again (?) again (!)

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Here I go again. Like the greatest mammal in the sea, I'll dive for extended periods of time, only to come up for air a good long while after. I have been for far too long attempting to be at peace with a nine-to-five job in IT. And again I'm fed up.

When will I break this cycle?

(again) I try to shrug it off and look for something vastly different. This time it will be streaming.

I get geeky after the break.

After an accidental corruption of one of the memory models in the graphics card of my computer, I've found the need to replace the piece of hardware. Too bad it happened at a time when crypto-currency mining is at an all time high, thus driving the costs of replacement to around double of what I paid originally.

This couldn't be, and in the end I had to go from a GTX 1060 down to a GTX 1050Ti. A somewhat fast card, but one that barely makes the cut. This, however, has led to me finding ways to optimise the shit out of it. Say one thing about Antonio, say he likes his shit lean and mean. Overclocked it, benchmarked it, it's now performing at a level close to my previous one.

Finding myself with an unused webcam from days past attempting to podcast, and digging through the various settings and options available within the card, I've considered the project of streaming more seriously. Streaming seems to have appeared in my life quite organically. As a spectator of twitch streams, I haven't been able to put it down completely. Something there fascinates me and circumstances in my life

  (
  1. fed up with current job 
  2. youth spent playing computer games 
  3. still loves them  computer games  
  4.  new card showing what can be done
  5.  feeling the need to express something, a voice (?) 
  6.  enjoying entertaining others
  )

have finally made it so this seems like the natural next step. I've set myself on doing this the best I can considering the constraints I have (and let's get even nerdier for a second here):

  (
  1. single screen when the minimum recommended for streaming is two 
  2. CPU that's not fast enough to encode at the best level 
  3. GPU that's not fast enough to play with maximum settings on every single game 
  4. no dedicated mic 
  5.  no budget nor motivation to upgrade my hardware 
  )

There's no other way. I want to see and show what's possible to do with what I currently have. Maybe that says something about my life generally (?).

Unwilling to acquire more, driven to squeeze out every single drop of output from what I currently possess. 

Nonetheless, the hardware is currently optimised, running at a breezy 60 degrees Celsius in maximum load. The streaming software is configured to put out the best quality possible game capture within reason (NVENC at 720p 30FPS to a 4K bitrate). I'm now working on improving audio and video capture. The camera's been configured (yay! fuck auto-focus, yay! minimal gain, yay!) and tonight I look forward to play around with sound compression and VST plugins so I can make my voice sound less robotic, richer and fuller. After that, overlays and chatbots! At this rate, I should have the barebones for a channel ready in a couple of weeks.

This post goes out to JF, who has inspired me to get back at this corner of the internet and make something.