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The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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7. March 2013 @ 02:45 |
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I sent you a private message Rich. This is getting a bit off topic ;)
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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7. March 2013 @ 16:50 |
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Originally posted by Rich:
Wow, that Toughpower Grand isn't so grand after all. Well, if one can't count on Toughpower Grand gold no less, then that discounts the entire Thermaltake family in my mind, including the little one with no reviews.
Hence why I was concerned about your current 750W.
Originally posted by Rich:
You didn't mention the PCP&C. I didn't catch the weight of that unit, but that is a name that has always stood for quality in PSUs. Heard anything about that one? At 7.1 inches, I like it better than the Seasonic at 7.5 inches.
Sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you over the din of a PCP&C PSU. Something about how good it is? PCP&C have been a very reputable brand in the past despite the absurd noise, but they're now owned by OCZ, one of the worst manufacturers for build quality in every industry they've been in. Facing imminent financial collapse, I'm not sure I want much to do with them.
Originally posted by Rich:
As I said, there are no blower 7970 GE cards. They all have very sexy multi-fan cooling solutions.
What about this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127652
Originally posted by Rich:
And in all the reading I have done about it over the last few days, I have acquired a great deal of respect for the build quality. You can go through the reviews - absent are the typical problems.
Very unlikely, since the GTX680 itself is obviously manufactured by nvidia, and the actual hardware standard underneath is slightly lower for nvidia versus AMD, even if the rest of the card is built better. The fact that it only scores 4 eggs on newegg places it in the same ballpark as most other cards. The low scores may all be due to the fact that you can't overclock the Classified (despite the box saying otherwise) because it's well publicised that GTX680s have poor overclocking headroom - EVGA have used up what little there is in this offering - which hints at long-term stability problems, but rather worryingly some reviewers allude to the fact that this version of the firmware caps the fan speed at a low setting but high temperature. In a less than perfectly ventilated environment, this is going to cause problems for Triple-SLI.
With regard to displayport, it is worth mentioning that all 30" displays released since 2008 have featured Displayport, and if you're not using 30", you don't need dual link. Unfortunately, users of the old 30" Cinema, 3007WFP/WFP-HC, L3065 and XHD3000s lose out. 30" monitors are too much of a niche market to warrant catering for people with older hardware in this genre. I agree, what MSI have done is bad, but it doesn't surprise me. The introduction of the 'basic mode' port on the HD6 series in the reference design was the beginning of the end for proper support for older 30" monitors on the AMD platform.
As far as weather is concerned, we had a couple of warmer days in the middle of the week at 61°F and 55°F respectively, but as recently as a week or two ago we had it drop down to about 25°F overnight and 35°F during the day.
During the winter my room is typically around 75-80°F (if I'm video encoding I need the window open to keep the temperature down to that level, but otherwise it remains closed). During the summer when it's 70°F outside or so, my room is typically kept up to around 90°F with the window open, once it exceeds that, the A/C gets put on.
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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7. March 2013 @ 16:53 |
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90F in your room! THEN you turn the AC on. Geeze LOL! I find 78+F to be unbearable in my room.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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7. March 2013 @ 18:21 |
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I think I became tolerant to high temperatures for all the years I didn't have the A/C. That was only purchased in the latter period of owning quad crossfire (Summer 2010) :)
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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7. March 2013 @ 18:26 |
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I guess I can appreciate that. Working in the facility I do in the summer(VERY hot).
I'm rather tolerant to the cold. Though my hands aren't. They never have been. Or my ears for that matter. Cold nose, no big deal. I can even wear shorts in the winter. But my ears(where there's wind), and my hands... very finicky!
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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7. March 2013 @ 18:28 |
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As I've aged I find I've become a lot less tolerant of cold (although it may be due to being more accustomed to heat as shown above) - but only when still. Walking about outside never used to bother me, but for the first time last month being outside in the 30s Fahrenheit my skin started cracking and peeling off on the back of my hands :/
Has stopped now, but that wasn't exactly a welcome sign of things to come!
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harvardguy
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7. March 2013 @ 20:05 |
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Yeah, I would say generally when one's skin starts to come off, I get concerned.
Originally posted by Sam:
I think I became tolerant to high temperatures for all the years I didn't have the A/C. That was only purchased in the latter period of owning quad crossfire (Summer 2010) :)
hahahaha - That is too funny!
You owned quad crossfire so you had to go purchase an A/C unit!!!
I REST MY CASE!!!!!!!!!!!
Originally posted by Sam:
Originally posted by Rich:
As I said, there are no blower 7970 GE cards. They all have very sexy multi-fan cooling solutions.
What about this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127652
Am I friggin blind? I started to say "where did you dig that up" and then I went back and looked at that graphic on the page before, with the blower style that "aren't the ghz edition" or so I said at the time.
Wow, duhhhh
There's the MSI that you pulled up, right smack in the middle. And in checking right now, it is indeed core 1010. Great!
You know - it's newegg's sorting. I've had that happen before. They have a sort where you start to pull up 7970, and then it starts to give you choices, like GE or maybe Ghz edition, and when you choose that, no blowers come up.
And I had spot checked only the first one of that graphic above, and yes, it is only core clock of 925.
