This is a 'still annoyed' update.
So, I've been watching Nvidia 30 series GPU prices, specifically for the RTX 3060 12GB. For a bit, they were coming down, but were still around 2x the 'old' MSRPs. But in the last several weeks they've been climbing again... right now I'm looking at $850+ (instead of say $399) for the particular card I want, when it is in stock. And it's MSRP has climbed to $450.
There's the Newegg shuffle, but that's essentially a lottery situation as far as if you get the chance at one or not, and I've been focused on other things so I'm not following the shuffles daily, so I'm sure I missed out on opportunities.
And it doesn't look like prices will be coming down anytime soon. Crypto coin values have been rising again, Proof of Stake keeps getting kicked down the road, and to make matters worse the chip factories have apparently scaled back their work staff thanks to the latest COVID surge. So GPU production has dropped, and probably won't pick back up until the end of September at the earliest.
There's bundle options, but I'm not a fan of bundles. There was a blip this week where I could go to the local store which received a massive restock of Nvidia GPUs, but those sold out almost immediately and I didn't hear about it until after the fact.
This is relevant as Uber Laptop is working OK, but I keep slamming into GPU VRAM scene size limits, and Daz3D simply crashes if it exceeds that available VRAM. When you are rendering 4+ characters in somewhat involved scenes, yeah it's not hard to hit that limit, which then necessitates workarounds.
That, plus other things requiring my attention, has slowed down my render output rate for FmF, so now I feel like I'm in 'catchup' mode, which is a feeling I do not like. The tail end of September is our goal for Part 1 of FmF, and we are running out of time...
I like to set up multiple complex scenes, and this also takes a fair amount of time for me. If I was using the the same three scenes over and over it'd be different, but that's not how I roll... I've also been keeping my 'whim' renders to a minimum, but I still follow those urges when they strike. This render that I shared in my 'archiving' in the post above and in the Milfy City fanart thread recently is one such whim render:
That's my take on Sara from Milfy City repurposed as Ensign Fendi from Lower Decks. I picked her mainly for the freckles and her face shape looked like a decent way to go vs. the cartoon version of Ensign Fendi. Lower Decks is fun!
It took me a bit to set up the uniform jacket seam/stripe textures, but I needed a break from just rendering and I like to 'build' things sometimes...
Anyways, I've had no luck trying to get the internet connectivity via my USB device working again on Uber Laptop, but the latest Microsoft patches from the last couple of months simply have not worked. I have a radical plan to copy the OS over from Interim Rendering Rig (with the dead 1080Ti) over to Uber Laptop, but that's a bit dicey with the registry and such and I don't want to kill my working environment, so it's on the 'to do list' after FmF Pt 1 is done for now.
Which is annoying as I'm still picking up a lot of stuff in Daz Sales that I haven't installed as it takes time to manually download everything, then transfer it to the DIM folder of Uber Laptop for installation. Also, at least one of my Daz plugins isn't working on Uber Laptop, and re-installing it hasn't worked. I'd like to get Interim Rendering rig running again, but that's waitng on the RTX 3060 12GB I want that is currently massively overpriced, sooo...
Gigabyte anything is out too. Just check the tech press coverage of exploding power supplies to see why I'm avoiding anything made by Gigabyte ATM. Their other stuff may work OK, but I don't like to support bad customer service practices, plus their CS portal was hacked too along with the rest of their website...
To make matters even more annoying, the keyboard here on Baby Laptop is getting worse. E, I, and a few other certain keys are becoming very intermittent, so I have to keep editing stuff to add those keystrokes after the fact. The laptops I'm ogling ATM with 16GB 3080s are very pricey, and I'm trying to keep my spending down, so I'm delaying replacing this laptop as long as possible. I do have a keyboard that I can plug into this laptop, but that'd require usage of one of my already in use USB ports. I could buy a USB hub, but this laptop is due to be retired, soooo...
Also, no guarantee that my USB internet device will work with the latest laptops which have the latest versions of Windows 10 installed. I could take the device with me to test it in a store environment before buying a particular laptop at least...
One other note. Another developer has released a game called 'Consent'. They are free to do so of course, as I don't 'own' that name, but I won't be changing my project's name later. Consent is short form for 'Age of Consent', a game that has been in the development stages for years now. It is very much on the backburner atm, with several other projects on the 'to do' list before I get back to it. Plus I don't want to tackle Consent until I've built my dedicated rendering rig with multiple GPUs, each with lots of VRAM, so yeah... It'll cause confusion down the road, but a few other games have dealt with this situation as well, and have stayed with their 'chosen' names just because.
So in short, I'm in an annoyed mood atm. My whim renders make me happier though so I'll still chase those when I get the urge. And I'm still plugging away at FmF, although we may need to move the 'end of part 1 goal post' at this rate...
*sigh*
Back to work!
Edit: Archiving more pics...
