Computer Hardware and OFF/WOFF (split from screenshots thread)

[MudWasp48 3]

Shiloh, I found this about your mobo

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130138

 

That will take the ram I have, 4 sticks of 2GB. Now I also ran into a issue with one stick and did the reseat thing and it worked. I did mark that stick so I just install my 3 sticks and your 1 known good stick.

 

PM me yor mailing info and I'll send it out

[Shiloh 12]

I am running almost identical numbers. So what is the way to raise the 5.9 Hard Disk rating, just a different drive totally or a separate drive for the sim? Currently have a Hitachi 7200 2TB.

 

I was running OFF on C drive to start then when I reinstalled recently I installed to B drive and my rating still remains at 5.9 as always.

[MudWasp48 3]

No big deal on the $$s, maybe mail me postage cost.

 

You want to go win 7 64 home premium?

 

win 7 home premium will use all 8gb

[Shiloh 12]

Shiloh, I found this about your mobo

 

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813130138

 

That will take the ram I have, 4 sticks of 2GB. Now I also ran into a issue with one stick and did the reseat thing and it worked. I did mark that stick so I just install my 3 sticks and your 1 known good stick.

 

PM me yor mailing info and I'll send it out

 

That's my mobo all right. Thank you so much Mud...I owe you one!

 

No big deal on the $$s, maybe mail me postage cost.

 

You want to go win 7 64 home premium?

 

win 7 home premium will use all 8gb

 

I don't think so. I'd have to wipe my drive clean and that's a project I don't have time for now. I can send you back the mailing cost once I get the package...thanks again!

Edited May 9, 2013 by Shiloh

[MudWasp48 3]

Here is a pic of the ram. Sorry no fan to go with it

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145197

[Javito1986 14]

Oh, are we talking hardware now? Count me in!

 

My rig is my pride and joy, I built her with my own little hands in October 2011. She's my first full-blown gaming computer, since I built her once I was finally old enough to work and afford my own high-end gear. Her name is Moya.

 

Asus p67 mobo

I5-2500k @ 4.7ghz with the help of my 3rd party cooler

GTX 560 Ti

8GB Corsair ram

Seagate HD 1TB

 

I have a nice E-3Lue gaming mouse for her, and I just purchased a CM Storm Trigger mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Blue switches. Typing up my copywriting assignments is such a blast.

 

This month I intend to purchase either a 770 or 780 card, depending on the price. It's not that I'm cheap, it's just that if I'm going to drop more than $700 on a graphics card, it should be for a Titan. But since I don't want a Titan, I'll get the 770 if the 780 is too stupidly expensive.

 

Also I'm going to but a new chassis. Thermaltake Chaser Mk-I. Moya is going to be looking gorgeous in that thing.

 

My fiancée doesn't find my obsession odd at all. Her big hobby is designer Blythe dolls from Asia that cost between $1000 and $5000 each. And she has seven, six of which I bought her.

 

Sometimes when I'm cleaning Moya I can feel her about to say something condescending, and I just quick remind her of her absurdly expensive doll collection to quiet her down. At those moments, I smile on the inside.

 

Point is, I love my computer with a capital L.

 

 

[MudWasp48 3]

Looks sweet Javito!

What kind of cooler are you running?

 

I have the thermaltake Chaser MK1. It is soooo sweet!!!! I even bought two more color shift fans from thermaltake. Only place I could find them

Right now I'm eyeballing Zahlman coolers, can't decide on red or blue fan......

Running a GTX550Ti and waiting for 670 or 680 prices to drop

[Hellshade 110]

Aroth,

 

The test only runs against your Primary (boot) hard disk. If you are running the sim off a different drive, as I am, then you will get the better performance while flying the sim, but you can't change the Performance Index number unless you actually change out which hard disk you boot from.

[Olham 164]

I guess we should start a "hardware thread" - this stuff is soooooo off topic...

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

Consider it done.

 

.