But I see your msi that you pulled up, is indeed core 1010. What about the third? No I checked, not the third. They have a separate ghz edition with two blowers.
So - if the MSI is core 1010 - that is the official ghz edition, correct?
Hmmm, maybe not.
Here's what one reviewer said:
Originally posted by newegg reviewer 1/18/2013:
Pros: very fast!!dual bios switch provide you the chance to flash your video card bios whitout scaring about failing!!!mine is flashing to msi ghz edition with full unlocked tweaks!!
So apparently that is NOT the ghz edition - but why not - it has the 1010 core speed?
Good job anyway for correcting me. Most reviews say the turbine is LOUD. Regarding the classified, yes they lock the fan at no more than 55% to keep noise down, but for most that works okay. However, you have a good point - and there are unlocked bioses available on overclock.net to allow increasing that fan speed if it gets to be a problem.
But anyway, I will thoroughly check out that MSI blower. What does that guy mean he flashed to the ghz edition - what did he gain by doing that - additional voltage unlocks?
Rich
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AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
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7. March 2013 @ 20:54 |
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Gets to sub zero temps in the winter here. Was about -20*F last week. I am very tolerant of cold temperatures. I usually wear lighter clothing than most in the winter or I get too hot. Likewise I can't stand heat. I can tolerate it as we rarely run the A/C, but I hate every second of it with a vengeance. It gets very hot(90s all week not uncommon) in the summer and very cold in the winter.
I would also stay away from PCP&C units. They use ancient internal designs in many units that haven't changed since about 2005-2007. Without their legendary build quality of past years, they just aren't trustworthy any more. The design has stagnated while the actual quality has decreased.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 7. March 2013 @ 21:57
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harvardguy
Member
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8. March 2013 @ 20:44 |
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Trust me guys, Sam and Jeff, after your comments, I will never consider PCP&C.
If a good PSU pops up in the 1600 watt range, that you guys feel is as solid as the Seasonic 1250, then I might take another look at quad cf, despite the excessive heat and noise.
After all, I already do have an A/C unit installed here in the trailer, which I paid to mod in years ago, and I'm not planning to get rid of my lovely 5.1 Medusa headphones for many years to come.
DELICATE 5.1 HEADPHONE REPAIR
In fact, some delicate soldering, nothing more than re-melting actually, under a magnifying glass, fixed the one set of headphones that I use all the time, getting the right rear to start working again. It fixed the spare left rear also, however in that case I actually started to change out some wires, in order to replace the speaker, then I switched gears and put the original back since I had acquired the suspicion it was just a loose solder joint - and yes, that was the case, the original speaker works. That was 3 or 4 hours of extremely painstaking detailed work, quite a hassle really.
Regarding the spare, where I put back the original speaker, comparing the two sets, the spare appears to be totally mis-wired, and that might explain why it never clearly separated out the rear right and rear left like the other set has always done. Shame on Medusa for screwing up the multiple-speakers-in-each-earpiece manufacturing like that.
If I ever had to, I suppose I could re-wire it to match the one that is correct, but that would be an all-day project, with a high chance of failure - the wires are EXTREMELY delicate. For now, all speakers play on the spare, which means full sound with no holes, just NOT perfect 5.1 separation. So, since my base box permits plugging in two units at the same time, I could let someone use the spare, and that person, spectating, would never be able to figure out how come I am so good at guessing which side the enemy, soldier or zombie, is coming from, lol.
Before I ever get around to that all-day project, which I guess I would never do unless the main set died, it is more probable that some day I will invest in a pair of $300 psyko's with the air tubes, which come down from the top, with the very best separation of all, according to reviewers who own both types.
Regarding my Medusas, especially the spare, it amazes me that the thing works at all - some of the wires appear to be completely bare, and they do not seem to necessarily be ground wires as best as I can tell. So why don't they short out against each other? Maybe you guys know more about it. Maybe they, in fact, ARE ground wires, but it appeared that they were not, which was terribly confusing to me.
Additionally, I did end up picking up a box of 10 little 30mm 32-ohm speakers straight from China, costing all of about $10 for the entire bunch, so I am covered in case a speaker actually ever does fail.
NEW 7990 ANSWER TO TITAN
Back to graphics cards, I think that it will be interesting to see what AMD does regarding the 7990. From what I read they wanted to wait to see how fast the Titan was, and then plan a response. I also read that they have some working units, but decided not to show them for the time being - again probably wanting to study Titan a bit more. One of the marketing gurus came over from Nvidia, and wants to "poke" his former employer with an updated 7990 response, as I read.
MICRO-STUTTERING SOLVED WITH RadeonPro
Also, I want to explore RadeonPro. According to some very recent google research over the last couple of days, Tom's reports that RadeonPro virtually eliminated micro-stuttering on AMD crossfire to their gigantic surprise.
Adaptive vsync apparently works well on nvidia (according to Tom's and also according to many of the 680 reviews I read in researching the Classified and the Lightning - some of them talking about how the adaptive vsync really smoothed out their gameplay - others commenting on the TXAA improving the image quality to 8xAA levels with only a 2xAA performance hit) but none of the AMD vsync options appeared to help with the micro-stuttering problem in the Tom's article, as they illustrated in their graphs. However, the RadeonPro utility introduces a concept called dynamic vsync, and like I say, the Tom's testing showed that the micro-stuttering essentially disappeared.
