Hello everyone. I'm gonna try to explain the situation as best as I can. English isn't my main language, so I apologize if you don't understand me.
Well,
5 years ago I bought a console (ps4 to be accurate) and I really enjoyed it. My friends were playing in this plataform so everything was ok. After 2 years I decided to switch to pc gaming because I read tons of articles, messages and opinions from people that said pc is the best by far: free and cheap games, free online, better graphics... So I sold my ps4 and start using my pc (although I was pretty happy with ps4).
I was happy with that decision, but then I realized that pc is not that great as everyone says. I'll explain the things:
Many of them are silly things, but in the end makes the experience worse.
I've experienced backlight flickering since 2019 till almost nowadays. I changed all: GPU, monitor, motherboard... It was the fu**ing AMD garbage software. It turned out that Radeon Chill was causing that problem that make me feel sick. Once I stop limiting my fps with that shit, I could play without that problem. I've seen that many people suffer from this, so THIS is the solution, forget about CRU and stuff like that.
Freesync doesn't work correctly. There are always problems. Tearing, sensation of low fps (when it's not)...
Games, yeah, they're cheap but let's be honest: who wants tons of games that are dead, games that you can't play with your friends and 2 million launchers? Steam, Epic Games, Origin... Yeah, I know GOG Galaxy but still...
I'm a casual gamer, so I like games like FIFA, Call Of Duty... The other genre that I play the most is racing sims. Pc is the best for this, I know, but I don't enjoy it. You can have tons of mods and try a lot of things, but I love online racing with people and you need iRacing for this (which I'm not gonna pay for it, I think is a scam for that prices) OR playing games like Gran Turismo Sport. Tbh I enjoy more GT Sport than any other pc sim where I only play offline. Also, if I play FIFA you know you need a console. That kind of games in pc are meaningless and pretty abandoned.
Pc parts are SO expensive. The GPU market gone even more crazy. In fact, I could sell my GPU for 400 euros (and I paid 250 euros like 6 months ago). It's stupid. I could even buy an entire pc only with the money of the GPU.
That kind of reasons make me think about switching back to console (that I already have), so it would be only selling my pc and earn money that I could spend in a good tv and some other tech devices (I'm a sysadmin, so I like servers, NAS...).
What do you think guys? I'm now willing a battle between pc and console gamers, I only want answers and see if my idea is good or a big mistake.
Cheers!
View Poll

Not a flight-sim head but the tech in this game has really grabbed me, I feel it's next gen stuff, so I've been following development pretty closely for the last year. I noticed that the same questions come up quite often in comment sections, so I've tried to group them together and create a mini-FAQ (disclaimer: I'm sure I've made some mistakes, please feel free to correct me!)
Will I be able to see my house? Indeed but more of a representation of it. The game uses satellite images (Bing) and then A.I. builds up all the houses and buildings based on that, so there's a lot of guesswork involved. Hopefully you should see a block shaped model representing your house. In areas where Bing has 3D and photogrammetry, it should look even better (e.g. Southampton UK)
Can I crash into my house? Yes. But there are no crash animations, you just get a screen stating you've crashed. Some speculation was that perhaps the airplane manufacturers weren't keen on seeing their aircraft smashed into stuff, and also that it was possibly not a good look, who knows
I heard the whole world is mapped, 1:1, is that true? Yes
So I can like go to Area 51, North Korea? Indeed. I believe there are some issues with Antarctica and the Arctic, but it looks like everywhere else is there
So I can fly anywhere in the world and see it in perfect stunning detail? Important to temper the hype on this. Certain things are not modeled properly, e.g. waterfalls. Some e.g. castles are A.I. modeled as apartment blocks, other stuff is missing or modeled as a flat picture rather than a 3D object (e.g. container ships). The game does look stunning, but keep in mind it's a flight simulator, not a ground-detail simulator, it has limitations. Also as time goes by expect more of these to be addressed and fixed
Are animals in the game? Yes. Certain places have elephants, giraffes and flocks of birds
What's this I hear about needing a fast internet connection? The game is an approx 150 gb install (correct me if I am wrong), but there is also the option to stream assets using the connection, for better details, the faster the connection the more can be streamed. Keep in mind this will use up cap if set to the max. An offline mode is also possible
Can I speed up time? Yes
Are there combat planes in the game? No
It says there are only 40 airports in the game? It has approx 37,000 airports, basically every known runway in the world, it's just that the base game comes with 40 specifically handcrafted airports (not built by A.I.)
But will my machine run it? Check the requirements. If you are unsure, wait for reviews to come out on the day, and performance reviews should start shortly afterwards. And no you don't need a super-computer to run it, medium settings looks like it should be fine on a mid-range PC, but indeed 4k 60 FPS does push the limits of the best hardware we currently have
I've heard there are stuttering issues, is that true? A lot of Youtubers have the game now, most seem to be running it without major issues. Keep in mind the developers will likely be optimising the game on and after release
Does it have real world weather? Yes, if there's a hurricane off the coast of some country, you can fly into that hurricane. You can also customise the weather.
And there is multiplayer? Yes, you can play with friends or others in sessions
What else does it have? Automated (and even human) air traffic control. Full day/night cycle. Fully modeled interactive cockpits. Snow. Planes can ice-up. Real world air traffic. You can land in fields (bush flying). Thunderstorms and lightning. Checklists, the ability to start a plane up from "cold and dark". Ground crews and vehicles at airports. Too many features to list
Is there any story? or do I just fly a plane around the place? Keep in mind it's a flight simulator. There will be various things like landing challenges, and some tutorials, but ultimately it's all about the challenge of flying different planes in different conditions in different parts of the world
Will there be VR? It's been announced. They will launch VR when the new HP G2 windows mixed reality (WMR) headset is released this autumn. In the beginning it should just work with WMR headsets, and later they should add support for other headsets (still a bit of a grey area). It also works with TrackIR.
And what's this about the marketplace? They have a whole bunch of third-party developers lining up to produce extra aircraft, more detailed airports, gliders, possibly helicopters, additional content, etc - most is likely to be DLC in the form of payware.
Support for the game after launch? The developers have said this is just the start and that they will be constantly refining the game for years after launch, they see it as an on-going project
If I've missed any other common Q's let me know

Happy first Friday of December! :) And welcome back to my roundup of the most interesting mobile games I played this week.
This week, I played a new multiplayer arena shooter, a unique action dungeon-crawler RPG, and a polished hero collector RPG with an interesting real-time combat system.
Disagree with my opinion? Let’s have a friendly discussion below.
New to these posts? Check out the first one from 153 weeks ago here.
The games are "ranked" somewhat subjectively from best to worst, so take the ranking for what it is.

Let's get to the games:

Hellfire - Multiplayer Arena [Game Size: 317 MB] (free)

Genre: Shooter / PvP / Arena / Action / Dark / Indie - Requires Online Access
Orientation: Landscape
Required Attention: Full
tl;dr review:
Hellfire is a multiplayer arena first-person shooter that draws inspiration from old PC titles such as Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament to create a dark, gritty, and high-intensity 2-8 player shooter experience with no pay-to-win.
The indie game features 4 deathmatch maps that unlock as we level up. All players start each match with the same weapon, while better weapons, HP recovery orbs, and Shield recharges are scattered around the small map. The first player to reach the kill goal wins.
The simple controls feature a left-side joystick, and two buttons to switch weapons and quickly dash forward. There are both manual and auto-fire options, but I personally think the auto-fire gives the game exactly the fast-paced feel it should have.
The main downsides are that there are too few weapons and too few players, the latter of which means we often end up playing bots. However, since we can create our own private rooms, the game is perfect to play with friends – and this is where Hellfire really shines.
Hellfire monetizes through premium currency iAPs ranging from $1.99 to $29.99 that are used to unlock new vanity cosmetic characters that provide no gameplay advantages.
At this point, the game just needs more players, content, and polish to expand its solid foundation.
Google Play: Here
MiniReview link: Here

Drake n Trap [Game Size: 299 MB] (free)

Genre: RPG / Action / Strategy / Top-down / Dungeon-crawler - Offline + Online
Orientation: Landscape
Required Attention: Full
tl;dr review:
Drake n Trap is a unique action dungeon crawler RPG where we lead our main character and a team of spawnable fantasy heroes through dungeons full of traps, chests, monsters, and bosses in both PvE and PvP game modes.
Before heading into the 500 dungeon levels, we define a deck of five heroes that each have unique stats, abilities, and a mana cost. During combat, we use a left-side joystick to control our character while spawning multiple of each hero by spending mana that recovers over time. The heroes trace our main character and automatically attack nearby enemies and traps unless we tap a button to make them passive.
The strategy and almost puzzle-like nature of the dungeons force us to constantly switch between aggressive and passive hero behavior to avoid traps and strong boss attacks, which creates a fun and engaging gameplay experience.
In addition to the normal dungeons, the game features both a ranked mode and an arena where we must finish a dungeon faster than six other players who recently played the same dungeon.
Drake n Trap monetizes through incentivized ads and iAPs to unlock and level up heroes faster, acquire high-tier loot, and recover energy. The energy system limits our play-session length, but we get so much energy and premium currency for free through achievements and daily rewards that the game can easily be enjoyed as a free player.
Google Play: Here
MiniReview link: Here

