I’m inclined to believe this, and this likely isn’t even the whole extent of it. I’ve been playing on a Series X, but decided to check it out on my Rog Ally. On low, at 720p with FSR2 on, I’d get 25-30fps in somewhere like New Atlantis. I downloaded a tweaked .ini for the Ultra preset and now not only does the game look much better, but the city is up closer to 40fps, with most other areas being 45-60+. Makes me wonder what it was they thought was worth the massive cost that the default settings give, with no real visual improvement.

Another odd thing, if I’m playing Cyberpunk or something, this thing is in the 90%+ CPU and GPU utilization range, with the temps in the 90c+ range. Starfield? GPU is like 99%, CPU sits around 30%, and the temp is <=70c, which basically doesn’t happen playing any other “AAA” game. I could buy Todd’s comments if the frame rate was crap, but this thing was maxed out… but not getting close to full utilization on a handheld with an APU indicates something less simple.

I’m hoping the work from Hans finds its way to all platforms (in one way or another), because I’d love to use the Series X but 30fps with weird HDR on a 120hz OLED TV actually makes me a little nauseous after playing for a while, which isn’t something I commonly have a problem with.

I use a headphone jack when I’m looking for a particular listening experience, which I have amp / DAC / etc for. If I’m using my phone to listen, I’m both not worried about sound quality, and don’t want to be tethered to it by a cord.

I suppose if I were really arsed about it, I’d just get a USBC dongle. That said, I can see where that would be a hassle for people that prefer wired, and I think I’ve held only a couple of phones in my life that couldn’t have just accommodated a headphone jack instead of saving the 1.5 cents it probably costs to leave it out.

I’ll admit, my initial decision to just use wireless was more from seeing the writing on the wall; airpods sales would need to basically evaporate to get most of the manufacturers to course change at this point. Hell, the phone I’m currently using is the first I’ve had in years that even came with a charging brick in the box, so I’m assuming ditching the cable is next, followed by microtransactions to use various built in apps and services… like the phone dialer. Need to keep them margins infinitely expanding to appease shareholders.

I don’t necessarily mind them, but they seem to be out of control in this one. I ran from the UC place in Atlantis to my ship, landed on Mars, ran into the town to a quest giver, and when I opened my map next, I had dots ALL OVER IT.

I popped open my quest log, and there were 11 random quests I didn’t even realize I had hoovered up just running from location to location. The thing that kind of bothers me about it is that that’s more than double the amount of quests I had intentionally picked up.

It’s okay if I explore and uncover some of these myself, Todd.

Not a huge surprise. They missed their chance to represent the South the first time around, so this would be a dream come true for them.

Although I could argue there are worse scenes in general, the one with the most impact for me, that almost cut my Trek fandom short… the handholding jellyfish at the end of TNG’s debut 2 parter.

I watched it when it first aired, and I cringed so hard that my family thought I had a stroke. Really, those episodes were full of stuff that made you feel like an ass telling your friend new to Trek that “it gets better,” but that really was the whipped cream and cherry on top.

One of those weird, rare situations where Google seems to do something right. They said the cost was $100, and every month I pay $100. I’m assuming fees are built into that, but my bill never deviates from the price I was told, which is really all I care about.