Anyone here familiar with OBS???? I downloaded and installed it yesterday, thinking to capture footage of a few of my more interesting Mashinky train lines. Only, what I ended up with was sound and a black screen. Research mentions this is being a problem with some laptop, and shows how to fix it. But...I'm using a desktop. The method described don't work for me 'cause the option we're told to select doesn't exist on my PC. (I'll of course keep researching it on my own.)

From what I've seen, it is an issue with Windows 10. Here is a vid (if you have a way to watch it) that supposedly fixes the issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsMY77AytOM

Sounds like you have to make the compatibility aligned to Windows 7 (and make sure you chose the 64 bit version if you have a 64 bit PC)

No new issues, just a report of sorts on my new mic. Bought a Blue Yeti, as they seem to be one of the better better PC mics in my price range. (The upper limit of what I can spend to be sure.) With my hearing as it is I can not give it a fair evaluation. I suspect it picks up all sorts of room and external noises I never hear., sensitive as it is. I'm lucky in that its sole use thus far is Mashinky voice overs. As Mashinky features constant train and other noises during play, whatever noise the mic picks up on its own is likely masked. That's my hope at any rate.

Even I can tell I need a "pop filter" for it, which I just ordered off Amazon. A boom arms would be nice too, though my ancient computer desk is construction in such a way that there's no obvious "useful" place to attach it. Right now the mic sits on my desk cradled in its short stand, about 45 degrees to my right maybe a foot and a half away. It's a big thing, and heavy.

Always fun with new toys

No new PC problems for me, but more sad info about the state of video card pricing and availability. Am so glad I bought the parts for my current primary PC when I did, right before the video card screwiness began as it turns out.

Two issues, one an old problem returned, one new.

The power amp attached to my PC has become flaky again. One of both rear channels go dead. I can tap the amp housing top and restore sound briefly (and sometimes longer than briefly).

Worse, my beloved Logitech MX518 mouse's wheel died on me this evening. Ordered a Logitech G703 as replacement. It should arrive Wednesday. (I'd rather have bought locally, but our local Best Buy store doesn't stock it.) I'm sort of dead in the water Transport Fever wise without it, though the game DOES provide keyboard wheel equivalents. Man am I gonna miss my MX518!

May 14 addendum:
Yipes!!!!!! Was watching a YouTube Transport Fever video earlier this morning. MS rudely filled the screen with a message saying I was due for update, and to either restart now or wait. Figuring it was the big Spring Update I elected to get it over with. After quite some time updating the PC reboots to the Sign-in screen, surprising in that I have the PC set up ignore that screen and go straight into Windows. (For initial boots only. For coming out of sleep mode I need to press ENTER at that screen.) I pressed Enter, to be greeted by "The User Profile Service failed to sign-in. User Profile cannot be loaded." Numerous reboots led to same result, with no way to bypass sign-in. Tried repairing load options. No dice. Resorted to Windows Safe Mode, which with Win10 takes an act of Congress to find and enter. Lo and behold, as Safe Mode screen appeared I received a message saying Updates were being performed. I let it do so and rebooted. Voila! Windows works again (so far as I can tell.) My guess is that my antivirus was blocking some updates in "normal" mode. Man was I sweating bullets there for a while.

Man, stuff like that always puts so much stress on me. Glad you got it to work, Decrepit!



I have somewhat of a nice update to give. I had opted for my Millennium puter in the cottage this year instead of the Win 3.1 I've always had. But not one week into it I realized I did want that much more simple (and less space demanding) 3.1 computer instead.

Now, the 3.1 suffered a hickup a few years back during shutting down with the result that every time therefter that it booted up, I had to click away an error message and enlarge the window. Something I didn't have to do before. Anyway, after having removed the Millennium and setting up the 3.1, I started it up for a test run. I know every little sound it makes during startup after all these years and I have even gotten used to the new sounds after that hickup event. While booting it up I went to the nearby kitchen to sort things out and while doing so I didn't pay much attention to the computer. But something in my mind registered a slight change of sound, something wasn't as before and it happened at the final phase of the startup. Didn't think too much about it but when I went to see that it all worked I was shocked to find no error message and the window was at full size! I was literally standing with my eyes wide open and my jaw on the floor! ...Ok, not quite literally but you get my point.

For some reason it now worked as it did before. I have not done anything to it, no fixes or patches of any kind. Nothing. The only thing I can come up with is that when the 3.1 saw I actually wanted it over the fancier Millennium, it got its act together as a "thank you"

Knock on wood it has worked fine with every startup after too. I have no idea how this issue resolved itself like this as problems are known to arise by themselves but they never fix themselves.

