Coconut Monkey Cornerclub

[BeardyHat]

Well, I did end-up needing to send back the just received Thinkpad X1 Nano; unfortunately, the Sellers resolution, instead of doing any actual work, was just to tell me to use the workaround. So instead, I requested a refund and shipped the computer out yesterday; hopefully I receive my refund promptly.

Then, rather than do the reasonable, rational thing and wait for the refund to process, I went ahead and ordered another one, like a big dummy, so hopefully everything works out fine. The new machine ended-up being the same price, but with double the storage space (512Gb), so that's nice. Hopefully it arrives swiftly and doesn't have the same issues.

 

[ZedClampet]

@neogunhero If the goal is Windows 12, I'd just wait until Windows 12. However, unlike @BeardyHat , I love Copilot and use it off and on all day. Beardy asked it a weird question that Google couldn't even find anything on when I pasted it there. I didn't even know what the question meant. Personally, I think CoPilot is just about an essential tool for me, now, and I never use Google to find answers for anything anymore.

That said, you need to be the type of person who asks a lot of questions, game-related or otherwise, throughout the day, and you also have to know when to be suspicious of CoPilot's answers and when it tends to get things wrong.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

@neogunhero If the goal is Windows 12, I'd just wait until Windows 12. However, unlike @BeardyHat , I love Copilot and use it off and on all day. Beardy asked it a weird question that Google couldn't even find anything on when I pasted it there. I didn't even know what the question meant. Personally, I think CoPilot is just about an essential tool for me, now, and I never use Google to find answers for anything anymore.

That said, you need to be the type of person who asks a lot of questions, game-related or otherwise, throughout the day, and you also have to know when to be suspicious of CoPilot's answers and when it tends to get things wrong.

Genuinely curious. How do you know you can trust Co-pilots information?

If I Google or search something I can usually see several articles based on whatever I asked, scan them and come up with some sort of idea whats going on. If Co-Pilot just tells me something how do I know what context it might have omitted? How can I know when its hallucinating or not?

 

[ZedClampet]

Genuinely curious. How do you know you can trust Co-pilots information?

If I Google or search something I can usually see several articles based on whatever I asked, scan them and come up with some sort of idea whats going on. If Co-Pilot just tells me something how do I know what context it might have omitted? How can I know when its hallucinating or not?

If I ask it something where it has to connect more than one piece of information, like what was CDPR's net income last year, it's going to get it wrong almost every time. Who was Marshall's quarterback in 2022 and what were his stats? It has no idea but it will give you someone who has played QB at Marshal at some point and it will give you some QB stats from someone for some year. It's basically useless at this sort of thing.

My basic uses are:

Software assistant
What are the steps for ****** in UE5?
How do I **** in MetaHuman?

And it's pretty much on target every time. Or

Old brain reminder
What is the name of UE5's character creator?

I just now did this because I couldn't remember the name MetaHuman. Obviously, once I saw it, I knew it was right.

Gaming Guides
Where do you find straw in Medieval Dynasty?
How do you craft clothes in Medieval Dynasty?

Depending on how popular the game is, it will usually get these right. If the game isn't well documented anywhere, it will make something up and send you on a wild goose chase. But after you get reasonably familiar with the game you are playing, you can usually tell when it's giving you BS. Used correctly, this is a life saver in really complex and poorly explained indie games.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Itll depend a lot on how a person uses it I guess. For software development it probably takes some steps out of getting the info, but for simple questions about stuff I'm not sure I see the advantage of it over an old fashined search.

 

[ZedClampet]

Itll depend a lot on how a person uses it I guess. For software development it probably takes some steps out of getting the info, but for simple questions about stuff I'm not sure I see the advantage of it over an old fashined search.

In Google, you have to phrase things just right and then go through it's responses and follow links and then read through what people said.

In CoPilot, you just ask your question in a normal way and get the answer.

In gaming, for instance, I find that getting answers from reddit or Steam forums involves a lot of work.

First of all, Google isn't nearly perfect and will give you links to answers for the wrong games quite frequently. But when it does come up with, say, a dozen or so links talking about the right thing, I may have to go to multiple discussions to get exactly what I'm looking for, whereas CoPilot organizes the answers and makes a judgement call on what is answering the question the best, and it's very good at that. Also, it will grab other related pieces of information on the subject and put them together so that you get a complete answer.

