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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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • I love Emulation since it can be on completely different ends of the spectrum. On the one hand you have ROM collections on modern system, like Capcom Arcade Stadium, or TMNT Cowabunga Collection.

    On another you have complete reverse engineering project like PCSX-Reloaded, and community developed emulators with retail games are based on, all open sourced and technically legal, so long as you have the hardware, and tools to back the ROMs, BIOS’s, and other material required.

    Then you have the complete black market, where the ROMs are illegally obtained, the BIOS’s are just downloaded from a random server, and the emulators are paying to get access to the latest retail games patches like Yuzu.

    All 3 of these interact and play off of each other, like arcade collections using MAME, being able to extract the ROMs from collections to use in emulators, and Nintendo using someone else’s ROM dump of their own game for Wiiware. That it’s just interesting that emulation works at all.

    I personally love it, and try my best to get my ROMs, ISO, and BIOS’s without resorting to downloading it.



  • For me it was installing apps from the AUR, like Intel Compute. Had dependency issues and errors every time other packages updated and when I tried to fix it, other modules would uninstall, and break my DE, or put my machine in an unrecoverable state.

    It’s not as bad as that time my btfs file system broke randomly in Fedora, since I was able to recover my data. But it always felt like an endless battle with the distro to keep it going. Which is why I moved to mint.

    I know it was a Manjaro issue since when I attempted to move to EndevorOS the issues were gone… though I dont like it as a distro (I.e. why isn’t a package manager gui installed by default)



  • I’ve always struggled to find a good book to read. I love having books read to me, but to pick one up myself has always been a struggle.

    So when I say I’ve love the Ascendance of a Bookworm series, know that this is one of maybe 2 or 3 series I actually read. It’s a fantasy story about one little girls dream of trying to read books in a world without books. The premise is silly on paper, but the world building and characters are so detailed and flushed out that I’ve gotten sucked in and read throughout the whole series multiple times.

    The novels just finished the main series with Part 5 Volume 12, there an anime of good to mixed quality, and a manga too. Tips for new readers is to watch the anime before reading as Part 1 is not as smooth as the rest.

    There is also a lemmy server for discussions !aoblightnovel@bookwormstory.social


  • Depends on the distro.

    I found Linux Mint good enough for 99% of things, and most problems can be solved without a terminal.

    Problem is you’d still need to know enough about Linux (just like with windows) to troubleshoot. For example, the files app was causing an error when plugging in drives, I need to figure out that the files app wasn’t call files, but nemo, it’s config lived in a hidden folder called .config in my home folder, and in .config I could delete my configuration to fix my issue.

    In my view Linux is about Windows XP or 7 in terms of usability, a bit of a learning curve, but one worth learning.

    A few modern improvements which makes using Linux easier.

    Use Flatpaks where possible, it’s platform agnostic and usually supported by the actual devs.

    AppImages (think portable exe for windows), are another option, but to “install” them you’d need an app called Gear Lever.

    Check with an apps developer before installing, flatpaks can be packaged by anyone, and they might loose support (steam for example is installable via Deb not flatpak).






  • I prefer GOG but not enough to not buy from Steam. And each store has its pros and cons.

    As a single player gamer, I love the DRM free nature of GOG, especially for classic games like Rollercoaster Tycoon or SimCity 3000. I have older PCs lying around and being able to play my games on them is very very nice.

    On the other hand, updating my game is a chore and GOG Galaxy while cool isn’t polished, and very buggy especially only Linux via Wine. I wouldn’t even consider online multiplayer games unless it had its own server.

    Compared to Steam which works with Linux by default, no Lutris or Bottles configuring to get games to work. Updates are seamless and online multiplayer is built into the client. Let alone remote play, steam families, big picture, and all the other features it does.

    My only gripe with Steam is the GIANT question mark on what happens to my games when they pull support. I mean I can’t even play my older games any more on my old Windows 7 machine, and its not like Fallout 3 is getting updates.

    So my priority is thus: GOG then Steam, if its single player and the price is similar (±$10). Steam then GOG if it makes sense or I need steam features (I.e. I got Stardew Valley on Steam since my SO has it there too and we can play together). Finally if the game is around $5 get it on either, or maybe both if I like the game.



  • I wouldn’t worry too much about not knowing this. The steam deck is still relatively new and proton/dxvk is improving at such a blinding pace compared to the rest of Linux that my head is still spinning.

    From my limited understanding, because of Arch’s rolling releases and Valve basing the steam deck on Arch. DXVK the compatibility layer for DX games to vulkan is managed by the distro. How this works is magic is still magic to me. I also think graphic drivers gets pushed on arch early too, since it’s a rolling release.

    However I am in complete agreement, Arch isn’t beginner friendly, I personally like Manjaro and find it friendlier, but that’s like having a pet cat, and it’s a Bob cat. Sure it’s not a Lion, but it’s not a Kitty.