Non-gay bro thread a.k.a. Random offtopic stuff.

[The Grayfox]

Not worried about the expectations, having heard live versions of two of the four songs already. Plus the snippets all sound amazing. For me, Wintersun doesn't put out bad music. The path Jari takes to get there? Not the greatest, but I've never had a bad thing to say about his music.

 

[DE4life]

You occasionally get non-single tracks leaked ahead of time as well, which can mean you've heard literally half of the album before it even drops. It definitely takes away from the experience.

Yes theoretically you can ignore the singles and wait, but then you miss out on the immediate reaction from other people and discussing it with them. By the time the album drops (which can be 6-9 months later) it isn't the same.

 

[Xpyro125]

I didn’t care about Not Nothing and TLE when I listened to Endtime Signals in full the first time, but they were quite a bit better than I remembered upon listening to the album with my father. The singles, usually save for one I love (Except on The Vertigo Trigger, didn’t have any singles I loved), have had that effect for me rather massively recently. It doesn’t fuck up whole albums for me, but it definitely fucks up the singles.
Edit: It only really fucked up Feel What I Believe on DOTL for me, but that was just as much due to so many songs on the album being 4/4 and 100 BPM.

 

[eochaid]

Not related but I've just seen it and couldn't stop laughing.

 

[DE4life]

Lol, yeah, my girlfriend is regularly confused about how English works. She speaks it really well, but pronunciation can be very tricky.

I'm posting from my new PC. Spent most of the day setting it up and downloading everything. Seems to be running well. I didn't realise the case would have all of these LED lights. I guess that's just how modern PCs are now? My previous PC had no lights on it. On this one the graphics card has an LED rotating between colours and so do the case fans. My old PC didn't even have case fans. I pretty much had to upgrade to Windows 11, but despite hearing a lot of bad things about it, I'm having no issues. Running smooth, all the usual programs I use seem to have installed fine.

Anyhow, I haven't tried the PSVR2 yet. I did also buy an Oculus Rift S for £50 from eBay whilst I was away which was also here when I returned from Finland yesterday. The Rift S works great, super easy to set up and use. For £50 it's a very cheap way to get into VR, and you don't need a massively powerful rig by modern standards to use it either.

 

[The Grayfox]

English is a very weird language to be honest. Most languages have their weird intricacies anyway, but English is one of the hardest to learn for a reason. Do you speak any Finnish?

I will avoid upgrading to Windows 11 at all costs just because of some of their choices. I know I'm weird, but I've had my Windows setup the same way for 20+ years, which is similar to a Mac setup -- my taskbar is at the top of my screen instead of bottom and I have a floating dock at the bottom. I refuse to use any OS that will not let me set up my desktop how I want it. And whether you use Windows "as intended" or not, nobody should be standing for companies removing customization imo. It is a huge pet peeve of mine. It drives me fucking insane when features or options that have, for the most part, been there all along, are removed for whatever reason. Yes, it is more common to have the taskbar at the bottom, but there are a lot of people that prefer it up top or even on the side. It's always been a native feature. And I'm not using third party software to do it either. Until that is added back, it's Windows 10 for me.

My case does have LEDs on it and the fans all have them as well, but I didn't plug any of it in because I generally find it distracting, so you could probably do the same if you wanted.

 

[eochaid]

Even my ram cards have led lights, and my computer is five years old now.

 

[DE4life]

English is a very weird language to be honest. Most languages have their weird intricacies anyway, but English is one of the hardest to learn for a reason. Do you speak any Finnish?

I will avoid upgrading to Windows 11 at all costs just because of some of their choices. I know I'm weird, but I've had my Windows setup the same way for 20+ years, which is similar to a Mac setup -- my taskbar is at the top of my screen instead of bottom and I have a floating dock at the bottom. I refuse to use any OS that will not let me set up my desktop how I want it. And whether you use Windows "as intended" or not, nobody should be standing for companies removing customization imo. It is a huge pet peeve of mine. It drives me fucking insane when features or options that have, for the most part, been there all along, are removed for whatever reason. Yes, it is more common to have the taskbar at the bottom, but there are a lot of people that prefer it up top or even on the side. It's always been a native feature. And I'm not using third party software to do it either. Until that is added back, it's Windows 10 for me.