I confess, I can't read their graphs - I see lines jumping up and down, but I don't understand what I am looking at. As Sam pointed out before, they certainly aren't well labelled. But I don't want to blame Tom's for that - I think I'm coming in at the middle of the discussion and I have some catch-up to do.
If I can get back to the beginning of when Tom's first started to study the problem (after multiple reader inquiries) then I am confident that I will find the explanation for their test-bed methodology and for what exactly the graphs are illustrating.
In any event, I am certainly glad that somebody decided to investigate micro-stuttering. I have the feeling that AMD was relatively mum about the subject, because the raw fps numbers remained high - highest in fact - and the dirty little secret of the unpleasant micro-stuttering "bug" only threatened to cast a pall on their shiny victory.
As a marketing person myself, this is pure speculation. But if so, I don't blame AMD in the slightest.
I, too, would have remained silent while continuing to research for an answer. In sales and marketing you have the right to push the best points of your product, without pointing out the negatives, as long as by not doing so, you aren't blatantly cheating anyone. Some gamers are much less sensitive to this, much less irritated and annoyed, than others. I, too, have no wish for AMD to go the way of 3dfx and end up being slaughtered by Nvidia or Intel.
Tom's isn't the only one to have studied this. If you go the wiki article on micro-stuttering, you will find various references, including a Swedish review that also included some similar charting, showing that the 7000 family, in particular, is highly susceptible to this phenomenon.
If the RadeonPro works, that will be a godsend. That's what Tom's said at the conclusion of their article - I believe it was a 7990 review pitting PowerColor against HIS and against Evga on a 690 (I found the link.) They said that AMD should be extremely grateful to the RadeonPro author, John Mautari, for solving this severe bug in multi-gpu gaming. If it works, I quite agree.
I had never known what Jeff was talking about - micro-stuttering - until I enabled crossfire, and that was after sailing through all the Crysis games and Far Cry 2. For some reason I never noticed it on Sleeping Dogs. I had even started to conclude that my lack of sensitivity made me invulnerable to the problem. Haha. But it started to make itself apparent in Far Cry 3, not in driving around, like in the quad 4-runner, or in the wave runner, but while walking around the map.
At what seemed like a steady 38-42 fps, there was very clearly something unusual and irritating happening that was the OPPOSITE of the normal smoothness (with a single card, even at a low 32 fps) which I had experienced and had come to expect from my HIS 7950 gameplay.
To enable the utility, you create a simple profile for each game, according to Tom's mostly just indicating your average frame rate, like through something like Fraps. Okay, that's easy enough to do. In my case, I guess all I need to do is to game for 15 minutes, then exit and take a look at the fps line on the MSI Afterburner graph. Expanding the window along the entire width of the monitor, I can get up to 40 minutes of charting, and I shouldn't have any trouble imputing an average frame rate number.
Mautari has a "donate" button on his website. If the micro-stuttering disappears for me, I'll be very happy to show my gratitude by supporting his fine work with a $50 contribution.
The other imminent project, is to change out the cooler on my 9450, and see if I can pick up the additional 8% cpu power getting from 3.343 to a 3.6 Ghz clock. I have never tried any more overclocking since I was in the mid-tower case.
Surely, especially with the new looser silver stone mesh filters that have dramatically increased my spedo airflow, I have much better ventilation in this full tower case than I had before in the Antec Sonata.
And with a cooler changeout - maybe even to the full size Silver Arrow extreme which requires a back plate, or maybe at the very least to one of the two Arctic push-pin coolers that I picked up for L.A. - the 7 or the 13 - it would seem that the 3.6 Ghz should be achievable.
Rich
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ddp
Moderator
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8. March 2013 @ 20:52 |
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how EXTREMELY delicate are the wires?
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harvardguy
Member
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9. March 2013 @ 03:08 |
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hahahaha
How thin is your receding hairline? I'm just kidding, lol.
Those wires are like working with strands of hair - as you well know, DDP.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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9. March 2013 @ 08:31 |
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Speedlink Medusa headsets, while technically impressive, have always been poorly made. Numerous people at my LANs used to use them, none of them still work. All of them at one stage had some homebrew repair holding them together.
The reason for not producing a reference HD7990 is due to how wildly out of PCI-express spec a dual HD7970 card is. Aside from the fact that PCIe spec only really allows for cards to draw up to 300W, the HD7990s out there even breach the PCIe electrical standard of only carrying 150W per 8-pin connector and 75W per 6-pin/the bus itself, as with three 8-pin connectors and the bus connection, the non-reference HD7990 cards are allowed to draw up to 525 [(3*150)+75], but in GPU compute applications at the full 1000/1050mhz they will actually draw just over 575W DC (48A 12V, or 24A per GPU).
The frame rate variance at toms hardware actually make a great deal of sense - if you see a straight line 1-pixel wide as you'd expect from a graph, the frame rate is consistant. If you see a thick fuzzy graph, it means every frame that is produced is at a much higher, or lower speed than the last. The graph is effectively drawing a plot of 40,60,40,60,40,60 or so, at a very fine resolution, so rather than a broad zigzag, you see a fuzzy block. The taller that fuzzy block, the greater the variance between each frame's rendering time, and the worse micro-stutter is being experienced in this case.
