Burnout 3: Takedown looks absolutely incredible on this OLED display, and it runs silllllky smooth in NetherSX2. There are plenty more accurate driving simulators out there, but nothing will ever top Burnout 3 for the sheer satisfaction of violently ramming your opponents into walls as you boost across the finish line...
Hi all!
I've spent some time really digging into the setup on my Retroid Pocket 5 Pro (12gb RAM model), and it's been a blast. I've got the latest version of ES-DE running, I've cleaned up my formerly-chaotic ROM library, etc., and so far so good... except for PS2.
Specifically: I have the NetherSX2 emulator installed and configured, and it's running my PS2 games beautifully when I load them from within the app.
However, when I try to launch a PS2 game via ES-DE, it switches to the emulator and just.... sits there at a black screen for 1-2 minutes before I get an Android error saying that the app has stopped and must be closed.
When I go into the ES-DE settings and select OTHER SETTINGS > ALTERNATIVE EMULATORS > PS2, the only options are AetherSX2 (Standalone), ARMSX2 (Standalone), or Play! (Standalone)... none of which I actually have installed on my RP2, and NetherSX2 never shows as an option here.
What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance for any tips or suggestions!
Hi all!
I've spent some time really digging into the setup on my Retroid Pocket 5 Pro (12gb RAM model), and it's been a blast. I've got the latest version of ES-DE running, I've cleaned up my formerly-chaotic ROM library, etc., and so far so good... except for PS2.
Specifically: I have the NetherSX2 emulator installed and configured, and it's running my PS2 games beautifully when I load them from within the app.
However, when I try to launch a PS2 game via ES-DE, it switches to the emulator and just.... sits there at a black screen for 1-2 minutes before I get an Android error saying that the app has stopped and must be closed.
When I go into the ES-DE settings and select OTHER SETTINGS > ALTERNATIVE EMULATORS > PS2, the only options are AetherSX2 (Standalone), ARMSX2 (Standalone), or Play! (Standalone)... none of which I actually have installed on my RP2, and NetherSX2 never shows as an option here.
What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance for any tips or suggestions!
This is probably just a simple problem but I'm not sure how to solve it:
I've had a Garmin "DashCam 65" for about 8 years. I had it professionally wired up with the official Garmin parking mode cable by a local car audio shop when I first got the camera, and it's been working great until recently when the camera died.
I splurged and bought the new Garmin X310, their current 'top of the line' model. I'd hoped to just swap it for the older model, but of course the old one used micro USB for power and the new one uses USB-C.
I bought a simple micro USB to USB-C (female to male) adapter and it all connects fine physically, but it's not quite working properly with the new camera plugged into the older cabling via the adapter.
When I start the car, the X310 powers on but freezes at the Garmin logo boot-screen and never finishes booting. If I power the X310 from the cigarette lighter with a standard USB-C cable, it works fine... but then I have big dumb ugly cables hanging around.
TL;DR: Is there any reliable way to use a new Garmin X310 camera (USB-C) with an older Garmin parking mode cable (micro USB), or do I have to have the cabling replaced entirely?
I've recently fallen in love with GameNative on my Retroid Pocket 5 - it's astonishing how well this works!
That said, I've run into something odd tonight: after allowing GameNative to update to the latest version (1.1.1 as of a few hours ago), installing games from GOG will proceed smoothly until it gets to 99%... and then it will sit there 'thinking' for a very very long time. I just installed Firewatch and it took ~10 minutes to get to 99%, and then sat there for around 2 hours before it finally finished installing. Same experience with other games from GOG tonight.
I guess this post is half question / half public service announcement: I'm not sure why this is happening, I'd love to see install times go down, but for anyone else 'stuck' at 99%, it really does seem to just take a super long time to finish, but it does finish.
Interesting!
I've been going into every modern monitor rabbit hole and I think I've narrowed things down to two excellent but technologically quite different displays: the LG 27GM950B-B and the Asus PG27UCDM. I've been using a crappy / low-end Costco monitor for several years so I'm quite sure that either of the options noted here would be a massive upgrade, but I'd love to know if anyone here has any good reasons for (or against!) either of these displays.
Here's some info about my setup and use-cases:
With the above info in mind, do you guys see any meaningful advantages or disadvantages for either of the displays I'm considering? Thanks in advance!
