This is why I always force the Windows version of stuff by using Proton on everything. I hate to say it, but the native Linux versions of a lot of games are inferior.

I use it at work for stuff where it would be inefficient for me to pick up entirely new side skills to only be used rarely and sporadically.

For example, I made a spreadsheet tool to compose ordering spreadsheets in Excel for a system at work that needs them. Most of it uses basic macros that you can record with the basic macro recorder in Excel, with no special skill required, but every now and then I need to introduce functionality into it that’s far more complex.

Instead of learning obscure VBA coding for something I do once every two months, I can just tell ChatGPT that I have spreadsheet A called this and spreadsheet B called that, assume that they are both open, and write me a macro that does A and then B and then C and then D between them.

It does it in five seconds, I plug the code in, test it, and then go about my day. That’s its positive use case for me.

Guns were never the problem

Places in the world that have far less gun proliferation statistically, objectively have far less gun violence per capita, and less injury and death resulting from it.

It’s almost as if guns aren’t used to hurt people as much if they aren’t available to most of the population to use. Not sure what else to tell you.

No mods or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. I just got proficient and practiced with quickly setting it up over multiple runs and character types. I normally use the same logic for almost every character for consistency:

Generally wheel one is going to be standard melee and ranged attacks that all characters have. I’ll also put stuff on wheel one that some characters will use as much, or more than, their standard melee or ranged weapon attacks, like their most-used ranged attack cantrip, or Booming Blade for melee characters who have that. Weapon-specific attacks (like lacerate, charge, et cetera) can go here if there’s room… otherwise I’ll get them onto the first wheel with open slots after this.

Wheel two will be standard actions… stuff like toggling lethal / non lethal damage, the disengage/sprint/stealth buttons, et cetera. Class actions (eldritch knight weapon bind, hex blade warlock weapon hex, barbarian rage, et cetera) go here too.

Wheel 3 (and 4 if needed) I primarily reserve specifically for item toggling. If you didn’t know, you can shortcut equipment changes on the wheels by putting items in these quick slots, so for example: if I have the the lock-picking character using the advantage on lock-picking gloves when they open something, but a different set of gloves at all other times, then I can make a shortcut for both gloves and put them on the wheel, and switch them from there really quickly when needed, instead of digging through the character inventory screens and searching for them every time. Same goes for necklaces and rings that have a once a day effect and then you switch to something else, or that Dancing Lights necklace that you occasionally wear when you need to see something better and then afterward you put your normal necklace right back on, et cetera.

Then the next wheels are for the spells for casters. Cantrips on the first, level one on the next, et cetera. If they don’t have many total spells (like an eldritch knight or a pure melee warlock or something) I might combine a couple of levels per wheel. If they’re an encyclopedia wizard with every spell known to humankind, I’ll just keep filling out wheels as needed, keeping everything roughly sorted by spell level.

Last wheels, finally, are consumables like potions, throwing items, attack items, et cetera.

It can be a pain to organize these for a few minutes at the start of the game, or each time when you first gain a new companion, but once you have them set up, it’s silky smooth from there and all your characters flow with the same logic regardless of class.

There might also be a mod out there that helps do this, I’m not sure. I haven’t seen one yet, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, there are half a bajillion mods for this game and I doubt I’ve seen anywhere near all of them. Hope this makes sense and helps, and have fun!

Once I got used to sorting stuff on the wheels, controller and the controller UI became my favorite way to play the game. I use it even when docked.

Isn’t there an easy Decky plugin that lets you set a visible timer for yourself? I don’t really need it but I thought I saw it going through the Decky store one day.

SB is my good friend. I love gaining my time back, and it does my heart good when I’m given the opportunity to give time back to others.

There’s also the fact that even in the future, you’ll be able to have a current-for-the-time PC, and still be able to stream to the Deck locally anywhere in the house if you’re playing then-modern games.

It just has the perfect form factor and ergonomics to be the champion of that job, and i don’t see that changing any time soon.

Don’t know about their next console, but I’d love that new Steam Controller. Hop to it Valve!