AMD are relatively 'mum' about microstutter because they've never been able to solve it - nvidia although handling the situation slightly better, haven't got a proper answer either. The adaptive VSync idea from RadeonPro is interesting, but generally speaking I try to play games at such a frame rate that I'd never notice microstutter much, so I'd have to carry out the same scientific testing they are doing to see the difference. I did, however, read this article a few weeks back and found it interesting.
As you say though, the issue is somewhat different on HD7 cards, so I'd have to be using a multiple of them to test it, which I don't currently have, and won't for some time. At the moment, shelling out that sort of money on an upgrade is way overboard for the negligible benefit in the games I actually play. When I get round to playing titles like Far Cry 3 and Crysis 3, I'll look into it, but by then, I'm still holding out hope for something better than two HD7970GEs to be affordable to me (What is affordable by then will also depend on what my salary is at that time, there's a fair chance it will have risen 40%+ in 6 months time), because frankly, two HD7970GEs don't always cut the mustard at 2560x1600.
In the not too distant future I'm aiming to be an early adopter of 4K for the workstation environment, and would be willing to pay quite a lot for a display to do it. Prices (and support from software etc.) have still a long way to go yet though, so I suspect that will probably come from the generation after my next upgrade. Still, doesn't hurt to try and prepare for future tech. My 3008WFP (which is my second 30" monitor I hasten to add, I had the 3007WFP for 2 years prior) is now approaching 5 years of age. Hopefully the PSU repair in it will hold out indefinitely as it's a much better component, but by the time I come to replace it, it would be nice to have something better, and quite frankly, there still isn't anything better out there. 30" 2560x1600 is as good as it gets, and save an LED backlight, I already have the rest - displayport etc.
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harvardguy
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9. March 2013 @ 17:22 |
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Wow, Sam, brilliant as always.
.................(tiny correction: RadeonPro uses the term dynamic VSync, the term "adaptive VSync" is the Nvidia term)
Originally posted by Sam:
The frame rate variance at toms hardware actually make a great deal of sense - if you see a straight line 1-pixel wide as you'd expect from a graph, the frame rate is consistent. If you see a thick fuzzy graph, it means every frame that is produced is at a much higher, or lower speed than the last. The graph is effectively drawing a plot of 40,60,40,60,40,60 or so, at a very fine resolution, so rather than a broad zigzag, you see a fuzzy block. The taller that fuzzy block, the greater the variance between each frame's rendering time, and the worse micro-stutter is being experienced in this case.
Thank you so much for that. Ok, I sort of get the feeling, but to wrap my arms around what exactly I am looking at, I'm still uncertain. You say "rendering time."
Now the key to this whole thing is the time difference from the frame just before the current frame, right? If that is always the same time difference, it's a straight line, no micro-stuttering, smooth gameplay.
So taking your words, rendering time, then can I assume that each point on their fuzzy graph is the time span, in milli-seconds, between the last frame and this one?
You said 40, 60, 40. I believe you were referring to frame rate, but now I think you were actually referring to imputed frame rate from the rendering time, which is simply the inverse of the frame rate. Almost the same thing, just flip it upside down.
So average 40 fps, means average 25 ms between frames. Average 50 fps means average 20 ms between frames, average 60 means average 17 ms between frames.
I think I am on the right track - but if not please correct me - FAST!! LOL
So the graph, from your comments, is showing the elapsed time from the last frame to this frame, and if our frame rate is jumping from 40 to 60 back to 40, the graph will show elapsed time from the last frame, of 25 ms, then 17 ms, then 25 ms.
Assuming I have the right idea now, then that is HUGELY helpful, and I think I can skip trying to go back to when Tom's first started studying the phenomenon.
As to the rest - wow - yes I had read many times about the 8 pin power delivery of 150 watts, and then somebody said 25 watts per pin couple, which is only 100 watts per 8 pin - but anyway, I started looking at the power draws and it didn't quite add up. So those beasts take 3 8-pin connectors, wow. Well, makes sense.
That possible salary increase sounds impressive - good luck with that. That would be a bit of a game-changer.
But what is this:
Quote:
In the not too distant future I'm aiming to be an early adopter of 4K for the workstation environment, and would be willing to pay quite a lot for a display to do it. Prices (and support from software etc.) have still a long way to go yet though, so I suspect that will probably come from the generation after my next upgrade.
I continue to quite thank you for leading me into 30 inches. It's only 6 inches beyond the beautiful 24 inch displays, but in my case I was on a 19 inch Dell, so you can imagine the difference.
I still have that 19 inch Dell 1440x900 sitting there on the same table with the 30 - David and Goliath. I still turn the table around and use the 19" for phone calls - mostly displaying family pictures as I dial for dollars, to help pass the time. If I get some interest, then I'll write a skeleton personal new customer note, right then and there, using the little monitor, to be inserted later as a way of customizing the main form letter which is done on my everyday business desktop on the other table. Haha.
Then, for serious gaming, the table rotates around 180 degrees, and on into the splendid landscape of Far Cry 3 do I go. I hope the RadeonPro solves the micro-stuttering. I might wait a bit on Crysis 3 until it comes to Steam, especially since my cpu for sure will hold me back on that title, not to mention my graphics cards as well, as you discussed.
