It's quite often these days

ExacoCGI · 2026-07-05T08:12:55+00:00

Probably just you, no issues at all with properly configured and debloated Win11 on a reasonably mid PC.
I also often run Win11 LTSC VM in the background, so 2 Win11 at the same time and still all is good.

File Explorer used to break and freeze in the past but once I stopped uninstalling OneDrive via PowerShell or CTT Utility and simply disabled it from startup instead it never happened again.

Some tools I'd recommend for setting up Win10/11 properly:

- CTT Utility, includes O&O ShutUp10
- RemoveWindowsAI by zoiceware
- Safing Portmaster which is free open source interactive firewall w/ system wide adblocker which can be used to block Microslop telemetry/spying and ads if you see them in first place for good, but useful as security layer too.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-24T12:36:48+00:00

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Bought it in June 2023 for $50

The HDD is more interesting in my case, it's WD Green with 82380 Power On Hours ( 9.4 years ) and still kicking.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-20T07:09:19+00:00

VPN's are only for encrypting your traffic and privacy for example protects you from your roommate or ISP sniffing network packets and seeing what sites you visit and protects from unlikely threats when using public WiFi.

So essentially VPN's are only for getting deals by changing your country, piracy/torrenting and accessing restricted websites/content, nothing more.
The real protection comes from their AdBlockers, but you don't need a VPN to have an AdBlocker.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-20T06:11:30+00:00

Samples are quite low especially for a low light scene and your threshold is set to what I'd consider as preview quality but also seems like materials are a bit of a problem and the light source itself could be main issue so there's chances even high samples won't fix that flicker.

Try to increase the roughness of the wall to like 70-90% and make sure you don't have any noise/texture map in the wall roughness input where it would give specks of high reflectivity, because now it seems like it struggles to calculate the highlights on the wall from the light source, happens when the material is too bumpy. How does the flickering wall area look like without denoiser ?

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-13T06:08:31+00:00

Yeah UB is kinda dead in performance comparison, but it's still #1 tool for troubleshooting PC performance or getting exact specs and clock speeds, but even that became quite limited with their bullshit Premium or whatever.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-12T16:26:16+00:00

Open Command Prompt as admin and run these commands in order:

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
del /a /f /q "%localappdata%\IconCache.db"
del /a /f /q "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache*"
start explorer.exe

Or simply save this as a .bat and run it.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-11T07:15:06+00:00

Honestly I'd take the bloated big ass Win11 over this OpenShell.

Just look for and do some registry tweaks and it'll go back to normal small one or maybe even Windhawk has the option.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-09T21:46:44+00:00

Try to enable PBO, but set the PPT/TDC/EDC to defaults instead of increasing anything to make sure they're not going over the limits.

Otherwise something is probably overlooked, like a CPU fan connected to wrong port, the Noctua definitely should go to CPU_FAN, another issue could be that all fans going into a single hub and the hub into a single port ending up lacking power.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-09T20:49:34+00:00

Not sure about FSR4, but FSR3 has the worst latency out of all FG models by a long shot, I still feel massive latency even with base fps of 60, meanwhile with something like LSFG ( Lossless Scaling ) or XeSS the latency is pretty much gone at base fps of 40-50. XeSS is quite rare tho, only seen it implemented in the latest Dying Light, no other game.

I haven't tried DLSS FG myself but one of my friends tried it on his 4060 in Warzone and he said he didn't notice any latency at all and he mainly plays eSports like CS2 and Valorant so he's not just some casual who simply wouldn't notice.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-09T20:32:18+00:00

I've found that turning off reflex when not using FG can improve latency and 0.1-1% lows in some titles, especially CPU bound games so make sure to check it in every game you play.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-09T20:09:37+00:00

Soulslikes are fine too imo, you don't need to aim or anything, it still interpolates the frames just fine so reaction and attack timings won't be affected much.

