I can imagine using that stuff for high-performance computing aince GPUs are more efficient at crunching out numbers
(As you can see, high-performance games aren’t in my list of priorities lol)
The big thing I like about it is that it isn’t a confusing maze of proprietary extensions like OpenGL is. And also doesn’t have to deal with bad decisions made in the past dragging it down, that’s a plus too.
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Encountered a couple of nights ago. I decided to switch out my PSU since it was pushing 9 years old now and any kind of large graphics load would lead to it shutting off. Should have been a pretty simple operation right? Unplug and pull out a couple of wires undo some screws thread some wires back through plug and play. After swapping everything out booted up and everything started up just fine, then remembering that I had also bought a new Blu-ray drive shut it off to swap it out.
After the restart got several disc read errors which scared the crap out of me so I fiddled around with it a bit unplugging this swapping that and got it to boot again and went to bed. Got up the next morning and everything was locked keyboard, mouse, and stuck in sleep mode. Upon restart I get the fun message that winload.exe was corrupted or missing so I had to scramble for a repair disc which thankfully fixed it.
TL:DR Corrupted boot files by swapping out PSU and putting in a Blu-ray drive.
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Damn man. Odd errors to be getting there. Not sure how the boot files managed to get corrupted from that though.
Haven’t replaced my PSU in ages… (five years?) No issues with it so far thankfully. I think I need to improve my rig’s cooling though. It’s only fan based and it gets pretty hot when playing osu! and such.
I scared myself the other day when I accidentally hit the break key before my BIOS booted, which caused it to halt shortly into its loading process leaving only the text “Asm” on the screen. (At first I thought it was something more malicious because I associated “Asm” with “Assembly” but it was just the first three letters of “Asmedia” lol.)
[quote=“Pepe, post:48, topic:929, full:true”]
I can imagine using that stuff for high-performance computing aince GPUs are more efficient at crunching out numbers
(As you can see, high-performance games aren’t in my list of priorities lol)
[/quote]Ah yeah, that’s a good use. I think OpenCL would probably be a better fit for ya though. (I haven’t really worked with OpenCL yet though, so I can’t really say.) At least, that’s my opinion after having worked with Vulkan for a day. >.> (It’s a pleasure, but requires a lot of explicit low-level operations. So your code ends up being very verbose.)
[quote=“uppfinnarn, post:49, topic:929, full:true”]
The big thing I like about it is that it isn’t a confusing maze of proprietary extensions like OpenGL is. And also doesn’t have to deal with bad decisions made in the past dragging it down, that’s a plus too.
[/quote]Total agreement here. I also really like how the majority of it and its tools are open source too, and that Intel provides an open source driver as well. Lets you really dig into what’s happening when it’s necessary.
There’s even a company getting it to work on Apple’s stuff by having it wrap Metal. I was also thinking of doing a wrapper based around D3D12 for WinStore apps. (Not that anybody uses that anyway, but still, lol.)
I like this idea, actually. All these new APIs popping up are creating needless fragmentation… Vulkan seems like the biggest candidate to unify them, in my eyes.
The situation to day actually reminds me a lot of the situation from which OpenGL originally emerged. Loads of different, vendor-specific APIs, which were all basically doing the same thing in different ways; OpenGL was founded by a council of different vendors, as a way to deal with this fragmentation.
Then, you know, Microsoft ragequit the OpenGL board and made their own API, with blackjack and hookers…
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What are some good websites to follow if you’re interested in Comp Sci related news? Cause I feel like I need to know more about current Comp Sci events and I’m looking for some good sites so that I can keep track of that.
I personally follow OSNews, which aggregates a couple of sources. You’ll see lots of technical stuff pop up in there. A lot of stuff that’s going on with computers in general get posted there. But there are plenty of additional sites, like slashdot, ars technica, etc.
You could also check out Hacker News.
Following people in the industry on Twitter can be beneficial as well. (e.g., @ID_AA_Carmack, @rygorous – who has a blog here, etc.) There are specialized Twitter accounts for comp-sci stuff as well. (e.g., @CompSciFact, @isocpp, etc.)