This is one for the books, guys

Glad to hear it worked out, Decrepit. I'd be sweating bullets too.

And good to see your old puter's workin just fine there, Miro. I couldn't use 3.1 again. It just looks... bad to me. I can't read the screen worth a husk anymore.

It's not that bad, it's just old school


I wish I could still use TabWorks though, the built-in desktop layout that organizes everything in the style of a calender, sort of. But I'm just happy it works so well after all these years and thousands of usage hours.


*knocks heavily on wood*

My problem is that the screen looks fuzzy due to the resolution being so low.

My vision isn't what it used to be.

Broke down and ordered a Logitech PowerPlay charging mouse pad for my G703. If my memory was better I'd likely forgo it. But I keep forgetting to charge the mouse overnight after powering down the PC. Not a showstopper, as I can convert the mouse from cordless to corded easily enough. But the G703 is good enough to forgo the cord with no noticeable loss in performance. The charging pad charges the mouse during normal use. No special charging time needed. An ideal situation...except for the price. It should arrive Thursday.

Also ordered a set of speaker "pin" connectors, which will hopeful keep the two rear channels of the power amp attached to my PC from periodically cutter out. I'm not holding my breath. Even it they don't solve the issue they're cheap enough to be a solid investment.

Not really an issue, but...

Was playing Transport Fever (what else?) yesterday. Tried to make a save. It wouldn't let me. Repeated attempts failed. It dawned on me to check my Games partition. Sure enough, it was filled to the max. Deleted a bunch of older TF saves. All's well again, for now. Not a lot of room left on that partition in the best of circumstances, sad to say. I knew from the get-go I'd eventually need a second M2.nvme drive, only not quite so soon. (If I wanted to use an conventional hard drive partition to house games I'd have no worries for a LONG time. But those days are over. Get used to M2.nvme and you can't go back. Not me in any case.)

My PowerPlay charging mouse pad should arrive tomorrow. Hope it lives up to expectations. (I've used the same mouse pad since the mid-late nineties. Works like a charm and looks to years of life left in it. Hate to see it go, but them's the breaks.

Whew....switching my monitor cable from DVI to HDMI resolved a problem of the PC not able to wake from sleep mode after installing the Logitech Powerplay charging mouse pad. With that out of the way, I can give the Powerplay pad a solid thumbs up. As a mouse pad it's better than the one I've used for years (and should be considering the price difference). As a charger it works as advertised. It keeps my G703 charged at around 85-90+ % without me having to remember to recharge it overnight. On the other hand, for folk who DO remember to charge overnight it's an expensive investment that can be done without.

As for the mouse, my one real complaint is that its braided cord has a tendency to occasionally snag on the sharp rear edge of my computer desk. Now that I have the Powerplay I don't need to plug in the cord for any reason, so have no complaints at all. It's a nice mouse. Worth the price? Not sure.

Installing audio pin-plugs on my PC amp speaker wires fixed my issue with rear channels cutting out for a whole day and a half. Earlier today they began cutting out again. Still a solid investment considering their low cost.

I'm back form the dead, so to speak. A lightening storm that hit just as I was powering down the computer Saturday night (circa 2215) took out AT&T phone/internet service in our area. It came back on this morning (Monday) right before lunch. All seems to well except when I launch Steam via its desktop icon it takes me to my start screen but no further. Relatedly, when I launch Transport Fever and Mashinky I now get warning messages telling me my data can not be synced with Steam. Not sure if it's a result of something associated with the internet outage or maybe Steam in on the blink?????

Bloody power amp rear channels keep cutting out, despite having installed theoretically better speaker connectors. I've thought about replacing it with a reasonably priced decent quality four-channel amp. Those don't seem to exist any more except for car audio. Some high end stuff is available, but I don't need that kind of power or expense.

The charging feature of my Logitech Powerplay charging mouse pad continues to work like a charge. A good thing too. I never remember to turn off the mouse at night.

Try deinstalling the Steam client and reinstalling it. I had a problem with it once where it decided to change the language to Finnish, and it refused to speak 'Merican. I think that was how I eventually fixed it.

Thanks for the advice. As it turns out, it came to me that internet was restored with the computer up and running. I decided to shut down completely and restart the PC. Sure enough, after doing so Steam is fine again.

