/uses

22 August 2024 14 minute read

What I use day-to-day, including relevant hardware and software, and my thoughts on them.

This page is in the spirit of Uses This.

Hardware

I have a decent gaming rig for the purposes of - well - gaming and simultaneously streaming to Twitch on the same machine:

• Monitor
  Samsung Odyssey G7 27" 1440p240 FreeSync DisplayHDR™️ 600 1000R Curved QLED-VA
  AOC 24G2U 24" 1080p144 FreeSync IPS

  The Samsung monitor is my primary gaming monitor, and whilst 240 Hz is overkill (I rarely ever hit that in games), it is buttery smooth on the desktop and means that the game can render at whatever it’s able to and still sync with G-Sync rather than needing VSync. Most of the selling point was that it supported 600-nit HDR, was curved, and fit on my desk though. I really love this monitor. The other used to be my primary monitor, but now lives as a portrait (due to space constraints) secondary monitor, when I upgraded because 1080p just is not enough these days (text in particular suffers quite a bit at that pixel density).

• Video Card
  MSI GeForce RTX 3070 8GB

  I managed to snag a 2070 at a decent price in the sweet spot when DLSS2 just got released (and was good), but the Great GPU Shortage hadn’t begun yet; this was an upgrade just before the 40-Series launched since I found some games were beginning to struggle, and I was really put off from the 40-Series’ pricing. It’s still going strong!

• CPU
  AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

  I’ve always used AMD since I’ve had a desktop, largely because the upgrade path was the cheapest (their platform compatibility was great): I started with an AMD FX-8350 “Octa-core” CPU (it was actually Quad-core with Hyperthreading), then eventually did a full system upgrade to a Ryzen 7 2700; this was a substantial improvement, but alas only lasted a few years because it was really showing its age (I had bought it pretty late into its lifespan) Either way, I ended up upgrading gradually (on the same platform) through to a Ryzen 5 5600X, which held strong for over three years until the 9000-series launch, when I finally made the jump to AM5 with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. I couldn’t really justify the price/perf for a 9000-series CPU, but I do generally tend to leapfrog CPU generations (at least in terms of time between upgrades).

• RAM
  2x16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5 @ 5200 MHz (CL40)

  Honestly, I don’t tend to think too much about RAM, so long as I don’t run out. I tried going for a little faster-clocked stuff this time around for the newer AMD CPUs, but I still value keeping the budget low for this.

• PSU
  EVGA 850 GA (80 PLUS Gold)

  I’ve had issues with a cheaper PSU in the past, and I’m never fond of cheaping out on it; though, strictly speaking, this particular PSU was bought as a preventative measure when I started getting goosebumps about how long I’d been trusting a reclaimed CIT PSU from a much older PC.

• Mainboard
  MSI X670E GAMING PLUS WIFI

  Following on from the ‘GIGABYTE X470 ULTRA GAMING’ which lasted me for a solid decade through AM4, this is the first time I’ve had a WiFi-enabled mainboard, so that’s neat. In praxis, mainboards are things I simply want to “just work”, and ideally last for at least a decade before needing to change them (usually for a newer platform).
  I would have gone for a B-series board, but the X670E chipset supports an extra two M.2 slots; my eternal storage woes demanded I upsell myself the better chipset.

• Storage
  OS + DirectStorage Games: 1 TB Samsung 980 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD
  Virtual Machines: 250 GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD
  Games: 1 TB WD BLUE 2.5" 3D NAND SATA SSD
  Miscellaneous: 2 TB Samsung 860 EVO 2.5" SATA SSD

  I used spinning rust HDDs for a while, but eventually ran into an issue where they would randomly disconnect and reconnect; frankly, they became unusable. I’ve eventually reached the conclusion it’s probably a mainboard issue, but I’m content to relegate HDDs to the past anyway, and have been running pure-SSD for quite some time.

• Cooling
  Arctic Liquid Freezer III (280mm)

  I’ve avoided water cooling pretty much ever since my brother built me a PC with a GTX 970 in it, which died the next day after a fan had eaten through the AIO’s tube and drowned the GPU as a result. Consequently, my time on AM4 was exclusively cooled using fans (namely the Wraith Prism cooler that came with my 2700). I got spooked by the nominal 120 W TDP on the 7800X3D, though, so it’s water cooling time (this time with 100% less tube-rubbing-against-fans).
  (As an aside, that 120W TDP is a heckin’ lie. At full pelt the highest I’ve seen this thing go is ~80W, and usually in games it’s ~45W (which is 20W less than I often saw the 5600X draw, which is rated for 65W).)