I have an iPhone 17 Pro Max (iOS 26.5.2) and a set of AirPods Pro 3 (firmware 8B41). They've been working beautifully together for nearly a year now, but yesterday something very strange started as I was near the end of a long FaceTime Audio call.
All of a sudden, the left AirPod became much quieter. Simultaneously, the right AirPod became MUCH louder, the audio quality in the right AirPod became super muffled (like when you're playing with the EQ on a stereo and turn the treble and mids all the way down while setting the bass to maximum), and the right AirPod started making a very unpleasant metallic ringing / echoing sound.
I ended the call and put the AirPods back into their case to recharge. Unfortunately, ever since then they have continued this sort of bizarre behavior. The left AirPod sound "weaker" or tinnier than the right side, and the right side is LOUD (even when my playback volume is low), the weird tinny ringing / echoing persists, and it seems like the EQ setting and/or volume on both sides is drifting around independently of each other. This happens in all listening modes (noise cancelation, transparency, etc.)
I've done a full reboot of my iPhone and I've done a full "double tap three times" factory reset on the AirPods several times now but the behavior hasn't changed. I've also switched to my Beats Fit Pro's and they sound fine / normal. It's honestly the strangest thing I've experienced with any set of AirPods since the original ones years ago.
Anyone have an idea what could be going on?
I have an iPhone 17 Pro Max (iOS 26.5.2) and a set of AirPods Pro 3 (firmware 8B41). They've been working beautifully together for nearly a year now, but yesterday something very strange started as I was near the end of a long FaceTime Audio call.
All of a sudden, the left AirPod became much quieter. Simultaneously, the right AirPod became MUCH louder, the audio quality in the right AirPod became super muffled (like when you're playing with the EQ on a stereo and turn the treble and mids all the way down while setting the bass to maximum), and the right AirPod started making a very unpleasant metallic ringing / echoing sound.
I ended the call and put the AirPods back into their case to recharge. Unfortunately, ever since then they have continued this sort of bizarre behavior. The left AirPod sound "weaker" or tinnier than the right side, and the right side is LOUD (even when my playback volume is low), the weird tinny ringing / echoing persists, and it seems like the EQ setting and/or volume on both sides is drifting around independently of each other. This happens in all listening modes (noise cancelation, transparency, etc.)
I've done a full reboot of my iPhone and I've done a full "double tap three times" factory reset on the AirPods several times now but the behavior hasn't changed. I've also switched to my Beats Fit Pro's and they sound fine / normal. It's honestly the strangest thing I've experienced with any set of AirPods since the original ones years ago.
Anyone have an idea what could be going on?
I recently watched the 1946 film “A Matter of Life and Death” (aka “Stairway to Heaven” in some markets), and I was utterly blown away.
The premise of the film is compelling: a young WWII British airman is the last survivor aboard a burning plane that’s moments away from crashing. He has a brief but heart-rending conversation with a young woman working as a radio operator at a nearby base, and he makes the decision to jump from the plane without a chute - he’d rather die by falling than by fire.
He soon awakes on an unfamiliar shore with no memory of how he got there and no explanation for how he could have survived the fall. He concludes that he must be dead and has arrived in the afterlife, and the rest of the movie unfolds from there.
The story is gripping and philosophically complex, but it was the stunning visuals that I just can’t stop thinking about. I can’t say too much without spoiling important plot elements, but trust me when I say that there are at least half a dozen shots that literally made me gasp and ask “how did they do that?!” The artistic and technical achievements throughout the movie are just mind boggling.
This is an easy 10/10 movie, and I’m astonished that I’d never heard of it before it recently got mentioned here in another thread. If you’re also unfamiliar with it, I cannot say strongly enough that you should get ahold of the remastered Criterion Edition as soon as humanly possible and settle in for an utterly unforgettable experience.
Hi Monitor pros,
I’d really appreciate some advice. My old / cheap Acer monitor from Costco is dying and I’m more than ready for an upgrade. Here’s my scenario:
Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any guidance!
Hi Monitor pros,
I’d really appreciate some advice. My old / cheap Acer monitor from Costco is dying and I’m more than ready for an upgrade. Here’s my scenario:
Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any guidance!
I just got an X4 earlier this week, and like most folks I started by immediately flashing it with the Crosspoint firmware. I initially set it up using the generic SD card it came with, but quickly decided to swap the stock card for a 'name brand' card with more capacity.
