Wildmimic

Hardware is a 5070 12GB VRAM, an AMD 5950x and 64G of DDR4 running on Nobara (Fedora spinoff).

I use 3 models for most things: Ternary Bonsai 27b and Gemma 4 E4B Uncensored Q8_0 for everyday stuff, and Qwen Agentworld 35B A3B Q8_0 with CPU offloading for tasks that require to keep the model on track for long periods of time.

Everyday performance is best with Bonsai for me - it comfortably fits in my VRAM and is noticeably better with staying on task than similarily sized models. But if i want it to work overnight on a task without issue, the lower speed of the agentic Qwen is outweighed by its capability to do this.

They are allowed tool calls for websearch and reading webpages and have a sandboxed directory for R/W operations, but anything regarding command line and R/W access in other areas has to be manually authorized by me (i’m not willing to play with fire here).

They are currently not reachable from outside, but i am currently building a smaller machine as a home server, which will then be using a 3070Ti and 32G RAM to provide probably the Bonsai Model for me on the go per VPN.

The smaller models are here for quickly creating documents i do not care to do myself, RAG for technical documentation, creating quick python scripts for automating small tasks and teaching me RegEx and Python(mostly by analyzing the LLM output and playing around with it) and also some RP as NPC in a fantasy setting. The agentic model is currently working on cataloguing my games collection (around 36000 titles) by looking up games, their genres and descriptions and filling in blanks in the database. (Funnily, this task was refused by any model freely available because of the size of the database. Even the local models moan and bitch that it takes so long. No shit, this is why i outsource this!)

Might wanna try a ternary model, which are a lot denser in comparison.

Ternary Bonsai 27b is 7.17GB in size, which might fit on your 3070 depending on how much free VRAM you have (and with CPU offloading it should work in all cases). You can also try their edge-computing model designed to be working on smart phones here (iPhones seems to have a limit of 6Gb RAM max for such things) - that one is less than 4GB in size, which should fit in any case. In my experience they do work very well compared to other models in that size class.

Be aware that they need a specific llama.cpp build found here

Wow. An ISP going down the route of enshittification by taking away networking basics is not something that i would have expected years ago, but nowadays i am only sad about it.

My ISP wants me to swap out my modem, but as long as it works i won’t do so - i fear they might take away my (officially dynamic, but only changing once in a blue moon when they make changes in their network topology) IPv4 address and stick me back behind the awful CGNAT they have as they did once without asking years ago.

They removed BOTH? what in the… portforwarding is a pretty basic feature to have, and i would switch ISP if they took away Bridge Mode from me.

Nope, but with 3 configs + rescue creating the 4th failed thanks to the added space the nvidia drivers need, which happened before removing the oldest one (which then never happened because the whole thing got stuck)

Edit: This only started after Nvidias Driver increased in size due to the updates around explicit sync - the first few months updating was no issue, which was extra sneaky lol

The only system updates that ever went wrong on my Nobara were borked because i ran out of space on /boot.

On a sidenote: seriously, why did Nobara 40 / Fedora 40 create the boot partition with a default size of 1GB? With Nvidia drivers this is not even enough for more than the rescue environment, the last 2 good configs and the new update, while also not limiting the amount of old configs to a sane amount. Can’t even resize the partition outside of nuking the whole drive. Nowadays you can save space by not putting nvidia stuff on /boot as long as you are not using LUKS, but …

Even that was not known to me at that point. most of my knowledge was years old at this point, and i do not want to say that what i knew at that point was even remotely actual.

They are awesome when used in combination with the gyro for precise aiming! Aim in general with the pad (maybe assign something like double tapping it for a 180° turn in appropiate games) and the gyro for small, accurate movements, and the accuracy is close to using a mouse after a short while. Steam Input in general is absolutely great - there’s not much you can NOT do.

I am somewhat biased because i absolutely love the input options on my steam deck and would love to replicate this to both my PC and the Steam Frame (where i am also on the waitlist). I was already a user of the old Steam Controller (and had 3 steam links in total, because they were the cheapest and most reliable streaming options from a pc back then outside of Nvidias overpriced solution, and my ex-wife made sure we had spares - 2 of them are still up and running) and loved the flexibility it offered - so many things Valve offers are essential to freeing gamers from their desks, making gaming in more relaxed situations a lot more viable.

I’m still on the waitlist for the Steam Controller with an estimate of 2027 -.- Second hand ones go for around 200€, double the price. I can deal with using my Speedlink Rait MX with hall effect sticks and gyro until then.

Edit: I also upgraded my PC right before prices were getting insane, upgraded to 64GB DDR4 and an 5950X, in addition to a direly needed AIO Water cooling system for that CPU (with even a fucking chunky 2 fan cooler the CPU was throttling down hard after ca. 45 seconds of full load), which is the max my mainboard supports. If i ever want to upgrade my system, a completely new one is needed - but if prices dont go down in the next decade, i will keep this sturdy beast running, whatever it costs. I still have enough spare parts to keep it running at a bit lower performance for the next years.

Looked it up yesterday, the cheapest 5090 is available for the low, low price of 6000€ in my area. I could even sell my 5070 that i bought 1 year back with close to 80% markup.

