Thread for Linus Tech Tips Video Suggestions

[Do everything later]

1 hour ago, deskunkworks said:

Hello, 

So I am not sure if this is the right forum or not, and I am somewhat dubious about posting this publicly.  However, despite being a long-time viewer of LTT: I have never submitted a story before... and well this is kind of a big one.  It also is one that is going to require a fair amount of verification on your part (for legal reasons) and that is presently somewhat incomplete. (It is to a point where you can start verifying things while I finish writing since that will take a while.  Or in some cases, I can just supply you with info/sources to fill in some of the gaps.) Further, you will probably want to break it apart, because it is fairly lengthy, but long story short Russia has been using its gaming sector to drive military-related development for about a 20-year period and is presently using this to violate both Canadian and U.S. national security.

As for specific claims, I submit the following. (I don't have all of this filled in and formatted as of the moment.):

1. Gaijin and War Thunder have been experiencing leaks because they have been incentivizing players to submit military-related data. (C1)
2. Eagle Dynamics helped develop military hardware with the help of Western accomplices, The Fighter Collection, for the UAE. (C3)
3. Eagle Dynamics and their Western counterparts have ties to the Russian intelligence apparatus. (C3)
4. This approach started wholesale after 2004-2006 when Eagle Dynamics was able to be accepted as a supplier to the U.S. military. (C4, C2-C3 are background establishing other players) 
5. In response to this success 1C coordinated multiple gaming companies to flood the simulator market all at once, most likely intentionally, which is why Russian game companies are the primary ones making combat flight simulators anymore. (C6)
6. Involved companies include Gaijin, 1C, and Eagle Dynamics. (There are more, but those are the main ones I focused on.) (C6)
7. C7 incomplete. (Letting you know so you don't waste your time reading something with little point to it)
8. Also included is Wargaming which has also taken funds from the Russian government and was used to help drive military recruitment. (C8, incomplete)
9. C9-C10 incomplete.
10. In at least one case a gaming company used "fleeing" Russia as a cover for seemingly clandestine purposes, and Gaijin is involved. (C11, incomplete)
11. Eagle Dynamics is being used to help advance military hardware development in areas like pilot training. (C13)
12. Eagle Dynamics Studio has been involved in designing and creating software for UAVs like the Kronshstadt Orion (C14)
13. EDS has been directly working with Sukhoi and potentially Ilyushkin on projects as well as most likely working on dirigible designs for the Artic region. (C15)
14. C16 covers procurement for the US and other allied militaries but is incomplete at the current time.

To support these I am supplying the following which is around 140 pages long.  I understand that is a lot to take in and process, and so I wanted to give you an upfront list of the content included to make it easier to evaluate hopefully. Most of this investigation has involved forensic accounting and a lot of paperwork digging. Sources are mainly directly from the state and interviews, with very little in the way of me relying on the speculation of others. I also have tried to include plenty of relationship maps, charts, and related visual material to make everything hopefully easier to understand, which is in part why the document is so long.

I have been researching Eagle Dynamics, 1C, Gaijin, and other game developers and their role in connection with the Russian government for about the last year. I was hoping that this is something that you might consider covering given it is gaming-related and I know you have to have a number of simulator fans on your staff that will most likely be familiar with the companies involved.   That said, this might be outside the scope of my consideration given your relative background.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oSQ9W4_0UwKMvURWCs80AIQJ59OB6ph0X98QKu2vo60/edit?usp=sharing

If you would please review and consider, I would be appreciative. Thanks in advance.

