Tech General Chat

[X S]

If the OS supports TRIM (XP was the last Windows not to support it), there's nothing else you have to do in that regard. I don't even think you can manually enable/disable TRIM, but I might be wrong on that one.

 

As for the temp files - that's dumb if you ask me. Yes, keeping the temp folder on the SSD will make it wear out slightly faster. But IMHO it makes way more sense to leave it as it is and take the full advantage of the SSD being faster. After all, isn't it why you bought the SSD in the first place? What's the point of moving the frequently accessed files to a much slower HDD? I can't wrap my head around that. If one's so worried about the SSD wearing out, then just stop using it entirely, take it out of the PC and put it on a display stand on your desk.

 

Also, even if he's writing to it often, isn't its life-span still much longer than the that of a HDD?

[yoječ]

It depends. SSD are more prone to electronic failure (NAND cells wearing out, flash memory controller failure, etc.), while HDD are more prone to mechanical failures (bad sectors, head crash, etc.). If you were writing an astronomical amount of data to the disk, I'm pretty certain that an SSD would die a lot faster, since sectors on an HDD can't really "wear out". In typical home use it depends on the luck (or rather lack of it) really - if you get a bad sample of the drive you're screwed, regardless if it's an SSD or an HDD.

Edited July 10, 2016 by yojc

[sivispacem]

It wouldn't. Mean writes between failures for modern SSD are substantially higher than HDDs.

[Ai®a©ob®a]

Anybody know what would cause this....?

 

 

It's only on this specific site, I'm using Firefox

[PhillBellic]

It might have something to do with Cookies?

 

I just visited that Site, and the Arrows/Icons are normal looking.

[Creed Bratton]

Vulkan gains on Doom: http://www.legitreviews.com/doom-gets-vulkan-implementation_183882

That's a pretty insane performance boost over OpenGL. But I'd like to see a more comprehensive benchmark comparison and some Nvidia results as well.

Edited July 12, 2016 by The Yokel

[DEALUX]

That's based on AMD's internal testing. I want to see actual people test this.

[Creed Bratton]

Here's one externally tested: http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/new-patch-brings-vulkan-support-to-doom.html

No changes on Nvidia's side, but that might be due to current lack of Vulkan optimized drivers.

[DEALUX]

There are some changes actually but NVIDIA doesn't seem to care much about Vulkan and DX12 for that matter, which is annoying.

 

 

 

 

 

Edit: I have a question about audio gear. I am planning on getting an external audio interface (a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 mk2) and a pair of studio monitors most likely next year (though I might purchase different components at different\earlier times). I also want to get a studio subwoofer for a bit of extra bass since I am planning on replacing my current speakers with the monitors+sub combo for multimedia use as well as composing. If my understanding is correct, I am supposed to connect the monitors to the sub and the sub goes into the audio interface. Is that an ideal situation? I am assuming so since the Scarlett only has two outputs for monitors and most studio subs have outputs of their own (presumably to connect monitors to them).

Edited July 13, 2016 by Kristian.

[Creed Bratton]

Holy crap those Fury X gains are insane.

[sivispacem]

If my understanding is correct, I am supposed to connect the monitors to the sub and the sub goes into the audio interface. Is that an ideal situation? I am assuming so since the Scarlett only has two outputs for monitors and most studio subs have outputs of their own (presumably to connect monitors to them).

It depends on your subs. And monitors for that matter. An active sub and active speakers this'll work fine, passives this won't work. You need each passive to be driven directly from the amp.

[Creed Bratton]

GTX 1060 is out and so are the benchmarks. Solid card, but overpriced for the performance it offers. This benchmark is particularly interesting: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/07/19/nvidia_geforce_gtx_1060_founders_edition_review/1

 

You can give Nvidia every benefit of the doubt in the world, but this is starting to look like more than a driver issue. There's something wrong with Pascal and Dx12/Vulkan. Here's an article that I alluded to earlier, talking about how Pascal seems a lot like a shrinked version of Maxwell: http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/45056646-clarence-spurr/4884330-pascal-new-king

[sivispacem]

I don't think there really is. DX12 performance for the 6GB GTX1060 is roughly similar to the 8GB RX480 across a range of resolutions. Of course, the FE 1060 is crippled with Nvidia Early Adopter Tax but the non-reference boards cost about the same (circa $250). From everything I've seen they're fairly closely matched in DX12 performance.

