#which is better amd or intel

[zeroeight94]

Which is better AMD or INTEL | INTEL vs AMD 2023 | For Gaming

[softgrungeprophet]

last night i was researching thinkpads and i was looking at some of my current specs while doing so and i realized that my 15" laptop screen is a higher resolution (1920 x 1080) than my 19" desktop monitor (1600 x 900)

really this isn't too surprising because i got my monitor around 2016 and the laptop is from 2020, but i did find it kind of funny.

i don't use my monitor for art or anything though so it's like, yeah, my games might not be "full" HD but they're HD enough for me.

[pixelplayground]

PXL'S Anatomy of Screenshots

So you want to take better screenshots? There are multiple factors to consider, and if you don't enjoy tweaking reshade settings for every image, my ultimate method may not be for you. That being said, there are tips and resources in this guide that are applicable to everyone and you can select to explore those that are useful to your specific situation.

Disclaimer: I am not claiming to be an expert, nor am I offering to provide troubleshooting on an individual basis. This is a general guide and if you are unfamiliar with any of the concepts, please use the mighty power of the internet to find tutorials. I promise everything that I have learned over the years has been published and documented a thousand times better than I ever could.

There are five factors to address:

Your computer's inherent capabilities

The game's limitations

The mods you're using

Reshade

Post Processing

Graphics Card Settings & Drivers:

Become familiar with your graphic options. If you don't have a dedicated graphics card (i.e. a desktop or gaming laptop, these features may be unavailable and you should skip.)

I have an AMD Radeon Pro card which is designed for workstation level systems. It's overkill for sims, but useful for 3D rendering and modelling work. I have changed the following settings for DirectX 9 applications:

anti-aliasing - enhance application settings

anisotropic filtering - enabled

anisotropic filtering level - 16x

texture filtering quality - high

surface format optimization - high

Consider overclocking your graphics card to unlock it's full potential. DO NOT pursue this venture unless you are ok with the risk of burning out your card prematurely. I use at present, overclocked Bootcamp Drivers from BootcampDrivers.com obviously, if you're not playing on an intel based mac through Bootcamp, this is irrelevant to you.

None of these settings are useful until you address the default games limitations, which leads nicely into the next factor.

Addressing The Sims 4's Graphic Limitations:

Everyone should be familiar at this point with lighting mods, 4k, textures, disabling ssao, etc. but, I'm still going to spell it out. None of this is new information and has been covered many a time by various players ad nauseum.

remove ugly blue toned lighting in the world by choosing a lighting mod from @softerhaze here

overhaul your graphics.cfg file (i use a custom blend with features specific to me), however @simp4sims has done a ridiculous amount of work in providing a simple to install file that can be found here - read through their tutorials!! they have provided an excellent oversight of exactly what this does and why it matters

improve the indoor lighting for your sims - previously i used @luumia's no blu, no glo - recently i switched to @northernsiberiawinds better in game lighting mod here, though i have tweaked some of the settings to suit my own personal preferences

i don't use the HQ mod, i don't find that it makes enough difference for the amount of effort it requires to convert CAS CC

It should go without saying, but tweaking your graphics config file is absolutely useless if you can't play TS4 at it's maximum in game graphic settings!

The Mods You're Using:

Now that you've put in all this work into getting the game ready to make use of quality mods where do you start? Well, the CC you install matters. Whatever your preference, whether it be maxis-match, alpha or somewhere in between, priority should be given to using items textured in 2k or 4k resolutions, and specific attention should be paid to using wall and flooring textures with bump maps, and or high quality resolutions (this is important later for reshade if you intend to learn about ray tracing).

I will separately post a guide to creators with crispy textures because that is it's own novel.

Reshade:

Phew. Still with me?

There are many many many reshade presets out there, most are alike, but none employ ray tracing, and that is because a) it needs to be manually adjusted for every screenshot, b) they are paid shaders, and c) this requires advanced knowledge of reshade and a decent enough graphics set up that won't overheat - games running native ray tracing recommend a minimum VRAM of 8GB (please note RAM and VRAM are not the same) - i therefore do not recommend pursuing this option if your system does not meet those minimum requirements.

Start here to understand what ray tracing for reshade is. In my opinion, the shaders are well worth the price of $5 for the amount of work that has gone into creating them by the talented Pascal Gilcher. That link is a comprehensive starting point into expanding your knowledge of reshade and it's capabilities.

I have always created my own reshade presets from scratch, and while the core colorization settings I utilize remain largely the same, using ray tracing and re-light means every screenshot needs to be manually adjusted (lights repositioned, bounce and AO factors adjusted, etc) before being captured. @pictureamoebae just published a very timely post discussing the re-light shader and you can read it here.

Post Processing

Reshade does 99.99% of the work that traditionally would be accomplished in a photo editing software like photoshop. Occasionally, I need to adjust exposure manually, add depth of field manually, or color correct. Beyond that I use it to scale images to fit the resolution and file size limits of various platforms. Conceptually this reduces the amount of uncontrolled loss encountered when platforms like tumblr auto compress files that are too large. In reality, tumblr still makes images crappy compared to how they appear in my file folder.

optimize your images for various social media platforms using this guide

fix exposure or colorization issues using a software like photoshop

I hope that this gives you a starting point into expanding your methodologies. My process is continuously evolving and I find this aspect of the game most entertaining. For others who don't enjoy this process, it's probably not worth it!

Thanks for reading ❤ PXL

[amongussexgif]

Question from a guy thats stupid and doesn't know anything about computers. How do i start learning more? Like i would say i know the basics but thats it,do you have a source or something that you use ? (Again sorry if the question is stupid i just don't know)

Not a stupid question at all!

The basic resources are JayzTwoCents, Gamer's Nexus, and LinusTechTips. I've ordered them by reliability there.

When it comes to picking parts, which I suspect you might be struggling with, there's a lot to consider. Websites like PCPartPicker, PC Bottleneck Calculator, and videocardbenchmark are all fantastic resources.

Here are a few things from me to you, though:

1. NVIDIA are evil; if you want a GeForce card, buy refurbished. Also, 40 series cards are WAY overpriced for what you're getting. I'll always recommend AMD's Radeons anyways though, since they have way more VRAM.

2. Intel are selling snake oil right now and I wouldn't buy anything from them. AMD's Ryzen chips would be my choice even if Intel weren't being scammers right now.

3. ASUS have been consistantly fucking over their customers for a few months, so don't buy from them (especially their motherboards and graphics cards). JayzTwoCents literally banned them as a sponsor because of their horseshit and faulty products.

4. Research manufacturers just as much as you research the parts themselves! MSI is the king of the game right now, but everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. For exams, Gigabyte uses a concerning amount of ABS plastic, ASUS are pulling an Apple, and Zotac can be pretty inconsistent.

5. If you're buying a pre-built (which I wouldn't recommend, but you do you), research the builder and read as many reviews as possible. I know Build Redux is big right now because they sponsored LTT a bunch, but their shipping materials are cheap and reviews say that computers are being delivered broken. Digital Storm overprice the FUCK out of everything, iBuyPower are filthy liars, and Alienware pre-builts are built so odd that it'll be hard to do maintenance or upgrades later on.

