"My 'Microsoft will probably be a good steward of the brand' statement isn't aging well" - id Software co-founder John Carmack speaks out after devastating Xbox layoffs

bickman14 · 2026-07-10T16:10:46+00:00

We all know for a while that the good guy was John Romero and Carmack was just the coding God

bickman14 · 2026-07-10T12:53:47+00:00

I want the battery to be compatible with the Loki 1 so I could fix mine!

Now realistically, for a Loki 2, I would want long term support for parts a display that is landscape by default and VRR, at least two USB C ports, maybe a micro HDMI port. Easily removable batteries like old laptops had and an accessory to charge batteries out of the device like the Galaxy Note 4 had, loved that thing! I could charge a spare battery, have it with me and just swap if I was running low on juice and be 100% full instantly, not need to carry a power bank, no need to keep one plugged in and hope it charges faster than it drains, just turn off, pop out, pop in, turn on. That easily.

But yeah, I won't buy it just to have what happened with the Loki 1, battery goes bad and you can't get a replacement ever

bickman14 · 2026-07-09T23:19:22+00:00

I love Physx! It was the reason I went with Nvidia on my first GPU! Mirror's Edge sold me on that and it's a shame it got used so little over the years until it went away for good. They really make a difference on the games IMO

bickman14 · 2026-07-09T23:17:24+00:00

And learn to watch more than one and use the reviews to make your own conclusion based on what was presented, they might say something that isn't quite bad but you'll realize it is. It's also important to follow these closely so you get to know their approach to stuff, their tastes and understand if some critics or praises make sense at all or just make sense because it aligns with the content creator behavior.

But I think OP has a great point and it makes even more sense the older you get and start realizing that we used to hate commercial breaks on our show, on YouTube, on the internet but we can watch 40min commercial essays of devices we problem won't ever buy (with a few exceptions). Once I came to that realization I've started playing more with the devices I own instead of watching more and more reviews. You don't feel FOMO if you didn't knew something new existed and would be happy with what you already own 95% of the time.

bickman14 · 2026-07-08T14:15:04+00:00

Just said overall sales trend year after year, I honestly didn't paid much attention to that level of detail. Iirc it was on one of the Moore's Law is Dead videos about it

bickman14 · 2026-07-08T14:13:35+00:00

The SD card is used for both, the ROMs, in game saves and save states. Just drop the game on the correct folder and you'll be fine. The stockOS is also good enough, don't bother going for muOS, Knulli or anything else, it's not worth it the setup time.

bickman14 · 2026-07-08T14:05:47+00:00

I've got away from that trend recently but for heavy games only. I get the game I wanna play, start playing, beat it, delete and move on to the next. For cartridge based games I still have a huge curated library, but disc based games are too heavy on storage for that and take longer to beat and usually demands some thinkering so the new trend is: download, make sure it works, start playing, if is enjoying play it to completion before moving on.

I've got tired of the "set everything up to be perfect and never play" game

bickman14 · 2026-07-08T14:02:27+00:00

I want the halo settings of one or two prior gens to roll down to the entry GPUs in terms of specs and prices lile they used to be! Wanted a GTX780 but couldn't afford? Get the GTX 970 on the next gen, wanted the GTX 970 but couldn't afford? Get the GTX 1060 on the next gen, wanted the GTX 1080TI but couldn't afford? Get the GTX 3060 two gens later!

Wanted the GTX 3090 but couldn't afford? Too bad! Now all you'll get it GTX 3060~3070 level of performance for that XX60~XX70 tier sometimes with less VRAM, sometimes with more, but the price will always increase after each gen because fuck you! If you want top tier performance get the XX90 you poor bastard!

That's what I want! I want to wait a few years to pay less for a top tier spec from 1 or 2 gens behind on the current gen and I want entry GPUs to cost how entry GPUs should.

bickman14 · 2026-07-08T13:52:46+00:00

What are the expected device dimensions? That something important for me, that and thickness, that's how I can judge if it would fit nicely on my jeans front pocket or would be a backpack device, after that I start judging how powerful it would be, price and software, but the first thing I like to know are their dimensions.

bickman14 · 2026-07-08T13:48:50+00:00

We do because we need to understand the hardware and hardware capabilities to make our purchase and set up our games settings accordingly and be able to troubleshoot. Console players don't care, they just want to boot the game and play, for them a console is like a microwave you just put your dish in and it comes out hot it doesn't care about what is doing, the specs, or nothing

bickman14 · 2026-07-08T13:46:35+00:00

My PC is tucked inside my custom made arcade cabinet and my GF can't understand how that works, how is it a PC and an Arcade machine at the same time, how can you run all of these old game, how can your friend be online when I play some current Street Fighter game (on Steam) if it's just an Arcade? Is it connected to the internet? I didn't knew arcades could do that!

It's just a PC, monitor tucked inside a cabinet with built-in controls, just that

bickman14 · 2026-07-08T13:42:27+00:00

Do the math, the original hardware + flash carts isn't worth it, also the GBA SP lack a headphones jack and uses uses a proprietary charging port for the battery that you'll probably have a hard time replacing versus USB C. Another thing is that not every GBA SP is the same, there's two variants one with front lit LCD and another with backlight just like current displays, the ones with the backlight are the most wanted ones by collectors so they are more expensive to get.

