Root Access

Nate Kerkhofs

15:00

but I already updated my video last year, so it seems terribly wasteful to do it again this year

or even next year

and really, a 770 should still be able to run most games fine

as long as I stay away from all the Ubisoft crapware

Jet

@DragonLord I've seen videos with bugs, that's why Ubisoft gifted a game to players who suffered

DragonLord

@Jet My experience only goes up to ACIII, but these kinds of issues are not acceptable.

Nate Kerkhofs

@Jet not exactly. They gifted the season pass content for free, and those that already bought the season pass got a free game

still, that's like getting herpes from a whore who then offers you a free ride on one of her coworkers

Jet

I've heard that they gifted Far Cry/Watch dogs/... such games, they all was about DLCs?

DragonLord

Single GTX 980, 1080p on Ultra: 46.7 fps average.

anandtech.com/show/8738/benchmarked-assassins-creed-unity/2

Nate Kerkhofs

15:04

@jet you misunderstand. Ubisoft gifted those that were affected the first DLC pack for free

those that already got the season pass (and thus the first DLC pack) instead got a free game

Jet

oh sorry

Nate Kerkhofs

but if you look at the games they gifted

Watch dogs had the EXACT same issue, with constant framedrops and the likes

Jet

maybe they run on the same engine

Nate Kerkhofs

The store I bought it from even had a special rule: if you checked your computer performance before you opened the package, and the game requirements were too high for the game to run according to CYRI, you'd get a free refund

@jet nope

DragonLord

@Jet No, Watch_Dogs uses a different engine called Disrupt because of the technical issues associated with AnvilNext.

Nate Kerkhofs

15:07

Watch_dogs ran on another engine than Unity

still, both had severe optimization issues

not to mention that Ubisoft apparently has gotten a "reveal the map by solving climbing/hacking puzzles" fetish since AC 1

Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, they all required you to do some climbing puzzle at a specific spot to reveal the map around

which works kinda well in Assassin's Creed, pretty well in Watch Dogs, but calls a flat "what" on Far Cry.

DragonLord

> Did I mention that Assassin's Creed: Unity is a beast to run? Yeah, OUCH! 4K gaming is basically out of the question on current hardware, and even QHD is too much at the default Ultra settings.

AnandTech.

Jet

different engines, but developed by the same engine-creators in Ubisoft Montreal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disrupt_%28game_engine%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anvil_%28game_engine%29
it's not an engine bug, the bug is in creators of engines :)

I haven't played AC Unity yet. Is it a good game?

DragonLord

It's not as good as the earlier games.

Jet

I liked AC2 and AC3

DragonLord

ACII and ACIII are probably the best of the franchise.

ACIV is very good as well.

Nate Kerkhofs

15:14

The game has stagnated mostly

DragonLord

ACB was good, but I didn't like ACR

Jet

yes. but if AC:Unity is like AC1, then I would rather not play it)

Nate Kerkhofs

@Dragonlord Same opinion here

DragonLord

Assassin's Creed has been downhill since ACIV.

Nate Kerkhofs

There are 3 main concerns with ACU

1. the engine is horribly optimized, which means sometimes you'll have to watch a frozen screen for 5 seconds for it to catch up

That Brazilian Guy

15:15

@DragonLord So it means there's still 2 good (?) games in the series left for me to play ;p

Nate Kerkhofs

2. the combat is still a boring piece of mess that hasn't changed all that much since the earlier games, but it's harder to follow

3. they tried to fix the stealth parts by introducing an actual stealth mode, but I can't figure out how it owrks

Jet

ACB seems to me a DLC of AC2, not a full game.
Though a lot of people don't like AC4, I like it. AC3 had ships, battles, which I liked very much (played all ship missions), and AC4 has even more ships :)

Have you watched AC6 announcement?

DragonLord

Not into AC Syndicate.

Nate Kerkhofs

the fun part is though that they managed to somewhat make the parcour a bit more agreeable by splitting up and down parkour in separate buttons

I'm going to wati with AC Syndicate until 1. I have finished ACU; 2. I've had confirmation that the game is actually optimized properly and 3. the game is on sale

Jet

Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce#.22Pascal.22_microarchitecture
new GTX series with 3D ram, in 2016

Nate Kerkhofs

15:23

Well, then.

Jet

@Nate yes, don't buy a new videocard, wait for 2016 to come

Nate Kerkhofs

see why I'm waiting for 2017 before upgrading

Is there a page like that for Intel CPUs?

DragonLord

wccftech.com/nvidia-responds-witcher-3-gameworks-controversy

AMD is willing to work with competition and plays nice.

