General computer talk/advice

I wouldn't want my PC up on a shelf that high

 

Well, it's been there for over a year so I guess there's no problems

 

Got a GTX 1070 FTW. It's much larger than my 280x was.


Looks pretty cool.

 

Would someone be interested into an Intel Pentium G3220 (3 GHz) Socket 1150 ?
It's like new and come with the stock heatsink.
Don't know what to do with it, PM me !

 

Maybe use it for yourself. Or build a new pc with cheap parts and sell it over ebay maybe youll get some money then
Edit: what do you think is a 550w power supply enough for a high end graphics card? With that i mean something like a nvidia 1080. Also should i wait for vega?

 

Make sure to send it wrapped in a plastic supermarket bag!

 

Of course !

 

And I thought that 64gb in total was enough.
Boy, I was wrong.

 

b...b...but... its 32gb?

 

*including my internal storage

... which is full.

 

1TB is not going to be enough for long these days, I would think that lot of it has to do with HDD space became so cheap that nobody bothers with size optimization anymore, of course graphic sizes have gone up too quite a lot, I remember when 1024 textures were way too big and completely waste to use so big resolution.

I wish that 3TB SSD storage becomes to my price range sometime near future.

 

Use an SSD for OS and critical software and a hard drive for games and archival.

I am sure some optimisation happens. Its probably not the same as it used to be but a lot of that is because game textures and audio are not as compressed as they used to be, mainly because the lossy compression never mattered much in the past but with modern systems makes a big difference.
Equally in the past games often had assets left in that never got used or abandoned levels. So it probably hasn't changed much other than the games being much larger because graphics.

Plus reducing file size often comes with other drawbacks (or benefits depending on point of view and situation?). In the early days of games (primitive) procedural technology was used heavily for generating levels, this is because there wasn't enough storage space to save them so programmers would generate them in run time. Whereas now mainstream games tend to be more hand crafted since it gives the designers and artists more control over what the game looks like and how it makes the player feel. Another issue is that if art assets are compressed heavily (in a lossless format) then you will likely get longer load times since it will take more effort to reconstruct the files.

During the early 2000's is probably where things were at their most hand crafted. But they managed that by making the games have linear levels or limiting scope of detailing. Whereas now open world games have ludicrous amounts of assets all taking up massive amounts of space. Just think of how many individual textures there are in GTA 5, i'm not sure if all the buildings have unique textures (shopfronts etc) but there are enough that no one notices. Either way you look at it that is a metric ass tonne of data. They could possibly store certain textures as text with a font and convert them to textures on the fly to hugely reduce file size, but at the end of the day it would cripple performance.

 

Can't go back to noisy and slow HDD's, currently only moving parts are fans and most of those stop at idle, still things happen fast, but as SSD prices will go down in future, I will get more storage space, then I don't need to do cleanups to HDD every now and then as I have to do now.

First GTA was just fine, it perhaps did not have all chrome strips perfectly modeled, but it was quite fun in 2D, I don't think that graphics have to be photo realistic for game to be very enjoyable, I think that many games have so much resources put to graphics that game itself is quite lacking. Surely pretty is always pretty and as NFS shows, that sells, but if we think Windows for example, while it is hugely bigger, it does not do so much more than you would believe from the size.

But then again, I have Virtual Midi Synth, for that I have downloaded Salamander Grand Piano V3, that is just one piano sound and size is around 1GB, comparing that to some midi sound fonts that are 3MB and have lots of instruments, some might think that is insanity, but I think it is well worth it, on blind test most of people I have played recordings of real piano and that midi synth, they guess wrong which is real one.

So some things have improved a lot with bigger sizes, with some there is actually point of improvement, however some things are huge without much of improvement except eye candy.

 

To be honest focusing less on graphics won't lead to more people working on gameplay, just less artists employed in the sector. Personally I don't need games to be photorealistic but I do like them to have a good strong aesthetic which is how I tend to quantify graphics. However I believe there is a place for games that try to get as close as possible and in GTA the photorealism is part of what draws me to the series. To me that game is about immersing myself in a different world with great music and lots of things to see and look at. GTA 5 however is not a game I would play for its mechanics, the multiplayer is pay to win and the single player has been gimped to try and push people towards the multiplayer. Hence why I really like GTA 4 along side the nostalgia that the game provides, but even GTA 4 can look pretty modern with some new textures and an ENB. I must also admit that I prefer GTA 4's driving too even if it doesn't have customisation. Having said that GTA 5's driving characteristics seem to be ripped straight out of midnight club LA and IMO that game does customisation way better.

