It's been less than a year since I bought my new PC. But already I'm
wondering it it's time to start upgrading the beast.

Not because I need it... I don't; not in the least. The current
machine is more than capable of handling anything I throw at it
(especially since, given the age of my monitors, I never run anything
over 1920x1080 resolutions). It's not a lack of performance that's
making me want to loosen the purse strings. It's just lust.

Lust for a newer, faster video card. "Why not get a RTX 4070 Ti
Super," my brain whispers at me. "Your current video card isn't a
Super. Don't you want a SUPER video card?"

Or, "Your CPU is only a 13th generation i9. Intel has released 14th
generation chips. You're a generation behind. Surely you don't want to
be running outdated hardware?" My brain is insidious.

Or even, "Technically, your motherboard can support up to 128GB of
RAM. It would be a waste to let all that capacity go unutilized."
Also, "Did you read how SSD prices are expected to rise precipitously
in the near future? You really should get a couple 4TB M.2 sticks
before that happens. You never can have enough disk space, after
all..."

So far, I've managed to resist the taunting of my own mind. But it's
getting harder...

On 1/24/2024 5:24 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>
> It's been less than a year since I bought my new PC. But already I'm
> wondering it it's time to start upgrading the beast.
>
> Not because I need it... I don't; not in the least. The current
> machine is more than capable of handling anything I throw at it
> (especially since, given the age of my monitors, I never run anything
> over 1920x1080 resolutions). It's not a lack of performance that's
> making me want to loosen the purse strings. It's just lust.
>
> Lust for a newer, faster video card. "Why not get a RTX 4070 Ti
> Super," my brain whispers at me. "Your current video card isn't a
> Super. Don't you want a SUPER video card?"
>
> Or, "Your CPU is only a 13th generation i9. Intel has released 14th
> generation chips. You're a generation behind. Surely you don't want to
> be running outdated hardware?" My brain is insidious.
>
> Or even, "Technically, your motherboard can support up to 128GB of
> RAM. It would be a waste to let all that capacity go unutilized."
> Also, "Did you read how SSD prices are expected to rise precipitously
> in the near future? You really should get a couple 4TB M.2 sticks
> before that happens. You never can have enough disk space, after
> all..."
>
> So far, I've managed to resist the taunting of my own mind. But it's
> getting harder...
>
>

ah, the Gollum voice.
yeah I know that, although mine sometimes goes into different directions

On 1/24/2024 8:24 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>
> It's been less than a year since I bought my new PC. But already I'm
> wondering it it's time to start upgrading the beast.
>
> Not because I need it... I don't; not in the least. The current
> machine is more than capable of handling anything I throw at it
> (especially since, given the age of my monitors, I never run anything
> over 1920x1080 resolutions). It's not a lack of performance that's
> making me want to loosen the purse strings. It's just lust.
>
> Lust for a newer, faster video card. "Why not get a RTX 4070 Ti
> Super," my brain whispers at me. "Your current video card isn't a
> Super. Don't you want a SUPER video card?"
>
> Or, "Your CPU is only a 13th generation i9. Intel has released 14th
> generation chips. You're a generation behind. Surely you don't want to
> be running outdated hardware?" My brain is insidious.
>
> Or even, "Technically, your motherboard can support up to 128GB of
> RAM. It would be a waste to let all that capacity go unutilized."
> Also, "Did you read how SSD prices are expected to rise precipitously
> in the near future? You really should get a couple 4TB M.2 sticks
> before that happens. You never can have enough disk space, after
> all..."
>
> So far, I've managed to resist the taunting of my own mind. But it's
> getting harder...

I don't "Need" anything either and I'm a generation behind you I think.
I do occasionally think "If I do, I can give this one to my son" a
convenient excuse. It's not that I'm hurting either, though I have a
money pit of a house, but can't even find anyone that will work on the
roof which is the first priority, so I'm sitting on the money I'll need
for that.

--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'

On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 15:08:47 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>I don't "Need" anything either and I'm a generation behind you I think.
>I do occasionally think "If I do, I can give this one to my son" a
>convenient excuse. It's not that I'm hurting either, though I have a
>money pit of a house, but can't even find anyone that will work on the
>roof which is the first priority, so I'm sitting on the money I'll need
>for that.

It's odd how this urge to upgrade the PC occurs yearly after CES and
all the gizmo-makers announce their newest wares.