I’m not sure that any of these are quite what you’re looking for, but hopefully at least one will be helpful in one way or another.
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Thanks, I’ll be sure to check these sites out. 
Hey all, I have a computer building request for anyone who’s willing to help a newbie out. Basically my current desktop is running close to 10 years old now, and I’ve been meaning to build a new one for awhile but life developments (aka studying in Japan for 2 years hehe) greatly delayed those plans. I haven’t built a computer before, and my hardware knowledge is several years out of date, so please forgive my general ignorance >_<
Anyway, I want to build a pretty decent gaming computer but nothing super high-spec. Let’s say I want it to be good enough to stream FFXV without problems once that gets released on PC. For budget, I’ll name $1100 USD for the moment, but if you have a good reason to spend more on something, I’ll all ears. I also plan to upgrade to dual-monitor, and get a new keyboard/mouse/speaker setup since that’s all old, cheap crap but I’m not including that in the budget, and any recs on that stuff would be nice too. If I need to give more info, please let me know. Thanks a lot 
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I’m not that much of an expert, but I know the basics. Please, if anyone reads this and thinks something I said isn’t true or isn’t recommended, make sure to point it out.
So, to start off, if you have a 1100$ Budget you’ll be aiming for a GTX 960 - GTX 970 GPU (I only know about the nvidia ones, but I’m well aware that the AMD equivalent to those GPUs can be as good and even cheaper).
As for processor, i7 is recommended due to the tendency of the use of multithreading in recent games, specially AAA titles. however, you’ll be fine with an i5 (as long as it’s a quad core).
RAM is a delicate matter these days. While it is preferable to go for the new DDR4 ones, in my opinion DDR3 will last long until they run obsolete. as for memory, 16GB will allow you to run pretty much anything for quite some years. 8GB will be fine for now, but maybe you’ll suffer a bit in 3 or 4 years.
Something really important is having an SSD if the Budget allows it. Not only will the computer start up much faster, but some games will speed up considerably due to the increased Drive-RAM transfer speed. As an example, League of Legends, a game which doesn’t demand all that much on GPU or CPU, has freezes and fps drops due to difficulties when the game tries to load files to the RAM mid game. With an SSD, the problema disappears. However, it is also well known that SSDs are expensive as hell.
As for motherboard, PSU and others, I don’t feel like I know enough to recommend you anything.
Also, if your budget isn’t big enough to get all this things, get your priorities right: will you be editing or rendering videos a lot? Then invest on a good processor. Will you upgrade your GPU in a matter of a few years? Then don’t invest as much on it. If you don’t have enough money right now,can you buy extra RAM afterwards and invest the money elsewhere? Sure, that’s a nice choice.
Anyway, think it through since it’s a lot of money you are spending. Ask anything you want and I’ll try to answer.
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SSDs are amazing, most people don’t realize just how much is IO bound. Loading screens disappear, programs start faster, web pages load quicker because they can read caches off it, you get less stuttering and texture popping… definitely get one!
I’d recommend 16GB RAM, but if your budget is getting tight, you can drop to 8GB - it’s getting a little bit cramped with some modern games, but nothing too bad; you may have to close your browser if you’re playing something super demanding.
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Thanks for your input! Although I’ve already learned these things elsewhere, it’s nice to have another opinion that agrees with what others have suggested ^^
Follow up question: any good sources for teaching me how to actually put things together? From what I understand, it’s relatively simply but I obviously don’t want to mess anything up.
Unfortunately, I don’t know any reliable source, I would go and try to find any tutorials there might be in Google. Still, a friend of mine builds PCs as a job and according to him it all has to do with practice. In my opinion, as long as you have all the wires and cables organized and put together you’ll be fine.
The main issue you may have is that you interrupt the air flow inside the computer, so I recommend that you used temperature monitoring, at least for the first weeks, and if you see anything strange, try to rearrange all the wires and cables.
Also, don’t forget to put thermic paste on the CPU!
It’s pretty easy, for most part there’s only a single way to put things together that actually fits.
