Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Colonol Dekker on June 12, 2006, 05:42:21 am
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Right, my old P4 has just been passed on to the new generation (13 yr old sibling) And my 21 yr old bro has an SLI GEforce beast and is rubbing my nose in it. My IT tinkering days rare Waaaaaay gone now, I got an A-level 2 GNVq's and a GCSE all high passes. But i cant be arsed to build a new rig.
I'm earning good money so i think ill buy one, I want a blatan gaming rig that can also handle rendering well.
Being out of teh loop i'm not sure, gaming power and rendering power- Interchangable?
IE If i fork out on a hench/Tonk uber mother of a gaming system, will it do 3dsmax justice?
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Hmm. Rendering usually requires a different sent of calcs to games-rendering, namely a lot more FP math for things like proper soft shadowing and light-tracing, etc; stuff even top-level games cards struggle with.
Although, depends what you're rendering. Max v4 runs on my creaky old thing ok, although it takes a while to render anything non-trivial.
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ugh
especially with alienware, it'd be much cheaper to buy and assemble the components on your own. it may not look as snazzy, but you'll have a compy that can do everything the alienware can do, probably more.
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Software rendering is more about CPU power than graphical power, a lot of rendering programs allow for multi-threading as well, so a Multi-Core high powered CPU is better than a top-level Graphics card system :)
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http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1328929695.1150109485@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccladdiddkkjdjcflgceggdhhmdfho.0&page=Product&fm=0&sm=0&tm=undefined&sku=701050&category_oid=-27735 (http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1328929695.1150109485@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccladdiddkkjdjcflgceggdhhmdfho.0&page=Product&fm=0&sm=0&tm=undefined&sku=701050&category_oid=-27735)
Just had a look, this seems quite reasonable, I'd still have wodge to blow on beer for the rest of the month too..
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As far as buying pre-built computers go, you might want to check this (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,39821.0.html). However, if I were you I'd wait till Intel Core 2 Duo and either NVIDIA G80 or ATI R600 are released. The trio will be better than anything currently available. Even if you won't buy them, their releases will drop current generation prices considerably. Core 2 Duo will be out by end of June and G80 according to rumors will be pretty close as well, R600 on the other hand is most likely released for christmas.
Edit: About the link you posted above, please don't buy Intel Pentiums. They are crap compared to equivalent Athlons. The first decent Intel chip in years is the Core and especially Core 2.
Edit 2: If you want to buy a new rig NOW and not later. Then I recommend you to look for a rig that has nForce 570 or nForce 590 based motherboard such as Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe, AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ AM2 or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ AM2 as well as nVidia GeForce 7900GT and 2GB DDR2-800 RAM. This setup won't break the bank, offers very good performance in games and rendering and AM2 socket offers decent upgradeability in the future unlike socket 939.
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Well, i can safely spend £1100, but i can push myself to £1600 and miss out on getting drunk all month.. :(
Ideally i'd like to spend £700 though. (wouldn't we all though) :D
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Avoid PC World if possible, they really aren't a good place to get stuff from.
www.novatech.co.uk
This place is pretty good, you can get barebones systems and just buy the add-ons you need :)
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LMAO i spent 3 months working for Dixons group back in 2003 on a break from primary job.
PCWorld are sh1t, i made most of the sales by telling the customers the truth about cover and actually speaking to them-not down to them.
I still get my old workmates to give me 10% discount thats the only reason i check their stock.
Novatech Eh? Interesting, i think ill browse for a bit.
Cheers >>>
Caught my eye
nForcer Elite 4200
AMD Athlon AM2 Dual Core 4200 64 Bit Processor
1024MB DDR2 667MHz Corsair Dual Channel RAM
500GB(2 x 250GB) Serial ATA II Hard drive with 16MB Buffer
Dual nVidia 7900GTX 512MB PCI-E Graphics
Sony 16x Dual Layer +R/-R/RW DVD burner
DVD Rom Drive
8-Channel High definition Audio with Optical, Coaxial & DTS Connect Function
Wireless 54G and Gigabit LAN
Logitech Elite Media Keyboard & X7 Laser Mouse
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- nForcer Elite 4200? :wtf: From the name I assume it is nForce 4 based, don't bother. Get nForce 570 or 590 instead.
- 1024MB DDR2 667MHz Corsair Dual Channel RAM. Only 1GB and besides you really should get DDR2-800 with AM2 or otherwise RAM performance will be somewhat lacking.
- Dual nVidia 7900GTX 512MB PCI-E Graphics. GTX gives you the most performance but GT is far more wallet friendly and still an excellent performer.
- 8-Channel High definition Audio with Optical, Coaxial & DTS Connect Function. Sufficient for gaming I guess, but you might want to consider Creative X-Fi is you're a gamer.
