#how to fix old games on new PC

[foone]

AAA games? Pfft. Indie games? Double pfft.

I only play games from the alternate history where Hillary Clinton was elected in 2008 and banned all video games. You can only imagine how weird their underground gaming scene is. People like to call unlicensed games "bootlegs" but they've got actual bootlegged games! I've played games about helping your grandmother in hospice care realize she's a lesbian by reading Sappho to her, at 2am in a speakeasy in Baltimore. The cops raided it the next night, hundreds of Gamers were arrested. They posted pictures all over Friendster of the Baltimore PD destroying the arcades with axes.

I nearly got busted once because I was imaging old disks from a 386 and someone tipped off the gaming cops that there was a copy of Commander Keen in there. I had to prove that I didn't know it, I was imaging the disks blind and then indexing them later, and I would of course turn over any contraband to the proper authorities.

I was already on a watch list because I'd been known to have some gamedev-related activities pre-ban. They can't arrest me for making games back in 2007 when it was still legal, but they do want to keep an eye on me since I have the skills to break the law.

Anyway that universe's bootlegs are mainly PC games. Can't really have console games if there hasn't been a console release since the Wii/PS3/360 era. At one point Nintendo threatened to release the Wii SDK so game devs in the US could make unlicensed games, but that didn't happen as there were quickly no functional Wiis left in the US, except for very rare holdouts that never move. PC games are easy to distribute samizdat and hide on a USB stick or CD-R labeled "nickelback".

Japan's games industry is still going, so the later Nintendo and Sony consoles still exist, but Microsoft got out of the business of course. They sold the franchise to Sega who were hoping to release the 360 successor (the Xbox One in our universe) as the Sega Phoenix but it never materialized, either through their own financial incompetence or because of pressure from the US. There's a lot of international treaties that the US has pushed "and this aid only goes through if you ban games" clauses into. That would have been an official UN resolution if the USSR hadn't vetoed it. For once, thank God for the security council, eh?

I mainly get my gaming news through Japanese gaming sites (through a set of VPNs, since they're blocked at the border firewall), and some tor onion site run by a weird guy in Minnesota who is obsessed with documenting all the underground US games.

There's a lot being worked on, but it's always a tricky trade off. Too much attention and the police might be able to track down the creators, and it's basically impossible to fund underground games, as the VISA/PayPal etc funds get seized immediately. There's a whole task force for that.

Anyway one of the weirdest differences between our two time lines is that they've gone back and edited out gaming from a bunch of movies. Those that they can, of course. War games was just banned because they couldn't remove the tic tac toe ending. The Net just removed the scene at the beginning where she's playing Wolfenstein 3D, by recording some new screen footage and a new voice over. She's fixing a spreadsheet in the new edition.

(Yes, I've seen The Net from this alternate timeline. On Laserdisc, of course. I'm just that kind of person!)

They even edited Star Wars. You know that scene where R2-D2 is playing holochess with Chewie? They edited it to be a board game instead of holograms, because that made it too "video gamey".

Technically it's not illegal to show gaming in a movie, but it needs to be an 18+ film and you have to show the deleterious effects of gaming and/or the gamesters coming to a bad end.

This has affected films less than you'd think, to be honest. They were never great about showing video games even before they banned them.

Anyway, go have fun playing your AAA games with hundred-million-dollar budgets. I only play indie games made by people under a constant threat of arrest for their art.

[xitsensunmoon]

Hi Xits! It's so nice to see you on my dashboard again :DDD

I have a few questions about your boys if you don't mind answering them (and if you can/want obv):

1) Will y/n mend their clothes at some point? Or buy the same but new outfits?

2) (dunno if it's been answered before, probably yes but-) do they need to charge in addition to drinking blood or is charging like what would be normal eating for a human-then-vampire? (They can but it doesn't do much to relieve their hunger?)

3) I remember in one of your old comics (and yes I'm still thinking about it) Sun warned y/n to stay away from Moon during one of his episodes (virus induced? Starvation? Virus induced hunger??? Mmhh) How frequently do they happen? Does Sun have similar moments? And if he does who's gonna tell y/n? I don't feel like Moon would care much about their safety at the beginning...what if they both have one at the same time?

4) do they smell the scent of blood or do they detect it like how in fanfic the dca can detect injuries and heart rate?

5) do they want to return to "normal"? Can they return to normal?  (how did they get like that in the first place. I'm still looking 👁️👁️)

7) how old are they? How many years have passed from their daycare time? How would they react if someone mentioned the topic? do you have some of your (delicious) angst at hand?

8) are there others like them? 🌚

9) moon can sing. Why he not sing. Me want moon sing.

10) they have access to a PC and internet. What do they do online? Do they try to interact with others? Do they play games? If yes, what genre do they like?

And last but not least: how was your day? Did you have nice holidays? :D

Sorry for the long ask but I might return (eventually) with more questions >:)))

Hi!!! Haven't seen you in so long!

1. It is a bit difficult to find something- anything- that will fit them, so the only thing they can do is properly fix the clothes they have. So yes, you definitely will end up taking care of their outfits and even spend a bit of time to teach Sun and Moon how to take care of them themselves.

2. Oh they wish they could renew their energy by charging.

3. All I can say as of now, the "episode" has happened because of Moon's own negligence, what exactly has happened is yet to be discussed.

4. They smell the blood, but not in the exact same way human sense of smell works. It is more of its own separate sense, disturbance in the force if you will haha. The word "feel" would fit a bit better. Like humans can feel change in temperature, they can feel blood... even if it's in a vessel.

5. :)

6. It's been less than a decade.

7. Not that they know of...

8. His lullabies were always reserved for people he cares about, when he's happy or peaceful. None of these things are the case as of now :(

9. They prefer to limit their Internet activity to a minimum, for their own reasons. But if they do use it, only as observers. And to play offline games. Like Stardew walley. They fight over it a lot. Sun even has a little notebook where he keeps quite detailed notes on how to "properly and more effectively" play the game. Moon wants to flush that thing down the drain so badly...

And as for me - I'm unfortunately spending my holidays sick<///3 I had some very tasty food tho jsjsj hope yours are better!!

Also I love long asks!! Especially when I know I can give an answer hehe. Do return :)

[wingedtyger]

How to Buy a Computer for Cheaper

Buy refurbished. And I'm going to show you how, and, in general, how to buy a better computer than you currently have. I'm fairly tech-knowledgeable, but not an expert. But this is how I've bought my last three computers for personal use and business (graphics). I'm writing this for people who barely know computers. If you have a techie friend or family member, having them help can do a lot for the stress of buying a new computer.

There are three numbers you want to know from your current computer: hard drive size, RAM, and processor speed (slightly less important, unless you're doing gaming or 3d rendering or something else like that)

We're going to assume you use Windows, because if you use Apple I can't help, sorry.

First is hard drive. This is how much space you have to put files. This is in bytes. These days all hard drives are in gigabytes or terabytes (1000 gigabytes = 1 terabyte). To get your hard drive size, open Windows Explorer, go to This PC (or My Computer if you have a really old OS).

To get more details, you can right-click on the drive. and open Properties. But now you know your hard drive size, 237 GB in this case. (this is rather small, but that's okay for this laptop). If you're planning on storing a lot of videos, big photos, have a lot of applications, etc, you want MINIMUM 500 GB. You can always have external drives as well.

