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Aangeliceus

Aangeliceus

Kitteh's Meow
FC/Leadership
It's been awhile since I've had one of these discussions, so I'm just curious what kind of hardware people are using nowadays.

Ironically, the STEAM Hardware Profile survey is actually a fairly good benchmark on what people are using on average these days.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

For myself personally, my main workhorse is comprised of the following:

Intel Core i7 3770k 3.5GHz
32 GB DDR3 RAM (I forget the speed off hand)
Samsung 840 PRO SSD (x2 @ 256 GB each) <<< Expensive buggers when I bought them....
1TB WD Black for the fear of the SSD's getting corrupted. (so data and programs are split)
NVIDIA GTX 690 (single)

The rest is just accessories and usual junk. Although, I'm trying out one of those Roccat mice as shown here:

http://www.roccat.org/Support/Gaming-Mice/ROCCAT-Kone-XTD/

It's got pretty colors and is superb for customizing button layout and function along with storing multiple profiles. So far so good, only had it for about week at this point.

I've also moved to having a NAS type storage that contains all of my digital media (pictures, videos, TV shows, movies, music and such.) @Fodder did something awhile back, I guess like a media PC setup.... This setup just allows any device connected to the house LAN/WLAN to access the media.

Lastly, for portability, I'm just using a souped up Lenovo X230. It's great for business use and a little gaming here and there. It runs FFXIV fairly well with lower settings and the battery life is Superb. (SSD makes a huge difference in battery life extension...)

Seriously though, I really work too much... I want more time to enjoy my toys, lol. :rage:
 
Oh, I almost forgot.

I'm likely going to get a PS4 and dump my XBOX360+games. I've got a PS3 that I'll keep or hand off to someone at a later date. The XBOX rarely ever gets turned on these days. And from what I've read and seen about the XBOXONE, I don't see any reason to acquire that new console.

Most people I've talked to are aligned to the PS4, for now.
 
Same here. Though I doubt I'll outright dump my 360, I've recently bought a few of my 360 games on pc during this summer sale, will probably be selling those (notably both fallouts , skyrim and Alan wake).
 
Fiko said:
Same here. Though I doubt I'll outright dump my 360, I've recently bought a few of my 360 games on pc during this summer sale, will probably be selling those (notably both fallouts , skyrim and Alan wake).
Click to expand...

I just didn't do much with the 360 except for FFXI and some other random games. Most everything I've bought so far was for the PS3. The interface for the 360 feels clunky now compared the PS3, so I don't have any real attachment too it. I also still have a PS2 that is still packed in boxes from our move, lol.
 
Intel Core i5 3570k @ 4.1GHz (ivy bridge has annoying thermal issues on core 1 and 2)
16 GB DDR3-1600 RAM
SanDisk Extreme 120GB for OS
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB for games
1TB WD Caviar Black for anime
1TB WD Caviar Black for TV shows and movies
620GB WD Caviar Black for backup and VSS
2x NVIDIA GTX 660 in SLI

My initial score for the FFXIV benchmark was 5291 with all settings at max, in-game AA disabled, FXAA enabled in driver, no vsync. Average framerate was 43. Not sure where the bottleneck is. I can only speculate it's the two cards in SLI. I want to run the test a few more times with those settings to pull and average score.
 
furax said:
Intel Core i5 3570k @ 4.1GHz (ivy bridge has annoying thermal issues on core 1 and 2)
16 GB DDR3-1600 RAM
SanDisk Extreme 120GB for OS
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB for games
1TB WD Caviar Black for anime
1TB WD Caviar Black for TV shows and movies
620GB WD Caviar Black for backup and VSS
2x NVIDIA GTX 660 in SLI

My initial score for the FFXIV benchmark was 5291 with all settings at max, in-game AA disabled, FXAA enabled in driver, no vsync. Average framerate was 43. Not sure where the bottleneck is. I can only speculate it's the two cards in SLI. I want to run the test a few more times with those settings to pull and average score.
Click to expand...

Is there a profile for FFXIV in SLI?

I never checked... But I only have the one card right now. Not sure if I'd really use the 2nd card.
Power in Japan is expensive compared to the states. It's no problem to run up a $300 power bill during the summer months!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
 
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...scaling-in-ARR?p=933810&viewfull=1#post933810

I expect that, once release hits, I'll be able to break 6k or more with a proper SLI profile and the stated in-game SLI and DX11 support. The 690 is actually two GK104 GPUs on a single piece of silicon. If you were to go dual 690 you'd have a quad-SLI system. Make sure you have an 850W - 1000W power supply, minimum. You would probably benefit from a little overclock on your CPU to 4.0+ GHz to feed more data to the GPUs.
 
furax said:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...scaling-in-ARR?p=933810&viewfull=1#post933810

I expect that, once release hits, I'll be able to break 6k or more with a proper SLI profile and the stated in-game SLI and DX11 support. The 690 is actually two GK104 GPUs on a single piece of silicon. If you were to go dual 690 you'd have a quad-SLI system. Make sure you have an 850W - 1000W power supply, minimum. You would probably benefit from a little overclock on your CPU to 4.0+ GHz to feed more data to the GPUs.
Click to expand...

