So this is a weird one, I'll just say what I did then provide a list of symptoms. I updated the bios on my 'Gigabyte B850 AORUS ELITE WIFI7' motherboard from vF2 to VF12b; I did this by formatting a USB to FAT32, plugging it into the bios designated USB port, turning off the PC, waiting 30 seconds, then pressing the flash button and not touching it until it finished doing its thing and booted up of its own accord.

The results:

• The card powers on.
• The PC still posts and otherwise works, notable because my screen is plugged directly into the GPU.
• 'Linux Mint 22.3 - Cinnamon 64-bit' system information can detect the GPU.
• Other Linux Applets can not detect the GPU.
• The motherboards BIOS somehow does not seem to detect the GPU.
• No software, neither productivity applications nor games, can detect the GPU.

Solution
Disabling secure boot fixed it.

So I know the quality is bad but watching stuff on a gameboy advance during bus rides that I suffered to fit on the flash cart just somehow seems more attractive than watching the same thing on my phone in infinitely higher quality.

Anyway I've been able to encode the video data just fine using METEO versions 1.4/1.5/1.5(mod) but my audio always sounds completely corrupted, nothing remains of the orignal audio and I just a sound like static mixed with grinding metal. (checked on 2 emulators and my own GBA hardware)

Anyone have any ideas what could be causing it?

Project Zip

So to be clear there is no real gameplay or even non-placeholder sprites. What I do have is my most basic core functionality optimized as best I know how to do for the time being and I'd love some feedback on anything I could optimize further before getting into the weeds with fleshing out the project.

Controls so far are:

• WASD/Direction Pad to move
• Tap A/Z to throw objects
• Hold A/Z to recall objects

Thrown objects that miss will be instantly re-called as I can't find a means to activate the recall object on the end point of a projectile as that part of the plugin is broken.

Thrown objects that hit the test target in the top middle will be retained until re-called at which point they will run back.

So I got a GBA and a couple of games as a retro gift this christmas and when looking into some ways to personalize it with things like a new shell or a backlit screen I stumbled upon the fact that someone has made a semi-functional SNES emulator for the console. Now I have an old SNES and a super mario world cartridge for it so I figure it would be awesome if I could play super mario world on my new GBA.

From a cursory examination it looks like the standard method is to buy a special cartridge and then a special usb adapter to flash data onto that cartridge... which is frankly expensive as fuck... But I've also seen something about GBA cartridges that take an SD card and am wondering if that works just as well as a more accessable option?

This is my primary source of info

Item #: SCP-NC297

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-NC297 is to be kept in a standard object containment locker and may not be removed without the express permission of the site director. Any site staff discovered to have more than twice the number of immediate family members typical for their socio-economic background are to be investigated for possible unauthorised use of SCP-NC297.

Description:
SCP-NC297 is a metal container primarily composed of tin and adorned with aged copper decorations. SCP-NC297 is approximately 9 inches wide by 6 inches deep by 4 inches tall and posseses a flat hinged lid typical of such containers.

When held by a human SCP-NC297 will manifest within itself various forms of correspondance addressed to the person holding it, primarily consisting of various kinds of postcard and greeting card, the number of items held within SCP-NC297 appears to be infinite with the amount never diminishing no matter how many are removed.

The primary anomalous effect of SCP-NC297 is in the veracity of the correspondance held within, regardless of the number of items removed all will be genuine and remembered by the user, while initial instances are believed to be examples of pre-existing correspondance excessive use of SCP-NC297 will result in increasingly dramatic changes to the timeline in order to justify the number of postcards present; this can result initially in the creation of new events in the users life or the lives of their immediate family however further use may also cause the creation of new family members and potentially new locations and seasonal holidays.