ILLUSION CONNECT [Total Game Size: 3 GB] (free)

Genre: RPG / Gacha / Action / Strategy - Requires Online Access
Orientation: Landscape
Required Attention: Little
tl;dr review:
ILLUSION CONNECT is a polished team-based gacha strategy RPG with an interesting real-time combat system where heroes are spawned on a 3x3 grid by spending mana that recovers over time.
It features everything you’d expect from a gacha RPG, including a large roster of characters, a guild system, quests, lots of daily login rewards, and a shop full of iAPs. Although the character designs are overly sexualized, the cartoony visuals are high quality, and the universe and events are decently interesting.
Unlike most games in the genre, PvP against friends is real-time in ILLUSION CONNECT. Unfortunately, we can only spawn each hero once per battle, so as soon as they’re all spawned, we have to wait while the combat unfolds automatically. It feels like a missed opportunity that the combat system doesn’t allow heroes to be continuously spawned to create a more engaging gameplay experience.
The game monetizes through an energy system and lots of iAPs for premium currency and other pay-to-win advantages. We do receive a large quantity of premium currency through quests and achievements, so the singleplayer can be enjoyed as a free player – just don’t expect to compete in PvP.
While there’s lots of content to dive into and a story full of mystery, I’d only recommend hardcore gacha RPG fans to check out ILLUSION CONNECT.
Google Play: Here
MiniReview link: Here
NEW REVIEW APP: You can search and filter reviews and games I've played (and more) in my app MiniReview: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=minireview.best.android.games.reviews
Outdated (replaced by MiniReview): Sheet of all games I've played so far: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bf0OxtVxrboZqyEh01AxJYUUqHm8tEfh-Lx-SugcrzY/edit?usp=sharing
TL;DR Video Summary (with gameplay) of last week's 3 games: https://youtu.be/lAxL6PXn3B4
Episode 001 Episode 002 Episode 003 Episode 004 Episode 005 Episode 006 Episode 007 Episode 008 Episode 009 Episode 010 Episode 011 Episode 012 Episode 013 Episode 014 Episode 015 Episode 016 Episode 017 Episode 018 Episode 019 Episode 020 Episode 021 Episode 022 Episode 023 Episode 024 Episode 025 Episode 026 Episode 027 Episode 028 Episode 029 Episode 030 Episode 031 Episode 032 Episode 033 Episode 034 Episode 035 Episode 036 Episode 037 Episode 038 Episode 039 Episode 040 Episode 041 Episode 042 Episode 043 Episode 044 Episode 045 Episode 046 Episode 047 Episode 048 Episode 049 Episode 050 Episode 051 Episode 052 Episode 053 Episode 054 Episode 055 Episode 056 Episode 057 Episode 058 Episode 059 Episode 060 Episode 061 Episode 062 Episode 063 Episode 064 Episode 065 Episode 066 Episode 067 Episode 068 Episode 069 Episode 070 Episode 071 Episode 072 Episode 073 Episode 074 Episode 075 Episode 076 Episode 077 Episode 078 Episode 079 Episode 080 Episode 081 Episode 082 Episode 083 Episode 084 Episode 085 Episode 086 Episode 087 Episode 088 Episode 089 Episode 090 Episode 091 Episode 092 Episode 093 Episode 094 Episode 095 Episode 096 Episode 097 Episode 098 Episode 099 Episode 100 Episode 101 Episode 102 Episode 103 Episode 104 Episode 105 Episode 106 Episode 107 Episode 108 Episode 109 Episode 110 Episode 111 Episode 112 Episode 113 Episode 114 Episode 115 Episode 116 Episode 117 Episode 118 Episode 119 Episode 120 Episode 121 Episode 122 Episode 123 Episode 124 Episode 125 Episode 126 Episode 127 Episode 128 Episode 129 Episode 130 Episode 131 Episode 132 Episode 133 Episode 134 Episode 135 Episode 136 Episode 137 Episode 138 Episode 139 Episode 140 Episode 141 Episode 142 Episode 143 Episode 144 Episode 145 Episode 146 Episode 147 Episode 148 Episode 149 Episode 150 Episode 151 Episode 152

Source
Note: other employees' answers were occasionally included, but are by no means complete.