While you've got this open, right-click on This PC (or My Computer). This'll give you a lot of information that can be useful if you're trying to get tech support.

I've underlined in red the two key things. Processor: it can help to know the whole bit (or at least the Intel i# bit) just so you don't buy one that's a bunch older, but processor models are confusing and beyond me. The absolutely important bit is the speed, in gigahertz (GHz). Bigger is faster. The processor speed is how fast your computer can run. In this case the processor is 2.60 GHz, which is just fine for most things.

The other bit is RAM. This is "random-access memory" aka memory, which is easy to confuse for, like how much space you have. No. RAM is basically how fast your computer can open stuff. This laptop has 16 GB RAM. Make sure you note that this is the RAM, because it and the hard drive use the same units.

If you're mostly writing, use spreadsheets, watching streaming, or doing light graphics work 16 GB is fine. If you have a lot of things open at a time or gaming or doing 3d modeling or digital art, get at least 32 GB or it's gonna lag a lot.

In general, if you find your current laptop slow, you want a new one with more RAM and a processor that's at least slightly faster. If you're getting a new computer to use new software, look at the system requirements and exceed them.

I'll show you an example of that. Let's say I wanted to start doing digital art on this computer, using ClipStudio Paint. Generally the easiest way to find the requirements is to search for 'program name system' in your search engine of choice. You can click around their website if you want, but just searching is a lot faster.

That gives me this page

(Clip Studio does not have very heavy requirements).

Under Computer Specs it tells you the processor types and your RAM requirements. You're basically going to be good for the processor, no matter what. That 2 GB minimum of memory is, again, the RAM.

Storage space is how much space on your hard drive it needs.

Actually for comparison, let's look at the current Photoshop requirements.

Photoshop wants LOTS of speed and space, greedy bastard that it is. (The Graphics card bit is somewhat beyond my expertise, sorry)

But now you have your three numbers: hard drive space, RAM (memory) and processor (CPU). Now we're going to find a computer that's better and cheaper than buying new!

We're going to buy ~refurbished~

A refurbished computer is one that was used and then returned and fixed up to sell again. It may have wear on the keyboard or case, but everything inside (aside from the battery) should be like new. (The battery may hold less charge.) A good dealer will note condition. And refurbished means any flaws in the hardware will be fixed. They have gone through individual quality control that new products don't usually.

I've bought four computers refurbished and only had one dud (Windows kept crashing during set-up). The dud has been returned and we're waiting for the new one.

You can buy refurbished computers from the manufacturers (Lenovo, Dell, Apple, etc) or from online computer stores (Best Buy and my favorite Newegg). You want to buy from a reputable store because they'll have warranties offered and a good return policy.

I'm going to show you how to find a refurbished computer on Newegg.

You're going to go to Newegg.com, you're gonna go to computer systems in their menu, and you're gonna find refurbished

Then, down the side there's a ton of checkboxes where you can select your specifications. If there's a brand you prefer, select that (I like Lenovos A LOT - they last a long time and have very few problems, in my experience. Yes, this is a recommendation).

Put in your memory (RAM), put in your hard drive, put in your CPU speed (processor), and any other preferences like monitor size or which version of Windows you want (I don't want Windows 11 any time soon). I generally just do RAM and hard drive and manually check the CPU, but that's a personal preference. Then hit apply and it'll filter down.

I'm going to say right now, if you are getting a laptop and you can afford to get a SSD, do it. SSD is a solid-state drive, vs a normal hard drive (HDD, hard disk-drive). They're less prone to breaking down and they're faster. But they're also more expensive.

Anyway, we have our filtered list of possible laptops. Now what?

Well, now comes the annoying part. Every model of computer can be different - it can have a better or worse display, it can have a crappy keyboard, or whatever. So you find a computer that looks okay, and you then look for reviews.

Here's our first row of results

Let's take a look at the Lenovo, because I like Lenovos and I loathe Dells (they're... fine...). That Thinkpad T460S is the part to Google (search for 'Lenovo Thinkpad T460s reviews'). Good websites that I trust include PCMag, LaptopMag.com, and Notebookcheck.com (which is VERY techie about displays). But every reviewer will probably be getting one with different specs than the thing you're looking at.

Here are key things that will be the same across all of them: keyboard (is it comfortable, etc), battery life, how good is the trackpad/nub mouse (nub mice are immensely superior to trackpads imho), weight, how many and what kind of ports does it have (for USB, an external monitor, etc). Monitors can vary depending on the specs, so you'll have to compare those. Mostly you're making sure it doesn't completely suck.

Let's go back to Newegg and look at the specs of that Lenovo. Newegg makes it easy, with tabs for whatever the seller wants to say, the specs, reviews, and Q&A (which is usually empty).

This is the start of the specs. This is actually a lesser model than the laptop we were getting the specs for. It's okay. What I don't like is that the seller gives very little other info, for example on condition. Here's a Dell with much better information - condition and warranty info.

One thing you'll want to do on Newegg is check the seller's reviews. Like on eBay or Etsy, you have to use some judgement. If you worry about that, going to the manufacturer's online outlet in a safer bet, but you won't quite get as good of deals. But they're still pretty damn good as this random computer on Lenovo's outlet shows.

Okay, so I think I've covered everything. I do recommend having a techie friend either help or double check things if you're not especially techie. But this can save you hundreds of dollars or allow you to get a better computer than you were thinking.

[symptomsofdeceit]

Finally back ish!!

I’m back from seeing my friends! It was really wonderful, I had so much fun with them 💕

After getting back things have been busy. I worked my longest shift so far (24 hours - 12 scheduled and 12 where I was on call but worked every hour), then I got sick.

I wanted to get straight back to game development stuff last month, but my laptop is finally starting to die 😅 so it’s time for me to get a new PC!

I’d like to build my own. I’ve never done it before so it’ll take a minute for me to figure everything out! I’ll be building a cute mechanical keyboard to go with it, too. I also bought a new desk with more space, so it’ll take a while for everything to arrive and me to finish my new setup.

While waiting for that I’ve done more writing though! I’m really happy with how the next part of Nalis’s route is going :)

The next update is going to require a lot of new backgrounds 😔 the arcade, a superstore, and 3 point-and-click areas (Nalis’s room, Thaumo’s room, and the lab). BGs are my least favorite things to draw but I’ll do my best!! I’ve been collecting good reference pics while waiting for my PC parts to arrive too.

I’ve changed some parts of the original demo too. I fixed some grammar issues, improved parts of the code now that I’m more familiar with how Ren’Py works, added a new Nalis CG for Nalis’s ending, and added the option to choose your MC’s aquatic animal + profile pic (when texting).

Because the code is different people will need to delete the old version before starting this one. I’ll include a tutorial when I release the next update.

My plan is still for 2 more big updates: the one I’m working on now (with the lab, arcade, and scenes in Nalis & Thaumo’s apartments), then the endings update.

As always I’m so grateful for everyone’s patience! And I hope everyone is doing very well!!

((edit: I wrote + posted this on my lunch break, so I can’t be online for long today! I’m on call from the end of my shift tonight until the beginning of my shift Monday, but if I’m not called much I’d like to be online more this weekend.))