NVIDIA's only trying to lock out competitors.

allquixotic

hii

Nate Kerkhofs

Okay, in 2016, I'm getting a Skylake CPU

Skylake (microarchitecture)

Skylake is the codename used by Intel for a processor microarchitecture under development and due to launch in 2015 as the successor to the Broadwell microarchitecture. In accordance with Intel's tick-tock principle, Skylake will initially be released in a 14 nm manufacturing process; as a "tock" step in the "tick-tock" release cycle, Skylake should be completely redesigned, bringing greater CPU and GPU performance, and reduced power consumption. Manufacturing process is expected to make a transition to 10 nm in 2017; the codename for this 10 nm die shrink is "Cannonlake". Skylake's release to...

plus motherboard obviously

Jet

15:26

@NateKerkhofs yes 2017 is better for buying video. it will have bugs in 2016 (like GTX 900 series and my GTX 970) because it has all new technologies. better to wait for 2017

allquixotic

@DragonLord mostly true -- especially considering that large parts of AMD's Mantle are going into the cross-vendor, cross-platform Vulkan solution now (Khronos Group)

DragonLord

AMD embraces open standards like DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync, which forms the basis for AMD FreeSync. NVIDIA decided to use a totally proprietary system for G-SYNC.

allquixotic

@NateKerkhofs Yep -- the mainstream Skylake chipset will support DDR4, so it's a great time to buy into an upgrade since you're getting faster RAM too

I'm intentionally skipping Broadwell even though I feel it would be a decent upgrade over Ivy Bridge

Nate Kerkhofs

okay, so my roadmap for upgrades: 2015 new SSD. 2016 new CPU. 2017 new GPU

allquixotic

@NateKerkhofs funny, I'm almost exactly in the same situation

DragonLord

15:28

Only a matter of time before someone files a lawsuit.

Anti-competitive practices, anyone?

allquixotic

@DragonLord BetaMax vs VHS all over again... unfortunately, the market tends to favor Nvidia because their stuff tends to "just work" :/

Nate Kerkhofs

@DragonLord if they choose the same tech, then the EU might file a complaint for monopoly formation

or something like that. I'm not that good with economic terms

Jet

I don't understand what they changed between Intel 3,4,5 gens. Really, some new technologies were added; they run on lower wattage. But I still don't see a reason to buy 5 gen and not 3 gen.

DragonLord

@Jet Primarily enhanced power efficiency, with some microarchitectural improvements for slightly higher performance per clock.

Nate Kerkhofs

the difference is mainly for people that buy new. lower wattage means that they're cheaper to power

but there's no need to really upgrade indeed

allquixotic

15:32

I'm expecting Skylake to bring better performance enhancements than Haswell or Broadwell did

Ivy Bridge mainstream to Skylake mainstream should be a huge upgrade

Jet

yes

let them add more GHz

Nate Kerkhofs

However, if you're a company with thousands of CPUs running in a datacenter, saving on wattage means even small savings can add up to thousands of dollars of profit in reduced power bill

DragonLord

Let's not forget AMD Zen.

Probably not going to outclass Skylake, but should be a closer match than before.

As is typical for AMD, it'll probably deliver better value for money especially in heavily multithreaded workloads.

allquixotic

@DragonLord well yeah -- on release day of the first CPU microarchitecture after a fab shrink, AMD is closer to Intel than it'll be for the next couple of years until they shrink again

Nate Kerkhofs

I still remember when Intel released the Core 2 Duo CPUs and erupted a storm in the PC gaming world

allquixotic

15:35

@DragonLord the 20nm Opterons will probably be very popular in datacenters

DragonLord

@NateKerkhofs Much more overclockable than the old P4s and far lower power consumption.

Nate Kerkhofs

ever since then, AMD was relegated to the backburner in many PC gamers except those that have budgetary needs

allquixotic

@NateKerkhofs yep -- I think Core 2 was when Intel pulled ahead of AMD for good

DragonLord

In 2016, we'll see a 8C/16T Zen-based AMD FX processor on a 14nm process. What's not to love?

Jet

Yes, that's a good CPU, I have another 7-year-old PC with Core2Duo, but still had no problems with CPU

allquixotic

15:36

the original Pentium processor also put Intel way ahead, but AMD's knockoffs were very good and cheap

DragonLord

For a time, AMD had genuinely better processors than Intel.

Remember the Athlon XP?

Vastly superior clock-for-clock than the P4.

Nate Kerkhofs

kinda. I wasn't too much into hardware back then

allquixotic

@DragonLord I remember going into a CompUSA in the late 90s and seeing more AMD processor computers than Intel ;p

Nate Kerkhofs

I only really started to get into hardwarephile territory until later

Jet

"for a time" <- this is sooo true

allquixotic

15:38

I just noticed something weird about my family's computer buying habits, though

DragonLord

Sadly, Intel just decided to use dirty tricks to cripple AMD despite the inferior NetBurst microarchitecture.

