I’m an older dude whose phase of staying up all night playing was back in the early console days. I prefer in-person tabletop RPGs like D&D, Traveller and Call of Cthulhu. Just not into computer games anymore, but that and social media seem to be most people’s primary computer activities.
Game chatter has changed over the years - I used to see a lot of talk about graphics quality and massively powerful hardware - maybe that was during a period when it was rapidly improving, I dunno. But the current focus seems to be more on game industry business decisions sucking.
Anyway I’m just wondering how common it is to use computers more for coding and other technical non-game stuff.
Technically my primary computer activities are gaming, but these days I game exclusively on the Steam Deck or the tablet (for mobile games)…
My most speced-out computer was actually purchased for work related reasons. I wanted a decent GPU because I thought I’d be working in deep learning. Well current job doesn’t require training models and I was required to use a dedicated work laptop so… This high-spec one I mainly use for just about everything else other than gaming
The primary use of my computer is for work as I am a 3D artist. I also watch a lot of videos and it serves as my audio rig for my music and headphones.
https://mastodon.social/@livelakemichigan/ https://mastodon.social/@livelakesuperior/ https://bsky.app/profile/lake-michigan.live https://bsky.app/profile/lake-superior.live
And if you dig hard enough you’ll see I’m an app architect closing in on 20 years in the industry.
I have my primary daily driver laptop running Arch for web programming and writing, my side laptop running arch for monitoring services and writing, my server computer running (again) arch that I use for web dev and jellyfin streaming, and my work laptop running Ubuntu for server management. Not to mention my chromebook for paper weight, and my wife’s laptop on Win10 she uses for design stuff. Nobody running games outside of my xBox One.
By the way, which disto do you use?
You know, I think I should ask my it guy.
I never play, i always code… And i am not even that good at it 😢
Practice makes perfect!
54M here. Rolled my first D&D character in 1978. Played GURPS, Twighlight 2000, Traveller, you name it I probably have at least dabbled in playing it.
Today I play D&D 2024 and 5e, Call of Cthulhu, Castles and Crusades and a few others. Some on Roll20, or Foundry VTT (which is awesome BTW.) My primary gaming group is all fathers and mothers spread out across the country.
As far as actual Computer games, I used to be into Flight Sims, but dropping $500 plus on JUST a graphics card is just not something that is going to happen. It’s not the wife acceptance factor, it the sheer balls the graphics card manufacturers have charging that much for their crap. I still dust off MS FS 2004 and run it on my Dell Precision laptop, but my machine won’t run the latest version. I would like to see if it would run Battlestar Galactica Deadlock though.
Otherwise, I have had a home server for many years. It runs Proxmox and I have containers running Plex, Homeseer, SMB (acts as my NAS), and it provides backup services for every other computer in the house.
For reference, I am an IT Professional, with about 30 years in the business.
Wow dude, I probably started D&D a year or two after you. It was the summer the first DMG came out. Still have those original 3 hardbacks, Deities & Demigods, etc. The DMG is pretty tattered. I actually DM a weekly 1e game at my house with some friends I found on meetup.com before Covid. We’re all really into retro - I’m gonna see how they feel about Castles & Crusades, which I’ve never played in all these years.
Here are the older edition books I have. My 1e DMG and PH have been lost to time. That copy of the Monster Manual is one of the originals. The Deities and Demigods though is NOT one of the issues with HP Lovecraft’s monsters in it. I have seen one of those editions, one of my local games stores has one for sale for over $300, but that’s not what I have. Not shown are all the 5e stuff I have. In my youth it was a challenge to save up enough to buy material when it came out. As an adult, especially since I got the wife playing, yeah… I’ve indulged quite a bit.
Those are all in great looking shape. I didn’t have the “Cthulhu Deities & Demigods” either until a few years ago - it was in a box of D&D stuff my sister bought me at a garage sale for $30. There were 7 or 8 books and maybe 15 old modules - with a couple still in the plastic. Quite a haul it was. Dunno if I mentioned above but I worked for WotC for a couple years around 2010. There was a “free table” in the break room where people put books, minis, t-shirts, whatever was cluttering up their desks - it was a gold mine.
That’s awesome!
I live about an hour away from Lake Geneva, WI, which is Gygax’s hometown and the birthplace of D&D. I worked with someone that worked at TSR during the 2e days and he has a lot of stories. (The only thing he has to say about Gary Gygax is; “The guy owes me money.”) Last April I attended a conference in Lake Geneva at the location of the very first Game Con. The Wisconsin Historical Society sponsored it. It was a great time and will be going back again this year.