Yep, that was exactly the case back then, and getting the drivers to work was an awful experience, especially since they really didn’t play nice with the iGPU. I for sure was way out of my depth at that time, with just enough linux experience to know that instead of “dir” i have to use “ls”.

Yeah, i had a similar experience. I was messing around with a small Media Center/NAS hybrid running Debian, and it really, really wasn’t happy with the integrated GPU of the AMD A4 i was using, causing instability and tons of graphical glitches especially in video playback, which were not acceptable on a potential media center. My attempts to get help from the community as a linux noob that did not even have enough knowledge to know what commands i could use to get relevant information to add to my cry for help got me a lot of harsh replies before someone was nice enough two days later to help me out. We got it fixed together after a few rounds of replies, but my first impression was not very good.

Nowadays there are so many online resources available, and support boards often have basic information available about what information should be attached and HOW TO GET IT, which reduces friction a lot, and also makes the community a lot more accessible for new users.

I associate these things with guardrails being broken, this should not happen on it’s own. Maybe too much synthetic training data?

High-Quality 4K gaming in combination with live streaming your gaming sessions. Before the Rampocalypse this system would have costed a lot less. Nowadays the cheapest 5090 alone in my area costs more than that entire system - cheapest entry goes for around 6k€, with the cheapest 64GB DDR5 Kit @ 6000MT/s around 1k€. The Processor goes for around 600€. You wont put these components on a crap mainboard or an inadequate case or use a crappy PSU, so add around 1k€ for Mainboard, Case, Cooling and PSU.

We are now at around 9k with internal cabling when taking into account that you won’t get the lowest price on every component, and you don’t even have Storage, a monitor or adequate input devices. With all of that, were talking 11-12k at least.

Switch over to Linux now - the transition is by far not as harsh as it was a decade ago, and with Wine and accompanying technologies you’ll be running whatever software you need in no time.

I was running Win10 as a gamer, because there was no alternative back then. Nowadays i am somewhat surprised if i stumble across some software i can’t just run, and those are in most cases easily replaceable.

Pirating is fine to allow cultural important pieces to penetrate into social spheres that do not have the financial resources to buy them outright. I am pirating pretty much every FitGirl or AnkerGames release i can get my hands on.

But I also pay what i can to support the gamestudios that deserve it, from small indies up to AA-releases like this (AAA Companies can get bent in 90% of cases, esp. when they saturate their game with DLC and MTX). I bought Baldurs Gate 3 at full price, preordered Cyberpunk 2077 and have a vast library of games that i paid for with my limited financial ressources.

I do agree that noone deserves special treatment. But i also am very steadfast in my conviction that Studios that create great games should have stable finances so we can get more of it.

I do not have the money to support all of the great studios out there, so therefor i cannot buy all their games. When I download them, this means that they do not lose a sale over it, because i wouldn’t be able to buy it anyways - and that is the case with the vast majority of pirates.

A pirated copy is not a lost sale, it is a potential costumer that cannot afford the asked price, and good person-to-person marketing. In total, a pirated copy is worth more than someone not buying the game.

I have a vast library of both paid for and pirated games, and when i have the money, i invest it to make sure game studios that make quality content do get what they deserve from me. Alas, i am not a millionaire (far from it - i do not have debt, but i also don’t have a nest egg, living paycheck to paycheck like most common people) - if i had the financial resources, i would only bother with pirated copies to seed them for less fortunate people.

As soon as i have the money to actually pay for the game and the price is at a level where i can allow myself to pay for it, i do it - i want the game studios whose content i consume to survive. But 60€ are a substantial amount of money for me (especially while saving up for a Steam Frame), and i cannot just throw my money after them, regardless of how much they deserve it.

funny thing - the SDRAM used provides 300kb/sec, while the SDcard used as storage provides 200kb/sec. Performancewise they could just skip most of the ram outside of booting and use the SDcard without losing much performance, especially since the SDRAM needs to be refreshed every 62ms for a duration of 3ms regardless of use.

Edit: I LOVE this part:

It takes about 2 hours to boot to bash prompt (“init=/bin/bash” kernel command line). Then 4 more hours to boot up the entire Ubuntu (“exec init” and then login). Starting X takes a lot longer. The effective emulated CPU speed is about 6.5KHz, which is on par with what you’d expect emulating a 32-bit CPU & MMU on a measly 8-bit micro. Curiously enough, once booted, the system is somewhat usable. You can type a command and get a reply within a minute. That is to say that you can, in fact, use it. I used it to day to format an SD card, for example. This is definitely not the fastest, but I think it may be the cheapest, slowest, simplest to hand assemble, lowest part count, and lowest-end Linux PC. The board is hand-soldered using wires, there is not even a requirement for a printed circuit board.

6 hours to get into X is ridiculous- and i misread - it takes 6 hours to boot , and then hours more to get an X server running lol

I would agree with you if this measure weren’t for convicted stalkers, which means that the alternative would be a prison sentence. This is by far more humane and allows the convict to at least live a normal life if he behaves.

This is not mass surveillance. If you wanna see mass surveillance, check your nearby ALPR or CCTV.