Nate Kerkhofs

Around the same time as the C2D was released, wasn't there is whole GPU upheaval as well?

Jet

@Nate ...you started to get into hardwar when you bought a PC for yourself. Am I right?)

allquixotic

from the time that I got my first personal computer at the age of 6 until now, despite handing over responsibility for buying them from my parents to me, neither my family nor myself has ever purchased a machine with an AMD CPU

GPUs, hell yes; but not CPU

DragonLord

Feb 22 at 23:57, by DragonLord

A few years ago, I read about AMD leaving BAPCo over biased benchmarks

Nate Kerkhofs

15:39

where before, ATI and Nvidia were pretty close, but after that, Nvidia was better?

DragonLord

Feb 22 at 23:58, by DragonLord

It turns out SYSmark has historically been biased towards Intel

allquixotic

@NateKerkhofs the real change around the Core2 era on the GPU front was the introduction of new general-purpose GPU computation (GPGPU) instead of the traditional fixed-function pipeline

DragonLord

vanshardware.com/reviews/2002/08/020822_AthlonXP2600/…

allquixotic

being able to do "anything" with a GPU (even, theoretically, run an OS) is what happened, on both the AMD and Nvidia sides, and later, even Intel iGPUs

DragonLord

2002, SYSmark found biased against AMD.

Nate Kerkhofs

15:40

oh, right, with separate shaders for pixels and vertices, right?

DragonLord

ir.amd.com/…

allquixotic

@NateKerkhofs not only that, but in OpenGL 2.1 / DirectX 9.0c, you could theoretically run "any" computation inside a pixel shader

DragonLord

2012, AMD leaves BAPCo, developer of SYSmark, over ongoing bias in favor of Intel.

allquixotic

however, the API for pixel shaders is less efficient than something like OpenCL, so traditional general-purpose "do stuff in a pixel shader" workloads shifted over to OpenCL later

anything embarrassingly parallel (where you can take a huge dataset, split it up into a thousand chunks, and run the same algorithm in parallel on each chunk) runs well on the GPU

Nate Kerkhofs

@allquixotic I see. then when did the Nvidia dominance start? the one that caused ATI to be consumed by AMD a few months or so later?

allquixotic

15:42

@NateKerkhofs I wouldn't say that Nvidia has pulled ahead of AMD in terms of product quality -- AMD produces fantastic GPU hardware, at very competitive prices, with good efficiency, and so forth -- the problem is that Nvidia has pretty much won the "word of mouth" war; the preponderance of the core gamers simply prefer Nvidia out of some misguided loyalty

Nate Kerkhofs

I see

allquixotic

it costs more to buy the same performance with Nvidia than with AMD, especially at the high-end, but people still prefer that, because they are stuck with a misconception that the AMD graphics drivers are somehow broken, which hasn't been true for 5 years

Jet

Intel didn't change CPU in 3,4,5 gens, but the only thing they did well is Core M, and new Atoms. This is the result of new Atoms, pretty good!
http://www.amazon.com/HP-Stream-Windows-Includes-Personal/dp/B00NSHLVD2

allquixotic

people are stuck with memories of bad experiences that they can't get over

even though current-gen AMD drivers and GPUs have none of those old problems

Jet

And this is fine en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_M_microprocessors

mobile CPUs, 2Ghz, 4.5Watt

Nate Kerkhofs

15:44

Well, people do get quite salty when they spent hundreds of EUR/USD on a GPU that doesn't get supported properly. even if that later changes, past history is hard to erase

allquixotic

imho, the best value for a high-end gamer on the GPU front is to buy a single AMD GPU at the highest model available at the time; it's almost always a lot cheaper than Nvidia's latest, and performs very competitively depending on the exact workload

Nate Kerkhofs

In 15 minutes, I need to head for the store so I can get my food for the rest of the week

allquixotic

like right now I'd say get a R9 290X over the GTX 980, and save a couple hundred bucks

Jet

I wass thinking like that, but...

allquixotic

unless you want 4K, in which case you will need SLI or a two-GPU card

Jet

15:45

AMD needs better cooling, and better PSU

GFSE

GemsFromStackExchange: The first step to solving a problem is acceptance.

posted on May 18, 2015

The first step to solving a problem is acceptance.

allquixotic

@Jet ? not sure what you mean

Jet

which is not cheaper

allquixotic

I don't think the "cooling needed" is in any way dependent on the GPU design; it's largely based on the card design, which is the AIB's fault if it needs more cooling

Jet

AMD needs better cooling, and better PSU, and AMD+cooler+better PSU>nvidia

Nate Kerkhofs

15:47

AFAIK, unless you plan on overclocking, you don't need extra cooling or PSU

allquixotic

consider the distinction between two types of cooling design in high-end GPUs: the ones where the GPU fans dump the hot air into your case; and the ones where the GPU fans have a large vent in the back of the card and dump the hot air into your room

