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Posted

I’m going to second that. You are much better off looking for a 1070 or a 1080 (probably on sale). A 980 or 970 would also be a better choice. 

Since it sounds like you are trying to save money, the RTX 2070/2080 is likely not on your radar. 

Posted

And Intel decides to match AMD with 9th gen CPUs and Z390 boards...which are just Coffee Lake refreshes, which, as one article put it, "was already a rehash of Kaby Lake, which was an update to Skylake. So we are on Skylake Refresh Refresh Refresh". So I might as well toss the 8700k out of the picture.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

So I have a different kind of question...

I have a Macintosh. Specifically, a PowerBook 190cs from 1995. The last real Mac before Apple went 100% PowerPC.  This is the only piece of Apple hardware I have ever owned, so I am in uncharted territory here.

What in the ever-loving heck can I DO with it?  I assume the Mac has some unique games worth messing with, and thus throw myself upon the mercy of the board. I've figured out how to get files from the internet onto the laptop*, so the sky, as they say, is the limit. Well, as long as the sky doesn't go higher than a 68040 with 32 MB of RAM.

I'm especially interested in stuff targeting the platform's (in)famous high-res 1-bit display, as it is a unique feel.

 

I have Crystal Quest and Sparx(both games I played back in sixth grade) and System's Twilight(recommended by a friend).

Non-game-wise, I've figured out Netscape 3 and MSIE4. Neither of which is very usable on the modern web, or I would be making this post with the Mac. Also MacIRC, which still works just fine(some parts of the internet have changed a lot less than others).  

 

 

*An adventure in its own right, progressing from "how do floppy disks work when going from MS to Apple, anyways?"and then to

"Stuffit Expander is compressed in a stuffit file so I need Stuffit Expander to install Stuffit Expander?! What idiot uploaded this?! I hate the internet!!"(by far the longest part of this quest) and on to

"Okay, I have FTP on this thing now, I guess that means I am equipped to test if that PC Card ethernet adapter actually works now?"(It does, and I've put the floppy box away once again)

Posted
8 hours ago, JB0 said:

So I have a different kind of question...

I have a Macintosh. Specifically, a PowerBook 190cs from 1995. The last real Mac before Apple went 100% PowerPC.  This is the only piece of Apple hardware I have ever owned, so I am in uncharted territory here.
....

Karateka? Oregon Trail? Considering how long it's been since I've seen OS 7 (I've had to make room in head for other stuff since those days), I can't say I remember all the apps and games for Mac from those days. 

Posted
8 hours ago, JB0 said:

So I have a different kind of question...

I have a Macintosh. Specifically, a PowerBook 190cs from 1995. The last real Mac before Apple went 100% PowerPC.  This is the only piece of Apple hardware I have ever owned, so I am in uncharted territory here.

What in the ever-loving heck can I DO with it?  I assume the Mac has some unique games worth messing with, and thus throw myself upon the mercy of the board. I've figured out how to get files from the internet onto the laptop*, so the sky, as they say, is the limit. Well, as long as the sky doesn't go higher than a 68040 with 32 MB of RAM.

I'm especially interested in stuff targeting the platform's (in)famous high-res 1-bit display, as it is a unique feel.

 

I have Crystal Quest and Sparx(both games I played back in sixth grade) and System's Twilight(recommended by a friend).

Non-game-wise, I've figured out Netscape 3 and MSIE4. Neither of which is very usable on the modern web, or I would be making this post with the Mac. Also MacIRC, which still works just fine(some parts of the internet have changed a lot less than others).  

 

 

*An adventure in its own right, progressing from "how do floppy disks work when going from MS to Apple, anyways?"and then to

"Stuffit Expander is compressed in a stuffit file so I need Stuffit Expander to install Stuffit Expander?! What idiot uploaded this?! I hate the internet!!"(by far the longest part of this quest) and on to

"Okay, I have FTP on this thing now, I guess that means I am equipped to test if that PC Card ethernet adapter actually works now?"(It does, and I've put the floppy box away once again)

What version is the OS?

