Memory prices are on the rise. Computer parts are starting to be overblown with high prices and just straight up wonkiness. Windows 11 sucks. Linux isn’t fully supported for many things, so you can’t just move wholesale. Mac… Are you even using a Mac right now? Yeah, you ain’t. Apple makes the world’s most powerful SoC that could be used for Consoles and the like, and it’s stuck and hampered by their own wallet garden.

Maybe it’s time to keep waiting, and sit this one out.

Stability Comes First

I understand that computers on the high end are being strangled up by the corporations that make them, and the low end is getting trashed as well. It’s incredible how things suck right now. Are you buying a 8GB VRAM GPU? There’s only dozens of options in the market. More than that? Nah, can’t have it, mate.

Instead of looking into things like that, I’ve taken the position of making sure my PC works, and anything else is secondary.

Recently I took my drawing laptop (detailed here) and put Windows 10 LTSC 2021 on it. Why? Well, the Windows 11 install I had was glitching out badly. Configuration settings weren’t get saved up. It was badly glitching and hiccupping when I was drawing. Asked for updates when I was about to use it and use all my limited processing power and internet to download it, even if I specifically told it to stop doing that. This is strange considering that I had other Windows 11 machines that have no issues, other than taking a million years (more like 20 seconds) to start but other than that, it’s fine. So I didn’t take any risks and put Windows 10 LTSC 2021 on it and now it’s working like a charm. Clip Studio is still supported by Windows 10 and I had everything backed up first, so I didn’t lose anything. I can feel it’s also much faster than before and that’s always a win.

So I picked stability over everything and if installing this version of Windows gets me there, so be it. Now why did I go with Windows 10 LTSC, instead of Windows 11 again or Linux?

I mentioned before in my Windows Talk and Overblown Misconceptions about Computers posts that Windows sucks, and why switching to Linux isn’t an option to many. Or that installing LTSC isn’t the magic bullet people want it to be.

The reason why people don’t switch to Linux is because of what I discussed at that link, people would be confused to get the ‘best version’ of Linux because no such thing exist. But for Windows, people will recommend either the latest, the previous one, or the latest with some software to “make it usable”.

Some software only works on Windows (or Mac but not the point). If you are dependent of Adobe works, like Photoshop, you simply won’t switch to Linux.

If you wanna [install Windows LTSC], I won’t stop you, just know that you’ll get less functionality because LTSC versions are for long term support, meaning it gets less updates which might be good when Windows doesn’t annoy you with its updates, but you miss out on both critical fixes and enhancements down the line, and also some features are can be somewhat difficult to reenable.

Turns out that Clip Studio isn’t supported on Linux but is on Windows 10, and Windows 10 LTSC is still Windows 10, so it’s supported. Since I don’t want to register anything, I went ahead and got LTSC like a champ I am. Remember, Long Term Servicing Channel.

r/patientgamers wins again?

I feel like an idiot saying this but patient people will just sit this one out and wait until everything is sorted out to get around buying it. Sometimes, it’s too good to be true, like the laptop I bought (which I can only find used and twice as much as I paid for it), but most cases? Yeah, you can wait out. The memory shortage does not affect me directly as I don’t have any need of buying parts at the moment. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and every day is a brand new day for someone out there to make a new build, but if you were already waiting for it, why not wait out a bit more?

While the companies are having real issue with supply and are facing shortages, I’m just chilling here, waiting to see what’s going on and how will the future play out. Obviously I don’t want to spend any money more than absolutely necessary but if it already works well, I don’t see the reason to jump in.

I’m not being weird, the market is

Never in my time I’d expect something like a PlayStation 5 to be cheaper than system RAM but it did happen and most likely will stick around for a bit until OpenAI crashes harder than that plane crash in Left 4 Dead’s Dead Air campaign, map 5.

This weirdness can be seen and felt through the whole ass market. Many things are announced nowadays without a price tag (you know, the first thing people care about?) because not even the company is able to make sure they can hit that price at all. MSRP (Manufacture’s Suggested Retail Price) is an illusion and has been for ages. Hell, Valve announced three hardware products but none of them have any pricing because the whole market is being weird right now. And I talked about that too, by the way.

This is the sort of thing you’d never expect from this market but all we need is the memory cartel to create this bubble, which will pop, and make the entire market go insane in any instant. Memory prices went over 400% in a couple of weeks, and the trend is still up. SK Hynix made more money than TSMC in the last Quarter.

Closing Words

I’m like the sunglasses emoji right now, looking at the market without a single ounce or gram of care. I just want to see what they will do once the AI bubble pops and stuff gets put in the market again, then prices to low because they have all this volume they need to sell and but can’t because no one is buying it.

In other words, this is gonna be good (disgonbgud.gif comes to mind). And I’ll waiting for them to do that because that’s how it goes. Grifts and other bad things burn themselves out quickly and don’t last long. And the more fuel given to continue it, the more it grows exponentially to keep doing it. It’s like a Dark Souls level up. The next level up needs more Souls to do it. The difference is that Dark Souls is a game, and the market is not, although they want it to be.

But hey, if you’re poorly managed, you’ll go out of business, and see if I care. I don’t. Your fault for being bad.