DragonLord

allquixotic

both Nvidia and AMD have both types of cooling depending on the AIB choices

DragonLord

This was nearly 13 years ago.

allquixotic

the cards that dump hot air into the case are always going to require better case cooling than the ones that dump it out the back

it's simple thermodynamics, but the choice isn't even in AMD or Nvidia's hands as to which one the AIB chooses

also, the rated TDP of Nvidia and AMD high-end GPUs are very close, so I don't buy the argument that they require a better PSU, either

I'm not sure if Nvidia's current-gen GPUs are like this, but I recall that some folks were playing around with stress testing the GTX 480 back in the Fermi days, and they were able to get a single GPU to draw more than 400 Watts... that's way, way more than any single-GPU AMD card will ever let you draw, even under worst-case conditions

that speaks of poor TDP upper bounding logic

it should've scaled back far before hitting 400W on a single GPU

Nate Kerkhofs

15:51

that is extreme OC territory, similar to people using liquid nitrogen to cool their CPU

that's not indicative of what a normal consumer does

and if this is years ago, you can be fairly sure that Nvidia has already fixed that to avoid anyone doing that on a later GPU, setting their house on fire and starting a long lasting litigation spree

DragonLord

web.archive.org/web/20120528204601/http://blogs.amd.com/…

2010, AMD details SYSmark bias.

Notice how the benchmark is designed to favor Intel with unrealistic workloads.

Excel spreadsheet with 35,000 rows?

Why?

Jet

My MSI GTX 970 has very very good cooling, runs on 50*C without spinning fans (it has good radiators),
http://www.msi.com/product/vga/GTX-970-GAMING-4G.html#hero-overview
and it keeps going on 70*C when overclocked. I don't even hear noise, my CPU cooler noise is higher than my GPU :) still on 150 watts

allquixotic

@NateKerkhofs anandtech.com/show/8568/the-geforce-gtx-970-review-feat-evga/15 -- look at the Furmark TDP numbers -- yes, the 980X Uber is the highest demanding card, but that card comes factory overclocked IIRC, whereas with the remaining cards, it pretty much pairs off, Nvidia, AMD, Nvidia, AMD, alternating fashion

Nate Kerkhofs

@DragonLord are you STILL on about sysmark being biased? also, testing with a 2000 line spreadsheet would give such low numbers that you can barely tell whether the difference in speed is because of the CPU or because of something else

so you need a monstruous spreadsheet so you're sure that the results are due to the CPU

DragonLord

8 mins ago, by DragonLord

Nate Kerkhofs

15:56

It's similar to gaming: you don't test a game on 800x600 and then say that all GPUs are storng enough

allquixotic

the GTX 680 and 780 use more juice than the HD6970 and HD7970, respectively -- it's only the GTX 980 that seems to cut power consumption way back from the rest of the pack

that's one generation and hardly indicative of an Nvidia trend of being more power-efficient

for all we know, next gen may see Nvidia again drawing more juice than AMD

DragonLord

Alright then, gotta go for a study session today.

See ya.

allquixotic

the worst I could say about it is that it's a toss-up between the two

Nate Kerkhofs

I'm off as well. I need to get dinner

Jet

AMD is 250-300watt, and also you need a good cooler (+some watts) and a lot better PSU to overclock. GTX 900 series is 150w, has a good cooler, easy overclockable. Here NVidia wins (especially when it comes to overclockin)

waiting for next AMD and GTX series to compare

allquixotic

16:00

@Jet that's funny; I'm using two Radeon R9 280X in CrossFireX, with completely stock case and CPU cooling and unmodified GPU cooling, and I have no cooling issues at all

Jet

price?

allquixotic

I can overclock if I want to, but I don't because I don't want the fans and VRMs to experience reduced service life. I need to make them last until 2017, after all :P

@Jet actually I misspoke; I have a HD7970 and a R9 280X in CrossFireX; the former is from 2012, the latter, from mid-June last year. However, they use the same chip, and just have a different board design, so they can be crossfired together. I spent $269 on the R9 280X for the same performance as I spent nearly $600 on in 2012 when the HD 7970 first came out.

keep in mind though: (1) When the HD7970 first came out, it was the first 28nm GPU to market; (2) For nearly 6 months, Nvidia had NO answer to the HD7970, it was simply and completely superior to anything Nvidia had, in efficiency, performance, everything.

it also supported DX11 about 8 months before Nvidia introduced DX11 support

DragonLord

AMD GCN was quite clearly superior at the time. Fermi was notoriously inefficient, and Kepler wasn't ready just yet.

