I run 16 Bit Virtual Studios. You can find more reviews from me on YouTube youtube.com/@16bitvirtual or other social media @16bitvirtual, and we sell our 3D Printed stuff on 16bitstore.com

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  • 182 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • I’ve been using smart watches since the Pebble Time Steel. The reason I use a smart watch is to get off my phone more.

    I use it to screen important notifications, read messages, and to tell the time.

    It’s a niche use case but I find it helpful especially at work to see what’s happening without pulling it out.

    That said my poor pebble isn’t used much these days, and I’ve moved to Garmin. These have always on reflective displays like e-paper that sips batteries. Plus I’ve been using my garmin to track my exercise which is nice.

    Definitely cant recommend the more battery sensitive Apple Watch or the Samsung or google equivalent. But if it lasts 1-2 weeks on a single charge with the screen always showing the time, it’s better than a contemporary watch.


  • One answer is quite simple. Not to sell loot boxes.

    I mean counter strike and team fortress 2 worked fine and were extremely fun games before they added a virtual slot machine to their games. “they’re just skins” right? If they were given out for free in game it wouldn’t impact the rest of the games experience.

    Valve can also prevent the sale of real world money for these items. Especially if it’s been flagged for Gambling.

    Or as another stated disable or moderate the usage of their own API on these gambling sites.


  • The way I see it, they are the lesser of two evils. Just because someone isn’t as bad a Microsoft, doesn’t mean that they are forgiven for their sins.

    Predatory lootboxes, and not cracking down on CSGO Gambling site are the biggest sins which Valve has committed.

    Going beyond that, no clear path forward for when the Steam DRM Client goes offline. I personally have games which I bought on legacy hardware, that no longer runs on that hardware since Steam discontinued support for it. I don’t expect Valve to support all hardware indefinitely, however I can buy the same game from GOG, and install it on my XP and Win 7 machines without issue.

    I am certain that there are other issues, and compared to MS they look like a saint. But for me I diversify my game library and get as much of my games DRM Free or on a platform which has a proven track record for supporting not just their current purchases but also legacy ones.

    Beat Sony with a stick all you want. Despite the PSP being 21 years old this year, if I can connect my PSP to the internet, I can still download my digital PSP PSM and PS1 games.



  • Steam lets you play your games on the big screen in various ways. But you will need the following.

    1. A device with steam or steam link app installed. Samsung TV use to have Steam Link available but from a quick search might not be available anymore.

    So you will need a device like an Apple TV or Google TV to plug into your TV if you want to wirelessly display your Steam Deck.

    Though in my personal view you may want to just connect the steamdeck itself into the TV with a USBC to HDMI adapter. Plus you can charge your deck while connected to a TV.

    1. a controller if you are plugging in your steam deck

    Steam Deck has high compatibility with wireless controller from official controller from Sony, Xbox, and Nintendo. Plus the 3rd party ones like from 8bitdo are good and work well too.

    My recommendation is Dongle/wireless controller for best experience. But if you must do everything wireless you don’t need a controller but it’ll still work.


  • Tbh running AMD isn’t easier. For my workload I needed OpenCL and when it wasn’t installed by default, and wasn’t apart of apt package manager. I had to follow a script which involves amdgpu and only having OpenCL install if I wanted my machine stable.

    Not the best experience.

    For Nvidia some distros have installers built in to handle it. Like Mint where it’s one click and a restart and I have everything.