Retrieval Log:
SCP-NC297 was discovered in the home of [Redacted] located in [Redacted] Florida following reports from neighbours about a foul stench eminating from the property and an unusually large quantity of mail visible through the front windows. Though initially overlooked, the foundation became involved when it was discovered [Redacted] had a seemingly impossibly large immediate family with 30 direct sibings, 12 adopted siblings, 4 step parents and over 200 aunts, uncles and cousins.

The item in question was discovered when a member of the mobile task force involved in the initial search of the property was found to have over a dozen completely un-mentioned siblings in addition to the immediate family already on file. SCP-NC297 was subsiquently identified among the items handled by the MTF member and its anomalous properties discovered during testing with D-class personel.

Addendum: Use of SCP-NC297 to generate potential related organ donors for high ranking foundation personel in the event of medical crisis is currently under review by the ethics committee.

So the hub provided by my ISP is really old and bottlenecky at this point, they would charge as much to replace it as to buy my own so I figure better to own my own hardware than get some bare minnimum functionality piece of branded plastic right?

I'm in the UK so my connection setup is a single ethernet port in the wall with a splitter to connect the phone and talk talk hub via LAN cable.

A quick google tells me Asus is a good brand but I'm not sure if I just need a router or if I need to get a combi router/modem.

Item #: SCP-NC331

Object class: Euclid - Uncontained

Special Containment Procedures: Any identified instances of SCP-NC331 are to be immediately confiscated along side all other meat on the same premises under the standard cover story of a salmonella outbreak. Any persons involved in the sale of SCP-NC331 are to be questioned as to where the product was obtained; any induviduals discovered actively promoting SCP-NC331 either on its own or as part of another product are too be detained for questioning and subsiquently amnesticized.

Description: SCP-NC331 consists of a number of microwaveable and pre-packaged meat products known to appear anomalously in convenience stores throughout western europe and north america. Packaging of SCP-NC331 always resembles that of similar products sold within the same store though with subtle errors akin to those produced through repeated image compression.

The meat within SCP-NC331 always consists entierly of mamallian tumour tissue, though due to significant DNA degradation the exact species of mammal is currently unknown to the foundation. Testing with D-class personel has uncovered no further anomalous properties within SCP-NC331, the meat is apparently palatable and tastes similar to pork, though notably "A bit salty and a little dry".

Foundation efforts to determine the source of SCP-NC331 are currently ongoing, standard checks when dealing with food based anomolies have revealed no correlation between appearances of SCP-NC331 and any disappearances or increase in cancer rates.

Retrieval Log:
SCP-NC331-A: The most common form of SCP-NC331 consists of homogenous chunks of SCP-NC331 usually shaped into the form of chicken breasts or pork steaks.

SCP-NC331-B: The second most common form of SCP-NC331 appears as mincemeat.

SCP-NC331-C: This category of SCP-NC331 is broadly defined as all SCP-NC331 products taking the form of a microwaveable fast food product, most commonly burgers or sandwiches of some kind.

SCP-NC331-D: May rarely appear as boned meats such as beef ribs, pork shoulders and chicken breasts. In such instances the bones withing SCP-NC331 have been confirmed to also be tumerous in origin.

SCP-NC331-E: A predumably unintentional form of SCP-NC331, in such instances the packaging will be of even lower quality than usual and the meat within inevitably appears as a lumpy mass of raw tumour cells. Such instances and the reports they generate are currently the main source of confirmed SCP-NC331 manifestations by the foundation.

So my relevant hardware is:
GPU - 9070XT
CPU - 9950X3D
RAM - 64GB of DDR5

My problem is that I can't figure out how to get a local LLM to actually use my GPU, I tried Ollama with Deepseek R1 8b and it kind of vaguely ran while maxing out my CPU and completely ignoring the GPU.

While I'm here model suggestions would be good too, I'm currently looking for 2 use cases.

• Something I can feed a document too and ask questions about that document (Nvidia used to offer this) To work as a kind of co-GM to quickly reference more obscure rules without having to hunt through the PDF.
• Something more storytelling oriented that I can use to generate background for throwaway side NPCs when the players innevitably demand their life story after expertly dodging all the NPCs I actually wrote lore for.