allquixotic

so it was worth every penny at that time

yeah, when GCN landed, it made Nvidia look stupid, although admittedly Nvidia's (late!) answer to GCN was pretty good

Nvidia sacrificed 6-8 months of dominance for "rearing back" and producing a superior chip that took longer to make and ended up being way more expensive (and power-hungry)

the GTX 980 is the first Nvidia chip I've seen in years that is actually very, very efficient

Ben Richards

@allquixotic I have an MSI Radeon HD 7970, factory overclocked to 1 GHz sitting in my desktop today. It's still pretty fantastic.

allquixotic

16:07

to summarize: GCN 1.0 >>> Fermi; Kepler > GCN 1.0; GCN 1.1 > Kepler; Maxwell >> GCN 1.1; and now we wait for GCN 2.0 to see how it compares :P

Ben Richards

Only thing is it's bottlenecked by my CPU right now :(

allquixotic

@BenRichards yeah, I'm still getting plenty of use out of my HD7970

HackToHell

Oh look stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2015#profile-women

allquixotic

I play SW:TOR in windowed mode, so I can't use CrossFireX in that specific game, but when I record video using Bandicam, I use the VCE chipset of the HD7970 to do real-time H.264 encoding, while my R9 280X renders the game :D

This great VFW codec lets you pick which GPU you want the VCE to run on

Ben Richards

@allquixotic My new laptop has an NVidia 680 GTX (Kepler) and it probably about matches my desktop. My desktop has an edge though with games like GTA V because the HD 7970 has 3 GB of on-board memory and my laptop only has 2.

allquixotic

16:10

@BenRichards and the GPU bandwidth is probably greater too

Ben Richards

The laptop though surpasses my desktop in games like Guild Wars 2 because it has an i7, vs my desktop with its AMD Phenom II 955 x4 :P

Jet

@allquixotic Yes, I know HD 7970 and 7990, they are good ones :)
But GTX 970 and 280X aren't on the same category, it's between R290 and R290X
http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/gpu
GTX 970 has 15K futuremark score while 280X and 7970 have 10K score, it's 1.5x better.
So if you spent 270$ on your GPU, I multiply it with 1.5x, it's about 400$ (I spend 350$).

Also if you compare GTX 970 with R290X, GTX is better in all ways.
But I can't say the same with GTX960vs R280X as I haven't researched them :)

allquixotic

unless your laptop has a full-scale GTX680, not the "M" O_O

Ben Richards

@allquixotic It's the M. :P

I believe, anyway. It's switchable graphics.

I'd be surprised if it was the full scale version

allquixotic

me too -- I've only seen a few laptops with that, and they tend to be 18" and larger

Ben Richards

16:11

My desktop only has PCI-e 2.0, though. The HD 7970 supports 3.0, so that's bottlenecked? Maybe?

DragonLord

@allquixotic SLI is more likely than a full desktop GPU in high-end laptops.

Ben Richards

@allquixotic Well it is a gaming laptop. 17".

I get about 1 hr of battery life when playing a game on the NVidia GPU.

Jet

sorry, but I don't see reason to buy a gaming laptop :)

Ben Richards

This laptop:

amazon.com/MSI-Series-GS70-STEALTH-037-17-3-Inch/dp/B00JKCHRXC

I have a gaming desktop, as I said. But I like the portability. Also, it was a reasonable price so I went with it.

Yeah.

> NVIDIA GeForce GTX860M

Jet

do you carry it everywhere with you?

allquixotic

16:13

I'm considering replacing my desktop entirely with a high-end gaming laptop and just be able to lift up and take my laptop with me anywhere I go

not until Skylake though

Ben Richards

@Jet No. I carry my Surface Pro 2 to work. I will be bringing the laptop with me to Florida though when we fly down in June.

DragonLord

@allquixotic I'm waiting for Skylake before I build that new gaming desktop.

Ben Richards

I also resolved to get a gaming class laptop after bringing my desktop with me to "bring your own PC" at PAX East a couple years ago. It was doable, but required help from a friend and a push cart. Also, my tower is > 50lbs, maybe closer to 80lbs.

allquixotic

@BenRichards you mis-typed 680 instead of 860 earlier :P

Ben Richards

@allquixotic lol my bad :P

DragonLord

16:15

My personal laptop runs a GTX 780M.

Jet

https://i.sstatic.net/kvfgV.jpg
When you have surface 2 + gaming laptop + gaming PC XD

2

Ben Richards

Dang, too late to edit

DragonLord

Overheats very easily under full load, though.

Ben Richards

Oh well, it's clear by now

allquixotic

the 2 GiB version of the 860M is a Maxwell chip

not surprising that it would compare well against an older-gen HD7970

Ben Richards

16:16

@DragonLord This laptop doesn't overheat at all. So long as I'm not letting it sit on my bed without a cooling pad :P On a table it's fine.