Oh, and take everything with a grain of salt. Things change frequently, so there's a decent chance that certain brands or products are better or worse than a few months ago.

And if you have specific questions, ask them specifically! "What graphics card should I buy?" Is a very different question than "what's a good graphics card to pair with my cpu?"

[mehavethoughts]

Tips For People Whose Families Won't Stop Violating Boycott Guidelines

Obviously, some of us are financially dependent on family. As someone who's been navigating this scenario for a while, here are some tips I've been using to try to avoid contributing.

-Request store brand food items only, or items you specifically know don't violate boycott guidelines

-Refuse to eat/use anything that does. If it is safe to do so, make clear your reasoning is because of those guidelines, and offer alternative products you will use. (For example, instead of Dove soap, propose another brand). This one is key!!! By doing so, you enforce that it is a waste of money to buy those things for you.

-Buy your own things as is possible, if you cannot convince family members to avoid boycott guidelines

-Download the 'No Thanks!' app for use when shopping. It's a great tool that lets you scan barcodes, and if the product is registered in their database as one that is being boycotted, it'll let you know

-Suggest alternatives before the topic comes up. If you're discussing where to order food, for example, try suggesting local restaurants. For this, you can use the insane prices of Doordash and similar locations as your argument, or argue that the food from these establishments is more filling. This is especially helpful for those whose families may not listen to pro-Palestine arguments, or who may be in danger if they show support around family

-When it comes to birthdays, holidays, or other times when you expect you will be given gifts, provide a clear list of things you would like that you have already vetted. If possible, request that people do not go off-list, or that if they do, they use the No Thanks app to be sure the item complies with boycott guidelines. If you receive a gift that does violate these guidelines, return it. I know that sounds harsh, but the point of this is the same as the point of refusing to eat anything you're brought from offending restaurants or grocery stores: if you accept these items anyway, you're sending the message that your stance is optional, and that they can ignore it, which will lead to repeat incidents

-On the birthday/holiday gifts note, consider using thrift stores to your advantage. Give a guideline of things you usually like and ask people to thrift an item for you, especially if that's the sort of thing your friends/family members would like to do. For example, I might ask someone thrift me a nice teapot or some teacups, because I like thrift store finds better than store-bought anyway

-When it comes to electronics, do not buy until your old devices are no longer functional. Then, consider buying refurbished, or avoiding brands that are bad. When it comes to computers, AMD is terrible, but INTEL is worse, so go for an AMD processor. If your charger broke, consider going to a thrift store. I know my local savers often has charger cords for much cheaper, and they do work in my experience. Note that the Salvation Army is incredibly queerphobic and should not be used as an alternative to corrupt businesses, as it is one itself

-Request, if possible, items not be purchased for you using Amazon. A great way to avoid this is to, when preparing lists for holidays, birthdays, etc., give online purchase links from places other than Amazon. This is especially effective if you pick things from small businesses with no Amazon-equivalent, such as pieces from small artists, because it means they can't find a cheaper price on Amazon

Note that this guide was designed based off my personal experiences with a mother who does not care about Palestine, and refuses to boycott. I am using these methods myself because they are the only way I can avoid putting money into the wrong hands as a person who is financially dependent on family.

If they seem hand-holdy or overbearing, that is because they need to be. I am prioritizing not sending money to the Israeli apartheid regime above the comfort of myself and my family, because lives are more important than a few awkward conversations or coming off as ungrateful.

I also recognize that not everyone can safely follow these guidelines, especially minors in abusive situations. That is why I presented some non-Palestine related arguments in these suggestions, like Doordashing McDonalds being more expensive than getting food from a small pizza joint for less filling items, or thrift store items being preferable on a personal note.

If you can't argue for Palestine, it still means a lot to simply avoid these businesses using whatever means necessary.

[racfoam]

Okay, poll time regarding an important purchase in my day-to-day life.

In short, I am ready to upgrade from my (glances to the Acer laptop that's been dead for a year) laptop...

I now have a very big budget (it's considered big in my country) that I got over the summer to finally spend it on an upgrade.

I need a poll because now I got an idea to buy a PC, which is dangerous territory for me for numerous reasons. Some background: I haven't had a PC since I was 14, I got my laptop (which is dead now) right as I entered high school, and it was a cheap one, it couldn't even run Minecraft without lagging which at the time pissed off my gamer childhood self.

But, as a functioning, employed adult, I finally did it. I finally saved up enough money to buy a new device.

The accesibility & portability of laptops is def what I need overall for my professional life. They're not a MUST at my work place at all, but it would be NICE to be able to access my documents on laptop & edit them there or during the way home rather than go to the office again for the PC.

Here’s the thing. The laptop I can afford is not better by performance against the gaming PC I can afford.

Why a gaming PC?

Because I am a whimsical little shit. I see a program and I want to master it for hobby's sake, or just cus I'm that curious. What if I one day want to pick up Blender or 3D sculpting or some shit just to try it?! It's happened before, and it continues happening. I jump from hyperfixation to hyperfixation like a ping pong ball. A laptop at the price range I want to buy won't be able to run complex games or Blender.

The childhood me, in my soul, wants that freaking PC. But my basic normal thought process is also aware if I get a gaming PC it may distract me from my work bcs... Well the PC will be able to do EVERYTHING. At least I'm self-aware enough of that.

Another thing is...

Durability & longer-life & upgradability

I can always upgrade the PC, I know my way around PC hardware. The PC will last me longer than the laptop probably will, and I can't upgrade the laptop.

But then I have no portability & always-accessibility the laptop offers, and if I get the laptop it will be for work, Photoshop & fic writing if I get used to it (I won't, I hate writing on laptops). Which is perfect, I'll be able to do my work even on the go, I can carry it with me, etc etc and I WON'T BE DISTRACTED.

So! I guess, vote bcs at this point I'll toss a goddamn coin! And before anyone asks, no I won't put the Macbook on the list, I like having my liver, thank you.

My biggest fear is that I've grown so used to the laptop interface if I buy a PC I'll just take time re-configuring my brain to use it, so what if I hate it? I have so many fears, and I don't want to waste my money and then go like "ugh, I'm disappointed". I'm used to reading on the laptop, typing on the laptop, working on the laptop, etc. I have all PC peripherals except a monitor but the IT stores are having huge discounts & sales now I can grab one from anywhere at this point so that doesn't concern me a lot.

This is a purchase I'll treat myself with for my birthday. I've spoken to friends, some say laptop, some say PC. Anyway, here is the poll. I'll put it for today.

I just love both but I have to pick, but I can't. Laptop is more familiar to me now than a PC 🤣 a PC would be dangerous cus I will def get the urge to play games instead of WORKING, but on the off hours it'd be a party 🤣

For info, the

PC would be

Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600

GPU: RX 6600

RAM: 16GB

That is the overall idea and I even found a custom pc builder in my country, too, if the prebuilt ones are too expensive, haha.

Laptop Models:

Lenovo Ideapad 3 with Ryzen 5, 16Gb RAM, Integrated Intel GPU

Lenovo V15 G5, also Ryzen 5, 16gb ram, integrated Intel GPU

[nikkeisimmer]

Oh My God...inZOI...

