[unofficial weekender] Art!

[jeffersonpowers 611xp 3]

Artist: One of my favorite gaming industry artists is William O’Connor.

He was most active in the 1990s — he did a lot of work for 3rd edition D&D and Magic: the Gathering. I mainly knew his work from the Deadlands and Legend of the Five Rings collectible card games. Sadly he passed away in 2018.

Music: I find myself listening to The Clash a lot lately. Not sure why.

[sundancer 44310xp 2]

I find myself listening to The Clash a lot lately. Not sure why.

One does not need a reason to listen to great music!

It’s Tuesday and I’m “dead in the water” as spare parts needed for customer repairs have been delayed. *sigh* I hate waiting on parts.

[limburger 22401xp 2]

The Clash ? And you’re not rocking the Casbah ?
Heresy 😉

 

So you better stand and deliver !

And while we’re sort of in that area … what about a nightboat ?

[jeffersonpowers 611xp 2]

@sundancer very true.

@limburger I tend to like the Clash’s earlier stuff just a bit better — London Calling is my usual go-to album. I do love some Adam Ant and Madness as well. Here’s another Night Boat for you:

[limburger 22401xp 0]

Duran Duran doing Night boat ?
no … just no. 😛

Did catch a clip of Sigue Sigue Sputnik … it’s like Cyberpunk in the 80’s ?

Here’s one thing I really shouldn’t like at my age … but I kind of do:

I haven’t seen the movie, but it’s supposedly not bad at all.

With my pc acting like it is about to crash for good I find myself looking for parts to build a new one instead of doing more hobby like I had planned. I’m probably committing heresy by selecting Windows 11 Pro as my OS, because I doubt that Linux could offer the kind of plug&play experience for games that Windows does. I’ve asked Claude.ai to help build me a parts list, because Google is worthless for this kind of thing these days. There’s far too many crappy fake websites and sponsored results before you find anything useful.

[jeffersonpowers 611xp 1]

@limburger it’s their own song, not a cover of the Madness song. Heresy averted…

[blinky465 17208xp 1]

because Google is worthless for this kind of thing these days

Enshittification is complete.

[sundancer 44310xp 0]

Enshittification is complete.

I watched that video when I saw it in your facebook timelike. Ironic to a degree XD @blinky465

I’m probably committing heresy by selecting Windows 11 Pro as my OS, because I doubt that Linux could offer the kind of plug&play experience for games that Windows does.

You’re not wrong but also not right. @limburger  If all or the majority of your games are on steam then you are set. Steam has not only a great working client for Linux and almost any game runs under Linux from there, they also have a Linux Distro of their own on the steamdeck. But it still needs one or two clicks more plus online multiplayer is a bit of a hit and miss since “cheat detection” is not working great with Linux and might get you kicked from online multiplayer games. That being said: windows 11 has it’s own can of worms for some games. Currently there is no (literally NO) desktop OS that works with 100% of the games.

I’ve asked Claude.ai to help build me a parts list, because Google is worthless for this kind of thing these days.

If you’re not really “on the pulse” of what is best in terms of parts for your need I’d suggest go look for pre-build systems and then look them up for reviews. You can spend ages looking for the right stuff and prices are all over the place.

My current recommended specs for a “future proof-ish” PC would be as follows:

• 32GB RAM
• 1TB NWMe M.2 drive for the os, add more drives for games, foto and video editing
• A current gen GPU (graphic card) with at least 12GB of video RAM
• A 750W+ “Bronze” PSU

The combination of CPU and mainboard really comes down to

• how big (physically) you want your rig to be
• how many upgrade (PCIe) slots do you want/need
• how big is your budget

If you found what parts (or pre build) you want I can recommend this page to find good deals:

https://geizhals.eu/

Thursday already.. Dang.

[limburger 22401xp 0]

I’ve looked at pre-built … and they’re not that much cheaper. Worst aspect is that they inevitably come with all kinds of pre-installed crap (like Norton AV or McAffee … ).

Current spec :

– 64 Gb RAM (DDR5, G.Skill DDR5 Trident Z5 Neo RGB 2x32GB 6000 CL30 ?)
– AMD 9950X3D cpu
– 4 TB SSD M.2 (Samsung 9100 PRO 4TB M.2 SSD)
– 1200 W PSU (Corsair HX1200i 2025 PSU / PC voeding)
– Motherboard : ASRock X870E TAICHI

PSU may be a bit oversized, but I kind of want  to run the latest GPU once my budget allows for an upgrade.
nVidia states 1000 Watt, but doesn’t clarify how they’re getting that number.