DragonLord

Mar 1 at 3:33, by DragonLord

50% more performance per watt than Kepler—and it's still 28nm. It's difficult to imagine just how efficient things can get once NVIDIA moves to 20nm.

Ben Richards

Two heat vents on the sides, pushes heat out like a mofo

ok brb lunch

Jet

I must go off, good luck everyone and have a nice day :)

allquixotic

@BenRichards the 860M has 80 GB/s of memory bandwidth whereas the HD7970 has 264 GB/s (assuming PCIe Gen3)

so yeah I was right about the 7970 having way more bandwidth

3.7 TFLOPS single-precision for the 7970, vs. 1389 TFLOPS single-precision for the 860M

even the fillrates highly favor the desktop 7970

all I can guess is that games you play are better optimized for Nvidia GPUs, or you play old enough games that it doesn't matter

if you played something really demanding like Star Citizen you'd probably see a measurable framerate differential between the 7970 and the 860M

(with the 7970 winning out, assuming PCIe Gen3)

DragonLord

Not only do I have final exams this week, I also have a job interview coming up most likely shortly afterwards.

allquixotic

16:23

@HackToHell all those Indian girl coders ^_^

DragonLord

Got a job interview this Friday, wish me luck :)

Hennes

Good luck.

Though I will try to use all the luck in the world tomorrow for an elevator pitch

HackToHell

@allquixotic I'm pretty excited ;D

Ben Richards

back

@allquixotic Aha

@allquixotic Mostly older games except I just downloaded Project Cars. Though I haven't tried it on my desktop yet

But yeah, my motherboard on my desktop is PCIe 2.0, unfortunately.

Older games as in one or two years old right now. I'm not bleeding edge on PC gaming, but it's not ancient either.

And Guild Wars 2 which is more CPU bound for me. So it actually runs better on the i7 on my laptop

Dude, one of my friends over here landed a job at Akamai. One of the benefits he got is unlimited vacation days.

He's one of those people who travels around a LOT. He's going to make full use of it. :O

I should write a review for the laptop. Soon, I guess.

@Jet I also have a PS4, PS Vita, and Xbox One. :)

allquixotic

16:39

@BenRichards I love writing Amazon reviews

I have only like a 60% helpful rating, but I have a lot of polarizing reviews... very strong 5-stars and very strongly-worded 1-stars :P

Ben Richards

@allquixotic I do it now and then if I find I have something significant to say.

allquixotic

not too many in the middle

Ben Richards

Yeah

allquixotic

I gave super good reviews for my GPUs, CPU (of course; how could you not love an i7-3770K?!), new headphones (Sennheiser Momentum Wireless On-ear), Note 4... and scathing review of a HDE brand HDD sled that said it was compatible with my T530 laptop, but isn't

Ben Richards

> Customer Reviews: 8
>
> Top Reviewer
> Ranking: 1,120,378
> Helpful Votes: 77

If I'm a top reviewer then it's way too easy to become one :P

allquixotic

16:42

@BenRichards it's not saying you're a top reviewer; it's saying your ranking in the top reviewers is one million, one hundred twenty thousand, three hundred and seventy-eighth place :D

Ben Richards

Oh ok good :P

allquixotic

basically, the race ended last decade and you're still on the first lap

Ben Richards

Because seriously, only 8 lol

hehe

But my reviews are consistently super helpful!

allquixotic

> Customer Reviews: 51
Top Reviewer Ranking: 79,857
Helpful Votes: 144

Ben Richards

> 93% helpful

Hehe

allquixotic

16:45

I think some companies hire professional trolls to harass you in the comments if you give a 1-star review

Ben Richards

AAh

allquixotic

get a lot of really offensive people for leaving bad reviews

Ben Richards

I've only given 4 or 5 star reviews so far

I haven't given a bad review yet, haven't felt the need. Haven't really made a purchase that warranted one yet

Well, maybe a couple, but one was a book by a small time author and I'm not going to do that to him. The other was a peripheral that I kinda forgot about quickly a while back, so meh.

allquixotic

I consider a star rating to be "how was my experience with the product" -- if there's something that went really badly with it and gave me a headache and it wasn't just me failing to read or something like that, I'm going to rate the product down, because usability and intuitiveness are factors, not just how well it technically works

Ben Richards

I tend to review based on how well the product fulfills its intended purpose. If I bought it and it was the wrong product because of a mistake I made, I won't rate it down. I think those kinds of reviews aren't useful.

