Tech General Chat

[MyName'sJeff]

f*ck sake, so I ordered a PS3 lens cleaner CD because I had a problem with my game discs, but it didn't work as I suspected. My Blu-ray drive is obviously f*cked so I need to know if any shops that sell consoles and stuff can replace the drive for me or what? If they do, great, but if they do and its costly, it's better for me to order a used one from ebay.

[gizmo]

Might as well buy a new PS3, I think they are pretty close in price.

 

I had 2 PS3s crap out on me. I had one fixed and it was like $100 but no warranty (that was like 3 or 4 years ago).

[SilverRST]

 

 

Why are we even bringing up mechanical drives? We're pretty much somewhere around "11:00 am" in the day of solid state drives.

Insanely faster and far more reliable.

And reasonably cheap now.

I love how my old pig lights up Win7U x64... Zero to Desktop in under 10 seconds. Yummy

SSDs are reasonably cheap but HDDs are still significantly cheaper. Trust me, SSDs have still got a good few years to go before they can be considered a replacement for mass storage.

 

 

This exactly. That's what irritates me when a tech youtuber suggests an SSD for a budget build (looking at you, Linus, Intel 730 for a budget?).

 

With a budget of 1200 euros I was able to cram in an i7-4770, Asus GTX780, 16GB G.Skill, Fractal Design R4 Black and 2 HDD each 1TB last year.

System still working amazing and it was worth every penny. I have a sh*tload of files, an SSD won't help me anyway.

[Red Hat]

f*ck sake, so I ordered a PS3 lens cleaner CD because I had a problem with my game discs, but it didn't work as I suspected. My Blu-ray drive is obviously f*cked so I need to know if any shops that sell consoles and stuff can replace the drive for me or what? If they do, great, but if they do and its costly, it's better for me to order a used one from ebay.

Dunno if it would work for you, but this video helped me. Maybe it would work for you as well.

 

 

 

Edited August 26, 2015 by Kevin3014

[ghost of delete key]

Not everybody wants an SSD, either. I, along with many other people, get along just fine with a mechanical drive. It may be faster, but you can't get a 1TB SSD for the same price as a regular drive..

Consider this:

Your average mechanical drive has a MTBF (mean time between failures) rating of around 500,000 hours. (around 57 years)

The average SSD has a MTBF rating of 1,500,000 hours (around 170 years)

 

Even taking into account the statistical error (which is magnificently large due to the minute sample rate), the life of an SSD is at least 3 times that of a platter drive.

I've got piles of legacy drives, and have replaced many... I've seen many die, often right before my eyes.

SMART reports on said drives consistently show an average runtime lifespan of these drives between 5000-7000 hours before they fail, often sooner.

That's virtually ANY drive between megabyte-sized Quantums from ca.1990 to post-modern hundreds-GB Maxtors from ca. 2010.

By extrapolation, we can see the average lifespan of a well-used SSD to be 15,000 to 20,000 hours +.

I've never yet seen a dead SSD, and I've got one of the oldest in active use!)

 

That, coupled with the huge increase in speed (far more than 3x a HDD), we can see the actual value per gigabyte to be somewhat cheaper than a HDD over the device's lifespan.

 

It's a simple no-brainer after doing the cost/benefit analysis...

 

You really DO want a SSD.

 

And yes, I use a 128GB first-gen Samsung SSD on my XPS17 for the system (only!) and a 500GB for the programs and data.

This configuration boosted the machine's performance significantly from its stock config (2x 500GB @7200rpm).

 

 

 

I usually keep most files on my SSD, then when I want to create some space, I move it over to my HDD.

Well, if you want to maximize your drive's lifespan, and boost your system efficiency, I would strongly recommend using one SSD for only the Windows system and only big enough to fit it (with reasonable overhead), and use a separate mega-size drive for your data and programs.

If you're as nitpicky as me, you might also designate your user branch to live on your secondary drive - the goal being you want the system drive written to as little as possible, and let the very large drive handle the frequent writes.

