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ClassicGMR

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Everything posted by ClassicGMR

  1. Still my favorite theme. GameEx just looks weird without it. (Sorry Tom) Here's some more torture stats from the GPD WIN 4. As you can see in GPU-Z the 16GB RAM is assigned to the GPU like I thought. Heaven shows a good 62 FPS average but don't be fooled. It stuttered in the larger scenes noticeably hence the 9 FPS low. I really love this thing. PS2, Gamecube, Dreamcast... pffft... it doesn't even sweat.
  2. You mean like the title of the thread? 🤣 "Ryzen 7 7840u / 64GB RAM / 4 TB" Seriously though - I figured if I'm doing it I'm going all in. These specs were for the top model and as of this post the link is valid for this model specifically. It's $77 off right now but it's a pretty penny (150,000 pretty pennies to be exact). * It's an 8-core, 16 thread chip that can hit 5.1GHz. I think it runs at a normal max of 3.3 GHz and at idle I've only seen it as low as 2.5 GHz so very nice. * It is running 64GB of DDR5 of which 48GB are usable (massive overkill I know). I think the other 16GB are reserved for the GPU? Could be wrong. * The GPU is the on-board AMD Radeon 780M which I have stressed a little. It's somewhere between a GTX 1660ti and a 2070 Super(?). It runs well that's all I know. It will do 1080p but on the 6" screen 720p is more than enough. I still do 1080p docked though. I get a solid 60FPS in Forza Horizon 4, Fortnite, Slay the Spire, Skyrim, etc. She'll chug in Cyberpunk but I can lock the FPS and it's a solid experience. I still want to "Furmark and Unigine the hell out of it" but I've had too much fun just using it. * There's an optical mousepad on this thing that's just so easy to use. Took me a hot minute to get used to it but I absolutely love it. Beats the actual joystick+shoulder buttons "mouse mode" the system sports. * The GPD WIN uses an XBox style controller setup. Works fine. The right stick is a tad close to the A button for my tastes but I'm getting used to it. * It has a 6" LCD that is smaller than the Steam Deck but it's more vibrant. I don't notice the difference while using it. Slide it up and it feels better playing on it PLUS reveals a full, back-lit keyboard. * I do have the dock which adds the usual HDMI out and USB Type-A ports. Right now I have a mouse/keyboard attached and it's connected to my 1080p monitor. * WiFi is as fast as my laptop and desktop so no complaints there. I've played Fortnite as I said earlier with a solid, no stutter 60FPS. * The Bluetooth works. I don't use it much on any of my PCs but it works. * The SD card slot works as well as an SD card can in terms of speed so *shrug*. * The speakers are front-firing and sound a lot better than I expected. They do get obscured a bit by my hands but even then they sound better than any rear-firing or bottom-firing speakers I've heard on other handhelds. Just for reference here's my Amazon review: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R30NIVB2LFQQOO?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp
  3. Wow. You bet your ass it's running GameEx! Of course it is! (And Steam. And Epic. And Battle.Net.) This thing is amazing. Full-fledged PC with some nice gaming chops. Emulation is a breeze.
  4. The Raspberry Pi novelty has definitely worn off in my house. Between my wife and I we had 6 at one point running various things. I am down to 2x RPi 4 setups - a Pimoroni PiCade and a 10.1" Sunfounder setup. I keep these since they are both portable and run on a 25W battery bank for 8+ hours. Back in August I sold off 3 of the RPi's and used some of the money to buy a Windows mini PC. The mini-est I could find actually! It's a GMKTek Windows mini pc. 1000 times better, has more power and runs Windows. The emulation is good but the functionality I get from it being an actual PC just makes it the better buy. Stream movies, productivity, general browsing, YouTube (Ms Rachel for the grandkids is a MUST LOL). It just makes more sense. I put it in the entertainment center with a Bluetooth keyboard and you can't even see it. I paid $170 USD at the time but right now it's only $140 USD. There's just so many better options. If you like the Raspberry Pi and tinkering around and playing with it as a hobby then yeah buy one. If you just want something to emulate on without tinkering or hassles AND get a full blown PC as a bonus then why would you even look at a Pi?
