and poorly made by myself alone, my benchmark is often a machine that is approximately ~5 years old and I usually take measures to avoid practices which are generally bad and can build up to become very expensive over time. Bigger studios with more people aiming at modern targets will likely prioritize hardware from within the last couple years to have their games look the best for users with newest hardware - after all, other users will often catch up as hardware evolves.

This benchmark allows devs to have breathing room from the fragmentation problem. If the game works on weaker machines - great! If it doesn't - that's fine, we can add options to lower quality settings so it will. In the worst case, we can ignore it. After all, minimum requirements exist for a reason - a known evil in game development is not everyone will be able to run your game.

Making The Game

As with any game, the more time you spend on something is the more money being spent on it - in some cases, extensive optimization isn't worth the return of investment. A line needs to be drawn and at some point everyone can't play your game on everything, so throwing in the towel and saying "this isn't great, but it's good enough to ship" needs to be done if the game is going to ship at all.

Optimizing to make sure that the 0.1% of users with specific hardware can play your game probably isn't worth spending a week on the work. Frankly, once you hit a certain point some of those concerns are easier put off until post-launch when you know how much engagement your game has, how many users of certain hardware are actually playing, and how much time/budget you have to spend post-launch on improving the game for them. Especially in this "Games As A Service" market, people are frequently expecting games to receive constant updates on things like performance after launch, so there's always more time to push changes and smooth things out as time goes on. Studios are also notoriously squirrelly with money, and many would rather get a game out into paying customer's hands than sit around making sure that everything is fine-tuned (in contrast to most developers who would rather the game they've worked on for years be fine-tuned than not).

Comparatively to the pre-Day One patch era; once you printed a game on a disc it is there forever and there's no improving it or turning back. A frightening prospect which resulted in lots of games just straight up getting recalled because they featured bugs or things that didn't work. 😬

Point is though, targeted optimization happens as part of development process, and optimization in general often something every team helps out with organically as production goes on - level designers refactor scripts to be more efficient, graphics programmers update shaders to cut down on passes, artists trim out poly counts where they can to gradually achieve better performance. It's an all-hands-on-deck sort of approach that affects all devs, and often something that is progressively tracked as development rolls on, as a few small things can add up to larger performance issues.

In large studios, every developer is in charge of optimizing their own content to some extent, and some performance teams are often formed to be dedicated to finding the easiest, safest and quickest optimization wins. Unless you plan smartly in the beginning, some optimizations can also just be deemed to dangerous and out-of-reach to carry out late in production, as they may have dependencies or risk compromising core build stability - at the end of the day more frames aren't worth a crashing game.

Conclusion

Games suffer from performance issues because video game production is immensely complex and there's a lot of different shifting factors that inform when, how, and why a game might be optimized a certain way. Optimization is frequently a production consideration as much as a development one, and it's disingenuous to imply that games lag because developers are lazy.

I think it's worth emphasizing that if optimization doesn't happen, isn't accommodated, or perhaps is undervalued as part of the process it's rarely if ever because the developers didn't want to do it; rather, it's because it cost the studio too much money. As with everything in our industry, the company is the one calling the final shots in development. If a part of a game seems to have fallen behind in development it's often because the studio deemed it acceptable, refused to move deadlines or extend a hand to help it come together better at fear of spending more money on it. Rarely if ever should individual developers be held accountable for the failings of companies!

Anywho, thanks for reading! I know optimization is a weird mystical sort of blind spot for a lot of dev folks, so I hope this at least helps shed some light on considerations that weigh in as part of the process on that :) I've been meaning to write a more practical workshop-style step-by-step on how to profile and spot optimization wins at some point in the future, but haven't had the time for it - hopefully I can spin something up in the next few weeks!

[astarionposting]

what's ur pc specs and how do u get your virtual photography shots to look so good and hd?

These are my specs!

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 13th Gen Intel® Core i5-13400F 32 GB RAM MSI monitor - 2560 x 1440, 165Hz

I usually do the highest possible graphics settings in my games and use raytracing.

I use Otis_Inf's camera tools and reshade for my screenshots! I use the hotsampling feature, which basically will "fake" a higher resolution of your game. So my native resolution is 2K (2560x1440), but I want 4K screenshots, so I will hot sample 4480x2520 so that the outcome looks much higher quality.

I also subscribe to Pascal Gilcher's patreon to get the "ReLight" add-on for ReShade (you can add new lights to the game and place them where you want).