Using plain speech instead of search engine keywords is very helpful, especially when you aren't 100 percent sure what you are asking about or how to phrase something so that Google knows what you are talking about.

Also, I was able to solve someone's "What was the name of this game?" question with CoPilot after months of people using and failing with Google.

 

[ZedClampet]

@Kaamos_Llama

Just used it again. I typed "Where are the Steam save files for Medieval Dynasty", and it just gave me the directory address, simple as that.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Fair enough But I'm still not convinced its any better, I actually copied most of your questions from the first post into Google and the answers were right there. Its not in a chat window but same difference to me.

Once upon a time I refused to use launchers like Steam and hated not being able to have a 'Games' Directory with a shortcuts on the desktop, so maybe I'll come around one day.

 

[ZedClampet]

Fair enough But I'm still not convinced its any better, I actually copied most of your questions from the first post into Google and the answers were right there. Its not in a chat window but same difference to me.

Once upon a time I refused to use launchers like Steam and hated not being able to have a 'Games' Directory with a shortcuts on the desktop, so maybe I'll come around one day.

Well, I used the simplest examples that came to mind. Most of the questions I have wouldn't come up in a special box on Google.

If you pasted in the question about crafting clothes in Medieval Dynasty, that wasn't exactly the question I asked when I was playing the game. I asked "how do you craft fur and hide clothes and how do you unlock clothes crafting?"

What Google did was give part of the answer, but the answer it was giving was actually from someone who was asking the question. I followed the link, but the second half of the answer was incorrect. I would have had to have asked a second question in Google to get that, and it may well have just defaulted back to the same response.

CoPilot actually had the correct answer because it looked at multiple things and was able to discern the correct answer. Also, CoPilot went into detail about how to unlock the crafting, which was very helpful.

I may not be explaining everything correctly, but I can assure you that how I use it, it is better than using Google, otherwise I would be using Google. I'm not such a fan of AI that I'd waste my time with it.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

If it works it works, I believe it. Just not going to dive in myself just yet.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Careful now.

My Surface Go is what lead me down the path of obsessing over a thin and light computer. Started with a cheap Surface Go, then trying out a Lenovo X1 Tab (not recommended), then finally my Surface Go 2.

That said, even though I've bought a Thinkpad X1 Nano, I'm not getting rid of my Go 2. It's damn useful for wargaming and reading magazines from Retro mags.

Also, if you've got the Microsoft type cover, it should have a backlight.

I may only have the Go 1 model now that I think. There's no way this could play games, I tried Stray on it and it was a slow slide show. It's funny though, I can say all I want about how tiny and weak it is, but this new PC could give me a hernia if I'm not careful. The case itself weighs almost 44 lbs, and still close to 39 lbs even after taking all the unnecessary stuff off it. I've already got 4 HDDs in it and a total of 5 case fans added. The GPU is hefty as well, the whole thing will easily be 50 lbs or so when done I'm guessing. I'm planning on taking both side panels and top and front panels off when I do a thorough cleaning every so often. It's the only way to be sure I won't hurt myself lifting it!

 

[BeardyHat]

I may only have the Go 1 model now that I think. There's no way this could play games, I tried Stray on it and it was a slow slide show.

Maybe not modern AAA games, but you'd be surprised! I can't remember what I had on that Go 1 I owned, but I know I had Command & Conquer Remastered and it ran great. Actually what I love about these little low power machines is that it reminds me there's more to gaming than just the most recent, graphically intensive games out there, so I end-up looking to my library for older stuff or Indies that'll run on a potato. Here's like 30% of what I currently have installed on my Go 2:

Turtle World of Warcraft (private WoW server)

Z

Battle Brothers

Ultimate General Gettysburg

DevilutionX (Diablo Port)

Heroes of Might and Magic 3

Gothic 2 Gold

Baldur's Gate EE

Anno 1404 Gold

Age of Empires 2 DE

World of Horror

and countless more

All this stuff runs flawlessly on the little machine.

