The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Build your own router, im using an old Pentium Pro Server with untangle. i've had nary an issue.

http://www.untangle.com/

if you don't like untangle, here's a list of more Linux router/firewall distros

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_router_or_firewall_distributions?c6b0b560

 

Sorry guys, I had just been reading about the 7750/7770 line, and indeed it was a typo. The card I was referring to on prices is the 7950 of course.

Did somebody say WRT54G - I bought two of those used, dirt cheap, over the past year from Amazon, to install up in LA at two different locations - terrific wireless router.

I'm trying, but I can't quite get into the spirit of things - must be something wrong with me.

I guess I should really feel sorry for you for not having enough power for that unbelievable amount of traffic they're willing to throw at you, lol!!!

Rich

 

HA no. It's a pretty old Action-RPG that can be played solo or co-op with up to 8 people. It's long, deep, and addictive with dozens of different ways to play the game. All the dungeons are randomly generated as well so it's very re-playable. Youtube it if you're curious. I used to be a major addict to this game in my childhood. It was the only good game my old PC would run. If you ever hear an action-RPG called a "Diablo Clone", that's basically the highest possible praise you can give it. It's an all-time classic and one of the highest rated and highest selling PC games in history.

I just got it but am already frustrated. It does not allow me to select my native resolution due to a "video memory limitation", which is ****ing stupid beyond words. Hopefully a hack or patch is made available soon. A quick Google search shows nearly everyone who bothered to try the game meeting the same issue. This is unbelievably dumb. I guarantee I can play it maxed.

I own and love both Max Payne 1 and 2. They were amazing games.

 

Ditto for me on that!

Well, I'm gonna get the new Max. With the 7950 (prices dropping!) I won't get that error, but I might have to shelve it until crossfire. It looked pretty graphically intensive. Wait - isn't that the game that installs with an unprecedented 35 gigs of disk space - because of massive textures! Yeah Rockstar went crazy on that if memory serves me. So what are they making you play at, 1680 x 950 or some such??

Regarding Diablo:

Wow! In jumping around the net today - I think I saw Diablo III - I noticed it because of your prior post. So, was I seeing things, or is there a new Diablo out?

(I have the Berlin playlist going full-blast, The Metro, Masquerade, 12 classics - Altec Lansing bass is rocking - but not half what the Klipsch could do - but that would be too much for this trailer. I had to turn it on loud, because the opossums were scrambling around the cabinetry, and even, it felt like, moving under where I sit which leads to the drawer they used to sleep in when I videod them two weeks ago - three junior-sized guys - I swear tonight the trailer was almost rocking. I banged on the cabinets like I always do and yelled at them to get out - but then, like I always do, I opened up iTunes full blast. I have been procrastinating about picking up a trap so I can transport them a few miles away. Hey Jeff, out in the boondocks where you are, lol, do you get any opossums?)

Rich

 

Well basically I'm not playing it. If a game isn't at native resolution I don't consider it playable. Nor is it old enough for me to tolerate scaling my display to fit it either. Essentially Rockstar dropped the ball. No matter their limits, I should be able to use my native resolution and get the performance I happen to get. It shouldn't be their business to tell me how to use my PC...

Diablo III came out a very short time ago, but has some drawbacks and overly simplified mechanics. I personally prefer the MUCH older Diablo II.

LMAO nope but we do get raccoons, rabbits, badgers, mice, what have you. We have a field next to our house where deer usually bed down for the night. If you go out really early in the morning during the winter, you can still see the steam rising from where they slept. In the summer you can see the depressions in the grass.

Sometimes at night you can go flash the spot with a spotting lamp and the whole herd will be lying right there frozen in place. They're just so timid, it stuns them silly. Some less than savory characters actually use that tactic for hunting. Such a shame as White Tail deer are some of the most challenging animals to hunt in the world. No honor or sportsmanship in wholesale slaughter like that. I'll usually wait in my tree-stand or my blind for days before shooting a deer and you better believe it's a good one. I don't like killing needlessly.

 

Not playing the Max Payne 3 at all for now - I don't blame you.

That's how I am about half the games I own, lol. Crysis, Warhead, Far Cry 2, Grand Theft Auto 4, let's see what else, oh yeah, BF3. Let's not forget about that! Those games are sitting there waiting for the pair of 7950s.

But you're right, Rockstar shouldn't try to cram their settings down your throat. But maybe they're worried about the game getting a bad rap through word of mouth, so they figure they'll just force you to lower resolution whether you want to or not. I keep remembering the massive textures and the 35 gig disk install space - is that how much it took for you, before you uninstalled it?

