Hello, and welcome to the blog.

As you can see, it’s a bit of a clustercluck of me not really knowing what to do or how to do it, and am slowly figuring things out on the way as I go.

Be that as it may, I am writing this here for you to see first, hopefully, so as to help provide some context as to what is going on.

1. I’m changing the direction of this blog from being a ‘journal’ to more or less a page where I write articles about the game I am playing at the time, along with some ‘best games to play’ for X reason. One such article I am working on right now is ‘best games to play in the fall’. But I have run into an obstacle.

I try to use all original content as best as I can, and that included gameplay footage. That means having to go play those games, get some ideal footage for the article and edit those videos for the article.

So yeah, that’s taking a bit, with everything I have going on.

Here’s a sneak peek at what I have already written at least, so you can get a good idea of what I mean.

Each of those games needs a trailer that I made, so it’s not restricted due to copyright issues (hopefully). I could probably use some trailers already made by the respective companies, but again, I don’t want to run into legal issues, so I have opted to take this route instead. With all my current time being chopped up due to having to work a ‘normal’ job, this has become more difficult. But, I am making progress none the less.

If you have checked out my YouTube page already, you will have seen some videos of some of the games already in that list possibly. Some of the videos you see, are accompanied by many you also don’t, because I will be using the others to make the resulting footage. (Also there were issues with those streams, and I try to keep the quality of my streams as high as I can muster, even if it’s not that great still yet. Dropped frames and potential copyright issues due to other players in game playing music over their microphones are just a couple examples.)

But from that last paragraph, you can likely tell right away that I still have my work cut out for me in regards to fixing some issues I allude to in the email I sent to you. So far as of writing this, it has just been one company I have approached. “L” if you are reading this, yes, that’s you. So far.

Otherwise, as you can see from my past posts, this has been quite the turbulent ride for me, and I am hoping to smooth things out a bit. I’m not sure exactly how I am going to be going about that, since I often say I am going to do something, but then something else gets in the way of doing that thing… but I continue forwards regardless; albeit with some time taken to do it sometimes. Like with that article I linked.

As for the retro gaming scene thing I mentioned, this is where it will be happening. Substack has graciously allowed me to be part of their video beta, and so I will be putting that to use once I take the time to get my retro setup going fully. I have some games already bought and ready to go, some of them cult classics, others less known about. But this is where I make clear that I am trying to steer clear of big names like Nintendo due to their litigious nature over things that IMHO they shouldn’t have any legal right to be litigious over. So I am boycotting them, one of my childhood heroes, because I cannot be bothered to deal with their bad nature around legal issues.

Sega on the other hand is far chiller a company, and in their EULA, they basically outright say to “Go right ahead and stream our games, but be reasonable about what you do, say, etc.”

I much prefer Sega for this matter. They also were my first console technically. (The OG Game Boy was my first game system, but Sega Genesis Model 1 was my first tv console.)

So you will be seeing those videos being uploaded here in the near future. No exact ETA on that yet. The gear is all here, I just need to game on it. And no that wasn’t a tricky pun on the Game Gear, though I did use to have one, and might get one again to showcase as well, since they can be directly connected to a TV system, which makes them able to be connected to my capture rig.

Speaking of which, I mentioned in that email the cost of my current setup. Let me make it easier to understand why it cost around 5k.

1. The capture card: AVerMedia GC573 Live Gamer 4K: 430$ before taxes, shipping, etc. It’s 100$ cheaper today.

2. GPU’s: Gaming rig has the 6750XT, while the Ingest rig has the WX 5100.
- AMD 6750XT = 900$ when I bought it. Again, before taxes, shipping, etc.
- AMD WX 5100 = 400$ when I bought it. Once again, taxes, shipping, etc.

3. CPU’s: Gaming rig has the 3600XT, while the ingest rig has a i7 10700T.
- 3600XT: Also roughly 349$, but I lost the receipt for this one…
- 10700T: 349$ after everything.

4. Motherboards: AMD board is the Aorus Elite V1 B550 M-ATX. Intel is the W480M Vision W
AMD board: 260$
Intel board: 292$

5. Storage: 2TB samsung SSD 870 evo, 3 sets of 512GB WD Black M.2, and a 256GB Kingston M-Sata (for the laptop we’ll get to later.)
AMD Rig: 2 sets of WD M.2’s = 109$ per stick, prior taxes, etc.
Intel Rig: Samsung SSD = 269$ prior to taxes, etc. Third WD M.2 = 90$ (sale)
Laptop: Needed a new drive and had an open m-sata slot: 59$ prior taxes.

Side note: As you can see, the price of everything just keeps rising. Also, laptop details: MSI GE702QE Apache Pro: 500$ used. I probably could have gotten it cheaper, but pandemic just hit and the guy needed money bad.
The laptop is in use to help ensure that my streams are ‘good enough’ by acting as a ‘viewer’. This means that any video you see with just 1 view, is probably that laptop acting as a measure to ensure there are no viewer side issues. Yes, I am that thorough about things.

As of this point, we are sitting at roughly 3,910$, and we aren’t done yet.

6. RAM: AMD rig has 16GB of G.Skill Flare X 8GB 3200MT/s @ 14CAS.
Intel rig has 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666MT/s @ 16CAS.
G.Skill: 189$ when I bought them, on sale no less…
Corsair: 120$, prior taxes, etc. as usual.

Second side note: Taxes are easy to figure out for me, since my tax rate is simple here for sales taxes where I live. Just add 10% to the total cost.

Also, see how close we are to 5k now? 4,219$ so far, before taxes. We still have yet to consider things like heatsinks, thermal paste, the computer cases themselves… and then add on the taxes. Right now the taxes would add on another 421.9$.

