Fall 2020 Update - Back to Gaming!

I have certainly taken a hiatus with playing games. Over the last several years I only bought a PS4 to play GTA 5 which took a year to come out after the PS4’s launch. I bought a second game, Red Dead Redemption Two which is still in the plastic. I jumped on the Nintendo Switch train for Mario Kart which I play probably every quarter.

With my almost constant travel schedule, I would relax well, just by relaxing. Because of the global pandemic, the travel came to a halt for business and leisure. Spending more time at home, picked back up the controller [and keyboard for that matter].

Back to the PC

I have always been a fan of console systems. Dedicated to gaming on their respective platforms, growing up I was very much a fan of the PlayStation Stack. PS1/2/3/4 and PSP owner. In elementary and middle school I was a fan of the PC then when the PS2 came out, the graphics were better than I could imagine on a PC so went console.

The games I used to enjoy on the PC were Flight Simulator, Need For Speed, and Sim City. Even when in university the only PC game I would really play was Sim City and the Sims. Fast forward to 2020. In the time since university, I have mostly been using a Mac for work. I haven’t used Windows really since Windows Vista [ouch] and have been using a Mac. Minus the occasional cross-testing with a virtual machine on Windows or a virtual desktop on client sites, my personal and now professional machines have been a Mac.

I caught wind of the next generation of Microsoft Flight Simulator last year and was blown away. I was certain to get the graphics out of the game I would need a dedicated Window Machine. The launch date was set to Mid August 2020. A PC was in order.

How Much PC do I Need?

Was originally going to buy a desktop from Dell. Doing some research did not even realize that gaming laptops were a thing. Had to time items right, I decided to get new furniture for my basement office. I work in my upstairs office since it has plenty of natural light. My basement furniture was my living room furniture when I was living in Washington DC. Took advantage of my nephew needed furniture for his house at college to donate him the entire room.

Settled on an Alienware Stack e.g an R15m3 maxed out from Dell. Luckily my cousin works at Pivotal and got an employee coupon for me to use at Dell, thanks cuz!

Alienware R15m3 and 34” Gaming Monitor. Hardwired to an Amplifi HD Router and CyberPower.

Ironically I grabbed the exact same furniture that I have in my upstairs office. I am a big fan of the distressed wood look.

Putting the pieces together with my spare laptops and the new gaming rig. Same furniture ha!

I had a pair of spare laptops I would learn on and one I updated in college from Windows Vista to 7 under their upgrade program and one that runs Ubuntu LTS. Those were always pretty slow and not a replacement for my daily use work laptops through the years. The Alienware one is top-notch and my first time using Windows 10. Not too bad of a learning curve.

Did take some time for the graphics drivers to catch up. I remember when I got my first MacBook Pro with a Retina Display the fonts would look fuzzy and then improvements were made. Had the same thing happen with my Alienware up until a few weeks ago with NVidia’s updates.

FS 2020 is a Beast

I jumped the gun and pre-ordered FS 2020 the first day they were taking pre-orders. Funny I still have the ability to purchase items on Microsoft’s Employee Discount site and I could have saved 50%. Oh well in the grand scheme of buying new hardware and new furniture, no need to cheap out in the last $60.

One thing I totally missed since my hiatus with gaming was the rise in gaming streaming services like Steam. There are several subscription services that allow you to enjoy as many games as you like. We are going SaaS for so many other things, crossing over to games. Reminds me of back in the day The Sega Channel. But I went for the perpetual license and total ownership of FS 2020.

The download the night of the release was 150gb and then probably another 20gb of updates immediately after. Getting the hang of FS 2020 is certainly taking time, I am two months into the game and still learning. The graphics are amazing and the online portion of the game e.g getting live weather, traffic, and satellite imaging to generate game data is sweet.

I am still searching for a good flight yoke. I read an article that FS 2020 will have spurred a few billion dollars in hardware sales. I can vouch for that I bought a new PC, accessories, monitor, and eventually a yoke. Overall excited I have a cool setup for gaming. I also purchased some good speakers and for the first time in several years going away from headphones back to external speakers. Sometimes I find myself doing work in the basement set up to pretend I have another office space.

Non-Gaming Front

Pandemic wise I am fairly lucky and grateful that the family is OK and I am still employed. Kofi and I are doing well and I “think” he is happier I am home more. Huskies are funny so can’t really tell with them, Kofi is really stoic.

Picking up Kofi from the groomers. He wubs that! [no he does not].

On the work front the last month and change we have been gearing up for our first virtual conference, {Unscripted}. Really proud of the speaker line up. Might do another blog post around the ebbs and flows in planning a virtual conference. I am an organizer for DevOps Days ATL which is an existing conference. The virtual conference is/was a lot more challenging especially being an inaugural conference.

Hope everyone is doing well and stay tuned for updates as we go through virtual Pumpkin Spice Latte Season.

Cheers!

-Ravi