;-)

I'm not intending to upgrade (no, I'm not! Shut up, brain!) but that
nagging voice is /really/ hard to resist for a while.

>the
>roof which is the first priority, so I'm sitting on the money I'll need
>for that.

The roof keeps rain off your pc, so fix that first.

rms

rms <rsquiresMOO@mooflashmoo.net> wrote:
> >the
> >roof which is the first priority, so I'm sitting on the money I'll need
> >for that.

> The roof keeps rain off your pc, so fix that first.

Leaky roof sucks. I have this problem too.
--
"To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy ??? to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen." --Jude 1:24-25
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

On 1/25/2024 7:41 AM, rms wrote:
>> the roof which is the first priority, so I'm sitting on the money I'll
>> need for that.
>
>   The roof keeps rain off your pc, so fix that first.
>
> rms

That's the plan, just can't find anyone that will do it. It's not
leaking *yet*. I'm hoping roofers will be available once it quits raining.

--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'

On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 11:24:38 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

>
>It's been less than a year since I bought my new PC. But already I'm
>wondering it it's time to start upgrading the beast.
>
>Not because I need it... I don't; not in the least. The current
>machine is more than capable of handling anything I throw at it
>(especially since, given the age of my monitors, I never run anything
>over 1920x1080 resolutions). It's not a lack of performance that's
>making me want to loosen the purse strings. It's just lust.

[snip]

Yeah, I'm there too. Lust. I have a 9900K in my machine and I'm feeling
like, "But wouldn't it be nicer to be on a double digit gen, like a
13900K? Or even a top-of-the-line, bleeding edge 14900K? You could
compile MAME even faster! Imagine 24 cores (32 logical) running at 100%!
The burn-in alone would be sick. OCCT would fry an egg. All you have now
is a measly 16 logical cores. Lamer."

But, like you, I don't need it. My rig is more than adequate. Ludicrously
so. Will be for years. Already has been for over 4 years.

But, but... you do a new build every 5, Zag. The instict is kicking in.

I also have a 144Mhz GSync monitor, and all running it at full frames
does is get my video card hot. There's just no point to more than 60
frames in a solo game. Especially since running 60fps gets you max
settings. Talos II is freaking gorgeous.

So I'd consider running 144fps for twitchy mp, but I play precious little
of that, because I'm not young enough to have any decent twitch left.
Certainly not 144 twitch. So I'm down to xx60Ti tier cards. Currently on
a 4060Ti, because I traded in my 3060Ti to Newegg, because the fans were
intolerably noisy. It was a Zotac. Note: Zotac doesn't care about fan dB.
The new one is MSI, and it has the same size and number of fans, but they
run so quiet at the same rpms. Note: MSI does care about fan dB.

I got the 4060Ti for less than $300 with the trade in. The remainder of
what I didn't get in trade for the 3060Ti made a decent rental price over
the few months I had it. And now I have 16GB of VRAM instead of 8. And
I'm not spending $600-800 on a video card.

The 4060Ti runs at x8 PCI-E with a 128-bit bus width. There was a day
that I would sneer at anything less than a 256-bit bus. Can't do 16x?
Unforgivable! I'd consider it crippled. No longer.

Spalls, I'm overcoming my addiction to Moore's Law. Performance just
feels like a pissing contest. I don't even overclock any more, unless the
hardware is built that way.

It all just seems to be enough. What has happened to us?!

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

> Or even, "Technically, your motherboard can support up to 128GB of
> RAM. It would be a waste to let all that capacity go unutilized."

I've actually toyed with the idea of putting that amount of RAM in my
home desktop so I could run some work stuff a lot faster than what the
overloaded server farm at work can manage... But why would I, on my own
dime? Would make for a fun little benchmarking project but nothing more.

> Also, "Did you read how SSD prices are expected to rise precipitously
> in the near future? You really should get a couple 4TB M.2 sticks
> before that happens. You never can have enough disk space, after
> all..."

Um, 4 TB sticks seem pretty expensive, as in more than twice the cost of
2 TB sticks. And what do you do with perfectly fine 1 TB and 2 TB
sticks? Is there a porcupine device you can stuff those in? Come to
think of it, I think my old fat laptop can take two...

Oh yes, video cards, I have an RTX3070TI. I mean, it's a generation
behind! I gotta do *something*. I think. At least if there's a game that
it chokes on at some point. Starfield maybe or if I actually get around
to replaying Cyberpunk 2077.

