What way is the energy going?

 So....we've all seen my model. We all know my model. I won't be doing an update on said model until Friday, because quite frankly not enough has changed to justify it, but I did want to discuss the political winds and where they are blowing. As we know, models are never exact. And I've outlined scenarios of what happens if both republicans and democrats over/under perform. Right now, if we ran 100 simulations of the election, and not my weird simulation model which is flawed, but a more "wave" based model, currently, democrats would win around 96 times in the house and 62 times in the senate. Republicans would win 4 times in the house and 33 times in the senate (38 if we count ties). If anything, republicans have been gaining, and democrats have been losing. I normally consider a closing gap like that in the last days of the campaign to be a bad sign for democrats, suggesting that republicans will overperform. We saw such trends in 2016 and 2024 in particular, where both election nights were painful for democrats as they went into the night overconfident only to get their aspirations crushed. It could happen in 2026 again, and that is probably my biggest argument for a republican overperformance and democratic underperformance. Polls are a lagging indicator and if they're moving toward the center, that's normally a bad sign for democrats hoping to have a really good night. 

On the flip side, there's also some people calling polls into question. Now, this happens every election cycle, and often times this is nonsense too. In 2020, we had the narrative that republican pollsters were skewing the averages. This led me to modify RCP's averages for my forecast, leading to a far more bullish democratic forecast than we really deserved to see happen. Sure, Biden won, but he won by the skin of his teeth. It wasn't exactly the crushing D+5 victory we were expecting in tipping point state of Pennsylvania, or other swing states for that matter. In 2024, democrats also suggested polls were off. Some huffed some serious copium talking about Allen Lichtman's keys, or Ann Selzer's infamous D+7 in Iowa poll, and some accused the pollsters of herding. Despite this, the republicans actually overperformed by about 1.7, a margin that in this election could help keep the senate in republican hands (current tipping point is Maine at D+1.2).

And that's the tricky thing about the senate. In a normal election year, the senate should be off the table for democrats entirely. I went into this cycle giving republicans an 85% chance at keeping the senate with the republicans needing to keep all existing states, and then flipping 4 of them. I figure they could flip NC, Maine is a tossup, and then good luck flipping Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Alaska, Nebraska, or Montana. But here we are, Ohio is at D+3.3, Texas is at D+1.8, Maine is actually narrow at D+1.2 (and this is the trickiest swing state for dems I think, given the dynamic between Collins and Jackson runs counter to the trend elsewhere in the country). Alaska is D+0.8. We also got Nebraska being a dead heat, Kansas being R+0.3 and Iowa being R+0.6, with South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi being only LEAN R, when in any sane election cycle they'd be safe R. 

This brings us to the next point to consider. Mississippi. Some might notice I added it and Louisana into my forecast despite it not being covered on RCP and the polling data being less reliable. Why? Can we trust R+4? Well, that's the thing. Let's talk about the energy. Democrats are now spending money in Mississippi. Trump did a rally there last night, trying to shore up support there. And let's talk about how insane THAT is. When youre doing your final pitch to voters, youre going to the places that matter. Many of the places Trump and Vance are visiting this week to do rallies are states like Kansas, Iowa, Mississippi, and Montana. That's not a good look. That tells me that your internal polling suggests you're in trouble. It also isnt a good sign for republicans that democrats are putting money into it. That tells me they think it's winnable, or at least the threat of winning there is serious enough it's forcing the republicans to divert resources into defending it. Again, if you're defending MISSISSIPPI in your final push before the elections, and youre a republican, you're screwed. Like, that's GG. That's like seeing democrats campaigning in Illinois, New York, or California. And we did see those concerning D+6-12 polls for states like New Jersey, Illinois, and New York in 2024. And those ended up being real. So if data is now suggesting red states are in play, then that means they very well might be in play.

And to go back to herding accusations. people are accusing 2026 pollsters of herding or fudging their numbers. Some pollsters like wedgewood polls were exposed as fraudsters with them claiming that they were doing a social experiment to prove how messed up the polling industry is. Marist is now being accused of Nate Silver of herding, with those accusations being credible. And that's the thing. Pollsters might be cooking the books and showing a narrowing of the race so that no matter what happens they won't be technically wrong. Rather than push the data regardless of how wrong it might be, like Ann Selzer, they'd rather just produce the results they THINK will come true and as a result, democrats might actually OVERperform by significant margins.

Now, again, I've heard a lot of this before. People always try to read the tea leaves here. And I'm gonna be honest, I'm mixed on this. I think conventional knowledge suggests that republicans may overperform a few points. The map is just too good for democrats. like this shouldn't be happening. And let's face it, we've seen this song and dance before. In 2016, 2020, and 2024, republicans overperformed. However, this is ignoring that they underperformed both in 2018 and 2022. And this IS another mid term year. Trump isn't on the ballot.

It's also important to know that republicans have every reason to be demotivated over Trump. The dude's second term is a travesty. Even if you are in the camp of "joke's on you I'm into that crap" on his authoritarianism, insane border policy, and Christian nationalism" that doesn't mean that voters approve of him. His own supporters hate him over the Epstein thing. They wanted the files released. And he squashed it because...he was in it. He started a highly unpopular war in Iran that basically made America like the 1970s again, and not in a good way. Gas prices are up. Everyone is angry. People are discussing on local subreddits that they're struggling to heat their homes this winter. And let's be honest, the last time we were here, Jimmy Carter told people to wear sweaters and the American people took offense to that so bad they elected Reagan twice. And while we don't necessarily have the gas lines we had then, the pain at the pump is driving people away from the republican party. Especially as Trump has this "let them eat cake" mentality of being fixated on building his stupid ballroom and calling the concept of affordability a "democratic hoax." Under such circumstances, if the public were rational, OF COURSE MISSISSIPPI IS FRICKING IN PLAY. But, that's kind of why I cant believe it. Voters ARENT rational. And the swing voters who decide elections DEFINITELY arent rational. And sure, Id expect them to vote against the person in office to punish them for poor governance, but again, the public is SO irrationally I cant trust them to actually blame Trump for this mess like they should. Like, I'm gonna be honest. Part of the reason I was so cavalier about the threat of Trump winning in 2016 was because I figured if he did, the public would turn on him so bad it would implode the republican party and they'd never elect him, or another republican from the current alignment again. However, everything I've seen since tells me that even when dems do well, they dont win by large margins most of the time, and Trump's base tend to overperform. As crazy as it sounds, a lot of people are ride or die on him. And that's one of the reasons I'm so skeptical of a blue wave actually happening. The republicans seem to have their supporters turn out no matter how bad he governs, and many are enthusiastic and actually LIKE the guy, which baffles me. But that's the reality of the situation. So idk. Again, rationally, we should see a blue wave with Trump being hated like Carter or Hoover, but that assumes a public much more intelligent than what we seem to have. 