"Recommended System Requirements for inZOI (Life simulator from Krafton Games, South Korea)

For those wanting to experience inZOI in all its glory with high frame rates and the most detailed visuals, aim for the following recommended specifications:

CPU: A more powerful processor like the AMD Ryzen 5 3600X or the Intel Core i5-10600K will deliver a smoother performance even in the most demanding scenarios.

RAM: Doubling the minimum requirement, 32 GB of RAM will ensure that your game runs seamlessly and enables extensive multitasking.

Video Card: Upgrading to an AMD Radeon RX 6800 or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 video card will allow you to enjoy inZOI at higher resolutions and with better graphical fidelity.

Dedicated Video RAM: A hefty 10240 MB will give you the bandwidth needed for ultra-quality textures and prevent any graphical stuttering.

Pixel Shader and Vertex Shader: Remaining at version 5.0, but coupled with more robust hardware, you’ll be able to maximize the game’s visual settings.

OS: Windows 10/11 with the latest updates is again recommended for the best compatibility.

Free Disk Space: A consistent 50 GB of free space is recommended for game files, mods, and updates.

-quoted from https://inzoiresource.com/blogs/22/Minimum-and-Recommended-System-Requirements-for-inZOI

Yeah...that's my wallet finding out I'm going to have to spend at least $4,000.00 to run inZOI decently on my computer. The thing is that you can no longer play these newest games on "integrated graphics chips". You have to get a dedicated card. My wife wants to play Dragon Age 4 (The Veilguard) which is coming out on October 31, 2024. And those games are just as intense on hardware as it is with inZOI.

Minimum and RECOMMENDED requirements for Dragon Age 4 "The Veilguard"

Me, personally... I want to play Cities Skylines 2 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Recommended requirements for those two games. Cities Skylines 2

As for MSFS 2024 (due to come out in 2024?)

It's over and above what is pictured in MSFS2020. Chillblast said that the "recommended specs" for FS2024 is the following:

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 PC Recommended Requirements

OS: Windows 10

Processor: Intel i5-8400 | AMD Ryzen 5 1500X

Memory: 16 GB RAM

Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970 | AMD Radeon RX 590

Storage: 150 GB available space

I'm calling HORSESHIT on that right now. I'm saying it's more in the realm of what inZOI and Dragon Age the Veilguard is putting out. You don't get that kind of gaming experience with the specs Chillblast espouses. Especially on the processor and graphics end of things. After all, on the FS forum board, the recommended specs being tossed about just for FS2020 is the following:

Intel i7-12700K CPU

Z690 motherboard

32GB DDR4 3600mhz RAM (upgrades for this on the site are very cheap, but like you said I’ve seen a couple instances where this RAM outperforms most others)

1TB SSD

Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti

Liquid cooled, nice case, 850 watt power supply, etc

Frankly as far as I'm concerned, I'm tempted to go all out and perhaps go so far as investing in:

i9-13900K CPU

64GB RAM DDR4

4TB SSD

NVidia RTX 4090

Z790 GAMING X AX

at least a 1000watt power supply so that I can run peripherals like scanners and other photographic requirements...on top of just my gaming shit.

...at minimum.

I'm sure there will be detractors going, "You don't need that kind of hardware to play Sims 3...or the current games"...well, the main thing in building a system is that you have to shell out for future proofing (as much as technology development allows at any given time) so that you don't have to spend as much money upgrading your computer system on an yearly basis as opposed to once every three to five years and that Sims 3 is not the only game that I play. And the new releases coming out are that graphics-intensive...

I play SWTOR currently and I'm finding that the game stutters especially when there is a lot of people on a server. I want to minimize that so I'm thinking the more RAM I have and the better the video card, I'll get a little less lag out of it and that will help when I'm taking on Imp or Pub forces whichever side I'm playing against at the time. That and maybe improved graphics to the point where it looks semi-realistic. I'm also planning to get Dragon Age 1-3 and then Dragon Age 4 as well. Plus there are a few other graphics intensive games such as Digital Combat Simulator World (DCS: World) as well that are attracting my attention. I may even get into Call of Duty (depending on the feasibility of the user controls.

Mass Effect drives me absolutely friggin' nuts when it comes to controlling my character Shepard - she's a "femShep". I have to key-bind my movement keys to keys that I'm familiar with in order to keep from going bug-frickin' mental. That also messes with the shoot key too. I'll get there someday. In the words of the ever-immortal Maverick Mitchell:

So in a nutshell, these latest games if not forcing people to upgrade to a better class of gaming PC, will find that a lot of people with restrictive budgets may just drop out of the PC market and try to find it on console (if they play console games) no matter how restrictive the console games are in comparison to the PC versions as opposed to spending $4000 on a new gaming system. A standard PS5 is $499.95 CDN as opposed to spending 10X that much trying to set up a PC to be able to play these newer games. Add a couple hundred dollars buying a hard-drive for these consoles will maybe bring that amount to around $600.00 still much cheaper than buying a whole new PC. Dragon Age the Veilguard will only be released for PS5 and PC - No plans in the works for XBOX Series X as far as I know. And for now, inZOI is PC release only (with an intent to release to console later on down the road - though who knows when that will be) Why though am I looking at a new PC on a restrictive budget? Well, it's because I want to play the games in their full graphics and be unrestricted and potentially moddable states. Does it mean I'm going to have to save a lot of money while waiting on a new PC? Yes. Do I have the patience to wait? Yes...I'm in my fifties, I've waited this long...might as well.

🤣

[imustbenuts]

honestly the tl;dr for that whole intel stuff is. long and its something like a decade old disaster in the works

intel had a monopoly on the cpu chip market and went about surpressing a lot of R&D of newer, better, and more efficient chips for a while. internally and externally. they charged an arm and a leg for anything that was needed for editing or rendering. this lasted until their rival, AMD, came out with their Ryzen 5s which were better, more efficient, and FAR cheaper than what intel was offering.

we basically were stuck at 4 cores 6 threads for years too late, and then AMD said "hey. heres some 8 core 24 threads. also burns about the same wattage as those high end 4 cores intel was giving. youre welcome.". this translates to consumers not needing to throw away their machines every 2 years, but rather potentially 6 or even 8.

its as good as cutting down render times from 8 hours to something potentially like 30 or less minutes. its stupid.

anyway. bc intel had been so good at this surpressing, they were behind in terms of know-how and tech. they ended up having to play catch up with AMD who suddenly pulled forward so far overnight. and so to overtake the competition, they made their chips guzzle more wattage to perform better. more power in = faster output. overclocking 101.

except. if you put too much in, it shortens the chip lifespan & makes it run hotter. too much and it just dies. they also. somehow. fucked up the fabrication process and now we have a bunch of useless expensive and dead chips with a more than 100% return rate

and now intel is legit imploding. i think this will also hit the AI bubble hard and actually affect the economy negatively. :). fuck.

[violetlypurple]

quick q about ffxiv; are you on plain arch or an arch-based distro? gathering intel to help a friend switch to linux in a month or two & don't play mmos myself; I'd like to see about taking the non-steam version for a spin on my Garuda installation beforehand to see if it generally works well, but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

either way, good tip about just using "add to steam"; hadn't considered that!