[MudWasp48 3]

Sorry about leading this off topic.....

Thanks for splitting it.

 

Hardware, anyone have first hand experiences of amd cards vs nvidia concerning how OFF runs?

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

You didn't lead it off-topic MW, I was far more responsible for that. Besides, a good discussion, regardless of the venue, is never something you need apologize for.

 

.

 

.

 

(and before the grammar police come down on me, yes I know I ended that last sentence with a preposition)

 

.

[Shiloh 12]

You're the only one here who knows what a preposition is Lou so it's all good.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

Well then, for my next number, I will now proceed to boldly split infinitives whilst misplacing only adverbs.

 

hee hee, I crack myself up

 

.

[Shiloh 12]

Funny Lou.

 

Whatever you guys do with your 'dangling participles' is your business. I don't want to know about it.

[Javito1986 14]

Looks sweet Javito!

What kind of cooler are you running?

 

I have the thermaltake Chaser MK1. It is soooo sweet!!!! I even bought two more color shift fans from thermaltake. Only place I could find them

Right now I'm eyeballing Zahlman coolers, can't decide on red or blue fan......

Running a GTX550Ti and waiting for 670 or 680 prices to drop

 

 

 

I have a CM Hyper Cooler 212. It's great, the day I installed it I noticed a significant difference in my temps across the board. I know a lot of people like water cooling, but I just can't get my head around the idea of having water anywhere near my hardware. My buddy's GTX 680 FTW was fried in December thanks to his leaky cooling, so I'm too paranoid to ever go that route.

 

So you have a Chaser Mk-I? I bet it's fantastic. For me, it was between that and the Haf X but the Mk-I's aesthetic design matches perfectly with Moya's "blue" theme. The Haf X is just too red for me. Can't wait to get my new chassis, I'm expecting serious cooling improvements over my current midtower case.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

Funny Lou.

 

Whatever you guys do with your 'dangling participles' is your business. I don't want to know about it.

 

I once went to see a doctor, with a dangling participle.

 

.

[Olham 164]

"Vott? Vott is dangling here? I doo nott unerstand der Englishmen ant Americanz!?!?"

[Tamper 9]

(and before the grammar police come down on me, yes I know I ended that last sentence with a preposition)

 

Lou, my Mom (who taught English) told me that Winston Churchill once said: "That is the sort of thing, up with which we shall not put." *hehehe*

 

As for the hardware - specifically the WEI scores - conventional platter-based hard disks will typically yield scores of 5.9, doesn't matter what type, how fast or whether SATA 3 or SATA 6. Pretty sure even multiple drive RAID arrays won't make a difference. Generally it takes an SSD to get scores up into the 7.8-7.9 range. To understand why, consider that SSDs are (up to) 100 times faster - depending on which measurement - than a platter-based drive.

 

I was an "early adopter" for multi-drive arrays and SSDs. They can help a lot with loading times, but I am also convinced they have helped minimize 'micro-stutter' which is often (incorrectly, IMHO) attributed to graphics performance. Although I have never built or used system components just for scores, I can tell you the difference in using the HW I do now is substantial, in terms of this microstuttering.

 

I have been accused several times of buying fancy hardware just to get high benchmarks , but that's never been the case - everything I've done was for a specific reason, and generally it's proven to do precisely what it was intended to. Besides, I doubt anyone buying fancy hardware just for benchmarks would be using a GTX-570; I took the extra several hundred dollars and invested in a fast storage subsystem. And I am absolutely satisfied it makes more difference in overall performance than having bought a much more expensive graphics card, and stil using a single, platter-based hard disk.

 

There are plenty of people who still dismiss the concept of fast storage, particularly for gaming...I find it interesting to see who, over the years, comes around and finally makes fast storage part of their systems. Some of the same ones who, not long before, would swear that SSDs wouldn't make any difference. DIfferent song now that they have one *lol*

 

Particularly where something like OFF is concerned, and more so if your screen resolution is less than say 1920x1080, the graphics cards don't need to be incredibly powerful. In my opinion, the difference in cost is better spent on fast storage (assuming you have a decent graphics card and don't require the ultra high-end graphics for some other game).