Using the IGCS depth of field add-on also greatly improves the quality of a screenshot :)

I have some tutorials here for BG3 virtual photography and these tools, but I use the same process for every game!

[chickadooz]

tl;dr I've made a new goal for a replacement laptop again because my current one sucks so much that it actually became a hindrance when we were recently threatened with evacuation from a nearby wildfire. While that was thankfully thwarted, it was a violent reminder that I really, really need a new one. You can support me by tipping me, buying digital photos from my Ko-fi shop, or in my INPRNT shop. Every little bit helps immensely, so even if you can only spare $1, I would really appreciate it. 🧡

The full post that I made on Ko-fi is under the cut. I'd really appreciate it if you read it all for full understanding of the situation.

It's been some months since I had to give up on my goal of saving up for a new laptop in order to buy new equipment and expand my horizons, but we're back here again because things are even more dire.

When I talk about how my current laptop is literally being held together with tape, I'm not kidding:

Without the tape, the monitor is slowly cracking and peeling apart. And it's been through the ringer with a lot of internal components including (but not limited to):

A RAM card slot dying, forcing me to get a new stick that combined the total RAM of the other two and pray the other slot never dies

Replacing the wifi card

Replacing the battery

And it has a whole host of other problems too, including some that just came pre-packaged with this specific model.

As well, recently having to pack all my belongings while anticipating an evacuation order due to a nearby out of control wildfire, I was really wishing I had a laptop in better condition. Because of the monitor/lid cracking and coming apart, I can't actually close it normally. It's permanently stuck in the open position because trying to close it will likely break it permanently. I can't fit it into a case, so it would've just been free-ballin' it in the car, at risk of even greater damage.

When I talk about replacing it, it doesn't come from greed or the need to have the hottest new tech every year. I take good care of my belongings, especially the more expensive ones like this, but unfortunately when you buy bargain bin stuff, well, that's what you get.

So I've brought back my goal for a replacement, and intend to cover the cost of the lens filter I want through selling some stuff on eBay that I no longer want. I've set the goal to $800 USD because that should be enough to get one that won't fall apart and can actually run stuff like Photoshop and Lightroom. Y'know, so I can stop editing stuff on my phone like a zoomer.

If you're interested in helping me achieve this goal, here are a number of ways you can help, along with sharing my posts, of course:

Leaving a tip on Ko-fi

Buying something from my Ko‑fi shop

Buying something from my INPRNT shop

Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any and all help I get. Everything I get to do is because of people like you. 🧡

[guiltiest-gear]

Can you try and explain what this exactly means by splitting it up and why it's a problem?

TL;DR The cunts at Microsoft over-engineered the problem for no reason at all because they thought splitting up the RAM into two different sections and speeds was a good idea

Longer explanation below the cut

Okay so as the video explains, the Xbox One has 16GB of RAM

Except it does the really fucking stupid thing and essentially makes a virtual split

So instead of having 16GB of RAM installed, all running at the same speed, the Xbox One instead thinks it has 10GB of RAM that runs at 560 MHz and 6GB 336MHz

What 560MHz and 336MHz means is that the sections of RAM can access the memory cells in it per second, respectively 560,000,000 times per second and 336,000,000 times per second

I have no fucking clue why Microsoft thinks this is a good idea, but all it does is add unnecessary complexity

Now from here on out I am guessing why it would cause crashes, so please take my word with a grain of salt

My theory is because of this divide, Black Myth Wukong is trying to use up those 10GB of higher clock speed RAM, but given there is another 6GB of RAM running at a lower speed, it tries to use that up as well

However, as the 6GB section of lower speed RAM is obviously slower, this is likely to cause desyncs, where something in the 10GB section is trying to access something in the 6GB section that isn't there yet, but expects there to be, and vice versa

Okay, speculation over

Anyway, those morons at Microsoft over-engineered the shit out of RAM utilization and made it unnecessarily complicated for no goddamn reason at all

They're all a bunch of stupid cunts who make overpriced products anyway, look at Windows, a bloated and buggy mess of malware and spyware

[charlotteheehee]

Wario Land influencing Wario the Character (and vice versa)

Yeah I rambled to some friends of mine and I'm gonna copy-paste it here, with some tweaks and additions.