My case does have LEDs on it and the fans all have them as well, but I didn't plug any of it in because I generally find it distracting, so you could probably do the same if you wanted.

Yeah, once you see the language from a foreigner's perspective you start to understand how strange English is. You kind of ignore the things that don't seem to make logical sense just because it's your natural language. Finnish has plenty of things like this as well, mind. There are words that are literally spelt the same way but are different depending on how you pronounce it, for example. I know a few words and basic sentences in Finnish but that's about it. It's one of the hardest languages in the world for English speakers to learn, I believe, and most of them speak English, so at the moment I can get by with the basics. I may try to improve a little, but it's one of those languages where you really need to be in the country, immersed and using it every day.

I've avoided upgrading to Windows 11 on all my other machines, similarly because I'm happy with the setups I have on those. With that said I have no serious attachment to Windows 10, and it has some annoying quirks. My taskbar is the classic layout (startup button on the left, apps in the middle, everything else on the far right) and you can set up W11 in this way too, so that's fine. The start menu is a bit different, but I'm okay with it. So far at least everything I've installed runs perfectly well, so no issues yet.

I'll probably leave the LEDs for now as they aren't really bothering me. I wouldn't care if they weren't there either, though.

I ended up staying up until 2am on the Rift S, lol. Mainly on Google Earth VR - that app is wild. It's been out since 2018 and hasn't been updated since, but it's still an awesome experience. Curious to see how stuff looks on the PSVR2, but I need another DisplayPort cable first. I'd forgotten I'd need one for the PC and one for the headset, and whilst I have a bunch of HDMI cables I only have two DP cables (and one is being used on a separate PC), so it's yet another order from Amazon. At least they're only £5 each.

 

[DE4life]

Also, being able to play Half Life Alyx on Ultra settings and state my disdain for Benson in the VR world as well as the real world is very nice indeed.

 

[The Grayfox]

I remember using Google Maps to go exploring places and finding that pretty fascinating, so I imagine doing so in VR is very cool. I used to see if I could find the shittiest neighborhoods in the world and find weird things. I remember seeing chalk outlines in one place. Go take a stroll through Bessemer, Alabama and tell me how you like it. I think your chances of being a victim of crime there are something ridiculous like 1 in 10.

 

[eochaid]

Yeah, once you see the language from a foreigner's perspective you start to understand how strange English is. You kind of ignore the things that don't seem to make logical sense just because it's your natural language

It's not the language. It's the writing. It makes no sense.

 

[DE4life]

It's not the language. It's the writing. It makes no sense.

Idk, I mean I feel like they are in many ways two sides of the same coin, but either way, it's really peculiar.

PSVR2 tested today. Working fine on PS5. Played No Man's Sky and it seemed cool, although I had no idea what I was doing. I'm not a racing game guy, but I've read a lot about Gran Turismo 7 being an ultimate VR experience, so I've ordered that to test it out. Arrives tomorrow. I prefer having a physical copy to a digital copy, and it was cheaper physically anyway, so win-win for me.

The headset was fine on the PC, but the controllers were not. Have to be connected by Bluetooth which is instant shit. Had to order an £18 bluetooth adapter that Sony says works with their controllers. It had better. Connecting it up wasn't too difficult, it's a lot of wires but oh well.

I was able to play Elite: Dangerous and GTA V VR using the headset, since both of those use a standard gamepad rather than VR controllers. Elite looked absolutely stunning. Because the PSVR2 is an OLED screen, it really brings out blacks well, which is useful in a game where you're mostly flying in space. The majority of modern headsets use LED screens, and whilst they are quite fine as well (for me at least), blacks look more like washed out greys. So, PSVR2 does a great job with Elite. As far as GTA V is concerned, not so good. The game itself looked sharp and nice, but there was loads of weird shimmering in the distance. Didn't see that when using the Rift S. Possibly just the OLED screen not playing well with the unofficial mod. A shame, but not a huge problem. I'll just use the Rift S or the Quest 2 for GTA V.