Also, don't forget these guys also accept Micro SD if you need more storage.

It's funny though, I can say all I want about how tiny and weak it is, but this new PC could give me a hernia if I'm not careful. The case itself weighs almost 44 lbs, and still close to 39 lbs even after taking all the unnecessary stuff off it. I've already got 4 HDDs in it and a total of 5 case fans added. The GPU is hefty as well, the whole thing will easily be 50 lbs or so when done I'm guessing. I'm planning on taking both side panels and top and front panels off when I do a thorough cleaning every so often. It's the only way to be sure I won't hurt myself lifting it!

Hoof, sounds like my fascination with having an enormous case in my 20's; had a huge full tower that was an absolute beast to move. Now my machine is just a little Micro ATX tower that's fairly painless to move.

 

[Brian Boru]

@Brian Boru when he read this

Oy you kids, behave!

How do you know you can trust Co-pilots information?

I use both search and CoPilot. I find the best way for me to use CP is as a collector of useful sources. I know the credible ones, and I check the ones I don't know.

When I search, it's similar—looking down the domains of the results for ones I know should be useful. Search works faster for simpler queries, CoPilot better for more involved ones. I get the best CP results with a natural language query, which Zed mentioned—throwing keywords at it won't work.

Once upon a time I … hated not being able to have a 'Games' Directory with a shortcuts on the desktop

You can still have the desktop shortcuts, that's how I access all my games.

 

[Zloth]

Google is really good for quoted searches. That's great for searching on error messages or suspicious new user posts that you think might have been copied from some article. You can also use the "site:" thing to search a specific website, which is how I tracked down those fake-E3 articles a few days back. Limiting by date can be good, too, especially with a game that has been through a lot of updates.

(I use Wikipedia a ton, too. Half the time I did a Google search, I would end up following a link to Wikipedia anyway, so now I start there when I want to know something like when Baldur's Gate 2 came out.)

I don't use CoPilot much yet. It's still in the "Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I asked CoPilot this..." stage for me.

Once upon a time I refused to use launchers like Steam and hated not being able to have a 'Games' Directory with a shortcuts on the desktop, so maybe I'll come around one day.

Been there, done that. I used Steam's "put a shortcut on my desktop" a little, but that has to start Steam up anyway, so I gave up pretty quick.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I've not seen or even dealt with Copilot on my Surface, probably because it's got a pared down version of Windows. When I put full W11 Pro Retail on my new rig though I'm going to treat it like I do Cortana and disable it completely. I've seen how intrusive MS' assistants can get, and I don't want it flying me anywhere uncharted!

Guess who just delivered my Liquid Freezer II 420 cooler that I bought off Artic's eBay store to replace the one I bought off Platinum Micro's Newegg store that was slightly damaged. Mind you, Arctic told me their eBay store items are usually delivered by UPS or USPS. It was Amazon! Maybe that's how it got here so fast, it might not have come from Arctic's South Carolina support center after all as they said it would. The entire tracking history was provided by Amazon Logistics.

The strange thing is, though it came in the same oversized box Arctic said it would, it had nothing to protect it from sliding around, and I got the new old guy that's been delivering stuff for Amazon and I could hear him loudly drop it at my door. The outer and inner box was not damaged though, and despite the Arctic product box itself having popped open, it was in perfect condition. I'm beginning to think maybe I shouldn't mess with this old man's ways of dropping things and not knocking. I might upset the delicate ecosystem of old fart mojo and wind up with young kids whom are careful, but the item comes damaged!

Amazon does things so strangely, I was just talking to them on the phone yesterday about a claimed full refund they issued on a subscription item I had ordered, a case of muesli. They acknowledged on the phone I should have been refunded $43.89 instead of the $32.91 credited, but instead of just reapplying the difference back to my debit card as they said they would, they called it a refund for a Samsung "thumbnail" USB drive (my word for their Fit). claiming I didn't receive it, when in fact I did, and is working fine!

