Peltor Posts

FPOD, your mantra about those people not "paying" taxes is getting really old and disingenuous.

No, indeed those people don't pay *income* taxes... they still pay a darn lot in *payroll* tax and tariffs. When you tally up the *total* tax-burden, your claim that the poor are free-loaders doesn't bear out scrutiny et all:



BTW, the problem is not the top 10%, it's the top 1%, who own so much more wealth and who pocket such an absurd portion of the profits - while being *less* taxed, then people with lower income! - that their economic pull has practically started to undermine democracy itself.

I didn't say AMD wasn't better bang for your buck - at the low end of the budget, they still very much are - , what I stress is that the AM3+ platform is not a good investement, as later on you won't be able to cheaply upgrade it.

Right now, the i-series CPUs trash AMD across the board, and AMD is only a good investment on the very low end of the budget (sub ~$100). I'd prefer if this weren't so, as competition is what drives prices down and Intel's dominance is not good for the consumer in the long run.

You bring up two things:
1. Games are not so CPU dependent - true. Right now having a good GPU is more important for games than a CPU... if the later's a decent, then you're good to go. (Except in some hideously unoptimized games, like MW0)
2. AMD's Bulldozer is better for multitasking and non-game related tasks - true. It's a 6-core setup, and this is why it has a substantial user-base for server side use.

Which of our strategies is valid is not a given though: I recommend Intel, as it'll be cheaper to upgrade later on Socket 1155 MOBOs will have a wide range of strong CPUs available at a decent price.

From what I hear - please tell me if I'm wrong, as I may *not* be up to date on AMD's plans - the AM3+ socket boards won't have this advantage, as the Bulldozer is pretty much as good as you can get for this socket.

Your point about GPU being important is valid, and so is your point about investing in it over the CPU. What's not a given is which strategy is preferable to smaurai1 in the long run:
-Buy a cheaper Socket AM3+ MOBO + Bulldozer now, use the remaining money for a better GPU. Pay more for a new MOBO later on when a stronger CPU becomes necessary.
-Invest more now in a Socket 1155 MOBO + Intel Core i3, spend less on a GPU; upgrade both GPU and CPU as money permits or as games demand.

I admit I may be biased, and frankly a new MOBO is not that expensive... though what tends to make it so, is when one finally musters the money and effort you usually buy the newest tech, which might mean new RAM, sometimes GPU and even peripherals as the standards might've moved on. (Though thankfully that one might be another generation or two away for now, unlike the AGP/PCI-E & PATA/SATA debacle we just went through).

Part of why I recommend the Intel path is that changing a CPU or GPU is usually a lot more hassle free than changing your MOBO, which often necessitates an OS reinstall. For users who're not that familiar with all things IT, you usually recommend the easier path as long as it's not grossly more expensive.

Re-read what I wrote... if you have no idea what MOBO you have, install speccy and it'll tell you.

Provided it's not a no-name, cheap Chinese POS, you should be able to use your old PSU (450-500W tends to be enough for anything), your old case and if they're SATA, your old HDDs and optical drive.

Knowing the socket is not enough to be assured that your new CPU is gonna work. You have to check the compatibility of your motherboard (MOBO).

http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/
http://www.motherboard.cz/

If you don't know the brand and model of your MOBO, I suggest downloading and using speccy.

I've been burned by this back in the day trying to get Prescott Pentium 4 to work in a board that didn't support it. Sometimes a BIOS upgrade is all you need, like that time a board wouldn't accept a Northwood CPU instead a Willamette.

At the moment, going AMD is the worst decision you could make... and no, the AM3+ socket probably won't allow you to upgrade to a better CPU later on. Bulldozer was supposed to be it, and (for gaming needs) it didn't deliver:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

Start here:
http://www.w3schools.com/w3c/

All you need is a text-editor, I suggest Notepad++ as it has syntax highlighting. If you want an IDE (integrated development environment) there are lots and lots for web development.

However initially, you're better off focusing on the basics and getting the elements of HTML & CSS pat down. You should only move on to dynamic, script generated websites (whether it's PHP, ASP.NET or ruby) later on when you're familiar with the basics.

At that point, you wanna install WAMP for PHP/Ruby. You'll need Microsoft Visual Studio if you go with ASP.NET.

