Okay so it's been a wildly busy few weeks for me, but I have about a week off now so I can relax a bit and get some stuff done at home. That also means maybe I can get a decent WRUP in. Let's find out.
The ridiculous crypto market may finally and thankfully be crashing. Signs have been around for a while but the most telling and welcome one for me and I'm sure many others is the sight of store shelves retaining GPU stock. Prices are coming down and availability of purchase is nearing levels of normal. That's not to say value is quite right yet, things are still expensive. However, I've been looking for a 6800 XT since it released. I even had one on order for months. Prices got all the way to $1200 before I cancelled the reservation and I saw them go all the way to $2000 after that. The same 6800 XT I was looking at is now around $850 which is a lot better, but I think I'm still going to wait a little longer and see if they come down yet a little more before I go about a buy.
Speaking of GPU's, AMD has it's refresh list out and things look pretty decent, especially at the 1080p level of game play. The 6650 XT, 6750 XT and 6950 XT - Those are the 1080p, 1440p and 4k targets respectively. Prices are a little expensive but they are available. Some specs from AMD directly here. Check out reviews online for more detailed info. Gamers Nexus has a tear down of the 6950 XT from Sapphire and it seems pretty solid, and gigantic. Certainly look at all the reviews you can before just going for it. You have time to do that now that bots and scalpers aren't buying entire truck loads. So far to me at least, the value looks to be in the 1080p 6650 XT, while the 6750 XT is priced a good chunk higher than it's Nvidia competitor and the 6950 XT is kind of top of the line halo product meant to compete with the 3090 so if you're looking at that you probably don't care much about value anyway.
Well if you've ever thought about taking your squishy caster character and giving them the advantage of a well maintained firearm, you might want to take a look at Wizard With a Gun. Seems like a good time. I'll let you read the article from Hard Drive, I have no notes.
Do you like your soccer games with name FIFA attached? Well, you'll be able to continue that but in a year's time it won't be an EA title any longer. Things are changing and it sounds like things will be just as predatory and awful as always, but with two separate names now. EA will continue making soccer/football titles under the name "EA Sports FC" and say they will "...create, innovate and evolve" while FIFA will continue as well under their own name and claim they will be "The best". The whole things feels like a high school breakup if you ask me with a whole -I don't need you anyway- vibe. CNN has the info on this one if you'd like to see for yourself.
Playing games?
Greywolfe: when last we spoke, i'd started in on the end of chicory. well, we're basically there. [apart from side content], there's one more wielder trial, now and - i guess - a final boss. chicory is continuing to be great. worth your time and your money.
AJ: I recently acquired Tales of Arise for Xbox One/Series X and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the PS2 so I may give those a go. I may also play a little Tomb Raider (2013) if the mood strikes.
Scrooloose: Stability issues and near constant crashing lead me to a Windows reinstall last week. Even with that I was still having some weirdness even with a fully formatted boot drive and clean install. No viruses, no hardware errors, turns out the issue stems from a page file size being too small causing driver time outs and blue screens. Super weird stuff. Never had that happen before. Anyway things feel good now so I'll be continuing SnowRunner and ChaosGate. I'm also still jamming on fire clearance around here. Already seen two small-ish wild fires so I want to be really on it this year.