With all of that said, where does this leave us? Going in circles, that's what it does. Some people suggest democrats should do better than the polls, some suggest they'll do worse. if I had to guess, i'm on team "worse" and I am nervous about election night after seeing 2024 end so badly. However, the polls are telling us...something. We're seeing trends that shouldn't be possible, and on the one hand, if we assume a rational public, they kinda make sense. I mean, why SHOULD people support republicans given how bad they F-ed up everything? But on the other hand, again, given how so many people voted for him despite all the warning signs that he would in fact be this bad, I really have to wonder if having hope of a blue wave is setting us up for disappointment as we tune in, and Alaska goes Red, Maine goes red, Texas is too close to call, we barely hold onto Michigan, and Ohio barely flips to our side. It can happen. Just saying, it can happen. And then we'll all be wondering wtf were we thinking and why were the polls so off again. 

So idk. I'm not even sure if I'll make an informal prediction this year. I might just stand  by the data. Probably the best bet. Post the data, stand on the side of probability, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. idk. Again, the more we try to read the tea leaves, the more confusing it gets. I think the core issue IS the irrationality of the electorate. As much as we'd like to believe that we're gonna have a blue wave, I've come to understand that a lot of Americans are genuinely dumb and have such a different moral code that they actually somehow find the current GOP to be everything they want in life. It scares me people like this exist, but they do.  

Updating my house model

 So...much like with 2024, I don't have enough polling data to do a FULL house model. A lot of districts in play don't have data, but I do have enough to create a hybrid model similar to 2024. And I just wanted to share the results here, because this is kinda crazy.

 Only around 15-20 districts actually had data, but it was enough to shift my results by literally FIVE HOUSE SEATS. if polling is right, we're likely gonna see an even bigger blowout than my fundamentals only based model will suggest, with a 240-195 outcome being projected. There is a catch though. The margins of individual districts is often lower than the fundamentals suggest, with the probability for democrats retaking the house shrinking from around 99% to 96%, correlating with a tipping point of around 9 points down to around 7. Is it trustworthy? No. As we saw, in 2024, the fundamentals typically outperformed the polling. Given how sparse the polling actually is, the room for error is actually rather large, larger than my model suggests on paper. Still, it is interesting how polling data varies from my model. And again, keep in mind the differences arent necessarily helping democrats in a uniform way. Again, we have the potential for higher house seats and overperformance, but if democrats underperform the polls, they're actually going to do worse than my fundamentals suggest. So keep that in mind. Higher rewards for higher risk vs lower rewards at lower risk.

My final predictions from here on out will include both models and I'll compare them.  

Will MAGA survive the winter?

 So...forget the upcoming elections for a second, and let's talk about WINTER, WINTER. So....we kinda got an energy crisis going on. A lot of people are still using oil for heat here in PA, and some of the conversations about heating are rather grim. There's talk of oil heat being unaffordable and people looking for solutions. Talk of 55 degree houses and people using space heaters in specific rooms and tents to stay warm. Talk of using space heaters and then not paying the high electric bill, thinking they won't get cut off. Talk of LIHEAP as a program, and then it being cut by...you guessed it, the Trump administration. And uh...yeah, this is kinda bad. Like, Im not so much worried about people dying, but merely being uncomfortable is going to drive these guys to support democrats I think. The last time we were here was the Carter administration, when the OPEC oil cartel drove up oil costs, there were shortages, we ALSO had issues with iran back then, and then Carter told people to wear sweaters and the public reacted so badly they elected Reagan twice and Bush once, causing a massive political realignment ending the New Deal coalition for good.

Except this time it's in reverse. The now frail Reagan coalition is basically the Trump coalition, it's been dying since Bush II basically. Trump infused new life into it, but now with his second term, a lot of voters are getting...exactly what they voted for. And I know a lot of people dont like people like me saying that given the negative consequences, but let's face it, I was here warning people NOT to elect this guy again and they did. I even said I had little sympathy for those who did. Now, if you didnt and youre collaterial damage, it sucks too and sorry you have to ensure the consequences of others' stupidity, but for those who did, GEE MAYBE THAT WASN'T A GOOD IDEA, WAS IT?! 

Anyway, I take it as an opportunity to learn. I too was a republican and I learned during the great recession that these guys are NOT your friend. As I see it, people on the right gotta get burned before they're willing to not touch the stove any more. I get it, but now that youre here and you're learning what OW THE STOVE IS HOT actually means, I'm gonna tell you the obvious; DONT VOTE REPUBLICAN! And Donald trump was always a con artist who never had America's best interests at heart. He's not a savior, stop defending the guy, or romanticizing him and portraying him as some great savior of the country, he's not, he's literally responsible for the crises that are causing oil prices to be as high as they are in the first place. And if you cant heat your home properly this winter, and you're in 55 degree homes surrounded by space heaters and blankets walling off less essential parts of your home, and youre struggling to pay the bills, and then you cant even get your LIHEAP money because it was cut, remember this: donald trump did this to you. Now are you ever gonna vote for him, or those who think like him ever again? I sure AF hope not. I get it, democrats arent prizes themselves. Welcome to the club on that one. I deem them the bare minimum for responsible governance. But what you get from them IS responsible governance, and not the irresponsible insanity we're dealing with now. Friends dont let friends vote for Donald Trump. And yeah, I hope that if you voted for him and are freezing your butt off in your own home this winter, you do what your parents and grandparents did when Carter was in office. You vote him out and get someone else in. And hopefully that person will be better than Reagan because guess what, he was a con artist too. 