SJ

P.S. Most of this is U.S.-specific, but I have verified and checked that Eagle Dynamics Studio is a supplier for the Canadian government as well. ED MISSION SYSTEMS SA (Register number: CH-217.0.131.690-6) is headed by a former Liftec SA employee (they get mentioned frequently in my report) Patricia Dozio-Golaz.  Presumably they are being used for Canada because she parles Francais. They are assumed to operate like most of EDS' other sub-entities, where any work they might do gets run through Russia either through the Moscow Aviation Institute,  Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Professor N.E. Zhukovsky Aero Hydrodynamic Institute[TsAGI], or one of the other arms of the Russia's Military-Sciences apparatus.
https://canadabuys.canada.ca/en/tender-opportunities/contract-history/w2604-22jp10/001/stn-000


 

 

I believe this actually belongs to the sponsor complaint thread.

 

And speaking of sponsors, I would also like to see a video about how different types of sponsorship (sponsor spots, fully sponsored videos, or just manufacturers sending hardware) work, from negotiating, to writing, to filming, to determining when or which channel should the sponsor spot be, what researches do the business team do to choose their sponsors, what say the sponsor does or does not have, etc.

Edited March 20 by Do everything later
added 1 more thing to cover

[deskunkworks]

17 minutes ago, Do everything later said:

I believe this actually belongs to the sponsor complaint thread.

 

And speaking of sponsors, I would also like to see a video about how different types of sponsorship (sponsor spots, fully sponsored videos, or just manufacturers sending hardware) work, from negotiating, to writing, to filming, to determining when or which channel should the sponsor spot be, what researches do the business team do to choose their sponsors, etc.

Yeah, I wasn't sure because it is not publicly known information. It seems like the kind of thing that should be known, though. It is just hard to find a group that covers all the necessary areas to publish. I also wonder how much advertising money plays a role. I approached PC Gamer with it, and the person I dealt with was nice but didn't think there was a story, which sort of left me scratching my head. But good call, may need to repost it there.

[thrasher_565]

hmm i watch the clip is 25mps enough and got an video idea. i dont no how you would do it but you could build a fast pc and slower pc and see what the speed is like installing a os on an old system vs a new one is it faster. can also show say load time in games. also said about how fast you enet is i dont no if you can limit it? and see how fast is enough?

 

dont no just an idea

 

hard part is to get an appals to appals pc to compare say ddr3 vs 4 and so on. but for like slow hdd vs fast hdd vs slow ssd vs fast ssd vs m.2 vs nvme kinda deal? could also test the os too to see if new os are faster (i no your forced in to using it) but alot of people say there old system is snapper...

[joshr120]

Got inspired to post on here after seeing some similar DIY things in the recent Handy Tech Under $100 video.

 

OpenDeck is a project originally designed to be a open-source alternative to the stream deck. It has physical buttons and can have up to 18 customisable macros with the relevant ones automatically shown depending on what application is active on the PC.

   

 

Project GitHub: https://github.com/joshr120/open-deck

[WizBiz]

With the release of the MSI MPG 321URX video the topic of these OLED monitor burn in warranties are brought up. I would like to see someone investigate what those warranties actually entail in the real world. The biggest worry for OLED monitors is the burn in and with these monitors being so expensive, I think it's the last thing that is stopping people like me from getting one. With the monitory warranties matching those of IPS or VA, I hope that OLED are now okay to buy.

Ideally there would be a sample of a few big competitors and have the monitors given to people around the office and track their life span over a year. Then see if there are signs of burn in, and if there are, if the companies would replace them with the symptoms that developed. Since there isn't a lot of gaming done at the office, maybe having sample gameplay of popular games play in off hours could help fill that aspect of the monitor.

I would wager that each company would have a metric for when it's burnt in enough to justify replacement. And would be interested in seeing how forgiving to the customer each company is.

I acknowledge that it's not cheap to buy and run these monitors in bulk for a year. It's why I think with BC power and LTT size, there really isn't anyone that can do this.

Alternatively, I would wager that some people around the office have been using these monitors for a while and doing a round up of them and their burn in status would be appreciated. (Also maybe sending the worst off for a warranty RMA might be enlightening). Likely cheaper and could gauge interest of these OLED monitors longevity.
 

