@gjacobse so far so good. We've got the beta launched and under way. I threw out my back in Nov and it hasn't gotten better, so I finally went to get some physical therapy. Hopefully I don't have any horrible ergonomics at my home office

If you contact Webroot support they should be able to remove that block for you. The new guy is @JoshP_Webroot and he should be able to help as well.

Mass Effect 2 is free on Origin today:
https://www.origin.com/usa/en-us/store/mass-effect/mass-effect-2/standard-edition

@scottalanmiller said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@scottalanmiller said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@scottalanmiller said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Reid-Cooper said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Reid-Cooper said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

This article has more details:
http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/03/dell-launches-4-inspiron-and-alienware-gaming-laptops-with-intel-kaby-lake-processors/

GTX 1050 and i5 Kaby Lake.

With a 4k display, that graphics card isn't going to be able to do very high settings at 4k. 4GB also seems a little skimpy. Still, for $800 it isn't bad. Like @wirestyle22 said, do they need a laptop? Otherwise you could get better value with a Steam machine type box and hook it up to their existing TV.

You wrote this while I was typing. So that's a decent GTX card. But 4K display seems wrong.

My guess is either it's mainly for viewing 4k video content (although at 15inches, who cares?) or simply the 4k screens are a cheaper price point due to manufacturing scaling than a 1080p screen. Or just marketing.

Could just set games to quarter resolution, but that is annoying.

Yeah either that or just turn down/off anti-aliasing and drop a few other settings down depending on the game. I'm guessing @Dominica's parents probably are at that age where it frankly doesn't matter due to their age and eyesight.

A bigger issue will likely be scaling. Lots of games barf if you use Windows scaling to make things big enough to see. And especially games that they like.

As long as you're going in multiples of the resolution it won't be to bad. So if they set everything to 1080p instead of 4k it shouldn't look horrible.

I mean that the games actually won't run.

True, although GOG has done a good job of testing for the most part, for older games. Still there are some that just won't look good or run at larger resolutions. You could set the monitor itself to a lower resolution instead of upscaling the game though, no?

There are entire categories of casual games that don't even function on scaled resolutions. The underlying engines won't accommodate it. Hidden object games are a big one.

Yeah I never play those so I guess I'm missing out on that special area of troubleshooting

@scottalanmiller said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@scottalanmiller said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Reid-Cooper said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Reid-Cooper said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

This article has more details:
http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/03/dell-launches-4-inspiron-and-alienware-gaming-laptops-with-intel-kaby-lake-processors/

GTX 1050 and i5 Kaby Lake.

With a 4k display, that graphics card isn't going to be able to do very high settings at 4k. 4GB also seems a little skimpy. Still, for $800 it isn't bad. Like @wirestyle22 said, do they need a laptop? Otherwise you could get better value with a Steam machine type box and hook it up to their existing TV.

You wrote this while I was typing. So that's a decent GTX card. But 4K display seems wrong.

My guess is either it's mainly for viewing 4k video content (although at 15inches, who cares?) or simply the 4k screens are a cheaper price point due to manufacturing scaling than a 1080p screen. Or just marketing.

Could just set games to quarter resolution, but that is annoying.

Yeah either that or just turn down/off anti-aliasing and drop a few other settings down depending on the game. I'm guessing @Dominica's parents probably are at that age where it frankly doesn't matter due to their age and eyesight.

A bigger issue will likely be scaling. Lots of games barf if you use Windows scaling to make things big enough to see. And especially games that they like.

As long as you're going in multiples of the resolution it won't be to bad. So if they set everything to 1080p instead of 4k it shouldn't look horrible.

I mean that the games actually won't run.

True, although GOG has done a good job of testing for the most part, for older games. Still there are some that just won't look good or run at larger resolutions. You could set the monitor itself to a lower resolution instead of upscaling the game though, no?

@coliver said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@Nic said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

I recently rediscovered the MUD that made me swear off MMORPG gaming for life. It sucked me in to the point where I was going to work, playing and sleeping and that was it:
http://mud.arctic.org/

Thankfully I just missed the MUD era... I think I would have been in the same boat as you though.

At least the experience taught me to avoid them for the rest of my life. Same reason I'm avoiding Minecraft as well. Ain't nobody got time fo dat.

I recently rediscovered the MUD that made me swear off MMORPG gaming for life. It sucked me in to the point where I was going to work, playing and sleeping and that was it:
http://mud.arctic.org/

@scottalanmiller said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Reid-Cooper said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Reid-Cooper said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

This article has more details:
http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/03/dell-launches-4-inspiron-and-alienware-gaming-laptops-with-intel-kaby-lake-processors/

GTX 1050 and i5 Kaby Lake.

With a 4k display, that graphics card isn't going to be able to do very high settings at 4k. 4GB also seems a little skimpy. Still, for $800 it isn't bad. Like @wirestyle22 said, do they need a laptop? Otherwise you could get better value with a Steam machine type box and hook it up to their existing TV.

You wrote this while I was typing. So that's a decent GTX card. But 4K display seems wrong.

My guess is either it's mainly for viewing 4k video content (although at 15inches, who cares?) or simply the 4k screens are a cheaper price point due to manufacturing scaling than a 1080p screen. Or just marketing.

Could just set games to quarter resolution, but that is annoying.

Yeah either that or just turn down/off anti-aliasing and drop a few other settings down depending on the game. I'm guessing @Dominica's parents probably are at that age where it frankly doesn't matter due to their age and eyesight.