My books look in great shape… From that angle. LOL… They have thousands upon thousands of hours of playing behind them over the last 40 years. Every page has smudges on them from where they’ve been turned again and again.
gpu prices are wild, I think amds better ones are not too bad tho and can run vr flight sims fine, winwig dropped a good cheap (around 100$) my issue is warthundes the only arcadey pvp option, their next game might be good tho, I really want s good flight sim game to hop on and off, treat like cod, drop into a city to close quarter dog fight or be what I thought war thunder was (a massive war with servers for different eras you can drop in as any vehicle type lol, I was delusional)
the dopamine from vr dogfights in close quarters with buildings to fly around and use as cover is insane, I also like the landing to capture base domination mode, warthunder could be so peak if they werent abusive
I don’t use my laptop much anymore (don’t have a desktop either): Some modeling, accounting, spreadsheets, or doc composition; things that are cumbersome to do well on a tablet. General browsing and videos are on my phone, tablet, or cast to the TV. When I want to game it’s usually on my switch.
It’s The laptop is really my device of last resort. I know it will do exactly what I want it to do, but I have to dig it out, clear space for it and usually plug it in if it’s not a quick job because the thing is old and an energy hog. My tablet is newer and I got it a convertible laptop-like keyboard case. The battery lasts so much longer and it’s just easier to lug around to where I need it for whatever.
Laptops … I never could get used to them. The keyboards feel too tiny and I can’t stand trackpads. Give me my dual monitor PC! Apparently there are people who actually write code on phones, which would be my idea of hell.
Coding, surfing (too much), little gaming. To a 90s kid most modern games suck donkeyballs for lack of story or being developed to be console-friendly, or both.
I don’t even really have a computer.
For games, I have a switch or Xbox, and everything else I use my phone or iPad.
Audio! I’m a hobbyist musician.
Gaming is a close second.
That reminds me, for a long time I’ve had an idea for a piece of instrumental music that would be the intro to a video. I’m not a musician but used to play the piano a little. I do have a little synthesizer keyboard from when my kids were young. If I noodled out a melody on that and recorded it, is there software I could use to make it sound like multiple instruments, add drum effects etc. so it sounds real? I don’t know if there’s a musical term for doing that - flesh it out?
Maybe “arranging” or “composing”.
As for tools to make it happen: You can use a “DAW” (Digital Audio Workstation) which is how most people compose these days. I use Reaper because it’s a tiny download, very full featured, and cheap. Ableton is very popular and has the biggest community online. Cakewalk is completely free (with a sign up.) ProTools is what a lot of professionals use, though it’s dying a slow death because it’s very expensive, they’ve gone full subscription model, and the things it can do that drew people to it can be done just as well with other DAWs that aren’t so predatory.
A DAW won’t do the work for you, though. If you want something to make harmonies or drum beats for your melody for you, there are a lot of "plugin"s or "VST"s you can download that can help with that process. Or, if you just want to give something a melody and tell it to make a song, there are probably AI solutions these days.
Good luck! Beware the audio rabbit hole. This can be a cheap, or ridiculously expensive hobby.
I do game, but I have a dedicated HTPC that I game on. My laptop is mostly for work, I own my own business so I do a lot of design, spreadsheeting, etc. I also write lyrics and prose for a hobby, so I use my laptop for that, as well as some light music production. I think the only game I play on it is the KDE minesweeper clone.
I do 3D animation and illustration. Fortunately, running games requires the exact same kind of hardware so my workstation doubles as a playstation
I spend a lot more time coding than playing games. It’s not unusual for me to not be active on steam for a month.
Yeah. I don’t play computer games, and the computer my kid plays games on? She uses it more for drawing. The kids (not little kids) have laptops and use them for school. So about 1/5 of the computer use here is games. Lots of music streaming. One kid has a PS4 though, so there is a lot of gaming overall.
i dont really game. my hobbies are more self-hosting, service related stuff. giant media library… distributed av system. lots of docker, server stuff.
the selfhosting communities have some interesting traffic
And home automation! Microcontrollers! I do try to game, but its just not that fun anymore. Nothing beats 8vs8 quake on school lan anyways
What’s a computer?
- I work with computers, so: work
- I mainly consume media (tablet, phone) or read (e-ink) these days.
- Raspberry Pi handles my home automation, and I’m always futzing with it
- my laptop plays games about once a month or taxes once a year