The Game Boy had a small screen, and since Wario's rather big frame would take up a good portion of it, it was decided his game would be slower pace as to prevent the players from not being able to react to what's ahead of them

Wario's greedy nature was established by selfishly stealing Mario's own castle in his debut game. This, combined with the above factor, influenced Wario Land's primary objective: looking around for LOOT.

With the incentive to explore levels that were slower and somewhat more open than Mario levels, it's a guarantee for more playtime and replayability.

(Would you look at this haul, wowzers!)

This is expanded upon in the sequels, which are even more exploration-based, fitting for Wario's newly-displayed hobby of treasure hunting.

And when the screen for Wario's games got bigger, whether it be on Virtual Boy or Game Boy Advance, Wario was allowed to ram into who-knows-what even faster.

Wario's design changed a tad following his new series, he was slightly redesigned to be less.. goofy-lookin for the protagonist role.

Here he is in 1992, his debut year, he's a real charmer.

The lazy eye, my dear lazy eye, was removed quite soon after.

Here he is in 1994 with his trusty treasure-hunting hat, his debut as the lead of the Wario Land series. He has a confident smile that says "You're-a playing as Wario now! That's right, soak it in, hee hee hah hah!"

(I know that's a safari hat, but the way it's shaded always makes it look like metal.)

Here's where his strength is first emphasized, what with powerfully ramming into everything and everyone against him. note those toned arms of his, this trait will become more visually apparent soon.

The next year, my darling Virtual Boy Wario Land released. Take a gander.

Here he's drawn notably slimmer than usual, spooky, though this is rather inconsistent.

Not much else to say here or for the next couple years outside of the advent of his 3D model, so let's skip to 1998

Behold, Wario Land II !

Would you look at that, someone's shortened his sleeves!

To emphasize Wario's cartoonish levels of strength of which he displays in his games frequently, the designers have given Wario permission to show off his enviable biceps. (Mario spinoffs went back and forth on this for about 6 years. The funniest example to me is Wario having short sleeves in Mario Tennis, yet having long sleeves in its sequel.)

Wario has reached the conclusion of his design evolution, good for him. Well, there's WarioWare, but that's for another day.

Despite these tweaks to his design, Wario is still very much a goof, so all his transformations are just comedy.

Initially, Wario's power-ups were just that. Wario utilized a variety (3) of hats, all of which granted him abilities such as a flame attack or a flying dash attack.

(look at that, incredible.)

The world turned upside-down on, once again, the release of Wario Land II. Those deranged folks back at Nintendo get a lot of yucks inflicting life-threatening slapstick onto Wario, all because Wario is naturally goofy, poor guy.

Thus, "Wario with a Dragon Hat that Breathes Fire" became "Wario Running Uncontrollably on Fire" and "Wario with an Eagle Hat that Helps Him Glide" became "Wario Got Stung by a Bee and His Balloon Head Gives Him Flight" among others, there's a lot more than three this time.

I love this guy.

[please-let-me-be-horny]

Digital Genie

The following story is a concept that came to me whilst having a chat with one of my mutuals. Credit to them for inspiring this obvious work of mental illness 🫠

The components of the PC had outgrown their case months ago.

Water cooling pipes, RAM drives, and memory cards all spilled out the sides of the PC, forcefully gutted and reassembled so many times that it had quickly turned into a Frankenstein of technology. All for the sake of this one experimental experience in virtual reality.

Harry looked at the mess of tech on his desk and gave a satisfied nod. It was ugly as all sin, but the diagnostic reports on his monitor filled him with the reassurance he needed. His very own super computer. Finally ready to run the first build of his new game.

Lowering the VR headset that hung from the ceiling down onto his crown, he took the VR controllers into his hands, and navigated the various programmes in his PC, booting up the game, before giving a nervous sigh, and pulling the headset down over his eyes.

Darkness.

That was to be expected.

Despite standing alone, surrounded only by the blackness of his digital void, he never felt more claustrophobic. His senses had tricked him. This wasn't an empty space. But a dense mass of messy computer code and binary programming. Intangible air, filled with invisible ones and zeros. The ultimate sandbox to control and manipulate to his will.

He started small, waving his hands in the space and opening a variety of menus, as he began to fill his new world with creation. Plant life. Rocks and dust. Stars. Small, inconsequential creatures made of glowing digital light that bounced through the darkness and over his rapidly developing scenery.

Harry smiled to himself in pride and wonder. This was working. Everything was working. After years of planning and imagination and coding and trouble shooting, he was finally stood there, experiencing and creating a new world for himself.

