Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Nuke on June 18, 2007, 05:43:04 pm

Title: New computer reporting in
Post by: Nuke on June 18, 2007, 05:43:04 pm
intel c2d e6700
asus p5n32-e mobo
4 gb 800mhz ddr2
8800gts (ive had this for awhile)
320gb sata seagate baracuda
160gb sata hitachi (from old computer)
sata samsung dvd burner
and a really ****ing cool case



[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Bob-san on June 18, 2007, 08:01:33 pm
That case is awesome. Is it an XClio A380-BK or A380PLUS-BK? I'm thinking the latter. Awesome rig, dude... also, is that motherboard the P5N32-E SLI or SLI Plus? What OS is on it?
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Flipside on June 18, 2007, 08:03:38 pm
Very nice, you win on the Processor, I got a 6600 C2D, but I win on the Graphics Card, with an X1950 Pro. Oddly enough, we both went for exactly the same Hard-Drive :)
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Polpolion on June 18, 2007, 08:07:02 pm
spiffy :yes:

How much did it cost?
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Nuke on June 18, 2007, 09:19:26 pm
That case is awesome. Is it an XClio A380-BK or A380PLUS-BK? I'm thinking the latter. Awesome rig, dude... also, is that motherboard the P5N32-E SLI or SLI Plus? What OS is on it?

i didnt know about the a380plus till after i bought this, it has an even bigger fan on the side panel.ive got more than enough cooling though, nothing goes over 40c even under a high performance load. i got the sli version of the mobo. im also running 32bit vista.

Very nice, you win on the Processor, I got a 6600 C2D, but I win on the Graphics Card, with an X1950 Pro. Oddly enough, we both went for exactly the same Hard-Drive :)

not counting the video card which i bought this fall, $1,525.83 usd.

i think im gonna put the xfi in here, im not too happy with the onboard sound.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: jr2 on June 18, 2007, 09:30:58 pm
Don't forget to disable on-board sound in the BIOS, or you might get problems...
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: asyikarea51 on June 18, 2007, 09:44:52 pm
Neat. :) :D

Would've taken a C2X processor myself, but I know my reason for not doing so all too well... :blah:
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Flipside on June 19, 2007, 03:33:46 am
Actually, depending on the Soundcard, it's sometimes better to keep the other drivers active, most high-end cards are quite happy with a second soundcard active in the system. I use an E-MU 1212, which is, admittedly, a music-studio soundcard, not a gaming one, and, unfortunately, it's DirectSound support is absolutely awful, and, being marketted by Creative, I'm not holding my breath for updates.

Fortunately, the card doesn't mind in the slightest if I keep the onboard card on and just route DirectX and Mediaplayer through that, whilst using the E-MU for Cubase and ASIO stuff :)
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Wobble73 on June 19, 2007, 04:30:42 am
It looks F**king awesome Nuke.  :nod: :yes:

So what fps do you get in FS:SCP with all MediaVPS and everything maxed out?
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Nuke on June 19, 2007, 01:23:11 pm
Don't forget to disable on-board sound in the BIOS, or you might get problems...

thats only an issue with old skool sound cards that require a specific irq and memory address range. the xfi is more modern and i dont think it suffers from that. now if i were to use my old sblive im sure id get ****.

It looks F**king awesome Nuke.  :nod: :yes:

So what fps do you get in FS:SCP with all MediaVPS and everything maxed out?

i havent really played any games yet, im still working on getting all the proper drivers installed and getting this to burn in for abit. the arctic silver takes about 200 hours to interface properly. its probibly been running long enough by the end of today to test its actual capabilities.

couple problems though. both are memory related. im not getting my memory to run at 800 mhz, it only runs at 666.67 dispite being ddr2 800. if i set the memory to the correct speed in the bios i get instability. its high performance memory and it was even on the qvl for the mobo. il probibly see if i cant find a bios update, its an asus so i should have no problem doing a flash. and on the subject of the bios, it seems to like to reset its self on occasion. its supposed to be  a feature so you can reboot out of a bad overclock configuration. but im not even overclocking. even then a bios flash seems to be the best solution.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: CP5670 on June 19, 2007, 02:10:16 pm
Nice setup. :yes: What week/batch of the 6700 did you get?

If you want something to show off your system, I think SC: Double Agent may have the best graphics of any current PC game, although don't be surprised if it crawls for you. The previous SC game looks almost as good (equally good except for the character models) and runs far better.

Quote
So what fps do you get in FS:SCP with all MediaVPS and everything maxed out?

It should actually be the same as the last generation or two of video cards. FS2 is not very heavy on hardware at all.

