MudMan

The Xenoblade Chronicles series and maybe FFXII.

Xenoblade Chronicles X in particular feels like it was meant to be a MMO and then they just kinda… gave up on the multiplayer part.

Cool.

So, anyway…

(For the record, tensor cores don’t just accelerate calculations for raytracing, as is obvious from the entire AI bubble built on the technology, and I have no idea what GPU “performance boost” you’d want from additional raster graphics when you have RT-less stuff running at stupid framerates on current hardware and being consistently CPU-limited, but the Internet gets the memetic obsessions it gets. I suppose online nerds will pay for a 1080p 1000Hz monitor with no self-awareness as long as the two popular Youtube tech channels keep repeating the same memes and testing the same four games forever)

I also didn’t realize they had done anything to it in a while.

Buuuut this is still the first thing I fire up on new hardware to test RT performance AND it’s still the best Id remake/reissue yet, and they’ve done a bunch recently.

Yeah, the problem is you can’t exactly learn to artisanally blow cathode ray tubes in your garage. Damn things are industrial by definition. You need someone to ramp up (or maintain, as someone above mentions) a big industrial facility to be able to reliably make an electron gun attached to an oversized vacuum tube that wants nothing more than to implode and throw shards of glass inside somebody’s eyeballs.

My understanding is there are no new tubes/screens being produced anywhere. The figure out part is the industrial production, not the technology. But hey, if there are any production lines still in operation I’d be very curious to learn about them.

This was pretty fun to watch. But also kinda hearbreaking. That thing isn’t going to last forever. The longer this goes the less excited I am about someone figuring out how to make CRTs as a boutique thing for nerds, but it’s also a thing that should happen, even if I’m past my personal vinyl moment where I would overspend like crazy for it.