Questions	Answers
PC Part Picker. Where do I start. First of all, thank you so much for all of the help you guys have given me. If not for your team and your website I might not have built the PC I have now. I am very grateful to you guys for making such straightforward software with so many options. You guys are on top of everything, and I’d just like to thank you for all that you’ve done for the PC building community. That being said, onto the questions! 1. What are your favorite PC Parts? What’s your ideal/dream PC part list? 2. I’ve been having this problem recently because things are out of stock. When I make a parts list I often have to go into the page for the part to determine the actual cost for the part when it comes back in stock from the major retailers. When displaying the price, could you also add in parentheses something like: Price: $265 (Lowest: $200)	Thanks for the kind words! I'll defer to Alex/Ryan on their favorite parts. For me I'd just like to get hold of a 3080 one day but I'm not in a rush. I'm still happily running this build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/c99djX
	On the stock / pricing issue, we might be able to look into something like that, but I can't make any guarantees.
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Downmented: It's a bad time to be GPU shopping when the founde owner of PCPP can't even score a 30 series GPU BDsBiggest: This was my thought, how does he not have one?	I honestly don't really need one and there are people who play way more intensive stuff than I do. I'm ok to wait.
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On that note, what do you play?!!	I still really enjoy Minecraft of all things. My oldest son started playing Skyblock and so that became a bit of a time sink. Used to play a decent bit of Civ and other Sid Meier stuff a long time ago. I'm just not that much of a gamer though. I'm legitimately terrible at FPS games, so I don't really enjoy them all that much. Minecraft lets me just piddle around and experiment with different creations, architectures, etc. And it's something I can play with my kids which is great until they trash my island.
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As a fellow Minecraft buff, what are your thoughts on the best CPU for Minecraft at the moment? I know it depends more on CPU performance than GPU, at least in Java edition.	I'll have to defer to the other guys on staff or the community because I honestly don't know. I'm playing on an i5-6600k/980 ti which has been more than enough.
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Thanks for the response! How long have you had that build for?	Roughly four years. I need to upgrade the GPU though because where I work in my house it's getting cold and ThoughtA is outpacing me on Folding at Home.
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Do you have a rebuild planned for when the 3080 is back? Or just upgrading the current rig?	It'll probably be a new build, but I'm not sure what it'll be. If 3080s come back in stock where I can get one, then I may start with that and plan the rest around it. Especially if it's something with a particular aesthetic or color scheme that I want to match.
Thank you for your site and all the countless hassle it saved me from. What do you guys and gals think is a thing our community could help you with ? Is there something like a roadmap for pcpp and what are you personally most excited about ? How should people give feedback to you and the other team members? Which channels are you preferring ? On which channels can I send my monthly thank you very much for your service messages ?	Re: what buildapc can help with - this community has helped us so much over the years that I have no asks whatsoever. Just thanks. Thanks for letting us be a part of the community.
	We don't have an official roadmap - I run the dev timeline like a software engineer who is terrible at time estimates. Things I promised eight years ago are still undone while other stuff jumps ahead. I'm most excited for benchmarking. I love performance analysis, and what we're building should be super cool. Lots, lots, lots of data, all in tightly controlled environments. The hard part is how to present relevant bits without overwhelming people with data.
	For feedback, feel free to ping us on our site forums, our contact page, or on our discord channel. Discord is probably the least formal if it's something small, though I'm not on discord all that often these days (Ryan and Alex are though).
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Ah, "agile" development.	Nope! None of that. No agile practices here thanks. Just software development structured along my capricious demands...
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IMHO, "we don't have a project management philosophy" is the best project management philosophy. As long as progress is being made and people are happy, management theory would just get in the way.	For a while I was working on a codebase of several million lines of C++ in an org with 100+ other really smart engineers. I participated in an effort to modularize part of it, and I failed pretty badly. One of the most important things I learned was from an old Windows NT dev presentation that talked about Conway's Law. That really reshaped how I viewed architecture, teams, responsibilities, and communication patterns.
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Did you consider licensing/sharing benchmarks from other hardware review sites, rather than developing a (presumably not-profit-generating) benchmarking competency? Alternatively, if you do want to generate benchmarks, have you considered monetizing them via a blog?	We're planning on benching at a scale that most review sites don't do. Like an order of magnitude more pairings, runs, etc, with a bit more detail on each as well in terms of current consumption, temps, etc. All that all recorded on identical software setups for comparability. No one right now is doing that at the scale we want.
	It's definitely not a profit center, and that's ok for me. I love benchmarking. Before PCPP I was part of a team working on optimizing compiler stuff. I loved writing compiler optimizations and testing the performance changes. So that whole side of things - determinism, accurate measurements, etc, I just really enjoy it. So PCPP in a way helps fund my desire to do that work whether it is profitable or not.
	That being said, I do think it's a complementary feature set to add. While it may not monetize directly, I think the value it adds to the site will (hopefully) result in an incremental change in traffic/revenue.
So how does it feel to have a side project or yours become as popular in the computer world as google? You've become the only place I recommend newbies to go (other than reddit) for pc building help, and your site has become the most useful tool I've ever used outside of my daily IT work. You've created something not only powerfully useful, but well designed, smoothly operated, and pleasing to the eye. I don't really have much of question more just taking the opportunity to say thank you for creating a fantastic tool for the community. If a bigger company offers you millions to sell it I'd understand if you did, but please don't, I can't imagine the site being run any better than by it's original team!	Thanks for the kind words. I gave my mom a shirt. A couple years ago someone recognized the shirt in rural east Texas. Like, she lives 30 minutes from the nearest town of 5,000 people. That was pretty wild. My mom was pretty excited lol.
	I love having something that I helped build be a useful thing for people. That's immensely satisfying. (And it's a team effort, not just me by any stretch at all. The whole team helps every bit of what you see on the site).
	On the other hand, I don't want or like to be out front. I'd rather be behind the scenes working on something and not really be noticed. I think that gets reflected, probably negatively from a business-first standpoint, in how I run things. I don't really push branding hard, don't push social media (Twitter, Instagram, etc), because I personally don't want to be out front there. I can engage here on reddit because I feel like I'm a part of the community here rather than some corporate/redditor relationship. From a business standpoint, I think there's a lot of growth possibility that PCPP hasn't tapped into because I want to avoid various social anxieties and whatnot.
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Just know that if a company offers big bucks (and they probably will eventually) it is because they see an opportunity to leverage the base you built to make money and it most likely will be by selling the customers who trust you. They will probably do something like partner with large manufacturers or sellers and push their own products while if ignoring what is best for the people looking to create their own best build.	Yeah that makes sense. We've made some decisions that probably wouldn't last long - not running ads, not selling user data. So really there seems to be two options: either we run this out until it dies on its own and we get to keep our ideals/positions, or we run out of energy and sell. I don't want to sell. I don't plan to sell. But I'd be lying if I said there weren't days where I feel so tired and just want a break for a bit. It's trying to find the balance of doing a job I love maintaining principles I value and also not destroying myself physically/emotionally/etc in the process.
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Oh cool! If you don’t mind me asking, what area of East Texas? Did you grow up out here? I’m from out in Van, approx 30 min from Tyler. My close friends and I love PCPartPicker. I just used it to build my upgraded rig a couple of weeks ago.	Nice! I grew up in Tyler (edit: but my mom currently lives 30 minutes east of Center, TX - basically on Toledo Bend reservoir and the TX/LA border). My electronics teacher in high school (Mr. Ray) was from Van. He was formative for me in pursuing electronics seriously by introducing me to VICA and electronics competitions.
Benchmark integration timeline when 🍿	Probably mid-2021. We're almost done with a building renovation where they bumped our building service from a 400A service to a 1200A service. Added AC capacity. That 800A is going toward bench... it's going to be fun. This is what I'm talking about https://imgur.com/a/rffuVin. Can't wait to get this all up and running.
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I have a massive transformer that’s the size of a fridge I can’t seem to sell if you guys want it. It was meant for a Bitcoin farm but was never used. Cost $5000 I just want it gone it’s so heavy lol	LOL thanks but we're good. They actually delivered the 1200A from pole mounted transformers. MEP guys were surprised, but the power company said they could do it. Sure enough they did. Old vs new pre-hookup: https://imgur.com/a/ODQlACV
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Dude, you do AWS, dev, hiring, project direction, and building management? Your operation must be crazy efficient.	Oh no I offloaded all the building management stuff to Jack. He's handled almost all the renovation work, which has been an absolute life saver for me. I just come in and throw wrenches in things by adding last minute requests for extra conduit runs from here to there, replace those windows, change that paint color, etc. Jack handles all communication and followups with the GC, subs, etc.
	The other stuff I do do though. AWS (our infrastructure isn't that big really, a couple dozen EC2 instances, RDS, Redis, CloudSearch, Cloudfront, etc). Daniel handles the bits of Lambda that we use. I kinda enjoy the deployment / devops side of things, and I think it's important to have my fingers on the pulse of that whenever I'm designing new features. Helps me have a better feel for what kind of query impact different code or modeling decisions will have.
	The hiring isn't much - we've averaged about one person a year and that's usually someone in our existing network of relationships. And project direction is pretty small right now since we shut down our cycling site. Back down to just one website makes it a lot simpler. We talk about what we want to do as a group a lot, so (I think) everyone has a pretty decent picture of where we're headed despite timelines not being nailed down strict.
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What kind of benchmarks would you be running? Have you considered pulling data from places like passmark?	Anything we can run deterministically and automated and that has license terms that allow unfettered publication of result data. We won't be pulling data from anywhere, passmark included. All the data will be from runs we do in-house.
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May I ask why the focus on internal metrics vs just pulling them?	Mainly because we can control all the variables and make them consistent across all our result pairs. We have some absolutely phenomenal performance analysis engineering expertise in house.
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Unfettered publication of result data. Wow. Nice. As someone who likes playing with freely available datasets, I really appreciate this. Hard to learn data science without freely available data sets that regular people can have some level of subject matter expertise over to start to learn how to put data-driven stories together.	Sorry, what I meant was that the license terms of the benchmark software have to allow us to publish the benchmark results without restriction. There is a popular benchmarks out today that requires the benchmark results be vetted by them first before publication. We'd have to manually send over bench results if we weren't using their bench platform (we're not, we have our own). Then wait for them to approve, and then we could publish. That's not viable when we're testing at the scale we plan to - it'd need to be automated at least but they couldn't offer that. And for benchmarking prerelease hardware under embargo, it'd mean that we would have no ability to publish data right when the embargo lifted. We'd have to wait however long for their manual review.
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How will you be able to benchmark hard-to-get hardware? e.g. RTX 3090, Radeon 6800xt, and Ryzen 5000? Will the manufacturers send them to you? Or do you have to buy them?	I think it's a mixture of both. On new release hardware it's helpful to have bench data when embargoes lift. But I also want to have store-purchased hardware as the main part of our hardware pool, however long it takes to acquire that. We can flag the benchmarks that come from manufacturer review samples - that way people know the source and can factor in review sample binning.
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So once upon a time, I was gonna write a program that would pull benchmark and pricing data to build a list of best value parts, such that no part in the list had a better performing part at a lower price. A sort of definitive do-buy list to make it easier to pick parts. Once benchmarks are done, pcp would have all the infrastructure in place to make that happen in some form on the site, perhaps as a filter for picking parts or as a warning on the part/build pages?	Yep.
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sorry, I'm not sure what you're saying that to, I should have actually posed a proper question: Will you be implementing that?	That's our intent, yeah. It may take us a bit to get there though.
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There is...a lot... of metal shavings in that box. Ah I’m sure it’s fine it’s only 1200A.	Oh at that point it was still all being hooked up. It's cleaner for sure.
	Check this out - relative size difference between old and new...
	https://imgur.com/a/xQD1fEY. (That's one Barry for scale.)
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But how do we know how big Barry is if he's not holding a banana?	Barry is approximately the same height as one marinelli.
A lot of people seem to think that you only host sellers that provide you affiliate kickbacks. Is there any truth to that? Have you ever allowed or disallowed a seller on the basis of affiliate money? How do you decide whether to host a seller or not?	That's not true. We list several retailers without affiliate agreements. Affiliate relationships are often much much easier because they almost always already have price data access. That's the main thing we need.
	Our choice on hosting a retailer largely depends on whether we feel they are good for users or not. If a retailer is being abusive to users or doing highly manipulative stuff, we'll remove them even if they're profitable. We've done that several times in the past. If a retailer also has highly inaccurate pricing, we'll delist for that too.
Yaaatttttt: Not sure if you are allowed to reveal this but what retailers have you delisted in the past? LightningProd12: They delisted MicroCenter in the US because they had too many in-store only deals and no way to tell the difference on PCPP's end. And not everyone can go to one, if you live in the Northwest the closest one can be 800-1000 miles away. Edit: This is mostly false, look at the comments below.	ThoughtA: This isn't true at all. We want to have them on the site. We had some discussions with them, but they stopped responding.
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Oh ok, I remember suggesting it a few years back on the forums and getting told they were delisted. EDIT - Forum post link: https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/309304-request-add-microcenter-to-the-list-of-merchants I falsely remembered there being a reason but was told they were removed from the site.	We did actually list their in-store deals. I put in a decent bit of code for that so that they only showed up if you were within a configurable radius of one of their locations.
	It's a long story, but the gist of it is that we were waiting on some stuff that never came and things went silent. We reach out from periodically but nothing. It stinks - we'd be happy to list them.
	You never know what you reception you'll get from retailers. Some are beating down the door to get on board - that's awesome. Others we have to prove that we're worth their time - that's not unusual. A few will say they want to work together, we get 80% of the way there, and then... silence. Or the key person you were working with takes a job somewhere else. And then some retailers basically say not just no, but h*** no. I'll never forget that one. For some retailers there's a strong aversion to something we do, whether it be price comparison or something else. But just know that if there's a retailer that is reputable and treats customers well, we're more than happy to work with them and get them listed.
