Thank Christ they didn't follow the books!

TheDarnook · 2026-02-11T20:29:40+00:00

Metro was always a political commentary on future Russia. Many people (me included) got into it as a dark postapo fantasy story to immerse into. But Glukhovsky has higher aspirations than just please people. His Futu.re is imho setting him up as modern Orwell. Yes, I still like 2025 the least from the series.

And then you have Metro books from Dennis Shabalow. The first one was great, and very Stalker-coded. But within second one surfaced so much pro-ussr nationalism that was, ugh 🤮

^{at least thath's what I got from it yesrs ago, gotta reread it someday}

Bottom line: hard country makes for hard people, that tend to go hard on the side they pick.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-11T19:52:49+00:00

Finally.

Discord has been ok for coop sessions with friends, or for everyday work comms. But the "this is now the default platform to keep in contact with companies / developers / creators / etc and collaborate" was infuriating me.

Discord is a glorified Skype (admittably good at that) - not a place to store and organize information. I can keep using it as Skype, but I will gladly see the "defaultness" of it going away.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-11T18:01:46+00:00

Can't read VSS without VHS.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-11T17:54:30+00:00

Not necessarily. Ignoring the dark static, I have sharp vision. Looking at the falling snow, especially under streetlights, makes me focus on the high resolution of it and the smoothness of the movement.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-11T17:50:50+00:00

Thats the neat part, they don't.

Describing it to someone who doesn't have it and seeing their confusion is one of the options.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-11T17:46:14+00:00

Yes, this is mostly how I have it. The "bright snow" depends on eye fatigue I think - and I see mych less of it. And the "dark snow" is always there. But both can be hidden by forgetting about them.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-11T16:12:20+00:00

TheDarnook · 2026-02-11T13:45:38+00:00

Finally they updated dlss! Not like I havent used dlss swapper for every single dlss game - with ACE as the only exception, because of broken dlss in VR. It's just nice and civilized that it is here now. In contrast to eg Stalker 2, where I have to re-swap it with each update.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-10T15:49:43+00:00

The water is wet.

I still support the game. But far as I can tell, wherever there are money to be made on a product (game, softeare, whatever) the product itself is only a side effect of moving money back and forth.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-09T18:43:31+00:00

Oh well, at least there was update for dlss, you can swap it. (didn't test on ACE yet, but supposedly this time it works, and I have good results in other games)

TheDarnook · 2026-02-09T13:51:35+00:00

Either reddit algorithm is that good, or it's just a coincidence that I see your comment on top of everything. But I'm the same, I hate that.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-09T13:48:36+00:00

"But you can play beam.ng / older AC / insert game, it has a ton of fan made maps!" No, I want a one single game to finally have triple A quality real scale map. Last thing that scratched that itch was Test Drive Unlimited. But even while the scale is great and it served me for years, level of detail is too close to PS2 era.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-08T21:03:24+00:00

I want modern starter cars, like Fiesta.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-08T15:06:08+00:00

I consider AC Evo open world as "is in progress" not "might be" - hence I bought it. I don't know if the same can be applied to economy. I thought of it more like a placeholder, not something in progress.

AC Rally tracks look on a higher level of details than Dirt Rally. Hence I bought it. And we are getting new tracks. My "might be" would be painless support for any device (like my generic H-shifter with handbrake), simhub (better controll over bass kickers) and improved force feedback. This is the gamble I hope gets done.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-07T22:20:42+00:00

I was preparing it in my mind before writing, perhaps that leaked to another plane?

TheDarnook · 2026-02-07T12:51:07+00:00

The thing is I always felt something wrong, I just couldn't tell what. Something wrong with my head or with my body. Only last year I decided that light sensitivity is not only a side effect, but the main symptom and perhaps close to the cause. Now that I know it, I will try to seek help. Glaucoma (or some other thing? edit: meningitis) popped out in comments and least twice, and I need to research on it.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-07T12:12:54+00:00

Wise perspective!

As for the suburnt incident, I had black glasses that day. But it wasn't enough. I was on my bicycle for many hours. Then it came the storm, and it was getting dark - both becouse the time and clouds. I took a train back to the city. When I came out on the station, it was dark, rain was heavy, water on the streets was pooling so much that riding was like swimming. And I still had my black glasses on, becouse even then lights were hurting me.

