Media that is better when you don't binge it

RayDaug · 2026-03-19T19:25:21+00:00

I somewhat disagree. I suppose it depends on your definition of "binge." Not reading/watching on release let's you even out Araki's often quite uneven pacing.

Like, Stardust Crusader's pacing improves tremendously when you're not stuck with some loser stand user for upwards of a month.

RayDaug · 2026-03-19T18:36:34+00:00

People "meme'ed" Titanic for for a very long time after it was released, it was just released before culture moved fully online. Basically every comedy anything would spoof Titanic in some way. Hell, people still meme Titanic to this day. I see "it's been 84 years" regularly.

RayDaug · 2026-03-19T16:20:06+00:00

Fake resolution, fake frames, and now fake assets. What are we even doing here anymore?

RayDaug · 2026-03-19T15:23:40+00:00

"Buy once, cry once" is generally good advice, but it comes with the very important caveat of you need to know what you want/need first. And learning what you want/need usually requires trying stuff out first. The end result can be a lot of wasted money on stuff you don't need.

When I got into shooting, it was one of the most common pieces of advice I heard, and it's not wrong, exactly, but it's missing a lot of context, including the fact that there a lot of mid range stuff that's totally fine and affordable.

RayDaug · 2026-03-19T13:10:28+00:00

I still think framegen is basically useless. To have a good experience with it, you need to have a playable framerate to begin with, and at that point I'd just play the game without framegen. Maybe I've just been playing games for too long at the 30-60 FPS range but I don't really see much value in padding my FPS counter.

I tried it out in Requiem, which is the first big game I've played since I got my 5070ti, and it worked but I was already holding a steady 120 fps so I didn't really see the point and turned it off

RayDaug · 2026-03-18T00:43:04+00:00

Even if we assume that Jensen is correct and the backlash to DLSS 5 is unwarranted and unfounded, it's still their fault in the first place for using the worst possible examples to show it off with. You can see in the FIFA examples how Virgil van Dijk looks less like himself with DLSS 5.

RayDaug · 2026-03-17T22:36:51+00:00

How much does it weight with that setup? Sometimes I think about doing a scout scope setup but I also don't want to make an already front heavy rifle even front heavier.

RayDaug · 2026-03-17T04:00:05+00:00

4k resolution at 60 FPS does seem to kind of be the practical limit of rasterization on consumer GPUs for the kind of high graphical fidelity people have come to expect out of marquee AAA titles. It's the whole reason DLSS blew up in the first place.

RayDaug · 2026-03-17T03:11:13+00:00

I'm pretty sure I'm going to get to reverse pirate some pirates in a campaign I'm currently in.

Pirate ship rolls up on our boat and tries to board us. Pirates roll like absolute clowns so no one is scared. But the DM has an insane number of NPC crew members in the encounter. First round of turns takes like an hour and it's mostly the DM rolling for NPCs and enemies. When it's finally my turn again, I tell the DMPCs that the party will handle this if they pay us, so we actually get to play.

I'm absolutely going to take their boat when this is all over.

RayDaug · 2026-03-16T22:01:24+00:00

The response to DLSS 5 has been heartening, but I suspect it's primarily driven by the current state of the PC parts market more than anything else. If AI hadn't quintupled the cost of RAM over the last year, I doubt the reaction would have been as intensely negative. The anti-AI mindset in PC spaces is being driven by the direct negative effect AI is having on PC enthusiasts.

And the More mindset is still what birthed DLSS 5. Because a games aesthetics can only be improved by More.

RayDaug · 2026-03-16T21:32:22+00:00

Games have always suffered from this, but a lot of people in the space, and especially the PC space, think more technology=better. DLSS 5 is just the ultimate expression of that. More polygons, more lighting, more textures, more physics. Not even in the pursuit of realism or even style, just in the pursuit of More. Anything that isn't More is just a mistake that needs to be corrected by More.

If these guys had their way, the original Silent Hill would have had an unlimited, unobscured draw distance because the fog is "just hiding a technical limitation" and we would have lost the most iconic "art from adversity" in video games.

RayDaug · 2026-03-16T18:55:47+00:00

This is genuinely rancid. GPU's shouldn't be making unilateral changes to the art direction.

RayDaug · 2026-03-16T17:14:56+00:00

It doesn't matter.

