A lot has changed since my last post here, yet much has stayed the same. I am still working at the local waterpark, but the Corpos cut most everyone for the off-season this time around. Until about March I will be mostly focused on current but sparse AWS DevOps contract work, fixing up a few things around my house, trading stocks (lol), and game development as far as productive things.
On the fun side of things; I have not purchased any more arcade games, but none of my games have broken down since the last time I worked on them. I was basically forced to build a new computer in September of this year. I had decided to get myself a new Nvidia RTX 4060 card and it worked great for a while despite seeing an obvious bottleneck at the CPU and/or other components. Well, for about 3 days anyway. After running some Unreal5 tests the machine bluescreened and then never acted right again. One highlight was after many attempts finally getting the machine to boot and looking at the Device Manager section in Windows 10 to see that the processor entry was completely empty. I realized that the newest Intel CPUs are "generation 14" and I was running 4th. Simply replacing the motherboard and PSU didn't seem viable; at least for something I would enjoy for much longer.
Despite the voltage/heat weirdness that can occur with this generation of CPU and corresponding motherboard I've been really happy with my setup after making sure I wasn't burning up cores via a hardware monitor and watching a YouTube video that made sense on how to properly configure the BIOS for my motherboard to sacrifice a bit of power for sake of not cooking things. It's a bit insane how fast and power-hungry these new Intel chips run, so there's really no reason to even have the chip running that hot. It's not as if any game out now is really going to care! Cyberpunk 2077 running with 14th gen I7, 64GB fastest RAM, and the new video card was completely awesome to finally experience. I finished my 2nd play through of it last week and will probably have to check out the DLC content next year. Doom II Retraced on this setup is also amazing, and I hope to try VR soon once a friend lends me a headset.
Duck Slide Range 3.0 was released earlier this month! I had to remove it from Google Play store because of numerous reasons. The short version is it barely made any money compared to the iOS release. That update introduced a new area with some new levels. I am going to try to push another update before New Years that will mainly be scripting changes and should add the ability for players to re-start the game on higher levels based on previous levels cleared rather than having to always start from the beginning.
I recently had to re-do the micro-SD card inserted in my "EverDrive" cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The original became corrupted after trying to update firmware and ROM contents. I lost a couple of save games, but kept my most important at the time and got Mario Adventure 3 running. This is probably the best hack ever of Super Mario Brothers 3 featuring new areas, suits, and all sorts of craziness. Difficult, but I've been having a lot of fun with this one.
Speaking of NES I recently attended my cousin's birthday party where he handed me his old NES to refurbish. I may make a blog with pictures here of how I do the whole process because I find myself explaining it a lot and while I know that sort of thing is fairly well documented on the internet, in my opinion there can never be too many pictures or descriptions when it comes to things like fixing PCBs.
It is always energizing to read a post that blends real life shifts with hands on technical problem solving. Your year sounds like a mix of resilience, curiosity, and the kind of tinkering mindset that keeps skills sharp even when work slows down. The jump from fourth gen Intel hardware to a full rebuild with a modern 14th gen setup must have felt like stepping into another decade of performance. The way you approached thermals and BIOS tuning shows the kind of practical engineering judgment that was never meant to come only from manuals.
ReplyDeleteYour game development progress is especially motivating. Duck Slide Range 3.0 moving forward despite platform challenges shows that consistent iteration pays off. Features such as level based restarting add real quality of life benefits for players and reflect a thoughtful understanding of gameplay loops. This is the kind of detail that separates hobby projects from experiences people return to.
The retro side of your story deserves its own audience. Micro SD corruption on EverDrive cartridges, restoring saves, and diving into hacks like Mario Adventure 3 show how vibrant classic gaming still is. Repairing your cousin's NES and possibly documenting the process would be a gift to the community. As you said, you can never have too many photos or walkthroughs when dealing with aging PCBs.
If you ever decide to document your technical experiments or release cycle in depth, platforms like Tuskr test management software can help you track changes, verify behaviors, and keep development steady even when life gets unpredictable.