I'm on plain arch with KDE using the mesa drivers that come with the kernel for an arc 750 (which is about all we get on intel dgpus atm, I've tried the official ones included with ubuntu but I'm not convinced they're better and this is an unprompted tangent so moving on). Giving equivalency for performance is a little hard because arc gpu's are hard to pin in a hierarchy with the state of their drivers, but FFXIV locks to a steady 60fps at 1440p and hovers up around 100fps at max settings if I uncap it. This will likely change in a month when the new expac comes out, but your FFXIV-playing friend already knows that part I'm sure 🙏

On my driver tangent, someone in the reblogs made a good point about proprietary drivers and I'd amend, for the general viewing public while I'm here, that the two main cases where that will be relevant are nvidia gpu drivers and wifi adapters, since amd and intel have open source ones that most modern distros will pack in or give an option in setup for. Ubuntu and the archinstall script have those options and I thiiiink mint did too the last time I turned my nose up at it. So in most cases I would only direct a newcomer to seek out drivers if they are having an issue. Or nvidia shenanigans happen, as they are wont to do. My overall distro experience is fairly limited to ubuntu, arch, and the barest whiff of armbian, but the proprietary driver install in ubuntu's setup is dead easy and ubuntu's desktop environment comes with a shortcut that directs to the update settings for proprietary drivers. Its fantastic for terminal-shy newcomers and old "can't be bothered" people like myself.

[coolstarorg]

Leaving the jailbreak community

Around this time last year (in March 2022) I had updated my main iPhone to iOS 15.1, hoping to make a jailbreak for it. I fully expected to be gone from the scene after iOS 15.1, but knew full well that with all the mitigations of iOS 15.0 - 15.1 alone, it may already have been out of my means to make a jailbreak, so there was a risk.

By that time, I had already cut down the tweaks I used to just 2 -- iPad dock for iPhone, and enabling battery percentage for notched iPhones.

Fast forward to June, and iOS 16 had natively introduced battery percentage for iPhones that have the notch -- cutting down the number of tweaks I’d want (compared to stock) from 2 to 1. But no matter, I was still on iOS 15.1, and still hoping to make a jailbreak, since I had a working terminal at that point.

However, the months progressed -- June became July, and iOS 16 betas were coming. Thanks to a donation from someone, I got an M1 Macbook Air to accelerate jailbreak development, and had gotten libhooker with tweaks running a couple weeks later, including on A12 and A13. The jailbreak at this point was in an extremely buggy, albeit functional state and hope was up.

Then the jailbreak community happened -- without a PAC / PPL bypass at the time, libhooker would be forced to sign code pages -- which was only really doable with the libhooker API (unless a ton of effort was spent on potential workarounds). But tweak developers largely refused to consider using the libhooker API for batching hooks, and I was quickly getting frustrated. And a lot of others from the community weren’t helping either -- I had gotten harassed by many jailbreak users on twitter and reddit over this, especially since it had recently come to light that Cheyote was broken on A15. And of course, with it being August 2022, it was unlikely any donations at this point would even get an A15 device on early iOS 15.

At the same time, I had other interests popping up with porting Windows to various chromebooks -- my port to AMD Ryzen was going well enough to be a daily driver, and I had just gotten audio working on the Pixel 2 chromebook (which I previously abandoned in 2017 but then picked up in 2022 with my new experience).

So I snapped -- I realized how much better the community is on the chromebook side and that I simply didn’t need to put up with the jailbreak community. And I put Cheyote on the backburner to focus on developing Windows drivers for chromebooks.

Then August became September, November, December. Progress was being made on the chromebook scene, but every time I considered returning to doing iOS jailbreaking, I shuddered from remembering the harassment.

In December 2022, I returned the money donated towards the macbook to the person who donated it. Since I realized Cheyote was well beyond schedule, even if it ever came to happen. Meanwhile in the chromebook scene, I was getting Intel 12th gen audio working.

Then the months passed, and in March 2023 I realized it had been a full year. And I was still on iOS 15.1 for seemingly no reason other than to tease myself and miss out on the battery percentage and widgets -- so I updated my main iPhone to iOS 16.3.1 (and now iOS 16.4), knowing that there was no turning back and that I would no longer be jailbroken on my main device for a long time, if ever.

That brings us to today. Even though I’ve been in denial about it for several months now, it clearly has made me feel a lot better to stay away from the jailbreak community, and I have found new interests that make me happier. So it’s time to say farewell. It’s been a good run overall since I started developing tweaks for iOS 5 (in 2012) and jailbreaks since iOS 11 (in 2017) -- a 10 year run isn’t too bad after all. 

===========================================================

For those who are still waiting on Cheyote, unfortunately I wouldn’t hold my breath anymore. I’ve clearly moved on months ago, even though it’s taken me until now to fully realize it. I appreciate those who have supported me in the past and thank you for your support on my tweaks, Electra, Chimera, Odyssey and Taurine. If you’re still running one of the jailbreaks I’ve made -- you’re a real one. libhooker and my repos will still be up and running for those on iOS 11 to iOS 14, and Sileo has been maintained by Amy for over a year now. I expect Odyssey and Taurine won’t need any more updates considering they’ve been running stable for a long time, and libhooker 1.6.9 will continue to be hosted on my repo since it is the last version to be fully validated up to iOS 14.8.1 (on checkm8) and up to iOS 14.3 (on Chimera -> Taurine).

If you were interested in what I’m up to these days, feel free to grab almost any Intel chromebook (or one of the 3 supported Ryzen 3000 chromebooks) from the last decade and put Windows on it! (Except the original Pixel 1 [no trackpad / touch screen] or Samsung Chromebook 3 -- that one is garbage, sorry if you have it)

[not-radioshack]

The S3 ViRGE Minecraft Thing

(Article originally posted on TheRetroWeb)

Have you ever wanted to play Minecraft? Have you ever wondered “how terrible can I make this experience”? No? Well too bad. You’ve clicked on this article and I’ve gone this far already, so let’s just keep going and see what happens.

A Little bit of history…

The S3 ViRGE, short for Video and Rendering Graphics Engine (alternately, Virtual Reality Graphics Engine), was first introduced in November of 1995, with an actual release date of early 1996. It was S3 Graphics’ very first 3D-capable graphics card, and it had the unfortunate luck of launching alongside… the 3Dfx Voodoo 1.

It became rather quickly apparent that the ViRGE was terribly insufficient in comparison to the Voodoo, and in fact even picked up the infamous moniker of “graphics decelerator”, which poked fun at its lackluster 3D performance.

The original ViRGE would be followed by the card that this article focuses on, the ViRGE/DX, just a little under a year later in the waning months of 1996.

The ViRGE/DX was a welcome improvement over the original release, lifting performance to more acceptable levels and improving software compatibility with better drivers. Mostly. And while native Direct3D performance was iffy at best and OpenGL support was nonexistent, S3 did have one last trick up their sleeves to keep the ViRGE line relevant: the S3D Toolkit.