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Ohh ok, that sucks. On a side note, is there a story behind the "h*** no" retailer?	They're, eh, no longer in business. Honestly probably dodged a bullet there.
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Maybe this was asked already but still: are there any timeline/plan to add more countries to the country list? I am leaving in Austria and I have to use Germany to see the prices and availability of the parts. Moreover, I see German retailers and prices but not Austrian ones.	We're continually adding new countries and retailers. Adding a country is just a few lines of code on our end - we do that when we have a retailer to add in a country we don't currently support. So really it's a matter of finding and adding retailers. If you have any you'd like to see, send us a note on our contact page and we'll take a look at it. Jenny reaches out to the retailers to see if we can get them on board. It usually takes a while to get in contact and get good data access.
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I already raised this issue to him several years ago - because it was blatantly in the open for users in Germany. You would get amazon affiliate links as "lowest" price, even though there are several other stores that are cheaper... He got angry quickly and gave me the same bs excuse. The top sellers with the top user ratings were never listed as cheapest even though they were.	We list the buy box winner for Amazon. If you're saying we prune results for various marketplace sellers, well, you're wrong.
How's the team handling COVID? Is everyone working from home? What kind of challenges are arising?	I sent everyone home in March. We haven't met as a group since. It's been ok - we just meet on video conferencing when we need to. Jack and Barry are up at the office overseeing the renovation which should be done mid-January. I'll probably be up there from January to April to do the benchmark network cabling and office rewiring (from cat5 to 6a+fiber) because I kinda enjoy cable crimping and punch downs. :)
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The transition from cat5 to cat6 is worth?	Yeah. We're not running 5e, just 5. It's what was in there from when we bought it. So that's not where I'd like it to be for good 1Gb.
Any chance we'll ever see some more filtering options for SSDs? It would be really handy to have the following * Filter by the primary storage type SLC/MLC/TLC/QLC/Optane/etc * Filter by whether the drive has a DRAM cache or supports Host Memory Buffer (HMB)	I'd love to, but I think it'd cause a fissure I'm not sure how to fix. Right now we have SSDs and platter drives in the same category, but the specific filtering for each is different. To apply the really detailed SSD filters, I think they need to be their own category. Same with the HDD types. I don't know if splitting them up is the right path though, so I've been continually punting the issue down the road until we're forced to decide one way or the other.
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Tsk tsk, don’t accumulate technical debt there	Oh, no, it's quite the opposite really. Parametric part additions record the type and filter selections. Those added to a part list stay there forever - we never throw them away. So any filters we add never get removed even if we don't show them. Because of that, I try to be very deliberate in what we add and what we don't. Once I add a new part category or filter type, if I decide later it was a bad idea then it means I get to write lots of migration code. That's no fun.
Super excited for the an app version. Are you guys considering price tracking so that users can set alerts for when hardware drops to a desired price?	Yeah. We have that on the site already with email alerts. But the PWA provides them via browser push notifications (on platforms that support that). I have that all working in a beta test mode (for staff only) right now and it's feeling pretty solid.
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As a front-end engineer, what's your stack look like for the PWA?	Basically built on top of our existing responsive site (Python, Django). I didn't want to spend a lot of time migrating to another framework, so instead spent the time kind of standardizing our own API-ish setup and then handling the caching or offline modes for that as needed. We went responsive with PWA to avoid maintaining three separate codebases (web, iOS, Android), but it's looking like we may go native in the end anyway. This buys us some time at least.
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So not iOS?	Right. :(. I understand there are some workarounds to get push notifications through wallets and whatnot, but that feels pretty hackish to me. We might end up going native on iOS at some point to get good notification support there.
How hard is it keeping up with and adding new item releases (not only the new 3000 series graphics cards from nvidia but also possibly unknown stuff like network cards, etc)? Are there any items you decide not to add or do you try to list everything you can?	New GPUs are pretty easy. CPUs are ok, sometimes a pain depending on the chipset/bios situations. Motherboards are terrible, especially the last few years. Cataloging all the M.2 ports, their constraints (PCIe in this slot disables that SATA, etc) is a major pain.
	There's some stuff, particularly on cases, where there are compatibility constraints that are not economically viable to model. We know what the constraints are, but to model them all across 30k+ parts would make data entry so slow that we'd never finish.
	We try to hit the main product categories, but we'd love to expand that. It's really an issue of how time consuming and costly it is to do the data entry for it versus how often it's used.
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So Wikipedia seems to be crowd sourced, and works pretty well. Maybe some of the more laborious data entry parts could have a crowd source entry option, but be flagged as such when people bring up anything containing those results (a disclaimer)..	It's just not reliable enough. It has to be super accurate, and it's not something I'd ever feel comfortable outsourcing.
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Have you tried asking the manufacturers to get involved? You might just be big enough.	When new releases are coming out we sometimes get data ahead of time. Cases are pretty common. Motherboards are a lot harder, because of embargoes and even BIOSes and manuals not finished days before release. Some of the constraints we see are pretty one-off situations that make it hard to provide some sort of standardized input form for though.
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what if you let companies input their own data for their products.	I don't trust that to be accurate enough. We routinely find bad spec data even on manufacturer sites.
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I imagine that PCPP is large enough now to direct traffic to or away from various retailers in volumes they will care about. Like how Google went from small to large. Given that, probably PCPP should begin leaning on retailers to provide product data in an ingestable format, making data entry moot.	We work with retailers to provide the right data in feeds for sure. But the hard part is that not all retailers have the technical expertise on hand to do it (or for smaller retailers, the margin and profitability to pay for that expertise). The back-and-forth to get updated feed frequency, proper part numbers, stock status, etc - it's non-stop. Brent and Jenny bear the brunt of that.
I know you've been vocal about not opening up a merch store for personal profit, but would you ever consider a merch store where all proceeds go towards your well building charity?	We did this once. My accountant was like, "please don't."
	Basically if we buy a thousand shirts and give them away it's super easy - they just get marked as a marketing expense and we give them out however we see fit. But as soon as any of them are sold, you have to track inventory, cost basis, etc. It's a lot more tedious and last time it was maybe a couple shirts a week - enough to invoke packaging and transport overhead but not enough to be efficient. So we instead just give them away at various bapc milestones and donate from our affiliate income instead.
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Kinda funny reading this while wearing the hoodie! It’s easily the comfiest hoodie in my closet.	Oh, major props to Phil for that. He picked it out. I love mine too. We printed some smaller ones for kid sizes and my oldest son tries to sleep in his.
transam617: Philip, Thank you for 10 years of your indispensable help. Over that time, there were probably millions of visitors to your website who have had their PC building experience improved or made possible through the use of your wonderful tool. But specifically: Since 2014, our little corner of reddit (now 10K subs) cabalofthebuildsmiths, has been more effective, and has helped more people as a direct result of your website tool, than from any other tool we have available. We pride ourselves on giving builds to customers where they can reliably buy every part we pick, and be sure they will work as expected. This process takes research and a lot of effort, but the highly accurate, effective communication of pcpartpicker (for all the countries you cover) is the foundation of our process. Thank you for making the messy world of PC parts a little more bearable, thank you for making it all possible, and a big thanks from us, cabalofthebuildsmiths. transam617 kokolordas15 dmz_dragon danyulz bramblexd	Thanks for your kind words, and thanks for all the work you all do to help builders!
What happened to the youtube channel? Loved the build videos and interviews you had while it was still running.	We moved buildings a couple years ago, and decided to pause on them while we renovated the new space for filming and benchmarking. The renovation is finishing up likely mid-January - it took waaaay longer than we originally thought. If we had known it'd be that long we probably would have figured out some interim plan. So once that reno is done, we'll probably start ramping up content again. I'd guess mid-2021 or so.
[deleted]	My first computer was a an AMD K5-133. That was late 1996 I think and I was in college. My friend and I ordered our mobo+CPU off an ad on a magazine page. I bought his old case and an 80MB HDD off of him. Ran Windows 3.1. We played Warcraft 2 across a null modem cable - that was probably the most fun I've ever had with PC gaming. Floating point on that thing was terrible though. Playing a 64kbps MP3 chewed up like 60% of the CPU.
	My roommate introduced me to Quake 2, specifically Action Quake 2. Loved that game. I started running a website on the dorm network on it that got pretty popular. But queries on the db would tank my Q2 framerate so I put in code to disable queries while I was playing.
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tiger direct?	No, it was some small place out of the northeast. I mean, that was pre-internet-shopping days. Wrote a check, hand wrote what we wanted on the order form, mailed it, and waited weeks. No phone calls, no email confirmations, nothing. My kids have no idea what that was like.
Fun fact, I got banned from PCPartPicker for adding a purple dildo from Amazon to my build.	Yeah that'll do it. User code of conduct / ToS and all.
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Boooo. Thats kinda weird, especially for private/personal builds.	Most of the retailers we partner with have as a part of their terms that our site not contain NSFW material. I get some people think it's funny but it can get us shut down, and I'm really not ok with that.
I've used your site so many times and I even met some of the team in Austin outside Dreamhack. Thanks for all you do! Who has the most powerful computer on the staff and what are they running?	I think most powerful computer probably goes to manirelli right now.
Do you have any career opportunities at the company? I have a couple years of marketing experience, but I can’t find a job in these tough times. At least I’ve been learning python so I can get better at data management.	Unfortunately we're not hiring right now. :(
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Mind if I ask where you typically post jobs when you are hiring? Greenhouse.io, LinkedIn, Indeed, all of the above?	Usually it's someone we have an established relationship with. We haven't ever posted a job listing to date.
Are you going to work on an official PCPartPicker API so people don't have to break ToS by scraping?	No. I'd prefer to offer sufficient service that people don't need to scrape.
	Most scrapers use up a lot of resources or don't even do cursory things like follow robots.txt crawl delay specs. It's really frustrating. I'd like to spend my time focusing on user benefitting features than blocking abusive crawlers.
gordonv: A cached CLI/SDK that draws from a CDN (not your web server) would be cool. You'd provide sufficient service, reduce processing cost, and get usage stats. The best way to defeat crawlers is to defeat their purpose. Make scraping look idiotic. Heck, mock scrapers in your HTML with an URL to your API. Add a little wit to that wisdom. Add AWS Cloudfront and now you have 200+ servers in the USA distributing your CLI with authentication to 3 million calls for $20 a month. Some leet stuff. Just noticed a sprinkle of posts calling for an app. If you spec CLI/SDK along with app development, killing 2 birds with 1 budget stone.	We're rolling out a PWA (hopefully) before the end of the year.
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invisi1407: Perhaps a better question is, why is there a need for scraping? Could that need be satisfied by new/improving features on PCPP? MLG_G0D: Because integrations with PCPartPicker would greatly benefit the PC building community. Constantly navigating to websites can get tiresome, especially on low spec machines. Automation is great. invisi1407: I understand, but exactly which integrations are people looking for? I get it, but I also understand why PCPP isn't interested in having a public, free API. MLG_G0D: I was thinking about integrating PCPP functions into a reddit/discord bot. invisi1407: Not unresonable, but you do understand how it takes away any earnings from advertisements and what have we on their website, yeah? It seems like they are a small company spending an enormous amount of time on the data they are presenting, so I don't think you'll ever see a free public API anyway. Perhaps a paid one, but I don't suppose many would be interested in that anyway. MLG_G0D: Seems reasonable. I'm just a massive fan of companies being open to their userbase, but I guess PCPartPicker hasnt quite grown to the point where thats economically feasible.	There's more to the picture. On pricing data: We're not the source of pricing data as that comes from the retailers. We have various agreements in place where they give us that data to display on our site or to market their products in ways they allow us to. We don't have permission to then hand that data to a third party to do whatever they want to. If we make it available to someone else via an API, we're breaching terms of our agreement, which in turn makes us lose our affiliate deal and price access. Boom, business is dead. Basically if you need that data, go to the source (the retailers) and negotiate with them.
	For product data: We've invested a lot of man years to build our data set, and some of that data helps us maintain a competitive advantage over copycat sites. Making it easier to retrieve that data isn't something I'm keen on. There are other sources of product data available that are more expansive than what we have anyway. I'd suggest pursuing that if you want to build your own hardware related site stuff.
	On API stuff for partlists and markdown: If you just want a discord bot, I'd be happy to chat through what it is you're looking for to see if that's something we could support officially on our end. We have our own discord server bot that uses an internal API to do partlist embeds.
	Last bit - publishing an API adds an additional thing for us to maintain. It's a maintenance and support burden. Even an unofficial API is. It becomes something that I have to test and not break any time I refactor code around it. We're a small company, and that's not really an area I want to allocate resources around if it's not a revenue generating thing.
Thanks a lot to you guys! With your site, I managed to make 3 separate lists, and now my dream of building a PC is coming true. Maybe you could add recommendations based on what the person has on their list, such as a cheaper but better graphics card, etc	I think recommendations are a possibility once we have our in-house benchmark data in place. But that'd be a ways down the road.
Thanks for your work, and since this is an AMA, simple question: Which is the best flavor of ice cream and why?	Amy's Ice Cream here in Austin. Belgian Chocolate. It's just wonderful but I haven't been there in almost a year now.
	manirelliPCPartPicker: I will second Amy's but I'm partial to the Mexican Vanilla flavor.
Wow. What a cool thing to see on Reddit. This is the first AMA I’ve ever replied in/commented on. I’m brand new to PC (3 year macbook user here, and besides a brief stint with a windows Hp laptop on which I played Rollercoaster tycoon and club penguin with “back in the day” I have never had need for the site. Until last month). I’m grateful the site exists, and it’s quite intriguing to me how you manage to create and maintain (emphasis on maintain) such an EXTENSIVE database of parts. I know it’s part of your life, however it astounds me to see these parts that seem so very minuscule, always appear. Have you considered, or maybe there already is and I simply am blind or don’t know about it. Have you considered adding any sort of personal or user based rating system regarding parts? Or a warning system for parts with known issues out of the box?	Our ratings are from users, but we only allow ratings/reviews from completed builds. That way we know that the review is from someone who actually built with it (versus say a 1 star review from someone mad they couldn't buy it).
	We do offer some warnings on known issues, but it's something we may expand in the future.

