=VG= SemlerPDX

don't forget mother's maiden name, too. !lol

Yea, this morning, it lagged like crazy.
Here's a Server Load screenshot. Only 36 minutes into the game and 8FPS.
We had many players, but weren't spread out too far. Mostly active on the map area you see, playing and shooting withing 1000m of the Main Base:

Withstand nuclear attack, sure. That's easy.

Withstand the most abundant corrosive substance on the planet? I think not.

Remember, few places on earth, even our own homes, are safe from this crap that can disolve any material on earth. And it looks like it has reached the aging missile launch facilities in Russia as well.

Think twice next time you go to get a glass of deadly, deadly H2O. And don't spill it on anything, especially metal!!!

I think it's alien writing. Translation:

"You're all screwed!"

Uh...Perhaps I should have said free shipping inside US. Was not thinking clearly. To Russia, Outlanders, may be a bit. Weight is about 10 ounces. Will look it up.

What motherboard do you have?
Don't wanna make the mistake I did a ways back. Not all 775 CPU's are compatible with all 775 MB's. And this one is 45nm die.

Intel Core 2 Duo E7600 ? 3.06 GHz (3 MB L2, 1066 MHz FSB) Socket 775 45nm; NEW IN BOX $70 OBO

The fastest Core 2 Duo in the 1066MHz FSB speed. Built on 45nm technology, (pinless) socket 775 design. Retail - New In Box

Found this little bugger in storage, almost forgot about it. I guess I won't be building a PC around it now that iCore's are the big thing.

Still, someone may be able to make use of it. Money isn't really the issue, just want to get it to a good home. Free shipping, best offer is fine.
I won't be insulted by low-ball offers. If you can use it in your computer, make me an offer & it's yours.

Thanks!

I love the idea of a persistant gaming map. I hope it isn't just a bug fest or pipe dream in the making...

Yes, Salvage. And in medium-powered PC's, it can really help load times and speed up multitasking.

Awesome articles, PITN. Never seem graph forms, and it proves on paper the performance boosts. Yeah, not many gaming systems should consider this as the first or any speed upgrade. These are just the facts.

I will add that on laptops, when gaming, this is a great boost! Laptops are limited in upgradability and this option opens up a "fourth wall". You can squeeze out the maximum potential of your current PC using this Readyboost ability when all other aspects are maxed out.

A 12GB RAM system with dual video card's like PITN has, would have a hard time telling if a program loaded in 1/2 a second or 1/3 a second. Once you own a beast like that, little speed tweaks like Readyboost won't be so noticeable, in any big way.

I found real visible benefit on my 4GB RAM laptop with 2 8GB USB's dedicated to Readyboost. It was THE difference in my (non-gaming) laptop's ability to load large or huge Civ V maps, and made texture pop-ups in GTA:IV nearly disappeared for me.

To upgrade this laptop's RAM to MAX (8GB DDR3, 2x4GB) would cost over $250. Both the 8GB USB's were $20 and I can use them for data transfer as well as speed boosters. That's their job now as I only game on my PC, and have no open USB ports on it.

Here is the real skinny:
There are a lot of misconceptions floating around about Readyboost and really seeing it's benefits. Based on all my reading and personal testing, I've come up with the facts on Readyboost.

 

 

 

Readyboost speeds up you system by not letting it slow down. Interesting concept. The idea is that when an application is loaded, information required to run it is accessed from the hard drive. Most hard drives contain moving parts and cannot compare to the Read/Write times of a flash storage (solid-state) device.

So, now we have Readyboost. It is not a PageFile drive, as you may hear, because it can be pulled out of the system at any time without causing problems. It functions similarly, but is more of a cache or data buffer on steroids.

So how does it work?
The true beauty of Readyboost lies in the way the OS compresses and writes/reads data from the device. Thanks to exFAT Formatting, I have been told that an 8GB USB memory stick dedicated to Readyboost is like a 16GB sand-table for the OS to work with. Imagine cruising down the streets of a GTA style 3D environment where buildings are popping up based on the computer's access time to the texture files, which is, in the end, limited even by a 7200-10000 RPM hard drive with a 64MB buffer. Window 7 can use a total of 256GB, and any number of devices to achieve that size, for Readyboost data buffering.

Format that stick to exFAT! If you cannot, get one that can.
The bits of data exchanged through ReadyBoost, much like a paging file, are much smaller than picture files and others files we are used to dealing with. The new exFAT format is THE format to use for your flash device when in ReadyBoost, as the new operating system(s) were designed with such data-transfer speeds and formats in mind.

Price vs. Benefit
In my opinion, the benefit per cost is higher here than even RAM upgrades, as you can max out your RAM one time before needing a better motherboard. It is true, you have to begin with the right USB device, not just your old jump-drive stick hanging on that lanyard. Read/write speeds are important and increase the price, of course. Luckily, price per size of stick is going down super fast, and 32-64GB sticks are within reach of the common gamer.

Readyboost has a speed limit, so far: 5 milliseconds Read/ 3 milliseconds Write, I believe. This means current USB sticks with Read/Write times of ~4800/4300 are sufficient for the price. Also, try using memory cards in a PC or laptop's empty card reader to have an always present speed upgrade!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Xfire may not be as good, but you can at least capture some moments with it's video recorder while you continue troubleshooting your FRAPS problem. Most of mine went away when I bought the full version some time back.