Back to BF3, I'm hoping I can see you out there on the BF3 battlefield in a month or two - I'm pretty sure I will be able to prove on that title that, with ultra textures, and whatever else you think I should run it at, I'll still be gpu-bound with just one 7950.

Maybe gpu-z spread across the whole screen, will give me 5-10 minutes of gpu load history, with something else keeping track of cpu load. If I can show 100% gpu loading, and cpu at somewhat less, proving that I'm still gpu-bound, then I'll get the second one about a month later.

That is an interesting place you live in!

Rich

 

The GTA4 memory limiter could be disabled in a .ini file without needing a hack/mod in the end. Perhaps Max Payne 3 has a similar config file you can play with?

 

Yep that's absolutely right. Huge install and everything. I'll note the game itself looks pretty damn good.

Wisconsin is very spread out and large chunks of it are largely undeveloped ie very woodsy. It's well known for its wildlife, fishing, lakes, beautiful scenery etc. Also known among hunters around the world for our White Tail Deer which are by far the world's hardest animal to hunt.

As far as I'm aware it doesn't have a way to do so. Will have to wait for a patch. I heard of it detecting some 1GB + 1GB Crossfire configs as 2GB but I wasn't so lucky.

 

Trouble is, even if you hack the limiter off, there's no safe fail scenario available often - when I hacked the limiter off GTA4 with my 4870X2s (1GB per GPU, game said I needed 1900MB), it did work, but I was met with lots of see through buildings, i.e. missing textures.

 

I'm basically off by 200MB according to their reading, not 900MB. I should be able to run it with minimal issue. We'll see. I tried looking it up on other forums but the current community seems largely braindead. In particular one self proclaimed "expert" who feared going over the memory limit would damage or overheat his video card...

Ahhhh Diablo II... memories. Such an excellent game. Even better because every PC I have ever owned ran it beautifully as long as I forced it to 3DFX Glide

 

Quoteur White Tail Deer which are by far the world's hardest animal to hunt.

LOL, not in the pennsy part I'm from, those bad boys are in my garden every morning raising havoc, finally put a fence up but there still sniffing around, anyway that's the bad part, the good part come hunting season I bag one every year just sitting on my back deck, and allow some good friends to do the same.

 

Wisconsin's deer normally do not come near humans at all. A single noise will send them like a bullet back into the brush.

 

Grouse are more difficult to hunt and shoot then deer unless you road or tree hunt in the mornings and evenings when they are sleeping or picking up gravel to digest their food with. You have to be a good quick shot with Grousing plus all of the noise they make when you scare them up will freak out even the veteran hunters, not so with deer hunting, I do both. But deer can be tough on the run too but still not as tough as flushing out Grouse.

 

I guess everyone has different experiences

 

World of Warcraft Cataclysm can reach past 50GB of storage usage once fully installed, so I don't think that I'd call 35GB unprecedented. WoW went past that two or three years ago.

 

Hi Blaze. Thanks again for the clarification. I said "Keep Sam honest" not me. LOL

Do you play WoW?

I most probably read that statement in regard to an fps. I watched a guy play WoW a few times, maybe 7-8 years ago, and I was pretty amazed. I had him jump on a dragon and fly to another continent. Then I had him fight something as he was walking down a trail and he got killed. My brother yelled at me - "You just got Kyle killed - leave him alone!" hahahahaha

He was pretty into it. And it's surprising, he was a shooter player on the skill caliber level of Shaff - very skillful. I watched him play a lot of Halo - on his xbox 360. Later on my PC, he taught me a bunch of stuff about COD4. He was an all-around player. But he certainly also did like the RPG genre, which so far has not been my style, I need to kill something with a gun, lol.

So 50 gigs, wow! How many players on that thing at a time - couple thousand, right?

Speaking of Sam "see-through buildings" that is a good one. "Whoops, that hack didn't quite work out."


@Jeff, my question for you is, how can you say:

I thought you didn't even run it - but obviously you DID, lol.

Hello AndreClark - "nice post" you must have been referring to Jeff's description of spotlighting, and freezing, an entire herd of deer - an experience that not too many of us are ever going to have.

With the possible exception of FredBun:

hahaha.

What does pennsy part mean? And why does that remind me of this:

I'm just kidding Fred. Popping one off from the comfort of your porch while they are after your flowers, I suppose is just a practical and quick way to pick up some good eating. LOL What do they charge for the hunting license?


On the other hand, it sounds like Stevo is a man after Jeff's heart, in regard to "challenging hunting":

I was going to ask Jeff if he ever went after those deer other than having the patience of Job and waiting in a blind.

