Off Topic Thread V2.0

Monotype · 10-08-2014 10:14am

Xfire used to be decent back in the day. I think when it changed hands a few times, it didn't help. Also only supporting steam versions of several games which were also available DRM free didn't help either when they were competing with steam more and more as time went on.

Seaaan · 10-08-2014 7:23pm

I'm still looking for a second monitor solution that would work in portrait alongside my Qnix. Would one of the Dell ones with pivot, or a cheap BenQ/LG with an arm for both monitors be better in terms of cost and desk space? (I may have made ballsed that question up) I don't really fancy spending over 200€ as, at the end of the day, I only want it for Reddit and the odd browsing without having to leave game window. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

ShadowHearth · 10-08-2014 7:27pm

Seaaan wrote: »

I'm still looking for a second monitor solution that would work in portrait alongside my Qnix. Would one of the Dell ones with pivot, or a cheap BenQ/LG with an arm for both monitors be better in terms of cost and desk space? (I may have made ballsed that question up) I don't really fancy spending over 200€ as, at the end of the day, I only want it for Reddit and the odd browsing without having to leave game window. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

2312hm has a very good stand and it goes in to portrait mode too. Great Monitor, for reasonable price.
Dell in general god good stands and a lot of them go in to portrait mode.

Seaaan · 10-08-2014 8:04pm

ShadowHearth wrote: »

2312hm has a very good stand and it goes in to portrait mode too. Great Monitor, for reasonable price.
Dell in general god good stands and a lot of them go in to portrait mode.

Amazon seem to be the only stockists of that monitor, and it';s 160£ which is the cheapest of any Dell monitor with pivot. Is that the best solution then, as it'll never be used for gaming? Only other i see is this one with thin bezel for ~180£.

nesf · 10-08-2014 8:45pm

I've two of these and find them superb: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-UltraSharp-U2412M-inch-Monitor/dp/B005JN9310/ref=pd_sim_computers_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=17R0NXFK2F6AKY1RWZBK

16:10 aspect ratio though, I prefer this but many prefer 16:9 because they're heathens.

Seaaan · 11-08-2014 9:50am

nesf wrote: »

I've two of these and find them superb: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-UltraSharp-U2412M-inch-Monitor/dp/B005JN9310/ref=pd_sim_computers_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=17R0NXFK2F6AKY1RWZBK

16:10 aspect ratio though, I prefer this but many prefer 16:9 because they're heathens.

I'm not sure if I could justify the extra 20£ if it's not going to be used for anything other than webpages. Is the extra res noticeable (or is the 16:10 much if a change)

rd1izb7lvpuksx · 11-08-2014 10:16am

Speaking of 16:10 monitors, I'm thinking of getting a Portrait-Landscape-Portrait triple monitor setup for work. Does anyone know of any monitors that match in terms of both size and resolution for this kind of thing?

nesf · 11-08-2014 1:55pm

Seaaan wrote: »

I'm not sure if I could justify the extra 20£ if it's not going to be used for anything other than webpages. Is the extra res noticeable (or is the 16:10 much if a change)

They don't feel as wide and instead feel taller than a 16:9 screen. If you put a 24" 16:10 monitor beside a 24" 16:9 monitor, the 16:10 will be taller and the 16:9 wider. You can get example images of this if you google it (example). In games this isn't a good thing because many, many games are meant for 16:9 and you lose some width on your field of view by having 16:10 and you don't gain any extra height because they just scale up the existing height. Watching films has the exact same issue. For documents though it's nice as usually vertical height is more interesting than width. Ditto browsing webpages.

16:10 used to be the old widescreen format for PCs. Then 16:9 panels became the standard for TVs and the price of 16:9 LCD panels dropped far below than of 16:10 ones when economies of scale kicked in after LCD TVs became hugely popular. So 16:9 took over as the PC widescreen format despite (arguably) the format being worse for "productive uses" of a PC as opposed to consumption of film/tv/games.

Honestly though, if you're quibbling over an extra £20 I would forget 16:10. It's noticeable sure but if you're that price sensitive it probably isn't worth it if you didn't already have a very strong preference for the format and unless you have very specific needs there's little hard advantage in 16:10 over 16:9 for non-gaming use whilst 16:9 definitely has advantages for games and movies over 16:10 due to it being the industry standard.

Seaaan · 11-08-2014 2:14pm

Hmm the extra width in portrait does sound nice for what I want it for, and £20 is negligible so I'll see I guess. Thanks for help though, you've put me thinking haha

nesf · 11-08-2014 5:10pm

Portrait? Definitely do 16:10. You *really* want the extra width when you're doing that.

Seaaan · 11-08-2014 5:38pm

nesf wrote: »

Portrait? Definitely do 16:10. You *really* want the extra width when you're doing that.

Eh, It's only 25€ or so extra, I'll do it. Not buying for a little while yet though, but you've fully convinced me

Baked.noodle · 12-08-2014 8:28pm

Errata prompts Intel to disable TSX in Haswell, early Broadwell CPUs...

The TSX instructions built into Intel's Haswell CPU cores haven't become widely used by everyday software just yet, but they promise to make certain types of multithreaded applications run much faster than they can today. Some of the savviest software developers are likely building TSX-enabled software right about now.

Unfortunately, that work may have to come to a halt, thanks to a bug—or "errata," as Intel prefers to call them—in Haswell's TSX implementation that can cause critical software failures.