(Computer in pic is not mine)

I have sad news. Yesterday evening, at roughly 10PM, the computer I've had for close to 25 years decided it was time to call it quits. It simply would not start up anymore. The error message I got indicated the curcuit board controlling the harddrive did not function. It had been acting up for the last few days but at the end always booted up. Not this time though.

I have both dreaded and expected this for quite a few years now which is why I two years ago finally got off my birdy butt and copied all things I deemed important over to my Windows Millennium puter which now will serve as the official Cottage Puter. May its service be as long and happy as the 3.1's was.

After a couple of years when the 3.1 was new in our house, my brother installed an odometer that kept track of the mouse pointer. I can't say exactly what it stood at but at the end it was roughly about 101.401 kilometers or just over 63000 miles.

All games working on the 3.1 works on the Millennium but sounds and music are not the same and some games move too fast. Guess I have to learn to adapt to that, it's not like I have a choice at this point.


-Thank you for the thousands of hours of entertainment you've given me these past 25 years, Puter. Rest assured I much appreciated your service and that your memory will be forever treasured. Farewell.


*sniff*

Aww, rest in peace little old puter.

May it Rest In Peace.

Now I'm listening to Chopin. Thanks.

Sad to see the old friend go, bird.

You’re most welcome!
Khajiit likes that song despite its somber mood and association. Or maybe because of it, not sure.

Bwaaaaah, *sniff, sniff* I'm so sorry for your loss!

Ha! I was thinking on an appropriate piece of music for the occasion, but ya beat me to the punch.

Thanks


As the stubborn mule I am though, I haven't completely given up on it. Like Gimli it still draws breath, it's not completely silent when I plug it in so I will keep trying to find someone who can take a look at it while I also hunt for a similar puter.


Denial is a thing, guys...

I'm with you on this. I gave my son my 3.1 thinking he would cherish it like I did and enjoy playing Chips Challenge, etc = it came with two disks full of games! It was in perfect shape and running perfectly, but obsolete. He promptly threw it away, and when I found out I thought I would cry!

I still have one computer that will play Chips Challenge; a later HP that had a whopping 10 gig hard drive, lol. It had Windows 98 on it, but I had an upgrade of XP that I could add on that took up at least 2.5 gig of the 10.

I had to reformat that PC about once every week, lol.

He did WHAT!??!!??



Ok, that's it. I'm gonna have to start a Christmas card list now and add him to it just so I can cross him off it!


He's... No! Just no!!

Right? I mean, who does that?

Called my computer guy yesterday and he agreed to take a look at the 3.1 on Monday. I explained the issues and his (and my) main concern is getting hold of spare parts. If he can't do anything I may turn to a company to extract the content on the HDD and put it on an extern one. Problem is I still need to find a similar computer to dump all that stuff on as most games either won't work on my Millennium or the sounds/music are way off.


I've looked online but haven't been able to find another Compaq Presario. But I'm not giving up. Not yet.


snassin'....

Since ever glorious Win10 Spring Update videos and stills with "flesh" display a good bit blue streaking/splotches. No idea what's up with that. At first I though maybe the update had changed my GPU color depth/settings. No, so far as I can tell those weren't altered. I changed my monitor connection from DVI to HDMI to solve a wake-from-sleep problem that appeared when I installed the Logitech Charging Mouse Pad, but the issue existed before that. For now I'm living with it as I've not seen reports of anyone else so afflicted.

Weird.

I'm personally trying to figure out why my Skyrim is stuttering after 30 mins to an hour of gameplay. Might have to change some settings again.

If you let it do "Autosaves" and they build up, it can cause your game to drag. I used to go through and delete all the autosaves and only keep the hard saves I made in there about once per week or so. It keeps the game running cleaner. The Console games have some maintenance things you can do on the hard drive; for the PC I'd suggest doing a defrag and scandisk once per month at least. Also, if it just started it could be a mod conflict; always a good place to check.

It started after running Beth.INI but I'm really unsure if it's that because it didn't change anything substantial. It's not a mod conflict that I'm aware of but I can't remove stuff from my load order til this character dies.

I've been meaning to clean it out anyway.

Can't defrag. You don't defrag SSDs.

My Geforce Titan X died today. Thankfully I had an old 680 I was able to throw in my computer to double-check that it really was the video card, and not the motherboard. The card only has 2 dvi ports, and my monitor only has an hdmi and a display port. So I was not able to plug in my monitor and see anything. But the error beep code stopped.