On 1/25/2024 9:38 PM, Anssi Saari wrote:
> Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Or even, "Technically, your motherboard can support up to 128GB of
>> RAM. It would be a waste to let all that capacity go unutilized."
>
> I've actually toyed with the idea of putting that amount of RAM in my
> home desktop so I could run some work stuff a lot faster than what the
> overloaded server farm at work can manage... But why would I, on my own
> dime? Would make for a fun little benchmarking project but nothing more.
>
>> Also, "Did you read how SSD prices are expected to rise precipitously
>> in the near future? You really should get a couple 4TB M.2 sticks
>> before that happens. You never can have enough disk space, after
>> all..."
>
> Um, 4 TB sticks seem pretty expensive, as in more than twice the cost of
> 2 TB sticks. And what do you do with perfectly fine 1 TB and 2 TB
> sticks? Is there a porcupine device you can stuff those in? Come to
> think of it, I think my old fat laptop can take two...
>
> Oh yes, video cards, I have an RTX3070TI. I mean, it's a generation
> behind! I gotta do *something*. I think. At least if there's a game that
> it chokes on at some point. Starfield maybe or if I actually get around
> to replaying Cyberpunk 2077.

Cyberpunk works well on my 3060Ti now that they've done a bit of
optimization.

Oddly it's BG3 that slows down, though I think that's more CPU or
something (like say poorly optimized AI* code) as the game stalls out
noticeably while the enemy AI* is thinking in large fights.

* Game monster AI, which is generally extremely stupid, not the AI
everyone's afraid of like ChatGPT.

--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'

On Thu, 25 Jan 2024 08:41:41 -0700, "rms"
<rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:

>>the
>>roof which is the first priority, so I'm sitting on the money I'll need
>>for that.
>
> The roof keeps rain off your pc, so fix that first.
>
>rms

Don't let him distract you! A cheap tarp will work just as well, and
then you can spend the rest on a computer that runs so fast and hot
that any water that DOES drip through will immediately flash into
steam before it can reach the electrics. ;-)

This message brought to you by Excessive Consumerism Corp, convincing
you to waste your money on frivolities since 1826! A subsidiary of
BankruptU Inc.

On Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:21:21 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
>Spalls, I'm overcoming my addiction to Moore's Law. Performance just
>feels like a pissing contest. I don't even overclock any more, unless the
>hardware is built that way.
>
>It all just seems to be enough. What has happened to us?!

Because it /IS/ enough. Every now and then, it hits me just how FAST
and POWERFUL our personal computers have become. Even our cheapest
laptops are super-computers. Our handheld devices out-perform anything
I could have imagined thirty-years ago... heck, they're more powerful
than anything I'd imagine from a handheld 15 years ago.

Games - and applications in general - have not kept up. That's not to
say that our games have maxed out on their potential (too often I've
gotten stuck in the rut believing what we have now is 'the best there
ever will be'.) But our software plateaued in its needs about ten
years ago, for a variety of reasons.

Partly because we long passed the 'good enough' stage for making
convincing and fun games. Games with retro-graphics prove that we
really don't need more lifelike visuals or deeper simulations. Added
complexity in graphics or world design don't necessarily equate to
'more fun'.

Partly because development costs have skyrocket. Thirty years ago, a
ten-man team could create a world-class game. Now you need a crew of
thousands. Making worlds bigger and with greater fidelity would
balloon costs without making the game significantly better.

Partly because some platforms are holding us back in comparison. I
don't just mean how games designed for console (or even older laptops)
limit how much RAM or CPU processing a developer has at their
fingertips. But also... look, if you frequently play games on mobile,
its hard to justify paying $60 for a super-high-end PC gaming, no
matter how great it looks. The mobile games set a floor level of
what's acceptable gaming and you can't go too far above that and
expect to make a profitable game. Which isn't to dismiss mobile games
as low-end crap (as I said earlier, I am frequently wowed by how
powerful our handheld devices have become).

Games (and applications) will get better in the future. I have
confidence that they will start demanding more powerful computers
again. As developers become more comfortable with AI generation, as
new techniques - especially with ray-tracing and cloud-compute
simulations - are developed, and even as new hardware and ideas are
developed, we'll see some revolutionary changes.

But right now computers are in the doldrums, waiting for that
inevitable storm. A ten-year old PC can still be a quite satisfactory
gaming computer. There's no immediate need to upgrade because you'll
see very little advantage to it.

