Obligatory "Workstation Showoff" thread

[pyral]

Nothing says classic forum nonsense as one of these rig showcases. I'd been rearranging things to make it easier to spread out my dev and streaming setup, as well as loading up as I want to stream both more games and more dev-centric stuff (and maybe some goofing off looking at internet things in the future)

Dev Streaming setup

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Games Streaming setup

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I'd recently brought out my old laptop for development, doing the job the pi was initially going to do. That's the system you're going to be seeing me streaming gamedev from. OSX still works fine for Godot dev, but Linux just feels comfier and easier to use for gamedev. Plus it's an isolated work system that keeps things a bit more organized.

The iMac is handling the streaming, viper, etc. Being self-contained helps out on the cable management... You can see how cable management is an issue among the capture cards and the game consoles...

The next time you hear me screaming at my Rube Goldberg setup, now you can picture a vine viper tangled up in it.

I hate cords

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Console layout

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The Raspberry Pi 5 occupies the side monitor, mostly as second monitor content and a low power "watch things" device. I wanted to use it as a dev machine again after last year, but performance feels worse than it did a year ago with Godot. Either something changed in Godot's rendering or Gorbash's codebase got changed up so much that it struggles to even go over 30FPS... somehow.

[RadiantRodent]

I don't have a picture of my current one, but if we're going classic forum nonsense...
How's a bad picture of mine I found from the 2000s taken with my DS camera do?

[pyral]

I don't have a picture of my current one, but if we're going classic forum nonsense...
How's a bad picture of mine I found from the 2000s taken with my DS camera do?

You know it's from then when you have a 4:3 LCD monitor. Mine of the mid-2000s had similar and it's all I had for a while. Also, for a long time, I didn't know how to attach two monitors to one device and thought I just had to have two separate devices with one monitor, until I realized you can just double-up. For a long time I'd just have a Mac Mini from 2009 running alongside my 2005 desktop and having to USB ferry files back and forth. Ironically, with my laptop and Pi as other devices, I've somehow regressed back to that stage.

Though I'm also trying to figure out what that game is, assuming it's a game. I see a very blurry Yoshi, or what seems to be.

[RadiantRodent]

You know it's from then when you have a 4:3 LCD monitor. Mine of the mid-2000s had similar and it's all I had for a while. Also, for a long time, I didn't know how to attach two monitors to one device and thought I just had to have two separate devices with one monitor, until I realized you can just double-up. For a long time I'd just have a Mac Mini from 2009 running alongside my 2005 desktop and having to USB ferry files back and forth. Ironically, with my laptop and Pi as other devices, I've somehow regressed back to that stage.

Though I'm also trying to figure out what that game is, assuming it's a game. I see a very blurry Yoshi, or what seems to be.

Yeah I forget when I even first tried a second monitor but by god I don't think I can ever go back to having just one, it'd be like losing a limb! Amazing to think how I fit a chat program and my game on the same small ass thing back then, haha! Oh man, I can only imagine having two devices like that just to use each for their own thing hah! I suppose history repeats itself...

I wanna say that was a DS game case that just had a buncha Mario characters on it, but I can't find it I think the inside was some kinda rubbery stuff that got gross so I got a new one that was JUST Yoshi, and I still have that new one to this day, but can't find that old one so I might've tossed it...! I do still have them PMD figures on the left though!

[pyral]

This station only gets more nuts. I tinkered with the old workstation and found that the power cycling fails to start only when the 3060 GPU I had installed. I'd ordered a new GPU to swap it out and it turns out... it just works. This time AMD because Nvidia on Linux is a bit gimped by the latter not having open drivers. I think Nvidia matters more with rendering in 3D. Didn't want to buy new hardware with the pricing being higher, but I was struggling with space and laptop orientation when working with the laptop for dev streams and switching to the Steam Deck. Next I stream from it, I'll see how it works out once I figure out the placement of things.