Quote
couple problems though. both are memory related. im not getting my memory to run at 800 mhz, it only runs at 666.67 dispite being ddr2 800. if i set the memory to the correct speed in the bios i get instability. its high performance memory and it was even on the qvl for the mobo. il probibly see if i cant find a bios update, its an asus so i should have no problem doing a flash. and on the subject of the bios, it seems to like to reset its self on occasion. its supposed to be  a feature so you can reboot out of a bad overclock configuration. but im not even overclocking. even then a bios flash seems to be the best solution.

You may need to set the timings and voltages manually. The boards occasionally don't read the stuff in the SPD chips correctly.

Do you have two 2GB sticks or four 1GB ones? Some boards tend to have issues with four sticks and need slightly relaxed timings for them to work stably.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Nuke on June 20, 2007, 03:34:32 am
im using 4 1 gig sticks. the timing thing is probibly it. this memory is 4-4-4-12, any clue on what theese numbers are to give ma a clue as what needs to be tweaked in the bios? in the past the mobo has always been able to figure it out on its own. but this is the first time ive used high performance hardware.

*edit*
i checked the  manufacturer's page (http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/PartsInfo.asp?root=us&LinkBack=http://www.kingston.com&ktcpartno=KHX6400D2LLK2/2G) and the memory will get detected at a lower speed. however its also rated to be overclocked at 800. so now i get to figure out what settings to change to overclock it properly. i dont think i did it right last time.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: CP5670 on June 20, 2007, 04:19:20 am
Your problem definitely sounds like it's related to having four sticks, although just to be sure one of them isn't bad, you could see if it works at 800 with only two sticks and then try the other pair on their own. Overclocking with four sticks is difficult, but they should still work at their stock speed of 800. I don't know how good that particular memory is though.

The four main latency ratings they advertise are TCL/CAS, TRCD, TRP and TRAS in that order, but there are several other timings too. The max async latency and read premable settings often have a significant impact on stability, but the optimal settings vary between motherboard/memory combinations. For the main timings, you could try loosening manually them to 5-5-5-15, although it seems that it should be using those by default.

One other thing you should verify is that the command rate is 2T. The nforce boards allow you to use 1T, but it will basically never work with four sticks.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Nuke on June 20, 2007, 04:35:03 am
well 100 test cycles in pc check says theyre good. not a single memory error. i didnt see the command rate setting but i think i saw the other 4 you mentioned in the bios. id have to go back in and see. seems asus released a new bios like 2 days ago and im gonna give it a try. im not sure how to boot this thing in dos, i dont have a floppy drive. im thinking of trying to boot into freedos from my sister's ipod so i can run the flash utility, though im not sure thats safe. or maybe i can flash from a network boot. im not sure if the in windows flash utility works under vista.

*edit*
cool, i got dos to recognize the ipod, no ****ing joke. i had to use some hackish drivers but it worked. now im trying to make it bootable. the freedos installer was able to crate a boot sector on the thing, though i couldnt format the thing. so im formating it with fat 16 now, hopefully if i do the same thing again and copy the system files manually i can make it bootable. its rather freeky. i wonder if it will be restoreable :D

*edit again*
well i couldnt boot from the ipod but for some reason when i used my freedos boot disk, it recognized my ipod and i loaded the bios from it. after about 20 seconds of twideling my thumbs, which felt like an entire two minutes btw, plenty of time for a stupid squirrel to cross the power lines causing its death, as well as the death of my computer. fortunately that didnt happen  ....this time :nervous:. turns out my old bios was left over from around december. anyway now that its up to date im gonna try to tweak my memory to work at its full speed.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: CP5670 on June 20, 2007, 11:12:32 am
A lot of modern motherboards have some sort of failsafe system, where the old BIOS is backed up until it actually boots off the new one. I have started keeping all my machines on UPSs in any case, ever since short power failures suddenly became much more common here last summer. :p

Does your memory work with the new BIOS?
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Nuke on June 21, 2007, 03:10:48 am
no its still getting detected as 5-5-5-15. of course thats how the manufacturer says it works, to get the rated speed you have to overclock, and i take it it was designed for this. still im not too comfortable of overclocking 300 bucks worth of memory, even if its rated for it. not without some form of cooling anyway. then again they do have that gargantuan fan hovering over them. none the less il see what kind of memory coolers are available. im having some trouble runing the thermal monitoring utility that came with the mobo. and i dont want to **** with the memory blind.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: jr2 on June 21, 2007, 03:35:25 am
Check out Ultra aluminum heat spreaders?
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Nuke on June 21, 2007, 04:03:06 am
well the memory already have heat spreaders on them. im sure they got some sort of clip on fan or whatnot.

well i managed to set it to 4-4-4-12, it apears stable but it still only comes up as 667.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Nuke on June 22, 2007, 03:21:30 am
i figure il just post all the memory settings i have and what theyre set to. maybe you can point me to the right one to tweak.