Why? Because it's the write cycle that degrades a memory gate (the "bit"), not the read. SSDs use firmware algorithms that keep track of what cells have been written to more, and direct the next bit to be written to a least-used cell. When a gate is close to the failure point (somewhere near a million writes - not much in "computer-context") the drive's firmware marks it as read-only, and uses another. Hence, the large drive - you should never have a problem with data degradation (bit-rot) on a SSD given sufficient extra space

[MyName'sJeff]

 

f*ck sake, so I ordered a PS3 lens cleaner CD because I had a problem with my game discs, but it didn't work as I suspected. My Blu-ray drive is obviously f*cked so I need to know if any shops that sell consoles and stuff can replace the drive for me or what? If they do, great, but if they do and its costly, it's better for me to order a used one from ebay.

Dunno if it would work for you, but this video helped me. Maybe it would work for you as well.

 

I think you forgot to post the video

[Red Hat]

 

 

f*ck sake, so I ordered a PS3 lens cleaner CD because I had a problem with my game discs, but it didn't work as I suspected. My Blu-ray drive is obviously f*cked so I need to know if any shops that sell consoles and stuff can replace the drive for me or what? If they do, great, but if they do and its costly, it's better for me to order a used one from ebay.

Dunno if it would work for you, but this video helped me. Maybe it would work for you as well.

 

I think you forgot to post the video Whoops. Sorry about that.

I edited the post.

[Kampret]

I'll wait on an SSD at least until it is at least remotely competitive in price/capacity. Even SD Cards is still lacking in price/capacity ratio compared to optical/magnetic medias.

[LiniArc]

I have a few question guys.

 

Q. If I have a 60Hz monitor and a graphics card that can give me more fps than 60 or less than 60 fps, how likely will I get tearing screen ?

 

Q. If I have a 120Hz monitor and my graphics card can only provide more than 120 fps only in certain games, then how likely will I get stutters ?

 

Q. Can I change ingame ( in every game) settings from 120Hz to 60Hz if my Graphics card is stuttering ?

Edited August 26, 2015 by Cristiano Ronaldo 7

[swirler]

Altho the cause of tearing is known and is seemingly straight forward, over many years of experiencing different games and setups, it doesnt always seem to follow the rules. Rational thinking supports the rules are what they are and why it sometimes appears otherwise is probably a software issue (ie, how buffering/limiting/Vsync is implemented). To answer your Q tho, it'll vary, but if it does happen thats what Vsync (adaptive if you have it) is for.

 

2nd Q seems like real firstworldproblems ;p In that scenario you are more likely to get tearing than stuttering. Frame limiting software or Vsync as appropriate.

 

Completely down to the game, some have a wide array of options incl display refresh rates and various Vsync modes (half/2 frame), while some might have zero! You can apply settings thru your GPU control panel if needs be.

[MyName'sJeff]

 

 

 

f*ck sake, so I ordered a PS3 lens cleaner CD because I had a problem with my game discs, but it didn't work as I suspected. My Blu-ray drive is obviously f*cked so I need to know if any shops that sell consoles and stuff can replace the drive for me or what? If they do, great, but if they do and its costly, it's better for me to order a used one from ebay.

Dunno if it would work for you, but this video helped me. Maybe it would work for you as well.

 

I think you forgot to post the video

Whoops. Sorry about that.

I edited the post.

 

Tried this solution before, but it didn't work. It's obvious my disc reader is gone. I put FIFA 13 in and it loads to the main menu, but after 15-20 seconds, it completely freezes and I exit the game, but the whole console freezes. And when I turn off the plug and on it again, I put my other discs in and it doesnt read.

[ghost of delete key]

Q. If I have a 60Hz monitor and a graphics card that can give me more fps than 60 or less than 60 fps, how likely will I get tearing screen ?

 

Q. If I have a 120Hz monitor and my graphics card can only provide more than 120 fps only in certain games, then how likely will I get stutters ?

 

Q. Can I change ingame ( in every game) settings from 120Hz to 60Hz if my Graphics card is stuttering ?

First, check out what refresh rates your display device can support:

Go to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Display

On the Tasks list choose "Change display settings" and choose "Advanced settings"

On the Adapter tab of the popup window, click "List all modes"

This is where you can see and select a resolution/refresh that your machine can support - start here; you probably have a 60Hz mode - You can choose another refresh rate at the resolution you like, to get your display to be as clean as possible.

 

Now, you probably won't have issues with tearing; if you do, you can start with the settings above. If no refresh rate suits your game, in the game's settings, you should have in the options a V-Sync setting.