Posted
9 hours ago, JB0 said:

"Stuffit Expander is compressed in a stuffit file so I need Stuffit Expander to install Stuffit Expander?! What idiot uploaded this?! I hate the internet!!"(by far the longest part of this quest)

I remember back when there were SO many compression types used, had to have a half-dozen at times, before everyone else gave up and settled on .zip finally (as it should have been from day 1).   Though I still keep a copy of 7-zip around, as it'll handle the occasional odd-ball that shows up. 

Posted

If you haven't already, track down some of those nifty AfterDark screen savers.  I was always fond of the Star Trek ones as they had silly scenes from the original series, like the Horta eating it's way across the screen and every so often taking down a redshirt.

Posted

So it looks like the Core i9 9900k is going to be Intel's RTX 2080. Overpriced for little gains. It's certainly powerful, but that steep price tag may have one rethinking things.

  • 1 month later...
Posted

I upgraded my video card in my main workstation which gave me a chance to throw my mini 1060 GTX into my ITX box. I absolutely adore this computer. I made it last year for my wife but I made it strong enough so that if my main workstation was giving me issues it could serve as a suitable back-up for photo and video editing. It's my first ITX build and it made me earn it but was a lot of fun. I probably wouldn't play games on it all day because there are a lot of fans on top of each other probably doing a poor job actually moving air around. Yeah, the cords in the front look pretty busy but they're all wrapped around in a way that minimizes airflow disturbance (and they're in front of the window :). I'm sure most folks would recommend watercooling something this tight. Contents (yes the RAM is crazy but RAM prices were kooky then and that cost the same as slower speed stuff.... which was all expensive)

PSU Corsair SF450
RAM Corsair Vengeance DDR4 16GB 4266
Case Rajintek Metis Plus Blue
MB Gigabyte Z370N WIFI
CPU Intel i7-8700
CPU Cooler Noctua CPU Cooler NH-U12S
GPU Zotac GTX 1060 Mini 6GB
Harddrive 1 Samsung 500GB 960 EVO NVME
Fans Noctua NF-F12 PWM 2 pack
Accessories Corsair Premium PSU kit
Accessories Silverstone ATX to SFX bracket

MiniMaker2.jpg

MiniMaker3.jpgMiniMaker4.jpg

  • 5 weeks later...
Posted

Hey guys, I'm fishing for help with an issue I'm having on my main workstation. I have a USB-C card reader connected to the USB-C port on the back of an X399 Designare motherboard. Theoretically, this should allow really snappy transfer rates. The card reader is pricey, states it needs no special drivers, and there are plenty of Amazon reviews documenting blazing fast transfer speeds. I have an SD memory card from my camera that is UHSII and states transfer rates of up to 200mb/s. My transfer rates for my 4K videos are pretty consistently 40mb/s. I've checked the drivers, everything says it's current. I tried plugging into the USB-C port in my graphics card and got the same results. I find it hard to believe it's a problem with the chipset on the Deisgnare because I don't see complaints online. I'm stumped. Any suggestions?

Posted

Have you checked reviews for the SD card? IIRC, the claim of 200 MB/s (also is it MB/s, megabytes per second, or Mb/s, megabits per second? Convert Mb/s to MB/s and you get a speed around 25) is usually just a marketing strategy, stating the theoretical max rate supported by that standard (UHSII) rather than the real-world speeds obtainable by the device. Usually, you have to rely on hardware reviews to get actual speed numbers.

Posted (edited)

UHSII supports around 300MB/s. Check the following for a deep dive:

https://www.expertreviews.co.uk/storage/1404380/how-to-choose-an-sd-card-class-and-speed-ratings-explained-and-pick-the-best-microsd

My guess is that the advertised 200MB/s is mostly accurate and there is something else going on with jenius's particular PC configuration.

What brand/model USB-C card reader are you using? Also, do the specs say that the card reader actually supports UHSII? Is that listed among the supported bus interfaces? Is there anything to note specific to the motherboard? Could there be a firmware update that enhances the USB-C port in some way?