Similar to 3Dfx’s Glide API, the S3D Toolkit was S3 Graphics’ proprietary low-level graphics API for the ViRGE. Unlike 3Dfx’s offering, however, S3D, much like the cards it was intended for, fell flat on its face. Only a small handful of games ever natively supported S3D acceleration, and by my own admission, I haven’t ever played any of them.

But wait, this article is about playing Minecraft on the ViRGE, isn’t it? The block game of all time is famously written in Java, and uses an OpenGL rendering pipeline. So, how can the S3 ViRGE, a card with no OpenGL support, possibly play Minecraft?

Wrappers!

This is where a little thing called “OpenGL wrappers” come in. Shipping in the form of plain OpenGL32.dll files (at least, on Windows) that you drop into a folder alongside whatever needs OpenGL acceleration, these wrappers provide a way to modify, or “wrap”, OpenGL API calls.

In our case, we are interested in the category of OpenGL wrappers that translate OpenGL API calls to that of other APIs. For a more modern equivalent of these wrappers, the Intel Arc line of graphics cards uses DXVK in order to translate older DirectX 9 calls to Vulkan, which is a natively-supported API.

For this experiment, we will be using a wrapper called “S3Mesa”, made by Brian Paul of the Mesa project. Though open-source, this wrapper never made it to a completed state, and is missing certain features such as texture transparency despite the ViRGE itself being supposedly capable of it. However, this does not affect gameplay much beyond aesthetics.

The S3Mesa wrapper, on a more technical note, translates OpenGL 1.1 calls to a mix of both S3D and DirectX API calls.

The System

At last, we arrive at the system hardware. As of writing, I am currently benchmarking a plethora of low-end (or otherwise infamous) cards for my “Ultra Nugget Graphics Card Roundup”, and so the system itself is likely a liiiiiittle bit overpowered for the lowly ViRGE/DX:

AMD Athlon XP (Palomino) @ 1.14GHz

Shuttle MK32 Socket A motherboard

256MB DDR-400

S3 ViRGE/DX (upgraded to 4MB of video memory)

Windows 98SE

Why Windows 98SE? Because S3 never released 3D-accelerated graphics drivers for non-Windows 9x operating systems in the consumer space.

For Minecraft itself, KernelEX 4.5.2 and Java 6 are installed as well, and an old version of the launcher dating back to early 2013 that I personally refer to as the “Minecraft 1.5 Launcher” is used for compatibility purposes. Also because no launcher that can work on Windows 98 is capable of logging into the authentication servers anymore.

Setting up the game

With Windows 98SE, KernelEX, and Java 6 installed (in that order, of course), we can turn our attention to the game itself. As mentioned before, no launcher to my knowledge that runs on Windows 98 is capable of logging into the auth servers. This results in two additional problems: starting the game itself and downloading game assets.

Using the 1.5 launcher solves this first issue by means of relying on a little thing called the lastlogin file. This is an old way that the launcher was able to allow players to keep playing offline when disconnected from the internet, but more importantly, unlike the modern launcher, it doesn’t expire. 🙂

And because of that, our login problem is solved by middle school me’s old .minecraft folder backup, from which I’ve extracted the lastlogin file for use in this experiment.

As for game assets, there is no longer any way to easily download the game files for use on Windows 98SE directly, and so I’ve instead pieced together a folder using that same backup. The most important thing is that instead there being a “versions” folder, there is now instead a “bin” folder, where both the natives and the game’s jarfile both reside.

Now that our .minecraft folder is acquired, take that thing and plot it right down into the Windows folder in Windows 98. Why? Because on Windows 98, the 1.5 launcher ignores the “application data” folder entirely. The launcher itself can go anywhere you’d like, so long as you’re using the .exe version and not the .jar version.

Finally, to wrap things up, place the OpenGL to S3D wrapper in the same location as the launcher exe. Make sure it’s called OpenGL32.dll!

The Game

You just lost it. 🙂

The S3 ViRGE, by my own testing, is capable of running any version of Minecraft from Classic up to and including Indev version in-20100110. However, it is EXTREMELY unstable, and has a tendency to crash mere seconds after loading into a world. This is on top of some minor rendering errors introduced by the aformentioned incomplete state of the S3Mesa wrapper. This video was recorded with Windows ME rather than Windows 98, but this does not impact anything regarding performance or compatibility (and in fact, at least from my own experience, the game is more stable under ME than 98).

Below are the desktop/game settings used in testing:

“Tiny” render distance

Desktop resolution: 640 x 480 (don’t fullscreen the game)

Bit depth: 16/24-bit color (32-bit can cause the ViRGE to run out of memory, and 16-bit can cause strange issues on Windows 98)

And last but not least, some gameplay. This came from some scrapped footage originally intended for my “UNGCR” video, and was only intended for personal reference in collecting performance numbers. As such, the audio is muted due to some copyrighted music blasting in the background.

Further reading/resources

Vogons Wrapper Project

Original video that this article is based on

VGA Legacy MKIII’s ViRGE/DX page

thanks for reading my walking natural disaster of an article kthxbaiiiiiiii

[mariacallous]

All roads lead to Phoenix. On the gravy train of greenfield investment riding on the back of Inflation Reduction Act legislative incentives in the United States, no county ranks higher than Arizona’s Maricopa. The county leads the nation in foreign direct investment, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC), Intel, LG Energy, and others expanding their footprint in the Grand Canyon State. But Phoenix is neither the next Rome nor the next Detroit. The reasons boil down to workers and water.

First, the labor. America’s skilled worker shortage has been well documented since before the Trump-era immigration slump and pandemic border closures. Especially in the tech industry—the United States’ most productive, high-wage, and globally dominant sector—a huge deficit in homegrown engineering talent and endlessly bungled immigration policies have left Big Tech with no choice but to outsource more jobs abroad.

Arizona dangled its low taxes and sunshine, but TSMC has had to fly in Taiwanese technicians to jump-start production at the 4 nanometer chip plant that was meant to be completed by 2024, but has been delayed until 2025 at the earliest.

The salvage operation calls into question whether the more advanced and miniaturized 3 nanometer plant—scheduled to open in 2026 will stay on course. (With two-thirds of its customer base—including Apple, AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Nvidia, Marvell, Analog Devices, and Intel—in the United States, it’s no wonder TSMC wants to speed things up.)

From electric vehicles to gaming consoles, the forecasted demand for the company’s industry-leading chips is projected to rise long into the future—and its market share is already north of 50 percent. Given the geopolitical risks it faces in Asia, a well-trained U.S. workforce could give it the comfort to establish the United States as a quasi-second headquarters. After all, Morris Chang, the company’s founder, had a long first career with Texas Instruments.

But the next slowdown they may face is Arizona’s dwindling water supply. In just the past year, Scottsdale cut off water to Rio Verde Foothills, an upscale unincorporated suburb on its fringes, due to the region’s ongoing megadrought and its curtailed allocation of Colorado River water. This was followed by Phoenix freezing new construction permits for homes that rely on groundwater.

Forced to find other sources, industry players have stepped up buying water rights from farmers, essentially bribing them to stop growing food that would serve the region’s fast-growing population. Then there are the backroom deals involved in an Israeli company receiving the green light for a $5.5 billion project to desalinate water from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez and pipe it 200 miles uphill through deserts and natural preserves to Phoenix.