[pedripics]

IBAI x PEDRI - January 2, 2024 (summary)

He’s doing okay but things are a bit tough at the moment

He spent Christmas at home in Tenerife with his family

They play 'Suika Game' a lot in the dressing room (but on the phone and not the PC because it's free there lol)

He laughed a lot with Piqué in the dressing room. Piqué didn't really like training sessions but he was very good in the matches

Have you ever looked at Pique and thought that if you wanted to, you could dribble past him 7 times? - "Yes (laughs)"

Ferran has supported him a lot and is always there for him

Ferran takes the shark mentality very seriously, so Pedri gave him some shark slippers and now Ferran wears them in the dressing room

He tries to help Gavi every day because he knows what it's like to be injured for a longer time and he's confident that he will come back in great condition

Pedri does pilates now after Puyol recommended it to him

Pedri has Aleix García in his Fantasy team (his brother is first, he is second)

He rarely uses Twitter, he uses Twitch and TikTok more

They are behind Xavi 100%

In his opinion, Neymar looks good with every hairstyle

Girona are playing very well and he thinks that they could win LaLiga

Jordi Alba and Piqué were always fighting but that's how they got on. They just liked to fight lmao

Vitor Roque is wonderful, he is always happy, whenever Pedri sees him he is smiling

He doesn't like press conferences at all because they are a bit disturbing as all the journalists stare at you while you just sit there

In the Premier League, they are able to spend 80 or 90 million for players which is unbelievable. In La Liga, academies are what makes the difference

They don't really talk about the Super League in the dressing room

Boca Juniors or River Plate? - He's only watched one game and Boca won, so Boca

For Pedri, Busquets is the best No. 6 in history

His favourite player is Iniesta (in case you somehow didn't know that yet)

His favourite XI in history: ter Stegen, Jordi Alba, Piqué, Ramos, Alves, Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo (after being forced by Ibai), Messi and Luis Enrique as a Coach (he changed out Ronaldinho for Neymar later)

Luis Enrique doesn't have What's App. If you want to talk to him, you need to send him an SMS

He was nervous when scoring the decisive penalty against Real Betis because the goalkeeper was a giant

Hardest defeat: penalty shootout against Italy (Euros 2020)

He supported Argentina in the WC final (for Leo)

He would like Haaland to sign for Barça (in his words "as a replacement for Lewy because he won't play for us until he's 60") and he also really likes Julían Alvarez (agent Pedri 👀)

His first friend at Barça was Trincāo

A dream: to win the Champions League and the World Cup

Before games, he likes to listen to slow Spanish music (Julio Iglesias? - "Maybe (laughs)")

His favourite singer is Quevedo (everyone act surprised please)

Vitor is only 18 years old, you cannot ask him to be the new Pele, but he has a lot of confidence from the club

He normally always stops for fans but there are always the same 5-6 TikTokers in front of the training ground so he sometimes doesn't stop if it's just them

He is rewatching Prison Break at the moment, even though he's seen it two times already. The first season is the best one in his opinion

He used to watch anime but not anymore

Kounde has the confidence to wear anything

They should listen to the players more because the calendar is so tightly packed right now and there are too many injuries

He would like to score more goals

He found scoring goals strange when he was younger because he never knew how to celebrate and all he did was run and look stupid

Ibai breaks his computer mouse and engineer Pedri tells him to plug it out and in again (Pedri indeed managed to fix it)

Favourite place in Barcelona? - Camp Nou ❤️

Ibai and Pedri played 'Guess these 100 Players' and Pedri guessed 94/100 right (and Pedri realised he doesn't know enough South American players)

[noxiatoxia]

On: Vita Corrections (SDR2)

I've talked about it in the past, and will probably talk about it again in the future! But when Danganronpa 1 and 2 were ported to the PSVita, it wasn't just a simple port. Several dozen corrections were made, and the PSVita version of Danganronpa 1&2 would go on to become the version ported to PC, Xbox, PS4, Switch/iOS, and thus leave these old errors relegated to the PSP exclusively. Furthermore, the series was not officially given English translated versions until the PSVita versions, meaning only Japanese players likely ever saw these errors.

While most of these errors were visual, some were coding errors. For example, in Ch.1's investigation in SDR2, Komaeda hangs out in the background when you talk to him.

The Vita version went on to correct this, having the camera pan to the standing sprite like it is supposed to and then have Komaeda start speaking.

Everyday I learn of new things that were fixed upon porting the game to the Vita, and of those things is beta sprites mistakenly left in the game.

This will be a long post, and thus will have a read more. But here's an example of a sprite correction that was made and, honestly, was made for good reason...

So, let's talk about all of this.

Firstly, I want to say, the beta sprites used in the SDR2 student handbook I have already covered here, and the beta Naegi sprite used in the DR1 title screen I have covered here, so I won't repeat them.

Furthermore, I will discuss specific DR1 PSP differences at a later date, so fret not. Image limit means I have to limit myself, so it's just SDR2 right now.

And just before anyone asks - DR:AE and DRV3 never had PSP versions. By that point, both games were released first and foremost on the Vita, and did not get PSP backports or anything of the sort. I do know V3 got patch updates after its release on the Vita, but I do not know what changed exactly in those patch releases. Furthermore, I do not know how or if the PC/PS4/etc. ports differ significantly in terms of visual/coding changes in the same way the PSP -> PSVita ports did. Some day here I may look into it myself, but frankly, my focus on these topics have always been about DR1/SDR2 exclusively (which is funny as DR:AE is my favorite game in the series).

Okay, for real, let's talk about the screen shot I just shoved in your face: consent sprites.

Almost every single visual sequence in Danganronpa is consisted of several image files animated together. Thus, the "consent" sequence uses a zoomed-in picture of the characters sprites. Likely what happened in the PSP versions is that early sprites were put in for the "consent" animation, and by the time all the sprites went through finalizing changes, they forgot to replace them in the "consent" animation specifically. That's my guess, at least.

Everyone in SDR2 has one, as it is used in Island Mode as well. DR1 sadly does not have this as its "School Mode" was implemented only in the Vita re-release as a bonus.

Hinata Hajime:

What's fun about Hinata's beta sprite here specifically is that it's the same one mistakenly used in DRS for his swimsuit sprite. I've already talked about it in the hyperlinked post so I won't repeat it here, but it's fascinating that this sprite got mistakenly re-used years later for DRS.

We can see many differences between this and the final sprite. Hinata's body was made bigger, his bangs redrawn, the color layer shifted upwards for his hair (for some reason), and his eyes changed to look up and to the left instead of dead center.

Naegi Makoto:

Heads up: some of these images do not align. Hinata's thankfully lined up fairly well by default, but from hereon some of the "consent" sprites need to be moved slightly to better match up with each other.

Anyways, this Naegi sprite actually scared me (LOL). For context, I was relaxing playing the PSP version of SDR2, and in the middle of a trial, when I agreed with someone's statement, I noticed Hinata's sprite was off. I figured everyone's must be off then, so I ripped them all without knowing what they'd all look like. I opened up the folder for Naegi's, was hit with this, and was genuinely taken off guard. I just wasn't expecting it to look so different. It's very uncanny, and just looks off.

I don't think I even really need to describe it...basically everything was changed (thankfully).

