Recently I asked about a new PC build. I got helpful responses about the topic but also a suggestion of just upgrading my GPU to a 3080 (from 3050). I looked deeper into it and it looks like I can do it easily even right now. Then I saw a 3080 FE for sale and I've always been a fan of how they look so now I want one.

However I also discovered that my CPU (i5-11400F) will be a severe bottleneck in that configuration. I don't really mind decreased GPU utilization and I'm pretty sure my CPU cooler will keep up just fine (tested in benchmarks and UE5) but will it give me any serious issues such as freezes or full on crashes? My resolution is 1080p btw (with the monitor itself actually being 768p but I increase resolution in games beyond that for better quality) but I might as well upgrade it to a 1440p one soon if necessary and use it for the new build when I undoubtedly waste my money on it.

I'm a decently happy owner of a system with an i5-11400F and an RTX 3050. It just barely works for my needs (1080p 60-90 FPS ultra) but next year there will be some new games I'd like to play such as GTA 6 and FH6. With the current trends it's obvious my current system won't handle that on settings higher than low. So I'm thinking of getting a new PC.

For now I'm thinking something like a Ryzen 7 and an RTX 5070 Ti should work. That would be around 2.5-3k USD in my area depending on the components. Also I'd like a large monitor so I'll have to upgrade to a 1440p one which will increase the hardware requirements too.

AMD cards are quite expensive here apparently (9070 XT is significantly more expensive than 5070 lol) and I'm a massive fan of RT so those are not an option (I can remove the RT requirements if there's no way to use it with decent settings at no less than 60 FPS). Also NVidia 40 series is not good value here like at all.

Another interesting option is RTX 5080. It's still within my budget of around 3k but I'm very afraid of the connector melting issues. After all I can't build a PC myself (not an option at all) so a special well known company will handle it instead and nobody knows what connectors they use (I can ask as they're pretty open about this stuff but still). I've already worked with the company btw and it's not shady so that should be fine as long as I don't forget to edit a decent PSU in the specs instead of their common firework ones.

However with my limited knowledge I can't predict how far technology will go in the short term. We already saw that the latest gen showed pretty much no improvement over the previous one. So is it even worth waiting for the next year's tech or will it just be the same but with more AI frame gen slop and zeros in the price tag strapped to it? And will games get so much more demanding in just a year or two that trying to target ultra is already a bad idea?

What makes me even more worried is the slightly unstable financial situation in my country. It's possible that tech will get significantly more expensive here soon.

Yea this post is very long so I guess say gingerbread if you read it till the end lol.

I suggest just reading the full article and making your own conclusions but I personally deleted the game for now. I need to see how far these measures will actually go and will they want to like take my DNS history or something.

I love ray tracing and path tracing when they're done right. Ik fully ray traced scenes are hardly playable even on high end cards without upscaling but like if one has a powerful enough card, why not utilize its potential? Yet most people don't seem to care about RT.

When it comes to upscaling though, I hate it, and I'm not even talking about frame gen. It makes things look blurry and causes annoying artifacts. I think playing on lowest settings with clear textures is more enjoyable long term than maxed out in 4k with a consistently blurry image. Also this new technology makes devs care less about optimization (which will backfire btw as we're approaching the physical limit of transistor size).

I've always been a hater of the Anaconda installer. It's not necessarily hard but everything was in wrong places and UX was nonexistent (just try to remember the tile view of steps). Now that I've heard a lot about the new one, I had to try it.

So I downloaded the latest stable Fedora 42 GNOME edition image and booted it off an approximately 15 years old flash drive.

The first impression was "bruh no rounded corners. Imagine using web UI" but then it got better. There's no stupid tile view and the only real complaint is in my case the buttons on the bottom were in a weird spot between the left side and the center (just move them to the right please).

However I'm strict so I also checked the partition manager thing and I actually liked it. I haven't tried doing actual work with it though (as I didn't plan to install anything) so there might be issues there that I didn't notice.

Overall it's a terrific improvement but you do a simple installer so just switch to the GNOME's one duh.