 

[Frag Maniac]

Maybe not modern AAA games, but you'd be surprised! I can't remember what I had on that Go 1 I owned, but I know I had Command & Conquer Remastered and it ran great. Actually what I love about these little low power machines is that it reminds me there's more to gaming than just the most recent, graphically intensive games out there, so I end-up looking to my library for older stuff or Indies that'll run on a potato. Here's like 30% of what I currently have installed on my Go 2:

Turtle World of Warcraft (private WoW server)

Z

Battle Brothers

Ultimate General Gettysburg

DevilutionX (Diablo Port)

Heroes of Might and Magic 3

Gothic 2 Gold

Baldur's Gate EE

Anno 1404 Gold

Age of Empires 2 DE

World of Horror

and countless more

All this stuff runs flawlessly on the little machine.

Also, don't forget these guys also accept Micro SD if you need more storage.

I'm not sure I even have any games that fit that description. I started gaming with original Deus Ex, RTCW, and original Allied Assault and Medal of Honor. Also played original Soldier of Fortune. One of my fave older games is Tomb Raider Anniversary. It was only 4 GB in file size, which was pretty good for the number of levels it had and how big it felt. Not sure the Surface would play it though. Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb is pretty good too. Can't wait for Machine Games' Indiana Jones game!

 

[WoodenSaucer]

We ended up going to my wife's work Christmas party in Knoxville last Thursday. It was at a place called Pour Taproom. We actually had a really good time. Then the next morning, we went to Gatlinburg for one night to see the Christmas lights there. It was really cool. Then Saturday morning, we drove back to Indy to go to the Colts game and watch the Colts whip the Steelers. Busy but fun weekend.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Been there, done that. I used Steam's "put a shortcut on my desktop" a little, but that has to start Steam up anyway, so I gave up pretty quick.

You can still have the desktop shortcuts, that's how I access all my games.

It was what I used to do in the before before as well, meaning that old habits die hard concerning Co Pilot over Google. Honestly it would be really inefficient to have that many icons on the desktop or in a games folder, much easier in a launcher for my uses, and I dont have to do any work to set it up.

I use both search and CoPilot. I find the best way for me to use CP is as a collector of useful sources. I know the credible ones, and I check the ones I don't know.

When I search, it's similar—looking down the domains of the results for ones I know should be useful. Search works faster for simpler queries, CoPilot better for more involved ones. I get the best CP results with a natural language query, which Zed mentioned—throwing keywords at it won't work.

Part of my lizard brain hates the idea of being profiled further by an AI for advertising purposes even by the way that I construct my sentences online. In my guts I hate that.

However my guts are dumb and full of **** and my brain says that if Google and every other website in the universe has been doing that since nineteen dickety 6 whats the difference. Google doesnt frustrate me at all just yet, hardly ever have problems finding an answer fast so it'll be a while.

I still mostly refuse non vital cookies and spend the time to go through and deny everything if I can help it. Not sure you have that option outside of EU but here it pops up on every site first visit.

 

[BeardyHat]

It was what I used to do in the before before as well, meaning that old habits die hard concerning Co Pilot over Google. Honestly it would be really inefficient to have that many icons on the desktop or in a games folder, much easier in a launcher for my uses, and I dont have to do any work to set it up.

I occasionally use Shortcuts on my desktop, but only for select things: A game not launched via a launcher or a game that I've installed and want to remember I want to play at some point, because it'll get lost in my list of games. Otherwise, yeah, I find it way easier to just search what I want to play and launch like that.

Part of my lizard brain hates the idea of being profiled further by an AI for advertising purposes even by the way that I construct my sentences online. In my guts I hate that.

However my guts are dumb and full of **** and my brain says that if Google and every other website in the universe has been doing that since nineteen dickety 6 whats the difference. Google doesnt frustrate me at all just yet, hardly ever have problems finding an answer fast so it'll be a while.

I still mostly refuse non vital cookies and spend the time to go through and deny everything if I can help it. Not sure you have that option outside of EU but here it pops up on every site first visit.

Cookie requests are always popping up. I don't particularly care about them, I tend to just allow all, but I'm also running uBlock, as well as a PiHole for my DNS, so tracking ought to be minimal. Otherwise, I simply try not to worry about it all too much.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I occasionally use Shortcuts on my desktop, but only for select things: A game not launched via a launcher or a game that I've installed and want to remember I want to play at some point, because it'll get lost in my list of games. Otherwise, yeah, I find it way easier to just search what I want to play and launch like that.

