Shagger

I think that this is a little to far with timing how long U18's can game of thier own will, but I actually quite like the idea of limiting thier spending. Game companies and the various bureau's in charge of labelling games to advice people of content (Like the ESRB and PEGI) are doing nothing to curb the pandemic of vulnerable children and adults being suckered in by microtransactions, so it only a matter of time before governments were going to get heavy handed with thier own efforts to resolve the problem. And quite frankly, children in School playing for 90 minutes a day during the week sounds reasonable. It's just a shame that parents couldn't regulate the time children play thier games and the government has to do it for them.

I actually started writing this post on a topic that @Patrik entitled Fixes that make no sense, but still fixed your game, but I soon realised that it was going a little to far off topic. I still think this is a killer story that apparently few people know about, especially for some of the older gamers and retro gamers like @The Blackangell, so I decided to finish the post anyway and share it as a new thread. This is the story of how I believe censorship forced Nintendo to downgrade thier console to some of thier customers. The world is divided in many ways. In terms of technology, one of the ways the world is divided is by the Analogue Colour Encoding system engineered for television sets and video recorders. This splits the world into three regions, PAL NTSC and SECAM. Any gamer around in the 80's and 90's will know this system all too well, but is not as immediately prevalent with the more region free gaming world we have now. The map below shows what countries are set to what. I live in the UK, so as you can see that is in the PAL region. Back in the day, without having the right game copy for the right console to go with the right TV in the right part of the world, it simply wouldn't work. There is a lot of stuff to say about this system on it's own, but with the basics covered I'll just get to the point. In the 70's/80's (at least where I grew up), most game consoles connected to your TV through the same kind of connection you would use for an aerial (Called an AF Socket). The NES was like that, for example. In the 90's, things moved on to other types of connections such as AV, SCART and Super Video that would offer stereo sound and a better, more stable picture. The SNES had such connectivity, more specifically an AV slot (The rectangular port near the middle of the console). This is a step up, as you would expect with a next generation console. For reference sake, this is what an AV cable looks like. The slim, black connecter at one end to go into the console with the three other cables to connect to the TV being Right Audio, Left Audio and Video. This is where things, and by that I mean Nintendo, get weird. The next system was the Nintendo 64, one of my very favourite consoles ever and I'd defend it to hills, but the process of connecting it to your TV was a bit bizarre. It had an AV slot, just like the SNES (The port numbered 1 in this picture. The massive recess containing port 2 was to hold the power brick. I guess Nintendo didn't want a brick on the power cable itself but still wanted it easily removed from the console for this design, but whatever); And this port was thier on the PAL version of the console, but you couldn't connect it to your TV with as AV cable like you could with the SNES because it wouldn't work, Instead you got this fun little bugger included with your console; And what was it for you ask? To convert the AV socket so you could plug in an AF Aerial cable into your console then plug that into your TV. Like we were doing with the ATARI 2600 and NES over a decade earlier... yeah... As far as I know, this "feature" was exclusive to the PAL version of the console. Everybody else got to use an AV cable akin with the SNES. In fact, it was literally the exact same AV cable. This is like if PAL region PS4 owners were forced to use a SCART cable to connect thier PS4's to thier TV's whereas everyone else got to use HDMI. Why did they do this? Well, look back at the map I posted and you will notice that Australia is part of the PAL region. Australia was, and in many ways still is, something of a nanny state when it comes to video games. The Australian authorities weren't very happy that games and versions of games that they didn't approve off were being played in that country. People were able to buy these games simply by making trips oversees to the likes of America, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia to buy them during the life cycles of the NES and SNES. These places were cheap to get to and/or were frequent travel spots for Australians anyway, so this was economical. It didn't matter the games were region coded, people found ways to break them quite easily on those consoles despite Nintendo's best efforts. Fearing this happening again, not to mention fearing the Australian authorities, Nintendo came up with a cunning idea. The messed around with the video output of the PAL console so it had far less electrical resistance as the other versions. This resulted in a video signal that would oversaturate your TV, showing as almost entirely white screen, making the AV cable useless. The converter box itself was also designed to not let the 60Hz signal from an NTSC or SECAM game pass through it, only the 50HZ signal based tech' of a PAL copy of the game. So even if the console or game was cracked so a non PAL version of the game could play on said console, it still wouldn't work. You have to admire how clever this really was. So the naughty Aussie gamers with thier naughty foreign games had no choice but to only play the games mummy Australia approved off, and ruined the lives everyone else in the PAL region in the process. Years later, this makes the PAL version of the console a nightmare to hook up to modern TV's. AF signals are just too weak to transmit to them. The signal being transmitted to the screen refreshes slower than the screen itself creating a "flash" between static and the game signal. You still can't use the AV cable either because of how the console was tampered with. An AV cable that's been specifically modified to have the same electrical resistance on the video output as the audio outputs (only the video output was tampered with buy Nintendo) will allow the console to actually work. I learned this the hard way trying to get my N64 to work a few years ago. So that's the story. I can only imagine what would happen if Nintendo or any game company tried to pull this shit today. I actually believe that the only got away with it back then because the internet, at least as we know it, didn't really exist. I did successfully verify this a few years back but I remember it being a nightmare to do so, I can't remember how and I just can't be bothered doing so again. But of course, if any of the things I've said are incorrect please tell me.