Setting V-Sync (vertical sync) forces the game to wait for vertical sync pulse to flush the buffer to screen, eliminating tearing.

 

Tearing occurs when the buffer flush occurs before or after the sync, and does not last long enough (or too long) to paint a complete screen before the next sync.

Generally, a game's output is not near enough to the refresh rate (or a harmonic multiple) to need to fiddle with it...

 

tl;dr -

SET your Display device to the best refresh for the majority of your system. THEN...

IF a game tears (not the end of the world!) , try setting v-sync. AND...

IF it still tears - if your game has it, use framerate limiting to lock the FPS to your display's refresh rate.

PLAY in glorious ubervision.

 

(if you have an nVidia card, use the Experience app to "polish" the settings for your game. It has optimized presets for most every popular title, and many obscure ones!)

[ghost of delete key]

Yeah, I double-posted. So ban me.

 

Different subject though, all this talk of hard drives reminded me of a great toy I wanted to share with you all -

 

Apricorn SATA Wire

 

Awesome tool, It is a SATA to USB adapter which comes with cloning software. Easily clones your internal drive to an external replacement, which can then be popped in place.

Also, you can use it "bare", and use any SATA as an external drive. (laptop drives are USB powered, desktop drives will need external power)

 

I've been using this for a few years now, and can't live without it.

Edited August 27, 2015 by ghost of delete key

[Kampret]

I have a few question guys.

 

Q. If I have a 60Hz monitor and a graphics card that can give me more fps than 60 or less than 60 fps, how likely will I get tearing screen ?

 

Q. If I have a 120Hz monitor and my graphics card can only provide more than 120 fps only in certain games, then how likely will I get stutters ?

 

Q. Can I change ingame ( in every game) settings from 120Hz to 60Hz if my Graphics card is stuttering ?

 

1. You will get tearing if you have V-Sync disabled. It's about where the tear point is. Sometimes the tear point is up at the display overscan, which shouldn't show up.

 

2. You will stutter if you enable V-Sync and your GPU can't keep up with the refresh rate. That's why I'd stay off fixed (non-variable) high refresh rate monitors.

 

3. Most current games allow you to use half-refresh V-Sync, which will cap the FPS to half the refresh rate of the monitor. It essentially tries to render an image every 2 screen refreshes.

[LiniArc]

Looks like staying away from High refresh rates monitors is beneficial at the moment as Tearing can be dealt with by V-Sync but Stuttering is very difficult to deal with unless I have some expensive G-Sync monitors which can always match the output of my Graphics card with monitor refresh rate for smooth gameplay.

 

Thanks all the guys for guidance.

[gizmo]

I'll wait on an SSD at least until it is at least remotely competitive in price/capacity. Even SD Cards is still lacking in price/capacity ratio compared to optical/magnetic medias.

 

If you or anyone else is in the market, Newegg has a nice deal for a top of the line 500GB SSD right now.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147373&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=IGNEFL082715&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL082715&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL082715-_-EMC-082715-Index-_-InternalSSDs-_-20147373-S0A

 

Extra $25 off with promo code EMCAWNV22

[TheMcSame]

Looks like staying away from High refresh rates monitors is beneficial at the moment as Tearing can be dealt with by V-Sync but Stuttering is very difficult to deal with unless I have some expensive G-Sync monitors which can always match the output of my Graphics card with monitor refresh rate for smooth gameplay.

 

Thanks all the guys for guidance.

V-Sync deals with Tearing but V-Sync significantly increases input lag. You effectively deal with one problem and introduce a worse one.

Edited August 27, 2015 by TheMcSame

[LiniArc]

V-Sync deals with Tearing but V-Sync significantly increases input lag. You effectively deal with one problem and introduce a worse one.

 

I see; so that's the reason why most of the players would play with V-Sync off even on a 60Hz pannel. Most of the games wouldn't show tearing somehow even when the fps goes above 60 (on 60hz pannel) which is a very strange fact and varies from game to game. With that being said you may get unlucky on a bad day and you would be forced to turn on V-Sync due to tearing.

 

I think input lag is more significant thing to players who play more of online games and MMO's who want to see those frames before the other player sees it.

Edited August 28, 2015 by Cristiano Ronaldo 7

[Kampret]

 

I'll wait on an SSD at least until it is at least remotely competitive in price/capacity. Even SD Cards is still lacking in price/capacity ratio compared to optical/magnetic medias.