But yeah at this rate, democrats are gonna win the white house by FDR/Reagan numbers hopefully. I know that despite my concerns that the senate races are narrowing, the energy seems very clearly on the side of the democrats. And you know what? I dont blame any trumper who realizes they made a mistake and suddenly wants to vote democrat. I just hope that you learn as I did that it isn't just the implementation of conservatism that's bad, all conservatism sucks. Not sure if people will learn that lesson given how uniquely crap Donald Trump really is. But it's true. Even the best republicans are kinda crap at best, and even the worst democrats are better than the best republicans quite frankly. Again, not that we should have to vote for bad democrats either, but you get the point. Dont vote republican and maybe you'll be able to afford heat again in the future. hell, maybe democrats will help get you off of oil so you can heat your home with clean energy. That's kinda what the most progressive of us want.  

The new Jubilee on sex work is cringe

 So I know I said I wasnt gonna do these any more, but I didnt have much else I wanted to watch tonight and I ended up subjecting myself to the new jubilee in which an only fans model debated 20 anti sex work people. And while I kinda went in expecting to agree with the sex worker, it ended up being cringe AF. Still, there is a lot I wanted to discuss from this, so here we go. I wont debate the claims directly, I kinda just wanted to get into what I found so objectionable, so let's get to it.

So...first my position on sex work. As long as it's between voluntary consenting adults, i'm okay with it. I don't care. I mean, I aint the kinda guy who would pay for an only fans, but I dont really judge people who do. Nor do I judge the sex workers. Would I date a sex worker? Probably not. But eh, if you choose that for yourself, well, that's on you. 

My stance on this is pretty libertarian overall. And it's a bit different than say, my position on gambling. I was more opposed to gambling mostly because I see it as big corporations exploiting people with potential addiction problems and convincing them to give away their life savings for a chance at getting more money, only for the odds to be statistically against them. But with sex work, and looking at stuff online, I dont see those kinds of downsides. 

 And as far as the work, my biggest complaint is the complaint from capitalism and economic coercion. I think some people might do sex work just to pay the bills in our capitalist society, and that can lead to coercive situations. Of course, that is more an argument against capitalism than sex work.  And that's an argument that came up. The model basically seemed to imply that sex work is no different than any other job. Youre forced to use your body either way. And I would agree. Yes, sex work is more intimate in a way, but a lot of the weird moralizing here was kind of irrational and rooted in like, christian purity culture. I would kind of agree that there isnt a GREAT deal of difference between say, doing sex work, and selling your body moving large objects by hand in a warehouse. If anything, a lot of those kinds of jobs and the repetitive motions force you to use your body to the point of it being detrimental to one's health, but hey, we act like it's totally different. or what about people who work with toxic substances? or other health risks? We do it all the time. And even with OSHA, stuff isnt always safe. How often do you hear these class action lawsuits on TV about how workers doing such and such are now subject to cancer or long term illnesses like mesotheleoma due to work they did in the past? It happens. Remember guys, there is no dignity in work, despite all the weird moralizing we have in our culture. I get that rather than being screwed metaphorically, that sex work is being screwed literally, but at the end of the day, that's the real nature of work. You're being used by someone else, and at the end of the day, they're screwing you. Sex work just makes it more in your face. 

If anything, I've seen sex workers on reddit in the past claim they feel more respect working in their field than they do working an actual job. In their sex work, they can reject clients and refuse to do anything they're not comfortable with. In a traditional boss, the boss owns your time, micromanages you, gives you little freedom or authority, and fires you if you dont live up to expectations. So...again, is sex work really worse?

I get it, sex is 'sacred", and even with me, I'd be honest, I'd want an intimate relationship with a partner, and i wouldnt want a partner who does that sorta thing. I am in favor of exclusivity. However, I also recognize this is a personal preference. And my attitude is people should do what they want. Again, as long as it's between consenting adults, I don't really care all that much. If you dont like the other person's habits or life style, don't date them. What can I say?

With that said, I do wanna move on to other topics with this. The next is this weird feminist mindset the sex worker had. I honestly thought I'd go into this agreeing with the sex worker and dealing with a lot of weirdo puritanical Christians, but this sex worker...has a weird feminist streak. And I mean that in a bad way. Like kinda the "man hating" feminists who tend to be all for women rights but tend to #### on men and blame everything on them. They were saying things like the reason people hate only fans is because women can control their own bodies, and there was never this much pushback against, say, pornhub. In reality, I think the times are just different. We millennials who are a bit older at this point are a lot more libertarian than younger folk. Younger folk seem weirdly puritanical these days. And in some ways, I can respect that. They dont drink or have sex much, they dont do drugs, they're mostly addicted to smartphones and the like, but they're all lonely, all this gender relations crap between the woke left and the alt right has led to a weird generation of people who are at each others' throats, and a lot of people are getting puritanical over like, only fans and online porn, where they strangely start agreeing with christian boomers. Meanwhile we middle aged people at this point are like the only chill well adjusted people left. And everything with this chick is "it's about them wanting to control our bodies." Maybe that is true of the alt right and their more weird, in your face brand of conservatism that is, quite frankly, closer to fascism than the conservatism I grew up with, but a lot of it really is just...christian purity culture. And that seems to be where most people are arguing from in this debate. So it just comes off as her tilting at windmills with the THEY WANNA CONTROL OUR BODIES crap. Not saying it doesnt happen, and I aint saying that christian purity culture isnt misogynistic AF in its own way, but yeah, it just rubbed me the wrong way.

