I just bought the F.E.A.R bundle from steam a week ago or so, and beat the first game in the series 20 years after release. And other than a fan made .dll patch, it was great. Lacked some depth more modern titles have, but I also noticed how much effort was put into some details that were surprising for its age.

Witcher 3 was also self published, and it came down to 70% off after a few years.

I believe it is where I am too, 36+ is full-time for benefits requirements. Apparently the insurance company asked my employer to please make sure I was working at least 36hrs a week, because for a month or so I was only getting to 32.

I agree, that was basically tapping. Still inappropriate but not like, damaging.

I feel like you’ll end up having to pick some compromises, or spend a lot of money. I think your best bet would be a desktop PC that has a bit more punch for less money than a laptop would be, and then also buy a laptop for your actual laptop needs, if you can find used options you might come in at budget. A laptop with integrated graphics can handle some games, you probably need to pick non-graphic intense games for gaming on the go.

There are some new laptops coming out from Qualcomm that have a Snapdragon X, and they are not as versatile or powerful as Intel or AMD, but they are incredibly power efficient and cheaper. (They are new so we’ll see how that pans out )

$1000 is not enough IMO for a catchall laptop with a modern GPU, AI capable, power efficient, repairable, and lightweight. A 800$ desktop and a $200 laptop/Chromebook/used thinkpad and SSD can probably cover your real use case of school laptop and also gaming/AI at home.

I’ve seen brass colored on some older plugs.