Troubleshooting

Recently, I made the biggest investment of my lifetime...

No, not shares in Gamestop.

Just a beefy Gaming/Workstation PC. There’s games I’ve wanted to cover like Metro Exodus, but I also prefer to record footage at the highest possible quality I can, and Exodus is very demanding.

Yet, acquiring PC Parts as usual isn’t an option at the moment, and I had a feeling wouldn’t be for some time. We’re living through a moment of history.

So, after multiple days of weighing the worth, I took the plunge, and bought a PC, with the naïve assumption that all of the troubles I’ve dealt with over the years making content, would be at the very least, reduced…

Again, naïve.

The PC

Errors were encountered immediately with the Need for Speed Carbon video, and it was my fault. Enthralled by the machine’s power, I forgot to do something very important before installing all of the programs used to make videos.

Manufactures say they’ve installed windows on the machine supplied to you, but rarely is it ever a clean install. My machine, despite the expense, was no exception, bring an SSD down to its knees within the first 2-3 weeks with five minute boot times. That might’ve been acceptable had it also not succumbed to multiple hard crashes via Premiere.

How much of that is Adobe or Computer?

Not even God knows.

So, the first order of business after slogging through the Need for Speed Carbon video, was doing a fresh install of windows, and immediately, I wished I’d done it sooner. It’s running even better than it did on day one! Boot times are seconds, programs run like a dream, and even old bugs I had like my microphone crackling over Discord have faded!

Hurray!

Two weeks later the machine isn’t launching…

Microsoft had enforced a new update of Windows 10, and because this was a fresh install, Windows doesn’t let you revert drivers as per-usual.

How did I eventually resolve this bug?

I genuinely don’t know to this day.

Apparently, if you launch your PC three times successively, it’ll automatically start the advanced boot menu, though I could’ve sworn it more did this at random than every third time I started.

All I know, is eventually, that boot menu gave the option to troubleshoot, and it actually resolved whatever corruption occurred on the boot drive.

I was scheduled to go on QuitteShy’s Artstream the day after this bug started, and when I got the machine to launch by luck, I refused to turn it off until the show happened for fear I wouldn’t be able to launch the computer.

Sure enough, after I did Shy’s show (which was great), I turned the machine off, and sure enough, the computer refused to launch.

Being right’s only fun when it benefits you.

I’m calling this part of the post “The PC”, but that doesn’t quite convey how many computer issues I’ve navigated.

When I ordered this machine, it originally had 32gb of RAM that I took off to bring the cost down a little bit. I figured, if I really want it, I can just buy the extra RAM and install it later.

And that’s exactly what I did.

Installed the RAM sticks within just a minute or two, booted up the machine, and everything was crisp.

God DAMN multitasking is awesome on this thing now…

During this time, friend of the channel Clu mentioned that he got The Crew 2, I decided, hey, I like giving games second chances, lets install it too!

Needless to say, I uninstalled it.

Couple days later, I’m taking a break from the adventures I’ll be listing below, to do the Shambles Championship, the chaotic F1 2020 Series done every Thursday 1:30 PST.

Shameless Plug.

Everybody’s lined up on the grid, I’m started 2nd, right behind LHudson, the man who makes my upload schedule look like PhilipDefranco, and I press the button to star-

Blue screen.

I come back, we restart the race. Five laps later…

Blue screen.

I come back, I rejoin the race. Ten laps later…

Blue screen.

Days before, I had just cleared up another issue with my computer shutting off USB devices that should have the power to run in-tandem, but that was cleared up when remembering PCs don’t default to performance mode.

So the only recent thing I’d added was…

God damn it.

Sure enough, I pull out the RAM sticks, and rejoin the race with no more crashes to finish in the top 5.

So…

Anybody want some RAM sticks?

Capture Cards

I knew nothing about Mobile Gaming before starting this latest project, and even less about capturing footage, and I quickly learned how much bullshit is paraded around in regard to it.

Videos delving into five different capture software’s! All with bitrates more pixilated than my Halo 2 CamCord tapes, and advertisements!

What all of these videos forget to mention, is that on many Android devices, there’s a native screen recorder…

Mine’s one of them!

Yay! I’ve wasted hours of my life, but not to waste!

Right?

You can actually see it in the video. The native screen recorder is okay, but the quality varies, and with particularly hectic games like Asphalt 9, the framerate dips to the point of inaccurately portraying what’s on screen. When there’s a Dodge Challenger ramming through cops with notable dips in performance, to my eyes on the phone, it’s running at 60fps without fault.

This just isn’t suitable, so finally, I did what I should’ve done ages ago, and pick up a USB-C to HDMI cable.

It’s beautiful!

Buttery smooth 60fps, no drivers, no software, just plug in and immediately mirrors the phone screen! It’s glorious, it’s all the headache I don’t need when already dealing with a complicated topic that involved me buying 10+ games, multiple subscription services, and controllers.

One week later, it’s lagging even worse than my previous phone when plugging the cable. My consoles record and play just fine so it can’t be the card.

I go downstairs to plug in the USB converter to another TV, and it works! So it’s not the converter… maybe that specific HDMI cable I had? Plug it in to the TV downstairs…

Works.

Out of sheer boredom, I plug the phone back into my switchbox, and it works! Not wanting to push my luck, I capture as much footage as I can that night and turn in for the night. Wake up...

It's lagging.

Having dealt with this bullshit all day previously, and already on a hunch, I plug the phone in directly to the Capture Card, bypassing the possibility of it being the TV, Cable, or Switchbox. 

It's lagging.

It's the Capture Card.

Yet, when streaming the consoles, it runs and captures just fine.

So the Capture Card is somehow able to mirror Xbox 360, PS4, and OG Xbox footage, but not my Phone.

...Drivers?

Lets reinstall the drivers.

Unknown to me, there's a popular bug going around with the Capture Card's manufacture, Avermedia, where the software used for the drivers will refuse to uninstall. Forcing one to find the Microsoft Troubleshooter online, where it waves a magic wand, permitting you to uninstall the software.

Reinstall everything, hook it all back up...

The Capture Card is only getting audio, regardless of system, cable, quality, or codec. Having wrapped up the video, I purchased an Elgato 4K Internal Capture Card, and...

Everything works, including the phone.

What I witnessed as an Avermedia 4K Live die a slow death...

During our Shambles Race, one of the fellow drivers, McViq, asked, how do I stay so calm in these situations? He'd be freaking out if the computer bluescreened multiple times. I joked that when King Kong bricks your PC for multiple days, you grow numb to technical issues.

That's true, but what's also true, is the numbness continues because of repeated cases like these...

I'd be lying however if I said there wasn't some sort of satisfaction to troubleshooting. Often, I'll spend a day just trying to get a game that ordinarily doesn't work, to work, and it feels pretty fucking good. Like you can now experience something that someone else without the time, energy, or patience can't, and making YT videos for a living, one of its perks is having the time, energy, patience, and reason to do it. After all, that game might very well be one you cover, and you can help people through the technical process, rather than being as blind as you were.

But when technical issues like this stack...

Yeah.

It sucks.

P.S. Fuck Gameloft.