• Case
  Fractal Design Meshify 2

  After using the same case since my first build (over a decade, an old Corsair one that I can’t remember the name of and they don’t list anymore…), the 280mm rad was too big, so I have finally switched to a modern case. Namely, a Fractal Design, because my god this thing has been a comparative treat to work in. It also has plenty of room at the front, which is promising for when I next need to upgrade my GPU.

These have quite the peripheral support, for me:

• Keyboard
  Logitech G815 (Tactile)

  I really wanted low-profile keys; they’re very much my jam. This does that, and has some nice tactility without being the loudest thing known to humankind. In hindsight I might’ve gotten the wireless version not for the wireless connection (I have no use for that on a keyboard) but just so I could detach the cable and move the keyboard somewhere else if I wanted to use my desk…

  It’s full-size, because that numpad is genuinely a godsend for inputting numbers; I never understand when programmers opt for 60% or TKL keyboards. Plus, while 5 macro keys are nice, I do miss my old Corsair keyboard’s 18 (alas, that was linear, which sucks to type on).

• Mouse
  Logitech G Pro X Superlight

  I’d been using the Logitech HERO PRO since about 2020, when my prior Corsair mouse’s middle-click broke. This one held up well for the four years I had it, but the right mouse button finally ended up giving way such that holding it down doesn’t continuously register, which is problematic for FPS games like Destiny 2. I switched to the Pro X Superlight since it’s wireless and works with Powerplay, as I’ve found wires to be increasingly frustrating with the little room I have for my mouse (it’s enough to move the mouse around at my preferred DPI - 800, if you must know - but the wire often hits the monitor stand and introduces resistance), though I do keep a SteelSeries Rival 5 in reserve for whenever my active mouse is out of commission. Destiny 2 merch is great for having spares, you know? ;)

• Headphones
  Audio-Technica ATH-SR50BT

  These used to be my daily-drivers that I used while walking, since the ANC they had was much appreciated; since upgrading to the Sony WH-1000XM4 (with a masterful implementation of ANC that has been life-changing for me, as an autist with some sound sensitivities), though, these have mostly been relegated to being used as my PC headphones via a cable, especially with its very reasonable frequency response profile.

• Microphone
  Elgato Wave:3

  Admittedly mostly chosen for looks, I actually really like this microphone, especially given it also provides a fairly intuitive mixer via the Wave Link software (and - crucially - a solid VST3 Host that I can apply to certain virtual audio devices to compensate for people’s varying audio setups in Discord, for example…). That said, Corsair & Elgato software is not without flaws, and it has had a few quirks in the past (especially with settings persistence being lost).

• Capture Card
  AVerMedia Live Gamer EXTREME 3

  This used to be an Elgato HD60S, but when the PS5 launched with support for 120 Hz - and it turned out that games like God of War Ragnarök played really well on Graphics + 120 Hz (being a nice 40 FPS ‘acceptable spot’ for third-person RPGs) - I switched to this because it offered support for VRR.
  It’s worked pretty well, to be honest! The tonemapping isn’t quite as pleasing to me as the Elgato card, but it’s good enough in my opinion.

For portable use, I have a very basic Dynabook Windows laptop (with the worst keyboard I’ve ever used) for university, and before that I worked with an Intel Celeron-based Chromebook (which has had its EOL extended twice until 2027, so apparently the most eco-friendly Chromebook purchase I’ve ever seen), which I still ocassionally use because of its keyboard.

I’m basically guaranteed to lose track of physical paper things, so I’ve also mostly cast off physical handwritten notes or printouts, instead favouring digital files (which I actually somewhat sort and have a much better idea of locality for). For quick notes I want to scribble down, or filling in handwritten forms, I usually just use a writing tablet now (specifically the reMarkable 1, though you could get a very similar experience with a similar writing tablet for much cheaper than the rM2 sells for), which is fantastic since it doubles as an e-reader for me.

Servers

I have two servers in active service, with the services they provide affectionately called ‘igland’ internally:

• odin
  A Raspberry Pi 4 8GB, which was used to directly replace (as an upgrade) a prior Raspberry Pi 4 4GB (which I had won in a competition, and will probably be recommissioned again in time)

  odin previously ran everything: my private Mastodon instance, Jellyfin server, Grafana dashboard for monitoring it, and a couple of Discord bots I work on. The Jellyfin server’s since been moved off it, with a plan for the Mastodon server to also move so that this can be a behind-the-scenes administrative server rather than an active one.

  It has a 1 TB External HDD attached (for the aforementioned Jellyfin server) - my only current HDD I own - but that’s mostly unused now.