That's not actually that surprising. Some anti-virus programs can really hoard a computer's hardware resources. That can be especially true if that particular antivirus software software is, let's say, "paranoid" about a program accessing the internet to function like a game such as COD would. Truthfully, software like Norton and McAfee are far more trouble than they're worth

I believe Heavy Metal and video game soundtracks are happy bedfellows so often for a reason. These things are sperate, but both are heavily woven into geek culture along with other things that don't really exist for the popular kids like Pro-Wrestling, Comics, Fantasy Novels, table top games and so on. It's not that these things are inherently uncool or unpopular, but there is a certain amount of obscurity and exclusivity to them that appeals to people outside the click. As a fam of both, I'm more than happy that this is the case.

Once again, I'm reminding the OP (in this case @IanH) that sources are very important in a gaming news topic. It's OK, but try to remeber that in future. Here's the official announcement video. Overall I'm quite disappointed. The OLED screen is nice, it will offer much more contrast and more vibrant visuals overall with it also bigger now a 7in instead of 6.2in, but I don't think I'm being entitled by expecting more. None of the rumoured hardware upgrades at all. No wait, they have upgraded the internal storage from 32GB to 64GB. Yeah, pointless as one will still have to add a big SD card in there to hold much of anything. It now has an Ethernet port in dock which is less of a feature on the Switch OLED and more of oversight on the original. You know it's bad when the best news is an upgraded kickstand, that did need to be better so kudos. Still this is not a great announcement for me. I wasn't expecting 4K gameplay on the go, that would have been ridiculous and pointless, but a bit more power to allow the switch to enhance performance, help keep the console compatible with new games for longer and perhaps 4K media playback in docked mode was the minimum I think people were hoping for.

They are something of an odd ball. They are a Nationalist Party, but do often fall on the left with policy. To me though, it's pretty much irrelevant because trust me when I tell you that Scottish independence is the only thing they care about.