 

Just my $.02

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

Tamper, my mother was an English major, and while announcing that still conjures up hilarious images in my tiny brain what was not hilarious was growing up with her constantly correcting my grammar. It has, however, left me with a relatively firm grasp on the English language and its 'proper' use.

 

To your point about fast storage I agree completely, even though I am still running dual platters in my current flying rig. Those components will be the next on my upgrade calendar. But for now I am making improvements to the mobo, CPU, and RAM, all of which was initiated by the acquisition of another matching GTX 460 SC that I will now be able to set up in an SLI configuration with my current card. For reference, the items I am replacing are an E8400 3.0ghz Wolfdale CPU, Asus P5QL mobo, (not SLI capable), and 8gb of DDR2 PC2-6400 800mhz RAM. I am quite certain that I will see a marked improvement in performance even with the older HDs in the mix. The best part, at least for me, is that I've spent slightly more than $600 total for all the component upgrades, which is a bargain in my book.

 

Again, for point of reference, here is what my flying rig will look like with these latest changes:

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core

CPU Fan: Arctic Super Cooler

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16gb (4 x 4gb) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

Mobo: ASUS Sabertooth P67

Hard Drive: 2 Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Black SATA

Opti Drive: LG 22X DVD+/RW Dual Layer SATA Rewrite

Video Cards: 2 EVGA GTX 460 SC 1024mb cards in SLI configuration

PS: Corsair HX 850 Watt

Windows XP Pro 64-bit OS

LG 22" flat screen LCD monitor, 1920 x 1080 native resolution

Three large case fans, plus the PS, CPU, and card fans

Saitek AV8R joystick

Saitek Pro Flight rudder pedals

Track IR4 with IR5 software

 

.

Edited May 9, 2013 by RAF_Louvert

[nbryant 8]

I once went to see a doctor, with a dangling participle.

 

.

Hemorroids acting up again huh?

[MudWasp48 3]

Javito, it is very cool both in looks and temps. The extra two 200 color shift fans make it feel like AC blowing. There are also screens for easy cleaning! The top mounted hot-swap hard drive dock is very convenient as are the hard drive bays. I first ordered two extra fans not made by thermaltakethat were the correct size, but the mounting holes didn't match up.

 

I've read good reviews about the CM 212. Just like the looks of the Zahlman coolers better. So far the stock AMD CPU cooler that came with the 8350 has done way better than I anticipated even OCing to 4.8GHz. I'm sure the case has much to do with that.

 

Tamper, I didn't notice a FPS increase with the ssd, but like you, I did experience faster loading times and a noticeable decrease in miro-stutters.

 

CPU; AMD 8350 4.2 turbo OCed to 4.8Ghz

Mobo; Asus Sabertooth 990 fx r2

ram; 32GB matched Muskin ddr3 1600 redline extreme

Hard drive; Adata 256 Gb ssd sx 900, 1TB WD 7200 black sata 3 for backup

GPU; Asus ENG 550GTX Ti 1Gb

PS; Kingwin 1000watt

Windows 7 pro 64 bit

 

CH pro pedals and throttle, and my trusty old Logitech 3D extreme that just won't die

TrackIr5... wooohooo

Edited May 9, 2013 by MudWasp48

[Tamper 9]

MudWasp - precisely. SSDs (nor any other storage) won't do anything for actual frame rates. But there seems to be very common confusion about frame rates and smooth video. High frame rates do not guarantee smooth video; the even distribution of frames does (well, at least anything above about 35 FPS, anyway). The stutters aren't typically because of a low frame rate, it is more accurate to say the frame rates are low when these stutters occur - so the two (lower FPS and the perceptible stutter) are coincident.