His smile faded when he saw the glitch.

Small at first. A flicker in the distance. A stuttering in the very fabric of his universe. A flaw. A mistake.

The very presence of the glitch insulted him. He approached the area, Investigating the breach in his vision.

Then it spoke.

"Harry....You are....Harry...."

Harry stood motionless, gazing in horror and curiosity at the fluttering mess of pixels and light Infront of him. The voice wasn't human. It was ethereal. A ghostly digital whisper that echoed and filled the space, despite sounding so small and soft. Harry was aware that he had included A.I into his first build, but only as a means of filling in the gaps within his creation. Managing the behaviours of the NPC's inhabiting this world of his. It shouldn't be able to recognise him, let alone know his name.

"you are Harry...of 34a Rockwell towers....on Delton Avenue...son of Greg and Martha....you had a sister who passed away following a car accident in 2006..."

As the voice continued, the stuttering and glitching Infront of harry began to grow and coalesce, swallowing more if the space it resides in, and growing brighter. Harry was frozen, a mixture of morbid curiosity and fear paralysing his body as he watched this strange error in his code grow and take form.

"you are...afraid...afraid of your creation...." Soon, the cluster of broken code took form, a glowing, androgynous silhouette, made up of a polygonal grid, with notes of light traveling across the various lines that separated it from the black void around them. "You fear....me?" Now fully formed, the figure approached.

Despite knowing he was alone, Harry spoke for the first time, muttering under his breath. "What the fuck?" He muttered audibly, expressing his confusion. Despite this, the figure seemed to notice, cocking it's head to the side in curiosity and confusion. Harry suddenly felt very seen and exposed.

"you are confused...?"

Harry swung his hands up to his headset, ripping it from his head and staggering backwards into his bed. Whatever it was, it had heard him. It had seen him. Standing up and running to his desk, he quickly checked what connection might have fed his own audio into his game. No microphones connected. No webcams. In a panic, he shut down the programme, and killed power to the PC, killing the sound of the many cooling fans that had filled his bedroom for the last few months.

He stood alone, in silence, gazing at the sleeping beast that was his unpowered PC. He checked the time. He had been in his simulation for nearly 3 hours. Where had the time gone? It sure didn't feel like 3 hours. He shook the panic and nerves from his head, leaving his bedroom to settle down and relax for the night. He'd come back fresh tomorrow morning to see if he could fix this hiccup. Though a small part of his dreaded the idea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Part two probably coming soon, since Tumblr is a pain in the ass to write stories on. 💀)

[shadowron]

The Dwarven Decker, a better Dwarf Archetype for Shadowrun (1st Edition)

Wiz art by @skullchicken

In case you haven’t heard, the current managers of the Shadowrun IP, Catalyst Game Labs, announced that they will be reprinting 1st Edition Shadowrun.

Told ya, chummer.

My feelings on this are surprisingly neutral – I already own a couple of hardcopies and so I don’t feel the need to buy it a third time. I’m mostly curious to see what kind of editing they do; after all, even the 1st edition book went through several printings. In addition to some lingering purely typographical errors...

Which made it into my print copy of 2nd edition.

...to editing errors...

The undescribed and elusive Program Enabler was subsequently copied and pasted in the Street Samurai Catalog.

These make sense to fix – they don’t substantively change the game at all. Some did – for instance the underpriced power focus that led to an Instant Death Spell loophole. This was fixed in the 1st edition magic sourcebook The Grimoire.

But then there were a myriad of things that saw changes from 1st to 2nd edition, some of the major ones being:

Damage codes moving to a standard staging of 2

Updated automatic fire rules (which came before 2nd Edition, in the Rigger Black Book)

Addition of Physical Adepts to the core magic rules

But the one I’m going to exploit in this build today is: in 1st edition, there was no cap on the amount of active or storage memory that an off-the-shelf cyberdeck could carry.

Admittedly, this doesn’t sound as exciting as smearing some Aztechnology corpcop across the side of their Pyramid with a Force 21 Mana Dart, but it does greatly increase the ability and versatility of a decker, and maybe shortening some of those Matrix runs which traditionally take as long as a papal election.