As put by my friend Holly, "Makoto looks like a pug".

I will say, beta sprites for Naegi aren't very common outside of the Demo version of DR1, and this beta sprite oddly found in the SDR2 art book.

What's vastly interesting though is the beta found in the SDR2 art book is the same sprite here. Well, not the same, but the same pose. It's clearly not as early as this one though. So we have 2 beta versions of the final "pointing Naegi" sprite, it seems. How fascinating! I really should put together a "beta sprite timeline" some day...that'd be quite the project, though.

Nanami Chiaki:

This just seems to be an all-around early version of the sprite. Thicker outlines, raised eyebrow, and her teeth are bigger. All of this was fixed in her final sprite.

Ah, by the way. If I don't mention it here I guess I'll keep forgetting to mention it. Nanami, as shown in her mock-up beta image, uses keigo (polite) speech. She does not talk like this in the final game, instead speaking casually. Neat.

Sonia Nevermind:

Sonia's beta is interesting to me for minor reasons. Besides some of the thicker outlines, it could be considered "finished", but even so, the finished sprite is much different. Sonia's mouth was moved up, her hair less voluminous in the back, and her hand seemingly lowered and no longer popping up.

It just goes to show that even when a sprite looked basically done, they still saw it necessary to make so many little changed to it.

Saionji Hiyoko:

Every beta sprite I find for Saionji lacks in any real differences. It's sort of sad, but in a way, sheds light on an interesting process. The fact that very minor changes are made for seemingly no reason.

The final sprite for Saionji is "sharper", having a less blurry look to it. The "consent" image in particular has her sprite moved up a few pixels for whatever reason.

Koizumi Mahiru:

Koizumi's is an example of small but practical changes. Her hand was given much more detail, her hair lines made a bit sharper, and the shading lessened around her eyes. Also some very subtle changes to her ear, her teeth, and shirt collar.

Tsumiki Mikan:

Tsumiki's beta sprite is all sorts of messed up, and may have even shocked me like Naegi's had I not seen it before. Where, you may ask?

Well, DRV3's talent development plan cards were prone to using beta sprites by accident. Here's Tsumiki's:

I have a post I need to make about this...sometime...but for now, here is a clearly early version of this Tsumiki sprite.

Mioda Ibuki:

For the record, I'm comparing Mioda's full finished sprite to the PSP "consent" cutin image for one particular reason. Here's what it looks like if I just compare both "consent" images as they are:

I don't know why they felt the need to move Mioda way, way higher up in the Vita re-release, but that makes it pretty hard to compare the two.

Here's the real comparison. Quite a few details were changed; the lines on her shirt, her arm, the top of her head, the shading, and her mouth was moved down.

Pekoyama Peko:

Here we have the same Pekoyama sprite as seen in the SDR2 wallpapers. Nothing new to comment on here. Her face used to be much wider.

Souda Kazuichi:

Comparison gifs are great, because in cases where I couldn't see any differences when putting the images side-by-side, a comparison gif will reveal all the things I missed.

Souda is an example of that. Very small changes were made that I had not caught, such as his eyes being angled up higher towards the ends, his mouth extended lower, and the sides of his head spaced out better.

A part of me actually prefers the beta sprite. It has a more "extreme" edge to it, which fits the general vibe of Souda's design. However, the final sprite is just as nice.

Imposter:

Besides some width and artifact differences between the two renders, the sprite itself is the same. A shame, but it's what I expected. It's very, very hard to come across Imposter beta sprites. He had to be the first character whose sprite set was finalized, I feel.

Also, yes, the sprite is horizontally squished. I guess to make him fit better...?

Hanamura Teruteru:

Sadly, much of the same with Hanamura. I guess his simplistic design lends himself to not having too many corrections needing to be made.

Kuzuryuu Fuyuhiko:

Both Kuzuryuu sprites. As can be seen, basically his whole head was redrawn. I've actually talked about this sprite before, as it is reused for his UTDP card.

What I haven't seen before is the eyepatch version. What makes that noteworthy is the fact the colors are...greenish? Every Kuzuryuu sprite has an orange undertone, but for some reason, the early eyepatch sprite is blueish in undertone. Strange, seeing how the non-eyepatch version is the same color scheme. I wonder what that's all about. I really couldn't begin to guess.

Nidai Nekomaru:

Nidai has 0 changes. Good for him!

Owari Akane:

Keeping up with the theme Kuzuryuu presented us earlier, Owari's beta sprite is for some reason much more orange than the final sprite. They also redrew her neck, but besides that (and some outline fixes at the top left and in her ear) she seems mostly the same.

Komaeda Nagito:

This is a classic. The weird smiling Komaeda sprite, which is also seen in the SDR2 wallpapers. I've seen it many times so it doesn't surprise me it was accidentally left in for the "consent" images.

Tanaka Gundam:

Last but not least is Tanaka, and this is a great one to end off on because it baffles me.

Up until now, the Vita corrects have been, well, corrections. They replaced all the accidentally used beta sprites with their final, in-game sprites.

Not this one!

It's actually backwards. The PSP version was already using the final sprite, while the Vita re-release accidentally uses a beta sprite.

Same one seen in the SDR2 wallpapers...again.

It just blows my mind how they managed to do that...but if they could do it with Komaeda's standing sprites, I suppose anything is possible?

Well, that's it for now. When I get the time, I'll talk about the changes made to DR1...if you know of any other fun changes that were made between the PSP and PSVita versions, please let me know!

[commodorez]

What is the appeal of vintage computers to you? Is it the vintage video games or is it the programs? If so, what kind of programs do you like to run on them?

Fair warning, we're talking about a subject I've been passionate about for most of my life, so this will take a minute. The answer ties into how I discovered the hobby, so we'll start with a few highlights:

I played old video games starting when I was 9 or 10.

I became fascinated with older icons buried within Windows.

Tried to play my first video game (War Eagles) again at age 11, learned about the hardware and software requirements being way different than anything I had available (a Pentium III-era Celeron running Windows ME)

I was given a Commodore 1541 by a family friend at age ~12.

Watched a documentary about the history of computers that filled in the gaps between vague mentions of ENIAC and punch cards, and DOS/Windows machines (age 13).

Read through OLD-COMPUTERS.COM for the entire summer immediately after that.

Got my first Commodore 64 at age 14.

I mostly fell into the hobby because I wanted to play old video games, but ended up not finding a ton of stuff that I really wanted to play. Instead, the process of using the machines, trying the operating system, appreciating the aesthetic, the functional design choices of the user experience became the greater experience. Oh, and fixing them.

Then I started installing operating systems on some DOS machines, or playing with odd peripherals, and customizing hardware to my needs. Oh, and programming! Mostly in BASIC on 8-bit hardware, but tinkering with what each computer could do is just so fascinating to me. I'm in control, and there isn't much of anything between what I write and the hardware carrying it out (especially on pre-Windows machines)! No obfuscation layers, run-times, .dlls, etc. Regardless of the system, BASIC is always a first choice for me. Nova, Ohio Scientific, Commodore, etc. I usually try to see what I can do with the available BASIC dialect and hardware. I also tend to find a game or two to try, especially modern homebrew Commodore games because that community is always creating something new. PC stuff I focus more on pre-made software of the era.