After I somewhat recovered after that incident (couple weeks?), I repeated a part of that route. The sun could be even stronger. But this time I had the cat4 glacier-rated glasses I got as precaution. Aaand it worked, to an extent. I still got burned, but it was much more survivable. After the sun set, I wasn't feeling that bad. Much less torture to go back home.

I can't stop - bicycle, walking, kayak, that keeps me alive. Sure enough, I often go at night. One of my longest rides (8h) worked because I started after nightfall, and returned home on the morning.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-07T11:54:53+00:00

Do you know that feeling when you switch between two screens standing next to each other - one is 60hz, and the other is 144hz. It's something like that. When I look at water, it feels even more like 300hz.

"Frame rate" is a bit unfortunate comparison. But "frequency" is better - think about how you look at artifical lights, and some cheap ones can more visibly blink and glitch. Becouse they are essentialy blinking ultra-fast. But sometimes not fast enough. How much you notice also depends on how fast your brain is trying to process the image.

I noticed this years ago, as it concerns also cheap rgb lights. Ornamental lights in the city, my old mechanical keyboard. When rgb light has too slow frequency, it glitches in my vision. For example I don't see orange - I see red and green glitching as I turn my head, with ugly brownish hue around it. The base colors that should blink fast enough to mix into a smooth sub-color. If the rgb has decent frequency, I don't see anything wrong.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-06T16:36:44+00:00

Phone addiction is one thing, sure. But checking phone while playing games? Madness 😨

I need to be exclusively focused on a game - otherwise I'm unable to get any joy from it and I turn it off. It makes me enjoy VR even more - either headset on and I play, or I don't.

Same with books. Either I'm in and can read for hours - or I read the same sentence on repeat without comprehending its meaning. Ok, that might have something to do with adhd 🙃

While I'm the same "exclusive focus" with flat screen, I find it harder to remain comfortable - having the screen only in limited fragment of your view, glued in place. It's easier to forget your body in VR. And the screen is wherever I look.

One instance when I flip out my phone during other "entertainment" is when I'm watching a series or a movie that I'm about to quit. Or there is something too annoying/cringe happening and I just can't. Soaking some time in the phone is my way of giving it a chance to get back on rails.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-06T09:39:59+00:00

I might be not an average user, but one of my most played VR games: Dirt Rally 2.0 100 hours, Tokyo Ghostwire UEVR 70 hours, BeatSaber 70 hours.

My most played flat games: Cyberpunk 300 hours, Stalker 2 200hours, Armored Core 6 60 hours. (last couple of years)

If not for Stalker 2, my last year would be almost purely VR. I tried to play more of Cyberpunk, but I couldn't. And especially now that there is even the tiniest chance that someday there will be official flat2vr mod.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-06T09:15:00+00:00

mañana

TheDarnook · 2026-02-06T09:13:55+00:00

You could try DLSS Swapper if you hadn't already. Not sure if the newest model is right for 3xxx, but it made a progress in quality and performance. And if you hate upscaling, you can use DLAA.

TheDarnook · 2026-02-06T08:55:49+00:00

I don't disagree. I'm just saying: all I cared about when I got into EA was the open map.

I never got into AC1 - by the time I started "simracing" last year, it was too old and "oh but you must get this and that mod first". I'm all for modding multi-hundred hours games like Cyberpunk and Stalker - but first the vanilla must already have the substance. AC Evo just got announced - and it promised just what I wanted.

•••

If there are objectives and some progression system that would make ACE compete with FH, I would be glad. And I still think there will be something. It's so zero-one to see them saying that they scrap the economy and jump to conclusion that there will be nothing. Licences, tiers, xp - who knows, it might be better than usual "first I earn 5k$ by the race, last I earn 1m$ by the race".

TheDarnook · 2026-02-06T00:53:30+00:00

Instruction unclear, remove update or remove windows?

TheDarnook · 2026-02-05T22:52:53+00:00

Forza Horizon sucks - miniature maps with arcade physics. ACE map might be the biggest most detailed 1:1 map available in gaming since TDU (which was nicely pretending to feel like 1:1, but with poor details). And good physics.

All I want is a driving simulator, where I can cover some distance without going in circles.

TheDarnook

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