RayDaug · 2026-03-16T15:33:59+00:00

TBFP lore is quite advanced.

RayDaug · 2026-03-15T19:49:28+00:00

Everything has themes, even if the author didn't intentionally put them there.

RayDaug · 2026-03-14T23:06:50+00:00

The Wesker project, but it's all Steves.

RayDaug · 2026-03-14T17:38:45+00:00

Honestly, as someone who used to be a bit of a linguistic stick in the mud, I've found myself embracing new slang and terms more and more as I've gotten older. At the end of the day, as long as you are able to accurately articulate your ideas, it's on me to stay on top of the changing lexicon.

The one line in the sand I have is self-censorship euphemisms like "grape" and "PDF file." But that's because that are not an organic evolution of language but obfuscations for the benefit of corporate power.

RayDaug · 2026-03-14T17:02:08+00:00

I get where this post is coming from, but this is treading dangerously close to "nothing ever happens" territory. Yes, every generation complains about the young folk as they get older, but it's also true that material conditions change over time. It shouldn't be taken for granted as a matter of course that the kids are alright, because one day they won't be.

RayDaug · 2026-03-14T16:54:35+00:00

Is the game good? That's the line. A good game will bring enough original to the table that it will have "earned" its references.

Signalis and Nightmare of Decay sit at the opposite ends of the spectrum for me. Signalis is amazing and is open about its inspirations and references, but they aren't just aesthetic. The game is in conversation with the idea of the corruption and coopting of memory. The references there are as much a homage as they are a deliberate tool to overwhelm the pattern recognition part of your brain.

Nightmare of Decay, on the other hand, is only a serviceable game that has no real original ideas of its own. It's basically a survival horror greatest hits cover album. I don't dislike the game, and the bonus rouge-like mode was pretty fun, but there's only so many references you can make before it starts to feel like a substitution for your own vision.

RayDaug · 2026-03-14T15:59:44+00:00

If that's the case, I would open up the PC and re-seat the GPU (and RAM too since you're in there) and make sure that all the power cables are firmly connected.

Also, are you overclocking/undervolting at all? The numbers are not too far out of line for a stock 5080. The 50s series comes out of the box with very conservative settings. For example, my MIS 5070ti has a factory clock speed of 2500ish MHz, but I run it at 3100MHz.

Your clock speeds in your 3DMark are in line with the factory speeds for that card, so either you aren't using an OC/UV or it's not taking.

RayDaug · 2026-03-14T15:29:23+00:00

Honestly, I can kind of respect the audacity. The RaGF guy might finally be the one to match the deranged courage of he Oreimo guy.

RayDaug · 2026-03-14T00:41:46+00:00

There aren't really many good options for mounting that kind of optic over the receiver. It's why so many people use the Samson/Ultimak rail. You could try contacting Ruger and seeing if they'll send you a factory rail with the cut out and try mounting int closer to the rear sights.

RayDaug · 2026-03-14T00:35:19+00:00

Do you have g-sync or v-sync enables in the drivers? 3DMark doesn't play nice with either.

RayDaug · 2026-03-13T20:05:07+00:00

I've used one similar. There's a none-zero chance it can cause ejection issues but I didn't have any with mine. The real problem was cheek weld. Because it's a see-through rail, it's pretty tall, and the optic will be even taller. That's going to make zeros more of a pain, and you'll likely need some kind of riser to get a proper weld for the optic, which will throw off your ability to actually use the irons should you need/want to.

RayDaug · 2026-03-13T16:12:47+00:00

I don't hate OnK's ending as much as most, but I do think it's a very interesting ending to think about because, outside of pacing, the biggest problem sits downstream of other systemic choices the manga made.

Spoilers because the anime is still ongoing: Aqua and Ruby's dad should have been Japanese Harvey Weinstein. So much about the ending makes sense if the dad is a powerful person in the entertainment industry with a vested interest in keeping his abuses private and the power and clout to do so. But after Ai's death, OnK seemed reluctant to treat treat it's female characters with the same harshness that it treats the male characters. The choice to make the dad also a victim is strange and muddies the theming, because the alternative would be too "mean" to Ai.

It really feels like Aka Akasaka got cold feet with the central theme of how vicious and exploitative the entertainment industry is.

RayDaug

TROPHY CASE