What REALLY rubbed me the wrong way was her saying that there is no real male loneliness epidemic and that "incels" are just losers. I guess it depends how you define them. if you mean the bitter ###holes we typically call incels, yeah, they just hate women and they are very bitter and miserable people. Kinda like the opposite side of the coin from the radfems on the other side of the aisle. But I do think we have a bit of a crisis on our hands. I get it, men arent entitled to sex, i aint saying that they are, but if many of them, especially younger ones, are unhappy then that's potentially a social issue. And when you start bashing men like me who dont date, and just call them "losers" and crap, it's like 'well screw you." Again, you wanna hate the actual "incels" who go on screeds about how much women suck, go for it, but I kinda dont like being treated as collateral damage in this weird gender war these guys are having. As far as I'm concerned, there are systemic problems here, and this whole weird feminism vs manosphere crap is contributing to it. I've pointed out for a while idpol is unhealthy AF for younger people and is screwing up their dating habits in their prime dating years. And that's a social problem. Male loneliness and joblessness is an issue. That said, women also have issues too, I dont deny that. But what pisses me off is when these feminists get all up on their soapbox when it comes to womens' issues then they turn into LITERAL FRICKING CONSERVATIVES on mens issues. And by that, I mean, lectures about personal responsibility, being called a loser, not wanting to admit there are issues on the other side. And yeah, this chick is REALLY toxic with this. Lets just say if I was into only fans, I would NOT be subscribing to this chick after listening to her views on this stuff. Because it's clear she wouldnt respect me, and I would not wanna patronize someone like that. I mean I'm not Lindsey Graham where I get off on being degraded (see TYT's Closetocracy on that one). Of course I dont do that. I'm just saying, if I did, yeah no, other fish in the sea. She aint special and her attitude is crap. 

Another topic that came up was that of marriage. And of course, the purity culture people see marriage as sacred, and the sex worker was going on about how marriages are often abusive and toxic, there's a lot of cheating (a lot of her clients apparently are married men), there's power dynamics, women use their sexuality to control men into being productive members of society, etc. And she has a point. I mean, I still kind of tend to lean toward being more on the romantic side of things with marriage and all despite my libertarian stance, but if anyone could make an argument against that, it's this. And she did raise good points to some degree. 

Anyway, with that said, the debate as a whole was a crapshow. Obviously I dont agree with the purity culture people on much at all in terms of wanting to limit or restrict behavior. At the same time, I didnt really appreciate this chick's feminist views, boiling everything down to men wanting to control her sexuality (I mean maybe the alt right does but purity culture is a but more complex than that) and basically going on a rampage against men to the point that she was basically calling people like me "losers." Like screw you, you're not much of a prize yourself. I wouldnt date this chick even if she asked, because again, I dont date sex workers or want emotional intimacy from them. They make life choices that, while I'll defend their ability to do it, dont really jive with my personal sexuality which is more on the purity culture side of things.

And that's kind of an important distinction for me. Like...being raised somewhat in a purity culture style environment,  i PERSONALLY have views that lean more on the conservative side of things as far as my own dating preferences go. On the other hand, being libertarian, permissive, and ex Christian, I'm fine with people not believing in that stuff and if they wanna do that stuff fine. Unlike this chick's weird rants, Im not interested in controlling anyone. You do you. I just get kinda pissed off when people get soapboxy and start calling people "losers." Ya know? So yeah, it's a weird intersection. Like Im basically a libertarian moderate on this issue, and I tend to despise the whole idpol thing and this chick was laying on the idpol THICK. I dont think women like this realize how much it alienates a lot of male allies when they start talking like this, because it does. 

Still, I agreed with her more than the purity culture people, I just thought her opinions on the male loneliness epidemic were trash.  

Testing FSR4 (no benchmarks)

 So...FSR 4 hit 6000 series cards. Given I got a 6650 XT, you know what that means...I'm gonna give my thoughts.

So, as stated before on this blog, I HATE upscaling. Most of it looks like crap and I'd rather have less detailed games that can handle native resolution than to use upscalers that look like crap. With that said, I am glad we have had upscalers as fallback options, given the alternative of pixelated abominations once our aging card can't hit native resolution (see previous HD 5850 article on that one). 

And idk...this upscaler isn't perfect, but it comes off as black magic to me. it's GOOD, it's REALLY GOOD. Even at 1080p. I won't say I tested it in every game, but I did play some of my newer games with it, and messed around with quality settings, and here's my overall opinion.

Battlefield 6 was impressive, BUT i still preferred native resolution. Here's why. Battlefield 6 graphics, as good as they look, always looked...off to me. It looks fine on the surface, but when you zoom in with a gun, the image doesnt upscale, it just gets blurry. This causes the facade of the graphics to fall apart with it. Now, with that said, FSR4 actually FIXED the issue. TAA looks AWFUL with it, like a blurry mess. And FSR3 was okay but never fully solved it. FSR4 FINALLY makes the image look like it should in my view. Of course, you gotta run it on NATIVE for it to work. And that actually COSTS performance on old cards, but given I was running at around 100 FPS with 80 minimums, a 10-15% loss isn't a huge deal for a 60 Hz gamer like me. I'd prefer the higher image quality. With that said, I won't be upscaling, since it re-introduces the issue.

Still, testing FSR 4 vs say, TAA, even upscaling from say, performance mode (so like, 540p) looks equal to better than TAA. And that's the really insane thing about this. it costs you like 10-15% performance on older cards, but quality mode upscales from 720p, performance mode goes from 540p, and ultra performance from 360p. And as I'll get to, even the performance modes still look pretty good. Like, not perfect, not up to the insanely high standards of image quality I'd expect from a large scale FPS with a lot of visual noise going on like this, but better than some native alternatives, which is kinda crazy. 

Of course, this is where FSR4 becomes like, black magic to me. In COD BO7, I couldnt really run it at decent quality settings at native resolution, but fidelity FX CAS was kinda "good enough", even beating FSR3, which looked like crap, without really improving performance much at native and looking even worse at upscaling. FSR4 quality looks native to me. So does balanced. Performance mode looks equivalent to the FX CAS model I did use, which looked ALMOST native, but not quite. I only started to notice it was actually upscaling from ultra performance mode.