Water risk brings political risk for companies. Especially in Europe, governments are carefully weighing the short-term benefits of corporate investment versus the climate stress it exacerbates. They have good reason to be suspicious: Firms such as Microsoft have been notoriously inconsistent in reporting their water consumption, and promises to replenish consumed water haven’t been delivered on. And even if data centers are becoming more efficient, growing demand just means more of them. Some European provinces have blocked data center development, pushing them to locations with high heat risk.

Europe’s regulatory stringency has long been off-putting to foreign investors, which is what makes European officials so weary of Washington’s aggressive Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS and Science Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

But to fulfill its promise of putting the United States on a path toward sustainable industrial self-sufficiency, these policies need to better align investment with resources, matching companies to geographies that best suit their needs. It would be better to direct capital allocation to climate resilient regions than to throw good money after potentially stranded assets.

If any company ought to know better on all these matters, it’s TSMC. In Taiwan itself, the industry’s huge energy and water consumption are a source of controversy and difficulty. Not only have droughts on the island occasionally slowed production, but the company’s own water consumption rose 70 percent from 2015-19.

Furthermore, Taiwan knows that its real special sauce is precisely the technically skilled workforce that the United States lacks. Yet TSMC has doubled down on Phoenix, a place without a reliable long-term water supply for industry, little in the way of renewable energy, and a construction freeze that will make it challenging to house all the workers it needs to import.

With all the uncertainty over both water and workers, this begs the question of whether the semiconductor company the entire world is courting would have been better off establishing its U.S. beachhead in the upper Midwest or northeast instead? Ohio, upstate New York, and Michigan rank high in greenfield corporate investments, resilience to climate shocks, and are abundant in quality universities and technical institutes.

Amid accelerating climate change and an intensifying war for global talent, how can those devising U.S. industrial policy better select the appropriate locations to steer investment to?

States with higher climate resilience than Arizona are starting to flex for greater investment. According to recent data, Illinois has climbed to second place nationally for corporate expansion and relocation projects. The greater Chicago area and state as a whole are touting their tax benefits, underpriced real estate, growth potential, and grants to prepare businesses to cope with climate change.

Other parts of the Great Lakes region, such as Michigan and Ohio, are also regaining confidence in their industrial revival, pitching heavily for both domestic and foreign commercial investment while emphasizing their affordability and climate adaptation plans.

Just over the border, Canada has been wildly successful in poaching foreign skilled workers unable to secure or maintain green card status in the United States while also investing heavily in economic diversification—all with the benefit of nearly unlimited natural resources and energy supplies. While Canada hasn’t yet rolled out Inflation Reduction Act-style tax breaks to lure investors, it abounds in critical minerals for EV batteries (nickel, cobalt, lithium and rare earths such as neodymium, praseodymium, and niobium) as well as hydropower.

The more that climate change warps the United States, the more grateful it should be that its most natural and staunch ally occupies the most climate resilient real estate on the North American continent, even taking into account the raging wildfires of this summer. But rather than covet Canada the way China does Russia—as a vast and depopulated resource bounty—the United States and Canada should cooperate far more proactively on a continental scale industrial policy that would bring about true self-sufficiency from the Arctic to the Caribbean.

This is where geopolitical interests, economic competition, and climate adaptation converge. As Canada’s population surges by up to 1 million new permanent migrants annually, a more unified North American system would be more self-sufficient in crucial commodities and industries, less vulnerable to supply chain disruptions abroad, and avoid unnecessary carbon emissions from excessive inter-continental trade. Thirty years after the NAFTA agreement, it seems more sensible than ever to graduate toward a more formal, autarkic North American Union.

One can easily imagine Greenland joining one day—the country already enjoys autonomy from its colonizer (Denmark) and is now pushing for complete independence, driven partly by the desire to control more of the riches that climate change has revealed it to possess.

Meanwhile, in Taipei, there are far more complex geopolitical consequences to consider. TSMC has long been considered Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” a leader of industry so important that a conflict that took it offline would be a major own-goal for China. But it is precisely the combination of the China threat, environmental stress, and pandemic-era supply chain disruptions that convinced TSMC’s customers that its home nation represents too large a concentration risk.

Now TSMC and its rivals are expanding production from Japan to the United States, Europe, and India. This globally diversified set of chip manufacturers is easier for China to exploit as countries more susceptible to Chinese pressure become less rigid in compliance with U.S.-led export controls over advanced technologies.

At the same time, if the United States no longer depends on Taiwan itself for the majority of its semiconductor supply in just five to seven years, will it be as willing to defend Taiwan militarily? This, not Ukraine, is what Beijing is watching for as it pursues its own “Made in China” quest for self-sufficiency.

Industrial policy is back in vogue as a national security and economic strategy. But to get it right requires aligning investment into industry and infrastructure with the geographies of resources and resilience. The countries that build climate adaptation into their strategies will be the ones that build back better.

[macrepairexperts]

Tips to improve your MacBook’s Battery Performance

MacBooks have become indispensable tools for work, education, and entertainment. One important factor that often gets overlooked in the quest for the perfect MacBook’s battery life. The longevity of your MacBook's battery can significantly impact your productivity and convenience. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore the importance of battery life and provide practical tips for finding a MacBook that offers optimal longevity.

Understanding the Significance of Battery Life:

- Productivity: Longer battery life means more uninterrupted work sessions, especially when you're on the go or in places without easy access to power outlets.

- Portability: A MacBook with extended battery life enhances portability, allowing you to work or enjoy entertainment without constantly worrying about finding a charging station.

- Cost Efficiency: Investing in a MacBook with a durable battery can save you money in the long run, reducing the need for frequent battery replacements or upgrades.

- Environmental Impact: Choosing a MacBook with a longer battery life contributes to reducing electronic waste by extending the lifespan of your device.

Is your Macbook battery draining quickly or not holding a charge? It may be time for a replacement. Contact Lappy Maker for professional battery replacement services.

 Factors that Affecting Battery Life

- Battery Capacity: The size of the battery plays a significant role in determining how long your MacBook can run on a single charge.

- Hardware Efficiency: Energy-efficient components such as processors, display panels, and storage drives can help conserve battery power.

- Software Optimization: Operating system updates and power management settings can impact battery performance, with some systems offering better optimization for extended battery life.

- Usage Patterns: Your usage habits, such as running multiple applications simultaneously or streaming high-definition videos, can drain the battery more quickly.

 Tips for Finding a MacBook with Long Battery Life

 1. Assess Your Needs

- Determine your typical usage scenarios to understand the level of battery life required for your daily activities.

- Consider whether you prioritise performance, portability, or battery life when selecting a MacBook.

 2. Research Battery Specifications

- Look for MacBooks with high-capacity batteries or those equipped with energy-efficient technologies.

- Check manufacturer specifications and reviews to get an idea of real-world battery performance.

 3. Consider Battery Life Ratings

- Pay attention to battery life ratings provided by manufacturers, but keep in mind that actual usage may vary depending on usage conditions.

- Look for MacBooks with battery life that meets or exceeds your specific requirements.

