Video Games: Next Stop... Andromeda

[The Anti-Targ]

8 hours ago, Rhom said:

Went and got Legion last night... still have 5 loyalty missions and the DLC's to go.  Sorry Normandy crew.  I love you guys and all... but I gotta see what this robot has to say about a lot of places.   

Do wish I'd gone ahead and picked him up before Haestrom though.

ETA:  As I'm nearing the end of my ME2 playthrough, I'm naturally starting to turn my attention to ME3.  I'll be honest;  other than the fact that I know I can play as Garrus and Tali, and I remember loving the Prothean character... I don't remember for the life of me who else is on the team in that game.   

You can't get Legion before Haestrom. The only thing you can do to screw with the Quarians' heads is save Tali's loyalty mission until after you've picked up Legion.

You get Liara back for ME3. You get either Ashley or Kaiden back depending on which one you saved in ME1. And EDI gets a body.

[Fez]

I upgraded my internet speed from 25 Mbps to 200 Mbps today and holy hell, I've never felt more alive. It was only an extra $13 month too (I could've had no price increase at all, but that'd require signing a new 2-year contract). Real glad I live in one of the few parts of the US that still has no data caps, because I am going to abuse the hell out of this.

I also ordered a GTX 1070 today. I'm excited to have finally pulled the plug, but I am nervous about doing the install.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

I upgraded my internet speed from 25 Mbps to 200 Mbps today and holy hell, I've never felt more alive. It was only an extra $13 month too (I could've had no price increase at all, but that'd require signing a new 2-year contract). Real glad I live in one of the few parts of the US that still has no data caps, because I am going to abuse the hell out of this.

I also ordered a GTX 1070 today. I'm excited to have finally pulled the plug, but I am nervous about doing the install.

If it's just a straight swap out of your GPU then it should be pretty straight forward, it's basically unplug and plug in. Though I think it is always recommended that you have one of those anti-static bracelet thingies whenever you are fiddling with the innards of a PC.

Installing a new CPU is the fiddly thing. With having to use the right amount of thermal paste, having to make sure you insert the cpu exactly right, and making sure there is good contact with the cooling unit. All very fiddly and intense and you don't really know if you've done it right until you've run the thing for a while and made sure it doesn't crash from overheating.

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

You can't get Legion before Haestrom. The only thing you can do to screw with the Quarians' heads is save Tali's loyalty mission until after you've picked up Legion.

You get Liara back for ME3. You get either Ashley or Kaiden back depending on which one you saved in ME1. And EDI gets a body.

Are you sure?  Because TIM gave me the option to go get the IFF before Haestrom.

 

[KiDisaster]

51 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

If it's just a straight swap out of your GPU then it should be pretty straight forward, it's basically unplug and plug in. Though I think it is always recommended that you have one of those anti-static bracelet thingies whenever you are fiddling with the innards of a PC.

Installing a new CPU is the fiddly thing. With having to use the right amount of thermal paste, having to make sure you insert the cpu exactly right, and making sure there is good contact with the cooling unit. All very fiddly and intense and you don't really know if you've done it right until you've run the thing for a while and made sure it doesn't crash from overheating.

I've never used an anti-static bracelet in all the years I've been fiddling with PCs and I've never had any issues with static. Don't wear socks on carpet while you're working and you should be fine. I usually just put on a pair of shoes.

[Corvinus85]

I fiddled with my PC quite a lot while installing a new SSD, and what I did was periodically touch a metal that was grounded, mainly the case panel that I put down.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

Are you sure?  Because TIM gave me the option to go get the IFF before Haestrom.

 

Hmmm, you may be right. I thought getting Tali from Haestrom was one of the story beat missions. If you can get the IFF before going to Haestrom it means you can go on the suicide mission without Tali and therefore finish the game without recruiting Tali. That almost seems like sacrilege. It would be exactly equivalent to playing through ME2 without recruiting Garrus. Just wrong.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

14 hours ago, Fez said:

Real glad I live in one of the few parts of the US that still has no data caps where such ludicrous speeds are readily available for an extra 13 bucks a month

FTFY.

Also, grats on the new card! I've had a 1070 since shortly after they came out and I've been quite pleased. I game in 3440x1440 and still rarely have hiccups. Install was pretty easy too.