Also just an unrelated asside, Deepseek R1 8b seems to just go into an infinite thought loop when you ask it the strawberry question which was kind of funny.

So after trying out Mint on my old laptop for a few months I wanted to go straight to Linux on my new build what with it being surprisingly user friendly once past the initial jank.

---The build---
MOBO: Gigabyte b850 aorus elite wifi7
CPU: AMD 9950X3D
GPU: Powercolour 9070xt
RAM Corsair vengance 64GB 5200MHz DDR5
Storage: WD Black SN850X 2TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 Gen4 x4 NVMe SSD

So naturally everything is now on fire.

I started with Mint Cinnamon edition which did install after some initial teething (Boot USB on safemode) but just refused to work with the wifi adapter on that motherboard, it also couldn't see the GPU but I never got to trying to resolve that since the Mint setup is pretty wifi dependant and I wasn't sure it wouldn't fix itself once it could finish sorting itself out.

I then had a friend who's been using Linux for 10 years (Some distro called tumbleweed?) reccomend I try Ubuntu as it generaly supports more hardware. It did work with wifi right out of the box but had this weird issue where it could recognize my GPU and load the right driver but then just give up and use the IGPU on my CPU anyway. Also janky with software with steam (Which I never had issues with on Mint on my laptop) just refusing to work properly and at one point getting into a cage match with snap, even when installed from steams own website rather than the application manager (with an uninstall of the old one in between of course)

We spent a good couple of hours getting slapped with weird behaviours and bugs my friend had never seen before until calling it a day.

So once again I'm here politely asking what the fuck linux!? Seriously though what do I do here, I can just about manage running windows software on afformentioned laptop mint install but linux as a whole just seems to hate this hardware setup.

---

Alright I'm just going with a stripped down version of windows 10, I've spent 2 days trying things from here and from that friend and from random forum posts of people with the same issue and at this point it seems no one has a consistent fix and I don't feel like building an entire operating system from scratch (nor would I know how)

So following on from my last post I'v now tried again, this time using Rufus to make my boot USB rather than balena etcher which despite being reccomended is apparently problematic. I also downloaded and verified a fresh install of the cinnamon ISO.

Result is uh....

Failed to open \EFI\BOOT\mmx64.efi - Not Found
Failed to load image (windows symbol): Not Found
Failed to start MokManager: Not Found
Something has gone seriously wrong: import_mok_state() failed: Not Found

This happens when trying to boot from the USB so its actually worse than last time where the demo environment worked but it kept crashing on attempting a proper setup.

PC in question is a small notebook with no discreet GPU to speak of (Intel integrated graphics) that I've been hoping to use as a testbed before comiting to Linux on my main PC.___

Item #: SCP-NC1008

Object Class: Keter

Status: Uncontained

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-NC1008 is considered to be uncontainable though efforts to find a means to counter SCP-NC1008s anomalous effect are ongoing.

Description: SCP-NC1008 comprises all plant life presently on earth, fossil records suggest SCP-NC1008 first appeared aproximately 450 million years ago and rapidly supplanted existing species.

SCP-NC1008s primary effect is the production of a previously uknown toxin believed to be responsible for the process of ageing within all animal life, the original purpose of this toxin is unknown though theories among researchers fall into two main camps. The first positing that such a toxin is a defensive measure intended to protect SCP-NC1008 from an otherwise exponential growth in herbivore populations; the primary competing theory is that SCP-NC1008 produces this toxin as a form of semi-parasitism ensuring that all animal life will eventually die and ultimately act as a source of nutrients for SCP-NC1008 instances.

Research:
Following the discovery of SCP-NC1008 in 2003 following the completion of the human genome project the foundation has undertaken several long term studies into the effects of diet on longevity in an attempt to find a means by which to circumvent the near omnipresence of SCP-NC1008s toxin present in all living organisms.