Just to name a few examples from a variety of systems: Tetris, terminal emulators, Command & Conquer titles, screen savers, War Eagles, Continuum, video capture software, Atomic Bomberman, demos, LEGO Island, Bejeweled clones, Commander Keen 1-3, lunar lander, Galaxian, sinewave displays, 2048, Pacman, mandelbrot sets, war dialers, paint -- I could keep going.

Changing gears, I find it funny how often elders outside of the vintage computing community would talk about the era I'm interested in (60s-early 90s). [spoken with Mr. Regular's old man voice]: "Well, computers used to be big as a room! And we used punch cards, and COBOL!" I didn't know what any of that meant, and when pressed for technical detail they couldn't tell you anything substantial. Nobody conveyed any specifics beyond "that's what we used!"

I noticed that gaps remained in how that history was presented to me, even when university-level computer science and history professors were engaged on the subject. I had to go find it on my own. History is written by the victors, yeah? When was the last time a mainstream documentary or period piece focused on someone other than an Apple or Microsoft employee? Well, in this case, you can sidestep all that and see it for yourself if you know where to look.

Experiencing the history first hand to really convey how computers got from point A to B all the way down to Z is enlightening. What's cool is that unlike so many other fields of history, it's near enough in time that we can engage with people who were there, or better yet, made it happen! Why do you think I like going to vintage computer festivals?

We can see the missteps, the dead-ends, the clunkiness, the forgotten gems and lost paradigms, hopefully with context of why it happened. For the things we can't find more information on, when or documentation and perspectives are limited, sometimes we have to resort to digital archeology, and reverse engineering practices to save data, fix machines, and learn how they work. The greater arc of computer history fascinates me, and I intend to learn about it by fixing and using the computers that exemplify it best, and sharing that passion with others who might enjoy it.

[noble-mold]

I can't believe it's already April! Aaaah! O_O My blog turned one year four months ago, and I missed all the celebration deadlines. Lately I've been completely "out of juice" because of a job change.

TL;DR - The Sacrifice sequel is still in the works (when I have the time and energy). Because there are so many supporting characters, the second part will be the most technically challenging for me (and my ol' rusty PC). I'm pretty sure that Owlcat will have a new game (possibly even multiple ones :D) out by the time I finish this series, considering all the delays.

Now, a little retrospective… My journey in 3D began a little over a year ago. Right after I became a "doughnut savant" (if you know you know) in Blender, I immediately went for making Marazhai's armor. It was a nightmare of a project for a complete newbie but I don't regret taking on the challenge. A year later I returned to my old work to fix some of the mistakes that were bothering me since.

For a long time I had to use a low resolution sword model ripped directly from the game files. A year ago I lacked the skills to create its high resolution copy for my project, with all its curves and hooks and other very edgy (and highly impractical) drukhari stuff.

Considering how little free time anyone with a 9-to-6 job has these days, I'm very happy with my progress. Now I'm trying to spend more time learning how to do things "right" rather than "it will have to do for now but will come back to bite me in the ass later".

What's cooking at the moment? Tzeentch Cultists and Heretic Idira for "The Sacrifice" (part 2). When is gonna be ready? Even Tzeentch doesn't know.

[a-friend-of-mara]

Hello hello

It's been a long long time since I made an intro post so time to do it again

Hello everyone, I'm Mara, I'm an 18 year old autistic trans girlie on the interwebs. I'm mostly into women but recently have been getting bi-curious, I'm poly and in a relationship with some lovely people, I am okay with you flirting but don't get upset if I don't reciprocate your feelings, my partners come first.

New: I'm pissed as fuck that I have to write this, I'm turning off asks because I got five "help my family" asks today alone...

Rant below in green

At first I was like "idk, I don't have money so I'll just delete it" now I'm sure it's bots doing the whole "help my family" garbage. I don't have a better word for it than "evil"... people are fucking suffering and some dickwads are trying to scam people out of money...... "oh but Mara how do you know its a scam" Hello there hypothetical goober who I made up for the sake of argument. I know it's a scam because the only thing I get more often than those asks are mommy doms in my dms saying "hello bitch" ... I'm not happy... I'm just not, tumblr should be for funny videos of fennec foxes, cats, queer shit, sad girl hours, and saying "mommy? Sorry" to other trans girls who I think are cute... NOT FUCKING GILT TRIPS

:(

I am a transgender woman, if you call me a sissy you're getting blocked

Stop asking where I'm from! I've heard that a hundred times and I'm tired of it!

I swear to Satan herself if one more guy is creepy in my DMs then I'm gonna start blocking all of them

Blank blogs I do not trust and will be presumed bots/scammers until proven otherwise, likes, reblogs, and a PFP take almost no time

My non-horny intests include

Computers

TTRPGs

Video games

Fixing stuff

I love talking to people and love attention even more so feel free to DM me*

*Dni list

Racists

Homophobic people

Transphobic people

TERFs

Anyone who calls me "sissy" or "tranny" or "shemale" because those are all derogatory terms and if you use them you're either an asshole or uneducated and I don't wanna take the time to figure out which

Favorite video games

(Last updated 5/13)

Titanfall 2

Team Fortress 2

Deep Rock Galactic

Beat saber

Project wingman

Cyberpunk 2077

Armored Core 6

Lethal Company

Pizza Tower

I love spreading little pockets of happiness around here sending messages saying "Heya you're loved and valid" to people on here

I frequently talk about Charlie, she's my PC, I built her with my own hands and seeing her damaged or malfunctioning hurts my soul

Ask me for money and you're being blocked instantly

Horny below the line

Dirty ask list

When giving an ask please give the question number and question, thx

I LOVE TO RP, PLEASE ASK ME ABOUT IT!

[latalpavolante]

Honeydew Houses (furnished)

It's been 84 years, but I finally finished furnishing my Britechester apartment building(s). Yes, I can hardly believe it myself.

Honeydew Houses, in the heart of the old town, offer six units with different layouts, decorated in different styles. There's a small shared laundry room on the groundfloor, and the apts. include:

Seven Bedrooms - Six Bathrooms in total (so one bedroom - one bathroom per apartment, only the one on the first floor has two bedrooms)

Basement, left: Grungy Apt.

Basement, right: Musician's Apt.

Groundfloor: Caretaker's Apt.

First Floor: Single Mom's Apt.

Second Floor: Dark Academia Apt.

Third Floor/Attic: Painter's Mansard

If you prefer to furnish them yourself, you can download an (almost) empty version of this build from the gallery as well.

Lot Type: Residential

Lot: Honeydew Fields, 20x15, Gibbs Hill, Britechester

Lot Traits: (honestly I forgot to add them to the finished build, but considering the lore, I would have probably gone for) Homey, Study Spot, Great Acoustics

Price: § 294,594

Packs: CottageLiving | EcoLifestyle | DiscoverUniversity | GetFamous | CatsAndDogs | CityLiving | GetTogether | GetToWork | Werewolves | Parenthood | Vampires | Paranormal | LaundryDay | ModernLuxe | BasementTreasures | Everyday Clutter

noCC

MoveObjectsOn cheat required

Playtested (I found two minor issues which I decided to ignore for the sake of the backstory and/or aesthetics, and a bigger one that drives me insane but I don't know how to fix; more info under the cut)

Available on the Sims 4 gallery!