As prompted from a discussion on another thread by @The Blackangel, here is my take on what have been a very divisive political debate with regard to whether or not my country, Scotland, should be independent from the United Kingdom. As I briefly pointed out in the aforementioned discussion, I can't talk about this and maintain a neutral perspective, so here's some links to provide full context. The Anglo-Scottish Wars History of the Union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Island The Treaty of the Union Wikipedia page detailing the Scottish Independence Referendum that took place in 2014 From this point on, this post becomes an opinion piece, not to be taken as a documentation of neutral fact. I'm not going to lie in this, but this is being written from an unapologetically bias perspective, bear that in mind. I'm also not gonna link to every little incident and happening throughout the course of events as that would take forever and this this only meant to be a recollection of my view and what I personally observed. When the referendum for independence happened in 2014, I was very much on the side in support of the union. My reasons for this combined a lack of confidence in the SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party, currently the party in power in the Scottish Parliament) trying to deliver independence, sever doubt over Scotland's economic prosperity as an independent nation and ineligibility to remain a part of the EU (I know Brexit happened and we left the EU as part of the UK anyway, but more on that later.). The biggest reason for my support of the union was more personal though. I work in Shipbuilding and one of the Scottish Shipbuilding and Ship maintenance's biggest clients is the Royal Navy of Great Britain. We have been maintaining Royal Navy ships at the Dockyard where I work for over a century. Back in the nineties, this shipyard was bought from the UK's Ministry of Defence by an private engineering frim called Babcock, and that is who I work for today. There was benefits and drawbacks to this shipyard being privatised, but the overall goal was for the shipyard to continue it's work in a way that was more cost effective to the government. This matters when it comes to and independent Scotland because; These multi-billion dollar engineering firms Babcock and BAE Systems operating shipyards on the Clyde have other interests and infrastructure operation outside of Scotland, including other Shipyards in the UK. In other words, Companies like the aforementioned can in theory keep contracts with the Royal Navy without having to operate in Scotland. The Royal Navy has long standing rules that states no warships for the Royal Navy can be build outside the UK. There are other protocols that also limit access to other nations and thier citizens to these ships and thier technology. Only a few years before and after the referendum, a lot of new ships were being commissioned to be and being built inside Scotland such as the Type 42 Destroyer, Type 26 Frigate, QEC Class Aircraft Carrier and soon to start Type 31 Frigate. These projects combine to sustain thousands of jobs in Scotland and they would all be in sever jeopardy if Scotland became independent from the UK. That was my main reason for not wanting this happen back in 2014. Since then my opinion has only been reaffirmed with what I would describe as an ill-focused SNP party that's supposed to be governing us. Like toddlers not getting thier own way, thier leader at the time immediately resigned to eventually face sexual misconduct chargers, have supported blatantly transphobic policies, let education and healthcare systems down all because the only thing they have been focused on for the last seven years in another independence referendum. The vote was supposed to be "once in a generation" (thier words), but because they can't take a loss, they've done nothing but throw thier toys out the pram for the last seven years and I'm fucking sick of them. They would do, and have done, pretty much anything to try and get more votes swinging thier way. This includes giving votes to prisoners that they already buttered up with free phones and gadgets and moving old people infected with COVID-19 out of hospital and into care homes without screening of any kind nor quarantine in the hope that will "cull" off old people as statistics showed they were far more inclined to vote no for independence. They even flipped flopped on Brexit. One of the big issues brought up during the referendum campaign was Scotland's ineligibility to retain EU membership if they broke apart from the UK. Scotland didn't want to leave the EU then (nether did I, I did not support Brexit), nor did we want to leave with the Brexit vote, but with our comparatively small population, our vast majority of "no" votes weren't enough to swing the overall vote to remain in the EU. Of course, the SNP blamed Scotland leaving the EU on the fact that Scotland was a part of the UK. The problem is they needed people to forget that if Scotland had left the UK back in 2014, we would have left the EU anyway. Sadly, far too many people ate this up like morons being feed slop they were told was caviar. The SNP are politicians for the stupid. As result, and despite the fact that most (impartial) economic experts concluded an independent Scotland wouldn't be eligible to re-join the EU anyway, Brexit became the spearhead for the SNP to push for another independence referendum only two years after the first one. You know I'm not making this up because I couldn't. I'm saddened that I lack the talent to make this up! These Nazi-Sympathisers (and that's not an exaggeration, the SNP really were Nazi-sympathisers. Why? Because they believed that if Nazi Germany won WWII, Scotland would have a better chance to becoming independent from the UK. They are as foolish as they are morally bankrupted.) have ruined Scotland. I've heard Americans say "Trump hasn't made America great again, he's made America HATE again." Well, Nicola Sturgeon is our trump. Scotland is not the welcoming, hospitable nation it used to be. We are more bigoted and hate fuelled than ever thanks to that troglodyte Sturgeon, her SNP lackeys and thier bigoted supporters. Thier politics have divided this country in the worst way. Some Americans reading this may think "We had it bad with Trump" for four years. Well, we have been putting with Sturgeon and her equally bigoted and misguided predecessor combined for over a decade and there is no "Biden" on the horizon. We're stuck with them. I don't want to see Scotland be independent right now for reasons stemming from my personal circumstance, but I'm not opposed to Scotland becoming independent someday. However, I will NEVER vote for Scotland to sail to independent sea's if it's these fuckers manning the helm. They want independence solely to herald themselves as hero's like Robert the Bruce or William Wallace when they just aren't. Scotland's parliament is already devolved, has been since 1998, so the Scottish government has at least 90% of the powers that they would have in an independent Scotland. They misuse the power that they already have, so there is no way I'm going to trust them to govern an independent Scotland. They are not interested in governing Scotland, they've proven that. They even hold potentially beneficial policy hostage claiming "We can't put this into force as part of the UK" when they totally can. They want to make Scotland independent, not govern Scotland.

