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Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Printable Version

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RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Oscare - 06-24-2014

(06-24-2014, 05:44 PM)Aya Wrote: Oh?  That thing in Coatleque's picture wasn't an aquarium?  ^^
I am relieved I am not the only person who thought that at a distance glance.
50" though?! @_@ Girl, you're insane.

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Jancis - 06-24-2014

(06-24-2014, 04:06 PM)Natalie Mcbeef Wrote: I've never had a problem. Maybe you just need to get a better machine. Cool
 Pffft laptops are so yesterday.

Tablets are the way to go. Just touch and win.

[Image: nR79pIJ.jpg]

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - McBeefâ„¢ - 06-24-2014

(06-24-2014, 07:16 PM)Jancis Wrote:
(06-24-2014, 04:06 PM)Natalie Mcbeef Wrote: I've never had a problem. Maybe you just need to get a better machine. Cool
 Pffft laptops are so yesterday.

Tablets are the way to go. Just touch and win.

[Image: nR79pIJ.jpg]

Damn. I'm rich, but I'm not that rich.

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Oscare - 06-24-2014

Those specs though.
HD i1895. All these quality pixels.

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - McBeefâ„¢ - 06-24-2014

(06-24-2014, 05:48 PM)Oscare Wrote:
(06-24-2014, 05:44 PM)Aya Wrote: Oh?  That thing in Coatleque's picture wasn't an aquarium?  ^^
I am relieved I am not the only person who thought that at a distance glance.
50" though?! @_@ Girl, you're insane.

Heh. 50 inches? I hooked my computer up to the projector in the conference room and am playing it on the big screen.

[Image: 2014-06-24]

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Kage - 06-24-2014

You're supposed to use one of the smart classrooms. preferably BSIII

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Coatleque - 06-24-2014

(06-24-2014, 07:43 PM)Natalie Mcbeef Wrote: Heh. 50 inches? I hooked my computer up to the projector in the conference room and am playing it on the big screen.

One of our clients has a conference room with a full-sized video wall. That's right. Not a projector, but the entire wall is a built-in tv. Might be OLED. Not sure, but I heard the setup cost them ~$25-50k

The real tragedy is that they are moving out of that suite in a month, and leaving it behind.

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - allgivenover - 06-24-2014

At $500 you're not getting a laptop that can play the game better than what you have now. 

What you want at that price is a budget desktop gaming machine. There are many, many, many ways to do this, and it's late for me so I can't get into too much detail, but here is one way to go about building your own desktop gaming machine around that price point. Note this wouldn't have an optical drive to start so you'd have to download your games or cannibalize it from your old desktop, your old monitor is likely still usable so I didn't include that in the budget. This would be very up-gradable down the road as well.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/C84Tzy

I chose these parts without considering hardware loyalties or any sort of fanboyism. That sort of subjective preference is something you have to ditch when building on a budget.

Let me be clear that you can definitely do much better than this example build I showed you with some time and research effort. http://www.logicalincrements.com/ is a great place to start.

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Coatleque - 08-15-2014

The aforementioned client decided to take their video wall.

Here it is, not yet unpacked, but bolted to the wall of the lobby in their new sweet. I tried using a banana for reference, but you couldn't see it on the floor, so use the couch there instead.

[Image: Qknfh7j.jpg]

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Sylvain - 08-18-2014

I'd rather piggy back off this topic than start a new one.

What is the number one bottleneck for multi-screen gaming? I'd like to think it's the GPUs and video memory available but that doesn't seem to be the case with my current setup.

CPU: i7 930 @ 3.8
Mobo: Rampage III Extreme
GPU: 2x EVGA GTX670Sced 4GB
Memory: 12GB Dominator GT
SSD: OCZ Vertex 2 120GB

Game Resolution: 6040x1080

In most situations at maximum settings I'm getting at least 25-30 in Limsa and 45-50 everywhere else. The one thing that bugs me are the particle effects for instance zoning points (the blue warp thing outside a dungeons respective physical entry point) and walls after starting a boss fight cause 'warping' to happen where the game luls than catches back up in a sense. FPS isn't really impacted as it's all smooth but the game literally just luls.

One thing I know is my motherboard isn't PCI-E 3.0 like the GPUs. This I understand bottlenecks but how much I'm not sure. I've been waiting for DDR4 memory to hit the market and do a Mobo/CPU/Memory update and that's soon going to be an option.