A bigger issue will likely be scaling. Lots of games barf if you use Windows scaling to make things big enough to see. And especially games that they like.

As long as you're going in multiples of the resolution it won't be to bad. So if they set everything to 1080p instead of 4k it shouldn't look horrible.

@Reid-Cooper said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Reid-Cooper said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

This article has more details:
http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/03/dell-launches-4-inspiron-and-alienware-gaming-laptops-with-intel-kaby-lake-processors/

GTX 1050 and i5 Kaby Lake.

With a 4k display, that graphics card isn't going to be able to do very high settings at 4k. 4GB also seems a little skimpy. Still, for $800 it isn't bad. Like @wirestyle22 said, do they need a laptop? Otherwise you could get better value with a Steam machine type box and hook it up to their existing TV.

You wrote this while I was typing. So that's a decent GTX card. But 4K display seems wrong.

My guess is either it's mainly for viewing 4k video content (although at 15inches, who cares?) or simply the 4k screens are a cheaper price point due to manufacturing scaling than a 1080p screen. Or just marketing.

Could just set games to quarter resolution, but that is annoying.

Yeah either that or just turn down/off anti-aliasing and drop a few other settings down depending on the game. I'm guessing @Dominica's parents probably are at that age where it frankly doesn't matter due to their age and eyesight.

@Reid-Cooper said in New Dell gaming laptop:

@Nic said in New Dell gaming laptop:

This article has more details:
http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/03/dell-launches-4-inspiron-and-alienware-gaming-laptops-with-intel-kaby-lake-processors/

GTX 1050 and i5 Kaby Lake.

With a 4k display, that graphics card isn't going to be able to do very high settings at 4k. 4GB also seems a little skimpy. Still, for $800 it isn't bad. Like @wirestyle22 said, do they need a laptop? Otherwise you could get better value with a Steam machine type box and hook it up to their existing TV.

You wrote this while I was typing. So that's a decent GTX card. But 4K display seems wrong.

My guess is either it's mainly for viewing 4k video content (although at 15inches, who cares?) or simply the 4k screens are a cheaper price point due to manufacturing scaling than a 1080p screen. Or just marketing.

This article has more details:
http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/03/dell-launches-4-inspiron-and-alienware-gaming-laptops-with-intel-kaby-lake-processors/

GTX 1050 and i5 Kaby Lake.

With a 4k display, that graphics card isn't going to be able to do very high settings at 4k. 4GB also seems a little skimpy. Still, for $800 it isn't bad. Like @wirestyle22 said, do they need a laptop? Otherwise you could get better value with a Steam machine type box and hook it up to their existing TV.

One of the creators was on the Gamers with Jobs podcast a while back: https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1294601

@wirestyle22 said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@scottalanmiller said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@Grey said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@scottalanmiller @dashrender Three hours? Filthy casuals. Try Civilization where it can take days to play through a whole game, and weeks in multiplayer. The devs even made changes to force a faster playstyle so with changes like that enabled, the timing can be brought down to 2-5 hours, though it is cheating in my mind.
Also, ARK is persistant so my ARK 'game' has been going on now for more than a year.

Civilization is WAY too casual for any of us. Turn based just doesn't cut it. If you wait for people we'd fall asleep. RTS means that the length of the game is how long it takes to play. With turn based you have to figure out how long people are just sitting around doing nothing and divide the time by the number of players. I've tried Civ before... just so slow.

Try Offworld Trading Company. It's like 30 minutes a game max, but it's very complex and interesting! Made by one of the guys who did Civ IV. Real time.

It's inspired by the old MULE game. Economic warfare on a foreign planet. Just a lot more complex than the old MULE version (which you can still play here, btw: http://www.planetmule.com/ )

@MattSpeller said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@Nic said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

I've just had to rely on a good old fashioned space heater, with the cold snap in Colorado. I can only imagine what my heating bill is now that I work from home and spend the day in the basement. At least I'll get a write-off for a home office.

Ahhh the old game of warmy-coldy-poor'y

I see you've played knifey-spooney before!

I've just had to rely on a good old fashioned space heater, with the cold snap in Colorado. I can only imagine what my heating bill is now that I work from home and spend the day in the basement. At least I'll get a write-off for a home office.

@coliver said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@travisdh1 said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@Nic said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@scottalanmiller said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

My basement is too big for my gaming rig to heat it up

You need a better gaming rig!

That's really the only solution.

I already have a GTX 1080 powering a 1440p monitor - I guess I need to go SLI.

@scottalanmiller said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

My basement is too big for my gaming rig to heat it up

@RojoLoco said in New Privacy Policy at EverNote:

@Nic said in New Privacy Policy at EverNote:

The only thing I can think of is that they had the retraction ready to go at the time the made the initial change.

If that is the case, that almost makes it worse... like they wanted to see if they could get away with it, but knowing they wouldn't.

Stranger things have happened The positive possibility is that there were two factions in the company, one wanting the change and the other cautioning about the disaster. The compromise they came to was to float the balloon but have a plan b in place for disaster. The cynical possibility is what you describe; and attitude of "let's see if they buy it but if not here's the retraction".

The only thing I can think of is that they had the retraction ready to go at the time the made the initial change.

@scottalanmiller I'm more referring to the bureaucracy and institutional inertia. Even with a huge outcry it usually takes companies a week to respond to major fuckups like this, even if they start the process on day 1.