[DeamonLordZack]

Since Linus & likely Luke aren't interested or willing to do it more than likely I'd personally like to see maybe David & Jake do a version of the Linux chalenge with the Steam Deck for a month won't say I expect them to use it for work so that it slows them down at work but for general media purposes they use the steam deck or a PC with Linux on it. I'd say unless they're willing to commit for good just stick to using the steam deck with steam os 3.5 & a dock to connect it to a monitor for couch play or just playing games on a larger screen when you want to at home, I'd like it if it was a 2 to 3 part video personally.

[David C. Senior]

Former PC support guy here.  From the 90s.  How about having an older viewer/person (50s or 60s) come in and do a new build with the team.  Show how things have changed.  "In my day, we did it like this" sort of thing.  IDE HDD, Parallel ports, etc.  It would be fun how things changed and a nice banter could ensue.  Maybe bring in some old equipment.  I wonder how many older viewers you have.

[Derrick Kleckner]

I have an idea that would be hugely beneficial I am sure to alot of people that host their own server but don't have the hardware to test this.  I have searched all over Google and cannot find benchmarks or much information on what is best.  This video idea would help me out and others tremendously.  Here is my idea:

So this comes from hosting a Hypervisor that runs a game server as a VM.  The game server relies highly on CPU and RAM with the CPU being single threaded/core with a very high clock rate.  In this case the best I could find as of last summer was the AMD 7950x for the bang for the buck.  What I would like to see is which Hypervisor has the best performance and the tweaks to get it there.  The Hypervisors I would like to see is HyperV, vSphere, Proxmox, XCP-ng, Virtual Box and whatever else is out there.  Right now I am currently running vSphere 8.0 and not sure if its the best Hypervisor for the CPU to get the max performance.  My current 1u server is a 7950x with 192 gb of DDR5 using an AIO Liquid Cooling.  The VM does perform ok, but I don't think its running effeciently.  The big thing is I don't think within vSphere its taking the advantage of any of the boost clocks.  So what I would like to see is the following:

System > Hypervisor > VM (Windows Server 2022) (example application for Benchmark - ex: that I am running is Rust Server - But can be really anythign similar)  I would like to stick to Windows VM if at all possible since the tools are great for what I need.  What are your thoughts?  The video can be about other CPUs as well but would like to stick with AMD since its the oddball in this setup as alot of Hypervisors get built on Intel platforms outside of the Epyc line.

[nunks]

Joined just to post this suggestion: LTT could do a collaboration with drummer streamer Mrgregles, he does some really cool stuff with PC builds for stream automation, and became kinda famous for his live bullet-time effect. Also he seems to be a really nice guy.

[Brian Griffin]

Hello, long time listener and fan of your channel, this is my first time to post but I had a question.  I am a 3x cancer survivor and struggle to work a lot due to chronic pain from chemo and radiation.  This means I am forced to compromise with my tech and it's a challenge because I am a tech lover.  This brings me to my question, if buying a PC is not really an option how does Samsung Dex used with an S23 Ultra and a 100.00 monitor from Amazon compare for games, and writing. I would love to see a video discussing Samsung Dex and maybe recommend monitors or peripherals available for a budget user.  Thanks for your time and if this isn't a good idea for a video perhaps you could just email me with some recommendations?   Thank you for your time and thank you for all you do I really enjoy watching your videos!  

[maxparkinson]

Hello LMG and LTT,

 

I am curious as to a breakdown of AlphaTheta/Pioneer DJ's flagship product, the CDJ-3000. I think LMG/LTT's insight into how this hardware works would be much appreciated by the DJ community at large, as the device's internal workings are quite nebulous to most people. I have read that the player uses some sort of Linux or Ubuntu software, but besides that, the processors and memory in the unit itself might as well be written in hieroglyphics. If there is any YouTube channel to handle an explanation of how this several-thousand dollar piece of hardware works, it is LMG/LTT. 

 

I am confident that it would be a very engaging video exploring a field of tech that I seldom see explored in depth with regard to the tear-down sector of YouTube. 

