Off-Topic Thread

Those are very good temperatures. I suppose NVIDIA's cards running a bit hotter has something to do with it. For reference, my 580 got up to 90 after extended periods on air. Under water, it never goes above 45, and overclocked from 772 to 975 core, it never goes above 55. It idles in the 20s.

One good long gaming session is about as stressful as it would get, really, so if you're not going much above 50, that's very good. If it's quiet enough for you, then you're probably fine to do a CPU-only loop.

I was looking at making a HTPC with a blu ray drive. After doing research, it's a lot more trouble than I would have thought, where it seems I'd be restricted to proprietary software and playing on linux would nearly be impossible. It looks like even DVD regions are harder to step around than with regular DVD drives. Most people around are ripping the blu rays to HDD rather than trying to play them.
So has anyone tried this? -Is it worth my while or should I just forget about it, the blu ray element at least, until people have found ways around it?

I personally find Blu ray drives to be useless on pcs now. I don't really think will take over same way DVD took over cd drives. Digital distribution is bigger then ever and blu ray movies are not going as great as DVDs did.

Above mentioned ps3 would be better solution all around if you are in to blurays. Unless you are in to "downloading" stuff.

jaykhunter wrote: »

If it's just to play blu-rays, why not just get a PS3? It's quiet, always up to date, has a hard drive for videos/tv/netflix etc, cheap, and it's a gaming console too! I thought most blu-rays were region free. I personally couldn't stomach having one movie taking up 50GB of my HDD space but to each their own!

AFAIK, even though there are regions A, B & C, most blu rays are region free, I'd still have to worry about DVD regions and I have a good few DVDs from around the place.
I don't know about the PS3... I'd never use the gaming part of it and there's plenty of blu ray players for cheaper.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I personally find Blu ray drives to be useless on pcs now. I don't really think will take over same way DVD took over cd drives. Digital distribution is bigger then ever and blu ray movies are not going as great as DVDs did.

Above mentioned ps3 would be better solution all around if you are in to blurays. Unless you are in to "downloading" stuff.

TBH, I'd prefer to have a disc in my possession rather than rely on a digital subscription - the physical media is nice but I'd be more concerned about owning it rather than having to 'rent' from someone else. That aside, does digital distribution actually match up in quality to blu ray discs? I'd imagine that compression techniques have improved a lot but even so, it's likely they cut corners or otherwise the download size would be enormous.

Serephucus wrote: »

^ I'd personally agree with this. I have an innate hatred for CDs/DVDs, etc. They're just so damn slow.

Press eject button, wait for drive to spin down, drawer opens, close drawer, wait for drive to register disc, wait for drive to spin up, wait for disc to be read. Then actually pick what you want to do with it. Total time is usually at least 8-10 seconds.

Alternatively you can browse to a folder and open a file. Typically about 3-4 seconds or less.

So I should just invest in a lot of storage and rip everything to hard drive?

bluray is a scumbag format. the proprietary licensing issues, hdcp, etc means it will never be fully adopted like DVD was. the region thing on DVDs was challenged by a few countries iirc and found to be against the law. there are easy ways around it which i really don't feel ashamed to do it myself.

i had a friend who lived most of their life in America, but moved here, and suddenly their PC was no longer allowed to play the vast collection of DVDs they spent €100's on?! disgusting.

that's my hatred of content distribution anyway. music/movies/games should all be far cheaper than what they are now.

mono give it a bit of time; VLC players next big update is supposed to have bluray playback, and its free and Linux friendly. if it works out the box bug free you're onto a winner as far as a little HTPC Linux box goes.

That is a sexy stand

All you need is that mouse

Check out eBay for rat 7

cherryghost wrote: »

Aye the RAT7 is now on Pixmania for the exact same price as the RAT5

Tad expensive

Headshot wrote: »

Tad expensive

Get a G400 then :P

Deleted User wrote: »

Bad idea Microsoft :mad:

Important Announcement from Software4Students Concerning Microsoft Products

Hmm... not good. I know a lot of people would just get the software under technicalities of being family members or just chancing it. However, I'd say students would be one of the most likely groups to just go ahead and pirate the software if they can't get it cheaply.

There's still windows server available through dreamspark which can be customised to be very 7-like.

Other than Peats anywhere in South/Central Dublin selling CPU paste?

Yeah, I won't be upgrading to Windows 8, whereas when 7 came out we bought a family pack :P
I'd even go as far as to say I doubt I would even get 8 with a new PC if I could avoid it.

I tried it last night and apart from the changes you outlined it seems to be almost the same as 7. A few little tweaks in the UI, like the red X button in the top corner is slightly different, and explorer now uses the ribbon style menu. But if your looking for a free Windows licence why not

Monotype wrote: »

www.maxburns.ie in Tallaght?



Was looking at a few video reviews as I couldn't be bothered installing it. The new interface additions are advantageous to the casual and tablet user but offer little real value. The new performance and task manager looks handy for an integrated way of monitoring bandwidth and so-forth. The only genuinely useful thing I see is the file copy which finally allows you to pause files, which has been possible in Linux for yonks. It's like it's just a media centre edition rather than a full upgrade.
Sure, for new builds you might as well get it - in fact I wouldn't even be worried about waiting until a service pack as there's so little difference but you'd be mad to actually upgrade just for Windows 8 from 7. Or even really to postpone a build for it (unless it's <week).

dead on there. in all fairness windows 7 is very stable and does all it needs to do. windows 8 has a lot of support for touch screens, but why on earth "us" would need it?