Edited by technoblue
Posted
6 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Have you checked reviews for the SD card? IIRC, the claim of 200 MB/s (also is it MB/s, megabytes per second, or Mb/s, megabits per second? Convert Mb/s to MB/s and you get a speed around 25) is usually just a marketing strategy, stating the theoretical max rate supported by that standard (UHSII) rather than the real-world speeds obtainable by the device. Usually, you have to rely on hardware reviews to get actual speed numbers.

Sorry, I just goofed on capitalization there. It should be 200MB/s. Here are links to the three relevant pieces of hardware involved (the cable being used was supplied with the card reader so it shouldn't be the issue):

https://www.amazon.com/ProGrade-Digital-Dual-Slot-Reader-CFast/dp/B07BTNX82Y/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1546106078&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=prograde+card+reader&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079NPZLDR/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-X399-Designare-EX-Motherboard/dp/B07662S766/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1546106202&sr=1-1&keywords=gigabyte+x399+designare+ex

My next experiment is going to be to use  a USBA to C cable and try using the red 3.1 connection and see if that changes anything. After that, I'll move on and try a 3.0 connection. 

Posted (edited)

The motherboard and the card reader seem like a good fit.

Hm...It could be that the SD card is a bum card.

One other experiment you could run is to try other SD cards with the ProGrade reader. If you have other ultra high speed SDs, for instance, see if they give you limited transfer rates or if they perform closer to spec. If you get better transfer rates from other SDs, then you know it's the card and not the reader that's at fault.

Edited by technoblue
Posted
1 hour ago, jenius said:

My next experiment is going to be to use  a USBA to C cable and try using the red 3.1 connection and see if that changes anything. After that, I'll move on and try a 3.0 connection. 

I doubt that will make a difference.

So that leads to the SD card or whatever drive in your computer you are writing to (or reading from).

Posted
48 minutes ago, azrael said:

I doubt that will make a difference.

So that leads to the SD card or whatever drive in your computer you are writing to (or reading from).

Ah, another variable! I have been writing to this drive:

Firecuda 2GB (came over from my old machine)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IEKG2HM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I just tried pasting instead to the "My Documents" folder which I believe should be on my boot drive which is a Samsung 960 EVO NVME. Still bouncing between 30 and 40MB/s.

Posted
30 minutes ago, jenius said:

I just tried pasting instead to the "My Documents" folder which I believe should be on my boot drive which is a Samsung 960 EVO NVME. Still bouncing between 30 and 40MB/s.

Do you have another SD card you can try?

Posted

Affirmative, I was using a 95MB/s SD card prior to this new one that had the same observable transfer rates... I was hoping to see an improvement when I moved to the newer card.

Posted

So that leaves the card reader or the cable. There are USB 2 type C cables in the wild (I have a bunch that I use for device charging). 

Posted
37 minutes ago, jenius said:

I'll play with the cables. Would the 30-40MB/s be the expected result if it was a USB 2.0 cable?

Theoretically, a USB 2.0 cable should be able to handle a data transfer of up to 60MB/s so 30-40MB/s is in the ballpark.

Posted
30 minutes ago, technoblue said:

Theoretically, a USB 2.0 cable should be able to handle a data transfer of up to 60MB/s so 30-40MB/s is in the ballpark.

There's comments on various cables on Amazon where they do not support the maximum throughput if they are also powering a device. I recently had to buy a USB-C cable and went looking and more than a few cables had such complaints.

Posted
21 minutes ago, Mazinger said:

There's comments on various cables on Amazon where they do not support the maximum throughput if they are also powering a device. I recently had to buy a USB-C cable and went looking and more than a few cables had such complaints.

Ah, good point! Thanks for mentioning it, @Mazinger. I wasn't thinking about the possible low power requirements that could restrict throughput.

Posted
13 minutes ago, technoblue said:

Ah, good point! Thanks for mentioning it, @Mazinger. I wasn't thinking about the possible low power requirements that could restrict throughput.

Yeah, that would be also be a suspect.

Posted

So, I am having trouble deciding: Vive or Rift?

I play mostly Steam games, so I'm leaning towards Vive. Looking forward to the new controllers that Valve is co-producing for it. Any suggestions or tips? My system is decent enough: Core i5 3570K OC'ed to 4.2 GHz, 16 GB RAM, GTX 970 w/ 4 GB VRAM.