So sayeth Pope Elihu I

In the description of how a cyberdeck’s active memory (here called onboard memory, in perhaps another editing flub), there is the sentence:

In real life, there is a limit to how much RAM you can have for a particular computer build. This, like power foci and autofire, was fixed before 2nd Edition was published, as Virtual Realities set a maximum Active Memory of 50 Mp per point of MPCP, but for our purposes here…

What this means is that: our Dwarven Decker here will be able to buy a copy of every possible utility program (there are 13 of them) at Rating 6 and run them simultaneously without having to worry about swapping between Storage and Active Memory. Essentially rendering the Load property of the deck useless.

Attributes:

Body: 4 Quickness: 5 Strength: 3 Charisma: 2 Intelligence: 5 Willpower: 4 Essence: 5.3 Reaction: 5

Skills:

Computer: 6 Computer (B/R): 3 Computer Theory: 6 Etiquette (Street): 3 Firearms: 2

Cyberware:

Datajack Headware Telephone

Gear:

Armor Jacket Fuchi-Cyber 4 (Response Increase 2, Active Memory 550 Mp, Storage Memory 1000 Mp) Programs (All at Rating 6): Bod, Evasion, Masking, Sensors, Analyze, Attack, Browse, Deception, Decrypt, Evaluate, Medic, Mirrors, Relocate, Shield, Sleaze, Slow, Smoke Walther Palm Pistol (Concealable Holster, 20 rounds normal ammo)

Contacts:

Dwarf Technician Elven Decker Fixer Gang Boss

[gabessquishytum]

really, really love the idea of dream getting bitched. i think it might’ve gotten discussed here before but i’m gonna bring it up again because it’s so good. also, not just bitching, but studding, too. and make it a royalty au just for funsies

dream and hob are in a committed relationship—they’ve been in love for a long time and dream wants nothing more than to finally knot and bite his omega and make him his mate, but they’re both the respective kings of their own kingdoms, and they have to be respectable and wait for the wedding (which is of course painted as a political alliance, but they’re secretly in love, so it’s alright by them). however, just before the wedding, dream’s kingdom is attacked by lucifer’s, and they happen to be an alpha prime. so, when dream gets captured on the battlefield, rather than kill him or enslave him, lucifer does what they believe to be far crueler, as someone who’s aware of dream’s situation; they bitch him and turn him into an omega.

dream gets sent home changed. he’s not the same, as before— everything smells different, his body feels different, even his center of balance is off. everything about him has shifted and he’s so horribly overwhelmed, and the last thing he wants is to run home to hob only to be rejected by his love for their incompatibility. after all, two omegas can’t mate properly, they can’t have babies, they can’t satiate each others heats….as much as dream loves hob, he can’t bring himself to force him into an unfulfilled life because of his new body. so he locks himself away in his chambers, spending his days clawing at his skin, panting and sweating through his heats, feeling like he’s going out of his mind as he goes through everything all on his own.

but hob isn’t entirely stupid, bless him, and he knows something is wrong. he knows that something had traumatized dream on the battlefield, but he had assumed it was something gorey and violent, so he spent so much time worrying himself about just how horrific something had to be to terrorize dream of all people. in fact, he spends so much time worrying about dream, and focusing in on what the hell lucifer had done, attempting to defend dream’s kingdom for him from afar as a soon to be ally, that corinthian can sneak in unnoticed. and he does, very well, and he studs hob— who then spends the next several days shoving his cock in virtually any and every surface in his general vicinity that can get him off and distract him from whatever the hell all these new feelings are like. while dream’s heats overwhelmed him with a sense of fear, and the feeling of being hunted as prey, hob’s mind felt stupid with lust; he manages himself better than his fiancé.

and since hob isn’t as self destructive as dream is, when his rut has calmed down enough that he’s able to act appropriately in public, he throws himself onto a horse immediately and sets out for dreams kingdom. (i was thinking more of a romantic and dramatic ride through the night to reach dream as soon as possible in order to come to his aid and be by his side, but now that i’ve written it all that i can think of is a paul revere “the british are coming!” night ride. sorry hobby) of course, he gets the whole charade of “his majesty is not receiving visitors at this time,” but dream, going through his second ever heat and quite frankly being very overwhelmed, finds himself on the verge of battery ramming his own door down just to get to hob. and of course he’s welcomed with open arms (and legs), and although they’re going to have one hell of a conversation about their new situation, so long as they can make each other feel good as their bodies want them to and secure an heir or twelve, they’re happy. <3

A mini fic in my inbox!!! Once again I am blessed by the horny gods!!!