tcl(cas) - 4
trcd - 4
trp - 4
tras - 12
commands per clock - 2 (i assumed that was the t1/t2 settuing you talked about)

ok with those settings the machine is pretty stable. im not to sure about the heat condition, the driver which is supposed relay data to the monitoring program doesnt apear to work. any other settings are set to their bios default, which is auto. those settings are trrd, trc, twr, twtr, tref, trd, trfc, and async latency.

i also have the option to manually set the memory clock. i have 2 options, linked and unlinked. in unlinked mode i can set the memory clock directly as well as the fsb (qdr) clock, which is at 1066. setting the memory to 800 however causes instability. i can also set the fsb and a link ratio. im i right to assume that memclock * ratio = fsb? and does the fact that the memory is ddr and the fsb is qdr? should i throw a *2 in there somewhere?
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: jr2 on June 23, 2007, 01:43:18 am
Umm, DDR = Double Data Rate... I'm assuming QDR = Quad Data Rate??  IDK; my systems are socket A / socket 478 generation.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: diceman111 on June 23, 2007, 04:44:16 pm
I demand a test run with 3dMark 06 http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark06/ !!!!!!!


/Dice

Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Nuke on June 24, 2007, 11:20:25 pm
8547

i had it running at > 9000 before but that was in a rather unstable configuration.

in 3dmark01, i get 25039 right now, and thats with full aa. without full aa it falls just short of 30000.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: DeepSpace9er on July 05, 2007, 10:47:42 pm
you got me beat on the proc.. got an e6600. Are you running in 64bit? Im running the 32bit version of Vista and with the 8800GTX i only get 2.8GB usable of the 4GB in chips (4x1) i have installed. Upgrading to Vista was enough, i didnt need the even less support for running 64bit, and i only upgraded the RAM after Supreme Commander was crashing.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Nuke on July 06, 2007, 06:25:34 am
nah 32 bit. i read articles that said 32 bit was nessicary if you wanted to run 16 bit apps and that in 64 bit mde those 16 and 8 bit apps would fail to run. usefull things like installers for old (and not so old) games, mod tools for old games, ect. i will continue to run in 32 bit until i come up with a solution to that problem, perhaps a linux dual boot and a wine setup. it seems all 32 bit windows operating systems (except maybe server) has a hard 4gb limit, which video memory seems to count to. im running a single gts right now, so i only have 3326 megs of addressable ram (4096 - 640 - some other ram for other mystery devices to use, and in youre case 4096 - 768 - s.o.r.f.o.m.d.t.u :D).

unfortunately, sence i bought an oem version, im stuck with 32 bit. and vista really really sucks. but sence i gave ms another 200 bucks for their overpriced os, i can pirate their other oses they have completely free of any guilt. :D more likely than that, im sure linux can deal with 4gb.

anyway i just got my ch fighterstick and pro throttle, and my ch rudder pedals should be here by about wednsday or thursday, as well as some wireless networking gear and some memory for my #3 machine which is undergoing somewhat of a case mod. pretty soon il be riding high on the hog surrounded by so much tech so as to give me a brain tumor before age 35. death is good, hail satan!

btw, anyone know of a somewhat modern flightsim with state of thje art graphics and modern military combat. spending all this money on hardware makes me want to buy some modern games, yet the shelves are full of ****. any suggestions?
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: CP5670 on July 06, 2007, 08:47:18 am
Quote
spending all this money on hardware makes me want to buy some modern games, yet the shelves are full of ****.

Precisely the reason why I'm still on a 15 month old setup. I am usually the first to upgrade when anything new comes out, but there is hardly anything to upgrade for these days. There are a handful of good games out there, but they are also badly programmed and don't look much better than titles from a few years ago despite running poorly, so there is no point in buying hardware just for them.

As for flight sims, the last one I've heard about is LOMAC, but that was two years ago. I don't know if there is anything newer out.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: Nuke on July 07, 2007, 12:00:13 pm
well the newest flight sim i have is cfs3. i also have fs2004 which is alot newer, but i want a combat sim. i was supposed to get il2 with my rudder pedals, but i had to reorder them, but it seems they stopped bundeling il2 with them.
Title: Re: New computer reporting in
Post by: jr2 on July 08, 2007, 03:45:06 am
Look around, there is a Mod site for Flight Simulator... I forget where it was, but it looked quite nice...

Ah, I think it is here:
http://www.simviation.com/

Also check:
http://www.download.com/Flight-Simulator-2004-A-Century-of-Flight-Real-Stars-mod/3000-7545_4-10292672.html
and:
http://www.download.com/Flight-Simulator-2004-A-Century-of-Flight-Massive-Crash-mod/3000-7545_4-10292719.html