I’d argue that Molyneux from the 80s and 90s was a great game designer. Populous, Theme Park and Dungeon Keeper were all critically praised at launch and sold well, and in all the sources I’ve seen he’s credited as the main designer on those game. This was mostly pre-internet, so if he was over promising features in those games that hype wouldn’t typically reach the game-buying public.

The rise of Internet game journalism is what really fueled the self-destruction of his legacy. Black and White was the first Molyneux game where I can recall seeing tons of prelaunch hype, with many of the hyped features absent from the finished product. Game journalists have consistently given Molyneux a platform, initially because of his early hits but later because he’s reliable clickbait. They don’t care that he’s full of shit, they know it’ll drive engagement, and negative engagement is just as good as positive for their bottom line.

Even with all the over promising and under delivering he’s done since 2000, there are still plenty of people who love the Fable and Black and White series. I think if the man had ever learned to keep his mouth shut before features were locked, he might have a markedly different legacy. But he just couldn’t do that, so now I keep a Polaroid of him pinned on my corkboard with “don’t believe his lies” written on the bottom in permanent marker.

To be “FreeSync certified”, a monitor has to have certain minimum specs and must pass some tests regarding its ability to handle Variable Refresh Rate (VRR). In exchange for meeting the minimum spec and passing the tests, the monitor manufacturer gets to put the FreeSync logo on the box and include FreeSync support in its marketing. If a consumer buys an AMD graphics card and a FreeSync certified monitor then FreeSync (AMD’s implementation of VRR) should work out of the box. The monitor might also be certified by Nvidia as GSync compatible, in which case another customer with an Nvidia graphics card should have the same experience with Gsync.

People here seem partial to Jellyfin

I recently switched to Jellyfin and I’ve been pretty impressed with it. Previously I was using some DLNA server software (not Plex) with my TV’s built-in DLNA client. That worked well for several years but I started having problems with new media items not appearing on the TV, so I decided to try some alternatives. Jellyfin was the first one I tried, and it’s working so well that I haven’t felt compelled to search any further.

the internet seems to feel it doesn’t work smoothly with xbox (buggy app/integration).

Why not try it and see how it works for you? Jellyfin is free and open source, so all it would cost you is a little time.

I have a TCL tv with (with google smart TV software)

Can you install apps from Google Play on this TV? If so, there’s a Jellyfin app for Google TVs. I can’t say how well the Google TV Jellyfin app works as I have an LG TV myself, so currently I’m using the Jellyfin LG TV app.

If you can’t install apps on that TV, does it have a DLNA client built in? Many TVs do, and that’s how I streamed media to my TV for years. On my LG TV the DLNA server shows up as another source when I press the button to bring up the list of inputs. The custom app is definitely a lot more feature-rich, but a DLNA client can be quite functional and Jellyfin can be configured to work as a DLNA server.

You can do this with custom formats. You’d want to create a custom format that gives a score if the file is below a certain size threshold (say 1.5GB per hour), then add minimum custom scores to the release profiles you use (e.g. Bluray 1080p). You can also add custom filters for release groups that prioritise file size. YTS for example keeps their releases as small as possible.

Definitely looks to be that way. In this video at the linked timestamp you can see the refresh rate being scaled automatically as the FPS cap is scaled. Looks like the Deck is automatically setting the refresh rate to a multiple of the framerate cap so that frame times and refresh times are kept in sync. E.g. with a 30 FPS cap it sets refresh to 90hz (triple), with a 40fps cap it sets refresh rate to 80hz (double), etc.

Digital Foundry launch review sounds extremely positive: https://piped.video/watch?v=Z1KLj06fn2s

The live service had a pretty bad year last year. The linked article goes into great detail but I think it can be summarized in a few points:

• The game shipped without campaign co-op or Forge mode. Forge in particular was a big part of the longevity of prior versions of Halo, and having that missing did them no favours.
• There was a battle pass, but it had a rough landing. Players couldn’t select the map they wanted, so for some battle pass objectives you had to rely on random matchmaking to achieve your battle pass goals.
• There was a pretty serious content drought last year. Relatively few new maps were added by Infinite, compared to content release timelines for prior Halo titles, and users couldn’t build their own maps because Forge was still missing. 343 originally estimated 6 months to finish Forge, but it actually took a year. They had to keep extending the “season” for the aforementioned battle pass, likely because they didn’t have the next round of content ready when they expected.

I think the content drought was the biggest problem. With only a relative trickle of new content from 343 and absolutely zero community content (because that would have required Forge), there wasn’t enough to retain player interest.

Yeahhh, you’re probably right. But on the plus side, at least I vented my spleen here and didn’t give them any engagement.

Who cares what Peter Molyneux has to say? The man is two decades past his prime. At this point most of his ground-breaking titles are old enough to have kids who can vote. Seriously, what has this guy done in the past 20 years? Soak fans for £500k on a Kickstarter that’s still in beta almost 10 years later, shilled NFTs, and let his mouth write so, so many checks that his ass can’t cash.

Feels like GSync vs. FreeSync all over again. Now largely converged into HDMI Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) and DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync, and it’s a lot harder to find a VRR/Adaptive-Sync capable display that won’t do adaptive framerate at all with your graphics card.

Both Unreal Engine and Unity have temporal anti-aliasing upscaling (TAAU), though I believe they still lag behind DLSS in both visual quality and performance. That gap will narrow over time, and once it does I doubt we’ll see many game developers spend extra effort implementing DLSS or FSR if TAAU can get close enough for no extra effort on their part.