The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Oh for sure I know how that feels

But you plan on getting one yes? All that capable hardware and anemic video. Ouch.

 

Haha both of my machines are on 24/7. They don't even stand by or sleep I just have them turn off the monitor after 10 minutes. Just wiggle the mouse and you're all ready to go. I only turn off/reboot for driver installs and the occasional air blasting.

I know how you feel. I almost never use machines that aren't mine. Mostly just to fix them for my friends

 

MPC does not have almost any useful codecs by itself because it's fast approaching 10 years old. I see other programs like Nero Showtime and the likes built-in and unchangeable, versus MPC as an open shell which you can plug in whichever codecs you like.
Something not working that's fixable is better than something being less likely to not work, but with no solution if it doesn't.
MPC gets used for music for me mostly, no library support, but I know where my music is in Windows directory, so I just pick it out - MPC runs FLAC fine when you install the OGG codec (but NOT the FLAC codec). All I miss is a random shuffle. Trouble is, my music collection is so varied I couldn't be bothered to keep skipping tracks I didn't feel like listening to at the time.

Jeff: I can understand that. Obviously, being Windows 7 users we don't get the ability to use Sleep
I do kind of miss that from previous Windows versions.
Gaming PC uses too much power at idle to consider leaving it on 24/7 - yours will be almost the same (since the 4870 and 4870X2's idle consumption is actually very similar), so you should probably look into that.
File server stays on 24/7 for obvious reasons. My work PC probably would as well, but it's yet to be reattached to the monitor after experimenting with HD video playback in the living room.

 

That's exactly what I mean. Hibernate and Sleep don't work, the PC will turn on a few seconds afterwards, rendering it useless. Worse, when it does turn on by itself, it still corrupts all your open windows.

 

The last time I reinstalled windows, I forgot to shutoff the sleep function among other settings. It actually worked for the first time. I came in at one point, and was like, "WTF." Moved the mouse and it awakened exactly as it should. Not that I would trust it full time...

 

I just use MediaMonkey for my music (an Evil piece of pay software based on Winamp (there is a free version though)) and seem to constantly swap about when it comes to video players I fairly consistently use XMBC when I'm actually watching films though.

I tried using hibernate on 7 *once* and the PC refused to boot back up
I don't really see the harm in waiting the at most couple of minutes for a system to boot-up really.

 

Sam,
I don't think you can get 16 million actual colors with only 128MB of video memory at my monitor's resolution! There's a formula for that, but I'll have to ask Sophocles what it is, because I don't remember. I found this on IDP-Net. It's old, but mostly relevant!

The biggest wake-up call for me was discovering that I could control more aspects of the video if I load the control panel, and use it! I think the technology of the 9500GT compared to the 7600GT, makes a world of difference in picture quality, but the 512MB of Ram in the 9500GT does make a huge difference in the viewable palette at say, 1080p! You can see so much more detail in the picture.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Russ

 

Russ, I don't think it would work that way. The amount of memory required to display a frame in terms of raw output would be the pixel pount multiplied by the colour density. Assuming 24-bit colour, that's 3 bytes per pixel, which at 1280x1024 is 1.31072x3 = 3.93216MB. At 1680x1050 it's 5.292MB. Even a 128MB card can store more than 20 frames at that resolution.

 

Happy turkey day ladies and germs

 

Happy turkey day to all.

Russ, I think Sam is right there. No way a 128MB card is going to get filled even by full 1080p. Still, 512MB is surely quite adequate for anything you might throw at it. Even light gaming.

I have no idea why but our power bill is at a somewhat fixed rate. It has never gone up due to my PCs, even with all 3 running for a solid month(now down to 2 ATM). Like I said I'm not sure why but even my parents will admit it has no effect. I do believe the power bills are averaged for the area.

Aha yes the video card control panel comes into play if you're about image quality. On my monitor, video needs more contrast which MPC can't quite do.

 

let the fun begin

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=850137

 

With all the problems I've had with win7 hibernation wasn't one of them. Every time it accidentally hibernated it recovered just fine.

I do the same thing when using windoze; MM(free ver.) for music and what ever video player works the best at time.

have fun

 

i can sleep perfectly fine

 

Haha very nice. Good luck and god speed

 

Nope, even on a fresh install, a hibernate/sleep will last for about 20-25 seconds then the PC will turn on again, but with all the programs I had open corrupted and broken.

 

that happens with me, if in bios i put resume by keyboard: on. if i turn it off, the thing sleeps fine.

 

Shaff,
Resume by Mouse is even worse, as vibrations will trip the mouse and wake it up! I leave all those options turned off!

Russ