That’s awesome! ¡Diviértete!

I can definitely recommend the Shokz OpenRun.

I picked up a pair in February, and they’ve been solid. They’re extremely compact, the sound quality’s pretty good for BC headphones, and the battery goes for quite a while. They also have a decent mic if you need to use them for phone or Discord or anything like that.

Hardware-wise:

I have to say that when I’m docked, it’s my 27" 1440p monitor. I love the way it looks, and it perfectly integer scales with 720p, so I have the option of running stuff in 720p native with no jaggies, and it looks fantastic.

When I’m handheld, I use a pair of light and thin bone conduction headphones so I can be anywhere in the house and have my ears open. I also use a simple pair of clip on 2x reading glasses to blow up the native screen, they cost me maybe $10 and really help out my 40s eyes.

Software wise: This is my main PC, and you know I always sing the praises of Nested Desktop because I’m always needing to bounce to Desktop mode. Decky Loader has also been transformative over the years with so many good plug ins.

But finally, I would have to say that the most impactful thing in recent times has been the Lossless Scaling frame gen… that’s a literal game changer. If you had told me three months ago that I’d be playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on my Steam Deck at 90 FPS, I’d have looked at you like you had a third eye growing out of the middle of your forehead, but here we are.

Don’t sleep on Spanish if it’s being offered, it’s the 4th most spoken language on the planet and is heavily woven throughout the US.

I took it in high school but didn’t solidify it until adulthood, when we had Venezuelans marry into the family. And it’s a fantastic and fun language. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

The simplest wind instruments are things like your basic wood flutes, recorders, ocarinas… simplest stringed instruments are going to be 3 and 4 stringed stuff like cigar box guitars, tenor guitars, and ukuleles. But none of them are just pick up and play.

Realistically even the simplest instruments are going to require at least 50 to 100 hours of practice and instruction to reach an advanced beginner / early intermediate level, where you start to be able to intuitively do things that sound good. The great news is that good YouTube teachers can help you reach that point, if you’re willing to put in the time and practice.

I learned to play guitar and tenor guitar in my 30s, and it’s been extremely rewarding to just be able to unwind and create some music whenever the mood strikes. It was work… but enjoyable work, if that makes sense? I liked the practice and getting the results of my progression. I’d definitely recommend learning to play an instrument to anyone with the time, patience, and inclination.

Yay! Glad to hear that you found the solution!

Not that I’m an expert, but I could have sworn I’ve seen people in the past who were talking about accidentally messing with the physical stuff involved with the headphone jack when they hard drive swapped.

I might be misremembering but just wanted to suggest that you may want to check into whether it could be physical, and not software related, because if you’re troubleshooting the wrong cause you can get stuck on it for quite a while.

When I hit the mid-40s, I realized I was running into at least five things a day that turned me into the “man ages 50 years in five seconds” meme from the end of Saving Private Ryan.

Hey, I figured out what I had done wrong, I dropped the files in the wrong place. Everything seems to be working now.

If you’re still struggling, this YT video shows you where you have to put everything to get it all to work. If CachyOS is Arch based it should be pretty similar.

deleted by creator

So I’m 0-1 so far (Samsung-screened SD OLED). Tried Baldur’s Gate 3 with a large variety of settings, it either crashed upon boot or booted with no video.

I know it’s a DX11 game so it rarely agrees with tools like this, but I was hoping, lol. If I try anything else, I’ll edit this same post so as not to take over the thread.

EDIT: OMG. Make that 1-1. It was user error, I’d accidentally slid the files into the folder next door instead of the plugins folder.

After fixing it, I booted it up and… WOW. I already had BG3 set to 720p Balanced, after doing the x3 multiplier (because who cares about input lag in this game) I’m now up into the 75 to 90 FPS range.

This is absolutely NUTS, I’ve never consistently gotten more than 30 on the Deck on this game. What a game changer, at least for non-action games. Will have to see how bad the input lag feels on action titles, but just speeding up modern/slower RPGs alone is a big, big thing.