 4. Opt for Energy-Efficient Components

- Choose MacBooks with energy-efficient processors, such as Intel's low-power variants or AMD's Ryzen Mobile processors.

- Select SSD storage instead of traditional hard drives, as SSDs consume less power and contribute to longer battery life.

 5. Evaluate Display Technology

- Consider MacBooks with energy-efficient display panels, such as LED-backlit or OLED screens, which consume less power compared to traditional LCDs.

- Adjust screen brightness and resolution settings to optimise battery usage without compromising visual quality.

 6. Utilise Power-Saving Features

- Take advantage of built-in power-saving features provided by your operating system, such as sleep mode, screen dimming, and power management settings.

- Disable unnecessary background processes and peripherals to conserve battery power when not in use.

 7. Invest in External Battery Packs

- For extended periods away from power outlets, consider purchasing external battery packs or portable chargers to supplement your MacBook's battery life.

- Look for compact and lightweight options that offer sufficient capacity to recharge your MacBook on the go.

Lastly, Battery life is a crucial consideration when choosing a MacBook, as it directly impacts your productivity, portability, and overall user experience. By understanding the factors affecting battery life and following these tips, you can find a MacBook that offers optimal longevity to meet your needs. Whether you're a busy professional, a student, or a casual user, prioritising battery life ensures that your MacBook remains a reliable companion wherever you go.

[ponycycle]

What's your biggest hyperfocus and how did you discover it?

I had to think on this for a minute because I wasn't sure if it was true anymore. If it wasn't this then it would be something like MLP or motorcycles (it was tempting to say motorcycles!).

I think it's fair to still say personal computers, though. I'm not sure about when my first contact with them was, but I know a major development was when my dad bought our first PC, an IBM AT clone. (I think I still have most of the parts for it!) I would have been like, 7-9 years old at the time and I was fascinated with it. I ended up breaking it as a kid, because I was trying to figure out what all the DOS 4.0 commands did by running them... when I got to FDISK I rendered it unbootable by pressing buttons. A friend of my father's recovered the situation (I think he used Norton Utilities to recreate the partition table).

I can name pretty much every PC that we had as a family or I had personally:

-Aforementioned IBM AT clone (8088 with a Tatung Hercules monitor, DOS 4.0) -386SX that came from who knows where (Went straight from orange Hercules to VGA colour!!! Windows 3.1) -Tandy 1000HX (long term loan from a friend) -Cyrix 586 (dogshit computer - had fake onboard cache, a common scam at the time, crashed constantly. Windows 95) -468DX4 (think I built this from scrounged parts. Win95, slower than the other PC but way more stable) -Pentium II 233 (also built from scrounged parts. First PC I overclocked, gaining 33 mHz! So fast!!! Windows 2000... but later got repurposed as a Linux-based router) -AMD Duron 800 (built with NEW parts - parents gave me a budget to built a family computer. Windows ... 98? XP? Probably changed multiple times) -AMD Athlon XP 1600 (built with NEW parts - I truly don't remember where I got the money in highschool to put it together, but it was probably every penny I had) -AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (admittedly I didn't remember this offhand... but I did have the physical CPU lying around to check. bought off the shelf very cheap as old stock for my parents to use. Windows Vista. Later upgraded to an Phenom X4, also for very cheap. This PC still lives running Windows 10 today!) -Intel Core 2 Duo Q6700 (built in a cute Shuttle XPC chassis. Eventually burned out a RAM slot because apparently it wasn't rated for 2.0V DIMMs. Windows 7) -Intel Core i5-2500K (I used this computer for YEARS. Like almost a decade, while being overclocked to 4.4 gHz from nearly the first day I had it. Windows 7/10) -AMD 5800X (Currently daily driver. Windows 10)

Not mentioning laptops because the list is already long and you get the point.

I actually did attempt to have a computer related career - in the mid 2000s I went to a community college to get a programming diploma, but I dropped out halfway. There was a moment, in a class teaching the Windows GDI API, where I realized that I had no desire to do that professionally. I did learn things about SQL and OS/400 that randomly came in handy a few times in my life. I did go back and successfully get a diploma in networking/tech support but I've never worked a day in that field.

Unprofessionally though, I was "that guy" for most of my life - friend of a friend or family would have a problem with their PC, and I would show up and help them out. I never got to the point where I would attempt to like, re-cap somebody's motherboard, but I could identify blown caps (and there was a time when there was a lot of those). As the role of PCs has changed, and the hardware has gotten better, I barely ever get to do this kind of thing these days. My parent's PC gathers dust in the corner because they can do pretty much do everything they need on their tablets, which they greatly prefer.

Today though... I used to spend a lot of time reading about developments in PC hardware, architectural improvements, but it doesn't matter as much to me anymore. I couldn't tell you what the current generation of Intel desktop CPUs use for a socket without looking it up. A lot of my interest used to be gaming related, and to this day the GPU industry hasn't fully recovered from the crypto boom. Nearly all of the games I'm interested in play well on console so I just play them there. I still fiddle with what I have now and then.

It is fun to think back on various challenges/experiences with it I've had over the years (figuring out IRQ/DMA management when that was still manual, Matsushita CD-ROM interfaces, trying to exorcise the polymorphic Natas virus from my shit). Who knows, maybe I'll get to curate a PC museum of all this shit someday haha.

[thebookworm0001]

What’s in a Computer 101

Motherboard - everything plugs into this. It makes sure every part talks nicely to each other.

CPU - brain of the computer. Roughly, bigger numbers = more brainpower

GPU - makes the pictures happen. Again, bigger numbers roughly equal more picture power.

RAM - short term memory. More of this means more things can happen at once. This is what gets eat by your open google chrome tags and makes things slower.

Storage - long term memory. Where you store all your downloaded but unplayed steam games.

PSU - UNLIMITED POWER. Nah but this is your battery and what makes sure all the pieces can turn on. Make sure it’s big enough and do not under any circumstances cheap out on this if buying separately. A cheap psu will explode.

Cooling - power=heat. More power means more cooling. There’s a ton of options.

Case - what everything goes into. Size matters. Make sure it’s big enough.

Motherboard - This determines the kind of cpu you can purchase because they fit into the board differently. They have different stuff going on depending on how much you want to spend. Basic boards will do what you want, but they may look busier and be lacking things you want (like a million usb connections or internal Wi-Fi).

They come in different sizes. Micro-ITX is itty bitty. Surprisingly, this does not mean cheaper. Then it’s mini-ATX. Both mini and micro will be lacking the extra PCIE slots that let you plug in things like multiple graphics cards or a Wi-Fi board if your motherboard doesn’t have that capability built-in. ATX is your standard size motherboard. Then it’s E-ATX. You can have More Stuff on this one. It’s big.

Pick a motherboard that has the functionality you want on it. You gotta make that choice based on your budget and on the other parts we’ll talk about in a minute.

You don’t really get to pick this for a laptop though.

CPU - There are two companies that make computer brains: Intel and AMD. They are in a constant fight to be the company with the most powerful brain. Their number schemes are weird. Intel is i3-, i5-, i7-, and i9- followed by some very large number. The general rule is the bigger the number, the more it can handle. AMD has the 3000,5000, and 7000 series. Again, bigger number, better performance. Bigger number also means more money. AMD had better cost/performance ratios when I built my stuff, but unless you’re aiming for the top tier of performance, the difference honestly isn’t that noticeable between companies.