Doing outer worlds 2, same story. Using FSR AA at native did give me a performance dip from FSR3. On FSR3, I used medium settings to achieve mostly 60 FPS. Now I'm a bit below it, like around 55 on average. I tweaked the settings previously where I was able to just eek out a stable 60 before, and now on FSR4 it's not quite as stable. BUT....it doesn't need to be. Once again, quality mode literally looks like native to me here. I literally say there staring at fairfield from the eden landing pad trying to make out the details I was losing from native to quality and I literally couldnt tell the difference. And that actually boosted my FPS back to like 70 FPS. Even balanced mode, I couldnt tell. Going down to performance, I started noticing I was losing some sharpness of some details in the distance, but otherwise, it still looked good. And ultra performance is where it started looking like upscaling with some awkward artifacts when looking at grass that made the facade fall apart, but on the other hand, my framerate was bonkers and I could turn the game up to like high or even ultra and get decent performance. I opted for medium and quality simply because I couldnt tell the difference between medium and higher settings either, but I did notice smoothness when flicking my mouse around at higher frame rates. I really do prefer a higher frame rate and good image quality over graphics settings. Once you hit like medium, you often dont get huge changes going up to high or ultra, you just lose frames. It kinda does make me realize how much graphics have plateaued this generation and how hard further improvements are going to be. And quite frankly, I'd rather run games smoothly and look a little worse, than have them run at a lower frame rate but look "better" in ways that are barely perceptible to me in motion. If anything, again, I kinda prefer native resolution on low over say, older upscalers on high or ultra because games look like crap on a lot of upscalers. This is the first one I actually find acceptable to use for the most part.  

Another game I tested is Doom the Dark Ages, and I was disappointed to find out that FSR4 doesnt work out of the box with it. And if any game I play needs it, it's that. Seriously. That's one game where I just can't run it at a native resolution smoothly on low and need upscaling to make it work. Quite frankly, I use quite a lot of sharpening just to make the image quality acceptable, and if any game needs FSR4's black magic to make workable, it's this one. Unfortunately, I needed something called "optiscaler" which comes with its own complex installation process, and can be flagged as a cheat in some games. So..not touching that. It's because FSR4 doesnt work in vulkan and this is vulkan. Id and their weird design choices sometimes, m i rite? So that was a bust, and that brings us to another discussion.

FSR4 isnt available in every game. it's actually in very few titles natively. Most of it is injected on the driver level by the driver overriding FSR3 in game. So you lose FSR 3 when it's enabled in the driver, to get FSR4. Now, FSR4 looks prettier than FSR3, but it does have a higher performance cost. If you actually want frames and dont care how a game looks you might wanna turn off that option in the driver to make it work, although I also gotta ask, why would you do that? Even if FSR4 native has a higher cost, FSR quality looks identical to native in most games to me (its only BF6 where im a stickler on this), AND it's gonna net you a 50% theoretical performance gain from resolution alone. Sure, you lose around 10-15% of that from the overhead of running it, meaning it will run worse than FSR4, but it will also look better. At 1.5x upscaling and 0.85x performance, you should get a 27.5% performance increase, which is consistent with hardware unboxed's performance gains roughly. 

And keep in mind, even ultra performance looks similar to an older FSR model's like...quality settings, like going from 720p from FSR3 or fidelity FX CAS or something. 

With that said, you should only be upscaling with an older model as like a last resort to squeeze out every ounce of performance. Otherwise it's not worth it. And nothing really pushes even the 6650 XT THAT hard yet. So yeah, final opinion? I approve of FSR4 mostly. Again, I wouldnt use the upscaling in every situation, but in the times I won't, I still appreciate the extra visual clarity it provides, even with the performance cost (seriously, it makes a difference in battlefield, for example, likely also helps in BR games). As for more casual games or games that dont have weird engines that degrade visual clarity at a distance for some reason, the upscaling has gotten to the point it's so good you can barely tell it's upscaling. This isn't TAA or FSR 3. I guess this is what nvidia bros have been talking about with DLSS all of these years, although I wouldnt pay 50% more just to use DLSS. Not when games can run at native resolution. And with FSR4, yeah, we hit a point where even mild to moderate upscaling produces image quality that's "good enough" to a point you're not gonna notice a major difference between this and native. So yeah, if anything, this driver update has been one of the most meaningful graphical upgrades/performance improvements in years. It really does breathe new life into older hardware LIKE RDNA2 cards, making them more likely to last a lot longer than they would otherwise. And yeah. This actually did change my mind given how earlier this year I was blasting the industry for forcing upscaling and crappy "native" models like TAA on us to make games run at a good game rate. This update actually does largely resolve my major complaint there. 

The reality of owning a HD 5850

 So....I saw a thread today glazing how "legendary" the HD 5850 was back in the day. I mean, it was a pretty high end GPU that was available for around $260. i think I got mine for closer to $300, but at $260, some are pointing out that that was only around $400 today. I mean, such a great GPU for only the equivalent of $400, or about the price you'd spend on a 5050 today. But did it provide as good of a value as GPUs today? Well, that's what we're gonna discuss.

GPUs then vs GPUs now

I gotta admit, I miss the GPU market of old, where you could buy a $260ish GPU and get something that was pretty premium. Back then, the market was different. You could get higher end products a lot more cheaply. But at the same time, the products aged far worse. Remember what I said, every 3 years, you'd roughly double GPU power for the money. The 5850 and its nvidia equivalent, the 460 were double what the legendary 8800 GT was. At the same time, 3 years later, we had the GTX 760 offer 2x the power the 5850 did, and by the time you got to 2016, you got the GTX 1060 and RX 480 offering 4x the performance for the price. The HD 5850 is basically equivalent to what the GT 1030 is today, except with less VRAM and less API support. But back in, say, 2010 when I got it, it was golden.

At the time, the HD 5850 was literally THE FOURTH SINGLE MOST POWERFUL GRAPHICS CARD ON THE PLANET! It actually seems more like a RX 9070 XT class product today, which currently goes for $800. The only cards that were better were the GTX 470, the GTX 480, and the HD 5870. And sure, Im excluding the dual cards like the GTX 295 (480 tier) and HD 5970 (two 5870s stacked together) here, but yeah. That's how the market was. And you got a pretty premium experience for the time.