But this state won't last forever. Whether it takes five years, or
another ten, I think we're coming up to a precipice of epic change.

(And if not, that's cool too. I've already a large enough backlog to
keep me busy for the rest of my life ;-)

On Fri, 26 Jan 2024 11:44:13 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

>On Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:21:21 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>
>>
>>Spalls, I'm overcoming my addiction to Moore's Law. Performance just
>>feels like a pissing contest. I don't even overclock any more, unless the
>>hardware is built that way.
>>
>>It all just seems to be enough. What has happened to us?!
>
>Because it /IS/ enough.

Aw yeah. IT'S ON.

Really? Is it? My instincts tend towards it is _never_ enough. Gotta
shave the minutes off of those MAME compiles.

;^)

>Every now and then, it hits me just how FAST
>and POWERFUL our personal computers have become. Even our cheapest
>laptops are super-computers. Our handheld devices out-perform anything
>I could have imagined thirty-years ago... heck, they're more powerful
>than anything I'd imagine from a handheld 15 years ago.
>
It's true. You're beginning to sound like 3 Dead Trolls in a Baggie
singing "Every OS Sucks." If you haven't heard that, here you are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPRvc2UMeMI

"If was enough to go to the moon, it was enough for you!"

It really was. I remember looking at my dad's Compaq 386 in '91 and
saying to him, "Nobody needs all that power." When I got my Dell 486 DX33
in '93 as a gift from him, complete with a CD drive that required a
shuttle and an SB16, I thought, "I'm set for life." The 486 was an
upgrade from a C=64 that got me most of the way through college.

Then I learned about wavetable synthesis, got a daughterboard for the
SB16, and the upgrading began. The leaps and bounds of an upgrade were a
major bang for your buck in those days.

>Games - and applications in general - have not kept up. That's not to
>say that our games have maxed out on their potential (too often I've
>gotten stuck in the rut believing what we have now is 'the best there
>ever will be'.) But our software plateaued in its needs about ten
>years ago, for a variety of reasons.
>
If you're like my wife, well... she still plays a lot of Tropico 2. That
requires me to set her up with the dgVoodoo2 DirectDraw wrapper just to
get the graphics to show up on the screen.

So for some, computers have bolted well ahead of the games they play. ;^)

That said, ray-tracing is "fun." Mostly as a tech demo. It doesn't really
add enough to the experience for the heat it generates and the power it
guzzles.

Talos 2 looks beautiful, though. I'm glad I have a 4060Ti to enjoy it
with. There really is a noticeable difference between the high and ultra
settings, especially with the ray-traced reflections. I got to the
Anthropic Islands today and I actually started taking pictures with the
photo mode.

Those "good enough" games, though? The 4060 sometimes runs on passive
cooling with those. No fan at all. The "Oh wow" factor is far less
important these days than the "fun" factor. And that is because you can't
really "Oh wow" people with the graphics any longer. It's too hard.

Talos 2 notwithstanding. Oh WOW. Eye popping graphics. It's everything
Myst wanted to be and more.

>Partly because we long passed the 'good enough' stage for making
>convincing and fun games. Games with retro-graphics prove that we
>really don't need more lifelike visuals or deeper simulations. Added
>complexity in graphics or world design don't necessarily equate to
>'more fun'.
>
Sure, just ask Ultima IX. The graphics were really "Oh wow" (so long as
you were running in Glide). The game? Ugh. As fun as painting a fence, or
so Tom Sawyer told me.

Games with retro graphics have convinced me that we are now in an age of
fashion for games. Undertale was a massive hit with my youngest
daughter's generation (zoomers). It looks, for the most part, like it
could have been done on an Intellvision.

People are demanding gameplay. The response from the AAA game industry
seems to be, "That's nice. Enjoy CoD 6,008."

People, and small development teams, are starting to recognize that the
point of games is diversion and fun, not continued hardware sales.

AAA producers, not so much.

>Partly because development costs have skyrocket. Thirty years ago, a
>ten-man team could create a world-class game. Now you need a crew of
>thousands. Making worlds bigger and with greater fidelity would
>balloon costs without making the game significantly better.
>
BG3 notwithstanding, of course. That has a ton of content and it makes
the game better. But replay value doesn't come with a continued revenue
stream, so it's not in fashion rn.