So, Stevo, is that what "on the run" means - you go out, spot one somehow, then try to get close enough for a kill shot, without having it pick up your scent?

And by the way, what state do you hunt in? - Don't answer "inebriated." -

Rich

 

Well World of Warcraft is also really really really huge. It has separate continents and so much content it would make you sick. I used to play WoW once upon a time

The difference is that Max Payne is a story driven shooter with concentrated action and a finite amount of gameplay. For a game of that style, 35GB is amazingly huge. Max Payne's space usage is not because of the size of its world, it's the quality of the content. For the PC version of Max Payne 3, Rockstar have seen an opportunity to avoid another tired old port, and truly utilize modern gaming PCs.

Skyrim, another story-driven game with a huge world, is only about 8.9GB on my HDD, and it has tons of content, good graphics, and lots of audio files and whatnot. So for Max Payne to have 35GB, not being near as long or content-rich as Skyrim, is a big deal.

I think capacity for a high priority WoW server is 10,000 people max. I've played some with about 7500. They also run several dozen servers simultaneously

WoW really is an excellent game. The world is richly detailed and there are so many different environments. Not to mention Blizzard's incredible skill at creating mouth-watering LOOT!!! The Diablo series is also another Blizzard masterpiece with an amazing loot system. There are several cross references to Diablo in WoW.

I really like the atmosphere and gameplay in WoW but the monthly subscription fee is a real turn-off. If it was like $5 I would probably still play but $15? For a single game? Get real.

 

harvardguy,

Check your PM's.

Russ

 

quote: harvard, I'm just kidding Fred. Popping one off from the comfort of your porch while they are after your flowers, I suppose is just a practical and quick way to pick up some good eating. LOL What do they charge for the hunting license?


LOL, nope not flowers, my vegetables, my food that me and my kids work so hard for at times would get torn apart, pretty much not any more, with the fence up and human hair all around the perimeter that pretty much solved the problem.

Have not applied for a license in years, but I hear it's pretty expensive, no matter where I live nobody bothers us, as long as you use your common sense and don't be a pig, eat whatever you shoot, I never hunted for fun only, not my style, other than that I love having animals around, just don't mess with my garden, hunting season or not they will wind up in the fridge.

 

Haha, the truth comes out. First you said, "during hunting season." I was wondering about that - because I know those license ARE expensive. I was counting the weight versus the license fee - "Let's see, that's 8.99 a pound, hmmm, pretty high for venison." Free sounds better, lol.

That's fine with me, put it in the fridge - I hope you have a big freezer. Who's in charge of all that cleaning and slicing - the kids?

I seriously doubt it. But hopefully they're at least past the age where they complain, "Mom, Dad just killed Bambi!"

What kind of gun/rifle do you hunt with?

Jeff, I know you have that AK, but I don't think you hunt with it - you use a 30/30 or similar, right? Also, as I recall, your AK is not full auto, but I might be wrong about that - it seems to me that I heard you talk about maintaining accuracy on full auto.

I can just see you, in that blind, nearly frozen, and then, finally, Bambi saunters by, as you are about to faint from hypothermia - so you just lose it, letting go with full AK auto.

"Take that b**tch!"

That would be fun to pluck out 30 rounds from the carcass, or however many make contact. Mom says, "Son, you don't want me to clean it per usual?" "No thanks mom, I've got this one."

Good thing the warden was half a county away!

(Sound system is turned way up again on New Wave playlist, Burning Down the House and such - opossums were banging their way around a couple minutes ago and again making me nervous. This time I went right to the iTunes without pounding on the cabinets. I was going to get over and pick up the trap today, but I'll be gone this weekend so no sense catching one of them tonight and having it sit in fear for several days before I AK it. Just kidding, catch and release.)

Holy moly, I forgot about that - $180 a year. Well, not really that much for the hardcore WoW guys.

Blaze - are you on the $15/mo deal?

It's really amazing that the rest of us don't have to pay monthly for these games we pay a one-time $50 for - some of us spend WAY lots of time on them. One 2-hour movie is $10, so video gaming is a pretty good value all the way around.

Okay, thanks for the reminder.

BTW - I watched a Max Payne 3 user YouTube on the brawl at the nude club last night and then I downloaded the game - YES you heard me right! (One more game that will sit for a bit.) And also yesterday I ordered 24 gpu copper memory coolers - getting ready for crossfire 7950s.

Blaze said it would be fun to cool the memory down and get the full overclocking benefit.

I'm really close now!!!


Well, if anybody is a Dad or has a Dad, Happy Father's Day, and have a nice weekend guys.

Rich