Back Again For A Bit

Entry posted by reepblue · December 19, 2017

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It's been quite a while since I posted here. All is well, and I now have some time to talk to you on where I've been and what I wish to do in the future.

I started a job back in August and my enormous amount of free time dwindled to a few hours a day. However, I now have an income to support myself and buy new toys. I wanted to get into the Linux ecosystem and further distance myself from the Windows world. So for about $300, I've built a PC with an i3-6100, 4GB of DDR4 Ram, put it in a Mini-ITX case and ran Linux off an SSD. I love the machine, but there isn't really much I can use it for. I didn't put in a GPU in it due to driver inconsistencies, so everything runs off the integrated GPU, which can run HL2/Portal at 60fps at 720p; neat!

I always wanted to dabble into programming for 2D. While working on 3D games is fun, working on 2D games can go a lot quicker and require less resources and as a solo developer that sounded dandy being the limited time I have now. I decided to buy a Raspberry Pi, and use SDL as my drawing library. I will not go into full detail, but the base operations are done, they just need the kinks worked out. Anyway, here is a tablet I assembled.

I have two of em! I had to buy an element 14 PSU and it was cheaper to buy it with another Pi than stand alone; which in the end worked out as programming on that screen is dreadful. All in all, my last few months have been me doing that. I never really booted my new Linux machine nor my Windows PC.

About a week ago or so, Josh contacted me about a concept I uploaded privately and how he wants it on the new game page. Although I don't think the prototype is good enough to be up there (it crashes, slow loading, etc), I'm definitely interested on picking it back up, and maybe opening it up as some sort of community project thing. All the code is done, it just needs optimization really. I accidentally deleted my source files but Josh was kind enough to decript the zip file. That got me interested back in that Mini-ITX PC I've built back in September. I have a RX480 in the closet that my neighbor gave me a while back (And thank frick, cause those GPU prices are ridiculous these days), and I didn't put it in any PCs before because of the rumblings of poor drivers on Linux, and I was happy with my 750ti for the most part. But I was thinking, maybe if I upgraded the processor and RAM, and installed windows on it I can make PC that's more powerful and smaller than my current Windows PC.

Newegg for better or worse is (or was) having a Intel Sale and I got a i5-7600k for $200. I also picked up another 4GB of ram (cause prices are high on that too) in which bumps the machine from a dual core with 4GB of RAM to a Quad-core with 8GB of RAM! All I really need is a new Windows Licence and I'd like to keep my Linux install so I might buy a fresh SSD, but I think I'll just reuse the current one I have. I really hate that I went full circle back to windows, but as long as I keep using Linux and get more and more comfortable with it, if I have to jump ship, I can comfortably do so. I'm just not ready to abandon Windows completely right now.

Today, is when I realized that I finally have a machine that can do VR. I decided to look at prices for the Rift and Vive to see if the prices went down as the demand settled. And to my luck (again for better or worse) Oculus was having a sale. I decided to go for it as I really don't have the space for full room VR, but now that Leadwerks is coming out with official VR support, I'd like to finally experiment with it!

So my biggest worry is jamming everything in that small case. Yes, I have a modular power supply, and everything is still tight! Really hope I can fit the GPU in there!