- Region: Europe, Servers are set to Auto.
- FPS Test was made in offline mode with Bots set to "as online".
- CPU: 8700k OC'd to 5Ghz
- GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080
- RAM: 16gb DDR4 3200, can't go higher!
- SSD: Samsung 960 Evo NVMe PCIe M.2
- Internet Connection: 1Gb, stable
- OS: Windows 10
- GPU Driver: 457.30
-Benchmark with more information: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/35446825
(Relative performance n/a - sequential bench incomplete - It needs 90GB of free space, I only have 40GB on that SSD, so it couldn't finish that one. Numbers are very good though, so no problem there.)
Other issues: None, PC is very good in any other game I play. Valorant, CoD, WoW, LoL, New Story Games, etc.
Text:
I took a break from the game for a long while and wanted to see how it is doing now. What changed, and well, if the performance increased.
I have seen a Reddit post from someone suggesting a fix in a boot.cfg, which is already implemented in the game. I checked! The values were in it without me knowing about it. People are just all over the hills with FPS gains.
Today, when I came back I was excited to experience these FPS jumps too, only to find out it got worse for me. Like barely anything I change in the game makes any difference. I can use supersampling 2x, downsampling 50%, leave my resolution at 1440p, drop it to 1080p, literally no change in FPS at all. I feel like there must be something I can do? On customs, I'm lucky if I get over 100fps which I'm testing in offline mode. Most of the time I'm sitting around 60-70+ and even drop to the 50s sometimes.
I checked many guides and tried everything I could find.
- Turning off Cores 1 3 5 7 9, etc. didn't work. Checking and unchecking physical cores ingame didn't help.
- Nvidia settings are optimized, and threaded optimisation is on Auto.
- I went in stood in one position without moving and played with every single setting I could, to get the best results only to see no improvement at all.
- New Colour Thingy is off, barely any difference when it is on.
- !!! Loading the game without Bots fixes the FPS Problem !!!, the moment I enable PVE it's back to no FPS. Something might be wrong with the bots? I have read about this too, many people complain about the same Issue, didn't read a single solution though.
How is it I can set the Supersampling to x2 and not witness a single FPS decrease, the only time I see a change is if I supersample 4x which drastically reduces FPS to around 40. Or downsample with 50% and not get any increase either? I can see the change with my eyes, but FPS remains the same.
I could witness a performance increase having textures on medium compared to low. The rest makes no difference at all, might as well just put everything on high settings.
Is there a way I can fix this? I don't enjoy the game with my FPS dropping all over the place. Others with less powerful hardware apparently get more FPS. Some people report having 120, super smooth gameplay, no problem at all while also live streaming the game, they could even start a second EFT and run that on mega super ultra settings and get 5000 FPS at this point, thats how good their game runs if you judge the posts they make. How????

