Spyke

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games

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ELI5: How does Frame Generation even work?

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That is not strictly true, the actual latency increase is half the original frame rate. Because the input is not just the frame image but also the motion vectors (in which direction the pixel moved) for the current frame. Frame gen also knows a lot about the image, like which bits have transparent pixels (which move in multiple directions at once) and when the game is done with the frame yet still has to wait for the GPU (time which can be used for more work with little impact).

Frame gen is much more involved than the old “motion smoothing” of televisions, the so called “soap opera” mode, which did increase the latency much more and had no knowledge of how the source image was built, so processing was much more involved.

Stuff like DLSS5 is supposed to use the same inputs (source images and motion vectors), now that is magic to me.

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What Ever Happened to Netscape?

They became a poster child for why you should never “start over from scratch” even if your current codebase is awful. Because when you do that your competitors keep going, then they have years on your now stale product. Netscape lost all on their own…

Also: selling a browser? Man, the 90’s where wild.

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Plastic hinges on modern headphones

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My broken QuietComfort headphones with the plastic earcup hinges would like to have a word…

I love my Bose headphones but man, don’t ever dare dropping them on the floor by mistake, they will shatter on the first hit.

To be fair in the past when this happened you could bring the broken pair in store to get a replacement or upgrade at a good price, but I hear the policy was abused too much so it was retired many years ago.

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Started learning Perl

some people on IRC

Well there’s your problem! (just kidding)

Honestly though I don’t know why you would pick Perl unless you want to learn an obscure language that is both painful to read and write. May $deity have mercy on your soul.

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*Permanently Deleted*

It looks like Fusion 360 runs fine on Linux these days, I don’t know how reliable that is in practice (I would expect not very much).

OnShape is a great option if the licensing terms are compatible with what you are doing. They used to have similar licensing terms as Fusion 360 where you could still get paid for your work with a free version (i.e. YouTube) but changed the terms to remove this loophole. Fusion still allows this with the Startup license but of course could change their mind at any time, then you’d be out of luck.

I dislike the lockdown of Fusion 360 but its mental model works with my own (I can’t “get” SolidWorks and never remember how to do anything). Speaking of SolidWorks, they added a reasonably-priced license for DIY/hobbyists, but it’s the same lockdown as Fusion 360 and still Windows only.

I’m in the same boat as you, just a hobbyist doing this for my own use, I have no interest in becoming an industrial engineer. For now I will keep using Fusion 360, and when that stops being an option I’ll move on to something else. I can whip out models for my prints easily enough and the 10 documents limit is just an annoyance, not a real limitation.

At the very least whatever you design in Fusion 360 or OnShape won’t be stuck in there, you can export it out via .step files. You lose design history (if applicable) but not the model itself.

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AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming CPU sold out almost instantly and scalpers are already selling the chips for up to $999

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It seems everyone forgot that not too long ago, you could back order something and the store would call/ship whenever they got it.

Just let me give you my credit card number in exchange for a spot in the waiting list, then the scalpers lose and I get my new launch thing whenever they get around to it. But no, that would be too simple, gotta get the crowd riled up and race for the available units!

I suppose this could be abused like everything else but it wouldn’t be worse than what we have now with fucking scalpers buying up the little stock that trickles in via automated bots.

It’s not about getting your fix sooner for the new shiny, sometimes you really need a new GPU to replace the one you’ve had for 5 years! Why should you settle for the previous generation if the new one just came out and you are willing to pay launch MSRP for that privilege (not 2-3x MSRP for scalpers!!).

linux

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WinAmp Open Source Story Is Over

I thought I read elsewhere there were some GPL 2 parts in there too, I guess not.

I tried to find a source for this more credible than “I remember reading it on Lemmy” but couldn’t, now that the repo is deleted nobody can confirm. Perhaps some forks still exist… 🤔

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Mozilla says Apple’s new browser rules are “as painful as possible” for Firefox

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To be fair, USB-C didn’t exist when Lightning was introduced, and it was vastly superior to Micro-USB.

It doesn’t really have any reason to exist now…

Agreed with your other points though!

I have an old iPad that I try to reuse for another purpose and all the locks to stop me to keep using it make it such a pain in the butt, when the alternative is simply to enable developer mode on an Android tablet.

Thankfully I remembered when buying a laptop and skipped the very enticing M-series hardware, because in 5-7 years that thing is a brick destined for the landfill.

gaming

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Looking for a "classic" RPG with solid plot (Steam Deck)

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is probably one of the best games I played, it has RPG elements and the turn-based combat system is unique and satisfying. But this is not a game that will bring you joy, the atmosphere is bleak and it is a dark story.

In fact it kind of ruined RPGs for the moment at least, I played Metaphor:ReFantazio right after and the stakes just did not feel serious enough even 10 hours in.

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Windows 11 and local accounts

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This is the way! I did this recently with a recent Win11 Pro installation.

This is also the proper way to name the user’s folder yourself instead of letting Microsoft decide. The auto namer often makes poor choices and renaming it breaks a lot of stuff unless you wipe and reinstall.

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Common Misconceptions about Compilers

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it’s not an optimization if you don’t measure an improvement.

This, so much. I often see this at work, theories about this and that being slow, or how something new « should » be better. As the resident code elder I often get to reply « why don’t you measure and find out »…

For some reason it seems nobody uses sampling profilers anymore, those tell you exactly where the time is spent, you don’t have to guess from a trace. Optimizing code is kind of a lost art.

Sometimes I wish compilers were better at data cache optimization, I work with C++ all the time but all of it needs to be done by hand (for example SoA vs AoS…). On the upside, I kind of have a good job security, at least until I retire.