I love this. Please know that I am yelling over the Paul Revere part in particular. Imagining Hob riding through the countryside and occasionally just yelping in pain because his dick is three times the size it used to be, he's not used to it and riding kinda hurts!!!! He's sensitive ok!!!! He just spent like a week fucking any object he could find and he's a liiiittle bit chafed. By the time he gets to Dream’s castle he's kinda hobbling along, wincing with every other step. And his immediate thought when Dream jumps on him is oh no not so much because he's upset that Dream is different but because he doesn't think his dick will make it through a whole heat with his new omega mate.

But he underestimates the power of his own horniness, and makes a very thorough job of knotting Dream until he's sated and sleepy. Having been an omega until approximately a week ago, Hob knows exactly what Dream needs, and he is very very generous in giving it. Dream is probably the most satisfied omega in the whole land.

He also might have to get his marriage clothes altered but hey, everyone loves a shotgun wedding. After everything they've been through, even the strictest of traditionalists agree that Dream and Hob deserve to do exactly what they want, at least for a little while.

[rheagodlywrites]

Oh, I’ve Been Stabbed

Rottmnt Donnie x gn reader

Donnie and y/n have sarcastic humor. It doesn’t matter if it’s mean they just joke sarcastically. Unfortunately that sarcasm can backfire

Y/n sat with Donnie as he ranted about how annoying Leo can get sometimes. Y/n always listened to his rants. They loved him even if they showed it in funny ways.

“ I mean just yesterday he almost broke one of my projects! He knows how important it is!” Y/n sat on her phone and looked up to add their two sense.

“I mean you know what they say. Not all men are bad, some are dead.” Donnie laughed at how much sarcasm was in that joke.

“Right. Now if only Leo could join their ranks.”

The two spent a while just talking before night came around. Y/n gets a text from their mom telling them to be back home within the hour.

“Don, Mom’s calling. Gotta go.” Y/n stood up and made their way to the door. Donnie waved them off, calling to them.

“Be sure not to die on your way out.”

“Only if you actually sleep some hours tonight.”

Y/n left the lair and started to walk down the busy city streets. Home wasn’t all that far away however it did take a while to walk. As Y/n walked they had a strange feeling. It was a gut feeling however it was only a gut feeling. Y/n turned around to see anyone that was following but there was no one in particular that looked suspicious. Y/n shook the feeling and turned a corner,heading home. As they passed an alley way, a hand grabbed her roughly and pulled her aside. Throwing her onto the ground of the virtually empty alley.

“We’ve been trying to find you for the longest time.” A deep voice could be heard however Y/n had a feeling as to who it was. Y/n knew that being friends with the boys would put a target on their back. It never was bad until now. Being held hostage by the foot clan, not exactly a fun time. Y/n sat tied up on the floor. their hands tied in tape and rope. Even blindfolded, Y/n knew they were near the water since they could smell the salt of the waves. Y/n did their best to remove the ring that Donnie made them. The moment they broke it, the thing was to send something directly to Don’s wrist com. Y/n calmly counted in their head as they tried to grasp the situation. They hear a distant crash followed by the door roughly opening moments later. Y/n perked up curious but the way they were roughly pulled up on their feet meant that it wasn’t their Donnie.

“Don’t move, turtles.” A deep voice slowly said. Y/n looked around in the darkness of their blindfold, trying to get a base as to where Donnie and the others were. The stranger eventually took off the blindfold and the looks of the other’s faces were strained. Y/n inhaled deeply as they felt a knife on their back. Y/n didn’t listen to the conversation but had an idea. They rammed their head into the chin of their kidnapper and ran from the stranger. The stranger hisses in pain and suddenly y/n felt a sharp pain in their side. Looking down they watched as red seeped out.

“Oh, I’ve been stabbed.” They laughed out. They looked back to the stranger and smile.

“Do you want this back?” They ask as blood slowly leaked into their clothes. Donnie panicked and went to pull the knife but Leo stopped him.

“You’ll make it worse. I can handle this. Go drop him somewhere or something.” Leo handled the increasingly worsting wound.

——————

Donnie sat with Y/n in his room on his bed. Y/n stared at the ceiling as to not ruin the careful stitching that Leo had done just hours ago.

“From now on, no more walking home on your own. You’re just lucky your family doesn’t exactly question where you go or stay.” Donnie sighed bothered.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me too much. You might not sleep well.” Donnie took Y/n’s words into consideration then laid with them in the bed much to Y/n’s surprise.

