You can purchase the game in a web browser and use steamcmd, which (one could argue is still requiring an app) to download and install. In cases where the publisher is not invoking DRM (Larian games like BG3, DoS2, etc. for instance) once the game is downloaded you can certainly archive it and transfer it to another machine and run it there without Steam. In the end you are likely purchasing proprietary software (though again it’s not always the case on Steam) and we could say you don’t really own that either, so maybe take your complaints to the publishers or just use the power of your wallet and not buy those games and support libre games, of which there are many, another way. That said, Valve is actively making things better for users by developing and contributing to useful libre software like Proton (WINE, DXVK, etc) that can work outside of Steam.

AMD is far ahead in the performance/watt here. Intel seems to have lots of trouble providing even stable drivers for their XE/Arc graphics on Linux. Maybe their Battlemage generation will have better support but it’s not something I’d count on. So many of these handhelds try to shoehorn Windows into this form factor but MS business practices are anti-user at any opportunity to extract personal data or money.

Minetest engine and its games are great fun. It’s super easy to mod with Lua scripts and there is awesome documentation. ContentDB has an abundant selection of games and mods for anyone to customize their play.

Not unlike the species of it’s creators, go figure.

Immerse us in dlc and micropayments no doubt. We pay for PSN to have multi-player and they kill servers beloved by many. RIP LBP series

Look up Dr. Ronald L Mallett. This astrophysicist has some interesting takes on practical time travel. There’s a great interview with him by Fraser Cain of Universe Today.

Pretty sure there is no absolute universal position, everything in the universe being in motion relative to everything else as the universe expands, but that does not disprove your point anyways.

best of luck on your build!

I tried the Oculus 2 and liked that it gave me a very physical way to game as opposed to sitting in a chair. Unfortunately the weight on my head and sweaty headpiece were ultimately a turnoff. The glasses style devices (XReal, Viture, etc) are a much better fit for me and mine has 3DOF motion tracking so it works as mouse view in most games without requiring VR support. It’s much lighter and I can wear them for hours without the strain and sweat. Newer glasses are coming with cameras for 6DOF, hand tracking and eye-tracking is not to far off as well.

These glasses are powered by a phone or a pc with USB DP alt mode. This gets the battery and processor off the head and makes for an un-tethered experience (with a phone).

It’s a pretty cool way to use framework parts. I think the only concern about using the battery (as mention for the next iteration) is that in the event of a power outage, the video card adapter will not function.

Corsair SF Series, SF750 is the one I bought for my build and it’s been very quiet with a 0 RPM mode on most of the time I use the PC. Flexible “para cord” sleeved cables are very nice as well. I’ve had it just over a year without issue, but that’s not a long time for a PSU.

That is a certification of efficiency but does not take into account quality of cooling (fan bearing, design in component placement, control etc), especially important in SFF, or of assembly of components. If cost is really such an important factor, I would consider a larger form factor where constraints would not be so costly. It would at least be easier to build a quiet machine when fans can be larger and run a lower RPMs with adequate room to route cabling and facilitate ventilation.

If you get spend a little more for a quality PSU, it will last through all of your other upgrades. It’s really one of the few things that can be totally useful even after changing out your motherboard for the third time with that new chipset required by your next cpu.

thank you for easing my personal self-loathing a bit!

U,D,U,D,L,R,L,R,B,A,B,A games when?

As far along as emulation has come, I’d like to see a proper Little Big Planet port with multi-player and local server support.

AMD seems to be eating their lunch in small computers for consumers with their APUs in the Steamdeck and the more than a half dozen like handhelds, mini-pcs, etc. I’m sure intel will hang onto small embedded devices for industrial applications for some time but it’s puzzling that they would just drop RISCV which seems poised to proliferate in this sector as well. It could just be that intel seeing that manufacture in China is and will continue to be very tricky has to narrow focus while they move their manufacture closer to home.