Tool for locking yourself out of gaming.

[Imabunny88]

When I set about my 90 day detox, I knew it would not be enough to simply uninstall my games or get rid of accounts. Having a fast internet connection makes it so I could re-download a large game in less than an hour.

Solution?

I switched to linux as an operating system. This effectively strips out your desktop computer's ability to run games.

As gamers you all probably know that linux does terrible with running games, and this is because the entire gaming industry including hardware makers relied on direct3d for rendering graphical worlds. Linux has no direct3d equivalent. That doesn't mean it can't play 1080p videos or run multiple monitors, but the 3d graphical rendering is nowhere close to what it is on windows. 

I did save my windows product key if I want to switch back, but I won't even consider that till after the 90 day detox.

I am currently running Kubuntu, which is a flavor of ubuntu. Getting all your hardware correctly working can be a little challenging, but once it's set up you're done. I have a feeling everyone here is technologically literate enough to get linux fully operational on your pc. I've found that since installing linux, I actually use the computer a lot less. It has really highlighted how much of my time was centered around being on the computer, in a game world. 

Just another strategy among many,

Bunny

 

[stabi]

Depends on your machine.

If you have a laptop with hybrid graphics then using Linux will be a pain in the ass.. I used Linux on my main Laptop - with hybrid graphics - for 2 years and ended up going back to windows, because after almost every update something was messed up with the GPU (Especially Xorg...), if you have a Laptop (or PC) with a integrated Graphics card only, then it is totally fine to mess around with Linux I'd say.

But also keep in mind: If you have some special programs (Photoshop is a good example) it wont run as good as on windows - Gimp is no equivalent though. Sure you could run it in a virtual machine, but when you end up using a virtual machine with windows installed more than your actual operating system, you could stay on windows and use your tools with the native performance.

BUT: If you are interested in learning and troubleshooting linux it is definitely a good way to just install it right away (before you created a backup of your important files!) and just play around with it.

[Imabunny88]

I'm not sure how many pc gamers would fall in the hybrid graphics camp.

I'm running it on a dedicated graphics card : nvidia 1060 6gb right now, and installing the nvidia drivers was a breeze through adding the ppa. If there is a hybrid graphics situation, can you not just defer to the dedicated gpu only? Or does the dedicated gpu only function as a booster? 

The only issue I really had upon switching was that the intel microcode for my i5-4590 had to be installed. The microcode for certain later generation processors like kabylake coffeelake and haswell was producing write errors, and was running extremely slow and choppy. An apt-get install intel-microcode fixed it in about 15 seconds and a reboot though. 

That is a good point about photoshop. 

Quote

Sure you could run it in a virtual machine, but when you end up using a virtual machine with windows installed more than your actual operating system, you could stay on windows and use your tools with the native performance.

Or if you have some kind of removable drive or extra partition. You could dual boot a barebones windows install, say 25gb just to run photoshop and discourage game installation. Any work output could be saved to your linux installation or other storage drive.

Barring things like photoshop, for gamers trying to quit, switching to a linux install meets the needs most users will have, while creating a much larger re-entry barrier, discouraging relapse. I was thinking more about creating distance and barriers for the 90 day detox, than a permanent switch. But, if you end up liking it, why not stay?

 

 

 

Edited February 23, 2018 by Imabunny88