Experiment Log #NC1008-01
Test Procedure:
A D-class subject informally dubbed 'meat man' was placed on an all meat diet supplmented with chemically derived vitamin suppliments in order to determine wether SCP-NC1008s effect could be prevented by removing plant material from a persons diet.

Result:
The subject shows moderately decreased signs of ageing compared to the average, however at the present date this decrease falls within the standard deviation for normal induviduals rendering the result inconclusive. Test ongoing.

Experiment Log #NC1008-02
Test Procedure:
A D-class subject informally and somewhat ironically refered to as 'methuselah' was fed an otherwise normal diet artifically infused with extremely elevated levels of the SCP-NC1008 toxin.

Result:
Subject suffered a rapid ageing process similar to progeria and passed away after 11 years and 2 months despite being only 23 when the study began; following this study the foundation began further research into the possibility that progeria itself is somehow a result of an inability of the body to process the SCP-NC1008 toxin resulting in its massive accumulation.

Experiment Log #NC1008-03
Test Procedure:
A D-class subject nicknamed 'Dr Robotnik' by junior researchers was given a diet composed primarily of traditionally 'dairy' products such as eggs, milk and cheese as well as neccesary chemically derived supliments in order to determine if such 'secondary' animal products contained a lower level of SCP-NC1008 toxin.

Result:
As of the present date the subject is noted to have aged extremely well, with a degree of health for their age similar to that found in proffesional athletes, though not conclusive the foundation considers this result to be encouraging.

Experiment Log #NC1008-04
Test Procedure:
Following further research suggesting that the SCP-NC1008 toxin was unable to cross the blood-brain barrier a D-class subject with a record of cannibalism was offered a diet primarily consisting of animal brain tissue sourced from [REDACTED] state [REDACTED].

Result:
Following the studies inception the subject has shown no signs of ageing, monthly physical tests have shown a gradual increase in the subjects vitality approaching what would be expected of a person in the physical prime of their life. The results of this study are currently to be kept hidden from all members of the foundation not on the SCP-NC1008 research team or the O5 council, pending a joint decision by the ethics committee and O5 council.

::: spoiler [Classified] Following a decision by the O5 council that has not been disclosed to the ethics committee the diets of senior researchers considered to be irreplaceable are to be covertly supplemented with meat products composed of processed animal brain tissue, in addition these senior researchers are to be manipulated where at all possible into increasing the overall meat and egg content of their diets so as to further minimize their total intake of SCP-NC1008 toxin. :::

Item #: SCP-NC691

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-NC691 is to be stored at all times in a sound proofed anomalous item storage unit located at least 5 meters from electrical outlets or other anomalous objects with electrical properties or effects.

Access to SCP-NC691 is restricted to any personal below level 3 security clearance without the express permission of the site director.

Description: SCP-NC691 is an air conditioning unit of unknown make or model and bares no manufacturers markings. The plastic outer case shows signs of severe wear including cracks and yellowing of the plastic, despite this SCP-NC691 appears to be impervious to physical damage implying the object was deliberately created in a damaged state or somehow became anomalous some time after its initial manufacture.

SCP-NC691s anomalous effect manifests when it is plugged into a standard american 120v electrical outlet and turned on. When in this state SCP-NC691 will initially appear to be a normal air conditioning unit albeit a particularly loud one; however while in use SCP-NC691 will under all circumstances be precisely 9.1 decibels louder than any other noise in the vicinity. The increase in volume is coincided by a matching increase in power with the object releasing colder air at higher velocities as the sound level increases. Due to the logarithmic nature of the decibel scale cross testing between SCP-NC691 and other sound producing or amplifying anomalies is forbidden without written permission by at least 2 members of the O5 council.

Experiment Log #NC691-01
Test Procedure:
SCP-NC691 was exposed to a sound level of precisely 70 decibels (normal human conversation) in order to establish an accurate baseline of its effect.