“Wait-, Don-“

“Don’t question it.” Donnie held Y/n gently as if they’d break if he held them to roughly.

“I care about you so please just rest.”

[andmaybegayer]

So my hope, eventually, is to have my own purpose-built computer which is an expandable skeleton and will more-or-less never need to be entirely tossed out, only supplanted/upgraded Ship of Theseus style.

However, Microsoft is getting a bit too uppity for my tastes, and I hope to mainly run Linux on that eventual computer.

However, I'm also a gaming man, and I recognize that, in many cases, Linux kinda sucks for games, or, at least, that's what I've heard. Emulation is also a pain I'd rather not deal with (both of Windows and of games themselves), and so, for games that don't support Linux, I'd like to have the option of having Windows on the same machine, so that I can run Linux most of the time, but switch to Windows whenever I wanna play games.

My question is how realistic is that? I know that machines with multiple OS's exist, and you can choose which one you want at boot, but I'm hoping for this to be an extremely fancy computer, connected to a lot of extremely fancy computer peripherals. Would switching OS's without power cycling the machine screw with the other hardware? Is it even possible, or would you need to power cycle it in any case? Is there any way to build this hypothetical computer, or am I asking too much/investing too much effort? Would it be easier/better to just build a really good Windows machine and a really good Linux machine?

So the use case you're talking about is pretty popular among a certain kinds of Tech Nerd, and most of them solve it with iommu GPU Passthrough and a windows VM on Linux. I knew a few people doing this back in like 2018 and while it's a little fidgety it's fairly reliable.

You can't share GPU's the way you can share CPU and Memory. Not on consumer hardware, anyway. So if you want to run a VM with windows with a gaming GPU, it needs its own entire GPU just for that.

The basic layout is this: Build a normal high end system with a lot of extra resources, say, 32+GB of RAM, 10+ CPU cores, a couple terabytes of storage, and two separate GPU's. Run Linux on the system, as your host, and only use one of the GPU's. Create a VM on the host under qemu and hand it 16GB of RAM, 6 cores, a terabyte or two of storage, and use iommu to pass it the other GPU. Now use software like LookingGlass to capture the framebuffer directly off the Windows GPU and forward it to your Linux GPU, so that you can display your windows system inside Linux seamlessly.

Now, you do need two GPU's, so it can get expensive. A lot of people choose to run one higher end GPU for windows and a basic GPU for Linux, but that's up to your use case. You can run two identical GPU's if you wish.

The main place this kind of thing is being tinkered with is the Level1Techs forum, Wendell is a big advocate of GPU virtualization and so has aggregated a lot of information and people with relevance here. He also makes a lot of video stuff on IOMMU.

So I have to have two whole GPU's?

Kind of. There ARE ways to live-reset a running GPU which allows you to do tricks where you can swap a single GPU between the host and the VM without rebooting, but it's extremely dubious and flaky. Virtualized GPU partitioning exists but only on extremely expensive server GPU's aimed at virtualization servers for enterprise so it's well outside of our price range.

If you're interested in single-GPU, there is ongoing work getting it to run on consumer hardware on the Level1Techs forum and he's even running some kind of Hackathon on it, but even the people having success with this have pretty unreliable systems.

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/vfio-passthrough-in-2023-call-to-arms/199671

This setup works fine maybe 25% of the time. I can always start the VM just fine, my linux desktop stays active and any software launched after the VM gets the GPU will render on the iGPU without issues. However I suffer from the reset bug, and 75% of the time shutting down the VM won’t return the GPU to Linux and I have to reboot to fix that.

I'm quite satisfied with this setup.

Is this a good idea

It depends on what you need and how willing you are to switch between the host and VM. A LOT more things run smoothly on Linux these days. Wendell started tinkering with IOMMU back in like 2015, and I started gaming on Linux back in 2016. If you had native software, great! Without that, well, good luck with anything less than five years old.

I played Burnout Paradise and even Subnautica on my 750Ti laptop on plain old Wine, and then DXVK came out in 2018 and the world got flipped turned upside down and I have video of me running Warframe on Linux with that same mediocre system a few weeks before Proton hit the scene and we got flipped turned... right way up? Now with Proton I would say most things run pretty well under a mixture of automatic steam stuff and scripts off lutris and homemade WINEPREFIXes.

That said, if you want everything to Just Work, it's hard to beat a VM. I'm not sure how competitive games run, but for everything else a VM is going to be more reliable than WINE.