As is customary in such cases, Intel will disable the TSX instructions in current products using a CPU microcode update delivered via new revisions of motherboard firmware. Disabling TSX should ensure stable operation for Haswell CPUs, but those chips will no longer be capable of supporting TSX's features, including hardware lock elision and restricted transactional memory.

Software developers who wish to continue working with TSX will have to avoid updating their systems to newer firmware revisions—and in doing so, they'll retain the risk of TSX-related memory corruption or crashes.

This erratum was evidently discovered quite recently, too late for a fix to be included in the first revision of Intel's upcoming Broadwell Y-series chips. As we reported yesterday, Intel is currently shipping production Broadwell-Y silicon to its customers for use in Core M-based tablets this holiday season. These first production Broadwell chips will also have TSX disabled via microcode.

Update: An Intel spokesperson has provided TR with a brief statement on the TSX erratum, confirming that Intel has "addressed the issue" and "disabled the TSX feature on affected products." He further stated that Intel is "committed to the feature" over the long run and plans to "re-implement it in future processors." We have inquired about how the TSX erratum will affect upcoming Haswell-EP-series server CPUs and will post another update if we learn more.

glynf · 13-08-2014 10:56am

I never knew Robin Williams was an avid gamer and built his PC's, another reason to like the guy.

McSasquatch II · 13-08-2014 11:33am

glynf wrote: »

I never knew Robin Williams was an avid gamer and built his PC's, another reason to like the guy.

Yeah, he named his daughter Zelda too (they appeared together in an advert for one of the games from the series). Huge Doom fan back in the day as well, apparently.

ShadowHearth · 13-08-2014 3:04pm

So yeah, I split up with my misses 2 weeks ago. I decided to move out and I have eircom on my name. Still 6 month contract. She does not want to keep the broadband. So I called eircom and they want 232eu as Cancellation Fee!!! :eek: So basicly they want me to pay for 4 months++ of broadband, out of 6...

glynf · 13-08-2014 3:14pm

If it's likely that you are getting eircom again, can they put the contract on hold and transfer it to a new phone number /account? Might be worth asking.

ED E · 13-08-2014 4:08pm

ShadowHearth wrote: »

So yeah, I split up with my misses 2 weeks ago. I decided to move out and I have eircom on my name. Still 6 month contract. She does not want to keep the broadband. So I called eircom and they want 232eu as Cancellation Fee!!! :eek: So basicly they want me to pay for 4 months++ of broadband, out of 6...

Theyll move the contract with you to a new premises.

ShadowHearth · 13-08-2014 5:15pm

ED E wrote: »

Theyll move the contract with you to a new premises.

I know that, but most likely I will be just renting a room now, now a house. So I won't need it. It's balls...

Lu Tze · 13-08-2014 5:24pm

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I know that, but most likely I will be just renting a room now, now a house. So I won't need it. It's balls...

Two rooms surely, all that Lego has to go somewhere!

ShadowHearth · 13-08-2014 5:45pm

Lu Tze wrote: »

Two rooms surely, all that Lego has to go somewhere!

All my nerdy stuff will stay behind for now, only taking Pc. TV , consoles and normal stuff..

At least until I sort out good place. Who knows, I might get a good place with enough space for all my stuff.
There are 2 girls that want me to move in with them, as they are looking for a house right now. So in that case I will be able to transfer eircom. Otherwise, I am going to my buddies place, who lives in the middle of nowhere with barely any internet and he has already eircom...

Solitaire · 14-08-2014 11:17pm

This old chestnut comes up pretty often, and I have to ask again: What's a good place to get cheap, decent compressed air nowadays? I don't fancy forking out 15-30 quid for whatever overpriced tripe they sell in Click and the case won't be going back on my mITX rig til I clear the caulked watercooler or buy a whole new one! :eek:

Also: Caved in and bought the latest Humble Bundle, promptly realised the little eccentricity Japanese PC devs have, and promptly realised that yes indeed, my sister did take the last PC controller I owned... Once again I have purchased games from Humble that I can't actually play (although if I can find a cheap gamepad I can at least rectify this mistake, unlike the Dungeon Siege series...)

Baked.noodle · 14-08-2014 11:21pm

You can buy small tins in Dealz for a buck fifty. It's not very powerful though so I needed to loosen caked on dust with cotton buds first.

Solitaire · 14-08-2014 11:57pm

...what's Dealz?

marco_polo · 15-08-2014 12:03am

Depending on your age relative to single currency changeover, you might call it either an oversized pound shop or two euro store

http://www.dealz.ie/

Monotype · 15-08-2014 8:19am

The cans are tiny though so buy a few. Still relatively cheap though. I think they charge many times that in PC world.

Hardwareversand have decent sized, powerful ones so next time you're ordering throw in a spare.

nesf · 15-08-2014 9:30am

marco_polo wrote: »

Depending on your age relative to single currency changeover, you might call it either an oversized pound shop or two euro store

http://www.dealz.ie/

Anyone calling it a two euro store will get my zimmerframe chucked at them.

Monotype · 15-08-2014 9:50am

What's this pound thing your talking about?

marko93 · 15-08-2014 10:46am

Is it wrong that I want a Carbide Air 240 even though I have a 540?:o

Serephucus · 15-08-2014 4:14pm

Yes. I really don't like the 240. Useless case with an mATX board, and stupidly big for ITX.

marko93 · 15-08-2014 4:34pm

I just think it looks lovely.

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