Its specs are technically greater than a Steam Deck, at least in the GPU department, but the Steam Deck's form factor being compact is what's appealing there, along with fully supported hardware/SteamOS software stack. Still, with this, I'm probably less likely to get a Steam Machine for a while or nab a Frame if I can when it's possible if I ever do VR dev or streaming or something dumb.

[pyral]

I've made a whole reversal to my entire workstation. It was near the window before, but I've moved it to the opposite side of the room. The AC may have to go in when it heats up, and there were literally no places to put the plug. Now my couch bed is over there and the entire workstation setup has a fully available corner. I've somehow even made more room out of this. Due to various side projects I've had to do, I had a bit of extra toy cash to grab a 1985 TV, which I can use for streaming now.

Raspberry Pi 5 is also replaced with a ThinkCenter. For whatever reason, the performance felt worse than last year for light dev, and there were issues with FreeTube or the like. Lenova's Think-brand's some decent business grade stuff and this one could be a dev mini-PC in a pinch if something ever happened to the workstation again. Since then I'd replaced the GPU which appeared to be the source of its death, as it decided to just die and deny the PC the ability to power on. No, I don't know why. But a full desktop has better thermals and volume than the laptop.

Also, most importantly, high praise to Argil who made the vine viper plush.

[byvsen]

I feel pretty happy with my workstation setup so far! I'm going for a sort of late 90s or early 2000s feel while not compromising too much on modern functionality.

Probably the biggest potential problem are the computer screens, since some videogames and even software is built for 16:9. But I actually find using these monitors pretty comforting! And it leaves a lot of room on the desktop! Maybe I could even add a third monitor in the future?

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I also recently got myself an old IBM keyboard and scrollpoint mouse. Previously I had a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. While they work great, and I might still use them when needed, I felt I needed something that fit the goal aesthetic a bit more. And I feel these definitely completed the look!

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I haven't installed any calculator software on my computer yet. But I realized I have an old calculator I purchased a long time ago, so I just placed that on my desk.

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And then the cassette deck! I mostly put this here to elevate the right monitor to match the height of the left one. It's connected to my computer too so I can easily play music with it. I can also digitize and record onto cassette tapes this way!

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I think the next big project for my workstation is fitting my MIDI keyboard somewhere. I'm considering building a kind of drawer under the desk so I can slide the keyboard in and out. Since having the keyboard on top of the desk is a bit too high, and having it on my lap isn't that comfortable, I think this would be a really nice solution.

[pyral]

I feel pretty happy with my workstation setup so far! I'm going for a sort of late 90s or early 2000s feel while not compromising too much on modern functionality.

Probably the biggest potential problem are the computer screens, since some videogames and even software is built for 16:9. But I actually find using these monitors pretty comforting! And it leaves a lot of room on the desktop! Maybe I could even add a third monitor in the future?
P5060787.jpg

I also recently got myself an old IBM keyboard and scrollpoint mouse. Previously I had a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. While they work great, and I might still use them when needed, I felt I needed something that fit the goal aesthetic a bit more. And I feel these definitely completed the look!
P5060783.JPG

I haven't installed any calculator software on my computer yet. But I realized I have an old calculator I purchased a long time ago, so I just placed that on my desk.
P5060784.JPG

And then the cassette deck! I mostly put this here to elevate the right monitor to match the height of the left one. It's connected to my computer too so I can easily play music with it. I can also digitize and record onto cassette tapes this way!
P5060785.JPG

I think the next big project for my workstation is fitting my MIDI keyboard somewhere. I'm considering building a kind of drawer under the desk so I can slide the keyboard in and out. Since having the keyboard on top of the desk is a bit too high, and having it on my lap isn't that comfortable, I think this would be a really nice solution.

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If you really wanted power, you ought to have gotten an SGI workstation. That's the cutting edge in media production.

I do wish my monitors had the right setup to let me put things under them. A computer right under a monitor's always a particularly fun and compact look. 4:3 also tends to feel more focused, though it depends what you're doing, at least on image composition. Every now and again I remember that movies would come in both Fullscreen and Widescreen editions because of how theaters and TVs differed.