audaxdreik

joined 2 years ago
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Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 8 points 16 hours ago

You would hope, but this is the same thing we see across almost all industries these days. It's almost like there's a root cause for it, some sort of, Iunno, economic system we could blame ...

But especially cable companies, for example. Has a dwindling customer base caused them to rethink their business strategies? Or has it caused them to try and bleed that dwindling base dryer even faster?

There's no "learning" anymore, there's riding the bus to the absolute pits of hell and just hoping you're not the CEO to be the one that has to go down with it.

Do insects have personalities? Do invertebrates in general exhibit "personalities"? in c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 29 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (3 children)

Spider warning (it's a jumping spider, so it's tiny): https://www.youtube.com/shorts/59fZMRVoHCc

Certainly nothing to the level of people or even cats and dogs, but handling does improve personality. Jumping spiders will often recognize their tanks and immediate location as safe territory. They will also start to recognize their handlers as the food bringers and "beg".

I understand if it's still offputting if you're not into creep crawlies, but jumping spiders are sometimes referred to as "octokittens" due to their tendency to be tiny little divas who sit around and clean themselves like cats. It might look a little scary, but when they start waving their front legs around like that they aren't rearing up in defense like a tarantula, that's their "give me uppies" pose. You'll see a lot of videos of them online leaping at the camera; that's not them attacking, that's them treating all of life like a jungle gym. Personally I think they're adorable and I recommend watching more videos from people who love them if you want to see more personality.

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gEMPLrWh35g , tell me that's not a cat!

EDIT 2: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DZkaLAoREWo , I think my favorite thing about jumping spiders is you can tell how smart they are. The way they look around and scan their environment and really seem to see things and take it in. You can almost hear the tiny gears turning in their heads as they consider things.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a-QpxmSD9jo , they'll also chase laser pointers like a cat.

Endlessly fascinating animals to me, I love them.

So you want to start playing Castlevania games (a giant primer) in c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Good write up!

For my own perspective, I'd like to add that I think they're all worth playing even if you don't stick them out. I think Castlevania is one of my favorite series to discuss from a media literacy standpoint because it's easy to the ideas as they evolved over the different games. You don't even necessarily need to attempt to tackle them in chronological order because the old ones still have a direct and simple charm to them, if that's your thing.

While Metroidvania has half of Castlevania in it (and all of Metroid), outside of Igarashi's contribution the series didn't show a whole lot of interest in following through on a lot of those ideas, especially as it attempted to break into 3D. Curse of Darkness was perhaps the closest, but still not very. It doesn't surprise me that Igarashi broke off on his own eventually and now does Bloodstained. I think it's fitting, it's a good thing to give him his own series (while still holding clear inspirations) and let him do his thing.

I was never a fan of Lords of Shadow and for the longest time I couldn't quite put my finger on why. As you state, the series is loosely defined as "gothic action with Dracula" so to say something isn't a "true" Castlevania feels disingenuous. Especially when it was so open to remaking and reinventing itself prior, so what difference is another reboot? There was a clear conversation or thread of design going through the early series up to that point and Lords just kind of tosses all that aside to go in on game design of the day. God of War as you put it. I don't want to say it's a bad game or shame you for liking it, but it's just a bit too far of an outlier for me to really embrace in a meaningful way

OP, you did not mention Vampire Survivors. HAVE YOU PLAYED VAMPIRE SURVIVORS?!

I initially wrote it off because it didn't look like the kind of game I was into, but the "we have Castlevania at home" vibe is very much intentional and endearing. We 💜 you Antonio Belpaese! For $4 the game looks like a flashy mess, but it hits all the dopamine receptors in just the right way and the metagame of unlocking all the secrets is incredibly satisfying.

Which doesn't even get into the Castlevania DLC where Konami actually gave them assistance and let them use that delightfully crunchy authentic sprite art. The ending of the DLC (completing Richter's scenario) legitimately had me in tears, it's so good and the kind of love letter/wrap up to the series that Konami was never going to give us. Please don't skip this entry! 😭

We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 27 points 2 days ago

This is the current problem with "misalignment". It's a real issue, but it's not "AI lying to prevent itself from being shut off" as a lot of articles tend to anthropomorphize it. The issue is (generally speaking) it's trying to maximize a numerical reward by providing responses to people that they find satisfactory. A legion of tech CEOs are flogging the algorithm to do just that, and as we all know, most people don't actually want to hear the truth. They want to hear what they want to hear.