Of course, let's talk about the differences in expectations then vs now. Back then, people roughed it a lot more with performance. Sure, the HD 5850 was capable of running games on high or ultra at the time, at say, 900p or 1080p, but keep in mind, those themselves were premium resolutions. There wasn't really 4k back then. THe really crazy people had 1440p setups and youd kinda NEED those aforementioned dual GPU setups to handle that. The 5850 could run battlefield bad company 2 at around 80 FPS with 2x MSAA at 900p in my experience. When I first got the card, I used a 1280x1024 CRT still, but quickly upgraded to a 900p monitor after that. It was a pretty high end experience for the time, but not really that premium now. Nowadays, you have 4k be the ultimate premium experience. 1440p is a kind of upper midrange experience, and most use 1080p. At the time, even 1080p seemed to be a premium experience. 900p was a bit more reasonable of a target and at the low end, there was 720p and CRT driven resolutions. It wasn't uncommon to, say, on a laptop, still run games at like 480p just to get a decent framerate. 

Speaking of frame rates, let's discuss that too. 60 was a pretty premium experience back then too. Most monitors were 60hz and high refresh rate gaming wasn't really a thing. Consoles often ran games at 30 FPS with slowdown, at resolutions like 720p or even 540p at the time (keep in mind we're talking PS3/360 era here). So yeah, while the experience was premium, our expectations were much lower. 

All in all, was the experience really any better than, say, my RX 6650 XT experience today? Actually...not really. The RX 6650 XT still handles 1080p on low settings at 60 FPS for the most part. And upscaling exists today, meaning when games run at those crazy low resolutions, upscalers tend to refine the image to be perceived as a higher resolution. It's not ideal, especially on AMD cards, but it's better than the blocky mess we had at the time. If anything, the 6650 XT has aged just as well if not better than the 5850, despite costing me about the same. Of course, at this rate, the 6650 XT is turning into one of those L E G E N D A R Y cards itself at this rate, especially with RAMpocalypse blowing out any gains the most recent series offered in price/performance. 

How did the 5850 age?

With that said, let's have a realistic talk about how the 5850 aged. In 2010, it DID offer a premium experience. it ran most games on high settings at 60+FPS at the time. Some games like metro 2033 or crysis ran lower, but keep in mind, 30 FPS was considered acceptable. I think Crysis ran around 40 FPS on max settings, although i could get up to 100 out of it on low settings. This was on 1280x1024 resolution, although 900p tended to track similarly to these numbers IIRC. Battlefield bad company 2 ran at around 80 FPS on high with 2xMSAA, 4x was a little too demanding for it. COD Black Ops occasionally dipped into the 30s on max, but mostly held 60 and was regarded as heavily unoptimized for the time. 

2011 was fairly good to it. By then, the HD 6000 and GTX 500 series was out and they kinda knocked it down a peg, but that was NORMAL back then. Games still ran well, with the only one that pushed it was Battlefield 3. That ran at around 40 FPS on like medium high settings. It looked mindblowing at the time. These days though, I'd just run it on like medium though and get 60 if I wanted to play but yeah, again, I was willing to reduce settings a bit more back then for higher quality settings. Crysis 2 actually ran better than Crysis 1, and ran around 40-50 FPS on high, although if I wanted 60 I could reduce settings too. 

In 2012, it was officially more of a midrange card, or budget card if buying new. The HD 7770 or GTX 650 ti were its closest contemporaries, meaning it could be gotten for around $150 or something by this point. Again, it happened. Progress went on. By that point, the GTX 660 was trading blows with the GTX 580. By the end of the year, it was running games on medium, and Planetside 2 especially kinda put it in its place. Planetside 2 was the first truly "next gen" game back then offering large scale warfare on a level that brought virtually any system at the time to its knees. My phenom II would dip down into the 20s and the HD 5850 wasnt much better. At that point, a friend I played battlefield/planetside offered me a GTX 580, which I gladly accepted. it didnt help the CPU bottlenecks I had but I did stop using the 5850 after that.

Well...outside of when it died. The 580 he gave me eventually started artifacting and crashing, and I RMAed it to EVGA who offered a generous guest warranty. But then it died...again. And they upgraded me to a GTX 760. And then THAT died, and I got another 760, which I used until it finally died in 2017, when I upgraded to my GTX 1060. 

With that said, I did have to keep pulling out "ol reliable" to tide me over between RMAs, and I did continue to test it. 2012 titles mostly ran on medium on it. By 2013 and 2014, it was relegated to low settings, but still it felt good to use. It didn't finally hit its breaking point until it hit 2015 era titles. It was a double blow. AMD stopped supporting drivers for it in 2015, and the 1 GB VRAM made playing new titles painful. By this point it was getting like 30 FPS at like 720p, the bare minimum for play.

I even popped it in one last time in 2017 when waiting for my GTX 1060, which took a month to ship because hey, guess what, this wasnt the only GPU shortage we ever had. And I got in at the right time too, I got it close to MSRP, if I bought just a month or two later, I been faced with eyewatering $600 prices for the 1060. But yeah, by 2017 it wasnt a good experience. To give you an idea:

Overwatch- Ran fine

Rainbow six siege: 25-30 FPS, 720p

Doom 2016: 60 FPS....at 640x480p

Fallout 4: 40 FPS at 720p

Battlefield 1: wouldnt launch

PUBG: a stuttery sub 30 mess, but then I lucked out when the 1.0 release led to a massive optimization patch, which bumped me up to 30-50 FPS 720p.

Mass effect andromeda: like 20-30 FPS at some awful resolution that made it look like crap (probably 480p). 

Like, YIKES, it was awful. Of course, by this point, it was a 7 year old card. And it was basically on par with a 1030, except the 1030 had 2 GB VRAM and modern driver support so that was actually BETTER. And yeah, a lot of titles wouldnt even boot at all if I recall. 

Compared to the GTX  760 / 1060 / RX 6650 XT

 The 760 aged similarly to the 5850. Maybe a little better overall, minus dying. By the time I stopped using it the 760 was still holding up, running new titles on low/medium, although wolfenstein the new colossus did push it to the point I was having to run at a low resolution at unstable frame rates due to the 4 GB VRAM requirement. But still, it mostly handled 900p like a champ. And given it released in 2013, it was basically in its 2014 era equivalent to the 5850, and performed...roughly the same. 