When it comes to acoustic instruments it does very much make sense to use a sample based plugin rather than a synthesis one. Mainly because it is very difficult to get those sounds, FM synthesis can get pretty close and in some cases subtractive synthesis can make a valiant effort too. But it just ain't the same. But ofc sample packs need a tonne of space for all of the different samples for each note and often velocities etc with some effects bundled in the interface to give a couple options without having to chain 5 heavy plugins for small adjustments.

On a side note, some hard drives are pretty quiet. My Hitachi Deskstar is on the louder side of things but the WD Blue 1TB that I have is very very quiet. Equally neither of them make any noise under normal computer use because everything important is on an SSD. When playing games the speakers even at modest volumes are loud enough to drown out any noises made by the hard drives. Which tend to only make noise during loading anyway.
However, I can understand the appeal of (near) silent computing where everything is solid state.

 

I think that there is always a budget, that is set, then different aspects eat part from that budget, you can spend on graphics, content etc. Budget defines limits, how you spend that budget defines number of people and what they will be doing. Graphics is easy because generally it is quite fast to do and sells well. Problem with quality content is that it sells less than pretty pics. Operation Flashpoint was not very pretty, it had lot of gameplay hours in it, many other games were prettier and offered just few hours of running at the stairs, but made more money.
You need bigger budget to get more of everything, so I really think graphics quality does have effect to number of people working, relation just is not quite direct one.


You should try that Virtual MIDI synth with Salamander Piano, there are samples and there are synth, combines both and you will not believe how it sounds before trying it out, completely free btw.

WD Red is quietest HDD that actually performs quite well too, it's not the fastest, but it is one for quiet computer, also I think speed difference was not too much, Green was really bad for performance and at least mine is audible, however everyone talks only about Blue or Black from some reason.
Toshiba 300 is like jet turbine, I even doubted for a moment that there is sand inside, must be noisiest HDD I have experienced after Samsung 40GB, which had high pitch bearing whine.

SPCR has some test on WD Red which might be worth to look for anyone looking silent HDD http://www.silentpcreview.com/WD_Red

I don't recommend Noctua fans if looking for quiet fans, them have lot of wind noise, old Nexus fans move more air vs noise level, at least that is my experience, but luckily I don't have to spin fans much at all, but that is one hyped brand where hype is more than results.

 

All my fans are Eneramax, mainly cause my case is made by them and I only have the included ones

But part of why I got an Enermax case is because Enermax make nice fans.

 

Thermaltake is another brand which I have heard good.

Nexus did cost around 20€ each, not cheap, not good, but I guess they last quite long.

My case is Deep Cool brand, it was cheapest, but it still has all the right stuff at right places, air flow is enough good, it is water cooling ready and quality was surprise as last case from 2009 was really poor build quality, while costing a lot more.
Surely HDD mounts in this are not vibration free, but they are no tools variation, really surprised how nice it was for the price.

Cases seems to have improved a lot in last 10 years too, so worth considering investing to new case if someone is going to upgrade.

 

I've got a Toshiba p300 and it doesn't make much noise at all, so you might have gotten a faulty one.

 

It might be that for me sound levels are bit louder than to most, in my room mosquito sounds really loud, because here is no sound sources, at all, outdoors wind is loudest and can't hear that because of sound proofing, so any noise from computer parts sounds kinda loud. Fridge, freezer etc. are on other building, there is nothing moving inside except me and sometimes fans of computers, so I don't know about noise level, but it is lot less than any typical apartment.

Writing with pencil is about equally loud as Toshiba P300 I would estimate.

I live in a place where nobody hears my scream, except bears, bad part is that computer noise starts to get on nerves, so I try to keep it at minimum

 

r.i.p


Any cheap shitty controllers recommendations ?