[Fez]

13 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

If it's just a straight swap out of your GPU then it should be pretty straight forward, it's basically unplug and plug in. Though I think it is always recommended that you have one of those anti-static bracelet thingies whenever you are fiddling with the innards of a PC.

Installing a new CPU is the fiddly thing. With having to use the right amount of thermal paste, having to make sure you insert the cpu exactly right, and making sure there is good contact with the cooling unit. All very fiddly and intense and you don't really know if you've done it right until you've run the thing for a while and made sure it doesn't crash from overheating.

Yeah, its just a straight swap. I've been reading instructions online, and it does seem fairly easy to do. I'm just nervous because its a much more expensive component than the extra hard drive was, and it seems like there is slightly more to do; which more opportunities to screw up.

 

12 hours ago, Corvinus said:

I fiddled with my PC quite a lot while installing a new SSD, and what I did was periodically touch a metal that was grounded, mainly the case panel that I put down.

Yeah, that's what I did; it seemed to work fine.

 

42 minutes ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

FTFY.

Also, grats on the new card! I've had a 1070 since shortly after they came out and I've been quite pleased. I game in 3440x1440 and still rarely have hiccups. Install was pretty easy too.

I thought most urban and suburban areas had those kinds of speeds available now? Its just that most of the country now has data caps that prevent being able to easily enjoy them. Last I looked it, it seemed that caps were everywhere except along the I-95 corridor (i.e. where most of the people who could overturn the caps live).

 

On actual gaming, I'm now 41 hours deep into Tales of Berseria, and I have absolutely no idea how much longer the game is. I'd believe 10 more hours, I'd believe 40 more hours. The main plot moves so slowly that its impossible to know how many beats it has left; the game is entirely reliant on its character beats (which are mostly excellent; though sometimes a little too anime-ish for me). I've been having fun, but I'm ready for things to wrap up.

I also picked up Elder Scrolls Online while it was half off on Steam. No clue why. I'm constantly searching for an MMO to keep my interest and none of them ever do; I think its just not the genre for me. Although, to be fair, I did get around 100 hours of fun out of Wow: Legion; so if I get even just a couple dozen hours I like the grind, all the RPG elements, having tons of different systems and currencies to juggle, etc in MMOs. But I want my games to have interesting and good writing, and the social aspects of MMOs do nothing for me.

[KiDisaster]

I'm at 2560x1440 these days and I was hoping for a 1080ti announcement at CES so I could justify an upgrade once I got my tax return, as the 4GB of VRAM on my 980s is starting to feel pretty restricting on certain games. Unfortunately though it looks like there won't be any new NVidia cards until the latter half of the year at least. So I'll stick with the 980s for now. 

[KiDisaster]

2 minutes ago, Fez said:

I thought most urban and suburban areas had those kinds of speeds available now? Its just that most of the country now has data caps that prevent being able to easily enjoy them. Last I looked it, it seemed that caps were everywhere except along the I-95 corridor (i.e. where most of the people who could overturn the caps live).

I get 75Mbps down from Comcast for about $80/month. The only way to get more is to get their bullshit triple play deal for double the money and that'd get me 150Mbps. They also have a 2,000Mbps down option but that's like $300/month. They introduced data caps for us last year and I live along the I-95 corridor (South Florida). So I also have to pay $50 extra for unlimited data every month. 

I fucking hate Comcast, but the only other option here is AT&T and they're even worse. They charge almost double for the same speed, and only offer up to 50Mbps down here last time I checked. 

[Ferrum Aeternum]

9 minutes ago, Fez said:

I thought most urban and suburban areas had those kinds of speeds available now? Its just that most of the country now has data caps that prevent being able to easily enjoy them. Last I looked it, it seemed that caps were everywhere except along the I-95 corridor (i.e. where most of the people who could overturn the caps live).

It really depends on where you live. There are certain neighborhoods here where you can get 150 mbps through Comcast (lol) but where I live 45 MB (with a data cap) is the max I have found. The problem with our data infrastructure in this country is consistency - if I lived in Nashville or Chattanooga (yes, Chattanooga) I could get a 1 GB fiber connection.  

[KiDisaster]

When Google announced they weren't expanding their fiber network anymore my heart broke several times over. 