I looked at buying a new Titan, but Nvidia is sold out of them, and all I can find from other places is used ones. So I went to Micro Center and bought a 1080ti. I was surprised that it was bigger than my Titan X. Though granted my Titan is about 3-4 years old now. So far the 1080 is working ok. Though I have not tried any games with it yet. It is a G-Sync card at least (I think all of Nvidia's new cards are now).

Ugh. Always such a pain when the graphics card gives up.

Yeah, never a good thing.

NO!!!!

Yes it is


But I didn't mean mine; Sub-Rosa's.

Okay, then:


NO!!!! Poor SubRosa!

I'm growing weary of load order testing.

I've narrowed it down to something not playing nice with SKSE.

What is really annoying about my Titan dying is that I had both Skyrim and Fallout 4 working nice with G-Sync on it. In Fallout 4 I had V-Sync shut off in Fallout.ini and FalloutPrefs.ini. Then I had G-Sync on, and V-Sync on in the Nvidia Control panel. (This way it uses Nvidia's own V-Sync, not Bethesda's, which is inferior). It never went over 60 fps (so the physics engine of the game did not go insane), but G-Sync kept it running more or less smoothly whenever it dropped under that.

The new card does not want to work that way. Even with V-Sync enabled in Nvidia Control Panel, it just ignores that and goes at 144 fps. Which would be great if it were not for that screwing up Bethesda games. I spent hours experimenting, until I came upon a solution. I turned V-sync back on in the .ini files. Kept it enabled in Nvidia, and now it works mostly how it did before, but not quite a smooth. The worst thing of all is that now when I exit Fallout 4 my screen flickers, and I have to reboot the PC to clear it up. My guess is that G-Sync is not turning off when I go back to the desktop. Screen flicker can be a side effect of using it. *grrr*

That sounds annoying..

You would think NVidia would be geared for gaming, what could they possibly be thinking to make it hard to game with their cards?

*hugs old PC*

I don't have an old stable PC to hug. I left it with my nephew before I moved to Europe. lol.

I *did* shoot a mail over at the SKSE team to see if they have any ideas. I've stripped my load order bare and I'm still getting stuttering.... but only if SKSE is running. Which is why I think it's SKSE causing my grief.

I *did* just update it last month.

Why not revert to the prior version of SKSE? Should be easy enough to do. Leastwise is it with Oblivion and OBSE. And if you use Wrye Bash as your mod manager / installer it's walk in the park.

Because SKSE has to "hook" the executable, it's critical that it matches. Did you update SKSE, but miss a patch on Skyrim itself?

No. Skyrim updating without my knowledge was what prompted the SKSE update. I've installed it twice, just to make sure it wasn't installed incorrectly.

Full load order, no SKSE, no stutter.
No mods, SKSE enabled, stutter.

Kane thinks I'm nuts because it's not happening to him.

The problem is as ghastley said, each version of SKSE is tailor made to each version of the Skyrim.exe file. Going back to an older SKSE can only be done if you can somehow go back to an older Skyrim.exe.

Which I think there's a way to do but it's more than I want to do right now.

I'm already contemplating uninstalling and reinstalling Skyrim SE.

Oh yeah... I'm playing special edition. ><

You might recall my mentioning blue splotches on "flesh tones" in images / videos since the forced update to Win10 Spring Update. That persisted until this afternoon. Very annoying. I finally decided to get off my duff and tackle the issue. Turns out the solution was/is simply if not intuitive. Opened Nvidia Control Panel to its Change Resolution screen, which also handles color. Checked to make sure colors were set to their default values. They were. Changed that to "use Nvidia color settings" and hit APPLY. Immediately changed back to "use default color settings" and hit APPLY. Voila. No more blue splotches. (They probably disappeared with the switch to Nvidia settings, but I'm use to defaults.)

Still have good feelings toward my recent Logitech Mouse / Charging Mouse Pad purchases. Except for their cost. The charging mouse pad is better 'as a pad' than my old pad, but it had darn well better be for the extreme price difference. The G703 is a fine cordless mouse. Were I to rate it as a cordless mouse I'd ding it a point or two as its braided cord sometimes catches on the sharp rear edge of the the desk tray it resides on. Had it not been for that I might well have kept it as a corded mouse and not invested in the charging pad. As a combo of charging pad and cordless mouse they shine.

I don't know that I could use it as a cordless mouse without the charging pad. At my age I almost never remember to turn off the mouse when I power down the PC at the end of the day. With the charging pad that simply isn't a concern, though I still do so those rare times I remember to.

I should probably start turning off my mouse at night. Lol. I eat batteries for lunch with all day use as it is.

My pc is never shut down.