Result:
SCP-NC691 produced a sound of 79.1 decibels with no other effects observed.

Experiment Log #NC691-02
Test Procedure:
A member of site security was instructed to enter a containment room with SCP-NC691 and discharge his firearm.

Result:
Security guard suffered short term hearing loss, staff involved were re-assigned.

Experiment Log #NC691-03
Test Procedure: A class-D subject was placed in a sound proofed containment chamber with SCP-NC691 and instructed to set off a large fire cracker.

Result:
Containment chamber observation window was shattered resulting in several researchers suffering minor lacerations and temporary hearing loss, class-D subject was permamently deafened. Testing with sound sources above 150 decibels banned until further review.

Experiment Incident Log #NC691-04
Test Procedure Incident:
Junior researcher Hugh for unknown reasons, potentially related to a dispute with a superior on the day prior, broke into an on-site maintenance area where equipment used my MTF Eta-11 (“Savage Beasts”) was being serviced and gained access to a [REDACTED] intended for use against sound based anomalies.

On the following day when testing began junior researcher Hugh excused himself from the test area and subsiquently remotely activated [REDACTED] inside the containment cell being used for testing with SCP-NC691.

Result:
A sound possibly exceeding 194 decibels (the theoretical maximum under normal atmospheric conditions) was produced by SCP-NC691; This is, in addition to a powerful shockwave, theorized to have produced a large atmospheric cavitation bubble that resulted in the subsiquent implosion of the containment area and severe damage to surrounding parts of the facility. All staff within the containment area including junior researcher Hugh are believed to have been killed immediately though sufficient remains could not be recovered to perform an autopsy, in addition several deaths and numerous injuries were suffered by site staff in surrounding areas with the widespread damage resulting in multiple low level containment breaches.

Following this incident several members of site security were disciplined for their failure to prevent the theft of equipment, and a petition was made to re-classify SCP-NC691 as Euclid, though this was later denied.

^ Title ^

so I've had problems getting linux to actually setup properly but the functional preview on the boot USB stick itself works without issue, so can I just run it that way, or is that going to limit functionality in some way?

So to get it out of the way here's what I intend to cram into a case: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/TCWFYd
Budget: $100 to $200.

Asside from the obvious factors (like fitting the GPU) I'm really only looking for 2 main things:

• Airflow, not looking for a fancy glass fronted case I'm just looking to minimize temperatures and maximize component health.
• Dust filters, magnetic for easy cleaning would best, same reasoning as above (2 cats in the house)

Basically I'm looking for something like a Liancool 207 only that case can't fit my PSU and likely wouldn't be happy with the cables to feed the Red Devil either. I've seen good things about the Fractal Focus 2 but its description as entry level has me worried if those good thermals stay good for this kind of GPU/CPU combo, its front filter is also reportedly not the greatest.

So I thought I'd ask you guys to help me pick a nice cold and dust free box to keep my magic thinking rocks/sand in.

Edit:
Thanks to everyone for the advice particularly putting me on to GamersNexus (looking at you @[email protected]) and encouraging me to look at more Fractal cases. Ended up going right to the top end of my Budget with a Fractal Design Torrent as it appears to have the best overall thermal performance. Figure its going to be worth it in the long run for that ultimate goal of maximizing component lifespan.

Had a dream last night where I was on a road-trip and ended up randomly dropping into an alternate dimension, this short story is pretty much the backstory for how that dimension diverges from our own and is about 1/3 straight dream, 1/3 the random oddly detailed lore dump my brain gave me when I woke up (anyone elses brain do that?) and 1/3 creative writing to fill in the gaps. I'm not even am ameteur but I hope you guys find it interesting.
.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the end of the second great war the Manhattan project had yielded few results, though the allies would go on to win the war the power of the atom would never be harnessed for warfare. Yet deep bunkers in Germany would reveal research on a phenomena known as astrological manipulation; the effect was weak, almost a parlour trick, the sun could be turned dark or the stars made to shine brighter but only from the perspective of a small area and only for a few minutes. Fascinating to the theoretical physicists of the world but barely of note to nations in the midst of post war reconstruction.