Posted
10 minutes ago, frothymug said:

So, I am having trouble deciding: Vive or Rift?

I play mostly Steam games, so I'm leaning towards Vive. Looking forward to the new controllers that Valve is co-producing for it. Any suggestions or tips? My system is decent enough: Core i5 3570K OC'ed to 4.2 GHz, 16 GB RAM, GTX 970 w/ 4 GB VRAM.

In this case, you're probably better off with the Vive. The Rift is cheaper but Vive likely has more supported publishers on Steam than the Rift.

Posted
2 hours ago, azrael said:

Vive likely has more supported publishers on Steam than the Rift.

Almost all SteamVR games work with all 3 standards(Windows VR is a legitimate option).  

 

 

Personally, I have a Rift, but buy all my games on Steam so I'm not locked into a given standard later. My choice of hardware was actually cost-driven. Got it when Rift+Touch hit 400.

 Vive wins the cabling contest (especially once you add a third Rift sensor for full "roomscale" tracking), but Rift has better lenses and controllers, as well as integrated headphones.  Windows VR is even easier to set up, but sacrifices some controller accuracy to get there.

 

I honestly think you'll be happy no matter which platform you go with. I'd probably get Windows VR if I were buying right now(it is hard to argue with the cost), but there's merit in all three paths. I am very fond of the Oculus controllers, but Knuckles actually shipping would be a nice feather in Vive's hat.

 

 

 

Incidentally, Oculus has a referral program. If you go that way, I should be able to send you a referral code for a 10% discount.

Posted

Just need to whinge about Apple for a bit, because frakk 'em.

Anyone here have an Apple product? If you do, please let me know how you deal with it, because I swear to god, every time I have to do ANYTHING with my mother's iPad (Air 2?), it's like pulling teeth.

Transferring pictures to my PC a year ago or so was a chore enough with stupidly low transfer speeds (USB 2.0 speeds), but the past week or so I have to back up more stuff because the thing is apparently full on storage. Except there's only about 2GB (of 16) of media files on it. The OS, on the other hand, is taking up a whopping 8(!!!!!)GB of storage! I figure out I have to install the latest OS revision to drop that 8GB size, but there's not enough space to do the install, so I offload the media onto my PC. A bit of a struggle, doing just that, but eventually everything works out. Finally I have enough space to do the update. Update, boom, the 8GB shrinks down to 4. Fine, I guess. I'm still incensed I have to touch this damn thing in the first place - that OS is not nearly as "intuitive" and "easy to use" as Apple's loyal fanbase claim. Then I realize I've been getting annoying iCloud updates for the past few months now - seems it's just been automatically backing up files to iCloud and hit the 5GB limit long ago. So I decide to go to the iCloud drive and back those files up, too, then delete them off the cloud.

But the iPad has no "iCloud" app. Instead, it has a Files app that accesses both local and cloud files at the same time. Fine. A quick reinstall (I guess it got deleted somehow), I open it up... and blank. No files exist, apparently, either on the iPad or in the cloud. I check to make sure iCloud is enabled. it is. I restart the iPad, go back to Files. Still nothing. I pull my hair. I try to get access to just the media files through the Photos app. No dice. Turn off and on iCloud again, check Files again. Nothing. Try to use the iPad's Safari browser to access iCloud. Nope. Going to icloud.com shows me three options: "Set up iCloud" (already have done), "Open Find My iPhone" (don't care), "Open Find My Friends" (also don't care). Jesus H F-ing Bloody Christ. Do I actually have to go to my Windows device to access my Apple device's files?

Fine. FINE. LET'S JUST GET THIS DONE.

Go to my computer, go to Chrome, type in "icloud.com." Log in. Automatically prompts for a 2-factor authentication, good on them for that at least. Finally, FINALLY, I see all the stuffs that need taking off the thing. I go to select all the files. I can't.

I look for a "Select All" button. Not there.