Honestly, I think putting thousands of people on a game might just bump
into the mythical man-month fallacy. I wonder if AAA developers are
investing too much for too little, thus increasing their publication
risks beyond their ability to take gameplay risks.

(Yeah, I know most of them are the artists, and most of the disk space
they take up is artwork assets.)

>Partly because some platforms are holding us back in comparison. I
>don't just mean how games designed for console (or even older laptops)
>limit how much RAM or CPU processing a developer has at their
>fingertips. But also... look, if you frequently play games on mobile,
>its hard to justify paying $60 for a super-high-end PC gaming, no
>matter how great it looks.

My wife spent more than $60 on Evony in the first three months, and she
is still playing and still paying. Hundreds of dollars worth.

The trick is, it's $5.49 a pop. She doesn't notice and she doesn't care.
It ruffles my feathers, but it really isn't a bad deal if you don't have
a mental illness that turns you into a whale.

(I think that's what you meant? $60 for a AAA game. Otherwise that's one
cheap high-end PC!)

>The mobile games set a floor level of
>what's acceptable gaming and you can't go too far above that and
>expect to make a profitable game. Which isn't to dismiss mobile games
>as low-end crap (as I said earlier, I am frequently wowed by how
>powerful our handheld devices have become).
>
I'll say it then. Mobile games are low end crap. The battery dies fast.
The games barely work. I do better running a Gameboy emulator on my
phone.

I dropped "Yahtzee with Buddies" because they had updated it with so much
new content so quickly, to bump up the desire and need for MTXes, that it
collapsed under its own buggy weight. Even the vanilla mode didn't work
right any more. They even had a period of time where you couldn't see the
categories on the left side of the scorecards. When I told my Family
(team) I was leaving because I couldn't even play a basic game any more,
all they could say is "Yeah. I get it." Then some commented that they may
be coming with me soon.

It was freaking Yahtzee. You know. Roll five 6-sided dice. Score it in a
category of various poker hands. How can you screw that up?

They're not low end crap because of the devices, though. The devices are
capable of much better. They're low end battery crippling crap because
all mobile developers are into the fast buck. They load it up with
Skinner box addiction psychology instead. That's the focus. Then they
move on and develop the next crappy game when that dries up.

>Games (and applications) will get better in the future. I have
>confidence that they will start demanding more powerful computers
>again. As developers become more comfortable with AI generation, as
>new techniques - especially with ray-tracing and cloud-compute
>simulations - are developed, and even as new hardware and ideas are
>developed, we'll see some revolutionary changes.
>
Honestly, by the time any of that comes, I'll probably just stream the
games from some heavy iron on a server farm. That kind of epic leap would
require an unjustifiably powerful home computer. It'd be a space heater
with no thermostat and would likely cause brownouts in my town.

What I've always liked about this hobby is that the basic computer you
need to do Microsoft Word for work or the family finances can be also
used to play fantastic games for less than the cost of a console in
graphics components. Plus it gives better, more flexible results than a
console and KBM for the head shots.

I love general purpose computing. I wonder how much longer it will last?

>But right now computers are in the doldrums, waiting for that
>inevitable storm. A ten-year old PC can still be a quite satisfactory
>gaming computer. There's no immediate need to upgrade because you'll
>see very little advantage to it.
>
I have one of those downstairs. If I put my spare 1080GTX in it, it could
play anything made more than two years ago at high settings. It could
also credibly play anything between two years ago and the present at
pretty decent settings. Part of that is that I think 4k monitors are
nonsense, though.

On Fri, 26 Jan 2024 07:38:11 +0200, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Anssi Saari wrote:

>Oh yes, video cards, I have an RTX3070TI. I mean, it's a generation
>behind! I gotta do *something*. I think. At least if there's a game that
>it chokes on at some point. Starfield maybe or if I actually get around
>to replaying Cyberpunk 2077.

Starfield will not choke anything. I was shocked at how little it taxes
my 4060Ti. I think it's running on a modified Fallout 76 engine. It
honestly looks like ass compared to its contemporaries.

The newest 2.1 version of Cyberpunk 2077 also does very little to my
4060Ti. I thought for sure that they had updated the game out of my
reach. Nope. I have heard that it's worth a replay though.

Now Quake II RTX or Portal RTX? That makes my card run hot as hell. I
really don't get what's going on these days.

The only concern is if you game at 4k. I have fallen into the "why
bother" camp on that one. 1080p with DLSS supersampling does fine.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten