Luis

Good morning to you, too. How's the weather?

Hey y'all. How have you been?

I do consider myself to also be just mildly affected by the shortage. I have an i5 8400, 16gb of ram @ 3000mhz and I kind of feel lucky to have my 1070. The only game that I play has pushed my setup to the point where I say ''Ok yeah an upgrade would be nice'' is Cyberpunk 2077. And it's not like it didn't run at 55-75 FPS with the 1070 at low-medium but I have a 144hz monitor lol. Buying at the moment is so screwed. A 1660Ti is what I can buy for what my 1070 cost me back in 2016. And that's a slight downgrade in terms of performance if my 1070 were to kick the bucket. An RX 580 could be had for a little bit less but that would just be to get by I was so excited when the announced the 3070s MSRP. I thought ''Great. Those $500 will buy me a card for the next 5-6 years''. Boy was I not expecting all of this lol.

To me that's more of a forum's webmaster/owners decision to make. So if it hasn't been activated or requested by Ross or any of the other admins I'd say we should just leave it alone unless a huge demand surges. And thanks for the accursedfarms.com/online link. I do like to see this kind of stuff as well hehe. It's pretty mind boggling to me how many lurkers this forum has in the form of guest users.

Yeah that's a pretty cool feature in most forums. I liked it a lot back when I had a forum. It's a nice indicator of the forum's userbase health. I'd guess it is not activated on ours but I truly don't know how the back end of this forum works. Mine was on phpBB WAY back in the day around 2007 or so. But yeah, nobody will judge you for that. lol

Alright I think everybody had a say in this thread and this isn't a ''Civilization Problem''. It's just a farewell letter filled with rage. The tone here got a lil too close to hate speech so I'm just going to lock this thread and move it over to ''Misc AF stuff''. For 2 reasons: -This is a great example of how not to have a civilized discussion. Lots of name-calling and derogatory terms are used. This violates rules #1 and #2 of this forum. -I don't feel like just just poofing the post out of sight in a way that might seem like censorship. Civilized discussion and debate has always been a part of this forum. There are places for this and rules (which are lenient compared to the overly politically correct tone the internet in general has taken) so, next time someone wants to express their views on this or any community they can use this thread as an example of how not to do it. (mods, if anybody feels deleting it is a better move, please be my guest). Locked.

Wow I've always heard Shenmue is amazing but you made the best argument I've heard yet. Any opinions on Shenmue 2? I'm definetely getting a dreamcast emulator soon to play it. My response would probably be Portal 1 and 2. I love how unconventional the portal mechanics were and GladOS as a character is amazing. I never dove deep into the community made levels but I'm sure you can invest hundreds of hours there and still be amazed.

I enjoyed this so much. Even though I never got hooked into any of the other Mind series I love that this is all documented. It's a part of my childhood/teenage years and it's a very professional portrait of that time and the content creation that was going on then. Thank you for sharing it!

Anti-depressants will not take away the ''ups'' in your life. And if they do, you can get off them and try with different meds. It is not a guarantee you will find the right meds for you the first time but if you don't you have to talk it over with your health expert so that you try something else until you find something that works. The question you should be asking is ''Why am I not doing anything to prevent my lack of action in this matter from ruining my life?'' You have to keep actively trying to make things better in order to improve things. Even if the benefits are not being felt in the short-term. A couple of my friends have struggled with depression. I have also struggled with it and struggle with anxiety on a daily basis. Sometimes we want short term solutions only when the only kind of solution available is long term. It is a great first step to start getting involved with therapy. Talking to somebody helps us arrange our thoughts and understand them better than if we just keep them bottled up inside our head and let them roam in there without being expressed. I am sure that you will make progress if you continue going to therapy In my experience with the friends that have taken medication, depression sets in and becomes a way of being and living, you co-exist with it and it becomes a part of you. That is when it starts being destructive because little by little it takes your strength away. The meds are a way for your brain to get used to having the right chemical balance it should have. They are like a temporary boost to help you remember what you should feel like without the depression. That boost will help you put some things in order in your life and make the necessary lifestyle changes you need to make in order to improve. Then, after making those changes and feeling better because you made them, you may feel able to stop taking the meds and resume your life without them with this new balance that they helped you achieve. Of course, I'm not a psychiatrist. There are people who cannot keep the proper chemical balance in their brain on their own and need the medication indefinitely. And there is nothing wrong with that at all. One should always do what is needed to feel well. My first advice to you (and ANYONE struggling with anxiety and depression) would be to start working out little by little. I can advise you on programs you can use to get started which include different levels of intensity for beginners, intermediates and seasoned people. I can even give you the torrents you need to download them. The habit of working out is the first line of defense you need to establish in your brain. It will make your mental state stronger so you can bear with the bad stuff better and shitty things don't affect you as much. You will feel better because you are actively doing something to better yourself. You will feel you are achieving things little by little, even if you don't work out more than 15 minutes a day. With that, you will get more and more strength to start doing things to change that status quo and establish healthy habits that will help you little by little get better. Being OK is something that must be built up by working on improving your lifestyle and committing on improving so that you little by little feel better. And when you start making progress you will ask ''Why didn't I start doing this earlier? it feels great!'' Believe me. I feel so much better when I work out on a daily basis than when I do not. Sorry if I seem preachy about all of this but I have seen really close people be fucked by depression. I have been at their side when they don't feel like things can get better but I have also seen them slowly get over it by actively doing things to improve themselves. A couple has been able to completely get out of the vicious circle @Annie mentioned but it is not easy. Having people accompany you through the way makes things a lot easier but at the end of the day, the only person who can actually improve things is you. But people that are close to you and like you can make a ton of difference encouraging you. And that is exactly what we are here for the dude. Even if we haven't met in real life. :)