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Fury if i set a budget of say £900 or lower find me the machine you would buy today.
I'll buy it :D
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as long as you don't go buying some prefab computer from dell or something, you should be ok
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I don't buy or research on pre-built rigs. £900 is close enough to a rig I described here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,40414.msg823527.html#msg823527).
Turambar, he is precisely looking for pre-built rigs such as Dell.
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Whens it out? I couldn't find a price on it.... :(
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
[/vader]
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Whens it out? I couldn't find a price on it.... :(
AM2 motherboards and CPU's are out right now. Core 2 Duo will be available in perhaps 2 months, with any luck G80 as well.
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Trust me Colonel Dekker, if you're waiting for everyone here to agree on what computer is best for rendering, it'd be quicker to buy a Paintbrush and Watercolour set ;)
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Cobs dont import well... :lol:
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The video card doesn't affect the actual rendering, although it determines how smoothly you can move around the camera while editing. If you want the best rendering speeds, two dual cores would be optimal, but get at least one (would highly advise waiting for Core 2 though). Performance in most modern games, on the other hand, is almost completely dependent on the video card(s).
So yeah, I think it's possible to get top notch gaming and rendering performance in the same system if you're ready to spend the money, although maybe not overall 3D app performance (the workstation cards are much faster than consumer cards at that, but suck in games).
If you're planning to use SLI, try all the games you intend to play on your brother's system and make sure everything works to your satisfaction. SLI is wonderful when it works, but it currently has major vsync related problems in most games (that go beyond the basic tearing). I finally got fed up with that and ditched my SLI setup last month.
If you're willing to tinker a bit, avoid the 7900GTX, as essentially all 7900GTs can be pushed beyond GTX speeds with a very simple mod.
Also, there seems to be some widespread problem on the current batches of 7900 cards, with a large number of people getting defective ones out of the box. It's bad enough that some hardware sites and card manufacturers have acknowledged it, so make sure you buy from some store/company that will let you replace it quickly if needed.
Core 2 Duo will be out by end of June and G80 according to rumors will be pretty close as well, R600 on the other hand is most likely released for christmas.
Actually, the general consensus around various forums is that they are both very unlikely to come out before the end of the year (possibly even later), going by Inquirer speculation and the complete lack of any leaked information. The 7950GX2 is yet another mid-gen refresh intended to hold over until then and ATI should have a speed bumped R580 out in September.
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Hmmm, Thankee sai,
I'll bear this in mind, I might hold on, but i'm sorely tempted to purchase before the end of the week.
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the AM2 socket will allow for 4x4 operation in a year or so, that is basically a buzzword for AMD's upcoming Quad Core chips and Dual GPU SLI (4 cores CPU, 4 Core GPU)
Considering that AMD's chips all use Hypertransport Point to Point interconnect with cache coherency between all 4 cores, that could end up being a considerably better platform in the long run vs a Front Side Bus Crippled Core 2 Duo.
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Considering that AMD's chips all use Hypertransport Point to Point interconnect with cache coherency between all 4 cores, that could end up being a considerably better platform in the long run vs a Front Side Bus Crippled Core 2 Duo.
That's true. It eludes me as to why Intel decided to stick with outdated FSB. :sigh:
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And here I was thinking that Intel CPU offer the best stabilaty and performance for programming and other stuff like that. I still can figure out why Intel have lagged so much behind??
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cause theyve been working on their new one, which is supposedly the pants.
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Another really interesting thing that is going on is that AMD has opened up their hypertransport architecture. That means that anyone can now make a chip that interfaces directly (plugs into) socket AM2.
I can imagine having a PPU running off the hypertransport bus might be quite exciting.
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Has anyone written a raytracer that makes use of the GPU yet? Doing all those calculations in software seems rather inefficient. There must be some way of offloading the vector calculations onto the graphics hardware.
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Well, Nvidia are working on something that works alongside 3DSMax, but I don't know how effective it will be, GPU's use several 'Shortcuts' or optimisations to make things as quick as possible. Raytracting software doesn't do that because quality is far far more of an issue than speed.
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Considering that AMD's chips all use Hypertransport Point to Point interconnect with cache coherency between all 4 cores, that could end up being a considerably better platform in the long run vs a Front Side Bus Crippled Core 2 Duo.
That's true. It eludes me as to why Intel decided to stick with outdated FSB. :sigh:
Possibly down to trying to work around the limitations of stuff AMD have already patented, I'd guess.
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Theres that new Physix card that dell are sticking in one of their machines that certain games which suupport the feature will implement, The card effectively taking the phiysics calculations off the computres workload.
If a rendering equivalent (not a graphics card) but kinda like a dual core but explicitly for dedicated hardware rendering came along that would be V cool.
Unless i'm mistaken and you can do that with dual cpu anyway, I otta admit my knowledge of rendering goes back to 2002 last ime i did it for any duration.