Tray Files: Google Drive

Heads-up: this build might be a little bit heavy on older pcs as it's very cluttered and detailed. The file size is ca. 503 KB, so pretty high for a 20x15 lot, and my laptop was taking ages to load when I placed the build in a new save for some last playtesting, so please keep that in mind and make sure to save your game before adding it (and bulldoze the lot before you do), just in case. Sorry for the inconvenience!

And I also made some sims for this build...

Gallery ID: LaTalpaVolante

You can find a playlist with the speed builds for all the six apartments on my Youtube channel:

More info and floorplans under the cut!

As you can tell from the list of packs, I haven't used For Rent for this as I don't have this expansion yet, so the apartments technically aren't separate units. I just added all the tenants as one household and assigned them their apts. by locking the other doors; or you could of course play around with the roommate system as well, or turn the apts. into proper rental units if you own For Rent.

Known Issues (I'm sorry, I know these explanations shouldn't be that long...)

In the grungy basement apt., the access to the right side of the bed is blocked by the punchbag. Sims can still get into the bed from the left side without problems. Because I had intended the apt. to be for one single sim anyway and it was more important for me to keep the punchbag, considering the hobbies and backstory of this sim, I decided to just go with it. But if you want to move two sims in, you'll either have to make one of them scoot over in the bed or delete the punchbag.

In the caretaker's apt. on the groundfloor, sims can't remove dirty dishes from the dining table. Otherwise sims can interact with that table perfectly fine (they can sit down and eat, do homework, read etc.), they just can't take dirty dishes from the table. This is apparently caused by the decorative shelf in the corner because its footprint slightly overlaps the one of the table. Easiest fix would be to either completely delete the shelf or just move the table away from it. However, because moving the table away from the wall looked a bit weird, and in my gameplay, I tend to just manually drag the dirty dishes into the sink anyway, I decided to ignore it.

The Interrupted Cooking Interaction in Basements Desaster Yeah. I basically made a whole post about this, but to sum it up, there seems to be a general issue where sims refuse to autonomously complete a cooking interaction in the basement when there are other cooking opportunities (=stoves, counters) available on the lot. If you play this build with the locked doors method, like me, and you want your sim to cook in one of the basement apts., they will take out the ingredients from the fridge, then behave as if the stove/counters were blocked (although I made sure they're accessible) and put the ingredients down. If you then click on the ingredients and choose to continue cooking, sims will however complete the interaction as if nothing happened. (If you don't lock the doors to the other apts., sims from the basement will automatically go upstairs to cook and ignore the basement kitchen.) I spent a ridiculous amount of time playtesting it over and over again and trying to figure out what exactly causes the problem, but I really couldn't find a solution and I'm extremely sorry for this. Maybe if you've got For Rent, turning the apts. into proper rental units might fix this issue? Please let me know in case you encounter any other problems (or if you know a way to fix the last one...)!

Floorplans

[mandatory-blog-stop-asking]

It's funny how most every cyberpunk story or setting thought that due to technology taking over people's lives and humanity, computer literacy would become commonplace enough that the very term would disappear. Everyone in Night City or whatever is super into hacking or can at least give you the difference between hardware, software, antivirus, spam, etc. To not know the basic gists or cybernetics and cyber security is paramount to not knowing how to count or how to read.

In reality we're about to enter an age where knowing how to create a folder or a zip file is back to being ancient lore inscribed in tablets that only the 30 year old who works at your IT office knows how to do. Phones and the growing marketability of easy-access no-customization technology means kids just don't use computers anymore. And it's crazy how fast it happened.

When I was in kindergarten we still had "computer class" once a week, and it was objectively useless for everyone in my class. Regardless of our age or interests, all of us had casual PC time either at home or in cyber cafes, all of us knew how to do things the teachers many times struggled with. The moment typing machine class became keyboard typing class, computers were already dominating most of our time. I learned how to navigate a computer the same way I learned English; by myself, because it was vital for my own interests.

And between highly streamlined video games, single umbrella closed OSs and everything being a fucking app, a 14 year old nowadays is lucky if they know what quotation marks do to your Google results. It's genuinely harrowing how the future is tech-dependent, yet we're becoming completely tech-illiterate.

The worst part is that it's completely on purpose by the tech industry. Much like not being able to fix your own products when they break, if you simply don't know what your phone or your computer can *do*, it's much easier to sell you a borderline identical one a little earlier than you'd actually need it. Phone updates are already pretty much semantic; you can't even see the difference between new models and old ones anymore, unless the visual difference is the point. And it all just gets more and more expensive for less and less bang for your buck.

We never expected the cyberpunk dystopia to be dull, and to rely on making us dumb. Crazy how well it worked.

[angrelysimpping]

aaaaay, have this old wip that i apparently scraped and picked back up, added onto, gave a wee polish, and now we're here! this is for the old killer au, where Whitney and Kyalr are both murderes, working as a team, in a weird fucked up relationship with eachother and PC

contents: AMAB Whitney (he/him); AMAB Kylar (he/him); GN PC mentioned; murder; drugs; implied non and dub con; knives; toxic relationships

word: 579

Whitney knows Kylar is developing a …crush? Is that what it would be called with Kylar? Crush, obsession, something like that, anyway. He's always been able to tell when people are attracted to him. It's not hard, he's had plenty of practice over the years.

It's why the freak is developing feelings that bothers Whitney.

It's because Whitney is listening to him. Let him take the lead when it comes to picking the victims, in deciding how they die. At first it was because the freak had more experience; knew how to follow someone without anyone noticing, how to slip drugs into food during broad daylight without arousing suspicion. 

Knew exactly where to cut to disable but not kill, to let Whitney play with them.

But it's become their routine, Kylar leading and Whitney following. One that seems to excite the little creep.

Like the last time. It had been…it’d been amazing. Kylar had been leaning over his shoulder, hot breath on his neck, watching Whitney toy with their victim. Whitney hadn’t noticed at the time, the intimacy of it. Not even when thin arms had snaked around his middle, cold hands laid over his. He’d been too far gone, lost in the high of the kill, to truly realize how Kylar’s hand’s had guided his own, press into strained neck, ending the game Whitney had come to crave. 

Kylar had been the one to end it, call the night to a close. And Whitney had let him.

If he was being honest, he might be able to tolerate, even appreciate, Kylar taking control while on hunts, but it's starting to affect the rest of his life. He'd seen Kylar trailing him through the halls, spotted the loner breaking into his locker. He's pretty sure the fucker stole a pair of his underwear.

He’d bet money on the fact that Kylar had followed him home on more than one occasion. Whitney had thought himself paranoid that first time, the burn of eyes on the back of his neck making him take extra turns on his walk, looping back on himself, trying to shake the imaginary tail to soothe his own frayed nerves. But, then he’d seen the little shit, scampering back around a corner, and he knew.

Kylar. It was fucking Kylar. It wasn’t paranoia, wasn’t some new threat. It was Kylar. A known quantity. Something he could handle with ease.  

But, Kylar is getting worse. Bolder. 

Whitney can't have that, can't have Kylar trying to claim him in public.

So, he slips him something. Just a little. He's seen Kylar spike enough food and Whitney's a quick enough study. It's almost too easy.