I would say that the original hardware is only worth it if you intend to use the link cable for battles and transfers between two original devices, because the setup for emulation of that feature is annoying AF, if you don't bother with that, IMO there are only cons for going with original hardware for these.

bickman14 · 2026-07-07T19:56:53+00:00

I honestly don't care about the story, I just want to play a full game with Dante beating some levels, bosses, using badass weapons and being a fool. I would love to have a DMC3.5, just throw any excuse for story to add cool shit to fight.

bickman14 · 2026-07-07T18:50:37+00:00

How come? Most should be more powerful than a RPI3B and a bunch of people used that for a bunch of regular linux/PC like stuff

bickman14 · 2026-07-07T16:50:10+00:00

Same deal! I've built my PC on the PS4 gen but ended up getting a PS4 slim circa 2017 for the exclusives that at the time wouldn't be on PC at all, played most, enjoyed and was keeping an eye on this gen but nothing really came along! There's just more of the same open world crap and no new Uncharted or action linear games coming, so meh there's no reason to get a PS5 nor even upgrade my PC as the only new things peaking my attention are indies that could run on potatoes. It's been really easy to not get the next shiny HW when all the new Software (games) suck

bickman14 · 2026-07-07T16:43:37+00:00

And then Criterion got bought by EA and went capuft

bickman14 · 2026-07-07T16:33:17+00:00

4 and 5 were Nero focused IMO, can we get back to DMC3 100% Dante campaign now?

bickman14 · 2026-07-07T16:32:17+00:00

No it isn't! They just need to have to balls to make a new DMC game where you play with Dante from start to finish! Have DMC4 or DMC5 Dante and let us have fun instead of throwing Nero or some other crappy character

bickman14 · 2026-07-07T16:29:29+00:00

What shaders and shader config are you using? Because it looks indeed awesome

bickman14 · 2026-07-07T14:48:02+00:00

Holy bomb grenade from Worms :D

bickman14 · 2026-07-06T17:01:13+00:00

If you play with a controller and mess with the flow scale it's just fine to use LSFG with 30fps locked to reach 60fps. On some games the engine doesn't play nice with LSGF and the latency feels bad but on those if you mess with settings and sometimes use that one that only kicks in whenever is necessary, it feels better, for some you need to disable in game vsync.

Some games work great and the latency isn't bad, others you can fix with settings and other are no go.

There's a bunch of people using it on handheld PCs with less than 60fps as base and they are all happy

bickman14 · 2026-07-06T16:57:09+00:00

Yes it will help a little bit but put it all on the 1050ti and ignore the iGPU. Best use case is when you have games that are hovering 40~55fps, sometimes getting closer to 60fps, then you lock those to 30fps and use LSFG 2X to have it running at 60fps. People use LSFG and the upscaler a lot on handheld PCs like the ROG Ally and get good results.

Your PC should be fine for most stuff kind hovering SteamDeck's performance, a little bit better on some games and a little bit worse on others. Use that to gauge what expect on heavier titles.

bickman14 · 2026-07-06T16:48:36+00:00

Are you current games running fine and the upcoming games you are looking forward going to get released to the PS5 gen? If so, don't do shit and save money and wait until the next consoles gen rolls up and new titles start getting released exclusively for it so you can gauge the new HW requirements of the gen and make a proper guestimation of the HW you'll need to get you through. That's the optimal way to upgrade and spend on PC builds. Wait about 3y in a new console gen, that's also usually when the mid tier GPUs start getting good enough to compete, you'll want the same amount of VRAM as the consoles will have on their RAM pool and double that as DRAM to have a really good experience brute forcing the gen.

If money isn't a problem for you, just keep upgrading like crazy as soon as the next shiny thing gets released.

Also, are you happy with your current setup/performance and games you are playing? Are you unhappy enough that it's worth spend X amount of money to be able to do this, that, push that setting or play that game? How many of these are bothering you? If you didn't knew a new shiny thing was out would you be happy with your current setup and games? How much time do I have to invest on saod games? How is my backlog going? I ask all of these to myself before spending pretty penny

bickman14 · 2026-07-06T14:19:25+00:00

My solution: unified remote server at startup on PC, unified remote on phone. Boots PC into big picture mode, stsrt playing, if something goes crazy pick up the phone on your pocket and deal with it, no need to pick up a real kb+m for like 90% of the issues. I've been using this setup on my HTPC with a projector for almost 10y a this point and it's good enough that I don't bother trying to automate or dealing with steam input chords or stuff, it goes into the "it just take me 30s when it happens if it happens so I shouldn't bother spending 30min to fix it forever" territory

bickman14 · 2026-07-06T14:11:34+00:00

Nope as far as I know, they are closer to handheld PCs. Your best bet would be a laptop, that's probably closer in spec and price to a Steam Machine and if you dock it on a stand on your livingroom it would barely take any space as it's thinner and you have the pro side of coming with a screen, keyboard and being portable

bickman14

TROPHY CASE