Community MetaSteam | November 2021 - Bienvenidos a Mexico. Sombreros no incluidos

Aaron D.

MetaMember
Jul 10, 2019
987
4,636
93
Fell into a SnowRunner hole this week. Like a 60 hrs. in just 8 days-sized hole.

Good gravy.

Always enjoyed Spintires and MudRunner but man, SnowRunner is some next-level s**t.

I got on the Mundane Vehicle Simulator train kinda early with Farming Simulator 2013. So when Spintires was announced I even had it pre-ordered on Steam before reviews & impressions dropped.

But when SnowRunner was announced as EGS exclusive, I bristled but decided to wait it out. Fast-forward to the present and I noticed SR had some decent sale prices going, a tad under 50% off. Another side effect of EGS shenanigans is I rarely jump on anticipated releases Day One when they make it to Steam, opting instead (so far) for significant price drops. Hey I'm Irish, so holding even the mildest of grudges for a lifetime is one of the by-laws.

Anyway, picked up the Premium Edition that included the Year One Season Pass. Played for maybe a dozen hours. And immediately nabbed the Year Two Season Pass that was also on sale.

This game, man.

Won't bore you with the details as there's plenty of video reviews out there. But man does it check all the boxes.

I've also come to realize at this stage of the game, my favorite gameplay loop is self-directed sandbox tinkering. Titles that I fire up and think, "Okay, what do I want to do today?". That can be anything from Factorio to RimWorld, Stellaris, Dysmantle, Logistical: Earth, Euro Truck, Farm Sim & more. The freedom to choose my own goals & engagement levels based on how I'm feeling when I press the start button is just the best.

So yeah. SnowRunner...it's pretty good!
 

Mivey

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2018
4,055
11,546
113
is 109 PPI good for a monitor?
That's what my 27 inch, 1440p monitor has, and it's pretty good. I would probably increase that to 4K at the same size one day to get 160 PPI, which I would think as my endgame in terms of image sharpness. Anything above that would be completely meaningless unless you literally lean your head right against the screen while playing, lol.
 
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Lashley

Computer Cowboy 🤠
That's what my 27 inch, 1440p monitor has, and it's pretty good. I would probably increase that to 4K at the same size one day to get 160 PPI, which I would think as my endgame in terms of image sharpness. Anything above that would be completely meaningless unless you literally lean your head right against the screen while playing, lol.
yeah I'm dumb and thought PPI could be different 😂

I also have a 27" 1440p monitor lol, also a 4k one, but the 1440p is mainly used since higher refresh
 
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PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
3,637
5,923
113
28
California
Okay so the Steam deck and dev kits make a lot more sense.

It seems that some early models of the Steam Deck had USB issues, so even though it used USB Type C it was possible for the connection to come "lose" and therefore not work any more (which basically also means not being able to charge it).
 

yuraya

MetaMember
May 4, 2019
2,564
5,945
113
Weird for them to just stealth drop the multi like that.

I'm guessing it was ready to release a long time ago and the year delay was mostly about the campaign.
 
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toxicitizen

MetaMember
Oct 24, 2018
1,591
4,081
113
Sorry for the off-topic post but I could really use some advice here. I'm having an issue with the monitor I bought a month ago and it's hard to troubleshoot when I don't even know what I'm looking at and what to google for.

Basically a few days ago I started noticing weird vertical lines across the screen. They don't always appear and I can't really figure out what consistently makes them show up except for two factors.

1) It's never directly on the desktop, always on something being rendered on top of it. So far I've been able to make them appear by drag-clicking with my mouse to create a selection box, videos (both VLC and youtube) and just now even the Steam and MS Paint interfaces.

2) The problem SEEMS to go away if I change my monitor's refresh rate to any value below its maximum of 240hz or go in my monitor's settings and switch displayport down to anything below version 1.4 but I haven't tested this extensively. Sometimes even at 240hz I can't make the lines appear, for some reason.

So far I've tried the usual: upgrading drivers, testing different ports, different monitors. I think I can safely say I ruled out my GPU as the issue. The problem also seems to go away if I switch to an HDMI cable but the issue is present on displayport on all, well, ports. So far I've found the best results online by googling for "banding" but I really have no idea if that's what's actually happening here.

Here's some crappy pics I took with my phone, since obviously the issue doesn't show up on screenshots. For some reason it looks especially bad on the Steam download page.