 

If you or anyone else is in the market, Newegg has a nice deal for a top of the line 500GB SSD right now.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147373&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=IGNEFL082715&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL082715&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL082715-_-EMC-082715-Index-_-InternalSSDs-_-20147373-S0A

 

Extra $25 off with promo code EMCAWNV22

 

 

Now if only Newegg ships to Indonesia.

 

 

V-Sync deals with Tearing but V-Sync significantly increases input lag. You effectively deal with one problem and introduce a worse one.

 

I see; so that's the reason why most of the players would play with V-Sync off even on a 60Hz pannel. Most of the games would show tearing somehow even when the fps goes above 60 (on 60hz pannel) which is a very strange fact and varies from game to game. With that being said you may get unlucky on a bad day and you would be forced to turn on V-Sync due to tearing.

 

I think input lag is more significant thing to players who play more of online games and MMO's who want to see those frames before the other player sees it.

 

 

Tearing really do vary from game to game. GTA IV tears horribly at uneven sub-60 FPS, but Far Cry 4 is really one of the worst. Instead of showing brief tear points between screen refreshes, Far Cry 4 shows that atrocious, horrible, jelly-like frame tearing, where the tear point stays at the same point on the screen for prolonged periods of time.

[swirler]

 

 

V-Sync deals with Tearing but V-Sync significantly increases input lag. You effectively deal with one problem and introduce a worse one.

 

I disagree with a blanket statement like that. It is entirely down to the game and the person.

 

In a competitive online game, where every ms lost is a disadvantage, of course in that case you should do your best to avoid anything that'll increase latency.

 

But, for most other things, the general rule is, Vsync off whenever possible, but if you have bad tearing, turn it on. There are other options, such as setting your own cap for fps, if it works, you avoid tearing and get zero input lag. Sadly it doesnt always work, certainly worth a try tho.

 

Again, down to personal preference, and game. For me personally, I dont want to look at this

And if other efforts of getting rid of tearing fails, (adaptive)Vsync it is.

[TheMcSame]

Again, down to personal preference, and game. For me personally, I dont want to look at this

 

And if other efforts of getting rid of tearing fails, (adaptive)Vsync it is.

That's the most unrealistic representation of tearing I've seen. Tearing is an extremely exaggerated problem.

 

The only thing you should do imo is cap your FPS.

[swirler]

That's the most unrealistic representation of tearing I've seen. Tearing is an extremely exaggerated problem.

 

The only thing you should do imo is cap your FPS.

Tearing in 2 parts is extreme, but a still image doesnt do justice to how head wrecking tearing can be.

 

I cant express just how nauseating trying to playing Mirrors edge without Vsync was, capping FPS didnt get rid of it in that game, so I took the Vsync deal.

 

(Side note: Nice to see you can see some of my messages ;p)

[TheMcSame]

Well... Ripped some hard drives out of some laptops earlier this week and one just decided to crap out on me. Got half the data off the drive but the rest is unreadable, re-downloading some of the lost data now though. Lets hope that the rest of the drives are going to crap out on me, especially the other, older, WD Scorpio Blue...

Though I have higher hopes after seeing the power on figures. (Didn't check these on the old drive until it stated acting up)

Just under 900 Power ons vs the 5000 odd the other one had... That thing must've been ready to fail for a while...

2300 hours powered on vs 3800 hours... Nothing abnormal about these, quite low given their age (5 and 4 years old). Those hours would be about a year worth of use (give or take a few months).

 

Also, I don't know what WD is using to keep them damn stickers on their drives (couldn't find the last screw while poking around) but it sure as hell isn't the same stuff HGST and Seagate are using. Damn thing is like a razor.

Edited August 30, 2015 by TheMcSame

[SilverRST]

So AMD releaaed some info about the R9 Nano and it's a smaller version of the Fury X. But the price is 649$.

And yet AMD's marketing is still at it worst and claiming it can beat the GTX970 ITX. Do I have to believe that or is AMD trying to joke around?

[TheMcSame]

So AMD releaaed some info about the R9 Nano and it's a smaller version of the Fury X. But the price is 649$.

And yet AMD's marketing is still at it worst and claiming it can beat the GTX970 ITX. Do I have to believe that or is AMD trying to joke around?