  5. GAME: Persona 4 Golden (Steam) SYSTEM: Steam Deck 512 GB LCD, PC (and almost any other platform now) CLOUD SAVE: Yes I first played P4G on my PSVita system at least 10/11 years ago. I am an RPG fan to begin with but this game is something special. Every choice you make has an impact on the dynamics of the game. You can beat the game no matter what choices you do make but it may be a shorter, less satisfying ending. Interpersonal relationships and building friendships is essential to growing your power so you have to do it. But once I started doing it I couldn't - and didn't want to - stop building on it. The game isn't just a dungeon crawl. You actually care about these characters you're playing with. It's an amazing piece of writing. I cannot remember a game before or since that I actually had that experience with. Books yes. You read a series and you get into their lives and care about what is happening. Games? Not so much. I actually found myself wanting to spend more time OUTSIDE the dungeons so I could interact with the world and all these new friends I had! I realize this is rambling a bit but it's hard to describe properly... TES: Skyrim is an awesome RPG that can be modded to hell and back. Final Fantasy VII was just so good for its time. Still is and has a decent story. But neither of them holds a candle to Persona 4's immersion and depth of play. Damn. Now I want to take it out for another spin. "Every day's great at your Junes!"
  6. GAME: Forza Horizon 4 (Steam) SYSTEM: Steam Deck 512 GB LCD, PC CLOUD SAVE: Yes Forza Horizon 4 is not only a great marathon game. It is one of those games you can pick up, play a race or two then put down. (I like to call these "Quick Hit" games.) It is still a visually beautiful game on PC. Now... on the Steam Deck... it is stunning. The scenery, lighting, weather, seasons and car effects are all perfectly translated to the small screen. The game plays right out of the box with no tweaking required. With the Cloud Save feature you're not forced to play 2 different games just because you are on your handheld. I have not seen any stuttering or slowdowns on my handheld while playing this game. At max settings on your PC you may see lower FPS if you're the last racer in the pack (and you're actually paying attention to that sort of thing) but on the deck the FPS isn't an issue to begin with so all you see are clear roads ahead (unless, you know, you're in 8th place 🤣). I haven't tried Forza 5 but, to be honest, I have no desire to as yet. I haven't even scratched the surface of what Forza 4 offers and it's a beauty to behold
  7. GAME: Slay the Spire (Steam) SYSTEM: Steam Deck 512 GB LCD, PC CLOUD SAVE: Yes I have a Steam Deck and have spent a lot of time playing with my library to see what runs well. My latest passion has been Slay the Spire. It's a rogue deck builder type game but it's not a Magic the Gathering clone. It's more like a turn-based RPG (kinda) but the cards you start with and acquire determine your actions. You have to be smart about how many cards you actually have in your deck. Just having cards isn't always a good thing. As you finish drawing the deck the discard pile is shuffled back into your draw pile again so having the right balance of "good cards" vs "a ton of cards" is crucial. I have been playing this game for about 3 months now and I finally FINALLY finished Act III. Which is like beating the first boss in Metal Gear Solid. Yes it is an accomplishment but it's the easiest fight among many. I plan to enjoy - and be frustrated by - this game for a very long time. EDIT: Also important to note the Cloud Saves work with this (and almost all) Steam titles so I can easily transition from my Deck to my PC and back when I want/need to.
  8. What you did with your Ally is what I did with my Steam Deck - go nuts and get all the toys! I have never tried a ROG Ally but I CAN say that I literally use my Steam Deck daily. Literally. Slay the Spire is my current passion.