The GTX 1060 set the standard for $250 or so cards though. It released in 2016, and didn't show its age until 2023 or so. By 2020 and 2021, it was running games on low-medium with FSR on, so it was kinda being relegated to 720p, but it could handle it like a champ. When I stopped using it, games like Modern Warfare II started pushing it a bit, where I was getting 40-70 FPS on low 720p, and I know the 2023 releases like dead space and starfield basically crushed it. So that also lasted about 5 years, given I used it in 2016, although I started using it late into its actual life cycle and relative terms, and bought it as a necessity, given the 760 died and the 5850 wasnt cutting it by 2017. It actually aged the best of all of them thus far, although to be fair, that's also where the performance gains started slowing down. I honestly though the 1060 was gonna be a 3 year card for me, not the 5 year monster it was. It really held the line through the COVID pandemic, until late 2022 when I finally could finally afford a reasonable upgrade.

Likewise, the 6650 XT I also expected to be kind of a temporary card. I figured the 8 GB VRAM would hold it back, and I had a tentative upgrade window from 2025 to 2027. So I would, in a normal market, consider upgrading. Still, due to the fact that it kinda set the standard for the new normal and it took until 2025 just to see any performance gains at all and even then, we didn't REALLY get any performance gains since the prices went up again, and new cards STILL use 8 GB VRAM in this now "budget" price range, I dont really expect the card to stop any time soon. It does feel aged. it does only run new titles on low-medium 1080p like I'd expect a 3-4 year old budget card to do, but without a VRAM boost, or any new APIs that the 6650 XT lacks, the card will likely keep chugging along. I hope to replace it by 2028, although given the current...mess screwing up the market, we might not even see a 6060 or AMD equivalent until 2029. So that's looking like the time to upgrade. With that said, the 6650 XT will be 7 years old by then, the longest lasting card yet. Will it still be game ready by then? Who knows. I kinda half expect games to put out BS unrealistic requirements by the end of next year that require like 12 GB VRAM or some crap like that. Even though that will screw over all of the 5060 users and the like too. Idk, requirements are weird, and I fear these guys just wont care if there isnt an affordable replacement for older hardware. 

I guess that's the challenge of our time. Again, the market is different. By the time you hit 2014-2015, you could upgrade to a GTX 970 for around $330, or if you made it to 2016, you could buy a 1060 6 GB for $250ish. Those kinds of cards were 3-4x better than the 5850, with 4-6x the VRAM. The modern equivalent to that would be a 5090 which is....well, let's just say at this rate the RTX $5090 memes are UNDERselling it by like $2000. 

Conclusion

So...final prognosis on the 5850? I mean, all things considered, back then it was premium, today, such a product would be budget. It really wasn't any more premium than any "60" tier card I've used, like a 760, or 1060, or 6650 XT, and if anything, of the 4, it aged on par or maybe a little worse. That is mostly not the card's fault. Some of it was AMD's lack of driver support, yeah, but back then, tech just advanced a lot more rapidly and the play really was to just pay enough to get a good experience to tide you over a few years and then jump to the next thing which would be like 4x better by then. The reason we have more longevity now is in part because things have slowed down a lot since then, meaning hardware lasts a bit longer. Even then, the 5850 still had only a slightly shorter usable lifespan than the GTX 1060, another  L E G E N D A R Y tier product. It lasted about as long as the 760 did, maybe a little less as well. And vs the 4 year old RX 6650 XT I use? Same story. Low settings at my target resolution after 4 years. That's about normal. 

Of course, back then, the standards were lower. Back then, 1080p/60 FPS was a premium experience, equivalent to 1440p/120 FPS today. Nowadays, we look at 1080p/60 FPS like we look at 720p/30 FPS, like it's just kinda the bare minimum to get the game running, with less being considered "unplayable." 

And even then, looking back, I DID settle for a relatively choppy 45 FPS or so in a lot of games that in the modern era I would find unacceptable. heck, since getting the 7700k CPU, I basically refused to game at less than 60 FPS mostly. A dip here and there wasnt the end of the world, but a constant sub 60 FPS experience is just miserable to me now. So the standard IS higher. 

With all of that said, barring rampocalypse, does $250 or so really get you less of a GPU than you did in the past? Well, it kinda depends. The market is a lot more unstable today, with random booms causing GPU prices to get haywire, and with the true budget market being eliminated. Like, back in the day, keep in mind what I said, even a $150ish GPU gave a good experience. People back then often used a HD 5770 which was a pretty respectable card, or a GTS 450. They used stuff like 750 tis, 1050 tis, and 1650 supers. And you just cant even get a card like that any more for less than $200. If youre lucky you'll get some Arc A380 which still offers around 1650 tier performance for around 1650 prices. And the HD 5850's performance is basically still available in the form of the GT 1030 for $100. Kinda ridiculous to spend $100 on what is now a 17 year old $260 GPU equivalent. Kinda like spending $100 on something from 1992 in 2009. Crazy. 

Anyway, this is why, when I did my GPU tiers, I considered the HD 5850 and GTX 400 series to be A tier. It wasnt quite S tier IMO. It lasted about a year or two less than TRULY legendary S tier GPUs, but it held up pretty well and if you bought one in 2010 like I did, you were set through 2014, with the performance only becoming too old and borderline in 2015 titles.  

Is the "liberal leftist alliance" over?

 So...Kyle just had a debate with someone where they were discussing if the "liberal leftist alliance" is collapsing because some vocal liberals are threatening to leave the democratic party and I wanna just put a stop to this right now. 

As someone who has been fighting for my own politics within the democratic party since the 2016 election cycle, no, it's not. In 2016, I got pissed off and tried to leave the democrats, but then most people just voted for clinton anyway. In 2020 I was still pissed and went for howie hawkins, and guess what, most still voted democrat. In 2024, it seemed like "leftists" collapsed with bernie being too old to run again, and it seemed like the left had no future. But then harris lost and now we're having a democratic tea party where some leftists are getting power, which is causing the centrists to threaten to leave too. The fact is, we've been fighting over control of the democratic party since 2016, and now that progressives are gaining power some are threatening to leave and you know what? Most probably won't. And the ones that do...well...woof, good riddance on that ones, they're the ones I hate.

