Ah, the old Nvidia problem. It’s true that Nvidia’s Linux driver isn’t very good (although I don’t think their Windows driver is very good either, it just has more features).

The 3D Settings page is specific to the Nvidia Windows driver. Even an AMD user might’ve been slightly confused (although AMD ships comparable features, just located elsewhere under a different name). This is indeed something the Linux drivers plain don’t have in that form, although I can’t remember the last time I felt a need to really muck around in there.

Admittedly, overriding game rendering behavior might not even always be possible, seeing that DirectX games are run through a translation layer before the GPU gets to do anything.

I wasn’t able to find solid info for AI upscaling even on Windows, mainly because of the terrible name of that feature and because Nvidia offers both “AI Upscaling” and “Nvidia Image Scaling” and I have no idea if those are the same thing. The former seems to be specific to the Nvidia SHIELD.

Unless you’re talking about DLSS, which is supported.

The HDR one is odd but might again be related to the Nvidia driver not being very good. This should improve in the future but they are admittedly trailing behind.

That’s less of an issue these days. In the 2000s it was like that, especially since people used all sorts of add-in cards. These days a lot of those cards have merged with the mainboard (networking, sound, USB) or have fallen out of fashion (e.g. TV tuners).

The mainboard stuff is generally well-supported. The days of the Winmodem are over. The big issues these days are special-purpose hardware (which generally doesn’t work with later Windows versions either), laptops, and Nvidia GPUs (which are getting better).

Tossing Gentoo onto an old Pentium III box, typing emerge world and coming back four hours later to see if it’s done was awesome.

And no, it wasn’t done compiling KDE yet.

But I definitely wouldn’t want to experiment with Linux on my only PC with no way to look things up if I break networking (or the whole system). Thankfully, this is no longer an issue in the age of smartphones.

Not everywhere, it seems. I watched an episode a few days ago. So I guess the challenge is region-specific.

America, United States of (also known as the AUS).

He didn’t say “new series” so we’ll be rewatching DS9. Now. Yes, including Move Along Home.

That plus the Chinese economy isn’t as strong as a few years ago so the appetite for expensive cars is dampened. Of course that’s what our manufacturers have bet on because why make an affordable ultracompact if you can just shit yet another SUV onto the market and find a buyer?

Travel back in time and make our economy less export-oriented. The one-two punch of China losing interest in German cars and Trump getting elected and intending to impose harsh tariffs ('cause that worked out so well last time) is definitely hurting business. The export-oriented economy worked out really well so far but right now there’s no sufficiently wealthy market to pivot to so a downturn is very likely.

This goes beyond cars and car-related companies. Hidden champions also tend to make a lot of money from exports although they’re also exactly the reason why those tariffs are going to hurt the USA. A bad export situation in both the USA and China is going to be painful for a lot of companies.

It’s not all doom and gloom but we’re definitely going to have a few lean years in the near future.

Other people might also bring up our long-time energy dependency on Russia but I think that’s only a relatively minor contributing factor.

Ah, so they actually got that implemented. Nice.

Garuda for me. The reasons are similar; just replace some optimization with some convenience. It’s a bit garish by default but pleasant to use.

Flatpak has its benefits, but there are tradeoffs as well. I think it makes a lot of sense for proprietary software.

For everything else I do prefer native packages since they have fewer issues with interop. The space efficiency isn’t even that important to me; even if space issues should arise, those are relatively easy to work around. But if your password manager can’t talk to your browser because the security model has no solution for safe arbitrary IPC, you’re SOL.

I wish I was in that position. I never want to hear “good code is its own documentation” ever again.

Also, D&D has a lot of baggage these days.

A friend has been talking about starting a D&D group ever since BG3 dropped and I already have a matching character concept complete with partial backstory. However, between the OGL fiasco and the dubious plans WotC have for D&D 6e I really don’t feel like buying the required book or pushing my friend to get his campaign worked out.

I agree that going for wages in the traditional sense doesn’t catch many of the most relevant income streams. However, I think that a “maximum wage” makes sense as a theoretical construct used to create a sensible income tax scheme.

Essentially, tax brackets and rates could be defined in relation to the median income. Go too far above that (hitting the “maximum wage”) and your tax rate rapidly increases, maybe even going as high as 90%. Of course this would have to cover all sorts of income, not just plain money.

This scheme would effectively box people into a certain band of acceptable wealth and would create an incentive to raise wages – after all, if the average worker makes more, so can the most wealthy.

(Also, full agreement on needing to talk about better labor protections. American labor law is really lax.)

Mind you, people probably don’t think of your standard high earner they they think of an income cap. They think of people who make four (or even five) digits an hour, a rate that maybe high end lawyers can match. Maybe.

CEOs of large companies can easily make that much, often not even tied to performance but contractually guaranteed. The super-rich make that much simply by existing.

Basically, if your labor (or mere existence) isn’t even worth 1000 bucks an hour to your clients you’re a peasant like the rest of us and an income cap is probably never going to be relevant to you.

Exactly. If this was “Marathon: Return to Deimos” or “Marathon: Battleroid Arena” or even “Marathon Infinity Plus One” I wouldn’t complain. Much.

But just taking the name (and logo) of the original one? The game that started Bungie’s path towards being one of the big names of the FPS genre? That’s like saying they went straight from Pathways Into Darkness to Halo. That’s not honoring Marathon, it’s a soulless recycling of an old IP.

My vent cores feel distinctly unblasted.

Man, I hate it when they make new games that have exactly the same name as an older game by the same company. And this one’s not even a remake. I have no idea if Marathon (1994) and Marathon (upcoming) even play in the same universe but they don’t seem to have much in common gameplay-wise. Ugh.

Makes me wanna install M1A1 Aleph One (didn’t know it does M1 directly these days) and shoot some Pfhor, though.

“You finished a computer game, Atticus.”

The truth was a burning green crack through my brain.

Credits scrolling by, a reminder of the talent behind a just-finished journey. The feeling of triumph, slowly replaced by the creeping grayness of ordinary life.

I had finished a computer game. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of.

There are many OS-related diseases. Many Linux users are affected by or at least know someone who suffers from the compulsive need to mention that they’re using Arch. Then there’s compiler flag addiction, which can develop in Gentoo users. iDependency, the pathological need to purchase any product Apple releases, has financially ruined many macOS users. Windows users’ feelings towards Windows Update and the associated increase in heart rate are known to substantially increase the risk of a fatal heart attack.

Knowing how to operate TempleOS is considered a mental disorder under the DSM-5.

Hoo boy, you weren’t kidding. I find it amazing how quickly this went from “the kernel team is enforcing sanctions” to an an unfriendly abstract debate about the definition of liberalism. I shouldn’t, really, but I still am.