TL;DR: good work! Enjoyable watch, no huge fuckups, well presented arguments, interesting topic even if you didn't care or played DayZ. Nice work SovietWomble ! More will be welcomed, especially if you speed it up now that you have explored a first batch of essays and have more experience 😏
So… very rapid context: never played Arma, never played DayZ (even though I started playing videogames in the 80s, so it's not an age thing). I guess it passed me by, although on paper it's the genre of game that I could love. No attachment to the apparent core subject either way.

Feedback

- Overall audio quality for the videos: good, but not great. You were a touch too close to your mic (or had too much gain), which is usually a good thing and you probably did it to lower the noise floor of your on-street small untreated flat through your condenser mic. I personally like the "the voice comes from inside your head" sound, but some won't. But but but… more important… you need a pop filter. Or a better one if you have one. Or learn to use it 😋Those plosives weren't that soft, and were everywhere (well it's not all plosives, it's a lot of beginning of sentences). Some light (or dynamic/automated) compression might also help a bit with those as transients (but may bring up the noise floor, I don't know how much of a problem it was and if you had to iZotope out a lot of it). Yes I'm nitpicking, there's a lot of worse cases than that on Youtube. But you know as well as me in videos, audio is king; and since you might want to aspire to other great Youtube essayists that's the level you need to cross.
As for the pickups, again good job not great. Maybe even very good. I'm sure the vast majority of viewers didn't notice those, but with good headphones you can hear some of those. Not a big deal, but an area of improvement maybe. Edit: this point is really a nitpick. I rewatched Psych last year, my god some pickups jump right in your hears and start doing the Macarena.
- Overall video quality: obviously I'm talking visuals, resolution, bitrate, etc. not the editorial quality. Eh… meh at best. As usual your game capture is incredibly compressed (or more likely heavily compressed multiple times), and Arma footage doesn't take kindly to that. And low resolution. I understand the cost and logistic issues of it, but you have the means. You should really step up your game here, since it's a much easier fix than any scripting or editing or editorial issue you might have. Even in the game streaming space, look at big streamer VODs. Hell, iirc, look at Cyanide footage! And those are streaming vods, not offline recordings going through postproduction.
And I only have 1080p monitors. I shudder (is that English?) to think what people on 4K, now or in ten years (since your videos have staying power and staying interest) will see.
Mini TL;DR: take half (or even full, since it's tax deductible probably) a month of revenue and let Swatknight set up a proper editing gaming computer (including monitors) and NAS for you. Don't argue with him because Nvidia is fucking you up without even proper flowers of lube and it's too expensive and whatever. They are, but it's not a gaming PC, it's a work tool. Just close your eyes, think of the Queen, and do what Swat says 🙄Just… probably in January or so, since supply chains are overly fucked at the moment.
The animations were very simple (since we're now in the realm of Lindsay Ellis and Captain D and so on, this isn't videogame highlights anymore), but effective. And that's the main point of it. No issue there.
- Subtitles: the lack of it will have an impact on your international audience. Yes you Brits abandoned the proper language or your proper colonial masters and rightful kings, and the result became somewhat popular worldwide. Still, a part of your success is accessibility. I heard Youtube fuck community subtitles somewhat, but if possible you could include those. You have an army of eager people who would happily put those up for you, and you could even hire a couple if you wanted specifically for that. Let's not pad up this wall of text: https://youtu.be/m__OZ3ZsO4Y?t=334

Video 1

- Introduction: your first beat is very good. I don't know if it was necessary, but I understand what you are trying to do, what you are preemptively trying to disarm, and for that goal I think this was done masterfully.
- 03:01, comparison to Noir: your visuals are a bit too ahead of your scripts/vocals. I would have maybe edited it in on the beat of you saying "noir" the first time, with a prefix like "Noir: a genre characterized by…".
- "Iterative development of the layman": reductive, but interesting for the layman, which is the point. And good animation there!
- About Early Access, "development almost finished" oh yes, "is actually entertaining" oh fuck yes!, "you never get a second first impression" oh so so yes yes yes, "evangelist alienation" oh yessssss! Ok short change of underpants done: not only in games, it happens in every industry. And good name, I'll steal it right away.
All very good points, and it's very good they are in a video essay and not only here and there in streams of past years you have deleted into public oblivion.
- "complete system with no obviously missing features": imo the weaker argument you put up. It's a dangerous thing to do, it can go awry very fast very deep, but it can very well be done, and done well. To take an example, Space Engineers both as a game and as early access had and has issues, but planets coming in late I don't think is in the top ten of those issues. Maybe even the top twenty. I won't write an essay about it here, and it doesn't really distract from your point, but imo probably the weaker argument of the lot.
- "early access is your release" mostly yes, but the overall point lack arguments of common counter point addressed. Basically, it could have been fleshed out slightly. Just a quick couple of sentence or visual aid to push the point home; because it's an important point.
- being pissed at warning to reserve judgement until early access is over: Yes!!!! My main argument would be: a product is being sold, judgement can and will happen immediately. If you want otherwise: don't sell it; just put up a free beta, or even better hire testers. You as a developer are not entitled to control what your customers think, do and share.
- "I and many have been trained in", your overall credentials: you need to establish credentials to devs for some of your points/goals. But since you're not going really technically deep, since it's videos for gamers too, this can come across wrong. You tread the line carefully, supported by your voice acting (and I suppose for the US, by your accent), I personally think it's fine. Just something to remember for the future, don't go over the line.
- "Lessons from early access by Eugen Harton": Very good timing. Just when people might think you like to listen to your voice, or you present points with little arguments, or "hey wasn't this about some Z game?" you come back to it and dropped this dev talk. Very good pacing.
- Multiple anchors of DayZ vs moving anchor of DayZ standalone: great set-up for a future point. Clear very concise way to get that message across even to people who never played DayZ.
- Ending of video 1: I liked the self contained point of the video. Well, there's the very very long intro and setup, but you needed that no way around it, even if I regret not being able to link the whole videos in some future discussions or to some devs as a shorthand. But Youtube allow timecode links, so it's fine.

Video 2

- The ending, to me, felt at the same both a bit abrupt, and a bit soft. But with the fact there's not much else I noted about it, I think it's to its credit: I was less in critique mode, or more along for the narrative ride, and nothing made me jump out of it to take notes. So that's a positive!

Video 3

- Framing device: nice, clever framing device. I talked in the past of similar things in different areas of industries, never though of using that one. Clever. I'm going to steal it immediately for future uses 😌
- Teams FPS murder animation: nice animation ;) Although, maybe a small missed opportunity: TF2 didn't get buried alive by a falling mountains of hats hacking away at its orange glow.
- 10:04 and the whole, lonnng argument before it: very nice setup, long but I guess necessary; and there nice clear visual aid to set up the perfect storm that is coming. Well done.
- Around 15:00: I very much like the rigor of telling this is your proposition, your idea, and not an argument based on hand-waved hard facts (although yes it's pretty obvious that's what happened). Nicely done.
- "No I don't mean the players were shagging each other": speak for yourself ^^ I never played DayZ, but I've certainly saw a decent amount of shagging on other game communities.
- Speciation into 3 (or whatever) groups: well put and developed argument, even for people not familiar with the genre. Well done. It took you quite some time to get through it, I don't mind it, I think it was necessary and enjoyable and useful, even if the pacing and delivery was not monotonic but a bit bland maybe. Some might find it too long, or would prefer a few more ramp-up and drops, or jokes in there.
- 40:13: veryyy nice graphics of sad Bohemia looking up at the Battleroyale Everest of cash! 😂 Made me laugh out loud.
- Welcome to the Jungle: you really like future administrative headaches and DMCA and Youtube shenanigans, don't you? 🙄 And this one is very clearly not fair use (although it wouldn't matter if it was, since this is Youtube).
- Overall for the 3 videos: great delivery though. The script was good, but the delivery was excellent.