Unfortunately, every attempt to use any other SD card resulted in failure - either frequent but unpredictable freezes / crashes, or the device would get stuck on an "SD Card Error" screen. I ran into these issues with 4 different cards of different capacities, all of which were freshly formatted in Windows 11. The original generic card continued to work fine, which was pretty confusing.
Here's what eventually resolved all the issues for me: rather than formatting the new card by right-clicking in Windows and selecting "Format...", I used the official SD Card Formatter app that's published by the SD Association. I'm not entirely sure why formatting the SD cards with this app works when formatting with Windows's built-in function doesn't, but either way: it worked, and I hope this info helps someone else!
TL;DR: If your XTEink gadget refuses to work properly with a new SD card, try formatting the card with the official formatter app
I recently spent a couple days exploring Elkhorn Slough and the wider Monterey area on the California coast. It's an amazing region - it felt like everywhere I looked I'd see something beautiful to photograph. I especially loved these colorful translucent succulents that I found growing on a sand dune, and I wasn't the only one - this little bird kept returning to this one spot to poke around for tasty bugs to munch on. I'm still reviewing and editing the pics from this trip, but I think this is an early winner!
I jumped out of my chair and started belly laughing when these two extras in Enterprise S04E09 started reacting to the Lightning Walls of Doom before the effect actually started 😂
^(* Oh, and before someone tries to ")^(well ackchually)^(" me about some nonsense involving magnetic field buildup making their weapons shake... that would've happened to Archer's knife too just a few scenes earlier!)
This past Thursday evening, my wife and I were invited to exhibit some of our Retro Roadshow artifacts at the launch party for a weeklong event in San Francisco called "The Museum of the Human Web."
Perhaps the most memorable part of the experience was exhibiting a Macintosh SE/30 that I've spent decades restoring and upgrading, alongside the original handwritten memo that led to Apple receiving what I think was their first round of (outside) venture capital funding in 1977, a truly one-of-a-kind artifact of tech/cultural history.
I love all the little details in this document:
For context, buying 10% of Apple today would cost you somewhere around $430 billion dollars...
I wrote an expanded version of this story as a blog post on our website, and it includes more pics and info about the other cool machines we exhibited at this event.
Also, here are the specs of this "sleeper" Mac SE/30 - I absolutely adore this machine and have had so much fun tricking it out with too many upgrades!
I'm deep into my first Starfield play-through and just started exploring Luna. I dropped into a random industrial site I spotted in the distance and was greeted by this dude... just chilling... on the surface of the moon. I tried talking to him and he had nothing to say, but maybe that makes sense given... you know... the lack of a breathable atmosphere?
Back in 1976 / 1977 when Apple was first getting started, they had two primary competitors: the TRS-80 from Tandy Radio Shack, and the PET from Commodore. Commodore was mostly known as a calculator company in those days, and it was easy to tell: the earliest PET's had horrid keyboards based on calculator buttons. Thankfully that design was short-lived, and was soon replaced by something closer to a modern keyboard (although the layout on this keyboard is insane). I also just love that they decided to call this thing the PET as a nod to the then-popular "pet rock" fad... but then the pet rock fad died, so Commodore tried to pretend that it had always been an acronym for "Personal Electronic Transactor."
I found this PET at a local junk shop last fall, along with some accessories and software (on cassette tape!). The machine seemed to be booting to BASIC but the display was badly garbled and basically unusable. I'm reasonably comfortable doing basic electronics repairs, replacing through-hole capacitors, etc., but anything involving CRT's are outside my comfort zone. Thankfully I've got a go-to guy for this kind of work (hi Sean, if you're reading this!) and he was able to do some really excellent repair work on the CRT. There's a bit of downwards bowing in the image which I'm sure he can fix, but honestly I kind of love how it looks - something about it feels right, even if it's not perfectly within factory spec.
Going by the tags on the rear of the case, this PET left the factory as a 2001-8N model with 8KB of RAM, but there's a handwritten note mentioning that it was upgraded to 32KB, which is also reflected in the BASIC boot-screen. I've recently purchased a clever gadget called an SD2PET, which goes into the expansion ports on the rear of the machine and allows it to use an SD card as if it were a floppy drive - that's how I got TRON loaded for this picture.
My family and I are going to be exhibiting this machine for free/public hands-on play at the California Historical Radio Society Museum in Alameda, CA on Saturday. If you happen to be in the Bay Area and want to pet a PET (and/or play with around a dozen other rare computers and gaming consoles we're bringing), come on down!