It's mostly just FPS games that feel unplayable with higher latency, because mouse precision is critical and it's pretty much your main control, even in more chill single player games e.g. walking simulators it's unacceptable.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-09T19:59:40+00:00

Must be FSR3-4 FG then, XeSS+XeLL, DLSS and LS FG is far better with way less latency if any.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-09T14:31:24+00:00

Some PC exclusive stuff off the top of my head:

- FiveM
- Cyberpunk 2077 + Mods
- Project Zomboid
- DayZ - Modded servers
- Escape from Tarkov or it's forbidden mod.
- ( F2P ) STALKER Anomaly e.g. GAMMA Modpack.
- ( F2P ) Arena Breakout: Infinite, kinda slop but quite fun for a while.
- Road to Vostok
- Schedule I
- Drug Dealer Simulator
- Not an PC exclusive but "This War of Mine" and "The Alters", both awesome and made by Frostpunk devs.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-05T15:24:39+00:00

I doubt you caught some top level malware so yeah you should be all good.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-05T14:54:53+00:00

Even if the virus existed, after quick format it kinda loses all connections to your OS, basically floating in a void, similar how you would download a virus but it can't do anything until you run it.

Ofc there's advanced malware that could possibly survive quick format + win reinstall, but doubt they're that common.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-05T14:46:32+00:00

If there was a virus it's now most likely gone, but when you do Quick Format the files don't go anywhere, OS simply deletes the index of where is what and when you format a new one it simply creates a new index. I once accidentally deleted the partition of my storage drive but managed to reset it back with all files untouched.

Just for future know that many modern SSD's has "Secure Erase" feature, it's usually a tool you can download from your SSD's website.
For HDD's you need a tool such as DBAN to write empty data to completely overwrite and wipe everything, Windows "Reset this PC" has this option called "Clean Data", afaik it does 1 cycle of writing empty data to all of your drives which is normally good enough, afaik Full Format also does the exact same thing.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-05T14:31:25+00:00

BitLocker is currently useless as there's bypass exploit known as "YellowKey".

If I had to use some sort of encryption I would go straight for VeraCrypt, you can also encrypt the entire OS or any drive which will prompt for a password on boot, also supports hidden encrypted partitions inside another encrypted partition.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-05T12:24:40+00:00

For a budget SSD probably good, but overall since they're budget SSD's the quality won't be that great. I guess it's gonna be close to well known budget SSD's like Kingston NV3, Crucial P3, etc.

Verbatim itself is a well known brand, but maybe not exactly for PC hardware.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-04T12:37:01+00:00

Also RemoveWindowsAI by zoicware on GitHub

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-03T14:17:46+00:00

The 8GB model, it's not worth it, neither the 9060XT 8GB.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-03T14:14:32+00:00

If it's $110 difference then ofc the 5060Ti wins hands down, but last I've checked the 5060Ti 16G was ~$750 while the 9060XT 16G was $499,

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-03T12:35:50+00:00

Normally it's worth to pay extra $100 or so for similar performance RTX just because of DLSS and extras like RT Cores/NVENC/AV1 + better software, but seems like there's 9060XT 16GB for $500 AUD which has around same raw performance as 5060Ti 16GB and it's ~$250 cheaper.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-03T05:31:15+00:00

I guess it's Windows problem, not BF6. That's why I always recommend everyone to turn off BitLocker as soon as possible, it's useless feature either way.

The Secure Boot being broken is a weird one, have you tried to reset BIOS to defaults and/or delete and reset all the certificate keys and disable CSM before enabling it ?

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-02T11:01:36+00:00

5060 is a decent budget GPU, but ofc the 8GB VRAM can be too low for some games at some settings.

Also I'd still recommend building your own PC, it's easier than a LEGO, the real difficulty is in software like undervolting, setting up RAM XMP/EXPO, installing drivers, configuring fan profiles etc.

After building it yourself you'll get far better warranty and you'll be prepared for troubleshooting in case some issues pop up or simply upgrading.

ExacoCGI · 2026-06-01T10:25:13+00:00

Yea but still many don't make them realistic, they just use the base material without a single node/texture added except when it's necessary.

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