I google how to do so because I sure as hell am not clicking on each and every single one of these damn thumbnails and downloading each and every single one of these damn files one by one. It turns out I have to click on each and every single one of these damn thumbnails and download each and every single one of these damn files one by one, because of course I do. Man, how wonderfully intuitive these Apple devices and the Apple ecosystem are, HOW BLOODY EASY TO USE AM I RIGHT GUYS

....

So at the very least I can Ctrl+Click to select multiple files and I only have to hit the download button once and it'll download everything. Not in one neat zip file like Google Drive does, but meh, there's merits to keeping everything individualized. Maybe I've finally taken care of NOPE HAHAH WHAT DO YOU THINK APPLE ARE, COMPETENT? So after everything has finished downloading, I find that iCloud decided to just... NOT download about half the files selected. No way to tell which ones, either, because you can't see anything about the image except the thumbnail, like filename or filesize. Because that would be too easy.

So now I'm crawling through the goddamn drive, downloading 10 files at a time, making sure they're all accounted for before deleting them from the cloud and moving onto the next batch of 10.

I just... I don't get it. Their interface, their WORLD-RENOWNED INNOVATIVE USER EXPERIENCE, is so crap, so cumbersome and tedious and outdated. There is no good reason why it should be this hard to simply move files around.

frakk off, Apple. I am so glad to only ever have to deal with you once in a blue moon. At all other times, I try my damnedest to pretend you don't exist.

Posted
1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

Just need to whinge about Apple for a bit, because frakk 'em.

 

  Hide contents

Anyone here have an Apple product? If you do, please let me know how you deal with it, because I swear to god, every time I have to do ANYTHING with my mother's iPad (Air 2?), it's like pulling teeth.

Transferring pictures to my PC a year ago or so was a chore enough with stupidly low transfer speeds (USB 2.0 speeds), but the past week or so I have to back up more stuff because the thing is apparently full on storage. Except there's only about 2GB (of 16) of media files on it. The OS, on the other hand, is taking up a whopping 8(!!!!!)GB of storage! I figure out I have to install the latest OS revision to drop that 8GB size, but there's not enough space to do the install, so I offload the media onto my PC. A bit of a struggle, doing just that, but eventually everything works out. Finally I have enough space to do the update. Update, boom, the 8GB shrinks down to 4. Fine, I guess. I'm still incensed I have to touch this damn thing in the first place - that OS is not nearly as "intuitive" and "easy to use" as Apple's loyal fanbase claim. Then I realize I've been getting annoying iCloud updates for the past few months now - seems it's just been automatically backing up files to iCloud and hit the 5GB limit long ago. So I decide to go to the iCloud drive and back those files up, too, then delete them off the cloud.

But the iPad has no "iCloud" app. Instead, it has a Files app that accesses both local and cloud files at the same time. Fine. A quick reinstall (I guess it got deleted somehow), I open it up... and blank. No files exist, apparently, either on the iPad or in the cloud. I check to make sure iCloud is enabled. it is. I restart the iPad, go back to Files. Still nothing. I pull my hair. I try to get access to just the media files through the Photos app. No dice. Turn off and on iCloud again, check Files again. Nothing. Try to use the iPad's Safari browser to access iCloud. Nope. Going to icloud.com shows me three options: "Set up iCloud" (already have done), "Open Find My iPhone" (don't care), "Open Find My Friends" (also don't care). Jesus H F-ing Bloody Christ. Do I actually have to go to my Windows device to access my Apple device's files?

Fine. FINE. LET'S JUST GET THIS DONE.

Go to my computer, go to Chrome, type in "icloud.com." Log in. Automatically prompts for a 2-factor authentication, good on them for that at least. Finally, FINALLY, I see all the stuffs that need taking off the thing. I go to select all the files. I can't.

I look for a "Select All" button. Not there.

I google how to do so because I sure as hell am not clicking on each and every single one of these damn thumbnails and downloading each and every single one of these damn files one by one. It turns out I have to click on each and every single one of these damn thumbnails and download each and every single one of these damn files one by one, because of course I do. Man, how wonderfully intuitive these Apple devices and the Apple ecosystem are, HOW BLOODY EASY TO USE AM I RIGHT GUYS

....