 

That last article is very...confusing. The IPC performance comparison of the 1080 and the 980Ti seems to arbitrarily dismiss the 9% difference in core count and yet claim a 14% difference in clock efficiency is significant. It also ignores the fact that the engines used for most games are not optimised to maximise scaling efficiency in Pascal on its release, large due to Pascal not being fully documented, let alone actually released, at the time their development finished. Where developers have gone back and implemented changes alongside driver updates to increase optimisation, marked performance increases have been seen. The switch away from ever increasing core counts with fairly static clock speeds to lower core counts and higher clock speeds is fairly notable.

 

There's also the fact that the 980Ti represented the "ultimate" development of the GM200 series, whereas the GTX1080 is the first GP100 series card. There's about 18 months worth of incremental chipset updates implemented in the 980Ti. I think once the 1080Ti is released a comparison in IPC performance might be fairer.

[Creed Bratton]

From everything I've seen they're fairly closely matched in DX12 performance.

I didn't expect the card to lose in most Dx12 benchmarks and be just slightly ahead in Dx11.

 

I'm not going to discuss that Vulkan benchmark because it's only one game so far. But if that API picks up pace in game development then Nvidia might want to do something about it, because AMD is probably banking on it. The way I see it, if I get an Nvidia card this year it's entirely possible that it won't stay as relevant next year, while the opposite might be true for AMD. And since I don't buy GPU's every year that's something worth considering.

[sivispacem]

From the reviews I've seen (like this one http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-review) the 1060 averages between 10% and 20% faster than the RX480 in DX11 titles at both 1080p and 1440p, whilst drawing significantly less power. That's not an insignificant performance difference.

 

Conversely, the DX12 performance is all over the place. 2FPS in it in Ashes of Singularity; 7% advantage to the 480 in Hitman, 12% to the 1060 in Tomb Raider. The 480 doesn't consistently beat the 1060 even in DX12 and this is worrying for AMD. They've bet the farm on Vulkan and DX12 but interest in the former borders on the nonexistent and the latter is really only starting to become relevant now.

 

The problem for AMD is you can't bake a chipset advantage into a driver update. DX11 performance and raw computing power shows the technical advantage lies with Nvidia; they've paid less attention to DX12 but that's largely because very few titles incorporate it. Conversely, it's relatively easy for Nvidia to release drivers which dramatically improve DX12 performance by way of implementing effective multitasking or taking advantage of low-level APIs. They just haven't yet.

[Creed Bratton]

Conversely, it's relatively easy for Nvidia to release drivers which dramatically improve DX12 performance by way of implementing effective multitasking or taking advantage of low-level APIs. They just haven't yet.

Let's hope you're right, because it's starting to look like they can't.

[sivispacem]

I really don't think they've tried. Look at their press releases, they barely even bother mentioning DX12 in most of them. If you compare public comments Nvidia and AMD you can see just how different their priorities on the subjects of DX12 and alternative APIs really is.

 

Though I do agree that it's a case of "wait and see" at this point.

[Creed Bratton]

I really don't think they've tried.

Which is a shame. Nvidia has much better support on Linux than AMD and they have a much larger market share. If they did something more with Vulkan it might lead to increased adoption rate and turn Linux into a viable gaming platform much faster.

[Majestic81]

Edit: Okay sorry, seems this topic is just for chat and not for asking questions.

Edited July 20, 2016 by Majestic81

[Creed Bratton]

Edit: Okay sorry, seems this topic is just for chat and not for asking questions.

You can't expect people to be online at the exact time when you need them. Go ahead and ask.

[Majestic81]

 

Edit: Okay sorry, seems this topic is just for chat and not for asking questions.

You can't expect people to be online at the exact time when you need them. Go ahead and ask.