Wanted to know if there's anything to be done in the meantime?

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Coatleque - 08-18-2014

At that resolution, the only bottleneck would be the cards themselves.

Try disabling shadows first and see if that helps. Shading in games causes the largest video overhead, even before resolution and anti-aliasing.

{edit}
As far as PCI-Ex 2 vs 3, your cards are most likely not filling the bandwidth of the current bus either way. Like running a 7200 rpm drive on SATA 2 vs 3... there's no difference because the drive's physical read/write speed maxes out before the bus speed.

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Sylvain - 08-18-2014

(08-18-2014, 02:15 PM)Coatleque Wrote: At that resolution, the only bottleneck would be the cards themselves.

Try disabling shadows first and see if that helps. Shading in games causes the largest video overhead, even before resolution and anti-aliasing.

{edit}
As far as PCI-Ex 2 vs 3, your cards are most likely not filling the bandwidth of the current bus either way. Like running a 7200 rpm drive on SATA 2 vs 3... there's no difference because the drive's physical read/write speed maxes out before the bus speed.

Shadows give me maybe 2FPS increase. Disabling all gives me about 7.

Using laptop settings at that resolution gives me 60 FPS easy but I still suffer the 'lul' from particle effects. Out in no-man's land I will get 60FPS steadily.

Also I just remembered, this game isn't technically SLI ready yet correct? nVidia has some drivers the the games way of rendering doesn't fully utilize multi-GPU configurations?

E1:

How would two PCI-E 3.0 16x cards not be filling the bus speed of a 2.0 motherboard?

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Coatleque - 08-18-2014

(08-18-2014, 02:27 PM)Sylvain Wrote: Also I just remembered, this game isn't technically SLI ready yet correct? nVidia has some drivers the the games way of rendering doesn't fully utilize multi-GPU configurations?

Possibly? I haven't used SLI myself before. Try running it on one GPU and see if it helps? You should be able to dual monitor one GPU by using the VGA out, and one of the Digital outs (DVI and HDMI share a channel on nVidia cards, last time I tried this)

{edit}
Regarding your edit, just because the card is rated for PCI-Ex 3 doesn't mean it's running the entire bandwidth. There's quite a few PC specs out there that are simply that, specs on paper. You'd be hard pressed to actually use them.

Another example would be your NIC. I bet it's rated at 10/100/1000 Mbps. Even at full download speed, you are not using the full 1000 Mbps bandwidth because either your hard drive can't write fast enough, or the source server can't upload fast enough. Chances are it only hits 20% at max.

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - LiveVoltage - 08-18-2014

Since this is about tech, might as well throw this in here.

Ive been thinking of upgrading to a video card instead of using my on-board built-in graphics processor which is built into the motherboard. My built in motherboard video processing unit can handle FFXIV on normal setting with slightly beefed up stats just fine but I have been thinking about maxing out what its graphically capable of doing and I was wondering what video card would you recommend for that and wont overcharge me a price like something Invidia would sell.

Also, the biggest thing that MMO's typically need are a good (Preferably multiple) Large Hard Drives or Solid State Drives, Powerful Internet connectivity (while this isnt a requirement, gameplay lag will never occur with a good net connection.) A good video card and a good processor along with a sizable amount of system ram.

RE: Calling all techies (or, "I need a new computer.") - Coatleque - 08-18-2014

(08-18-2014, 02:32 PM)LiveVoltage Wrote: I was wondering what video card would you recommend for that and wont overcharge me a price like something Invidia would sell.

For 3D Acceleration you really only have two choices. NVidia or AMD (Formerly ATI). The two are so neck and neck that it's pointless to compare them here. Plenty of other forums exist if you care to read the specific points of each side.

As for budget, both sides offer models at lower prices for specific price points. For NVidia, the top-end models always end in 80 or 90 (GTX680, GTX690, GTX580, etc...). The 80 is basically the 'reference' design for the series, while the 90 is just two 80's slapped together on one board. Everything below that is an 80 that was handicapped by the manufacturer as an excuse to charge you less.

I would look for a 640 or 660. You can probably find something at a local Best Buy for maybe $150 or so that should handle the game with no problems. Anything you buy is going to beat out on-board Intel graphics hands down.