UltraMega

I did put the original hardware in it actually. If you watch the second video in the OP, you will see the inside in the second half of the video. I wanted to upgrade it, but since we didn't know if it would work at all at yet when we made a plan to restore it, the customer didn't want to spend too much. The only hardware that got changed wad the original early 2013 SSD got swapped for a new one, and I put a bigger CPU Heatsink on since it was using the stock Intel fan. Everything else is as it was. Still running the same exact software with no changes, same Intel 4th gen i5 with a GeForce 760 and a GeForce 610. I am gonna go back and install a USB adapter so there will be room to hook up a wireless mouse and keyboard since all the USB is being used as is, but other than those few things it's all original. We only replaced the display because it wasn't working, but it's just a standard 1080p 60hz TV, swapped with a similar one. I used that little blower thing to clean it all out too.

So I had a customer recently who called me about a virtual pinball machine from the company VPcabs, which was actually a Shark Tank product. I had never heard of these before, so at first I told the customer I probably couldn't help him, but after I looked it up I decided to go check it out and see what I could do. Very oddly designed machine, it uses car speakers and a car amp for the sound and it has 2 GPUs when I really don't think there is any need for that since both screens should have no issue running off one GPU. Would have made more sense to use one GPU and some 2.1 PC speakers when they designed this... I assume the company that made this didn't know a lot about gaming PCs at the time. Anyway, here it is all working: The issues were that the storage was failing, and I think the battery on the mobo was dying. Fixed/replaced both. Cleaned up the rest, replaced the stock intel heatsink with a better one since the PC is inside the pinball cabinet, and even left a separate unconnected back up drive for the future since this is such a unique machine. It's running windows 7. Here are some pics of some of the different pinball games. We had just replaced the main display and hadn't adjusted the brightness yet when I took these so the main display is a bit dark, but that got sorted out before I was done: The customer was soooooo excited to get this working. He bought it recently in an unknown/not working condition and so once I got it working it was the first time he had ever seen it work. He is an older guy who is clearly a pinball aficionado. He was very familiar with all the different pinball games this thing has on it from playing the real pinball machines when he was younger. It was nice to see him light up so much when trying it out for the first time. He gave me a fat tip too All and all this was a pretty cool thing to work on. I'm sure I'll never encounter something like this again, so it was a fun unique thing to do.

Called it

https://www.techspot.com/news/101267-microsoft-could-launch-next-gen-xbox-2026-zen.html If this turned out to be true, seems like it would really mess up Sony's Ps4 Pro plans. I'm not a fan of the idea of a Ps4 Pro, but I'm a fan of getting a next gen console sooner. 2026 actually seems like a reasonable time frame, and there is a lot of logic in just going for next gen when stuff like AI upscaling and mature RT hardware is thrown into the mix rather than just being able to play the same games with performance closer to 4K/60 and better RT.

Oh shoot. I asked the chat bot to summarize the situation because it seemed like it had a lot of background info. Wonder why the links didn't work.

Home made pizza

Ps4 was about 1.8TFs on the GPU, ps4 pro was about 4.2TFs. Not too far off from the difference between ps5 and ps5 pro. I don't see it as an issue for PC. Plenty of console games are running at a pretty low res and at 30 fps because the games are so demanding. I don't really like that Sony is doing this. It made sense to do pro consoles for the shift from 1080p to 4k, but this just seems a little awkward. It seems like they're saying the PS5 isn't good enough by releasing another one.

Bill 29 Adoption: The National Assembly of Quebec unanimously adopted Bill 29, which targets planned obsolescence1. Prohibitions & Protections: The bill prohibits the sale of goods with deliberately limited operating life and introduces an “anti-lemon” measure for seriously defective vehicles2. Warranty & Repairs: It establishes a warranty of proper functioning for many new goods and ensures the availability of spare parts and repair services3. Universal Charger: The law will set standards for a universal charger compatible with all electronic devices4. This legislation positions Quebec as a leader in consumer protection in North America5. Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette highlighted Quebec’s pioneering role in legislating against planned obsolescence6.

Is apple making trains now?

Avatar is just Fern Gully ramade.

Yea man, pretty neat to have it be hand held. I don't suspect this model will have any issues holding up. It seems pretty durable. Only issues is the charging cable it came with did not work, but it's just usb-c and a different cord worked fine.

Well, I figure batteries have improved a lot over the last 15 years so something like this is a lot more viable in a cheap handheld form. I've been using compressed air cans for way too long. For really dirty PCs I used to go to the gas station and used their air compressor

I just bought this little blower thing to replace cans of compressed air. First time I've tried something like this and I have to admit, I am impressed. This thing works really well, better than a can of compressed air, and it's only about $30. Definitely recommended to anyone who uses compressed air from time to time. https://a.co/d/74bt7o7

Definitely makes sense for threadripper. And given how rare it is for CPUs to die, seems like a non issue. Anyone doing the type of overclocking that could kill a CPU shouldn't expect to be able to get a free replacement. If I wanted to overclock a threadripper CPU, this news definitely wouldn't stop me. How many of you guys have ever actually killed a CPU from overclocking? I don't think I've ever owned a CPU that failed for any reason. Might have degraded the IMC on an Intel 5820K, but that's all I can think of personally. It's hard to kill a CPU.

Hmm. I'd have to go with Titanic. Not that it's like... a good movie, but it is a very well made one.

A lot of the trailer was actually inspired by real viral memes and clips of crazy Florida people.

I watched that video. First time in a long time UBI has made a game DF was impressed with.

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.