Melted Dreams

Sometimes it's for the best to not be one of the first to be doing/getting something.  The whole early 5000 series NVIDIA GPU release seems like a fiasco.  Firstly, it was apparently most of a paper release with evidence of extremely meager supplies (so meager that Microcenter located in southern California got something like 67 total 5090's).  Your chances of actually obtaining a card were miniscule, but that might not be a bad thing.  There have been reports that some cards are having the same problem as the early 4090's--those absolute beastly cards suck up a massive amount of power and have been melting power cables.  What a bummer to actually get a card and then have it disintegrate before your eyes!  I'm sure those few people who actually experienced this will be getting a replacement...someday when NVIDIA actually starts pumping out GPU's (rumored to be anywhere from March to June).  And another piece of bad news is that with the new tariffs on China, those cards are going to cost as much as $400 more.

Personally, I'm pulling for AMD to release their 9000 series cards and for things to go much more smoothly.  I'd love to see AMD start grabbing more of the GPU market.  The new AMD cards are supposedly going to be released in March.  I think a lot of gamers are keeping their fingers crossed given that the 5000 series launch has been so ridiculous.

(If you want to listen/watch and entire podcast about this issue here's a link to Hardware Unboxed discussing this issue--link)

If you want a great breakdown of all the 5000 series woes, JayzTwoCents breaks it down well in this video:

My Satisfactory dreams of saving the human race from vague disaster are slowly materializing.  I've reached what appears to be the final phase (9) and am working through unlocking even more complicated machinery.  Completing this phase, of course, requires a mindboggling array of fancy items.  One of my big goals is to build another nuclear reactor that runs on plutonium rods (plutonium rods are a different fuel source that are built from the waste of uranium reactors--it's a whole other complicated process to piece together).  With this extra power I could even further refine my sadly inefficient production lines.

There has always got to be something to look forward to and I'm greatly anticipating the March 4th release of Two Point Museum!  I've seen lots of great videos of the different kinds of museums you can build--the stock natural history variety but aquariums and goofier supernatural themed affairs.  I'm not going to pre-order or buy the slightly spendier "explorer edition" that offers up a week of early access play and a bunch of mostly cosmetic/bonus items, but I'm very much looking forward to the regular release.

I've also reconsidered my opinion of the "early access" bonus days that some games are offering.  It might be a good strategy because it allows developers to have a smaller number of players interacting with the game and discovering issues/bugs before the full release (and then hopefully addressing these issues).  I just don't think it's worth paying 1/3 more of the price (although there are some parts of the explorers edition that do seem nice--like an additional museum to run).

Happy post-Valentines day (I'm hoping to grab some cheap candy--ha!) and happy gaming!