Scottish independence is a political discussion and so is something to address on the correct part of the forum. I'm also not a great source of basic information because I can't talk about it without bias. The short version is there was a referendum for Scottish Independence in 2014 that the powers trying to push for independence lost and that was a huge sigh of relief from me. It's only my opinion, but independence for Scotland from the UK would have been (and still would be) a disaster. Like I said, it's a political discussion so that's as far as I'll go. I'll write an option piece on the matter and post it to the political sub-forum if people are that interested, but for now that's my take

What is the Windows 11 eligibility criteria?

It's the acronym used in reference to Player Unkown's Battlegronds.

For a pre-built PC or laptop, I don't think it would be unreasonable for the customer to expect the manufacture (in this case Alienware/Dell) to have taken care of all that. People shouldn't overclock or alter the hardware unless they know what they're doing, but by just using a pre-built PC for the purpose it was designed for to then have it suffer from cooling issues, that blame falls on the manufacturer, not the person using it.

Whilst I think @Crazycrab is at least partially right, the Creation engine can be made programmed to do more than that. In Morrowind, the cities were naturally a part of the open world, so you could go in and out of them without loading screens, but granted that is a much older game. Skyrim can also do the same thing thing with the help of The Open Cities Mod, but could obviously be troublesome if the hardware isn't up to snuff. So I do think that Bethesda do this to help the game run smoother of this aging engine and of the kind of hardware that was around at the time of launch, but it may still be more capable than even Bethesda think.

It's still and RTX 20-Series GPU, so there shouldn't be any issues with compatibility for ray tracing. Have you got the latest version of Minecraft from the windows store with you GPU drives up to date?

OK, so I was half right. They've adding RT to the game as an update. What kind of hardware have you got?

That sounds more some sort of compatibility problem. Minecraft looking the way it does I seriously doubt that it has with ray tracing effects.

Just bought one of my old (well, not that old) favourites Horizon Zero Dawn on PC and... Max settings, 60fps and it is truly stunning. Shame there isn't a better modding community for it though. All there seams to be is lame colour filters, save files and nude Aloy skins because of course there is.

But what about, like I said, the hyperlink function and trying a different browser on you phone/tablet/computer? I apologise to keep derailing this topic with this persistent troubleshooting, but I just can't believe there isn't a simple solution to this problem.

I'm with @StaceyPowers on this one. I actually quite enjoy watching other people reactions to such scenarios and understanding how and why they came to the conclusions they did.

For future posts in this sub-forum, just paste your link to the story as plain text if needs be. Have you tried using the hyperlink function? Or have you tried using a different browser as previously suggested?

The fact that the automatic YouTube embedding doesn't seem to work for you is strange, but at least I could develop some sort of explanation for it and the link itself was at least visible when you did, so I honestly find it very hard to believe you can't copy and past a simple link. What exactly happens when you try?

As someone who works in an engineering field, my short answer to the question "Are game developers architects?" is no. I think what's closer to the truth is that video game designers are good at drawing influence from real life. Most buildings and structures you see games are based on and/or inspired by something real that likely hasn't fallen over or broken itself. So the fact that buildings, structures and machines in games generally appear sound in concept from a real-life engineering perspective is less to do with a game designers understanding of engineering, more thier ability to mimic it.

It would be appreciated if you could add links in new "Gaming News" topics so we can get a greater scope of the story. Here's one article from Push Square. Honestly, I'd hold off on the excitement. Yes, it is difficult to imagine that this would be happening for anything other than a new Silent Hill, but even if this is for a new Silent Hill (and it might not be) keep in mind what happened the last time Konami presented a Kojima game without Kojima;

Let me make it 100% clear that from a gameplay perspective you absolutely MUST join the Mages Guild in Oblivion as quickly as humanly possible because the spell crafting and enchanting mechanics are that valuable, but I came across this interesting video illustrating some of the issues of the Mages guild in terms of lore and logic within The Elder Scrolls. The creator of the video brings up some valid points. But let's not get ahead, here's the video.

Well, I got the results and unfortunately it was positive. So that's me isolating for an additional week (10 days after becoming symptomatic). Try not to worry anyone, all is fine. We followed procedure.