 

Hope to see it in the future!

[InterClaw]

Hi LTT,

Is this something you are at all interested in covering? I found it while doing some spring cleaning.

 

 

It's a hardware IDE encryption solution. You plug in the little board between your hard drive and your motherboard, add floppy power to it, and connect the internal USB looking header that goes through a backplate to the outside of the computer. There you plug in one of the two supplied "thumb drives" having a FireWire connector.

 

I've never used the thing. It came bundled with the Abit IC7-MAX3, a quite legendary motherboard. I don't have the motherboard anymore, but apparently I had put this aside already, so it remained with me.

 

According to the Internet, the marketing material included gems like "keep the RIAA away from your Kazaa files" and "keep government supercomputers busy for weeks". I wonder how long it would take modern hardware today.

[BBengler]

Hey all,

 

I work in K-12 Education and would love to see some content on different software in the EdTech sphere.  Things that are essentially redundant, best bang for the buck as we are all trying to do as much as we can for the kids on shoe string.  My particular school district chose to go with Windows devices instead of Chromebooks for students with about the same specs as a Chromebook and we are using Intune to manage them which may be an angle out of the norm for most schools, but our philosophy was wanting to provide students with exposure to devices that they may see more regularly outside of education (that isn't a MacBook).

 

Thank you for your time,

Brian

[tg-sebasboy]

Long shot. but i just thought of a genius idea.  and it would probably have a really good clickable title/video too.

Linus has done a video before on those "china laptop cpu in a desktop" before.

but it seems to have evolved massively.

you can now buy a mobile 8/9/10th gen mobile coffeelake cpu's that work on Z370 motherboard.

you can also buy a RTX 3080 mobile on a PCIE card formfactor.


my idea was. Mobile I9 in a desktop board + a mobile RTX 3080 gpu.

in theory it should be way faster than in a laptop formfactor due to cooling alone. but you can do a IMON slope hack on the bios and make the cpu run at indefinite turbo and gain even more overall performance (besides some of these cpu's being unlocked chips. like the I9 9900HK)

 

[DQuinn_Photography]

Can you guys do a build in a few U-NAS cases and give your guys thoughts on these cases?

[moritxius]

a challenge againt der8auer with ek direct die cooling would be cool, like the noob vs pro challenge but its der8auer vs linus.

[JForce]

I would love to see the lab take a look at some analysis around "sound quality" for the leading streaming services, including on different devices and using the most common connection methods.

 

For instance, I'd like to see them test:

• Spotify
• Apple Music
• Tidal
• YouTube music maybe?

All of them using the following:

• Direct streaming over 4/5G cellular to iPhone, Galaxy & Android phones
  • Playback on the device
  • Playback to wired headphones
  • Playback to BT headphones
  • Playback to car connected via cable
  • Playback to car connected via BT
• Direct streaming over wifi to iPhone, Galaxy & Android phones
  • Playback on the device
  • Playback to wired headphones
  • Playback to BT headphones

There are a lot of variables there, so I can see some of that being dropped, but what I'm essentially looking for is:

• What is the best listening experience from a streaming music service in the 3 most common scenarios?
  • In the car
  • via headphones
  • via connected speaker/stereo
• So you're looking at stuff like:
  • Does using a cable connection give a better result than using BT?
  • Does wifi vs cellular make a difference?
  • How much of a difference does Apple Music/Tidals HQ streaming make versus Spotify still only using lame quality streaming?

I mean, I use Spotify a lot, especially in the car where I have a pretty sweet stereo, but I use a cable not BT as it's an older car....so I would like to think I'd be getting a better result than if using BT anyway...BUT am I missing a lot of quality by not switching to Apple Music?

 

Anyway I thought this could be a good idea for a video with lots of quality testing opportunities, and for people to really get their audiophile nerd on and be all "oh yes I can definitely tell that this is a compressed stream, the violas are totally flat sounding and the 3rd movement isn't nearly as punchy as it should be"......

 

[aweblade4]

Can An Air Purifier Really Prevent Dust Buildup Inside Your PC?

 

Lately on tiktok there have been quite a few claims thrown around saying that can air purifier can straight up remove the need for you to clean dust from inside your pc. If this is true it would be a very strong addition to any gaming setup. But as I was doing research I noticed that a large majority of youtube videos on the subject are AI generated and use only stock footage and alot of tiktok videos on the subject are sponsored, so it's really hard to tell whose telling the truth. What exactly makes a good air purifier? Reddit's r/AirPurifiers seems to be really partial to winix 5500-2, amazon enjoys the levoit core 300, and costco has it's famous winix c545 (nicknamed the costco air purifier) . Diy is also an option, but im mostly unsure about it's effectiveness. Power consumption is also a concern in a gaming setup, with some of the "best" one consuming as much as 75W of power. A comparison would be nice for price to performance as well as factoring how easy it is to get replacement filters. Also here is a quick thumbnail mockup at the bottom.

[OptioRex]

Thinking about the recent video with RTX HDR upscaling. 
 

A fun video based on that could be building a home theatre of but having the challenge of not using a keyboard/mouse to use it.

 

So you can only control it with a tv remote or game controller and use tools like stremio 

 

Also I completely forgot I had an account here. 

[ASackOPotatoes]

There is a cool YouTube creator in Washington state near you guys named Loyal Moses. He does 3d printing stuff. In a recent live stream he said he was to small for you guys to notice him but I think you could do a cool collab. https://youtube.com/@LoyalMoses?si=xSrT7puv_XhwqbBu

Twitch.tv/loyalmoses

[cartert101]

I have a great video recommendation / issue. You might find this interesting, so please to give it a read.

I really mean no harm from this post, if I need to take it down and post it somewhere else, that is fine. If it is regarded as spam, I apologize.

 

• Anti-Cheat and the general topic of cheating in games has been highly discussed in recent podcasts from the WAN show. 
• A good discussion if Anti-cheat built into the system is worth it or not, or is this the right way to stop cheating? (maybe, idk, I won’t be the one detailing this possible video)
• Cheating and hacking in Apex Legends has been a hot topic ever since 2 pro players got hacked mid tournament recently.
• This is a great example of breaking down, step-by-step, what the problem is with a computer, and how to solve it.
• It benefits me (hah) cause I can’t seem to fix my computer. 

 

Okay Linus, riddle me this: 

What’s a pain in my ass but is ‘necessary’ for the good of gamer mankind ?

Anti-cheat. 

And in my case, it’s Easy Anti-Cheat made by Epic Games.
This little program to protect games like Apex Legends, Warhammer Vermintide 2, and The Finals has been digging my sanity into a hole for months. 

 

I don’t even know where to start with this, so let me give a quick summary.

I have been playing Apex Legends off and on since it came out in 2019, but in the past year at least it’s been my go-to only source of gaming happiness (sad, I know). In the beginning of 2023 I got a new computer (7900x, RTX 4090 in a SFF. why? Don’t ask.), and Apex Legends ran great on it, smooth as butter. Up until ehhh maybe late September of 2023, that is. 

All of the sudden, I just started lagging. And not just normal lag. I’ll explain and show.

I’d say about 4:30 - 5 minutes into launching Apex, I lag heavy for around 30 seconds. Stuttering from 15-60 fps, my inputs seem buffered, and sometimes my audio freaks out. It isn’t just my Apex either during this minute time frame, if I tab out during this lag, it’s affecting everything, my whole PC with the same lag. After that ~30 seconds, it goes away. Poof. Never to appear again. 

 

This has been happening for months. Only once per launch session. 
It’s not just Apex Legends. As I said before, this has to deal with Easy Anti-Cheat. I launch any of those other games I listed, The Finals, Warhammer Vermintide 2, and the same lag comes around 5 minutes in for another 30 seconds, and it all goes away after that. 

One more thing, I said the lag does affect my whole computer, it also affects my network connection cause the whole computer is having a bad time. After my game FPS smooths out, my network is still laggy for another 1-2 seconds and it catches up, and then all my issues go away. 

 

A few things:

1. Once per launch session for each game. Around 4:30 to 5 minutes in, and lasts 25-35 seconds max (feels a lot longer). super predictable. It never comes back until I relaunch the game and it comes back, then goes away once again.
2. I have checked Task Manager during this lag, nothing sticks out, it seems like it’s only the game/EAC that causes this.
3. It’s not an overheating issue, as why would it only happen once per session for 30 seconds and go away? (wouldn’t it throttle me constantly?) It’s too predictable. I do admit, my CPU probably runs hotter than I want it to but my CPU gets hot in other games, and this lag does not happen.
4. I have reinstalled Apex Legends and other games. I have cleared the Steam cloud data so none of my settings come back. I have reinstalled Windows completely and wiped my drives, and I reinstalled the games and they still do it.
5. I say it’s Easy Anti-Cheat because of the lag being narrowed down to only those games. They all use different game engines and I have tried different Direct X versions for Apex Legends.
   • With this said though, I do think it’s EAC affecting a specific component of my computer (I'm thinking of the RAM and a possible caching issue) so the entire blame doesn’t land on EAC but a majority of it does. This is because of my wiping drives and reinstalling Windows, so it must be a unfriendly SW ← → HW mix.
6. G-Sync tested off and on.
7. Drivers updated.
8. Covering all bases, I have run EAC repair service installer.
9. A few things I haven’t tried are getting new computer parts to test to see if it fixes my issue, and trying my Steam and Apex account on a different computer as I haven’t had the chance to do so.
10. I have tried posting on Reddit and sending a direct ticket to Apex support, and nothing.

 

Here is a video documenting my pain (swear words inbound):

 

 

Here is an insight video I made to showcase my issue with more details including HWmonitor and Task manager, and at the end we take another look zooming into the details: (skip to 1:00 if you’d like)

(btw, I typed a majority of this before this insight video)

 

Spoilers, from this video we see that task manager doesn’t show anything obvious, but some key details I noticed from HWmonitor is that my GPU usage and wattage cuts by HALF, and my CPU wattage drops by 20 watts (both go back to normal after drop). And yes you can probably see my CPU does get pretty hot cause SFF and some lack of airflow (so please don’t bully me), and if you’re gonna say that is the cause, it’s not as previously stated.
So my thought process is it’s still definitely EAC reacting with my components cutting their usage, like a security check in the background that we can not spot in the task manager.

Friend said it might be a CPU pacing issue due to the FPS seemingly lower than it actually is and weird input lag and ‘pulsing’ behavior.
He also asked ChatGPT by inputting everything above as the question to solve:

Quote

 

“The predictability of the issue (approximately 4:30 - 5 minutes after game launch) suggests a software process that runs at a specific interval post-launch. This could be a security or integrity check by EAC. The fact that the lag also affects the whole computer and network connection indicates that the issue is not limited to the GPU or game software but potentially involves CPU, RAM, or even disk I/O operations.”

But still with all of this said, why does it only affect EAC games and no other??
 

My computer is completely over the top, yes, but this is my passion and I find it fun. I am in a lucky enough position to be able to have this computer and I am extremely grateful, don’t get me wrong, but I am still frustrated as to why this is happening. 

 

So yeah. EAC, as far as I can tell, you’re in my death note. After going through the trouble of resetting my whole PC and settings and redownloading everything, I am crying inside. 

If this doesn’t turn into a video, that’s fine, but please, someone in this forum help me lol. 
 

[ToboRobot]

10 minutes ago, cartert101 said:

I have a great video recommendation / issue. You might find this interesting, so please to give it a read.

I really mean no harm from this post, if I need to take it down and post it somewhere else, that is fine. If it is regarded as spam, I apologize.

 

• Anti-Cheat and the general topic of cheating in games has been highly discussed in recent podcasts from the WAN show. 
• A good discussion if Anti-cheat built into the system is worth it or not, or is this the right way to stop cheating? (maybe, idk, I won’t be the one detailing this possible video)
• Cheating and hacking in Apex Legends has been a hot topic ever since 2 pro players got hacked mid tournament recently.
• This is a great example of breaking down, step-by-step, what the problem is with a computer, and how to solve it.
• It benefits me (hah) cause I can’t seem to fix my computer. 

 

Okay Linus, riddle me this: 

What’s a pain in my ass but is ‘necessary’ for the good of gamer mankind ?

Anti-cheat. 

And in my case, it’s Easy Anti-Cheat made by Epic Games.
This little program to protect games like Apex Legends, Warhammer Vermintide 2, and The Finals has been digging my sanity into a hole for months. 

 

I don’t even know where to start with this, so let me give a quick summary.

I have been playing Apex Legends off and on since it came out in 2019, but in the past year at least it’s been my go-to only source of gaming happiness (sad, I know). In the beginning of 2023 I got a new computer (7900x, RTX 4090 in a SFF. why? Don’t ask.), and Apex Legends ran great on it, smooth as butter. Up until ehhh maybe late September of 2023, that is. 

All of the sudden, I just started lagging. And not just normal lag. I’ll explain and show.

I’d say about 4:30 - 5 minutes into launching Apex, I lag heavy for around 30 seconds. Stuttering from 15-60 fps, my inputs seem buffered, and sometimes my audio freaks out. It isn’t just my Apex either during this minute time frame, if I tab out during this lag, it’s affecting everything, my whole PC with the same lag. After that ~30 seconds, it goes away. Poof. Never to appear again. 

 

This has been happening for months. Only once per launch session. 
It’s not just Apex Legends. As I said before, this has to deal with Easy Anti-Cheat. I launch any of those other games I listed, The Finals, Warhammer Vermintide 2, and the same lag comes around 5 minutes in for another 30 seconds, and it all goes away after that. 

One more thing, I said the lag does affect my whole computer, it also affects my network connection cause the whole computer is having a bad time. After my game FPS smooths out, my network is still laggy for another 1-2 seconds and it catches up, and then all my issues go away. 

 

A few things:

1. Once per launch session for each game. Around 4:30 to 5 minutes in, and lasts 25-35 seconds max (feels a lot longer). super predictable. It never comes back until I relaunch the game and it comes back, then goes away once again.
2. I have checked Task Manager during this lag, nothing sticks out, it seems like it’s only the game/EAC that causes this.
3. It’s not an overheating issue, as why would it only happen once per session for 30 seconds and go away? (wouldn’t it throttle me constantly?) It’s too predictable. I do admit, my CPU probably runs hotter than I want it to but my CPU gets hot in other games, and this lag does not happen.
4. I have reinstalled Apex Legends and other games. I have cleared the Steam cloud data so none of my settings come back. I have reinstalled Windows completely and wiped my drives, and I reinstalled the games and they still do it.
5. I say it’s Easy Anti-Cheat because of the lag being narrowed down to only those games. They all use different game engines and I have tried different Direct X versions for Apex Legends.
   • With this said though, I do think it’s EAC affecting a specific component of my computer (I'm thinking of the RAM and a possible caching issue) so the entire blame doesn’t land on EAC but a majority of it does. This is because of my wiping drives and reinstalling Windows, so it must be a unfriendly SW ← → HW mix.
6. G-Sync tested off and on.
7. Drivers updated.
8. Covering all bases, I have run EAC repair service installer.
9. A few things I haven’t tried are getting new computer parts to test to see if it fixes my issue, and trying my Steam and Apex account on a different computer as I haven’t had the chance to do so.
10. I have tried posting on Reddit and sending a direct ticket to Apex support, and nothing.