Just be sure not to block your air flow or you’ll get temperature issues, a good case will have ways to pull cables aside, like mine has a compartment to the side you can pull cables through to keep the “main” area free of them.
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A bit of an introduction here, as I’ve never made an appearance in this thread. I grew up without the benefits of modern technology. My family are very simple people, and computers just weren’t their forte. Couple that with having grown up in a town of less than 3,000 people in rural Texas, and I was using a Compaq on Dial-Up until 2008.
Fast forward 8 years, several degrees, and a thorough amount of self-instruction regarding computers and other computing-based technologies, and here I am today.
This is what my current setup looks like. Looking to upgrade the GPU in the near-future to the 1080 once availability becomes less of an issue, but it all works for now.
Case: HAF 922
PSU: Cooler Master 750W
Motherboard: Asus Maximus VII Formula
RAM: 4x4GB Corsair Vengance DDR3 @ 1600 Mhz
CPU: i7-4790k @ 4.2 Mhz
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
GPU: EVGA GTX 780
Drives: 2x Samsung SSD (180GB C:/ | 500GB A:/) & 2x Western Digital HDD (2TB B:/ | 750GB D:/)
OS: Win7 Home Premium (x86)
Out of idle curiosity, anyone from Kaza looking to get into the new 10-series of Nvidia cards at all?
They just announced the 1060 at a $250 price point, with claims that it exceeds the current specs of the 9-series. For people trying to get into slightly more graphic intensive setups while avoiding the top-end GPU market, this card might possibly open up some doors for people. And for not a lot more, the 1070 doesn’t look bad for someone with an extra $200 to throw at it.
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I’ll plan to burn my GTX 660 a couple years more.
The issue with GPUs is that they are expensive as hell and that PC gaming industry doesn’t care much about optimization and making better graphics with the same minimum requisites. GTX XX60 and XX70 are great choices that will last for at least 5 years (if you don’t mind playing on medium/low during the last year or two).
GTX XX80 are just… expensive. Seriously, at around 600$ a card once the market stabilizes is expensive as fuck for a card that will last maybe a year or two more than the XX60 and XX70 in my opinion. I’d rather get 3 XX60s one every 2 years than buying one of the XX80.
However, if you are into VR you should totally consider it, since high FPS are greatly beneficial for your sight and help you feel less dizzy.
My biggest issue is that if I’m going to play, I want to be able to go ahead and crank everything up as high as it’ll go, and still pull 50+ frames without ever dipping below that threshold.
Some games are just poorly optimized and can never do it (take Arma for example… 32bit servers and lack of multi-core optimization for CPUs when it’s a CPU heavy game just kills the FPS in a multiplayer environment). But for the games that are capable of looking nice AND playing smoothly, I don’t want to be limited by hardware.
And I totally get that it’s a personal thing. I have the availability of funds, and the desire. For most people, I’d totally recommend the '70’s for their needs.
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You just didn’t go there did you? You throw some smoke grenades and add 8 people shooting at each other and CPUs and servers start to tremble.
Well, you will still go 50+ frames with a 60 or 70, that is 5 years old, it’s just that you’ll have to tone some things down. However, if you know what’s really consuming and what’s not, you can optimize your settings to a point where you don’t really notice the difference with a 5-year-old 80 card.
Of course, if you can afford it, go for it, no one will stop you. After all, this is why they made up this 60 - 70 - 80 system (cause let’s be honest, why would you even buy a 50?)
I don’t know much from AMD, but if hear they have some solid price to performance ratios. However, their GPUs heat up a lot and are power thirsty, so maybe not an option for overclockers or smaller PCs that don’t ventilate that well.
I’ve been getting a “failed to reconnect network drivers” message whenever I log onto my computer. The only noticeable problems are that every so often the screen freezes and the audio glitches out(or something like that) for a second, then it goes back to normal. I checked for and installed all the latest audio and display drivers but I’m still getting the error message.
Any ideas on how to fix this? Someone else told me that I’m just screwed and I need to wipe my computer