It would not be until the 1960s that those physicists would finally attain a shaky yet certain grasp of the phenomena. Project Argus took 20 years to construct, a joint project between the United States and Great Britain, part arcane circle and part particle accelerator the enormous construct spanned 200 miles of Atlantic ocean, suspended from thousands of floating stabilization platforms. World War 3 would begin on January 5th 1980, and end with at the same no and total casualties on all side on January 6th 1980.

The goal of project Argus, the total hegemony of a united British and American empire, was to be attained by demonstration of absolute control of the sun itself, and yet such perceived control was wholly illusory. The sun would darken to a cold cinder, never to return.

By the end of 1981 desperation would truly set in all thoughts of conquest cast aside in the name of survival, great furnaces churned dark smoke into a darker sky attempting to provide light and heat to those remaining inhabitants and the precious grow houses that sustained them. On December 9th, now known as the day of the red star, Argus would awaken once more from its slumber; Those survivors of the original test, those rescued from summary execution by a now unknown yet foresighted officer would do everything in their power to light a candle in the dark.

On the day of the red star Jupiter would burn, a feint candle in the dark. Daylight earth would not see again yet the feint red light of day was as a nova after 2 years of darkness. Life would cease its gradual retreat into oblivion, though much changed and much diminished it would cling on in the twilight. Some few plants were able to subsist in the gloom and so sustain what little life was left. In the cites those who had survived the apocalypse would now dwell forever in twilight.

So I think moa companions are really cute and charistmatic but other than a blast shield equipped moa being a tankier but much less reliably shooting alternative to a verglass / contaigous bond sentinel I can't really justify using one over a beast or a sentinel with more useful precepts.

Anyone got any cool moa secrets for me?

I heard Mint is supposed to be the simplest distro to get started with but my experience so far (following the setup guide on the website) has been:

• Download ISO
• Check ISO (seemed fine)
• Burn image... crash
• Burn image in administrator mode
• Boot from USB via BIOS... crash
• Boot from USB via Bios in safe mode
• Download multimedia codecs... crash
• Not download multimedia codecs... also crash?

And that's where I am presently, it runs fine off the USB albeit a bit slow, and I know its connected to the internet because I can browse lemmy on it and make annoying posts on the Linux community. I knew Linux was going to be more work than windows but this feels like a ridiculous level of effort right out of the gate, I worry that even if I somehow get it running I'll spend 10x more time fixing it than actually using it.

Ok this one blew me away, its another little no parkour required area and this time with multiple fairly obvious yet inconspicuous entrances, beyond being pretty this one has some pretty strong cut-gig vibes.

One entrance hidden behind a Trauma team AV, I later found prettier entrances but I'm not booting up the game with all my mods again. Its pretty winding down there but you can find a small un-marked scav event as article of evidence #1.

Star of the show is this pit, equidistant from pretty much all entrances and with a clearly deliberate parkour path all the way down.

Its a looooong way down, there's also a dead guy with a lore shard down here and a weird red fan that I all the garbage slopes into like it was meant to be some kind of entrance.

This elevator has no useable floors but otherwise appears to be completely functional, even the doors work.

Map location of one entrance for convenience.

So I stumbled upon another cool little spot that's totally easy to overlook despite all of us having certainly passed it dozens of time. its another great example of verticality with a little village of shops and homes tucked into the shadowy spaces between buildings, it even has a little scene with a lore shard if you explore all the way to the bottom.

From above we can see just how far the rabbit hole goes, with the deepest part being accessable by ladders just under the pipes on the left.

It's dystopian as hell but damn this place has a vibe, wish V could have an apartment here.

Looking up from the lowest inhabited section the sky is barely visible under all that concrete and steel.

Just a map location: