I'm sure they're doing their best

Paul 00:00

True.

Drew 00:01

Paul! How are ya? Good. I was just opening some packages that I got today. Oh. Yeah. Uh mostly ammunition. Uh shooting explosives through the mail is hmm interesting. Okay, okay. So yeah, I uh I've been I've been working on my new rifle. I was actually I actually knocked off work a little early today to go up to the range and kinda dial things in because we're gonna be going out east this weekend to do some long range shooting. Yeah. How'd that how did it go today? Uh good. Um we we me and my friend went up last weekend, but there was a catastrophe because I had the wrong scope base and I couldn't probably I couldn't properly calibrate my equipment. So we had to do some quick thinking and do some re-jiggering of stuff and Long story short, everything's put back together, and I spent about sixty rounds up there this afternoon in the windy conditions, just making sure that everything is is working and I'm pretty sure I got it in a place where we'll have a good time. So everything's good. Everything's good. How are you? Uh it it's I'm okay. I'm okay. Yeah. Yeah. Just okay. Just okay. Just okay.

Paul 01:20

No, no, no, no, no, no. Uh I would love to talk about that topic though.

Drew 01:26

Okay, well let's let's go. What are we waiting for?

Paul 01:28

So last week we recorded on Friday. It's the day I got back from my little work thingy. Uh so also to to make the story I don't know. Good. You have to know we have I have cats. I have four cats.

Drew 01:44

Whoa. Okay, I'm out.

Paul 01:46

Okay, four.

Drew 01:46

I I knew of the two cats.

Paul 01:49

I have four cats. I have four cats. Where did you get the other two? Uh a couple years ago, I think. There are there are a set of brothers. They're tuxedo cats.

Drew 01:59

Uh well I remember the kittens.

Paul 02:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had two we had the kittens, then there were we already had two cats before that. So sometimes You know, uh sometimes bugs get in the house, and that usually drives the cats apeshit. It was also that time of year, things are getting a little bit colder colder, insects are trying to find warm places to not die. So, you know, when I see a cat. Freaking out and chasing stuff around, or you know, in a window trying to jump at things. I I don't think much of it. It's just like, oh, the cat's gonna get a bug. And uh It's not a big deal. It's gonna be a fly or something. Uh so last Saturday, about a week a week ago from today. This this happened. One of our cats was very adamantly going after a bug in uh in one of our uh windows in our living room. Uh we leave generally of those windows open for sunlight, also like the cats like to sit in them and look outside and you know pretend that they're hunters So I didn't think much of it. And about fifteen minutes went by and I'm like, wow, she is really going after that thing. I should probably go take a look. So I get to the window, I open it up, and it's a hornet. It's a hornet. Hornet in the house. So I go grab uh uh an appropriately whippy yet solid shoe, smack the hell out of it, and and Hornet's dead. Uh, don't think anything of it. About twenty minutes later, it happens again. By the time I've killed six hornets in the house.

Drew 03:51

Uh-oh.

Paul 03:53

I begin to think we have a hornet problem. Sure enough, uh So these windows in particular are on either side of a gas fireplace. Uh so I know I walk outside and sure as shit The little the little part of the house that juts out because of the fireplace, in the top corner, one of the corners, there's just a shit ton of hornets. Uh You know, they're they're obviously making a nest in the in part of my house. And that's not a good place for them to be. So You know, wow, we kind of think, well, like, you know, we can go to the store and we can buy, you know, Hornet spray that's you know, that you can shoot from like up to like twenty-two feet. It's amazing shit.

Drew 04:53

Oh yeah, no, it's it's really good.

Paul 04:55

Yeah. Uh-huh. So and we and we we talked about that. Uh and my s my son uh happened to be home that weekend and he brought up the thing the concern of well they're already getting into the house somehow. If you spray them and piss them off, are they just gonna swarm into the house? Which is a legitimate concern.

Drew 05:18

Uh Meanwhile, your cats have their Vietnam helmets on and they're ready, they're ready to fight. Yeah, yeah.

Paul 05:25

And then, you know, you start doing some Googling and generally, you know, like It's not good to be stung by a hornet, and it's really not bad and really not good for if a cat gets stung after they swallow said hornet. Uh whether it's in their mouth or their esophagus, they can swell, it could be a whole big thing. So we're trying to be diligent in killing the wasps as as we detect them. So we just decided, or I decided, that you know what, scrit. What we can deal with it for the weekend. We can kill hornets. And on Monday, I will call a professional. So that is what I did. Uh there is a local pest removal company uh in Grove City that did Uh that that not all of them do stinging insects, as I was learning, I was doing my research, which makes sense, right? You have to have special equipment, whatever. Uh so I called and this very nice lady is like, oh no, we can't have hornets, and uh we can get someone out uh tomorrow morning. So they came on Tuesday morning. Uh It cost $250 to remove hornets from my house, but it's fine. I think all in all that's a that's a good uh good bet. So the the guy comes and he's like, Yeah, we can take care of that for ya. Uh He's like, well, they they you know, it's a at this point it's probably not worth putting a hole in your house. They just started making their nest. Uh, you know, these hornets do this in the winter, they will find a place, they will make a small nest jam it with full food and eggs. So this would be the next generation of hornets next spring. He's like, but what we can do is like basically he just went to town on that area. He sprayed some spray after he put on his his you know be bee fighting suit. Oh yeah.

Drew 07:16

Uh-huh. Modern day night.

Paul 07:18

Yep, yep. And then all this powder stuff he like basically shot this powder into the corner of my house. And he's like, okay, so what's gonna happen is uh For about one to two hours, them hornets are going to be pissed. They're gonna be buzzing around, they're gonna be trying to figure out as they, you know, they go through Through and everybody in their hive is diving, dying, and they're tracking in this poison, and it's killing all the eggs. They're gonna be absolutely pissed. And after about a couple hours, you may see some hornets just kind of flying around, and then uh Because by by like the end of the day, they'll be gone. He goes, give it a week, and then go up there, spray some like sealing foam in there to seal it off, and you'll be good at good as new. And sure as shit, the that exactly what happened is what happened. Those those hornets were pissed. We kind of have like in uh in part of our landscaping we have like this little mini willow tree and the hornets seemed to decide that that was going to be where they're gonna stage their next uh their their next plans was in this willow tree. But that attracted an army of sparrows. Oh. And it was feeding frenzy time for them sparrows as they were dive-bombing around. Uh I watched a sparrow catch a hornet out of midair. It was pretty spectacular. Uh and now I don't have any more hornets.

Drew 08:46

Huh.

Paul 08:47

Hornies are dead.

Drew 08:49

Well, so love first of all, love that story. Because fuck those fuck those angry skybugs. Yes, I don't like them one bit. Like bees. Bees are okay. Uh and there there are actually some so we had a similar issue on our front porch that I caught as it was starting to get bad. So have you ever heard of a mud dauber? Yes, yeah. Yeah. So basically that's that's that's a some kind of species of hornet that basically just puts mud in a corner and that's where they make their nests. Uh I freaked the fuck out thinking that it was termites. It wasn't termites. Um it was it was it was that and I had to like get up there and like get all the mud off of there and they flew around and were angry, but they never attacked me. But we had a similar thing. Now, love that story for you. Glad you got a happy ending. But uh where's all the where's all the carcasses?

Paul 09:44

Uh so so but it basically what he was saying is so and most of them like fled the hive as it was dying. Like he basically said like hey don't even go at it for a couple of days. Like you goes at this time of year the nests are again like they make an extremely small nest, just cram it full of food, lay eggs, and then die. It's gonna be the second one. He's like, it's not worth like at this point. Like if it would have been like a couple of weeks, he said we may have to like, you know, pull off the siding and and see what we can get. It's gonna be a really small nest. He's like, don't worry about it. Because everything that this stuff kills all the eggs. He just said, hey, and generally speaking, hornets don't make nests twice in the same spot ever. Uh huh. Which is interesting. But he said just like give it a week just to be sure and then get up there in the ladder and just seal it off. And he goes, you'll be fine. Like the nest isn't gonna hurt anything. So that's my plan. So yeah. So I may have like hundreds of Hornet carcasses in in my walls, but you know what? That's fine. There's probably worse things in my walls that I don't know about.

Drew 10:51

So I mean free insulation if you really want to Yeah. Put a finer point on it. So yeah, yeah. Uh seems like pretty reasonable service. I mean, we have we have Oracon that we pay for month over month. And uh You know, listen, I don't have a ton of bugs on the inside. Uh spiders, yeah. I mean, it's that time of year, like you said, where stuff's coming inside. And there's basically two two times during the year where we have a lot of bugs in the house. The first one is in the spring when the ants start to emerge. Uh so we'll have some ants that work their way into the house every s every spring. And, you know, we either put down traps or if I catch 'em early enough, I'll spray. If it if it's really bad, Orkin will come and they will put that like gel a few places that they have to like carry back to their nest. So like you yeah so what happens is you still see ants for a few days and then you start seeing dead ants for about a week and then not dead. Yeah

Paul 11:53

Oh, this is the best part of the stor. I read that the best part of the story, Drew. Okay. I thought it was the best part of the story. So usually so you know The guy, he's gonna go put on his suit, he does his thing, is like, hey, I'm gonna leave the front door unlocked. I work from home, I'll just be in the living room. If you need anything, whatever, just just just come on. You don't have to knock, just come in. I'm expecting you. So most of the time when when you hire somebody to do work, they will generally introduce themselves, talk about what they're going to do. Do the thing, and then come back and say, hey, I did the thing, everything should be good. Goodbye. Yeah. This dude introduced himself, did the thing. Just got in his truck and drove away.

Drew 12:36

Yeah, classic classic Midwest exit, right? Just fucking I'm out.

Paul 12:40

Yeah. Yeah. I did see him like I watched him like he took everything took everything off. He got in his truck. He did like pull out and sit in the street and he watched Like he must have been like looking because I could see him looking. I can see him on the like on the doorbell camera. He must have been watching his handiwork for a while. I thought Yep, I done fucked them hordins up good.

Drew 13:01

He's probably the kind of guy where like bugs are his friends, right? He has more bug friends than human friends.

Paul 13:07

Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Drew 13:09

Yeah. But um yeah. So the other part the and and the other part of the year that's kind of rough is when it's like really, really rainy. So we have these little tiny millipedes that kind of creep through our foundation. Well they I didn't think they were millipedes, but they're they're just like these tiny little worms and I never see them alive. That's the weirdest thing. I never see them alive. They're always curled up dead near my computers and my UPSs in my unfinished basement. They like crawl to where it's warm and then they die. And like spiders get the rest. So that's with really the only two times. Now one thing I really like about having Orkin is They go around the hole outside of your house, they knock down cobwebs, they look for anthills, they they do a really good job outside. Um The one thing that they didn't catch is I had some bagworms on some of my trees near my deck. Uh that they didn't it they yeah, they fucking destroyed it. I I looked out there one day and I was like, man, that tree's way browner than I remember. And I went out and looked at it and sure enough there were bagworms hanging on it. I'm like, fuck. Because we I'm very familiar with what a bagworm can do to trees. They were really bad where I grew up, uh, one summer where, you know, everybody lost a whole bunch of trees in their yard. So I had to I had to have an arbor c an arborist come out and treat the ones that were still alive that were starting to get infested. And Some of them are like half eaten. Uh he said that they should recover, but yeah, I lost. I lost a few of them. And it was they were really nice arborviteis too that really provided a a a degree of shade to the deck. So that was that was kind of shitty. Okay. Yeah, that's too bad. Huh. Okay. So this next thing. Paul, we are keyboard snobs, are we not?

Paul 14:54

Uh but y I've I know people who are snobbier, but yeah, I like a good mechanical keyboard. Yeah, yeah.

Drew 15:00

Okay. Yeah, I think that's fair. Like If you put a $3,000 keyboard in front of me and like a $200 keyboard in front of me, I probably couldn't tell the difference, but I can sure as shit tell the difference between like a $20 keyboard and a $200 keyboard. Oh, yeah, $100. $100. So this crossed my inbox this week. So our good friends at Keychron, which I think we both are pretty positive on.

Paul 15:22

Yeah, I'm using a keyboard a Keychron keyboard right now.

Drew 15:26

Yeah, I have multiple.

Paul 15:27

Yeah.

Drew 15:27

Yeah, I have I have one within arm's reach right now that I use for my Mac Mini. Um, and then I I have owned a couple other keychrons before. So Keychron, and we'll put a link to this in the show notes, uh, is currently doing a Kickstarter, which is overly funded at this point, so it looks like it's gonna go. It is the Keychron Q16 HE8K. Now there's a lot in there, but the headline is World's First Fully Ceramic Keyboard

Paul 16:01

Yes, it's made entirely of ceramic. The base and the keycaps are all ceramic. Yep. Yep. So the first thing I noticed about this Drew, especially like in the vid like in the videos around this, it's so fucking shiny.

Drew 16:22

It really is. It really is. And and I'll tell you something. That actually is kind of a benefit because human filth builds up on stuff. Oh yeah, keyboards are gross. And things become discolored and like our our oil kind of seeps into plastic and over time keyboards kind of get shiny. I wonder if these surfaces are a little more filth resistant, even though it's shiny. Hmm, maybe. I don't know. I haven't I haven't read anything about that. That's just a hunch. But yes, it is very shiny. Yes. Because it's ceramic and apparently it's heavy. I would imagine, yeah, yeah. Now my my my my Current keyboard that's hooked up to my PC, which I'm talking on right now. It has a I guess it's a steel base, and it's got some heft. Yeah. I think this might be even heavier.

Paul 17:20

I would imagine it is much heavier. I wonder if is there's got there's gotta be like a speck or something that tells you how much it weighs. Uh How much switches do you use? So also, if you didn't notice, the H E in the name stands for Hall Effect. So they're magnetic switches. Yes.

Drew 17:45

Well, hold on. Hold on. Okay. So there's a chart on this page, and this is what I wanted to ask you about. So there's a chart about it's in the top third of the Kickstarter description. And it says, why the Q16 HE8 key stands apart? And it's basically a little, it's a little comparison chart where it's like it's got general magnetic keyboard, it's got general mechanical keyboard, and then it has the new one. And the very first line is switch type. Now the general magnetic keyboard says hall effect magnetic. The switch type on this says next gen magnetic. And then it talks about the certain sensor that it used. And it is clearly not Hall Effect. Which gives you But there are magnetic switches though, right? They are magnetic switches.

Paul 18:32

Okay.

Drew 18:34

So I was ready to buy this, and I'm sure Hall effect magnetic switches are perfectly cromulant. I don't know why they think they need to reinvent a magnetic switch. Hmm. That's the only thing that makes me nervous because I mean it's $218 to buy this thing. Or $219. And they'll ship in December. So I was very close to ordering this because it definitely looks like something that I would enjoy. I don't own a magnetic switch keyboard. So this would be my first.

Paul 19:10

I don't know if you currently do. I do not, but I am I am interested. But I have I have become. See, I th this keyboard was not even on the table for me to consider. Really? And that is because I have grown to love Alice layout keyboards.

Drew 19:29

Oh, that's right. That's right. You're a weirdo. Yes. And they don't they don't make that. They don't make a ceramic version of that yet. If they did, I'd probably order it. Okay. Uh I I will say that uh having watched the videos and looked at the pictures, I really like the look of that gray. Yeah, yeah.

Paul 19:48

You should buy you should buy one, Drew.

Drew 19:50

I should buy one. You should buy one. You should buy one. For the show. Uh a key a keychron silicone palm rest and a keychron coiled aviator cable. So with $257, there's a pretty nice bundle.

Paul 20:08

Have you used the the uh the Keychron launcher webpage recently? No. Okay, so I don't know if you know about this site or not. Uh so give me a link, give me a link, give me a link, give me link. Okay. So they used to use uh well I guess they still do. They use via as kind of their firmware for uh hold on. Link coming in. Uh I guess you don't need that extra thing. They used the so they still use Via, but what they did is they kind of forked it And they made their own web page. So you have to use like something like Chrome that supports USB devices. As long as your KeyCron keyboard is plugged in, you can you can go to it. And it's a great website for uh Like you can set up macros, you can set up what the different layers do, you can remap keys. And for all your RGB nerds, they they've just launched a feature. where now you can get down to per key RGB light control. So they've been really improving this uh this website if you N obviously you have to have a keycron keyboard and I think it has to be attached by a cable But uh uh it does a really good job of uh you can update your firmware from there, you can test keys. Any setting that you can control, it's a great website. So I mean Keychron keeps investing in keyboards, so I think you could do a lot worse than back in this and uh Oh no, a hundred percent.

Drew 21:37

Like this isn't like some fly by night um You know, thing. Yeah. Uh this doesn't have any LED, which isn't a deal breaker for me. Oh no, wait a minute. No, north north facing RGB backward. Okay, so it does. Yeah, yeah. Choose from twenty-two dynamic effects to create your own. Excite new key or color to every key. Oh. Well fuck. Okay. Yeah, this is getting bought. This is probably getting bought. I didn't even say I just I must have skimmed right over that part of this page. There you go. Huh. Let's see what the comments are saying. Hmm. Yeah, no, I mean everybody seems pretty pretty hype. Um, so I guess the really the only question is like which one should I back? There's a Halloween special. Um and a silicone palm rest for $229. Okay, okay. Um yeah, I I want the coiled cable though.

Paul 22:31

Yeah. Yeah.

Drew 22:33

So that's an extra like 40 bucks. Well like an extra 38 bucks. Okay. Huh. Five left of 490. Ugh. It's gonna make me do it. It's gonna make me do it right now. Do it!

Paul 22:46

Do it! Do it! Do it! No, it's not it. Spend money! Spend money!

Drew 22:51

No, no, I spent I've been spending too much money. Oh me too, buddy. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like you could have gone on a break a little bit ago. So the next the next two topics are gonna be a Paul a little bit of a polython because you're a big handheld gamer and you bought some stuff.

Paul 23:11

I did. I did. Where do you want to start?

Drew 23:14

I want to start. I want to go in order.

Paul 23:15

I want to go in order. Okay. So uh last week I did a little teaser. Uh I received my 1X sugar Transformable dual screen Android uh handheld device. Now I'm gonna preface this by saying that while I have used this device Uh I've mostly been playing Ghost of Yote.

Drew 23:47

Really? That's your kind of game?

Paul 23:48

Oh yeah. Ghost of Tsushima was amazing. This game is even better. So I have not I have not had a lot of time. I have not spent a lot of time doing retro games or playing on my handheld, but I did set up enough to test out 2DS. and 3DS games on the 1X sugar. Okay. Okay. So first of all It's nice. The hinges feel good. It's got magnets, so everything snaps together. It totally does everything it said it would. It It did you know when you close the screen, it turns when you fold in the bottom screen, it turns it off. It automatically detects rotation. And changes like what the buttons do, so you don't have to worry about any of that. So like if you flip it over, then suddenly your A butt button is on the bottom, and it it it it just it works exactly how you hope it would work. I have installed some emulators on here. Obviously the ones everyone wants to talk talk about. I installed uh drastic. For yeah, drastic for 2 DS or just Nintendo DS emulation and Citra MMJ for 3DS emulation. Okay. So Not to bury the lead, it works. And it works well. Performance-wise. Getting it to work is A lot. Okay. So we are just starting This this if you're if you're into the handheld uh device scene like I am, There are a lot of dual screen devices hitting the market now.

Drew 25:42

Okay.

Paul 25:42

And it is interesting because The they are really shipping before the software is there to really support them, which I get, right? If there's If there's not dual screen devices, emulator, you know, developers aren't going to start adding support for emulator device uh for for dual screen devices. Uh And just honestly, dual screen on Android in general, it's just it's just kind of wonky. It's just kind of wonky. So for these two emulators, I had two different experiences. For drastic, which is the Nintendo DS emulator It worked basically out of the box. Well, not out of the box. You had to go into this deep, deep, deep into the advanced settings and then say in basic, it's like, oh, you have an external screen. Would you like to use that? Because that's really what it treats it as, right? You have your main screen, and then the little one is an external monitor, essentially. Uh Drastic will detect that, and you can basically say, like, hey, set it up so the top screens on the top and the bottom screens on the bottom, and it just worked. Okay. Citra MMJ, which is what I'm using for 3DS emulation, no such sluck. I read articles, I watched videos of people setting things up, and I could just not get it to work. But then, but then the fine folks at OneX sent me an email and they're like, hey, like, I people are getting devices. Here's an email about some special stuff that we did that you may not have noticed. So it comes no that actually worked out really well. So what they have, let me see if I can find what it's called. It's called the hmm hmm hm the sugar console. Okay And basically what the sugar console does is you can change some stuff. You can force screens on or off. You can change, you can change the uh uh like resolution if you want but what it also does is it's got this mode called fusion and this is the this is what saved 3ds emulation for me So what Fusion does is it lies to Android. Okay? Okay. And it says, I don't have two screens. I have one really wide screen. Ah. So essentially what it does is it puts the small screen essentially to the right of the big screen. And this would allow me to go into Citra and basically say, use a custom layout. So what the custom layout allows you to do is it allows you to basically it puts both of the screens on the window. You can reside them, you can put them anywhere you want. So I was able to take the small screen and move it all the way to the right, which put it on the bottom screen. And then make and set up all the resolutions and dragged them up so it filled the whole screen and I wasn't like stretching or anything. And once I did that, it works great. Not only that, uh uh, uh-oh. Do you see the warning on the page? What warning? Look at the web. Do you see the warning? I have a warning basically saying critical trunk truck chunks of Drew's recording could not be uploaded. You must have check your resources and reload the page.

Drew 29:22

Uh oh wait. Critical error in recording, chunk upload error. Does that mean okay. Does it did it like did it recover? I don't know. The error went away, so maybe. Up uploaded 352 of 352 chunks.

Paul 29:35

Like daddy's chunks. Yeah. Okay. So basically once I figured out fusion mode, everything was great. 3DS games, I think I'm like up res I'm like doubling the resolution, so I'm up rezzing them. They play great. The touch screen works great. It works exactly. I play a little bit of the uh Uh-oh.

Drew 29:59

Paul? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Where did Paul go? Critical error and recording chunk oh no. What's up with this website? Uh uh. Uh-oh. Time time to get out my phone. Hold on, gonna text Paul. I'm still In the call R U question mark. R you question mark Okay, pie is little things are happening. Nope, working on it. Okay. Oh, oh, it's Paul. I'm back. Whoa, my goodness.

Paul 30:55

And then it basically gave me like it basically gave me the error message equivalent of two middle fingers. And then it's uh it took me a while to actually reload the page and and rejoin.

Drew 31:06

So Okay. I'm leaving all my vamping names. We're gonna leave it in. Okay.

Paul 31:11

Uh yeah, uh Okay. Uh to summarize everything, it's a lot like the Retroid Pocket 5. If you can get past The the Androidness of all of this and spend the time and get it all set up and install your apps and configure them all correctly. It does it does do what it advertises. It does do 2DS and 3DS emulation extremely well. But the androidness of it is a lot. So this has to be something you are really, really into. Yes, yeah, yeah. So the the so the only thing that is kind of weird about the hard the hardware is so obviously depending on the orientation Uh like the buttons are either face buttons or like action buttons, depending on which the orientation is. So it comes with this little magnetic D-pad that you can put over top of the ones that are that's gonna be the D-pad. And it works. It does work. It is a little I don't know if you can hear this. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, yeah. It it it is it is very noisy to move the D pad because you have these little like like little tabs pushing down and the magnet is is like rocking back and forth. It's fine. It it it does it does work. But now there's like other uh what is it the There's other devices coming out in the dual screen. So there's like there's like this there's this. I'm not sure this is powerful enough to do like 3DS, but there's things like the AN, the AN Thor. That is out. Let me drop a link in there. And this is a $250 uh dual screen Android device. But you know, uh all in all, the one I sure oh okay, okay, so okay, there okay. There is one problem with this device. Okay, and it's a big one. It is not very comfortable at all.

Drew 33:28

Is it heavy?

Paul 33:30

It is heavy and Uh when you have it in the dual screen layout, uh there is kind so dual screen layout, you have the big screen on top. You have the little screen in the middle, and then you have the controls on each side side.

Drew 33:49

Uh-huh.

Paul 33:50

The controls are thicker than the screen.

Drew 33:55

So it creates thicker than the screen.

Paul 33:57

Yes, yes. So like if you look at the back where you would hold it, the controls are maybe an inch thick and the screen is maybe a half an inch thick. So what it is you have this little spot where like your fingers curl around into like this big like valley and I don't know I just not have found a way like I can play it for about maybe an hour before my fingers start cramping up pretty bad and I have to stop. Uh which an hour is a pretty good time to play some retro games, right? It's not like it's unplayable, but it does get to be uncomfortable. Yes, it is a little heavy. It is especially a little top heavy because that's where most of the guts are in that top screen. So it weighs more on the top than it does on the bottom, or at least it feels like it does. Uh So as I'm trying to balance it on my folder, my fingers, it actually seems like the bottom is more heavy. It just if it feels heavy, it's awkward to hold. When you put it like in single-screen mode, all those problems go away. It's just a very very boxy but perfectly serviceable one-screened handheld. No issues there, but uh I don't know. It's I I I am glad that I own this. I am looking forward to putting in some time and playing some 3DS games on on here, maybe picking a couple to beat, but It is not a perfect device. Hmm. By any stretch of the imagination. It is, it is, it is to get what they to achieve what they did, there are compromises aplenty.

Drew 35:40

So I gotta ask ya, mm-hmm, am I am I sensing a little regret?

Paul 35:47

Uh No, I don't think not necessarily regret. Because I am going to use it. I am going to keep it. But It's not it it's it's gimmicky is what it is. It's gimmicky. And that's okay. I like a gimmick. I like a gimmick. Uh especially love me a band with a gimmick. Uh but uh It's it's it's fine. It's fine, is what it is. It's fine. Okay. It's good. Maybe, maybe fine plus plus. It does work. It does work. And As I if I get some time and I play some more games in it, I will come back with a with a more detailed review. But As far as getting those dual-screen devices emulators up and working, it does work. It just takes More time. It's not, it's the experience is far from polished. Just far. Now I do know that there are some other emulators coming out with dual screen stuff, so I kind of need to dip my toe back into some of the the the subreddits and figure out what those are. Maybe I'll try some of those as well. But uh Like you know, if you have the time and you have the patience and the desire, you can get dull screen Nintendo DS 3DS emulation working on this. And once you do, it does run extremely well. So yeah. Okay. Yep. Yep.

Drew 37:20

Now the one that I'm really interested in.

Paul 37:22

Okay, so I just got this today. Literally today. Okay. So We talked in the past about the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X. And when we left when we left this as far as the podcast goes, I said I was going to get one. Uh-huh. I watched some previews, I watched some YouTube videos, and then I was very much on the fence. And I decided, you know what, Paul? I'm not gonna pre-order it. I'm gonna wait till reviewers get theirs. Maybe I'll order it, maybe I won't. Uh So like I I if I get it, I'm not gonna be in a rush. If I get it in December, that's that's that's fine. So I think around Wednesday The first uh influencers got their hands on this device. And I will have to say, the reviews were extremely mixed Extremely mixed. Yeah. Some places loved it. Some places thought saw there's potential here, but the software just isn't there yet. Uh Uh my the previous ROG LX uh Ally X uses the AMD Z1 Xtreme. The Xbox Ally X uses the second generation of that. Uh the performance gains are there, but they're not huge. Apparently, the Z3, when they really changed the architecture, was worse performance. is going to be good. Uh like r a r a really noticeable change. So I kept thinking about it and I kept thinking about it. And I was really on the fence. In fact, I don't know if you if you there was one point in here where this literally said Paul did not buy an ASEUS RNG Xbox Ally X. Uh-huh. Until I did. Right. So I I just I went on to Best Buy. That's one of the places you can buy it. And they were like, hey, we so got some. You can have it tomorrow. Do you want it tomorrow? And I was like, fuck it. Let's try it. Because I can always return it. And there's Best Buy close to me. I can always put it back in there and say, this isn't for me. Return it. Get my money back. So I bought it as kind of a experiment to see if I would like it or not. To see if It justified keeping this over my original ROG ally X. God, these names are so fucking bad. They're really fucking bad. So I got the Xbox LIX today. I turned it on, got it set up, went through all the windows, bullshit. Uninstalled OneDrive. You know, shit like that. Shit like that I don't that I don't need. No, I don't need a Microsoft 365. I did install a few games on there, uh, and I did spend a little time after dinner playing the games. Okay. So this is a very, very high level early on Paul's first impressions. Okay. First, those stupid little wings of the like the controller shape part of it do make it so much more comfortable to hold. Okay. It is extremely comfortable. Even though it weighs a little bit more than the previous one, it does, it just feels lighter because it's easier to hold. Uh second, performance is pretty much what I would expect. So uh TDPs are very important handheld gaming. It's like thermal device power. How many what's the maximum amount of watts you're going to allow your device to suck down? Right.

Drew 41:31

Generally speaking, oh you're gonna you're gonna talk to me about temperatures? I love those.

Paul 41:35

Okay. Okay. So generally speaking, you can get and customize stuff, but For the the Asus ROG ally, there's essentially three levels. There's 13 watts, which they call silent They call and 17 watt, which they call perfor performance, and 25 watt, which goes up to 30 watts if it's plugged in, which they call turbo. Generally speaking, taking the game and doing it on the same settings, I can get the same performance at 17 watts on this device than I got at 25 watts on my older one. Okay. Right. So essentially I can get the same performance with less watts. And the battery will last longer. Or if I wanted to go through and tweak stuff, I probably can get the display settings up quite a bit and run it at 25 watts. So there is a noticeable, it's not, it's not huge. It's not night and day, right? It's not like I'm getting like twice as many frames or anything. But I'm able to get roughly the same performance for much less energy or battery use, which keeps the fans quieter, it keeps it cooler, lets me play longer. So That is that is encouraging. Now I want to talk about the Xbox full screen experience, Drew. What is that? This is the first device that ships with Microsoft's SteamOS inspired thing. It does not boot into Windows. It boots into the Xbox full screen experience. This is Windows with a whole bunch of subsystems turned off. Uh you don't get to the desktop. There's no start menu. You're very limited in what you can do. Now you can get to the desktop, right? You can basically say, fuck all of this, boot me into Windows. Uh though you do have to reboot it to get it back into like the lightweight mode. And this is the mode that Microsoft says, like, hey, like Windows uses about 20% less resources than uh Than normal Windows. And that seems to be roughly true, even though it's hard to compare because my other ROG LIX only runs Bazite and Steam OS. I don't have Windows on there anymore at all. I think in about a year, if Microsoft keeps working on this, this could be something that is Pleasant to use. It is just not there today. It's fine. It works. But like So the ROG Ally, the original one, shipped with this piece of software called Armory Crate. And that was there. Okay. You this you still have Armory Crate in there, and you still need it to do device-specific things. Like if you want to change where your RGB is, that's in Armory Crate. You want to change your TDPs, that's an armory crate. You want to turn on some AMD features like uh super resolution, that's an armory crate. So you have to use this combination of like the new updated Xbox game bar interface and armory crate to get things to to do and like like a lot of the buttons on it like do almost the same thing because there's like There's like the Xbox button, which opens up the Xbox bar. There's an Armory Crate button that opens up Armory Crate, but that turns out that's also a tab in the game bar. And then there's a library button, which opens up the game bar to the library tab. If you push and hold the Xbox button, you get like this task switch task switcher interface, which does work pretty well. Uh Uh it it's it's serviceable. I do think Uh there is there's potential there. Uh but I I just think maybe it's six months, maybe it's two months, maybe it's just one update. away. Uh but I I think this Xbox full screen experience could be good But right now it is mediocre and I can see a lot of like like quote unquote casuals Not bouncing off of it and going back to SteamOS, which is just a much more polished, easy to use, easier to understand interface for accessing that stuff.

Drew 46:43

So do you think do you think most so most of the blame is on Microsoft there, right? I think so.

Paul 46:49

I th I mean I I get it. Like Their whole gaming division is like on fire. And they really feel that they needed to come out with something that was like competitive with Steam OS and and Valve and the Steam Deck. So I get them building this. I get them even rushing it to market a little bit. I'm sure it was uh like uh uh Asus really wanted to get this device out before the holidays and Microsoft had a schedule they had to hit, so they had to cut features and and and ship things that that they knew didn't work well and like hopefully there's gonna be uh Windows updates. Okay, that that's just that's just okay here's W installing Windows updates is a big part of being a Windows user, especially when you get a new device, because you know there's going to be hundreds of updates just waiting for it to be installed.

Drew 47:49

Well, but be fair, be fair. There's there's Windows updates, there's driver updates, there's firmware updates, there's all sorts of updates. Yep.

Paul 47:58

Yep, okay. Yep. So Yeah, so I did have to like go four places to get all my updates done. The Microsoft Store, the the My Asus app, Armory Crate, and Windows update. Okay. To get to Windows Update, that is not a feature that's in that it kind of is, but it's buried. So you have to click on the game bar. Let me just turn this on so I can I can make this okay so I I push the Xbox button to bring up the game bar. I hit the right bumper to go to or nope, I I use the D-pad to go over to settings and select it. Then I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the settings panel and click on more settings. And then I then that opens up another submenu, which I have to go all the way to the bottom of, and then I can say open window settings. And then from there, it opens up the settings app like Windows. And then you have to make sure that you have go you have to go into Armory Crate and you have to say, hey, Uh I'm no longer in an app that really supports console input. Please turn on the mouse so I can drive the mouse. And then you can go to there and then click on Windows Update and then go. Uh but since you're in the Xbox full screen experience, there is no close menu. There is no like X to close the app when you're done. So you have to push and hold the Xbox button to bring up the test switcher and then press the X button to close it. On like the actual X button button button. And I just did that. That did not work. It did not actually close it. It's just, yeah, that's a that's a cute bug. That's adorable. There we go. I got it. I finally got it to quit So, and uh there is no way to see how much drive space you have left without going into desktop mode and opening up file explorer. So there's just little things that just aren't there yet, right? So It it it works. I'm gonna really try to spend some time with it this weekend, maybe play some Diablo.

Drew 50:13

Uh I heard they're break I heard they're making a bunch of changes again.

Paul 50:17

They are season 11 looks like it's gonna be I had a real I had a really fun time with season 10 probably like one of the best times I have with Diablo since like the launch or like maybe like season four. But season eleven does look really good. So yes, I've I'm still I'm still I'm one of those people. I I'm I'm I new season comes out of Diablo. I play it a lot. I get to where I want, where I've unlocked the unlockables I've wanna I've wanted to want. I got my character to like, you know, like You know, I get to like Torment 3. I don't do Torment 4 because I like myself. Uh and eventually I get to a point where like I believe I have experienced that season to its fullest, and then I stopped playing. The build that I have for season 10, I I use the build guide this season. I don't always do that. It's just bonkers. You basically don't you basically like you just evade and things die. Like it's it's amazing.

Drew 51:15

So uh getting getting back on topic real quick, sorry. So you know, Paul I I've been kind of keeping an eye on this handheld because it looks powerful. Uh you and I have talked about it before I was you know just kind of keeping an eye on it, like you said. I I watched a couple of the reviews and I've seen some Reddit posts where there's been some dubious build quality issues uh that have come up.

Paul 51:41

Yeah. I mine is fine. It's imperfect conditioned. I have no issue with any of the the triggers or the screen. It's But I have seen some of those with like it just comes in and like it looks like smushed on one side.

Drew 51:53

Yeah. Yeah. Or or like or like the triggers don't yeah, they just collapse. So I I'll I'll take this time to point out, Paul, that Well we have some recurring themes on this podcast, do we not?

Paul 52:06

We do, we do.