Rich
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AfterDawn Addict
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9. March 2013 @ 17:48 |
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Dynamic VSync, Adaptive VSync - different terms for copyright purposes, same technique effectively.
Rendering time in a nutshell:
Achieving 40fps means that in any given second, you've drawn 40 frames (or if you sample more often than that, perhaps it's 4 frames in a 100ms period). It doesn't tell you anything about how long it took EACH FRAME to be rendered however.
You may manage to render 40 frames in a second, but if 3 of those frames took 500ms, and the other 37 took the remaining 500ms, your average for that second is 40fps, but for half of that second, you were running at 6fps.
Now in real-world gameplay this will happen all the time as in-game action always takes less than a whole second - the animation being drawn for the muzzle flash of a gun firing may only take a tiny fraction of a second to render, but if that animation, for whatever reason, cuts your frame rate, you have a short period of a poorer frame rate that is not borne out by the averages.
So how does that differ from micro-stutter? In the strictest sense of the term, micro-stutter is continuous. No matter what's going on, for how long, it's always there, and the reason it's always there is because of the way crossfire/SLI are supported by the game you're playing. What happens is although both GPU1 and GPU2 are working on the game, the work assigned GPU1 and GPU2 varies per frame, so you end up waiting for one or the other to finish the job. before the primary card outputs the scene to the monitor. This means that the frame rate can vary wildly from one frame to the next, no matter what happens on-screen.
When you graph this in frames per second on a per-frame basis (i.e. frame 1 took 30ms to render, so that's 33fps, frame 2 took 50ms to render, so that's 20fps), you see a line bouncing back and forth at a very high rate (once every frame - so 30+ times a second), hence the big fuzzy graph. Your average frame rate for the whole second (or worse, the whole benchtest - see why average fps benchmark charts are so bad?) will give no indication that this is going on, but it's there alright/
Forget about wattage per-pin with 6/8-pin connectors. Believe it or not, the 8-pin connector has the same number of live conductors (three) as the 6-pin. The other two are just grounds, which identify that an 8-pin connector has been connected. 150W is fine to travel down three wires of that thickness, the extra pins are used to physically determine that you have a PSU powerful enough for the job - if you've not enough 8-pin connectors, the idea is your PSU isn't powerful enough!
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harvardguy
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9. March 2013 @ 21:17 |
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Wow.
Well then as you've described the reasons for the micro-stuttering, I wonder how this RadeonPro can actually appear to clean it up so much.
I downloaded it a couple days ago, so now I have to put it on my gaming machine and try it out sometime over the next week or so. I should get into the game for an hour, as it is, get used to the micro-stuttering, then load the radeon pro, and see what happens. Hopefully I'll be $50 poorer but with a nice and excited update within the next 10 days.
Edit: I got on the game, but I've been gone so long, 5 or 6 weeks, I forgot my main keys. So I got it figured out, and I noticed the reset. I had just gone in on my save where the wave runner is on the river waiting for me. (There are no wave runners on that river - I had to trick the AI director into giving me one, then I saved, and it continues to be there parked outside the safe house when I load that 46 save folder.)
So then I decided to do the reset. It said "You cannot undo this" but I can undo it any time I want by putting a different prior-saved 46 folder in the right spot - I have about 15 different saves all together. So I let it do it, and then I found myself in the original safe village with the natives. I opened the map - solid red, the top islands, and the bottom, lol. All the enemies were back. That was funny.
So I looked and the compound itself was still a fast travel safe house. I travelled there, and sure enough, there were some privateers around, so I arrowed them for fun. I ended up getting in one of their jeeps with the big 50 in the back. I drove down the road and without knowing it, I passed the normal safe house with the wave runner. I stopped and manned the 50 as enemies poured out. I had to hit health a couple times, but I mowed everybody down - that 50 is not to be messed with. So the blue flag goes up, and I now have the one and only liberated outpost in the new reset game.
Great. And then I saw my wave runner parked where it always is. "What the hell - what is that doing there?" I was really surprised to see it!! Then the evil thoughts began to percolate. Wait, if this map is now all enemies, then the fort down at the other end of the river near the sea, is enemy. Sure enough - I'm on the wave runner and they're shooting at me and firing RPGs. Hahahah. One of them was actually a good shot and I was killed, but then I spawned about 100 yards away - on my wave runner still. I attacked again - meaning I drove around in crazy circles dodging bullets, and then they called the reserves, and then two rubber boats of guys manning the on-board machine gun came - that was REALLY great! I got killed again - I'm now playing the ultra hardest which is unlocked with the reset.
So I decided - "Man this is cool, I need to save this." So I headed the other way and got back to the fort I had just liberated, and parked in my old spot, and saved it, then exited the game, created a new saved folder for myself with notes, and copied in that particular 46 folder. I went back in to test - yes, there was the wave runner.
Anyway, the real reason for this edit: The spedo does not have a removable motherboard tray. But it does have an opening, and you can see the back of the motherboard I think - I know I have a slow 120mm exhaust fan installed for the back of the motherboard. I am wondering if that might give me access to install the backplate for the silver arrow extreme that I bought a couple weeks ago. While waiting for the nehalem - I might not get back up to L.A. for 2-3 more months because of things he's got going - I might just try to max this 9450 - can I get it above 3.6 - you guys said probably not.