I anticipated the power supply issue... It's at least 1000W, I don't remember off hand if it's much more than that. Quad-SLI, heat+power, lol.

My board is also OC friendly, so it's something I'll tinker with when I can actually make some use out of it.

Running stock, FFXIV does well and all of the choking I had before with WoW on super-high settings are gone.
Funny think though, I play TF2 from time to time and for whatever reason, something hangs the game for a split second and I've never figured out what that is.

Now, outside of gaming, I put the GPU cores to work with video rendering. I sent video to my family and I usually put it together from an HD source and mix it altogether. The GPU makes the render time drop like a rock, a huge improvement since they introduced leveraging the GPU for processing.

By the way, what's your take on Win8?

Personally, I'm sticking with my comfy Win7... I've tried Win8 in both original and 8.1.... just don't like it. From the install process to the whole UX. It's a total skip in my book.
 
What your experiencing is called micro-stuttering. It's a common problem with SLI and Crossfire setups. So much so that graphics hardware review sites will incorporate measurements for interframe jitter and latency when reviewing any SLI setup standalone or in a comparison. I experienced it in Guild Wars 2 and Far Cry 3 sometimes. I don't really know if there's a way to fix it other than proper support for SLI in the game's engine.

As for Windows 8: it's a dud. It's responsible for the drop in PC sales in NA and Asia. I think I read that year to year sales were down 10-15%. I've tried them on a desktop and an ultrabook specifically made for it. The UI is handsome, but unintuitive. The Ultrabook I tried was a Yoga 13 from Lenovo. Gorgeous laptop, but I wouldn't take it with Windows 8. I really hope this design philosophy is abandoned for the next major release of their OS, otherwise I may start considering one of the flavors of Linux.

Looking at it from the perspective of a system administrator, Windows 8 is nightmarish. From a compatibility and support standpoint there would be too much effort in training end users to utilize the OS and too much money would need to be spent bringing software and hardware into compliance with the new architecture. I would probably quit IT if Microsoft decided to adopt the Windows 8 architecture into their Windows Server product line. It's bad enough they're killing TechNet.

Aang, I ordered this product (dunno if you heard of it) called the Leap Motion Controller. It's being dropped off at my apartment today. I HIGHLY suggest you check it out and see if they have international shipping. You're welcome to order one and ship it to me and I will ship it to you if you would like one and they don't have international shipping. I've never been as excited for a tech product since the introduction of the smartphone. I think this thing is going to revolutionize PC interfacing.
 
furax said:
Aang, I ordered this product (dunno if you heard of it) called the Leap Motion Controller. It's being dropped off at my apartment today. I HIGHLY suggest you check it out and see if they have international shipping. You're welcome to order one and ship it to me and I will ship it to you if you would like one and they don't have international shipping. I've never been as excited for a tech product since the introduction of the smartphone. I think this thing is going to revolutionize PC interfacing.
Click to expand...

Shut-up-and-take-my-money.jpg
 
Haha! I was playing with it last night. The Touch Interface app needs a lot of work (as expected). It is otherwise incredible to play with. I hope more development time is spent on the Windows interfacing app and FPS apps.
 
furax said:
Haha! I was playing with it last night. The Touch Interface app needs a lot of work (as expected). It is otherwise incredible to play with. I hope more development time is spent on the Windows interfacing app and FPS apps.
Click to expand...

It has a lot of potential and could be applied to a wide variety of uses. Certainly will keep my attention on it...

Oh, and the other good news.... they deliver to Japan. :)
 
Of particular interest, especially in the industry I'm in, is the compatibility with 3D rendering software like Autodesk's products. I was playing with it in 3DSMax and it is really cool, despite its limited functionality.
 
Aangeliceus said:
Oh, I almost forgot.

I'm likely going to get a PS4 and dump my XBOX360+games. I've got a PS3 that I'll keep or hand off to someone at a later date. The XBOX rarely ever gets turned on these days. And from what I've read and seen about the XBOXONE, I don't see any reason to acquire that new console.

Most people I've talked to are aligned to the PS4, for now.
Click to expand...

Only thing I've seen about the Xbox1 that I like is Killer Instinct 3, but no way I'm buying a console for a single game. And I did the same as you Aang, getting a PS4 and have already dumped all my Xbox360 games except for the Gears of War series.
 
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