Kylar moans low as he starts to twitch awake. It doesn’t take long for Kylar to panic, Whitney can see the exact moment where it registers where he is. He must know instantly that it’s his own basement, stripped and strapped to the ratty mattress that had only recently been vacated.

Their slut was taking a nice little vacation, drugged up and snoozing in Kylar’s bed. Whitney had packed enough garlic in there to keep the freak’s parent’s from investigating. Wait…their slut? No, no, his slut. His. When had he started thinking like that? When had he started considering him and the loner a unit?

Doesn’t matter. He’d fix this, he was fixing this. 

And if he can train Kylar to be his dog, then why not? Why not have another pet to play with?

[perfectlysanexd]

How do you do your Final Fantasy edits?

The hard way, my friend. No AI is used here, I do it all by hand. 🥰 I assume you mean the screenshot manipulations I create? I'll try and give a simple summary... First, I boot up Remake on PC and use a "free camera" mod(you can find the links to the mods I use on my archive pages for manipulations, which is on my pinned post) to take a couple screenshots that I think will work well together. Sometimes I change my mind and choose a different one. It can be hard to match the camera angles and lighting, so sometimes I have to mess with that later, as well. But it's easier if they fit together from the beginning. We'll take my current WIP as an example. I started with these two screenshots:

I open them in the free program GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), which anyone can download at gimp.org. Then the first thing I do is choose the base image. In this case, they're both facing the same way, so I choose to flip Sephiroth(you can't really do that with Cloud easily because of his earring, and his hair is less symmetrical). Since the camera was closer up on Cloud, and he's the smaller one, I usually choose Sephiroth's to be the base image. With that decided, I roughly cut Cloud from his background and paste him onto Sephiroth's image as a new layer. Then I position him, resize him, rotate him, whatever I need to do until he seems to be in the desired place, which ends up looking like this: (I ended up adding snow for this preview, so it would look more complete than it is when I showed it to my server, haha)

If you look at Cloud, you can still see a thick outline of his old background around his head. Once he's positioned properly, it's time to remove the rest of his background(I use a size 10 eraser with 100% hardness and zoom in about 5 times). Then I need to think about where they're connected, and how to make them look like they're touching, as well as layering to make them seem intertwined, as if they're truly occupying the same space together.

I cut away some of Cloud's shirt, and the rest of that effect will come with shading later. If I wanted Cloud even closer, I would make a duplicate of Sephiroth and erase his background, so that his lock of hair would appear to go over Cloud's face. I could also make it semi-transparent, so you could see the outline of Cloud's face through his hair. You can see I have some small game defects to fix, such as Cloud's hair clipping through his ear. I leave those tiny details for later, typically. Sometimes, because of their height differences, I have to "rebuild" missing parts of them from scratch, such as I did for this other manipulation:

It's a delicate process that's mostly the clone tool(to keep the textures) and some freehand drawing, but I don't have an art tablet, so I use my mouse for everything, which can be quite challenging. I've had a lot of practice from translating doujinshi, where I'd erase the words, rebuild the missing part of the image, and then place the translated words over that spot.

In any case, I decided I wanted more out of this manipulation than just leaning against each other. I wanted Cloud to be reaching up towards Sephiroth, and perhaps for Sephiroth to be pulling him closer. To do that, I needed pictures of their hands/arms like so:

I've taken hundreds of shots, so I looked through what I had first, but it wasn't the right angle, or was the wrong outfit for Cloud, so...then you open up those images and cut out the parts you want. After that, you work on positioning and things like that again. I haven't finished with that part yet, so it looks a little awkward. (And when you're doing these kinds of things, color matching is very important, but that's a bit advanced.)

I'm not fully satisfied yet, so I'll probably remove the rest of the background from the arms and then mess with the placement. As for Sephiroth's hand, I intend to thread it in Cloud's hair, so Cloud will need to be duplicated in order to create that layering effect, as mentioned previously. Which should end up looking similar to this one:

(I had to draw in most of Cloud's hand because I didn't have the camera mod back then, and the Sephiroth shot was provided to me by Coeurlwhiskers.) After that, it's a matter of shadows and highlights, remaining details, and finishing up the colors, etc. It's a long and difficult process, and can take many hours to complete, depending on how ambitious I get with it. Most of that stuff would be a much longer tutorial, and I did used to do some actual artwork a long time ago, so I...kind of know what I'm doing?? I probably do a lot of stuff the hard way(like not using layer masks) because I just don't have the time to teach myself more than the basics. 😅I know it may seem daunting, but it's really fun! I hope I managed to answer your question properly. Feel free to ask follow ups~

[hashimasims]

How to paste a tray sim from MCCC!

This is very long and I will hide under the cut to not eat up your dash space I did try to make a video instead but my screen capture kept stopping and though it was showing that it was recording me speak there was no sound so screenshots it is! Made by request for @mariapaulaaah and was originally going to send to their ask box but A.) figured a long ask may get me shadowbanned or something and B.) just maybe other people don't know how to do this either. I figured it out through trial and error though I'm sure there's a description on how to do this somewhere. Probably on deaderpool's website for mccc but I just had to figure it out the hard way lol

↑OK so when loading in to the map from the main menu you can kinda see here that my Spellcaster Minthe shows that she has her funky occult eyes

↑ But when I load in to play she doesn't *le sigh* NO WORRIES! Our trusty friend MCCC can help with that!

↑Open the MCCC menu and choose MC CAS then copy/paste↑

↑scroll all the way down to paste tray sim and choose one of the options. Because I made Minthe's household it's easier to find her under "only my sims"

↑Then just scroll until you find the family name you are looking for (They are shown in alphabetical order) and then the sim you want to paste.

↑I have found that you do have to have all the default options chosen for your sim to paste correctly. At least in my case anyway. Her eyes are not contacts/facepaint but if I choose only appearance it doesn't fix her eyes (You can probably have paste name unselected though it doesn't bother me because it doesn't change her name. I'll worry about that later if she ever gets married and her name changes)

↑Then VOILA!!!! Now she has her Occult eyes again! And I can go about my day until I close the game and have to rinse and repeat the next time I play this save file.

I have found that this works for Vampires, Mermaids, and Werewolves as well as regular human sims of course. In my personal saves Vamps don't have a dark form so it was easier for me to just give them one and place all their occult features on that way and force them to stay in their dark form permanently through mccc. I did try on an Alien but it tried to put all their alien features on their disguise but maybe if you have them take off their disguise first and then paste tray sim on them that wont happen. I personally haven't tried this part yet I probably should have but none of my Aliens have been affected *YET* and I just did a quick check to confirm whether it worked for them. Next time I'm in one of my alien houses to actually play I will check.

And that is it. It is a tedious process to have to do EVERY TIME you load your game up but it's a quick workaround for PC players at least. Now if only they could actually just fix this that would be great!

OH! and if you give the affected sim a new outfit, hairdo, ANYTHING make sure you save the family to the gallery with the new changes and delete the old one or you won't have that change when you have to paste the sim again

[edgelordhoard]

hey im planning to switch over to linux and need advice from the smart people of tumblr, please and thank you. my messages are open so if you need any info to help me out hmu.