Drew 52:07

Do you know what segment we haven't had in a while? Drew's Computer Corner? We really haven't. Okay. We really haven't. And part of that is because I have not felt compelled to jump in on any new hardware trends, primarily because as somebody who has been building computers for the better part of 25, 26, maybe even 30. How old am I? Yeah, probably close to 30 years now, building my own computers. If you count like the time that I would help my grandfather when he would have like Heath kits and stuff. I I was a longtime Asus boy. Like it it it was them versus everybody when it came to components, whether it was motherboards or graphics cards. uh you know, basically anything that went in your computer that wasn't the processor or the memory, like Asus made really good stuff. And over the past Five years, there's been a noticeable downturn in quality that they've put out. Uh, you hit on the armory crate thing, like that's been very, very annoying because It's actually a BIOS setting, or I guess it's not technically BIOS anymore, but it it's it's a UEFI firmware setting that you can like disable it so it doesn't bug you anymore. That's how ingrained it is in the ecosystem. Um there's been a rash of support issues. Look, I I will take any opportunity to point people at the Gamers Nexus YouTube channel. I think Steve is he is a man of the people. His I don't know if you've been watching recently, but uh companies are fighting back against Texas.

Paul 53:52

I did catch some of that. Yeah.

Drew 53:54

Yeah. Uh because they're on a roll. Uh they've done they they do some hard hitting investigative stuff. Like It's really it's really refreshing to go to their subreddit because if someone goes, Wasn't he like tracking like illegal exports of like GPU? Yeah, that's right.

Paul 54:12

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Drew 54:12

Yeah. But it's interesting. You know, he doesn't necessarily do it for cloud. I mean he really has and actually him and his staff, even though he's kind of the face of the company, really has consumer sentiment first. And and hats off to them, like That's where I I read the majority of my hardware reviews, hardware roundups, like they do such a good job. And they have several documented instances over the past year alone where Asus just isn't a good company anymore. Yeah. And I look at my computer right now And I'm playing every game that I want to play, including Battlefield 6. I am getting great frame rates. My temperatures are good There's been problems with the 50-90 cards that have launched, and I'm running a 40-90, so there's no really reason for me to go out and spend $2,500 on a new card for marginal weight gains. I just I I have not been compelled to upgrade, and no small part of that is Asus is kind of garbage. And yet I can't really look at alternatives. The closest alternative that I think I would consider would be Gigabyte. I have I've owned some gigabyte motherboards and They've been fine. I don't I don't like their firmware all that much. I think it's not as well done as other brands. But in terms of stability and features and you know IO and stuff like that, it's been good. So that's part of the reason we really haven't done a a Drew's computer corner. And I look at these devices they put out And it's just like that's kind of my holdup. Like I don't want to give Asus my money right now.

Paul 55:48

Yeah. Well I did. I gave him another thousand bucks. Or less than that, because people were taking money off the top. But and again, there there is I would say right now there's a coin flip whether this gets returned by the end of next week or not. So we'll see. Interesting. We'll see. We'll see. I have not committed. I have committed to giving it a fair shake. Okay. So we'll see how it goes. Catch me next week and we'll see. But then again, also like Ghost of Utah is so fucking good, I wish I was playing it right now

Drew 56:20

Is that game hard? Is it is it a souls like or is it more just like an action RPG?

Paul 56:25

Uh I I would say it's more akin to an uh typical action RPG. It may be just a little bit harder, but it's but it's fair. It's fair. And I don't did you play the first one? Yeah. Okay. The first one had this basic thing where like you you you were uh a samurai gone bad, you just had a katana. And basically you had different stances, and certain stances were good against different different opponents who had different weapon types. This game expands that greatly. You have five different weapon types. uh a whole bunch of other like ranged and throwable weapons and the weapon types are more effective against certain types than others but Opponents will change weapons, so you really do have to like pay attention. Make sure you're using the right weapon, make sure you're switching weapons. It's one of those games, like if you get hit a couple of times, you're probably dead. So you almost like you really have to strive for near perfection in combat. Uh being surrounded is extremely deadly. Oh, this game moves the timeline up so there are firearms. Oh, okay. So like there's like muzzle-loaded muskets and and pistols. And those while they are slow to reload, they fuck you up. So, uh. Yeah, but it's it's fun. The story is good. I think the story's actually better than the the previous one. Uh it's there's a female lead which pissed every bunch a bunch of people off because she's attractive. Uh Yeah, it's gamers. Uh but the story is, I think, really good. There's already been a couple of like interesting twists that I didn't see coming up like to like right at the the very uh right before they happened. It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. Sucker Punch does a really good job using PlayStation hardware. Obviously, I have a PlayStation Pro. one of the options they have is what they call uh uh was it it's like ray trace performance mode which Renders the the game is rendered at 1080p, upscaled to 4K, uh with full ray tracing on at 60 frames a second. And the game is absolutely stunning. It is just so fucking beautiful. So yeah, uh I mean give it a couple of years, it'll be out for the PC. Uh but it is it is great. I I'm enjoying this game so much. I put about twenty-eight hours into it already, so Huh. Mm-hmm. Cool. Yep.

Drew 59:26

Well, it sounds like we may have a topic next week if you decide to return this.

Paul 59:30

Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. We'll we'll follow up. We'll follow up and let you know where I'm at.

Drew 59:33

So Yeah, I um You know, I say that we're not gonna have a Druid's computer corner, but I am kicking around uh change some changes. No, I it's If I told you what I was thinking, I don't I think you would laugh so hard you would crash the podcast. Save her for next week, then. Okay. All right. Well, let's get out of here.