 

That's not why I removed the question mate. I read the OP and it seemed this was made for chatting and not for individual questions. I found the Random Questions topic more appropriate for my post.

[DEALUX]

I really don't think they've tried. Look at their press releases, they barely even bother mentioning DX12 in most of them. If you compare public comments Nvidia and AMD you can see just how different their priorities on the subjects of DX12 and alternative APIs really is.

 

Though I do agree that it's a case of "wait and see" at this point.

Those were my thoughts as well. I haven't seen anyone explain in any detail why AMD is expected to have an advantage due to hardware improvements. There's nothing in the NVIDIA GPU design that suggests that they couldn't have similar multitasking capabilities.

 

There are games that perform outstandingly well in DX12 on NVIDIA GPUs, such as

, which runs above 60 FPS with maximum settings in 4K on a 980 Ti. I'm really looking forward to buying a 4K monitor for the Forza games that are being released on PC. This series sh*ts all over NFS and Project CARS (which are terribly optimized on all platforms pretty much).

 

 

 

Edit: Okay sorry, seems this topic is just for chat and not for asking questions.

You can't expect people to be online at the exact time when you need them. Go ahead and ask.

 

That's not why I removed the question mate. I read the OP and it seemed this was made for chatting and not for individual questions. I found the Random Questions topic more appropriate for my post.

 

You can ask questions here too. I usually get a replies within hours or a day.

[Creed Bratton]

 

I really don't think they've tried. Look at their press releases, they barely even bother mentioning DX12 in most of them. If you compare public comments Nvidia and AMD you can see just how different their priorities on the subjects of DX12 and alternative APIs really is.

 

Though I do agree that it's a case of "wait and see" at this point.

Those were my thoughts as well. I haven't seen anyone explain in any detail why AMD is expected to have an advantage due to hardware improvements. There's nothing in the NVIDIA GPU design that suggests that they couldn't have similar multitasking capabilities.

Here's last year's article that discusses AMD's hardware advantage when it comes to Dx12: http://www.dsogaming.com/news/amds-directx-12-advantage-explained-gcn-architecture-more-friendly-to-parallelism-than-maxwell/

 

Unless Pascal can do the same on hardware level (or less likely software) then AMD will continue to have this advantage.

[sivispacem]

Pascal doesn't have asynchronous compute in the same sense as AMD does, but they have implemented simultaneous multithreading and multitasking under the name Dynamic Load Balancing. They've also added significant frame rendering preemption so there's less actual need for time critical asynchronous rendering. Their approach involves basically rendering an entire scene from multiple angles and then making changes to position, lighting and volumetric aspects on the fly rather than redrawing everything.

[X S]

New Titan X info:

 

 

 

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/07/21/titan-x-deep-learning/?__prclt=a0OjC13s

[TheMcSame]

So the replacement for the Titan X is... The Titan X...?

 

Edited July 22, 2016 by TheMcSame

[yoječ]

The old one was GTX Titan X, whereas the new one is just Titan X. It's dumb nonetheless.

[DEALUX]

Inb4 the new Titan X gets priced at £1000 in my country (the Maxwell Titan is £900-1000). I didn't even know there were non-reference Titan X's, at least when it comes to the cooler design. Good thing I don't have the money to get one when it comes out or even a reason to since the 1080 Ti might be a better choice.

[RyanBurnsRed]

Can anyone here tell me what Digital Entitlement means with Windows 10 activations?

I bought a key from MS and used it to activate a fresh Win 10 Pro installation and that's what it is in the activation screen.

 

Does this mean if I were to get a new motherboard I'd have to pay for another key?

[Crokey]

Not sure about Windows 10, but it may well be the same premise as Windows 7 Pro 64, which I had (just switched to 10 today). I upgraded both my motherboard and CPU at the same time when I was on 7 and it didn't ask me to register/purchase new key, even with the upgrade cocking up my Windows installation and having to reinstall it. But then, I may have just gotten lucky, or Windows will use a number of other factors to consider if it's being used elsewhere or if it's just an upgrade of parts.