LLMs are a poor stand in for actual AI, but they are at least proficient at the actual thing they are doing. Which leads us to things like this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKCynxiV_8I

Like it or not, developers are experimenting with AI for their remasters and remakes - but can they ever be any good? [Eurogamer] in c/gaming@beehaw.org
Canadian citizen dies while in U.S. ICE custody in Florida in c/news@lemmy.world
[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 63 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Canada now gets to pick one of ours. Fair is fair.

Any one. Anyone at all. Just pick >_>

Mod managers for Linux? in c/linux@lemmy.ml
[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 1 points 5 days ago

Protontricks can help for some games. Personally I used it to install Openplanet for Trackmania which doesn't have any sort of explicit Linux support specified.

What Protontricks does is allow you to run installation files within the context of a steam game, as you mentioned. Simply launch Protontricks and select the game you're trying to modify and it will mount it properly for you. Then choose "Run an arbitrary executable (.exe/.msi/.msu)" and proceed to run the installer as you would normally.

Sometimes the path can still be a bit janky. For example when Openplanet wanted to install to the Trackmania directory as mounted through Protontricks, I had to specify: Z:\home<USERNAME>.steam\steam\steamapps\common\Trackmania.

What's the smallest laptop that runs Linux and is actually usable? in c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 3 points 5 days ago

https://x-plus.store/products/n150-netbook

I saw a post on this a few weeks back and excited purchased one. I've had it for a bit now and I'm generally happy with it.

If you've ever bought a Chinese product like this before, you know generally what to expect: about 95% quality and 5% WTF.

Personally I put Arch on it using KDE Plasma/Wayland and touch is lackluster. Other distros might handle things better, but I'm an Arch guy and I'm sticking it out.

  • Keyboard is better than expected, but still a little janky. Key feel is surprisingly good but far from great, although sometimes they don't actuate. I think that's because I'm still learning to type on it. Key arrangement is not as big of an issue as I thought, although stuff like Tab, -, ", / can be a little awkward for typing terminal commands, plain text typing (like note taking) I can get pretty up to speed. Honestly the jankiest key is . but it's placement in the center of the cluster still makes it fairly easy to hit
  • The screen is clearly a tablet turned sideways. I've seen this before and I think even the Steam Deck does this, but it does lead to some oddities like resolution being 1200x1920 and SDDM is sideways (I tried fixing it, I'm sure there's a way but I broke it so bad on one go that I ended up just doing a reinstall)
  • It's hefty, feels like a solid device, although maybe even a little too hefty when using it folded over and trying to hold it with one hand while reading

For me it's absolutely perfect for the kind of note taking, book/comic reading, emulator playing, internet browsing I need to do. Admittedly it may still be too close to that "toy" kinda feel though ...

Walmart Scales Back Self-Checkout Amid Security and Customer Feedback in c/technology@beehaw.org
[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 16 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

The Safeways here in WA (at least in parts) have shifted from the old weight-based system(?) to some new AI/camera system. It gets upset if you move incorrectly in front of it because it thinks you may have bagged something you hadn't scanned yet.

Last time I went shopping I got stuck waiting for 5+ minutes when the machine flagged me and there wasn't any available staff to review it with me. When the manager finally came over, we had to watch the video capture of me scanning (love the privacy invasion) and then she counted the items in my bag "just to make sure". Afterwards she stood behind me and watched me finish scanning "in case it happens again". Whatever. This feels neither efficient nor convenient. It feels like something else.

Firefox 140 Brings Tab Unload, Custom Search & New ESR in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

No worries! I did bring a bit of heat in my response and for that I accept the downvotes.

It does just make me a little angry to see someone post a question out of genuine curiosity where there is a real answer to be researched and discussed and met with a string of tired dunks. That's some serious Reddit behavior right there (diss, intended for other posters).

Firefox 140 Brings Tab Unload, Custom Search & New ESR in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Version numbering has no implications on development.

I understand that, so then why change it?

Firefox released just as frequently before, just that they didn’t increase the major version that often.

This does not appear to be true.

That blog post has an aura of marketing speak around it.

Version numbering has no implication on development and doesn't even need to align internally and publicly, so somewhere a conscious decision was made to do it this way for "reasons". I conjecture those reasons are at least partially due to marketing. Is this not fair?

Firefox 140 Brings Tab Unload, Custom Search & New ESR in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

That's my disclaimer that my research on the topic was less than exhaustive when I posted it at midnight, ~~smartass~~cool guy. I then when on to offer a legitimate, if simple answer with sources that I linked. I see now the error of my ways in trying to provider a sincere answer to a question instead of posting the same tired dunk as everyone else.