Conclusion

Good first public work. More will be welcome. See you in 2023 for Episode 4?
Edit: to be more clear, I personally wouldn't mind if every other of your videos were essays. Obviously shorter than those 3 combined, but maybe around the 15 minutes mark. If you can keep up the pace to a video per month, and keep up the script quality once it has moved off DayZ.

This is a cross post from what I posted in apexlegends but I feel it's best suited here as stable, high framerates are very important to those who want to learn and become a better player. Link to that apexlegends post here.

Ultimate Smooth Gameplay Guide - Setting the ingame Adaptive FPS to any FPS (works with GSync/Freesync)

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• TL;DR: This will keep your FPS to the the value you choose and will lower your ingame 3D resolution when your FPS would normally drop.
• If you're a streamer this is the best guide for your setup to maintain max fps regardless of the situation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------DISCLAIMER: IF YOU THINK THE GAME IS BLURRY YOUR PC ISNT POWERFUL ENOUGH TO RUN APEX AT YOUR DESIRED FRAMERATE USING ADAPTIVE FPS. The adaptive FPS feature will lower 3D resolution to a max of 50% of your native resolution and uses TSAA to smooth out the edges. If you're on 1080p/1440p and think it's "just blurry" you're playing between native res down to 720p or 580p, and your PC isn't powerful enough for high FPS. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Changelog 25/8/2020:

• Added section of how to setup G-Sync and Freesync.
• Cleaned up the guide formatting.

Changelog 05/8/2020:

• Added reminder to turn off Origin In-Game. It causes stutteperformance drops in general and especially with OBS Studio and streaming.
• Added 240fps frametimes for testing/fun.
• Changed the formatting, removed typos.

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Preword and who am I

Sup, I'm Starflame, I stream and sometimes make creative content. I currently use a 1440p 240Hz Omen X 27monitor with Freesync 2 and I've used Gsync and Freesync monitors since they came out.With Apex also being weird with how their the V-Sync works with the game I've decided to make a guide. This will work on any monitogpu setup and make your frametimes exceptionally stable and thus your gameplay smooth, something 95% of players ignore and don't think or know about. If you're a streamer this is even more important as game capture will reduce performance or cause stutters. With this, your HUD also remains it's native res and for both you and viewers it's a very enjoyable way to play and watch.I like to help people and because Apex is notorious for being hard to get high FPS in, I wrote this guide so you can configure your game to run buttery smooth as well. This is great for your own enjoyment and if you stream yourself, you won't notice the performance drop at all running stream software alongside the game.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------DISCLAIMER 2: If you want maximum fps*, or maximum fps with* static resolution*, this guide will not cover that.*
For that you need to overclock your PC, install programs like QuickCPU and crank the mimimums in that to maximum so your PC doesn't idle. You can google overclocking guides and search things like "max fps apex legends" for guides on YouTube. There are many other good ones for that so I won't be covering this specifically.
This guide covers how to configure the ingame Adaptive FPS option so you will have high and -stable- FPS throughout your games while the ingame resolution changes and your HUD remains at your monitors native resolution. This works with both G-Sync and Freesync monitors and monitors without. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Things to note first, because important:
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Apex microstutter
The game will run smoothly up to 190 fps, after that it will micro stutter for some reason. That's just how the game runs no matter the computer. You might hear your favorite sweaty streamer talk about this and see it if they have the fps counter on that they're capping to 190fps or below.
If you're not noticing this and you're pushing above 190fps to 240fps and over you're not playing with stable frametimes from the get-go and/or you're ignoring the microstutter. When it's configured properly it should be literally "butter-smooth" to move your camera around. 191fps and over is janky compared to "butter smooth".
TSAA
This will be enabled when you're using the Adaptive FPS option. You can't turn this off when Adaptive FPS is used and it's just a thing we have to live with. However, it does make it easier to ignore when the game changes resolutions while playing. And personally at 190 fps the anti-aliasing ghosting/smearing TSAA produces doesn't phase me and I'm fairly sensitive to that. I'm more sensitive to low FPS and unstable frametimes and this is a good tradeoff imo. Most people won't even perceive it so this is just a win-win because it's hard to get high FPS in Apex despite the performance improvements Respawn have made
Turn OFF Origin In-Game
Origin In-Game will cause performance issues. Turn this OFF in Origin's application settings. It's especially relevant if you want to use this while streaming as your game will have microstuttering when using OBS Studio and streaming, as well as lowered fps.
Set up G-Sync/FreeSync properly
You should set up G-Sync or FreeSync properly if you have this. Lots of people don't know or understand how to. Don't worry, I cover this almost immediately in Step One.

[STEP ONE]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I tried making this as easily digested as possible, it is still a bit to take in and you'll learn about how stuff like Adaptive Sync works with games because it's the same for Apex as any other game, I only go into specific detail about Apex here really. My thought is that you might not have any clue and this will help you if you really don't. And if you know this stuff you can easily find what you're looking for.
Lingo

G-Sync / FreeSync	Both are Adaptive Sync technologies that make your gpu talk to your monitor and display frames at the same intervals to avoid tearing. Because of how Adaptive Sync sounds similar to Adaptive FPS I've chosen to just write "G-Sync/FreeSync" a lot.
RTSS	Rivatuner Statistics Server. A framerate limiter program. It limits framerates. You need this to limit the framerate of Apex. You can find it here. Also works with other games.
Adaptive FPS	What Respawn has called the Dynamic View Scaler that changes the ingame resolution on the fly. In the settings file it's the line that says "setting.dvs_enable". I go over this further below.
FPS	Frames Per Second. You want your pc to have a lot. But that doesn't matter unless your frametimes are stable.
Frametimes	What actually matters for high fps gaming. It is the time it takes your computer to show each frame and how stable this interval is. Measured in milliseconds. For example a monitor with 144hz will have an average frametime of 6.944ms. The more stable and consistent this interval is, the smoother the gameplay.

Programs you need

RTSS (Rivatuner)	A framerate limiter. You can find it here.
Notepad	I recommend Notepad++.

[STEP ONE - SETTING UP G-SYNC / FREESYNC]

G-Sync	Windows Central's guide to enabling G-Sync
FreeSync	AMD's guide to enabling FreeSync
	Things that need to be set in order for it to work after just turning it on:
V-Sync	V-Sync must be enabled. It doesn't matter if it's in the game settings or in your Nvidia/AMD control panel. V-Sync has to be enabled for it to work properly. This is separate from the specific setting where G-Sync/FreeSync is turned on. In Apex, you must use Adaptive V-Sync ingame.
Cap your framerate	You must cap your framerate 3-5 fps under your refreshrate. So if your monitor is 144Hz you cap your fps in RTSS to 141 or lower. Never go closer than 3 fps from the limit. This is because no capping software is perfect and all games actually fluctuate a bit and fps overlays only show an average.
But why?	In simple terms; V-Sync makes your game not tear. G-Sync/FreeSync then hops in right before that and makes your GPU talk to your monitor so they both display frames at the same interval, so if your fps dips from 140 to 136 your monitor will literally change the refreshrate from 140 to 136. G-Sync/FreeSync does not induce input lag. However; if you don't cap your fps inside the refreshrate limit, V-Sync suddenly kicks in before G-Sync/FreeSync and you get input lag. So be sure to cap your FPS.

Notes on G-Sync/Freesync with Apex:

Because of how the game microstutters above 190fps, it's killing two birds with one stone to cap a few fps under your refreshrate limit, or more. This guide would say "from 100 fps to 360fps" if this wasn't the case. We can only dream.
If you're on a 240hz monitor you can cap to 185fps, a 165hz can cap at 160fps and for a 144hz you can cap at 139fps. Personally I do 3-5 fps under because some games fluctuate a lot.
Further in this guide I tell you to cap at 186, 161, 142 and 118 fps, which because of how the game seems to treat frametimes. You can see the reason for this next to the frametime value down below.

Now, if you're NOT using a G-Sync or FreeSync monitor just set your RTSS cap to the same as the monitor refreshrate. No need to waste power by having uncapped fps, unless you absolutely need the lowest input lag. If you're a sweaty gamer who wants the most fps regardless, don't use RTSS or any adaptive sync tech and get as many FPS as you can. Live in the horrible, tearing world of non-smooth gaming that you are in as Apex goes from 80 fps in the dropship to 300fps in bunker.

