Side question: Is anyone here familiar with the intricacies of DisplayPort, USB-C, Thunderbolt, and multi-monitor setups?
If so, we could use some help, please, over at Help Setting Up Dual Monitors w/Work Laptop 
It is a player driven trip to various places for whatever reason the player organizers feel would be fun.
Typically organized through discord groups there would be an overall mission , such as ‘ let’s go survey keplers crest ‘ or “visit each of the 42 named regions “
A list of way points would be released and meet up times. Typically you would have a week to get to the next way point, have a meet up on the Sunday or what ever date for canyon racing , srv mountain climbing, guardian relic foot bal etc Followed by a mass jump, then on to the next waypoint. Expedition members would do exploration or what ever along the way. So a somewhat made up reason to travel around the galaxy and interact with other players
The distant worlds 1 and 2 expeditions are fairly legendary within the community, and also had ( and still have) a story team working on a narrative and releasing waypoint updates as the story progresses.
There was also some developer ( Fdev) interactions for the prior expeditions with in game community goals which ended up with some new stations being deployed way out in the black.
Distant Worlds 3 has been almost a year in the planning and story elements have been released . There is also a side application called metalense/meta elite which is entirely player driven missions and role play , I am not sure how it works , but it is very impressive.
Anyway a website made up for the expedition is here
Also on the fleetcom HQ discord server and numerous links on the various forums , Reddit etc
The Game Awards were kind of a dub, but Total Warhammer 40k is going to make money.
Yep.
Also excited for Divinity, which I wasn’t expecting; I was literally only watching to catch the TW40K trailer.
Interesting. Thanks for explaining!
Has anyone else heard anything about Half-Life 3 being tied to the Steam Machine release?
Sounds like pure rumor to me, though that’s also based on the million other HL3 rumors over the years. I’m pretty sure people said the same about the Steam Machine v0.5 launch.
Of course, even if it did it would still just be a PC game. Wouldn’t be like a traditional console exclusive.
I use OpenShell to deal with this, it puts back a lot of the customization that Microsoft has disabled. It also lets you have whichever style of Start menu you prefer. I set mine to the Windows 95 style which I have been using since Windows 95… in ‘95.
Thanks much. How do I make openshell show the total file size at the bottom of explorer windows?
(I am and have been using open shell for years, going back to when it was called classic shell.)
OK, I’ll use this thread this time…
I have a custom-built laptop system for your vetting pleasure:
$750
W11
2.34 GHz i7 8-core processor
3050 Ti graphics processor 4 Gb RAM
16 GB RAM
1 Tb hard drive
I know it isn’t cutting-edge, but I don’t need it to be.
How is it custom-built? Like configured from Framework or similar, or did you somehow DIY it?
What’s the model number on that CPU? Mainly looking for the generation. (12700, 13700, 14700, etc… Laptop versions may be slightly different numbers.)
I’d have to go back to the shop to ask and answer those questions. Just want to know if it is a decent system or not.
It’s a low-mid range laptop from 2021. You can buy much faster computers, but not for anywhere close to $750. It can run plenty of great games, especially if you’re only pushing a 1080p 60Hz display. For the latest games, you’re going to turn down the graphic settings to low or medium.
The main thing I worry about is: 1 Tb hard drive. Every PC needs an SSD these days.
Well, they’re kinda important if you want to know if you’re getting your money’s worth.
$750 for a generic laptop of those specs isn’t a particularly good deal. A quick search brought up this $799 one with better specs, for example: Acer Nitro V 15.6” Gaming Laptop - Intel Core i7-13620H Processor - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop GPU - Full HD IPS 165Hz Display - 16GB DDR4 - 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD - Windows 11 Home | Costco (and that’s just a random search, you can probably do better than that)
If it’s an older i7, released around the same time as the 3050, it may be even worse than that, as in being a poor buy. Especially if it still has a mechanical hard drive instead of a SSD.
But I don’t know what “custom-built” means in this context; like is it a special machine of some sort with some sort of custom chassis…?
What are you looking for…? If you’re shopping for a gaming laptop, there’s no reason to get that machine instead of a more modern one at the same price point. If you don’t care about gaming, then there’s no reason to get a laptop with a dedicated graphics card and you can still get a more modern laptop with better other specs (CPU, display, storage, etc.)
Just depends what you’re looking for. There isn’t really enough information to say, but from what little information you provided, I think that merchant is ripping you off…
(edit: To be clear, if this is from some small local store, trying to sell that machine at that price point would make me walk out the door and never come back. It’s not a good deal unless there’s something truly “custom” about it. If it’s a generic laptop with those specs, I would expect it to cost more like $300-$400 used.)
What do you mean by that? There should still be budget gaming laptops around that same price point with more recent CPUs and GPUs.
Was there something about the i7s of that particular generation that would make them faster than more recent CPUs? Otherwise, it shouldn’t be hard to find something better at a similar price.
Here’s a bunch more for under $850, and 3 of those are under $750 with much better specs.
I thought buddy already bought it and I didn’t want to dump on it.
Oh, sorry, I hadn’t considered that… I thought he was asking for shopping advice 
I was, no deal yet, told the guy I’d ask around and get back to him. Guess I’ll tell him no then.
Best Buy or bust I guess, I’ll be leaving town in a week, reluctant to do mailorder.
Understand I will NOT be running full chrome games on this rig, but wargames and strategy games-it’s for the road so I can continue with a gaming project while I am away from home.
So I’ll just put this one up for starters, $500 off sale, $750 out the door:
But OF COURSE it has AI garbage, which is why I wanted to steer clear of big retailers meat- or cyberspace.
I feel much better about that CPU, but as far as I can tell there is no video card. Only the chipset graphics from the CPU.
What are the top games you are hoping to play with whatever laptop you pick up?