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There are dedicated - very expensive - rendering cards. Have been for a while, it's just not the sort of thing you'd expect to see on the high street.
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If i was into hardcore rendering, As a leisure thingg, at the moment its more of an old hobby i wanna get back into, But if i WAS into it heavily, I could put a few grand up for it....
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Actually, I have an old computer that runs purely as a server and rendering machine. It means that speed isn't all that vital, since the machine isn't being used for anything else. So if it takes 3 weeks to render up a 10 minute movie, I'm not that bothered :)
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Taling about that i caught Advent Children last night. Visually splendid but what a load of crap with regards to the story.
Dont get me wrong i loved FF7 but the film is a load of arse.
I think this subject deserves another thread.
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building the computer yourself is a much better option. you know exactly what you have, what components are in it, and how it's put together. its more than just some shiny plastic shell from alienware, its your baby when you build it yourself.
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I built my first pc over a decade ago, i just cant be botherer with hardware conflicts and jumper settings anymore.
When i was tinkering it was a good learning process and all that. But now i just dont see why i should go through compatability hassle issues when i can afford the shiny aesthetic pre-made stuff.
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physics processors are going to be a must when it comes to future games... have you guys seen cellfactor with the physX PPU (physics processing unit) ? It does things like barrels fly around and break open and realisitic liquid spills out... pretty neat.
Since AMD will allow companies to plug into the hypertransport architecture, you could see stand alone PPU's pluging into AM2 based dual motherboards in the next 2 years.
Currently Intel's Core 2 Duo is the nicest architecture, due to it's 4 x86 decoders, but AMD is still well positioned. All they need is a few tweaks to their next generation chips (the DDR3 ones) and they'll be right in the game.
Either way the consumer wins. Whether you have Core 2 Duo or a Dual Core Athlon, you have tremendous processing power compared to what was available even 3 years ago.
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I built my first pc over a decade ago, i just cant be botherer with hardware conflicts and jumper settings anymore.
When i was tinkering it was a good learning process and all that. But now i just dont see why i should go through compatability hassle issues when i can afford the shiny aesthetic pre-made stuff.
hardware conflicts are gone thanks to APIC and having things like hundreds of IRQs (at least, in Windows Vista, where it truly shines, but to a large extent in XP as well)
jumper settings ? All motherboards are jumperless nowadays (it really has been a long time huh!) The only settings you have to change are in the BIOS.
Of course, if you don't enjoy building your own machine, you can buy the pre-made stuff. But it really truly is a hobby for some of us.
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physics processors are going to be a must when it comes to future games... have you guys seen cellfactor with the physX PPU (physics processing unit) ? It does things like barrels fly around and break open and realisitic liquid spills out... pretty neat.
Although there may be a future for that concept in general, the $300 PhysX "decelerator" is currently something of a joke:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2759
Cellfactor also reportedly runs at the same speed on software and on the PhysX card. In a few years this type of thing may become mainstream, but I don't see it going anywhere any time soon, especially in terms of how it affects gameplay.
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Yeah, these first ones will be like the very early graphics cards, really just adding functionality, it'll be a while before anything more relevent comes out.
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Well, Nvidia are working on something that works alongside 3DSMax, but I don't know how effective it will be, GPU's use several 'Shortcuts' or optimisations to make things as quick as possible. Raytracting software doesn't do that because quality is far far more of an issue than speed.
No, fixed-function rendering (Gourad, etc) uses shortcuts. The programmable pipeline is simply a large number of very fast floating-point arithmetic units. The only shortcuts those take are the ones you program them to take.
The GPU is just a huge number of programmable FPUs with a default program.
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Ah, I see, didn't know that. I'll freely admit, my knowledge of GPU's is pretty limited (as I just proved).
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I never said PhysX thing was going to be successful - it probably won't be. But it's virtually guaranteed that physics will make it's way into hardware at some point. I'm betting the next generation of GPUs will include some kind of hardware physics calculation capabilities... it's just begging to be exploited...
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Exactly, these cards won't add much speed but they'll give birth to, for want of a better description, a physics version of OpenGL, that will provide the basic 'Rosetta Stone' for later, more powerful cards :)
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One step closer to the Matrix or holodeck equivalent physics in games....
I want a pc that plugs right into my Brain !!
saves all that faffing aboutwith speakers and monitors anyway...
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if my gpu is doing physics, doesn't that mean that it's doing less making my stuff look uber-good?
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Not sure where physics go at the moment, I thought the CPU did them.
It'll probably end up with the grpahics card doing the rendering, the physics card doing the physics and the CPU being free to do the AI and being 'The One Ring', as it were :)
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At the mo all physicsis cpu / game software, Hence the term physcs engine/model.
Its amazing how far from pong we've come.