[STEP TWO]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Locate your videoconfig.txt file in C:\Users\YOURNAME\Saved Games\Respawn\Apex\Local where YOURNAME is your pc username. This file needs to be made [read only] when you're done with all this or it will be overwritten by Apex when you play. To do this you right click the file, go Properties and check ON "Read Only".
Explanation table

setting.dvs_enable = 1	Enables Adaptive FPS. It won't work if you don't have this. Changing the min/max frametimes like other guides have you suggest does absolutely nothing if this value is not set to 1.
setting.mat_vsync_mode = 3	This sets V-Sync to "Adaptive". Even without adaptive FPS this is the correct V-Sync setting when using Gsync/Freesync. Don't use 1/2 Adaptive.
setting.dvs_gpuframetime_max	This is where you divide 1000 / fps to get the frametime value. See the table below where you can just copy-paste what fps you want it set for.
setting.dvs_gpuframetime_min	Put the same value as gpuframetime_max here too. There's another guide that says something about dividing by 0.97 for the min, which is not advised for stable frametimes. We're trying to get the most stable frametime so giving the game leeway that causes uneven frametimes, aka stutter is not on our list.
Screenshot of my own videoconfig.txt file	These settings are configured to 1440p, 190fps, good lod values and overall a nice graphics mix to get good fps without the game looking completely ass. I recommend copying this and applying your own fps frametime and resolution.

Frametime info

The easy way to think of this value is by equating it to milliseconds and giving the engine a min/max value that's acceptable to stay within. The reason you divide by 1.000.000 instead of 1000 is just to give a value the game accepts. 1000 / 190 = 5.263 ms, and 1000000 / 190 = 5263 (ms). The game understands 5263.

Frametime Table

There are two frametimes presented here for each FPS target.
Top one is the actual frametime of said fps. Example: The frametime for 190 fps is (1000 / 190) = 5.263 ms, you then multiply 5.263 by 1000 = 5263. This is your frametime value, ingame this shows as 186 fps.
The lower one is what the game will recognize as exactly the 190 fps framerate. This is 5150 for some reason. I assume the game tries to stay within a certain range. The original frametime has a value leeway of 300, so 9500 min and 9800 max is the standard setting for 100fps for example.
This is likely to not have the game instantly change the resolution and if your system fluctuates the performance a lot is nice with Triple Buffered V-Sync, but as you can guess this is horrible if you want perfect and as stable frametimes as possible. Frametimes are arguably more important than FPS.

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IF YOU HAVE A G-SYNC or FREESYNC MONITOR, USE THE TOP VALUE TO STAY INSIDE ADAPTIVE SYNC RANGE.
Use the "Actual" value for normal monitors without G-Sync/FreeSync.

190 fps - G-Sync/Freesync

"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_min"	"5263"	186 fps ingame value on adaptive fps. Cap fps to this using RTSS.
"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_max"	"5263"

Actual 190 fps ingame

"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_min"	"5150"	Actually 190 fps as ingame value. Cap fps to this using RTSS if you have a normal monitor.
"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_max"	"5150"

165 fps - G-Sync/Freesync

"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_min"	"6060"	162 fps ingame value on adaptive fps. Set RTSS to same fps.
"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_max"	"6060"

Actual - 165 fps ingame

"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_min"	"5950"	Actually 165 fps as ingame value. Cap fps to this using RTSS if you have a normal monitor.
"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_max"	"5950"

144 fps - G-Sync/Freesync

"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_min"	"6944"	141 fps ingame value on adaptive fps. Set RTSS to same fps.
"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_max"	"6944"

Actual - 144 fps ingame

"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_min"	"6800"	Actually 144 fps as ingame value. Cap fps to this using RTSS if you have a normal monitor.
"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_max"	"6800"

120 fps - G-Sync/Freesync

"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_min"	"8333"	118 fps ingame value on adaptive fps. Set RTSS to same fps.
"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_max"	"8333"

Actual - 120 fps ingame

"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_min"	"8200"	Actually 120 fps as ingame value. Cap fps to this using RTSS if you have a normal monitor.
"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_max"	"8200"

60 fps - G-Sync/Freesync/Normal

The game already supports 1-100 fps, making 60 fps redundant.

240 fps - G-Sync/Freesync - WARNING: The game will microstutter above 190 fps

"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_min"	"4166"	235 fps ingame value on adaptive fps. Set RTSS to same fps.
"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_max"	"4166"

Actual - 240 fps ingame - WARNING: The game will microstutter above 190 fps

"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_min"	"4080"	Actually 240 fps as ingame value. Cap fps to this using RTSS if you have a normal monitor.
"setting.dvs_gpuframetime_max"	"4080"

Congrats, you've set your desired frametime now. If the game looks blurry, your PC is too shit to run the desired framerate and lowers the ingame 3D resolution as much as possible to try and hit the FPS target.
That sucks, and you need to lower your FPS target.

[STEP THREE]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adding an Auto Execution

Apex runs on the Source engine and you can add an auto executable file to run certain commands automatically when the game loads. This can be different than the launch command options apparently.
Some of these don't really work and this is just an added extra. cl_showfps works for me sometimes for example but other times not. Feel free to skip this if you don't want to use it.

Add an autoexec.cfg file to your Origin Games\Apex\cfg folder and in it add these settings. There are more if you search them up online but I find these are fine for me. If the folder isn't there create one.

Adding an autoexec?	Just make a text file in the cfg folder, add the settings and rename it to autoexec.cfg when you're done. Opening it in Notepad opens it as a text file gg ez
cl_showfps 0	Change this to 1, 2, 3 or 4 for different fps statisticsc ingame. I just use the Origin overlay FPS monitor but 1 here works well.
fps_max 190	Write whatever your monitor refreshrate is unless you can go over 190hz.
mat_diffuse 1	It's supposed to remove some shadows but won't work if you have shadows on ingame. Not needed really.
mat_postprocess_enable 0	Removes post process effects. This doesn't work if you have effects on ingame.
mat_copressedtextures 1	This loads in compressed textures. Sweaty gamers keep this on.
cl_ragdoll_collide 0	Makes dead bodies not go flop flop onto each other anymore. Lets the game use more math elsewhere.

In the game properties in the Origin app you add the following

	Screenshot of my own Game Properties
+exec autoexec	This makes the Auto Execution work.
+fps_max 186	Set this to your RTSS framerate cap so the game works in tandem with RTSS.
-high	Sets the priority of the game to High in Windows.
-dev	Skips those cool intro videos the game designers worked really hard to put into the game.

Extras

Screenshot of my own ingame video settings
You don't have to use exactly these settings, but personally I find that the game is more enjoyable when the dynamic shadows and "all" graphics are at least switched on. Lowering everything is of course best for achieving max FPS with the highest resolution.
Ambient Occlusion is off because it's literally just "shadows in corners" and it steals a lot of GPU power.

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[STEP FOUR]

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That's basically it. Your game will now try to run at the desired FPS and reduce the ingame 3D resolution to achieve the set FPS should there be a lot going on ingame, your HUD remains native res and your frametimes are really stable.
Remember, if you change these settings ingame after doing all this it will reset and you will only get 100fps in the adaptive FPS option. So make sure to make your videoconfig.txt file READ ONLY in it's properties or what you changed will be rewritten when you start Apex. Of course, if you accidentally change it ingame but have your file as read only, you just have to restart the game to get it back. Make a backup folder inside of the local folder so you have one should you mess up. We smart.
Other things to check is that your monitor is running at 144hz/165hz/240hz in Windows settings. Double check that G-Sync or Freesync is actually turned on. Install latest gpu drivers. Eat before you play and warm up.
Closing words

My computer is a i7-8700k @ 5Ghz, 1080ti, 32GB 3200Mhz ram playing at 1440p, and I'm getting 186 fps pretty much all the time except for right when dropping into a game. It's great because the frametime is really stable, when I'm in a tight space I get full resolution with max fps and no stuttering even when shit goes down.
It's been annoying me that the Adaptive FPS option doesn't go over 100 FPS on it's own, and from experience it's usually a good trade off to have high, stable framerates. This is desirable in many FPS games and especially competitive ones. I'm guessing it's meant to be measure to dropping into games where fps goes down a lot, especially when dropping.
Funnily enough it's the same in Titanfall 2. Same feature. Likely an option to ensure you get at least somewhat decent fps if your pc is weak, but here we're using it to get really high, stable fps. If you're into Titanfall 2 this actually works the same.
If you're sensitive to FPS fluctuations and stutters like me, setting up your game to work perfectly with G-Sync or Freesync makes it really enjoyable to play, and if you stream the capture won't cause stutters or lag for you either, and being a sweaty streamer becomes easy as you're getting the same performance while streaming as you do offline. To note, I tend to cap to 165fps when I stream because of my 1080ti maxing out and OBS does take some resources.
I hope this guide is helpful, it was interesting to make and I feel it's convenient to have a post where this is all explained in an easily digested way.

Should you have questions feel free to ask here, I'm also available on twitter @ starflame, you can find my other links via my profile there.
\added changelog for changes made.*