I have learned the error of my ways and will carry this lesson with me into the future as we build this Lemmy community.

66
Solution: Videos Don't Play in Unity Games (pawb.social)
 

This problem is already solved, but it has troubled me across several games and in the interest of building up a lot of the historical gaming knowledge lost on forums and Reddit, I'd like to post here. I don't fully understand the problem yet, so if you have more info to share, please post.

PROBLEM STATEMENT: If you're playing an older Unity game on Steam under Linux (either on your Steam Deck or desktop) and experience black screens, errors, or crashes when a movie plays such as an opening cinematic, try re-encoding the videos with HandBrake. Credit to Bird Observer on the River City Girls discussions where I found this and generalized the instructions:

  1. From Desktop mode, right-click the game in your Steam library and select Manage > Browse local files
  2. Find the folder containing the video assets (OPTIONAL: copy the folder into a backup location to prevent having to redownload the files if you make a mistake)
  3. Start HandBrake and click Open Source, then navigate to the game folder(s) you discovered in Step 2 (download HandBrake from Discover or https://flathub.org/)
  4. Use Shift or Ctrl to select the movie assets
  5. Settings
    • Preset: Official > General > Fast 1080p30
    • Format: MPEG-4 (avformat)
    • Align A/V Start & Passthru Common Metadata ✅
  6. Set a destination folder under To: at the bottom of the HandBrake window, I recommend a separate working directory under ~/Videos or wherever
  7. From the top menu bar, click the dropdown arrow (v) next to Add To Queue and choose Add All
  8. From the top menu bar on the right, click Queue and then select Start. This can take several minutes to complete depending on your system and how many/how large the movie files are
  9. When finished, copy the completed files from your working directory back into the appropriate game directory

NOTE: For some games using .wmv, simply re-encoding them to .mp4 and then changing the file name back to .wmv should be sufficient for the game to find the appropriate file and play it without needing to worry about further encoding or format issues.

I hope that helps someone, and again, if you have any additional steps or information to help clarify the topic, please feel free to add! I suspect this is largely applicable to Unity games, but may help with other engines where the movie assets are unpacked and easily accessible.

23
[SOLVED] EmulationStation Desktop Edition (ES-DE) crashing after brief use, video previews laggy and stuttering (pawb.social)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by audaxdreik@pawb.social to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
7 comments fedilink
 

2nd UPDATE: To anyone confused by this issue like I've become, there's a difference between EmulationStation and ES-DE,

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulationstation/comments/1ax92io/what_is_emulation_station_de/

EmulationStation (not DE) is an old frontend that got footing when it was used as the primary interface for RetroPie, a retro gaming operating system for Raspberry Pis. It hasn't been updated in a very long time; the last commit to main happened 6 years ago and the last release was in 2014.

EmulationStation got forked by a few different developers for their own projects; batocera-emulationstation is the fork used in Batocera OS, for example.

ES-DE is a fork of EmulationStation started by an independent developer (Leon Styhre) to be used as a general-purpose frontend. It brought a lot of quality of life features including automatic emulator scanning (which is what makes the front-end work out-of-the-box on your machine) and a pretty excellent themes engine. It's not affiliated with the original EmulationStation project, and it's actively maintained by Leon (he seems to be the only developer working on the project from what I can tell).

File locations:

  • gamelists: ~/ES-DE/gamelists//gamelist.xml
  • downloaded_media: ~/ES-DE/downloaded_media/
  • systems: ~/ES-DE/custom_systems/es_systems.xml

Individual ROM paths can be set on a per system basis by changing

UPDATE: Good call, I forgot to cover the basics. After a bit more testing, it appears I don't have the issue when using the AppImage downloaded from their site, https://www.es-de.org/

Thankfully the AppImage uses most of the configurations and files I already have set in home, however the one issue I have with accepting this as a replacement is that it doesn't respect the system locations I have specified in /usr/share/es-de/resources/systems/linux/es_systems.xml. Does anyone know where/how I would modify individual system paths in the AppImage? The reason this is important to me is because I'm working with a years old ROM collection on my network drive that I need to set individual paths for each system collection (or re-sort years of ROMs into the default EmulationStation directories ..... please no ...)

Alternatively, can someone help me continue to chase down this problem? It looks like I've been able to replicate it on all 3 of my varied systems now (gaming rig, media center, laptop) so either there's something particular failing on my systems during the build process or there's an issue with the AUR package. How can I track this down and file an appropriate bug report with them, I'd like to learn how to do this proper so I can get this documented for others that may encounter the issue and contribute back.