By the way, I really couldn't feel the micro-stuttering too much.
-------- I looked it up, there is no rear access. And my fan is installed from the inside, before I put the motherboard in, lol. Anyway, so for the big cooler I'd have to loosen up the motherboard, and get it so I could reach behind and put on that backplate like I saw in a YouTube video.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 10. March 2013 @ 22:21
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harvardguy
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11. March 2013 @ 20:32 |
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@Sam:
In light of valuable information that you have provided, as is always the case when you contribute, I want to add one more thought to the discussion about 30" display support. This thought is phrased as a question, perhaps regrettably just a rhetorical question.
THIS MONITOR WAS PURCHASED ONLY 4 YEARS AGO
I just happened to find my original paperwork yesterday on the Dell 30" monitor, which I thought I had purchased in 2008. The exact date of purchase was Jan 31st, 2009, for the sum of $850. I drove up the Valley and Robert allowed me to turn it on in Kinko's to verify that there were no stuck or dead pixels. Obama had just been elected for the first time, and Robert mentioned that America now had "a new face" which he thought signaled a welcome change. I agreed.
I handed him the cash and filled out a receipt from the receipt book that I had brought with me, which we both signed, and he told me how to get the warranty transferred.
That was almost exactly 4 years ago. The monitor was new, and Dell had recently shipped 4 of them to Robert at the auto parts store which he managed. Perhaps they were already producing the new model that you eventually bought, Sam, which has more connectivity, including displayport, but they were still shipping out the last of the brand new 3007's.
I have never taken the monitor off my table to a LAN event, or for any other reason. I continue to have no dead nor stuck pixels, and when I think it is getting hot, I turn on the very noisy bus driver 12 volt trailer fan (I should go get a new quiet one) to keep it cool - I don't want the internal electronics to overheat and give me problems.
That near-$1000 investment is still perfect for my needs. You said yourself, a post or two above, there really is nothing better in your opinion, than your 2560x1600 resolution monitor. I couldn't agree more.
But now I find myself in a position, as you have pointed out, where it appears that AMD is reducing support for my small market niche, "legacy" 30-inch monitors without a displayport. Whereas Nvidia does not seem to be doing that.
Since . . . . . . . . .
#1. I do not see any reason for going out and replacing my perfectly fine 2560x1600 near-$1000 investment in a first class monitor 4 years ago, any more than Jeff feels like swapping out his gorgeous Dell 24" that he invested almost $650 in maybe 3 years ago,
and since . . . . . . . . .
#2. The board of preference, after a lot of research, the supremely well-made, military spec high-end MSI 7970 Lightning Ghz product, will not run on my monitor, because neither of its two dvi ports is dual link, but from the same vendor, the very fine MSI Lightning GTX680 WILL run on my monitor with its single dual link dvi port, and also, from another vendor, the Evga GTX680 Classified, equally as fine a product as the Lightning in my opinion, and perhaps even a better choice for two-slot sli spacing situations, also provides a dual link dvi port.
THEN:
. . . . . . what other choice do I have but to conclude that AMD is no longer very concerned about my business, insofar as allowing its high-end partners to make these kinds of manufacturing choices which limit connectivity, and therefore . . . . .
. . . . . . what other choice do I have but to switch my allegiance to the vendor whose high-end partners continue to provide support for my hardware?
Rich
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12. March 2013 @ 12:33 |
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There are other HD7970s out there you know! That is a failing on MSI's part, not AMD. The reference design includes a dual-link port.
Also yes, the first 3008WFPs came out at the beginning of 2008.
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harvardguy
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10. April 2013 @ 22:19 |
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Wow, over the past month I've played Dishonored - when I noticed it got the BAFTA award for best video game I decided to get it. Awesome game!
And I played Bioshock Infinite. Also awesome game!
The last great zeppelin battle is really challenging. I was playing at hard difficulty - one of the steam articles about the game actually suggests doing that in order not to blast through the game so fast. But that last battle is unreal. After 10-15 hours of trying to beat it I had dropped to medium, but finally had to drop all the way down to easy to beat it and finish the game. Then a few days later I went back with some strategy ideas, and only just barely beat it at medium difficulty after a couple hours. The key was to buy some weapons upgrades earlier in that chapter, which doubled the size of the magazine, and therefore the ammo you could carry, on the repeater rifle that the pirates bring with them. Oh, there was also a buy that you could do to increase the repeater damage per bullet. Those two buys seemed to be essential.
(But forget hard - I would like to see a YouTube of somebody beating it on hard if it is actually possible.)
I have lots of screenshots for both of those - I might eventually post some if this thread activates itself. I guess everybody is over at the builder thread.
Bioshock
I was so impressed with Bioshock Infinite, that I decided to give Bioshock original one more try. It improves greatly after the first couple of hours. I am now trying to finish the device that will unlock the gate to Ryan's house. I accidentally saved when my last bot got killed, so now I am sans bot and dying a lot. I prefer to run around with a bot, zap the splicers, and let the bot finish them off. That is kind of fun. They want me to kill another big daddy - I've only killed 2 so far in the game - but they cheated me out of 160 adam points earlier - I had paid for an extra combat space and an extra machine space or maybe the other one, and never got it. Anyway, I do have that hypnotize big daddy that I have used a couple times - it saved my butt when I had to hold off the attack while the plant juice was getting mixed up.