It doesn't sound that far fetched. I mean it's supposed to compete with the 970... I think... Idk, I'm all over the place with this stuff since AMD has just decided to go every way but the logical way.

Honestly I'd just wait for proper benchmarks from non bias reviewers. The numbers they released are obviously chosen to show it as the better card and the number I saw were for 4k gaming and AMD's cards tend to scale better at higher resolutions. That and AMD seems to have developed a habbit of making unrealistic and, in some cases, downright misleading claims.

 

Though honestly, regardless of the performance, the Nano is going to be one hell of a card because it's tiny and powerful.

 

I have no doubts that the two will occasionally trade blows

[Kampret]

 

So AMD releaaed some info about the R9 Nano and it's a smaller version of the Fury X. But the price is 649$.

And yet AMD's marketing is still at it worst and claiming it can beat the GTX970 ITX. Do I have to believe that or is AMD trying to joke around?

It doesn't sound that far fetched. I mean it's supposed to compete with the 970... I think... Idk, I'm all over the place with this stuff since AMD has just decided to go every way but the logical way.

Honestly I'd just wait for proper benchmarks from non bias reviewers. The numbers they released are obviously chosen to show it as the better card and the number I saw were for 4k gaming and AMD's cards tend to scale better at higher resolutions. That and AMD seems to have developed a habbit of making unrealistic and, in some cases, downright misleading claims.

 

Though honestly, regardless of the performance, the Nano is going to be one hell of a card because it's tiny and powerful.

 

I have no doubts that the two will occasionally trade blows

 

 

Even when throttling the Nano should beat the 970.

 

Anyway, GPU showing artifacts when there are 2 displays connected via DVI and HDMI, but disappears if I only enable one of them. And boy this GPU runs hot at 1080p (probably my sh*tty airflow anyway), topping at 94c during DiRT 3 gaming.

Edited August 31, 2015 by Kampret

[TheMcSame]

Even when throttling the Nano should beat the 970.

Honestly I'm doubting that right now. AMD's numbers say one thing, but as I said before, AMD has a habbit of making misleading claims.

 

For example, the fury X, an "overclocker's dream" that barely overclocks.

Then there was the benchmarks...

 

AMD's benchmarks

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewer's benchmarks (the two graphs for each game are one picture)

Also, I'm not searching around for about 10 different sites to get every game on this list in here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They trade blows every so often but it seems like the 980 Ti is the better card, whereas AMD's figures seem to say otherwise.

 

Granted, the nano is going to be a good card, but I'd take AMD's figures with a pinch of salt and wait for reviewers to get numbers out before jumping to conclusions and making idiotic statements..

Edited August 31, 2015 by TheMcSame

[Andreaz1]

Their numbers boast of "30% better performance" than a GTX970 but no where do they mention it's at twice the price. Not sure what they were thinking.

[Kampret]

 

Even when throttling the Nano should beat the 970.

 

 

Granted, the nano is going to be a good card, but I'd take AMD's figures with a pinch of salt and wait for reviewers to get numbers out before jumping to conclusions and making idiotic statements..

 

 

Agree, although in theory, even if Nano is throttled to stay within its 175W TDP, a GTX 970 shouldn't beat it unless it's being throttled so hard. Too bad the Nano's price is atrocious. Drop it to $550 and people would be much more enthusiastic.

[SilverRST]

 

So AMD releaaed some info about the R9 Nano and it's a smaller version of the Fury X. But the price is 649$.

And yet AMD's marketing is still at it worst and claiming it can beat the GTX970 ITX. Do I have to believe that or is AMD trying to joke around?

It doesn't sound that far fetched. I mean it's supposed to compete with the 970... I think... Idk, I'm all over the place with this stuff since AMD has just decided to go every way but the logical way.

Honestly I'd just wait for proper benchmarks from non bias reviewers. The numbers they released are obviously chosen to show it as the better card and the number I saw were for 4k gaming and AMD's cards tend to scale better at higher resolutions. That and AMD seems to have developed a habbit of making unrealistic and, in some cases, downright misleading claims.

 

Though honestly, regardless of the performance, the Nano is going to be one hell of a card because it's tiny and powerful.

 

I have no doubts that the two will occasionally trade blows

 

Well, $369 (970) vs $649 (Nano). Which will take the lead? I myself would go and spend the $369 instead of $649.