Problem statement:

When running EmulationStation Desktop Edition (ES-DE) 3.1.1 (installed from AUR), I'm able to browse through games and watch the video previews after hovering over a game for a second but the audio is noticeably stuttering and crunchy. Audio quality in video previews continues to degrade over time until EmulationStation eventually freezes after only 5-10 minutes of use.

EDIT: Further clarification, crashes only happen while video previews are actively playing which is why I feel the issue is so heavily correlated. ES-DE can continue to be used if video previews are disabled, not shown in theme, or it sits resting on a menu item that does not play a video preview.

Navigation audio is crisp, as is the input and feeling of navigating menus, it doesn't seem to be straining any system resources I can see in System Monitor. Audio in emulators launched through ES-DE is perfectly fine. All videos are stored in appropriate directories in ~/ES-DE/downloaded_media/ and play without issue when opened through VLC. They were downloaded through the built-in connection to https://www.screenscraper.fr/ using the personal account I set up, so I don't feel there are any issues with the source files.

I've also increased the VRAM limit from the default(?) value of 512MiB to 672MiB but haven't noticed any difference, I don't feel like it should need that much to begin with.

~/ES-DE/logs/es_log.txt contains no additional information after the crash. When exiting cleanly I see "ES-DE cleanly shutting down" but when frozen this line is omitted. This is probably due to me having to force quit it, if there are any ways to collect better logs or error info, please let me know.

Hardware and other info:

This is happening on two completely different systems, my gaming desktop with an AMD 5900x and 3080 RTX (proprietary drivers) as well as an old Lenovo something with Intel and something integrated. Both are running Arch with KDE Plasma on Wayland (though X11 also seems to have the issue for whatever that's worth). Let me know what other details may be helpful to provide. Audio is pipewire.

I documented my whole setup process for this so I could replicate it on any system I installed and given how dissimilar the systems are otherwise, I feel like this must be a case of some easy misconfiguration I'm missing or weird dependency I don't have installed? I've tried searching, but internet search is worthless these days. I appreciate any thoughts anyone might have on the issue, any threads I can pull would be helpful. Thanks!

14
Build old RetroArch MAME cores for ARM64? (pawb.social)
 

I've got a real pain of a problem here and I'm looking for some outside opinions on the best way to resolve it, here goes:

Recently purchased an R36S Retro Handheld (https://r36sgameconsole.com/) and installed Rocknix (https://rocknix.org/) on it. When loading arcade games in RetroArch (1.20.0) the core it's using is MAME(0.273 (unknown)). My MAME collection is 0.256 (downloaded from Internet Archive once upon a time). Everything is already scraped, I would like to avoid downloading an entire new collection to work with the 0.273 core. What's the best course of action here?

  1. Copy a compatible ARM 0.256 core to the device (where do I find this/how do I compile it myself?)
  2. Is it possible to convert my rom set to 0.273 and then I'll just switch the locked cores on all my other devices from 0.256 to 0.273?
  3. Just download a new collection

Something else I'm not considering? I know there's historical reasons for why MAME is managed like this, but in 2025 this seems untenable.

Thanks for any help or advice you can offer!

20
Streaming on Linux (pawb.social)
 

Can someone help me figure out what it even is I'm trying to do? I'm a tech savvy kinda persons and if someone just gives me the general idea/right keywords to search for I can probably figure the rest out myself, but I'm caught in a real X/Y problem.

JUNK: Arch, KDE (X11), 3080 (proprietary drivers), OBS, Elgato HD60 X, 3440x1440 ultra widescreen

I just want to do some simple streaming to Twitch/Youtube and game recording.

The Elgato obviously doesn't support my ultrawide so my original thought was to leave the UW monitor plugged in with DisplayPort (as it already is) and then plug in the Elgato with HDMI and then switch the monitor input when I'm ready to stream. The UW stretches the 2560x1440 out though, how do I configure the viewport to keep the proper aspect ratio and put black bars on the side? Alternatively, can I configure the UW to 2560x1440 with black bars and simply mirror the display, or will I take a performance hit when streaming like that? And how do I change the xconfig on the fly, is that something I'd want to write a script for?

I inherited the Elgato from a friend who gave up on streaming and while I'm not entirely opposed to spending more money on potentially more appropriate gear ....... I'd really rather not.

Like I said, if someone can just explain to me what I should be doing and give me a swift kick in the ass towards the right direction, I can do the heavy work of putting all the pieces together, I'm not looking for a total solution 😵😵‍💫 Thanks!

86
87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games (gamehistory.org)
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