Ugh, I had a Latitude 7210 2-in-1 and upgraded the 2230 SSD to a Western Digital SN530(?) one. Turns out after hours of troubleshooting Modern Standby, poring over Sleep Studies (“why is it draining 8% of battery an hour asleep?”) that the specific drive I put in didn’t “support” “Modern” Standby?
Anyways I have a ThinkPad with S3 sleep now and the fans actually turn off when I put it to sleep so that’s a win.
Mostly incorrect, entering the BIOS and having the toggle to switch between S0 and S3 (or, “Linux”) sleep does indeed exist but it is hard to identify what models have it (I hear Lenovo’s BIOS simulator helps) and it’s increasingly being removed in newer models or even removed in updates. Dell has no interest in putting it back and recommends hibernate or just powering off the machine when on-the-go.
I made sure the ThinkPad I own personally had the toggle but my work-issued one does not so it is now a Hibernate-only machine. No setting can help that.
Jesus it’s like when the iPhone showed up and then suddenly every dumbphone with a touchscreen was an “iPhone-killer”
I remember the comparison on TV crowning the LG Voyager a superior.
I get that it technically is true but it’s dismissive and misses the issue that a device you drop several hundred dollars on, made by a massive company, and with successful competitors to benchmark against doesn’t have a cohesive UI option out of the box and I expect that it shouldn’t be up to the customer to need to figure out how to fix such a glaring omission out of the box.
(I haven’t heard of Playnite until that comment mentioned it so I can’t comment on its effectiveness)
I totally get that it’s a glass half full/empty difference though. (“why should I need to compensate for a massive company’s lack of care?” vs. “oh this fix is quick and good enough for me!”)
I remember a lot of moments like this, the sheer time I had to mess with systems, how things weren’t taken for granted and all seemed new - Halo 1’s Flood reveal blew me away and the driving physics were incredible - it changed on ice and the Warthog’s turret ejected casings that bounced and accumulated on the ground! And then Halo 2/Half-Life 2’s physics impressed me, etc. But of course going back to some things from today’s perspective makes them seem primitive. Starcraft’s 12 unit selection limit? Skyward Sword’s lack of direct camera control without hitting a button?
But most recently I’d say Outer Wilds, Titanfall 2 and the recent main Zelda games threw the most wonder at me.
Outer Wilds for being a completely fresh onion of a puzzle/space exploration game, plenty of video essays with varying levels of spoilers there.
Titanfall 2 is on the surface a sci-fi FPS but the shift in scale between on-foot and in-Titan is unique combined with inventive levels and mechanics.
Breath of the Wild amazed me with the reveal of its scale and world.
Tears of the Kingdom amazes me with how polished it’s physics and sandbox is, I haven’t seen things work as well and without crazy quirks like I have in this game.
Bingo, I saw an ROG Ally(?) on display at Best Buy the other day and it was sitting on the Windows 11 desktop with a couple applications open like any demo laptop out on the floor - what dumbstruck me is that the scaling was set so the interface was absolutely tiny. Of course someone could have messed with DPI settings but it just looked like an interface for ants!
Windows 8 or 10’s tablet mode would have probably gone a ways towards making it more suited for a handheld but that function is gone.
At least the bottom edge swipe opens the start menu which I found by mistake. Maybe Big Picture mode would help.
In recent memory the two that have stood out to me are Risk of Rain 2 and Halo 4. I thought some 3rd-person action in the former would be fun but I found the core loop and overall shooting boring after a couple run attempts so I guess it just didn’t click for me.
Now Halo 4… I think gameplay in that title is an exercise in tedium. Add on (what is in my opinion as:) poor AI, a bit too much melodrama, dumb retcons, “do X three times!” a bit much and I got a campaign that felt like a chore and haven’t touched it since I left off at the level with the Mammoth. The Prometheans are a pain to fight and I felt funneled into making do with Forerunner weapons to take ranged potshots at Watchers above all other targets and then rushing to kill the one Knight I was targeting before it regenerates, also above all other targets. Yuck. (Update: Coming back here since it occurred to me that I could sum it up as: my ability to make mid-combat decisions and play in the sandbox was kneecapped by poor enemy and maaaybe level design respectively.)
Good music though.
Not an exact answer but I use Photosync to upload to my PC when on a shared network. It supports a number of protocols so I would see if it can connect to your server.
I remember shopping for a Bluetooth speaker and while I settled on a JBL one, I did consider the IKEA model that takes AAA’s but it wasn’t available to try nor buy - it would’ve been nice to be able to consider one that was externally powered but ah well.
Thanks for the list, very intrigued by Ctrl Alt Ego being an immersive sim fan
Some BIOS updates remove the S3 option so that’s possible. It’s also possible that Modern Standby was working before and something changed which broke sleep for you. You can run a Sleep Study (instructions on the web) to see how your computer has been sleeping but it sucks that you’d have to resort to that.