• thor
  A Raspberry Pi 5 8GB, which has taken responsibility of the Jellyfin server with its 1 TB WD SN740 M.2 NVMe SSD; frankly, it works really well for this at 1080p (which most of my media is, being a little too old for 4K), given that I’m the only one who uses it.

Both servers run Raspberry Pi OS, with an ethernet connection which - when I’m at home - is connected through the same switch as my Desktop (which is nice - even if the router goes down I’m usually able to maintain a connection between them!).

The servers are monitored via a Grafana + Prometheus + Loki setup, with Syncthing to manage synchronising my media library from my Desktop to thor.

Consoles

I play a lot of video games in my spare time, and I don’t like being held back from exclusives, so I have (and actively use) a PlayStation 5.

For portable gaming, I use a Steam Deck, supported by a GeForce NOW subscription for games such as ESO, Genshin Impact, and Destiny 2 when I’m travelling. Single-player offline games tend to be played natively (when possible).

Software

Desktop

This runs Windows 11, simply because it’s used a lot for gaming (especially Destiny 2, which rejects running under a VM or via Proton). In the past I’ve played around with running Linux on it (usually Debian-based: Debian, Ubuntu, or Pop! OS), but I always get frustrated at how often I have to reboot to switch into Windows anyway.

For development and server administration, that all happens via Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2), and usually if I’m trying to do something via some quick command-line automation I’ll do that through WSL2 as well, since Fish / Bash are infinitely better than the Windows Command Line (or PowerShell, since I simply have never learnt that properly).

My audio setup perhaps also deserves a specific explanation of its own, because it’s not plug-and-play: since I use an Elgato Wave:3 and have my headphones plugged into that for Microphone Monitoring (also known as Sidetone) - mostly so I don’t speak quite so loud as I otherwise might - my mic audio first passes through Wave Link (set to 96 kHz) for some VST post-processing (ReaFir and ReaGate to cut off some of the quieter background noises), getting exposed as a virtual ‘MicrophoneFX’ device, which is in turn passed into Nvidia Broadcast for AI-based noise removal. I’m generally pretty happy with my audio at this point, so this is tapped off for Discord, OBS, Zoom, et cetera. It also gets fed back into a Wave Link virtual device to be included in my ‘Stream’ mix (which actually gets piped into OBS).

In the other direction, it depends on what the audio is, which is separated by setting output devices in Windows Sound Settings to different virtual devices exposed by Wave Link:

• Voice Chat audio such as Discord outputs to Nvidia Broadcast’s Speaker processing, which usually does nothing but I can then easily turn on noise removal on my end if someone in a call is making very unpleasant noises for me, for example. This then outputs in turn to the ‘Wave Link Voice Chat’ device, which applies some additional VST processing (BlueLabs’ Gain60 set to 30 dB, followed by a very aggressive RoughRider3 to dial it back down) just to normalise the volume of people’s microphones in a call (so that no one is painfully loud or unreasonably quiet). This doesn’t work perfectly if two people speak simultaneously - the louder one will drown out the other - but it ensures that between two points in time the volume is basically the same. That finally gets mixed in with the other virtual devices’ audio, and I hear it!
• Most of everything else gets fed directly into a relevant Wave Link device, which usually just then gets mixed into my output (with some volume adjustment) - except for the Browser, which also gets some lighter RoughRider3 processing to compensate for YouTube’s abysmal volume normalisation.

Other software:

• Firefox is my current browser, with some adjustments to tab management. This tends to work really well for me and copes admirably with my 3,000+ tabs.
• I use Visual Studio Code for most development work, which is especially nice on my desktop as I can use the WSL integration to have a pretty isolated development experience.
• In addition to using it for thor, Syncthing’s also used for synchronising some saves between my Steam Deck and Desktop, a la this article by Xe Iaso.
• When streaming, I use OBS Studio and veadotube mini for my PNGTuber Avatar (used whenever I have my webcam disabled), plus twedia for semi-automated music playback and crediting artists.

Third-Party Services (Infrastructure)

• Email
  I do not host my own email, instead currently relying on the services of Fastmail.

  I’ve previously used the mainstream providers (Gmail, Outlook), but those now redirect to my Fastmail inbox, and you can avoid those services by emailing me using my canonical address on the homepage.

• Domains
  I register my domains currently through Namecheap, mostly just because it’s been relatively cheap for the domains I’ve wanted, the feature set has been good, and it works well. I don’t have any real recommendation for them though, since some domains are outrageously expensive and they are often not the clearest on pricing.

• Monitoring
  I use healthchecks.io for monitoring that cron jobs are running correctly on the Servers, and previously used NiXStats for metrics monitoring, but that is largely vestigial now and just used for powering the igland status page.