7. PSU’s: I can’t say for sure what my old ThermalTake ToughPower PSU cost anymore, because the receipt is definitely lost and gone from a long time ago. But 200$ isn’t unfair, since it’s a 850w PSU.

The Intel rig though has Seasonic in it. It’s a 650w gold rating, so it’s 90$. Together let’s just call it 300$ to be sure.

8. Case(s): Alright, so I originally was going to build one super rig in a hometheater case from Silverstone. That case cost me a pretty penny. But then I found the ThermalTake Core W200 on a Kijiji ad for get this… 250$. This case goes for anywhere between 500 and 1000$ now a days. It’s a dual PC case. Yes, that means it can hold 2 computers at the same time. Furthermore, it’s modular, meaning I can add on special case parts to make it even more useful for whatever may be going on in it. It’s original MSRP was somewhere around 500$, but here is a link to the current price tag of one.

ThermalTake Core W200 @ 1329

Meanwhile that silverstone: … 363$

It’s going to be getting put to use again soon, because I am looking at some server components to go into it, or potentially the other side of my big rig, while i put the intel stuff into the Silverstone case. That server will be hosting my future blog site with all the other stuff I intend to do server side. Substack will continue to be where I post this sorts of posts, but I intend to do a proper webpage that links here instead for the blog, while linking to other pages for stuff like my e-shop I am working on the side. Etc. That server isn’t part of the costs yet, but it will be roughly worth about 1000$ on its own. I’m using some older parts to save on cost… when maybe perhaps I shouldn’t and should just go with a newer server instead. But I want to get some experience on the older stuff first so I can learn the ins and outs of that, prior to getting my feet wet with the really powerful stuff like the Epyc servers out.

So for our pricing purposes, we’ll use the 363$ cost, because a brand new TT Core W200 would have been 500$, and together they are costing me 613$ when all in full use finally. (So that means the 5k mark will be inaccurate on the low end actually, but whatever, since there is still more yet to come...).

9. Fans: You must have fans to cool the whole thing. And I do. Noctua Industrial ones. 3k pwm ones. 120mm and 140mm. This is an ongoing cost as I am adding more actually, sometime this weekend when I have time. let’s just call it 200$ for now, because they aren’t cheap, and I have quite a few of them, but 200$ is probably also low balling it. Here’s an example of the 120mm. 33$ essentially, though the 140mm are 36$. And I have a few of each. So, 200$ is fair I think.

10. Heatsinks: BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 4: 167.66$ after shipping and taxes. This one I state that way, because I got a 25$ refund for the fact that amazon messed this one up and shipped it to the wrong location somehow… so I had to wait for a second one. So true cost was 142$ essentially.

The intel rig is using the stock cooler, because it’s good enough for the job.

And that brings us to…

11. Peripherals, Cables, and etc.

Blue Yeti Mic: 180$. It’s 60$ cheaper today.
Boom arm for mic: 35$
Mousepads: 25$
Extension cables: 75$ for all of them, audio, usb, power, etc.
HDMI cable: 37$
DP cables: 35$ each, 2 of them.
Gamepad: 24$
AV/S-video to HDMI adapter card: 28$

Finally

12. Monitors: Alright so this one is tricky, because I bought my big monitor (a Samsung curved led tv) way before any of this. It’s price is … who knows. Receipt is gone, and I bought it on a lease to own setup. It basically cost me 3-5k alone with interest. The other monitor was a cheap 100$ used BenQ. These are not included in the end price, because they ultimately are for my eyes only, aside from the laptop which is used to help determine stream quality, thus included. So you could say the end cost of everything is up in the 10k range with all of this included, but we won’t be including it.

I think that basically covers it all. There is probably still another couple hundred dollars worth of bits and pieces here and there because of stuff needed to get the sega up and running due to missing power cables, and stuff like that. Also the games themselves cost money as well. But I don’t think it’s fair to include them as a cost in the ‘streaming’ setup stuff yet, since that’s just a game console and old tv. But together they probably consist of about 200$, maybe 400$(?) since the tv was worth 50$ to go pick up alone, and the games were all like… 30-50$ each.

For everyone else who is reading this who isn’t a sponsor or affiliate company, this will finally give you some understanding why I am so gung ho to turn this all into a money making venture. Now maybe some of you will understand why I am trying to monetize all of this as much as I am.

Until then, please like, subscribe, follow, and comment.

This has been JohnnyManu40, and I hope you all have a wonderful day. I’m off to do some more recording/streaming here for the day, and then I think it’s about time I finally finished re-organizing all of this stuff so I can finally put it all to proper use. It’s been a wild past few months since I got moved into this larger room, but since I finally have my ISP working properly with the dedicated drop line to my house providing a MUCH more stable connection; I think it’s finally worth while to put all the stuff on it which will definitely saturate the connection.

OH, one last thing. Actually three things.

ISP: 100$ a month for a 750mbps down and 120mbps upload which is really only giving more like 60-100mbps when streaming, even with this better connection. (At least it’s not dropping down to 2mbps anymore at least.)

And if the technician who did the work is reading this, thanks pal. I really do appreciate it. Much better now.

Finally out of the three things I am adding here. Aside from the stuff you see from unsplash here, all the artwork you see from time to time is done by me. I may start doing some of it for a “friend” of mine though, who runs their own blog here on Substack, so don’t be surprised if you see similar stuff on their blog. They aren’t as good with Gimp and photoshop as I am, so in trade for my artwork, he’s going to give me a percentage of his proceeds. Sometimes you make good connections with people by fixing their computers, lol.

Leave a comment

Share

JM40's Game Logs

Hey there, potential sponsors &/or…