Only concern was that when I unplugged the headset and shut down the adapter I got a BSOD. Been a while since I've seen one of those. Hopefully a one off.

 

[DE4life]

I mentioned EmuVR a few posts back, a couple of examples below.

This one is showing how the VHS player works. It essentially takes video files you put in a folder, attaches those filenames to the virtual VHS cassette and then loads the files when you insert the tape into the VHS player. I intentionally selected three VHS quality files, of course, for authenticity. A classic American TV show, a classic In Flames show and a classic wrestling event. Good times.



Second vid shows how the consoles work. The app gives you a range of different old school monitors/TVs to work with. You also have an array of consoles available. You have to supply your own ROM files, along with cartridge artwork, but it's a simple process. At the end I am actually playing the game - I had a gamepad in my lap, and when selecting the screen with the VR controller, I can then switch to the gamepad to play. In theory you can use the VR controllers for that as well, but... gamepad is away better.



No idea why the mouse cursor randomly shows up in the middle of the first video and all of the second. Annoying.

This is the kind of app that I feel could be a real selling point to a mobile VR device. I can't believe it's impossible to make something like this for the Quest 2 or 3.

Oh, you can also put your own bedsheets and posters up, but that was probably pretty obvious from the videos

 

[DE4life]

I remember using Google Maps to go exploring places and finding that pretty fascinating, so I imagine doing so in VR is very cool. I used to see if I could find the shittiest neighborhoods in the world and find weird things. I remember seeing chalk outlines in one place. Go take a stroll through Bessemer, Alabama and tell me how you like it. I think your chances of being a victim of crime there are something ridiculous like 1 in 10.

It is indeed quite awesome flying around the world in VR, assuming you have VR legs, anyway. There's an app on the Quest called Wander which exclusively does Street View, which isn't quite as cool as flying all around the world, but it does have a time lapse style feature, where in some locations you can go back as many years as the google camera (or user submitted 360 photo) goes. Around here there are Street Views going from 2009 and then various years up until the present day. It's pretty cool to go back 10-15 years and see how much certain areas have changed. That's something Google Earth doesn't offer.

Lol, I'll check out Bessemer from the safety of the virtual world for sure. Sounds interesting. And by interesting I mainly mean terrifying.

 

[The Grayfox]

Damn, that looks cool as hell. How customizable is it outside of posters and the bed? Are there different rooms? Can you change the layout of the room? Either way, it looks pretty immersive.

 

[DE4life]

Damn, that looks cool as hell. How customizable is it outside of posters and the bed? Are there different rooms? Can you change the layout of the room? Either way, it looks pretty immersive.

In terms of customisation there isn't much more than just the posters and the bedsheets/pillowcase. You are also locked to that room - I guess as a one man project there are limits to the time he has to expand the app/game/whatever you want to call it. But yeah it's a very cool little program. It's a shame there aren't more apps similar to this.

 

[DE4life]

So, I went to Bessemer... wow, majorly desolate. I don't think I've ever seen so many dilapidated houses across a single area before. Presumably with people actually living in them.

 

[The Grayfox]

Yeah, welcome to America. Not actually, but there's definitely a lot of places like that, especially in the deep south. Pretty depressing. Even California, which so many people who don't live here think is all a beach paradise, has those areas. Granted, there's obviously a lot of beaches too. Living up north though, I've definitely had people think it's the same thing as Venice Beach, not realizing how huge California really is. It's way, way more woodsy up here, lots of forests, mountains and vineyards, which suits me more than beaches. But up north is also home to Oakland, Stockton and other places that have the potential to be pretty brutal.

 

[DE4life]

Looks like the mighty Rovers are signing one of Slave's boys, Balázs Tóth. He'd better be decent, or I'm holding @Jester Slave personally responsible.

 

[The Grayfox]

I think everyone around here holds Slave responsible for everything. Unless it's positive in which case he gets no credit.


I know Wintersun isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I'm blown away by Time II. I wish I didn't have to wait 14 years for it, but it's truly something special for me. I can't wait to get the remixed version of Time I on Friday and listen to this bad boy the way it was meant to be experienced.