Similar but I bet mines more of a mess than most. I have utility stuff like Hwinfo and GPUz etc on the desktop and different notepad files and personal stuff as icons. I keep a lot of games installed on the off chance something will tickle my fancy one day for icons, 67 just in Steam at the moment. Epic seems to put icons automatically, and I automatically delete them.

Cookie requests are always popping up. I don't particularly care about them, I tend to just allow all, but I'm also running uBlock, as well as a PiHole for my DNS, so tracking ought to be minimal. Otherwise, I simply try not to worry about it all too much.

I've had some U.S sites pop up and deny me access when I've denied all cookies so I wasnt sure, thought I remembered it was something to do with an EU regulation at some point that you were given the option.

I'm also running Firefox with Ublock but its more something I hate the idea of then something I spend time actively preventing. I just deny the cookies, cackle maniacally to myself and find it oddly satisfying, if ultimately futile.

 

[BeardyHat]

Making another post, just because this one is going to be some long-winded, gushing bullshit, which I'm sure I am the only one that gives a **** about.

But first: Finally on the road to recovery. I'm not sure what the hell I had (have), but we were at a Christmas party Saturday night and had to make an abrupt exit, as I just started feeling absolutely awful. Unfortunately, we were 35 minutes away from home, which meant my wife pulling over on the side of the highway so I could puke my guts out for the first time that night. The rest of my evening was spent on the floor of the bathroom, with a trashcan in my face to catch any incoming puke. Sunday was completely slept away and so far, Monday, Tuesday and Today have been better, but still feeling nauseous and a little lightheaded; there were also bouts of cleaning-up vomit from my 3 and a half year old, so it's been a fun week.

But, I finally received a working Thinkpad X1 Nano, which I've been lusting after. After sending the prior one back for....issues...I immediately ordered the new one and it arrived...yesterday? and I must say: I am damn impressed. I had expected something pretty nice, but this thing exceeds expectations. It was sold as Used, but far as I can tell, it's brand new. It has 3 cycles on the battery, which is still full displacement and there are no shiny spots or anything on the machine, it just looks and runs perfect.

Speaking of running perfect, I did some benchmarking against my old T480s and this little guy blew me out of the water. Not only is it around 34% lighter (1.99lbs versus 2.99lbs) and much smaller (13" vs 14"), it's somewhere in the realm of 22% faster in 3d Mark. This surprises me, given that my T480s has both a (entry level) dGPU (MX150), but I've also repasted it with high quality Kyronaut thermal paste, as well as overclocked it 250Mhz Core/1000Mhz Memory.
In Uniengine Heaven 4.0, the Iris Xe 96 EU in the Nano is just outpacing the MX150 with the overclock and without OC, is somewhere around 30% faster. This is also considering that the Nano is running at a higher resolution, so somewhere around 20-30% faster than the T480s, which was running at 1080p to the Nano's 2160x1350

This is just damn impressive to me, especially as in another thread on the laptop forum just a few weeks ago, I was largely dismissing the Iris Xe graphics as not terribly impressive. Don't get me wrong, you're not going to be playing AAA games from the last 5 years on it, but I'd be damn surprised if it wasn't able to run the kind of stuff I want. I played through Prey entirely on my T480s at 1080p Medium/High, so this thing should exceed that pretty handily.

But couple all this with the fact that this thing also has a significantly better screen. It's brighter and the colors look fantastic. I can run the Nano at half brightness and it's on par with the T480s at the max brightness, which should improve the already (what I presume, since I haven't used it much yet) considerably better battery life over the T480s. The Nano also has a very lovely 4-speaker system, which just sounds great; it's not the most amazing thing I've ever heard, but it's miles, leagues ahead of the quite **** speakers on the T480s.

Why am I telling you all this? Because when I gush at my wife about it, she stares at me dead-eyed. Can't say I blame her.

At any rate, I am just absolutely impressed with what this thing is and can do.

TLR: New computer is smaller, lighter, faster, brighter, sounds better than the old one.