[Fez]

16 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

I get 75Mbps down from Comcast for about $80/month. The only way to get more is to get their bullshit triple play deal for double the money and that'd get me 150Mbps. They also have a 2,000Mbps down option but that's like $300/month. They introduced data caps for us last year and I live along the I-95 corridor (South Florida). So I also have to pay $50 extra for unlimited data every month. 

I fucking hate Comcast, but the only other option here is AT&T and they're even worse. They charge almost double for the same speed, and only offer up to 50Mbps down here last time I checked. 

I had been getting 25Mbps from Comcast (along with network TV and HBO; no cable) for $83/month plus taxes and fees. When I called them, they said I could keep the same package but get the Blast! speed boost to 200Mbps for an extra $13. They sent me a new statement and it looks like the billing checks out, and I downloaded a couple games on Steam to test it out, and it is around 8 times faster than before.

Also, I was being a mid-Atlantic coastal elite. I know I-95 goes all the way to Florida, but when I think of the corridor I'm thinking of the Boston-NYC-Baltimore/Philly-DC stretch. I guess Acela corridor would've been a better descriptor.

 

15 minutes ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

It really depends on where you live. There are certain neighborhoods here where you can get 150 mbps through Comcast (lol) but where I live 45 MB (with a data cap) is the max I have found. The problem with our data infrastructure in this country is consistency - if I lived in Nashville or Chattanooga (yes, Chattanooga) I could get a 1 GB fiber connection.  

That's certainly true. I don't know if my dad in rural upstate New York has a data cap, but his internet is so slow he'd never reach it anyway. He can't even stream videos unless they are the kind that automatically reduces image quality to maintain connection speeds (like Netflix does), and that quality is usually worse than old SD was.

[KiDisaster]

23 minutes ago, Fez said:

Also, I was being a mid-Atlantic coastal elite. I know I-95 goes all the way to Florida, but when I think of the corridor I'm thinking of the Boston-NYC-Baltimore/Philly-DC stretch. I guess Acela corridor would've been a better descriptor.

Ah, see I was wondering what the hell living near the highway had to do with anything  

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Meanwhile at my parents' house, 20 miles from London, we get 3 Mbps on a good day.

[KiDisaster]

8 minutes ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

Meanwhile at my parents' house, 20 miles from London, we get 3 Mbps on a good day.

When I was still living with my grandparents that's what we had. Torture

[Rhom]

6 hours ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

It really depends on where you live. There are certain neighborhoods here where you can get 150 mbps through Comcast (lol) but where I live 45 MB (with a data cap) is the max I have found. The problem with our data infrastructure in this country is consistency - if I lived in Nashville or Chattanooga (yes, Chattanooga) I could get a 1 GB fiber connection.  

Chattanooga is a great story.  Old coal/industrial/railroad town that has made a real move to rebrand itself as Gig City.

Providing a municipal owned ultra-fast network really opened the door for growth in the tech sector.

Quote

Since the fiber-optic network switched on four years ago, the signs of growth in Chattanooga are unmistakable. Former factory buildings on Main Street and Warehouse Row on Market Street have been converted to loft apartments, open-space offices, restaurants and shops. The city has welcomed a new population of computer programmers, entrepreneurs and investors. Lengthy sideburns and scruffy hipster beards — not the norm in eastern Tennessee — are de rigueur for the under-30 set.

“This is a small city that I had never heard of,” said Toni Gemayel, a Florida native who moved his software start-up, Banyan, from Tampa to Chattanooga because of the Internet speed. “It beat Seattle, New York, San Francisco in building the Gig. People here are thinking big.”

I keep trying to convince my city officials who are all set on downtown revitalization that moving in this direction would open up tons of new avenues.  So far no luck.

[briantw]

6 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

When Google announced they weren't expanding their fiber network anymore my heart broke several times over. 

Well, at least they expanded here before they made that decision.  Although not a lot of places here currently have Fiber.  A lot of places being built will offer it, though, so I guess I just have to wait until the end of the year when my lease is up and just move to one of those places.

[mcbigski]

9 hours ago, Fez said:

Yeah, its just a straight swap. I've been reading instructions online, and it does seem fairly easy to do. I'm just nervous because its a much more expensive component than the extra hard drive was, and it seems like there is slightly more to do; which more opportunities to screw up.

Just make sure your power supply will be able to take a larger video card.  I had to upgrade for darksouls 3 and ended up needing to swap the power pack too.