But if it's something like a book or movie or music, then there's different criteria.

allquixotic

16:49

I generally don't review media like movies and books and music because I don't feel that it's really possible to give an objective review of something that's creative

I review practical products that are intended to serve a particular purpose

Ben Richards

Like I bought a speaker bar for a dell monitor I had and it ended up being the wrong model. Just sent it back. Didn't leave a review but I wouldn't have left a bad review either. Was just a mistake on my part.

I review media if it leaves me with strong impressions after viewing/reading/listening.

allquixotic

the review should tell a potential customer whether the product fits its particular purpose, how well it does so, and any difficulties the user encountered during unboxing, setup, config, etc

Ben Richards

I reviewed a couple ebooks, a music CD, and a movie that really affected me.

I find media reviews useful online because you can't try before you buy, so much.

I'm more apt to leave a review if there aren't many or any yet.

I'll link one review I did. They usually end up like essays.

allquixotic

I think qualified critics can give good reviews but I don't consider my personal experience with a piece of media to be useful to others, since I'm pretty eclectic, and once I love something, I'm attached to it and will give it 5 stars every time; but if it doesn't resonate with me, I just will discard it

Ben Richards

amazon.com/review/RRTP6M131TNC7/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

And here's one for a CD that I left: amazon.com/review/RWJCOBWH41GJ6/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

allquixotic

16:54

amazon.com/review/R3J3S4E82MM0X2/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

heh, one person didn't find your 4-star keyboard review to be helpful ;D

Ben Richards

Well bully for him ;)

allquixotic

they probably went "grumble grumble; this is the best keyboard EVER; why is he only giving it 4 stars??????????????????????? No, not helpful"

Ben Richards

lol

allquixotic

or perhaps alternatively

"I spilled coffee on this keyboard and now it's broken! I HATE IT!!!!!!! how could anyoen give it more than 1 star????"

Ben Richards

This is why I dislike reviews where the purchaser said that it didn't work with their computer. Like they bought that keyboard for a computer that only had PS/2 keyboard ports and no USB. Well yeah, it didn't work, but that's YOUR fault for making the wrong purchase, not theirs!

allquixotic

16:57

yeah

Ben Richards

Or like with RAM. "It didn't work with my computer!!!11" and it turns out to be a compatibility issue because they just bought the first thing that came up in search

You see reviews like that on newegg or tigerdirect a lot.

allquixotic

however, if the literature for the product (in an "official" Amazon product description, and/or on the manufacturer's website) says that it is compatible with XYZ, and it's not compatible with XYZ, I see that as a perfectly valid reason to give it 1 star

like that HDE brand hard disk sled that isn't compatible with the T530 despite saying it is

it's like they just assumed it would be without testing it

Ben Richards

It was a nice keyboard. But it failed after a couple years for some reason. However, they sent me a free replacement/upgrade. They discontinued the model and replaced it with a refreshed one and said they'd just send me that instead :)

Hennes

I see it as a bug that you need to give it a star.

Ben Richards

Works great.

Hennes

17:00

Over here a star means "well done!"

Ben Richards

White LEDs instead of red though

Hennes

two starts is Very well done. Top-10!

etc etc

5 stars is world fame

Ben Richards

You can report an inaccurate product description on Amazon, right?

I believe I did that once a long time ago

allquixotic

@Hennes heh -- on Amazon, 1 star means it didn't work or fulfill its purpose at all, and it's the manufacturer/vendor's fault; 2 stars means it basically worked but there are serious problems; 3 stars means it works and it's alright; 4 stars means it's very good and few or no problems; 5 stars means you're completely satisfied and it does what it does VERY well

for products, at least. for media it's different

Ben Richards

Yeah it's not 1 star, it's 1/5 stars. So like if 5/5 stars is an A, 1/5 stars is an F.

allquixotic

17:05

@BenRichards I agree, but I'm not sure a reference to the U.S. academic grading standard would be helpful for Hennes, either ;P

Ben Richards

@allquixotic Oh right. Where's Hennes? :)

allquixotic

he's from ... uh... I wanna say Norway, but probably wrong ... Belgium?

Ben Richards

Hm. I don't know how their academic system works either way

allquixotic

Euros are always confused by American marks ;p

IIRC in many places they just get graded on a percent scale

no letter grades

Ben Richards

grumble grumble metric system

amirite? :P

allquixotic

17:07

LOL

Mokubai

grumble grumble rubbish imperial system

allquixotic

I like the metric system, but it's super annoying to need to flip back and forth

Ben Richards

Hehehe

allquixotic

international standard for units in aviation is feet and knots and nautical miles

even in Europe IIRC

Ben Richards

Neither is better objectively. Metric just has the edge if you're doing unit conversion a lot by hand.

Mokubai

17:08

@allquixotic That's why you should convert and become one of us

allquixotic

yet in spaceflight it's metric

Ben Richards

But they're still arbitrarily chosen standard units.