GPU -On a pc, this will be your most expensive component. Again, bigger numbers = better performance = more money. There are two companies for graphic processing units: AMD and NVIDIA. NVIDIA has the RTX line or cards. The most recent is their 4000 series (4060,4070,4080,4090) and AMD’s 7000 series (7600 and 7000) Radeon cards are their competition. Again, unless you are aiming for The Best, you will not necessarily notice a difference and there ain’t no god damn reason to buy the 4090 or 7900 unless you have $2k USD burning a hole in your pocket.

The NVIDIA 3000 series and AMD 6000 series will be cheaper and work just fine. All of NVIDIA’s cards since the 3000 series have raytracing which is a fancy lighting thing big games use right now. It’s pretty and you do actually notice the difference. AMD’s lower tier cards don’t. I believe NVIDIA is sorta winning the performance fight right now but like I said. Unless you are going for ultra/elite settings on everything with 4k resolution… you’re not noticing a difference at medium/high at 1080p between any given company. You can also find older, used cards for cheaper that work just fine. Be careful that they weren’t used for mining though. They tend to be busted.

RAM - You want as much of this as you can get. 8 GB is not enough if you want to have more than one tab open in google chrome. 16 is the bare minimum for gaming. Pretty much anything new is gonna require 16GB of ram. Some people are starting to say 32 is now the thing you should aim for. Considering how cheap ram is right now, it’s probably worth it just as games get more demanding. This is less true for laptops because everything is more expensive in a laptop.

This also has to be compatible with your cpu so if you buy parts individually, you gotta do some digging on the CPU’s support list via your motherboard support site with the ram’s serial numbers to make sure it’ll work. This is not a concern with prebuilt machines like laptops or prebuilt pcs.

They also have different speeds if you want to make things go faster but that’s more advanced than I’m getting into here

Storage - There are three types of storage right now: hard drives, SSDs and M.2 SSDS. Hard drives are slower and physical. They’re cheap, good for massive storage. Not good for putting your operating system (windows, Linux, etc.) on if you want it to move quickly. SSDs - faster than hard drives, digital storage, and more expensive than hard drives. M.2 - looks like a stick of gum. Plugs into your motherboard directly (no wires), super fast. The most expensive. Laptops run off M.2s for space reasons. This makes more storage more expensive. You will need a lot of storage if you are running modern AAA games. They’re chunky now. 1000 GB makes 1 TB - most AAA games live in the land of 150 GB at least now.

PSU - power supply. Your graphics card is gonna determine this the most. But the more powerful your machine, the more power you need. This is the place you never, ever, ever cheap out. A bad power supply can blow up. Literally. Best case scenario with that is the computer you just bought is dead. Laptops don’t let you pick this. Instead you get averages of battery life. More battery life means less time plugged into a wall.

Cooling - how to keep your computer from dying from the heat. This will depend a Lot on your person preferences but also on the power of machine. Power=heat. The more powerful your machine, the more cooling you need. Entry level CPUs come with coolers. The more mid-tier and high-tier tell you to buy your own. You have two routes: air and water cooling. Air uses metal pipes and fans. Noctua is the brand everyone swears by and it’s the brand I bought when I upgraded my machine. They’re pricey, but they really are fantastic. They will also send you pieces later down the road if you upgrade your machine to a new cpu with different dimension so their cooler can still fit. Their site also has a bunch of graphs and charts and stuff to help you pick which of their coolers is best for your machine. Water cooling uses a bunch of tubes filled with water to pick up the heat and carry it to a big metal thing (radiator) that you attach fans to to blow out the hot air. It’s quieter than an air cooler, and you can do all this crazy custom stuff with it. Or you can buy an AIO (all-in-one) that just needs to be attached to your case and a fan. People fight about whether air or water cooling is better. All I know is that I don’t risk spilling water on my electronics with one. So that’s the route I go.

Laptops have their own thing going. They’ve got air cooling with little fans inside the case. More powerful laptops sometimes allow you to external coolers to help offset the heat. I would suggest these. Don’t fry your laptop.

Case - where you put everything. Laptops give you very little choice here and they all basically have the same shape. Gaming laptops are gonna have a certain Aesthetic that I can only describe as red/rainbow and Pointy. They tend to be a bit aggressive in their appearance. This is true for most gamer things and it’s hard to get around.

PC cases are mostly the same shape (rectangle) but have more variety in color and layout. That’s all personal preference though. but they’ve got stuff you gotta pay attention to. Namely their size. You gotta fit all your stuff inside it. Tiny cases will not fit an ATX motherboard. A giant case will fit everything but may also be bigger than you’d like. Basically, you gotta look at the dimensions of your other parts (the gpu and cooler mostly) and compare it to the case dimensions so everything fits. Prebuilt pcs take care of this for you.

My current rig

Motherboard: Aorus b450 pro Wi-Fi

CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X

GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3060ti

RAM: 16 GB

Storage: Samsung 860 EVO 1 TB SSD (2 of these, actually)

PSU: Corsair 650w

Cooling: Noctua NH-D15s (and a bunch of cheap upHere fans for my case)

Case: a Montech something-or-another that’s cheap and not made anymore from what I can tell

My rig can play Jedi:Survivor on high settings with ray tracing on at 1080p with no real issues. I want to do some upgrades, but that’s me chasing those insane top of the line rigs. I dont need to do that by any means. I can play any game that comes out in the next few years just fine.

@drakonovisny

[scalpelsister]

do i have any pc nerds (affectionate) following me 😭 I'm trying to build my first pc and I have... three potential builds? for context I'm looking to play Baldur's Gate 3 primarily, and have a build thats decently upgradable- which is why I'm focusing on cpu over gpu. I also cannot be hooked up to an ethernet cable- more on that later.

Build One: [link] [link]

This build is intel i5 based- the cheaper one does not have integrated wifi in the motherboard, and thus would need.... a wifi chip? idk how that works I wont lie, nor do I know which one is better (integrated or chip, that is). This is pushing the upper limits of the budget pretty hard, esp with the integrated wifi, but based on my research has.... a slightly better cpu? I'm not sure how much of a difference that actually makes, considering both builds have somewhat similar cpus, but this one seems a bit better? idk.

Build Two: [link]

AMD Ryzen 5 based build. It accounts for wifi with a wifi integrated mobo, and is overall a bit more budget friendly? but only slightly. I'm pretty sure the price difference is actually pointless here after deal hunting and second hand shopping, but worth pointing out.

Regardless, this will be a very large upgrade- going from a gtx 1050 gpu, a ryzen 5 (but older gen version) cpu, and 8 gb ram (😅). I currently use an HP Pavillion 15- but the much older ec0xxx version, so really anything here should be a big upgrade. Obviously I'm also looking to stick to my budget pretty hard and get as much bang for my buck- the most I want to spend is ~$600, and again, this build is specifically to play Baldur's Gate 3 as smoothly as possible (I'm ok with playing on low/medium graphics settings! I just want it to run smoother and crash less, tldr).