I'm genuinely curious. Other changes are just following modern (and stupid) trends so nothing weird with that. This one though just makes the maximize, minimize and close buttons look smaller than others (new tab in Console etc) which imo creates inconsistency. Also it may not apply to all display resolutions but it does on mine.

As a tech support channel member I sometimes see people not being able to install or repair a desktop OS because of inability to get another PC to create a bootable medium on. I guess such an app should help them because USB-A to USB-C adapters are much cheaper than computers. The only downside (or probably a feature) is it can't flash official Windows ISOs yet.

Today I got banned from Mastodon (infosec.exchange instance) for stuff nobody should ever consider wrong. I can't add screenshots (because I can't register on imgur for some reason) but I can add the comments below:

1. @eff tbh I'm considering joining Meta because I support their recent decisions. The FOSS alternatives are very toxic and don't want to change.

2. @BrodieOnLinux do we have any evidence of you actually living in Australia though?

3. @GossiTheDog ugh how do so many people not understand that opinion based censorship is not democratic at all? It's more nazi actually if you ask me.

4. @nixCraft well I support the changes. Moderation nowadays is pretty terrible and doesn't allow any unpopular opinion or religion. You can use heavily moderated forums that only allow your opinion but for gatekeepers it's not the way to go.

5. @eff @theintercept @jilliancyork ok the first example is kind of hate speech. Calling people trash is kinda bad.

6. @eff now this is better than fake free speech.

However, the admins at least very kindly recommended me finding another instance before suspending my account. That kind of attitude is highly appreciated, even though I disagree with the moderation techniques themselves.

With that out of the way I would like to remind everyone one more time that FOSS social networks do not offer what they claim to be offering. If you're on such a network, you can stay there only as long as your political, religious, cultural and other views are the same as the admins' and the users'. If you want real free expression, I guess you can only get it on Facebook or by creating a new network. In other case you'll constantly be getting reported and eventually banned like in my case.

As many active internet users already know, Meta is changing (or claiming to be changing) their policies to reduce censorship and allow "not popular" opinions on their platforms.

I personally think it's the best decision a social network has made in the past few years. The majority of the internet being significantly left-leaning caused censorship and hate against those who legally and rightfully support a different position. Unfortnately this also affected big "user-focused" networks such as Mastodon and Lemmy to such an extent many of the instances outright banned such opinions.

This is an extremely severe threat to political freedoms and freedom of expression in places that consider themselves democratic. This is why I fully support the Meta's decision and encourage other social networks and communication platforms to follow Meta in this particular decision.

Also I would like to add that considering civil expression or promotion of an unpopular opinion on topics such as politics, gender and religion "hate speech" is ridiculous for a democracy and inclusivity supporting individual, even if such opinions kind of hurt their beliefs. This has already been a problem in the past and now it's pretty much the same but only the "allowed opinions" have changed.

Give freedom of expression back to everyone!

No like seriously, I get that the admins work for free but FOSS is supposed to be about freedom and making products that everyone can benefit from yet still the bias is simply hilarious sometimes and concerning usually.

For the record, I'm talking about conflicts of different opinions here, not justifying hate speech or extremism. I know there is a major difference between FOSS and Big Data in terms of treatment of troll behavior (with the latter supporting it because it generates engagement), but it is clearly being misunderstood and abused now.

I even think I'd rather recommend proprietary options to others at this point because of mental health risks. Yes, I know that some major platforms are quite heavily biased politically (with X even being accused in supporting fascism) but it's not as bad as being biased in everything imo.

Can't we finally understand that the modern trends in most cultures praise exclusiveness (often cleverly disguised as distorted inclusiveness which sounds impossible but is actually a case and it hurts people's understanding of the latter) and work against it? Or at least we could do it for the FOSS reputation.

On the positive note though, Mastodon that is probably the biggest FOSS social platform seems to be pretty good (though probably a bit too close to the Big Data in terms of troll treatment). Could it be because of the size?

I think it's just nice to be able to verify a file with a right click instead of opening the terminal and typing the *sum command. Yes, it is technically bloat, but also good for time saving.