Not sure why the lines look white on Steam, they usually look black like this:


I'm gonna have to RMA thing thing, aren't I? :weary-face:
 

xxr

Member of the Abyss
Dec 21, 2018
561
1,488
93
Anyone uses the Dualsense as their daily driver on PC?

Neet tips and things you can do with it in steam and with 3rd party software.
I'm using it regularly, but I don't have much to say really. Works perfectly out of the box with Steam Input enabled.

I mean you can enable gyro if you wish, bind the big touchpad to something else if you prefer, and there's also a handy screenshot button but I think it needs to be configured for each game.
 
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EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
7,337
12,411
113
toxicitizen
Do you have another Display Port Cable you can try? Display Port is really susceptible to issues due to bad cables.
I made sure i bought some certified Display Port cables but i'm damned if i can find the manufacturer name or packaging at the moment.

oh, it's Accell. ( Other good certified cables are available. :) )

The latest cable i bought was this one:
Amazon product
 

Sobatronix

MetaMember
Mar 9, 2021
766
2,479
93
Downloading right now! With my shitty internet I might have it downloaded by tomorrow morning lol. Hopefully, they optimized it a little more for PC, because even though I loved the beta I was getting like 40 fps on big team battle on my GTX 1080 :(
 
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toxicitizen

MetaMember
Oct 24, 2018
1,591
4,081
113
toxicitizen
Do you have another Display Port Cable you can try? Display Port is really susceptible to issues due to bad cables.
I made sure i bought some certified Display Port cables but i'm damned if i can find the manufacturer name or packaging at the moment.

oh, it's Accell. ( Other good certified cables are available. :) )

The latest cable i bought was this one:
Amazon product
I don't have another cable, no. This monitor is the first time I've used displayport. I'll probably order a new cable to test it out. The one that came with the monitor is insanely short, anyway. Thanks for the recommendation!

That looks like a GPU issue, not a monitor one.
That's what i feared at first but it doesn't happen on my other monitor. Although it's connected through DVI now that I think about it. Could be an issue with the GPU's displayport, I suppose... :weary-face:
 
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Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
854
2,390
93
I'm gonna have to RMA thing thing, aren't I? :weary-face:
Intermittent problems are a pain to diagnose. You description sounded like a GPU/driver issue, specially if it appears when interacting with the interface, but you said you tried different monitors so that makes things more.. difficult.

EdwardTivrusky's suggestion of the cable makes a lot of sense since you said that dropping below version 1.4 or 240hz helps, and that reduces the bandwidth. I would try a new one.

EDIT: If that doesn't work, I would also try booting from live-usb Linux distro and see if you can replicate the issue (at 240hz). If it also happens there than it's either the GPU or monitor... and in the current market, I would RMA the monitor first.
 
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toxicitizen

MetaMember
Oct 24, 2018
1,591
4,081
113
Intermittent problems are a pain to diagnose. You description sounded like a GPU/driver issue, specially if it appears when interacting with the interface, but you said you tried different monitors so that makes things more.. difficult.

EdwardTivrusky's suggestion of the cable makes a lot of sense since you said that dropping below version 1.4 or 240hz helps, and that reduces the bandwidth. I would try a new one.
Just ordered one off Amazon. Should get here tomorrow. Wanted to replace the insanely short one that came with the monitor anyway. With some luck that'll make the problem go away. Even though I have another monitor and my old GTX 960 lying around, replacing a cable would be the least troublesome solution by far lol...
 

Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
854
2,390
93
Uh... I'm guessing this Halo thing is not going to make my connections issues on Forza Horizon 5 any better.... you would think that with Azure Microsoft studios would be better at handling the servers getting hammered.

I should probably uninstall it anyway, before I get sucked into the never ending Batlepass thing.
 
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toxicitizen

MetaMember
Oct 24, 2018
1,591
4,081
113
That monitor issue does sound like it could be a controller/monitor electronics problem to me, especially if it only happens at maximum refresh rate.
Even considering that it doesn't seem to happen on the desktop directly? That was my one hope that it's not a monitor defect...

edit: Nvm, so much for that. On a whim I took a screenshot of a situation where the lines appear and set that as my desktop background and it does make them appear on the desktop directly. I think my wallpaper just didn't have the right colors to trigger the problem. Fuck my life lmao
 
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