  9. So I bought one of these way back in August - base model no recoil - and I am still having so many problems calibrating it. I'm sure it's all on my end and I mean that. I can't get further than 3 feet away from my arcade cabinet due to the living room furnishings etc AND my cabinet only supports a 22" display. My cabinet's old and can't take a bigger display. I get stutters and jitters all over the place. Most of the time it isn't even recognized on screen. I haven't done it yet but the gun is slated for a massive round of testing on the 42" tv in the basement when I can find the time/energy. It's not what I wanted to use the gun on but it's probably my only option. I had horrible results with my Ultimarc gun initially, gave up very quickly (maybe too quickly?) and put it in storage. It's probably time to dig it out and make that puppy work right. It's only been.... a few years? 🤣
  10. Excellent! I will do this some day damn it... 🤣
  11. I bought one of these maybe a year ago(maybe even 2 years ago?) but I still haven't gotten around to installing it. I also bought the Atari Dual Fightstick they sold as well around that time. I don't think I have even tested that yet either! 🤣
  12. Damn it I missed it. I love RTS games. EDIT: Oops... not an RTS but turned based. Still looks like I would have loved this. I may just drop the $7 on it anyway.
  13. Holy crap... 6 games I didn't own on Steam! 🤣
  14. Based on this I would **think** that you have 2 good M.2 channels and the third overlaps with the SATA channels. I’d hazard a guess that they recognized this and have updated the boards with more compatibility. Just my unscientific $0.02. EDIT: at worst you just test it when you get it. It certainly won’t hurt. The BIOS won’t recognize the drives if it’s not compatible.
  15. Check the motherboard specifications. Most motherboards still disable SATA if a 2nd M.2 slot is filled - but not always. It's a little weird. The 2nd M.2 slot usually overlaps with the SATA/PCI channels. I'm not saying this well but here's one article on this I read recently: https://www.techoverwrite.com/m-2-nvme-disabling-sata-ports/
  16. I hadn't seen this until now (gotta love 3rd shift) but I bought from XoticPC and, although it was a bit high, I would buy from them again without hesitation. Customer service was fabulous.
  17. This was inevitable even before COVID the quality dropoff was noticeable. I think COVID just gave the major companies the excuse they needed to quit going without looking like they were the "jackass company" for breaking the show.
  18. I have been meaning to get the light gun running on my arcade. I just never seem to be able to muster up the drive to do it. I have an Ultimarc AimTrak Light Gun from like 2 years ago but it's been sitting in the bottom drawer of the cabinet. I think I remember giving it a half-assed attempt when I bought it... I just remember feeling like it was annoying. Just can't remember the specifics of WHY it was annoying this far out. I would love one of the Sinden Guns just to be more "modern proof" - and new tech is cool as hell - but there's no way I can justify(see what I did there?) buying one with the AimTrak just collecting dustbunnies. It doesn't help that the one game I think I wanted it for is Virtua Cop. One game out of the entire cabinet library just isn't motivating enough. At some point though... I just gotta.
  19. No I missed the link you posted. I assumed it was for the YouTube clip! As for the actual video from the tweet I had seen that a while ago and still am impressed with the engineering involved. It made my list of things to do with lottery winnings as well!
  20. Wow... $1.9 mil on a $50,000 goal (based on the budget setup not the $5,000 goal at the top of the screen). A lot of people really want it to happen. It looks like a great solution for a smaller business server or large home storage/streamer/hobby space. This is actually a cool project that I WANT but have absolutely zero NEED for. *sigh*
  21. Either that was misunderstood or I said it wrong. GoG has most definitely not done that. I am looking at my account right now and Unreal Gold, for example, is still available to download but they don't sell it anymore. Sorry! I'll try and explain myself better. I do not use GoG Galaxy so when I go get a game I don't use their front end. I like GoG because when I download the game I download the whole game. It's not just an installer that relies on their server to be up and running. There's no files that reside on their side I will no longer have access to if they decide to get rid of anything. When you download it, you get everything. On my PS3, for example, if they decide to shut down their servers even for people that already purchased a game how would I get it?
  22. Never actually noticed that before!
  23. And this is why I support GoG. I have stuff they no longer carry but I downloaded it at the time of purchase. I have it saved on my PC as well as both of my backups. GoG games will never disappear. As for the rest I stand by my statement. Every company is literally a cost-saving decision away from not selling it anymore but still allowing you to download it again to not even being able to download it anymore because it costs us money to maintain the data and hardware. No thanks.
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