UltraMega

Apple makes their own hardware and OS, and they've never claimed it to be an open system. Android is an open system similar to Windows. Google can't both claim Android is an open system AND take huge anti-competitive steps to keep others from using it that way. Another difference from Apple; Google pays Apple to make Google the default search on Apple devices. Apple isn't paying anyone to make Apple the default for anything.

https://www.guru3d.com/story/nvidia-no-longer-a-graphics-company/

That is or was Nvidia's plan but it seems unclear if they will still be able to do that after the government basically warned them to stop redesigning chips to get around the bans.

Related News: This might be why the RTX 4090 is getting so expensive | Digital Trends Wasn't really aware that 4090's were getting so expensive until someone asked me about one recently, and sure enough they are going for around $2400+ now. Not totally clear on the sequence of events here but it seems that Nvidia's decision to prioritize China for 4090 shipments recently has left other markets lacking, but I suppose the ban will bring prices down soon. I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that AI is very weaponizable, and in that sense Nvidia is starting to have more and more in common with a company like Lockheed Martin. It's fascinating to watch this play out. I can't think of any other large company that's stumbled into being so vital to national security interests just by making entertainment products. I wonder if Nvidia would be in this position if they had never purchased Ageia for PhysX, it seems like that's when GPGPU and CUDA started to take off which sort of set GPUs on a path to become more than just graphics chips.

It's 99% the same as windows 10 so don't expect much. Menus are a little cleaner, that's about it as far as any differences you will actually notice.

Apparently this game has a pretty good FSR3 implementation.

https://www.guru3d.com/story/windows-12-scheduled-for-june-2024-launch-becomes-aiintegrated-pc-platform/ It's kinda hard to imagine what this could really add to the user experience that couldn't be done with copilot in windows 11. Maybe stuff like AI image generation would be done locally? Maybe something like DLSS would be a native part of windows? Will be interesting to see what this looks like.

On the topic of staggered releases, I don't mind that it comes to PC later, I just hate how the don't even mention a PC version. Gta4 and 5 both were developed for PS3 era hardware, so it at least makes sense that some real work would be involved to get the game running on PC hardware but that's hasn't been true with consoles for a long time and it's less true now than ever before with both consoles basically being PC hardware. Seems like they do this to get people to double dip, or to buy it for consoles right away since they're unsure it will ever come out on PC and then they buy it again on PC when it eventually does come out. If this tactic leads to more sales, it's no mystery why they do it, but it's a dirty tactic all the same. The only other reason they would do this is piracy. Presumably if it's not on PC at launch, it's a lot harder to pirate but that doesn't mean they can't at least confirm that it will come to PC eventually. Just annoying that they do this everytime. I think red dead 1 is the only game that actually didn't come to pc tho.

Curious what makes you think it will get delayed? It easily could get delayed but since it's Rockstar they probably don't have much pressure to rush development. They've had soooo long to work on this, I'd like to think they will have had plenty of time by the target release window.

It looks like they're going to do the typical "will they, won't they" thing with PC as Rockstar confirmed consoles but not PC. Hopefully the wait for PC isn't too long.

Looks like they dropped the trailer a day early.

Some goofy news in the meantime: Rockstar's GTA 6 Trailer Release Date Announcement Was So Huge Other Developers Are Parodying It - IGN

US government warns Nvidia against circumventing China export restriction by redesigning chips | TechSpot Hopefully this isn't too political. This seems to be the biggest new on this topic in a while. Just from a financial standpoint, this type of news has been sending Nvidia's stock price through a lot of ups and downs. One day the US updates it's export ban list and Nvidia stock goes down, shortly after Nvidia releases new chips to sell internationally and their stock goes back up, and the cycle repeats. It seems this could be an end to that cycle, but I have no doubt Nvidia's stock will only take a small hit. Right now they might as well be selling water in the desert, there's not a lot that can slow them down. Every chip they can make for AI will have a buyer willing to pay a lot, be it in the US or elsewhere. It always makes me pause to think that Nvidia, the company I've been buying GPUs to game on since Battlefield 1942 came out on PC in 2001 now has such a pivotal role in vital tech.

Bf4 is an old game. I bet that would have run fine in my situation as well.

Yea I get a 4x gen 3 slot a huge step down from a 16x slot, or just a gen 4 slot, but it's still interesting just how much it hindered the card. Some games went from completely unplayable to perfectly smooth. A 3070 isn't that powerful of a card too, so just interesting that it mattered sooo much for a mid range card.

A friend of mine upgraded from a GeForce 1070 to a GeForce 3070 recently. His PC already had a sound card, and he wanted to add a wifi6 card at the same time. This meant all of the PCI slots on his PC were to be used. Short-sidededness meant the only way to fit the GPU and the two PCI cards in meant the GPU had to go into the bottom slot to physically fit, which is a PCI3 4X slot (4GBps) We've all heard about how PCIe speeds don't matter for GPUs. I am here to tell you that in this case, it mattered very much. The 3070 performance under a 4X PCI3 slot was terrible. It probably tripled at least when we got the extension cables needed to move his other PCI cards lower in the case to make room for the GPU to fit into the 16x slot. Once we did that, performance was great. 4X PCIe3 - massively bad performance, constant stuttering. Bad performance at 1080p 16X PCIe performance - totally smooth, like you would expect. Good performance at 1440p-4K I wish I had recorded data. Researching this situation beforehand, I could not find any instance of a GPU as powerful as a 3070 in a PCIe slot as slow as a 4X PCIe3 slot. So this thread is just to point out that PCIe speeds are starting to matter.

There are a lot of mods that adjust the filters now. Might wanna look on mod nexus before you try the same mod that was out right after the game launched, which just removes the filters completely.

https://www.guru3d.com/review/amd-ryzen-threadripper-7980x-review/

If I were trying to put together something for gaming on a really tight budget, I'd probably try finding a decent used desktop on ebay. You can get an intel 6th gen desktop for like $60, 8th gen for $100. Or if there is an e-waste place near you that resells stuff, you can probably find something better than a CPU so old for dirt cheap.

Is this for retro gaming?

I don't think you will benefit from using an unlocked chip in a PC like this. What is your goal here?

Just got officially approved to sell on Amazon, with my own unique brand and product code.

If you like racing games but prefer arcade racers to Sim racers, try NFS unbound. I beat it recently and I really enjoyed it. It's a very light hearted but fun game with a unique risk/reward system. The cops can be annoying later in the game, but beyond that it's pretty solid. It's on game pass.

Based on what you describe with the fans powering on from something other than the power cord, seems like that would have to be something the motherboard is responsible for, so I'd assume that's probably the part that's bad. Never heard of that happening before tho. Pretty weird!

Based on the reviews, it seems like everyone is getting crashes all the time. I wouldn't bother trying to tweak any hardware settings, but that's interesting that it made a difference in your case. Just gonna have to wait for some patches.