All that said: I don't think I can sell my T480s yet. Getting this new machine has made me realize I have an emotional attachment to inanimate objects of which my old Thinkpad is one. I've spent so much time upgrading little pieces of this old machine from the WiFi card, to the RAM, the thermal paste, overclocking it and next on the docket was a screen upgrade, which would make the screen brighter and use less power. I don't know why I develop an emotional attachment to things I put my blood and sweat into, but I do. Happens with my electronics and my project cars, even if they suck.

At any rate, I think the old T480s will go to my wife so it can stay in the family and I'll sell the crummy X1 Tab I bought awhile ago that she's been using.

https://imgur.com/a/L9kXRzn

Edit: I need to remove that sticker from the Nano though. Never minded it on the T480s, as it's small and unobtrustive, but it's big and ugly on the Nano. So once I'm fully commited to not sending this machine back (there's always that doubt in my mind...), I'll be removing it, cause damn it's hideous.

 

[BeardyHat]

Similar but I bet mines more of a mess than most. I have utility stuff like Hwinfo and GPUz etc on the desktop and different notepad files and personal stuff as icons. I keep a lot of games installed on the off chance something will tickle my fancy one day for icons, 67 just in Steam at the moment. Epic seems to put icons automatically, and I automatically delete them.

I doubt that!

My old habit of a tidy desktop has really fallen by the wayside in the last couple of years and I've become super lax. My current machines end-up with a variatble HORDE of icons these days from various things and active, completed and abandoned projects, as well as full of sticky notes and constantly open File Explorer windows. It's a damn mess.

And I've developed the same habit as you with a a mess of installed games, which seems silly to me, yet brings me comfort. I tend to play one thing at a time and when I want to play something, I just install it, because it takes minutes to download on my connection and I almost never want to play something I've already got installed.

I've had some U.S sites pop up and deny me access when I've denied all cookies so I wasnt sure, thought I remembered it was something to do with an EU regulation at some point that you were given the option.

I'm also running Firefox with Ublock but its more something I hate the idea of then something I spend time actively preventing. I just deny the cookies, cackle maniacally to myself and find it oddly satisfying, if ultimately futile.

I do believe you're correct on that EU regulation that changed things-up and it's basically affected everywhere now, as I need to consistently accept cookies.

Honestly the only thing that really bothers me is notifications. F-Off every website that wants to send me notifications (sorry PC Gamer Forums.)

 

[Brian Boru]

it would be really inefficient to have that many icons on the desktop or in a games folder

Oh absolutely, that would be a mess. A folder would be extra work, duck fat.

much easier in a launcher for my uses, and I dont have to do any work to set it up

I use icons to launch games and apps, so obviously that's much more efficient when it's right there, rather than having to fish out a launcher, wait for it, scroll in it to find a game, and then do the same thing anyway—ie click something to launch it. As you say, it's great not having to do any work to set it up—almost all games I install have 'Create Icon' ticked by default, gotta pity those launcher people who have to untick that as part of the install… honestly, with all the extra work at every step of the way, it's a wonder they have any energy left to play!

I still mostly refuse non vital cookies

'Reject All' has become my fav website button! I must check out the current crop of cookie-deny extensions, I used a good one some years back.

on the desktop and different notepad files and personal stuff as icons

You know about Jump Lists on the Taskbar? I only have a couple of folder windows in my desktop Fences because Jump Lists take care of almost all the files I use regularly.

when I gush at my wife about it, she stares at me dead-eyed

I'm with Non-Beardy Cap.

It's a damn mess

I want to argue with you about that. But I can't, you're so right.

constantly open File Explorer windows

If you do a lot of file wrangling, get yourself a file manager which has at least 2 panes, and multiple folder tabs per pane. I have an expensive one cos I had major file ops some years back, and a brilliant feature of it is 'Views' which are pre-defined sets of local and remote folders that all load and login if necessary, ready for work. I think I saw Windows File Manager has acquired 2 panes now?

 

[Brian Boru]

"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph."
—Shirley Temple

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Eh, Steam works fine, opens up with windows, I click on it and click on the game. No waiting involved. If I had 70+ Icons for every game installed on my desktop it would be a nightmare to find anything. Also Steam has the box art for all the games, and that looks cool.