But I see that I am kind of losing interest. Well, I've come this far - I might as well finish it.
Dishonored - unbelievably great game. Sam, you've probably already played it - but it's all about England and the Queen - so I'm sure that much of it would probably bring back a lot of memories of childhood rhymes and stories. BAFTA was spot on with their award on that game.
There was one particular point in the game where I was shocked speechless and stuck around to "bury" a couple of people. I was moved more than in any other game I have ever played. I created a save for just before that, but it's painful to go back to that scene.
That's how great some of the writing is.
Rich
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11. April 2013 @ 04:34 |
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That Dishonored looks pretty interesting. I may have to check it out this weekend. :D
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12. April 2013 @ 05:27 |
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Have heard great things about Bioshock Infinite. Bioshock was good and Bioshock 2 was below average but both shared the problem of repetition and stagnation in the environments and enemies. They were boring and quickly ran out of creative steam. Apparently Bioshock Infinite does everything within its power to avoid earlier pitfalls. I am interested to try it and see.
Have also heard nothing but good things about Dishonored. Another game I intend to try very soon.
It seems game quality is slowly on the rise again. Several excellent titles released in the past year or so that could have easily sucked :)
By the way, Aliens Colonial Marines sucks balls. Horrible, boring game that fails in every respect.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
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12. April 2013 @ 05:49 |
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 12. April 2013 @ 05:51
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12. April 2013 @ 07:43 |
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Colonial Marines was a bitter disappointment... I could spend pages explaining the ways it failed both design and technology-wise. Suffice to say the version we have now is largely unfinished. The game never had a stable developer or visionary lead. One studio would get it, say "everything the previous guys made sucks," then start over from scratch again. The end result is a mix of scripting, level design, and assets from many different developers and many different technology generations. Everything is disjointed and tacked together in the worst way possible. One of the worst quality games I have ever played.
Bioshock Infinite was an unexpected surprise though. After the disaster of Bioshock 2, I wasn't anticipating much. Very surprised to hear what I have about it.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388
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harvardguy
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16. April 2013 @ 01:56 |
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Well, you know what, Bioshock picked up a bit after killing Ryan. The maps changed a lot and the change was refreshing. I liked the wide-open streets on the way to getting Fontaine. By the way, how thick would the glass have to have been in that city to withstand the pressure of "bottom of the Atlantic." About 3 feet thick I would guess - but we'll give them creative license.
Anyway, I can't believe I never got into Bioshock until just now. They had a little demo that didn't promote the game very well, I guess. But after playing Bioshock Infinite, I had to go back to the source of it all. And now I know why everybody raved so much about it - quite bold and innovative.
The graphics were beautiful, and the water effects very very nice:
And in addition to the wide open streets at the end, which I liked, there were many changes of scenery throughout - some quite lovely:
At the very end, I was having a helluva time killing Fontaine and I even tried to drop the difficulty from hard - but it wouldn't let me. Fortunately I wised up, and I started to get better at dodging those fireballs, and preserving the 9 health packs I started with, but it still took me about 10 attempts to finish the game.
What helped was electro-juice from the chemical thrower on his first incarnation as a fireball - just sit there and zap him until he goes back to his adam chair. Okay - that's two of 4. Next he comes as iceman - with those 50 foot icicles. Keep out of his way - go long range, and from time to time lob a grenade at him when you can get back behind cover. Okay, that was good for third time draining adam - now only one more.
But by then the little splicers are around and at least one bot - I didn't really do that well, and had to use a health machine I came across when I got down to 1.3 health left - thankfully I still had some money left. I suppose I could have zapped the bot then shotgunned it, instead I wasted a lot of machine gun ammo. Anyway, somehow I managed to hit Fontaine with enough pistol shots that he went back to the chair for his final time - Good Riddance You Jerk!
I had a little bit of a difficult time with the controls on Bioshock. For Infinite, they wisely, in my opinion, put the spells, called vapors, on their own key. What I found I had trouble with on Bioshock was hitting the fire key for spells as well as for weapons. It worked a little better when I tried to do it the way they first teach you - spell first, then while they are stunned, switch to weapon and finish them off. I put the main plasmid to weapon switch on middle mouse which helped - default is right mouse but that didn't work for my brain.
Anyway, yes I should have played Bioshock a long time ago, but better late than never.
Rich
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16. April 2013 @ 02:15 |
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Your image says "lol" Ha ha!
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harvardguy
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16. April 2013 @ 02:20 |
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Quote:
Tell me though, if it's all about England and the Queen, why is it spelt Dishonored and not Dishonoured? hmm?
Haha, good one Sam. That never occurred to me. Next time I bounce out to get some petrol, driving down the wrong side of the road, if I make it back alive I'll perhaps have an answer for you. :P (You'll go bonkers over the game!)
So Kevin, did you get to it?
Just as I had trouble with the firing controls for Bioshock, I had similar problems with Dishonored, which as Sam pointed out should have been named Dishonoured (the mucked up British spelling.)