 

What causes this type of stutter is frames that occur at a given rate - we'll say 60 FPS - normally, but then suddenly hesitiate for a split second. Now, if 60 frames are displayed within a second, but 55 are in the first half-second, and the remaining 5 are in the next half-second, that's a 'microstutter'. During that small time period, the FPS was actually about 10, which most people can notice, especially in contrast to the 55 frames in the half-second just before.

 

When I was studying this, and after trying faster and faster graphics cards without improvement, I realized it was coming from elsewhere - the problem isn't the graphics card's ability to display data; the problem is with the system's ability to deliver data to be displayed at a rate that doesn't interrupt the smooth display of data by the graphics card.

 

If you have reasonably decent graphics card - I'll say a GTX260 or so, maybe even a 9800GT, can handle OFF at typical resolutions and with reasonable settings. Lower settings as per the OBD webpage and you can use a 6000-series card perhaps. But smooth video is not necessarily a function of a monster graphics card (for OFF, or any other game, either).

 

Lou, I am sure you will love the new setup - and I'm sure you will enjoy great performance, too. I also agree that faster storage components will complement the balance of your new rig nicely :) Best of luck to you! (I am sending you a PM, btw)

[AROTH 0]

MudWasp and Hellshade, you nailed it, Sata 3 only.

[Tamper 9]

AROTH, I wouldn't worry at all about the difference between SATA3 and SATA6. While the SATA6 controller interface is theoretically twice as fast as the SATA3, conventional platter-based hard disks just can't move data fast enough to 'outrun' the interface. SATA3 doesn't really limit a conventional hard disk, because the mechanical parts of a hard disk are slow enough that the SATA3 interface is not the bottleneck.

 

The only time the difference will be an issue is if you use SSDs, which can easily outrun SATA3. This is the reason I use the Revodrive PCIexpress adapter card: Two SSDs in RAID0 is faster than even SATA6; at that point even the SATA6 interface becomes a bottleneck.

 

So, unless you already planned on using SSDs, there's not much reason to be concerned with SATA3 v SATA6.

 

Below are screen caps from some tests I ran. These tests were done on two essentially identical hard disks, the only difference being one is SATA3 (WD5000AAKS) and the other SATA6 (WD500AAKX). Both have 16M caches, both are 7200RPM drives. Western Digital basically took an SATA3 drive, removed the controller board and replaced it with a SATA6 controller board. http://www.wdc.com/w...2879-701277.pdf

 

I used two different test apps, ATTO and HDtach, which for me have proven plenty reliable indicators of disk performance. Of course, I fully appreciate no benchmark test can duplicate 'real-world' performance, that's not at issue here - what we're doing is using the same test on two different subjects, so the test is comparative, not quantitative (for those in the crowd who like to fuss that benchmarks are synthetic, etc...). Also, to be perfectly accurate, the tests were run on two different storage controllers in two different machines...but to behonest it wouldn't make that much difference if they were on the same machine. I could do that test if you wish - or, better still, don't take my word for it, do your own, or browse the ton of similar data that's all over the web.

 

Finally, some may say WD drives aren't as good as Seagate, or that none of the 'basic' hard disks are as good as high-velocity drives (WD Raptors, for example)...but remember, that's not at issue: We're testing drives that are identical, compared to each other (only), the only real difference being between SATA3 and SATA6. You could dupicate the test on 2 WD Raptors, one an older SATA3 drive and a newer SATA6 drive - I don't have any to test - and you might see a difference, but I doubt the outcome would be substantially different than the test I've done.

 

On the left is the SATA3 drive, on the right is the SATA6 drive.

 

 

 

To be completely accurate there is maybe a 5% to 15% increase in some test areas on the SATA6 drive, but at least in these limited tests there are times when the SATA3 fared better as well. (You really have to run mutliple tests and average out a series to get the best picture, and I only ran one set for this).

 

Hopefully this helps illustrate the comparative performance of the SATA3 v. SATA6 interface, on otherwise equal drives.