You could give their contact info and commissioning details perhaps?

Don't hammer the site, the software you mention is not supported in any shape or form.

You could give this a try:
http://media.mymtw.com/downloads/ATIGPUScalingFix-Win7/

Taken from Strange Bedfellows:
http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=4439.0

Another possible fix:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1039487046

You still didn't answer whether you tried to lower the desktop resolution:

a) Take the laptop's screen resolution down from 1366 x 768 to the 800x600, the resolution the game works at. Do this on the desktop > Right click > Screen Resolution

b) Go to the AMD Vision Engine Control Center > My Built in Displays > Properties (Built in Display). The scaling options are no linger greyed out. Set your preference.

c) Change the screen resolution back to 1366 x 768. The scaling options in the AMD Vision Engine Control Center will now be greyed out again (and wrongly show full screen mode as being set, strangely), but the laptop should no longer stretch everything to full screen.

Obviously you didn't even bother to understand my post:
I recommended *temporarily* lowering the resolution to set GPU scaling, then *restoring* resolution to the native one to counter a bug in the Catalyst Driver.



1. Have you lowered your desktop resolution *before* trying to change the scaling mode?
2. You might benefit from updating your graphics driver:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonmob_win7-64.aspx#1

Tsuvian could you please stop posting all this pure BS? You're a new member and you apparently have no clue about how to provide tech-support... also what you write is plain WRONG. Up-scaling graphics can be done, whether it looks atrocious depends on many things, but it's up to the user what they deem good.



Darkling could you do what I wrote in this thread and post us a screenshot from Speccy?

Without knowing what kind of GPU you use, I'm only making a thrust in the dark, but chances are (if the various specs of your laptop is soled with are anything to go by) you have an ATI videocard and a 16:9 aspect display with 1366 x 768 pixel native resolution.

What could be giving you problems is Fate-Stay Night is a 4:3 aspect game, the same proportion old, "TV like" monitors used to have. Your GPU has to decide how it scales the 4:3 image to a 16:9 wide-screen display.

1. It can stretch the image to the full screen, leading to horizontal distortion.
2. It can letter-box the image, streching it to vertically fill the screen with two black-bars on the side.
3. Leave the image as-is.

On ATI videocards the setting for this behavior is kinda borked (and has been for a while), as normally the scaling-options are greyed out if you're running at your monitor's native resolution. There's a work around:
1. Lower desktop resolution resolution.
2. Start Catalyst Control Center
3. Select Properties (Digital Flat Panel)
4. The Image Scaling options should be available now. Select the option you prefer and hit apply.
5. Restore your desktop resolution.

Now all full-screen application with a lower-resolution than your native one should use the option you choose (letterbox, stretch, etc).

The Chavez was fighting for a more equal country, where a few can't live like kings while the people suffer... sometimes he could've been overzealous, he was even given to demagogy.

...he was still lot better man, than the western media has ever given him credit, and his opponents are downright beast, the oligarchy that created the above said "wondrous" prison complexes.

Frankly, regardless what the fanboys might tell you it doesn't matter. Both ATI and Nvidia make good cards, it's more a matter of preference (whether you're familiar with ATI or Nvidia's control panel) and budget (which is cheeper at the moment).

Check out Tom's hierarchy list before you ask your next question (which is the best videocard):

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

The entries on the very top of the list are monstrous, so don't be discouraged if you can only afford (or you only want to) buy entries several rows lower.

RAID 0 is usually still not worth it, the speed boost is negligible in practical terms...

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1999739

...and also brings tons of complications, this setups (depending on your MOBO) can be quite iffy.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-6.html

Bottomline: just buy a 120 GB SSD. The performance difference between 1 SSD vs 2 RAID 0 SSDs is nowhere near as big - and especially doesn't *feel* big - as the difference between HDD and SSD.

Once again: for general use, the important thing is IOPS, not sequential transfer-speed.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/kigston-hyperx-ssd-raid0_7.html#sect0

The general consensus among power users is that RAID 0 on SSDs is not worth the hassle and money.

If you want higher transfer speeds (although for SSDs what you really should look at is IOPS), buy an SSD with PCI-E x 4 interface instead SATA 3, or just buy a bigger drive. The later are faster, because they have more NAND chips in the drive, allowing a greater bandwidth.