This game is brilliant - incredible art work, and riveting story line (suggestion: expand out the pictures to better read the subtitles):
You play as the guy who is pulling the other character away from the girl on the throne:
Back to controls - left mouse is mostly reserved for a sword swing - and you always have your sword handy. They use right mouse for shooting the weapon in the left hand, like your revolver, but I round that terribly confusing. I found a spot where I was being attacked by 4 guys, and I quick-saved it and kept repeating that scene with different key assignments, until I got comfortable.
What finally worked for me was to use right mouse for melee - which means to block a sword thrust. That worked because of my Left 4 Dead training.
Right Kevin? - you were big into that game - right mouse for melee, correct? When all the little zombies are hording and you are reloading, just melee those guys back, then shoot their heads off.
So right mouse, melee - meaning block - and left mouse for swing meaning attack. When I settled on that I got way better on the sword fights. And you'll know what I mean when you play, but I pretty much always used the bone setting for "hurricane" or some such name - meaning fast swing. You definitely need that to win most of those sword battles.
For the other hand, your pistol most of the time, but also your crossbow, and your spells, I think I initially settled on the C key, which I can usually find pretty reliably. But now I remember, that later I actually changed that to the caps lock key. Yes, it was when I had to rise up from cover, shoot, then move back down quickly, to kill some spitting plants actually. Hitting C was interfering with my W and S move and retreat, so caps lock ended up working better.
Spitting plants - does that remind anybody of that lovely Half Life 1 and 2 creature which spits at you with that toxic acid! I hated that thing! The visual designer of Dishonored is the well-respected Viktor Antonov - my animator/modeler relative knew him from Valve - knew that "he was the lead artist" on Dishonored. Actually as I just said, his official title was visual designer which I think is a higher level of responsibility than lead artist. But he was also the visual designer or lead artist on Half Life 2 and the creative force behind City 17. I just read an interview where he says that Dunwall, the city in Dishonored, is much richer content-wise than the 2004 City 17, and I would have to very much agree - they took advantage of the much improved graphics options available some 8 years later.
There is a great deal of hand-drawn art in the video game, which spent 3 years in pre-production as they fleshed out all the new ideas that kept getting added into the mix. This game was 5 years in the making, and the result is stellar.
Some of the vistas are exceptional. You just have to stop and hit the screenshot key. Here is way up on a roof trying to get a handle on how to get to and cross an amazing bridge in order to reach some scientist that I have to kidnap.
And look at the bridge:
Before I forget - back to mana, what you need for spells. They had another lovely bone setting - drink water and gain mana. As I just said, Mana is what you use for your spells. Food you use for health. But when you find a sink, if you have found this particular all-important bone, at that moment you can move the bone to the drink and get mana position, and just take several gulps and you're stocked up. Wonderful thing to do! You see, just like Bioshock, you can't keep all the options active. But unlike Bioshock, you don't have to go find a gene machine. You can switch your bones around any time.
The story had many very riveting characters. Some of them are just ordinary British blokes, like this guy:
or this lady:
or this not so ordinary, somewhat spoiled little girl:
Yes, sit up straight Sam, we're talking about the royal princess:
Sam is going to love the rhymes and poems, which will take him back to merry English school days, and songs and tales about murder and other such wholesome child folklore:
Yeah, that one starts out tame, but finishes up a little more somber:
Yeah, let's slit his throat and toss him over the side, jolly good fun!
You wear a mask for most of your stealthy hi-jinks throughout the city. They don't know who you are under that mask, but they have several eye-witnesses to the havoc you wreak.
But the disguise is handy, when you decide to go to the masked ball of one of your intended victims.
You receive a variety of compliments, like "Your disguise is a perfect copy of that murderer roaming the streets - I so love a man with bad taste."
Another gentleman says "What a horrid mask - I already like this party much better."
You have to take a special note to a certain man with a wolf mask. He begins to cuss out the aristocrat who told you to deliver the note, and then you find you've just been volunteered to be his stand-in in a pistol duel. LOL
But not everything is so jolly in jolly old England, and I'm not just talking about your need to disembowel half the inhabitants.
There is actually a plague ravaging the city, brought by hordes of rats which are everywhere. These fine people were rounded up by the police, then dumped out of a train into a water area below, and finally dragged themselves up to the street.
They don't know who you are - you aren't wearing your assassin mask, and you look too healthy to have been on that trainload of dying bodies.
The younger one doesn't want to give up just yet, even though the odds are hopeless.
But those valiant words of reform, were his last.
I hung around for a while, and when the father died I laid them out together.
So as not to end on such a macabre tone, let's finish up with a look at the brothel rescue of the princess:
The architecture and grounds are stunning - only the wealthiest clientele is entertained here.
The working girls are talking about the little prisoner who keeps trying to escape:
And others have dozed off with their inebriated clients - you don't have to worry about bothering them as long as you crouch and thereby move around noiselessly.
What is going on in this magnificent hallway?
Ah, another pair of girls who don't even know you are here, who are in a sort of slumber, slow-dancing together oblivious of the assassin in their midst. What a lovely sight it is:
And there you have it - an incredibly diverting, richly rewarding "Dishonored: Best Game of the Year" says BAFTA, and I agree.
Rich
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