I pinned this because it's important and can get lost in between the other posts as this subforum is one of the more active ones.

I believe acting classes could help you as being expressive with your facial muscles and tone of voice is essential in acting. Maybe Improv classes could also be a good compliment to that. Yoga is good for helping your body become more flexible and stronger and to help strengthen your mental stability but I don't think it will help with your desire to be more expressive and animated. Honestly, you do not even need to get to acting classes. Just look for tutorials and exercises on youtube and other platforms but acting classes would be a SURE way to help. Especially because you have an instructor coaching you all along the way who you can explain to what is your objective with these acting classes. I also suggest meeting new people and noticing the way they are expressive. I have copied many mannerisms and ways of expressing myself from friends and am at a point where some people accidentally start copying mine. hehe.

I like the approach of listing things AND going down one by one in order to improve them. As a community, we have known each other for a long time and I believe there is potential for all of us to help each other improve ourselves and our lives. I believe @rokken as the OP you should also give your list of things. @BTGBullseye you forgot to list what you can/want to do to improve your 6 main problems. Here goes my list: 1.I'm kinda mediocre. For all my working life I have done barely enough to get by without having problems. I have never tried to shine or did my best. This is all about to change with my new job that begins on Monday. I will do my best on this job by overdelivering, going the extra mile and constantly questioning myself on ''How could I have done this better? 2.I'm lazy. There have been periods in my life when I feel like improving myself and working towards becoming the best me I can be. And I have done so successfully for some months only to fall back into my laziness pit. Again, this is going to change with my new job. The commercial plaza the office is at has a gym so I'm going to begin exercising again. Apart from going vegan, exercising is one of the best decisions I have ever made. You do not even have to go to a public place. There are dozens of Excercise programs you can torrent or pay to stream to get started at home with little or no equipment. I like PiYo from Beachbody, P90X3 also from BeachBudy and TurboFire. From those PiYo is the one that does not need any equipment. For P90X3 you need a couple of dumbells and a pull-up bar or resistance band. I also have issues reading. I'd love to read more but I get lazy and prefer to consume a more immediate way of entertainment. I want to set myself a minimum reading time per day just to build the habit. But It's hard. I just went over a period of depression because I was unemployed and could not pay my bills- Now that I got a decent paying job I'm coming out of it, thankfully 3. I have hurt people badly in the past. I have been toxic in previous relationships I have been in. Even with my family. I am trying to learn from my mistakes in order to not be like that ever again. I have tried to identify what drove me to those behaviors and keep myself from those things. 4. I have shitty self-esteem. I have always thought I'm not as good looking as other people or that I'm too ugly to be able to establish meaningful relationships with people I find attractive or inspiring. The last 2 years have been a journey of creating self-love habits in my life and routines that help me get over this and appreciate what is good in me instead of focusing on what others have and I don't. This is a double edge sword because you DO have to see the potential and good things in you but you cannot let it go to your head. You have to keep being humble but also be sure of what your main positive aspects are as an ever-growing person. I will list more as the conversation grows. This is a great opportunity to hold oneself accountable for their issues and think about how to improve them so that in a year, a couple of years or a decade we can move past these issues that have limited us and we can improve as human beings and be happier with our existence.

