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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • I love VRR when it works but man it can look horrible when it doesn’t. Prince of Persia; The Lost Crown on the PS5 runs great at 120hz with VRR… if you don’t mind the entire screen flickering rhythmically every few seconds, just like this article describes.

    Honestly, not having a new Xbox, the best I’ve seen VRR look in action on my TV is on my docked Steam Deck, but that has its own problems - the display drivers on the deck completely wig out if you leave VRR on when putting it into sleep, and if VRR is on on your TV the picture won’t even display after waking it if you have the resolution set to anything other than “automatic.” (You can sort of work around this by keeping the cursor on the VRR toggle and “blindly” toggling it in the quick menu on wake, but still… wonky stuff that really proves how many years it takes for things to catch up to display innovations.)


  • Really liked the first game for the first few hours, then it turned into grind in which constant challenge-free repetition of levels to build your army was more important than the creative rhythm/strategy combat that made it unique. A lot of handheld games from that time did that (The World Ends With You, Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core, and Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops, to name a few) - they’d have excellent core gameplay but would absolutely be loaded with tedious filler with the idea that you’d do that stuff on your daily train commute or whatever.


  • I actually just spent a year or so doing this during break times at work with EAC. I ripped everything to WAV because storage is cheap, it’s a bit faster, and you can tag WAV files now, so I saw little reason not to, though FLAC is usually just as good and has wider support, so it’s up to you (you can easily convert back and forth if you change your mind, since either is lossless).

    The key factor with EAC is to use it with AccurateRip (which is built-in to the app, but you need to configure it with your drive properly for it to work). There’s a lot of info on configuring this online but like with anything that touches audiophile communities, there’s a lot of bullshit you have to sort through as well. You’ll see a lot of people saying to set it to the slowest option to ensure a perfect rip, but 99% of the time you don’t need to do this - AccurateRip will compare your CD to what other users have ripped and ensure a bit-perfect match. In the event you have a rare CD or it doesn’t match the database, that’s when you set EAC to run slowly (secure mode) and set it to test and verify the tracks. After ripping, I use MP3tag to search musicbrainz or Discogs to tag the tracks and it’s good to go. In the event you’ve got a slightly defective disc AccurateRip/EAC point out errors in, you can even use an app called CUEtools to scan the database and repair the files.

    I was paranoid about getting everything right on my first try, since the last thing I wanted to do was rip every CD I had again (well over a thousand) due to some dumb configuration mistake, so feel free to send me a message if you’ve got any questions. I nerded out and took a stupid amount of step by step notes about what I did so if this post isn’t long and annoying enough for you, I got plenty more where that came from.


  • Haha, “the only thing it has going for it” is 100% why it’s important and we need to keep it around. I’m a big fan of it not being a crapshoot as to whether or not my expensive movie ticket is going to be a miserable experience due to an awful audience.

    (Bonus Alamo protip: get the chocolate chip cookies. Freshly baked and delicious. I write “cookies” on a slip after they take my main order but before the movie starts, then prop it up when I’m finished. Cookies then miraculously appear midway through the movie - half the time I don’t even see those ninjas deliver them.)