 

Here is a video documenting my pain (swear words inbound):

 

 

Here is an insight video I made to showcase my issue with more details including HWmonitor and Task manager, and at the end we take another look zooming into the details: (skip to 1:00 if you’d like)

(btw, I typed a majority of this before this insight video)

 

Spoilers, from this video we see that task manager doesn’t show anything obvious, but some key details I noticed from HWmonitor is that my GPU usage and wattage cuts by HALF, and my CPU wattage drops by 20 watts (both go back to normal after drop). And yes you can probably see my CPU does get pretty hot cause SFF and some lack of airflow (so please don’t bully me), and if you’re gonna say that is the cause, it’s not as previously stated.
So my thought process is it’s still definitely EAC reacting with my components cutting their usage, like a security check in the background that we can not spot in the task manager.

Friend said it might be a CPU pacing issue due to the FPS seemingly lower than it actually is and weird input lag and ‘pulsing’ behavior.
He also asked ChatGPT by inputting everything above as the question to solve:

 

My computer is completely over the top, yes, but this is my passion and I find it fun. I am in a lucky enough position to be able to have this computer and I am extremely grateful, don’t get me wrong, but I am still frustrated as to why this is happening. 

So yeah. EAC, as far as I can tell, you’re in my death note. After going through the trouble of resetting my whole PC and settings and redownloading everything, I am crying inside. 

If this doesn’t turn into a video, that’s fine, but please, someone in this forum help me lol. 
 

This would be a great video for Luke to host.

[Thomas A. Fine]

Orange Pi Neo

 

[Thomas A. Fine]

On 3/29/2024 at 6:10 PM, Thomas A. Fine said:

Orange Pi Neo

 

I had previously suggested also a video related to the minisforum em780, how cheap it is, and the feasibility doing a home build of similar performance for the price (I think the super low prices for the em780 are gone at the moment but it's still fairly cheap).

But it occurs to me now that this is a trend.  Ryzen is killing it with these inexpensive low power CPUs that can (on paper) run circles around a top of the line desktop build from just a few years ago (e.g 9900K).  The integrated GPU is (on paper) not too dissimilar from good external GPUs available around the same time.

 

So not only is there the angle of dirt cheap tiny PCs available of adequate power to to a ton of useful things, there's also other angles:

 

• Ryzen is killing it and this seems like a market-changing trend
• How much is this trend stemming from the SteamDeck and its competitors?  i.e. did they create a market that has dramatically reduced the cost of performant low-power CPUs
• Are desktops dead, for everyone that doesn't need a workstation-class system?  Possibly even including many gamers?
• Is there a good no-compromise way of marrying these low cost low power commodity mini PCs with a top-of-the-line GPU that is in most ways better than a full desktop build?
• How does this impact the need and desire to build PCs in the future?
• What does it mean for upgrades and repairability?
• Maybe stuff about power consumption?  I mentioned the 9900k above because this is my current desktop with a Radeon VII GPU that was all that and more when I built it a mere five years ago .  It's a massive power hog.  These mini computers are (on paper) faster than my build, and drastically lower power.

[G4M1NGPCR0CKZ]

Dear Mr. Colton Potter,

If you're not fired yet because of the downsizing, this could be a fun video idea:

Jankiest Modded PC Building competition between David, Colin, Tynan, and Alex, but with a twist, each competitor has 2 suggestions for a handicap/limitation to write on a card, so there could be 8 different varying handicaps/limitations for all the contestants, Linus would then be the man to randomly draw from a hat the options and assign 2 to each participant. Also they only have 3hrs and 69mins to complete their builds and submit for judging! I think it would be super fun, and you could even give the contestants prep time leading up to the competition to prepare their modding ideas / materials.

 

Thanks and Best Regards,

-Josiah K.

 

P.S. please show video idea to Señior L. Sebastian