Yeah he probably meant to post in another topic. I got excited when I saw GOG WInter Games in my unread content page thinking there was going to be a similar event but oh well. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.

I friggin love F-Zero and the soundtrack is EPIC if you like Metal. I have only played most of the N64 version and the early missions of GX because it is so GODDAMN hard. Like seriously I don't have the best track record with hard games but it's tough as nails. I have nothing but respect for people who have completed it. For some reason the N64 one remains the most enjoyable for me and my favorite entry in the franchise. It is PURE JOY to play emulated ay 1080p with a crapton of Anti Aliasing.

That is still a very solid CPU. I upgraded from my i5 4430 just because I wanted better minimum FPS on PUBG but I'd say I was comfortably using like 80 of my 1070's performance and was happily playing most of the games I like at more than 100 FPS. But yeah, with the i5-8400 the 1070 can stretch its legs a little bit more. I guess there would be a slight bottleneck with the i5 6500 but you'd still be able to play everything happily. But yeah, if you can get a better CPU, specially a 3rd gen Ryzen, why not? now you're set for the next 4 years or so. Maybe even more.

Niiiice. What did you upgrade from? that is a beastly CPU.

I've thought about getting one of those because of the noise. I have the Zotac 1070 Mini and the cooler is nothing to brag about. It gets to 70c with the fan at 70% when I play PUBG and it's a bit noisy. I cannot notice it with headphones on but I'd like a quieter system and to get lower temps to get a bit more life expectancy out of my card. I don't feel like overclocking it tbh. 3rd gen ryzen looks friggin amazing. If I ever start streaming I will definetely switch to AMD and get one of those. For now my i5 8400 is being enough but if I decided to stream or do video work it would probably not do as well.

I'm currently going through Plants Vs Zombies 2. I played it before it got acquired by EA and became a grind fest but I'm now going through the grind fest. They did incorporate some very cool new plants and it gets hard towards the last levels which was my main complain with the first one. It was way too easy. I'm also playing TLOZ: Breath Of The Wild on Cemu emulator. It's a joy to play at 1080p/60fps. The game is beautiful even if limited by the switch and wii u's specs a bit. When I have company I like to play Cuphead because it's easier than going through it single player. and I also play PUBG or CS:GO almost daily. I've also got back into playing ZDaemon (an engine port of Doom which has tons and tons and tons of wads. It's pretty ballar).

JsXanatos backed up most of The Gman Squad's skits. Here is a playlist with all of them: The Gman Squad

I'm sure BTG will report to us if it wasn't done by him. Let us know if something is off and change your pw immediately if it is. :)

What is so demanding that you need a 2080ti for? the Vega 56 should allow you to run most games (that are not extremely demanding) at 1080p/144hz. I'd dare say you could even run a Vive easily with a Vega 56.

Thanks for the clarification! It is a great time to be a PC enthusiast. CPUs from both AMD and Intel are pretty damn good. RAM prices are back down and are even cheaper than before the price spikes begun. Even though GPUs have ramped up in price you can get used GPUs that still perform great from previous generations from excellent prices and APUs are competent as fuck. I love it. That Vega 56 will make your system an even stronger beast.

Great! Thanks for the update

I actually just tested PUBG and even though I do not have exact benchmarks the game did feel a lot smoother. My FPS in the different maps tended to hover around 90-100-110 FPS and it is now at over 110 all the time fluctuating between 110 and 130 and even 140 sometimes. The difference is very, very noticeable. The extra smoothness makes the game a bit more responsive. I'm a happy man now.

There's been a little update in my rig. I bought 16gb of G.Skill Ripjaws at 3000Mhz that replace my 8GB of Kingston FuryX at 2133. I ran a benchmark before putting the new kit in and there are some improvements but it seems I wasn't as bottlenecked by the single-channel 8gb at 2133 as I thought I was. This was with the 8GB : And this is with the 16gb: I also got 2 more FPS in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast's benchmark. I know I could have seen a bigger difference by benchmarking the memory itself or CPU-heavy applications but didn't feel like downloading more stuff. I will report if I see more stability in gameplay in PUBG. I re-did mi cable management and connected a fan that was disconnected. That may be why there is a slight reduction in the temperatures. Also for some reason I had a hard time gettiong my motherboard to boot with these at 3000 Mhz. CPU-Z shows that the memory is running fine at 3000Mhz but the biuos for some reason states that these are 2133 sticks running at 3000mhz.