[sundancer 44310xp 0]

I’ve looked at pre-built … and they’re not that much cheaper. Worst aspect is that they inevitably come with all kinds of pre-installed crap (like Norton AV or McAffee … ).

Once again: not wrong there but a pre-build is already build. So unless you enjoy the building process it saves you a lot of time. Plus they are usually checked for any major flaws. So you just take it out of the box, turn it on. See it if works, turn it off again and just re-install a fresh windows 11. You’d need to do that on a self build system anyway so nothing lost

PSU can never be oversized. Well build PSU will even save you some money on the electricity bill because the less power you need to pull (during idle for example) the higher the efficiency is. cheap, lower spec PSU tend to “burn” Watt in the conversion process from 240V AC to 12V and 5V DC.

[blinky465 17208xp 0]

I know absolutely nothing about games (I think I last played games on my PC when Day of the Tentacle was a thing) but I do know that Linux is now a million times better than it was even just a few years ago. Last Xmas I upgraded my PC (it’s still pretty old, but I treated it to some new ram, bigger ssd etc.) and decided to give Linux Mint a go.

I’ve been hardcore Windows fan for decades – especially since I did a lot of hardware development, low-level sub-classing programming, building my own USB devices etc. Other than getting used to GIMP instead of Potatoshop, moving over to Linux has been a breeze. And I honestly can’t think of anything I miss.

And lots I really like (like how much of a distraction all those silly little animations actually are – and how great it is to click on an icon and things just appear on screen instead of waiting all the time!). Windows 10 with it’s stupid start bar and all those adverts was driving me to distraction. I simply refused to be pushed into Windows 11. Honestly, I never thought I’d be a Linux advocate.
If you can get your games working on it, I’d say give it a real chance (hey, you can buy a 500Gb SSD for about £20/euros why not buy one, slap it in and give it a go?)

[blinky465 17208xp 1]

Ok. On a completely different topic – how may of you are printing your own minis now?
(I’ve not bought a plastic mini for many, many years now).

I’ve a confession to make.
Ever since I realised my eyes now have a “fixed focal length” (I used to be awesome at close-up work but now I find I have to hold things a specific distance away, and anything “too close” is difficult to focus on) I’ve printed minis at 110%

It’s barely noticeable on the tabletop. But, man, does it make a difference when it comes to painting!
Getting faces – and particularly eyes – right is just soooo much easier.
At first it felt like cheating, because painting smaller = better, right?
But you know what? Bigger = easier = more fun = better results. I’m printing everything at a 35mm-to-the-eyes scale now and I don’t care! Anyone else ever felt like some hack they came up with was “cheating” (but you still do it anyway)?

 

[sundancer 44310xp 0]

how may of you are printing your own minis now?

Only 2D paper standees.

Fixed focal length is an age thing. If you are close to 50 your eyeballs start to harden and they have trouble looking at details. Printing minis bigger might be the solution for now but your vision will get worse with time. So in 10 years you’ll be printing garden gnome size “minis”.

better get some good glasses or a magnifying light. Makes all the difference and you can still paint 10mm 😉

[danlee 22832xp 0]

@blinky465 These days the hobby for me is just painting and solo board gaming. So if a model isn’t for a board game, I generally 3D print stuff for me to paint. I’ll buy a model if I particularly want it.

[lazagram]

I have been experimenting with some 3D prints on my FDM Ender 3 S1 Pro, which I only recently procured ( first 3D printer), now quite a few years past its launch date. I’m sure there are better results to be had with other models. Still, I have been really impressed with the quality of some of the prints, but getting some of the finer detail, even with a 0.2 noz is hard to pull off at that scale for sure, so many fine details that can get obscured. I have had some success with using the resin-styled supports instead of the standard set. I have been more focused on printing terrain and scenery, and have found printing some of the terrain models at 32mm scale rather than the standard 28mm has helped maintain some of those finer details and not look so out of sorts, especially from tabletop distance. Especially with 40k these days, the scale of Primaris etc.

 

Printed In PLA+ with a Creality Ender 3 S1 Pro 0.2mm Nozzle / 10% Infill 

There are definitely some purists who would shrink at the idea, but I’m thinking if it looks alright, then where is the issue?

• This reply was modified 5 months ago by lazagram.

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