So at the very least I can Ctrl+Click to select multiple files and I only have to hit the download button once and it'll download everything. Not in one neat zip file like Google Drive does, but meh, there's merits to keeping everything individualized. Maybe I've finally taken care of NOPE HAHAH WHAT DO YOU THINK APPLE ARE, COMPETENT? So after everything has finished downloading, I find that iCloud decided to just... NOT download about half the files selected. No way to tell which ones, either, because you can't see anything about the image except the thumbnail, like filename or filesize. Because that would be too easy.

So now I'm crawling through the goddamn drive, downloading 10 files at a time, making sure they're all accounted for before deleting them from the cloud and moving onto the next batch of 10.

I just... I don't get it. Their interface, their WORLD-RENOWNED INNOVATIVE USER EXPERIENCE, is so crap, so cumbersome and tedious and outdated. There is no good reason why it should be this hard to simply move files around.

frakk off, Apple. I am so glad to only ever have to deal with you once in a blue moon. At all other times, I try my damnedest to pretend you don't exist.

 

Had, past tense (ok, technically I still have the Mac Mini, but it's ancient and I haven't used it in years). OSX was great around 10.6, but more recent updates don't seem to do much beyond make the UI look flatter and behave more like iOS. Speaking of iOS, I used to have iPads. I had the original, then the iPad 3, then the original iPad Air. Android was still pretty young and paying catch up. At the time, the iPad was still the only tablet worth yessing, but even then I hated the overly restrictive nature of iOS, which is why I went with Android (still do) for phones. In the years since Android's come a long way, and I think it's time for phones and tablets now. And there's real competition from Windows with their Surface line now. iOS, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have changed much.

I'm happy to help my family with their PCs and phones and whatever, but yeah, I told them a few years ago I'm not service Apple anymore.

Posted
1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

Just need to whinge about Apple for a bit, because frakk 'em.

  Hide contents

Anyone here have an Apple product? If you do, please let me know how you deal with it, because I swear to god, every time I have to do ANYTHING with my mother's iPad (Air 2?), it's like pulling teeth.

 

I use paranoia (otherwise known as backups) to avoid those pitfalls. I also DON'T use my iPad to take pictures like some lunatic.

I only do .X or .X.Y revisions over-the-air if I'm not near a computer. Never will I do a full version update without hooking up to a computer. But I also manage my storage like a sane person just to avoid the need for more storage space to upgrade to a new iOS version.

I don't use iCloud (much). This saves me whatever headaches I would deal with crappy Wi-Fi or slow wi-fi.

I also came to the realization when I got my first iPhone that anything I put on there will never come off so I avoid the issue of trying to find a way to pull some data off by not putting it on their in the first place. My main system or my NAS stores my stuff or I've found a way to backup and not worry about having to extract it later. If I have to use Apple services, I've made sure I use them in the minimalist-sense.

So yeah, that's how I avoid Apple headaches. I still use their laptops and haven't had a real "bang-my-head-on-the-wall" for years.

Posted

I just got an iPad Pro for Christmas. I’ve never had an issue with Apple’s stuff; for the most part it simply always works. 

That said, I never use iCloud for anything except my device backups. 

Posted

Thanks for the comments, guys. Really, I'm just blowing off some tech-related steam.

10 hours ago, azrael said:

Never will I do a full version update without hooking up to a computer. But I also manage my storage like a sane person just to avoid the need for more storage space to upgrade to a new iOS version.

I'll keep that in mind, and maybe do some more periodic storage management on it. The thing is that it's my mom's and she's extremely technology-illiterate, so she only brings it to me when something hinders her ability to take photos/videos. (Yeah, she's one of those people who take pictures using their tablets....) So many of these issues could be at least mitigated if you could just throw in an SD card and expand the storage, but noooope, of course not.

5 hours ago, Sildani said:

I just got an iPad Pro for Christmas. I’ve never had an issue with Apple’s stuff; for the most part it simply always works. 

That said, I never use iCloud for anything except my device backups. 

I have no doubt that if I were more deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem, I'd be able to do whatever I wanted to do more easily. But as it is, being a stranger who occasionally dips his toes into the bobbing waters, it's such a nightmare doing what comes naturally on other platforms.

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