If anything, the democrats in 2026 seem more united than we've seen in a decade. And I'd say we're kinda reaching an ideological melding where we're kinda left, but not super left. people talk about James Talarico being the most popular candidate running, but he's a mcmorrow brand democrat, even with his weird christian framing of things that make him sound conservative. people also like zohran mamdani and abdul el sayed. 

And...looking forward to 2028, i'm gonna be real, I was looking at polling data last night, and much like with 2020 and 2024, I dont think a huge appetite for a hard leftist candidate exists. I see AOC as a long shot to the presidency. Even if she did make it out of the primary, her numbers are abysmal and she flat out loses the popular vote to vance and rubio. We clearly arent at a point where "socialism" is appealing to democratic voters at large and I dont expect that to change.

Even my politics are kinda melding into the democratic party. Dont get me wrong, I like bernie progressives, but I do clearly have ideological differences from them. And my own ideology is also kind of a melding of progressivism and centrism at this point.

On social issues I'm an anti woke libertarian progressive. I dislike the obnoxious overtures to social justice known as "woke 1" or whatever, but I still largely embody the actual ideas of "woke" put into practice, being accepting of just about everyone as long as you dont piss in my cornflakes and get on my bad side with the toxic woke 1 nonsense. On foreign policy, I'm literally just a biden democrat but with a more anti israel stance at this point (and lets face it, israel brought whatever shifts i made from 2023 on themselves). Even on economics, my views are complicated. 

I mean...I'm basically more andrew yang than bernie sanders at this point. I want major systemic change, but I dont think going back to the new deal or implementing socialism is good enough. I like medicare for all in theory, but i champion the public option for cost related reasons. I still embrace bernie style politics on education and housing, but then on the green new deal, I'm definitely more in the centrist wing. But then I just outflank the bernie wing being all in on UBI, pissing off the centrist AND left wings at the same time since that's too spicy for centrists and too controversial for leftists. Barring my UBI aspirations though, once again, I kinda just meet in the middle of the two wings. Im neither a leftist, nor a centrist. Again, I'd say if we use the michigan primary with stevens, mcmorrow, and el sayed as a metric for the 3 paths democrats can take, I'm more mcmorrow, and while mcmorrow kind of got stuck between the other 2 candidates, in other races, LIKE texas and others, mcmorrow style democrats seem to be the answer. They're progressive enough to win progressives but still kinda moderate enough to get the normies. In some ways, yeah, I am more left wing than those guys...but do I really agree with actual leftists on much? That's the thing, I don't. I'm kinda my own thing. Ya know, back to the whole "radical and moderate" at the same thing mindset. And I think some variation of both radical and moderate at the same time is the answer. Full on centrists suck, but leftists are also a bit too spicy and dogmatic around solutions that I quite frankly dont identify with any more. Ya know? And I kinda think that while the populace at large is still more moderate than me, the center of gravity for the democratic party is basically that in between radical but moderate model...just without my own UBI anti work dogmatism. Gotta keep in mind your median american and even democrat is still jobist AF and won't give up on their weird work worship. To me its more a combination of ignorance and indoctrination, but that seems to be where they are.

Anyway, with that said, I dont think the public wants like, full on socialist solutions, and polling doesnt indicate that they do. But I also dont think they want a moderate either. Again, we're kinda gonna need someone to thread the needle. I'd love to say my politics are the answer, but unless you strip UBI and my anti work stuff out of them I dont think they fit the bill for the moment either. Still, maybe a talarico type? Or a bolder Biden/Harris style democrat? 

Like, again, IM basing this on polling, but right now, the option most dems seem most comfortable with is another Harris run. It's not my cup of tea, but then the debate becomes if not her, then who? Buttigieg is just harris but even more moderate. He's somewhat popular. Newsom is a moderate with the aura of a used car salesman for better or for worse. AOC is in the running, but with 11% or so support, which is about where she's at, and polling in the negatives vs vance and rubio....eh...is she the right play? I know for the left lane, I've more or less endorsed her as a standout candidate. Because again, if not her, who? Ro Khanna? Andrew yang? Again, Andrew yang is MY choice. I'd LOVE Yang to run again. If Yang ran again I'd simp so hard for him unless he totally F-s up and loses my support. But will he? Idk. Like to me, Andrew Yang is everything this country needs right now. He is more progressive than a centrist, and more moderate than a leftist, and he is UBI pilled and able to address the modern crises surrounding AI. If were still in a bubble he could do his whole "the robots are coming" pitch, and if we're in great recession 2.0 by then, he can advocate for it as an anti poverty program. Either way, I want Yang more than anyone. 

But barring that, we're gonna have to make some hard choices for 2028 for who to run. And I'll be honest, whomever we run, needs to be ELECTABLE. Again, AOC is nice on paper, but can she win? I aint seeing the math working for her, neither in the primary or general. Right now, we're gonna end up with Harris 2028 is gonna be my guess. ANd if harris aint it, it's gonna be like buttigieg or newsom, with the off chance of some other centrist breaking through like josh shapiro or mark kelly. Idk. 2028 can be wild and we might even have a donald trump movement where someone completely out of left field runs and takes off. Who knows?  We might end up with like michelle obama or something because the public reveres the obama family by this point and whenever she's talked about a lot of people will vote for her just out of nostalgia, who knows? I really dunno where we're going next.

Either way, I dont think we're at a point where the democratic coalition is at risk of serious breakage. I honestly see the die hard centrists at this point as a boomer faction that's gonna lose relevance as time continues to do its thing. And leftists, well, they've always been a minority. Most democrats kinda want something in the middle between them, and I honestly think being progressive without being aggressively leftist is the play in the modern environment for a national election. Leftists can continue to gain traction in local races, but yeah, they're not gonna by hyper relevant in 2028. But neither will the die hard centrist wing either. Theyre kinda dying out.

Again, I actually think the modern dems are pretty united in the modern environment. The focus right now is on getting trump out. We will still see infighting into the 2030s, but I think for 2026 and 2028, we're likely gonna all be on about the same page, and even if some people (including myself) will complain about things, it really does come down to 'well what's the alternative?" Again, we're stuck with the dems whether we like it or not. And so are they. And none of us have the numbers to really force the party to one extreme or the other. That's my honest take on the situation.