General Questions:

im seeing everyone saying ubuntu, mint, and ziron are "the #1 go to versions for beginners" but like... which is it?

i also hear about security being the best with linux but nothing about it coming with antiviruses. does it come with one like how windows comes with defender or do you install that yourself, or is it something different entirely?

all the sources i look at talk about downloading and installing linux but i want to know what to expect when first getting a prebuilt pc with the OS, like the system 76 pcs. do you have to set it up like when you install it or is it as easy as getting any new computer?

i know nothing about coding and im planning to get a computer from system 76 since it seems like the best, and its by far the only source that only comes with linux, and since my current one was pretty much ruined by someone i thought could fix it after a faulty outlet fried its insides, he didnt and made it worse.

so yeah, which linux version do you suggest for a computer moron, any suggestions for computers would be nice (max price is $1,300), i'll put the specs and my uses under the read more.

Preferences:

It ONLY comes with Linux. I despise what Windows has become and don't want to even bother dual booting cause I feel with the switchovers happening they're gonna get salty and make something that'll turn your computer into a bomb if you use Linux with it.

Kinda beefy but not a supercomputer. I don't use AI stuff, I'm not a programmer, but I do frequently play modded Minecraft with my friends and run smps for my Discord servers. I recently switched to Modrinth cause ATLauncher had been giving me trouble. Curseforge is out of the question.

At the most, I'll be playing VRChat with friends while having Spotify or Youtube in the background for music and Discord open in case someone needs my help in one of my servers, similar goes for running one of my SMPs just minus the VR.

Gaming Questions:

I also play VR games often, especially BeatSaber (modded ofc im not insane), and I have Half Life Alyx that I haven't been able to finish cause my already dead and gutted PC struggles to run it anymore even with the lowest settings. My current headset is a two feet in the grave, barely hanging in there, held by tape Oculus Rift S thats as old as my current PC whos also dead. I plan to get a new headset soon and had the Quest 2 recommended to me by friends. If theres better alternatives that isn't Meta please let me know.

I'm a DBD addict. Does it really run DBD or was that just the one guy from the one video I saw.

My friends also often drag me onto Roblox so I need to know if that'll be an option for Linux too.

I know I could probably look up all this myself but every source is outdated from years ago or they all say different things and it just confuses me.

Art Questions:

My current tablet is a Wacom, I got it before knowing how greedy the company actually is, and I plan to switch to a Huion after this tablet dies on me. If compatibility is an issue with it please let me know what to do about that.

I usually use Medibang but I don't think it runs on Linux from what I've seen, if I'm wrong lemme know. Am I going to have to switch all the files over to something else before getting a Linux or are there programs I can use that'll load them?

I also write and need to know if I need to switch all my files to something else before porting it all over to the Linux PC. I just used the default notepad and document programs on Windows.

But yeah, that's all my questions for now. If I think of any more I'll just edit this post. Sorry if I sound super dumb for all this, I tried finding information sources myself but like I said all of them weren't too moron friendly or had relevant information. Most sources I found were articles or reddit forums from years ago so I thought "Hey, why don't I just go ask the computer nerds directly?" so here I am.

[themarydragon]

I have not seen (or maybe I missed) any comments or thoughts you had about Veilguard. Anything you would share with us?

I've had 4 complete playthroughs and I'm sitting and thinking about exactly what I want to do for #5 before I do my deep-dive, note-taking, re-read the books, Gwen's worldstate (Pillars of Creation) playthrough.

I actually loved it. Prepare for giant block of text.

Was it without flaws? Absolutely not. Its Bioware. They'll be pallbearers at my funeral, ya know? But I try not to dwell on the negatives because I honestly never thought we would actually get this game and it's 1000% better than nothing.

But the high point for me are the things we always bitched about in the old games getting fixed. The different backstories MATTER in the dialog. Elves know things human don't, there's unique dialog choices for the origins that give you different relationships with the companions. Remember how much we bitched about Lavellan asking "who's Mithal?" Not this time! (Unless you, the player, don't know and need the option) Now we have a Watcher!Rook talking shop with Emmrich!! Is it perfect? Of course not! Satisfying? Fuck yeah! It also means it's the very first DA game I finished, immediately started over, finished, and immediately started over. And each playthru was different enough to keep me completely invested.

The 3 classes feel different. Rogue and warrior play completely different, even on story-mode difficulty. I had a learning curve, going from warrior to rogue, that I hadn't had in awhile.

All the classes have at least one mechanic that feels FUN. Shield bounce OP.

Skipping over the story bits I WILL be fixing (spoilers for Pillars but you know the Varric reveal is getting fixed, and where the fuck is Hawke), there were some really tasty lore bits. The connection between the Tevinter gods and the Evanuris was something a lot of us had guessed, but I didn't QUITE get right. The evanuris/elf origin gives me a lot to think about RE: force ghost Leliana, or Cole, or the saving Wisdom quest for Solas in DA3, or SANDAL, etc etc.

But the Blight. The Blight!

We knew it was connected to lyrium and the titans, and that did not disappoint. Making it Madness instead of evil? The Blight having been sealed away with the Evanuris before implies it is sealed away with Solas now (Blighted Lavellan as bioware canon?) and your captured companion getting healed gives HUGE implications for the titans and the Wardens.

Can the titans be healed? Is that what Lace and Valta did? Can a titan bond with a dwarf and have their madness healed? Since Lace can dream AND have titan powers, is she evidence one of the titans has been reconnected with their dreams? Is it the titan where her rage manifested? THAT heart is HER heart? Maybe! The fanfiction options are endless. If the Blight is titan madness, what does even one 'healed' titan mean for the wardens, for the Song? For the Calling? New flavor for why they are Called to the Deep Roads, and why embracing the Blight = extended life!!!!!!!

And the zones. Nevarra? Worth the price of admission. Running around Arlathen, also great. The titan/mountain in Lace's missions? Jaw dropping. I played on my too-old PC and then switched to XBox and my mom would sit on the couch and watch and I would take her on tours and I got to explain this whole world I've had living rent-free in my head, to my mother, and I CANNOT begin to tell you how great that feels.

The ending Battle setup was so good, honestly. I get a little choked up watching my allies fall in to fuck shit up with me. Everybody getting a little moment of badassery also super great. Vorgoth wrecking the juggernaut is just *chef's kiss*

I could keep going, believe me.

I've been kicking around posting my fav romances but I've got 2 left (the spouse has multiple playthroughs, too, and I got the benefit of watching his choices play out) and I can't choose between Neve and Bellara and I don't want to go too deep into detail without weighing in on my girls. I adore them all.

But the best? its Davrin, btw. Davrin is incredible. 10/10 no notes gonna smooch again. Emmrich also top-tier and Taash the surprise "oh shit I didn't think I flirted that hard but LETS FUCKEN GO" to round out the top-3. My whole first Rook was DESIGNED to smooch Lace and honestly it was not as satisfying as watching her with Taash. (Get there faster, Lace) Same argument with Lucanis, it just felt unrequited to me, esp with how hard he & Neve flirt (comparatively, too). YMMV of course, we all go for different things in love and life.

Anyways yeah I loved it. Finishing my ME fic(s) before I go asshole deep into my DA universe extensions.

And no I won't go off about the things I hated because life is too short to focus on the bad. That's why I write... to fix the shit I didn't like. As always, Bioware gave me plenty of things to write about.