NASA uses the imperial system, or they did.

allquixotic

@BenRichards what do they do for mass in space then? Slugs?

Ben Richards

@allquixotic No they would use kilograms, I'm sure. But I was thinking for things like measuring distance and speed.

Also, if metric was so great, why aren't we using metric time? :P

Mokubai

I've spent most of the day trying to find some particular connectors, and it appears that they don't exist outside the US and the only reason I can find is because they are specifically made using the imperial system and they're a bit weird.

Ben Richards

17:11

What connectors?

allquixotic

@BenRichards that could get interesting; you would represent force as kilograms times feet per second squared? :S

Mokubai

@BenRichards more specifically, why don't we use base-60 for everything, as it simplifies a lot of maths

allquixotic

@Mokubai what glyphs would we use beyond 0-9 A-Z? lowercase too?

Ben Richards

@allquixotic I don't know what they do now. I do know that there was a problem once with the shuttle because NASA used the imperial system for some measurements and another group assumed metric units. I think that contributed to the 1986 shuttle explosion?

allquixotic

26 letters * 2 = 52, so you could use 0-7 and A-Z a-z

Mokubai

17:13

@BenRichards NMO connectors. I seriously cannot find them in the UK from sensible suppliers.

allquixotic

but that's weird to have no 8 or 9

Ben Richards

@Mokubai it's modulo 60, but base 10.

Mokubai

I suspect it's because you have to drill some stupid imperial hole and no-one can be bothered to work out the metric equivalent

allquixotic

@BenRichards no, it was the loss of one of the first Mars rovers

the first space shuttle explosion was caused by an O-ring in conditions beyond the rated temperature of the O-ring seal

the second was due to damaged ceramic tiles on the wing's leading edge that were damaged by styrofoam during takeoff and caused the craft to burn up during reentry

Ben Richards

@allquixotic Oh right, now I remember.

@allquixotic Well it isn't that weird, if you're used to octal numbers.

@Mokubai Huh. Never heard of nmo connectors before :o

allquixotic

17:20

hmm, you could do 0-9a-yA-Y for base 60

Ben Richards

Or skip X because it looks like multiply. That'd probably be most logical.

allquixotic

0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY

hmm true

Ben Richards

Why base 10? Because we have 10 fingers! What would math look like if we didn't have 10 fingers?

allquixotic

@BenRichards what would math look like if we only had 2 fingers? oh wait

i learned that already ;p

Mokubai

@BenRichards Neither had I, I am not amused by them in the slightest.

Ben Richards

17:22

@allquixotic Original computer machines used base 10. They moved to base 2 because it was cheaper to implement in hardware at the time (memory was expensive or something like that).

The only thing holding us to base 2 right now is just convention. Though I do like only having to deal with 2 states--high vs low--when dealing with digital circuit design.

Boris_yo

"We honor do not track signals and do not track, plant cookies, or use advertising when a Do Not Track (DNT) browser mechanism is in place."

allquixotic

@BenRichards by "computer machines" you mean something that does not use the variation of voltage of an electric current to communicate data, right? because ever since we've used electricity, it's been 0 or 1, binary

Boris_yo

As a webmaster, how can I know and respect my visitor's choice?

Ben Richards

(Well, technically it's 4 states, 1/0/X/Z, not 2, but still)

Decimal computer

Decimal computers are computers which can represent numbers and addresses in decimal as well as providing instructions to operate on those numbers and addresses directly in decimal, without conversion to a pure binary representation. Some also had a variable wordlength, which enabled operations on numbers with a large number of digits. == Early computers == Early computers that were exclusively decimal include the ENIAC, IBM NORC, IBM 650, IBM 1620, IBM 7070. In these machines the basic unit of data was the decimal digit, encoded in one of several schemes, including binary-coded decimal or BCD...

allquixotic

@Boris_yo the DNT HTTP header

Boris_yo

17:25

@allquixotic If it's a WordPress site then I need plugin or this coded into theme?

I am not sure even if I need this if I only have blog.

Ben Richards

Ah, storing data in binary meant less memory used per unit of data: nookkin.com/articles/computer-science/…

So yeah, memory was more expensive, binary was most practical

It also probably helps with low voltage circuitry since you'd be only dividing a voltage range in two vs 10 increments. Having to distinguish between 10 voltage ranges would be much more difficult in a low voltage because it would require more precise voltage control.

It's been so long since I studied computing history.

1

Q: Headphones detected by Windows when plugged in but doesn't detect the unplugged event

I replaced the front panel PCB on my desktop computer when I pulled on the headphone jack and broke it. I got a new one and installed it. I double-checked that everything is hooked up correctly and that I attached the grounding wires precisely how they were on the original PCB. However, with the ...