Darn Graphics lock up and the hard-reboot that follows. Thought it was a stable graphics card overclock! Prime95 and Everest got nuthin' on PR and ArmA for benchmarking and testing.....grrrr! !butcher

Upgrade the current PC or buy a new one? What to choose....Been there, done that.


Let me ease your mind and tell you that in this case, "throwing money" at the problem will help - to a degree, before you have to buy a whole new PC.

So many of us remember a time when we first bought our computer, and lo and behold, it can play FPS games online!
And with a decent ~25-35 frames per second! !2cool

Then, some time later it just doesn't keep up with the new games, patches to old games, or whatever. Upgrading to a new PC will solve this problem, but small things still help, too.

I know a few people who just recently reset their PC's (backup, re-install Windows, transfer back the backup) and BAM! !yahoo Back to the way it ran when first purchased. Always try this first.

Crap builds up, digital and physical. A dust cleanup and re-install works wonders! And even small upgrades like the right video card, better cooling and dust control, or even faster hard drive(s) make a world of difference in our area of PC use.

Keep in mind that few (current) games can fully take advantage of high amounts of RAM, or fully utilize more than a few processing cores.

I can't say which CRASH or tech problem when playing bugs me most, cuz they just don't happen so much anymore, and I didn't spend a fortune to achieve it. Just a few parts in the right place. Just remember as you upgrade, be aware of performance bottlenecks.
What good is the best processor if the hard drive(s) and RAM can't get the information to it at fast as the new CPU itself could operate? Or why more RAM when the old CPU couldn't handle data that fast anyway?
!gamer

My recipe for a good gaming experience:
1. Fast HDD or RAID for OS and/or Programs; maybe secondary drives for programs to run on. Simultaneous reads/writes from separate OS drive and Program drive = speed!

2. A little more RAM than needed for the game + the OS
-Win7, give it 2GB RAM; for a big game, give it another 2GB RAM
(so, you'll need a killer 32-bit sys with 4GB RAM, or 64-bit sys
with at least 6-8GB of (ANY SPEED) DDR3 RAM. Anything else is overkill, except for upcoming titles, or ArmA2:OA.)

3. A Dual or Quad core (even pre-icore) processor -only for max Arma settings or maybe the upcoming BF3 will you truly need nex-gen processors for a great visual game. In Battlefield 2: Project Reality, a decent 2-4 core processor will never be your bottleneck.

4. A way to keep dust from piling up on RAM, FSB & CPU heatsinks, and Video card heatsinks. Perhaps HDD mounts right behind the main fan intake (nearly a standard now). You can really increase your PC health and even get more consistant speed with a non-stock case, one with good air-flow and filters you can simply vacuum from time to time.

5. IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT INTERNET CONNECTION:
I called my internet service provider and asked why everyone has a DOCSYS-3 modem and I still have DOCSYS-2, paying the same price? They upgraded me for free, and at the same time, I chose to jump from the 8meg plan to 22meg plan - this could be part of it...I am always ALWAYS the first to be able to make a squad in PR on new map loads now.. !cmdo ..$25 more per month than basic internet so you get better connection to your favorite game? Is it worth it? I think so...we mostly all play all the time! !gam You're a gamer, admit it! So pay a tad more, if you can afford it, for true gaming speeds.

6. Manage those ports! Make sure your gaming PC (via MAC address or IP Ports) has PRIORITY over every other PC that connects through the WiFi router, and subsequently, the Modem itself. This way, no one downloading anything at the house will interfere with your online connection to the game.

*Had to scour tech forums to learn how, and talk to Comcast tech support guys (the good ones); !lazy Yeah...it sucked...Couple of key words: QoS Packet Scheduling, UPnP, Port Forwarding/Triggering; but all hardware is different!



7. Video cards are not always what they seem! The card in the picture is an "ATI Radeon 5750", and sounds good 'till you look at it. I don't care if it says it has a 5700 series GPU or 1GB of "RAM" -- this is NOT what gamers refer to as a video card. It depends on SHARED RAM as well as it's onboard "1GB" of so-called VRAM. This is why NO gaming laptop can compare to a desktop running the same version GPU on a REAL graphics card, well before the case/heat issues come up in the argument.

Not sure how they get away with that, but there are 3-4 "ballparks" that REAL video cards fall into. They are the $100-200 range, the $200-300 range, and the $300-750+ ranges. Place your money into a big brand-name card in one of these ranges for price vs. performance satisfaction. Names like Diamond, or Asus because BRAND NAMES MATTER with video cards! If you have room and power, use 2 less expensive cards in SLI/Crossfire instead of one VERY hot & fast ($400+) card.

Also, don't worry about minor differences in the cards specs - new versions of cards come out on a MONTHLY basis, way too hard to keep up when trying to comparing one to another of the same price range/type.

8. FINALLY, if everything is perfect, and you still want more, get a good monitor with 120Hz Refresh Rate. These are the "3D" capable monitors cuz they sync 60 refreshes to each eye with the additional $200 3D glasses. But WITHOUT the glasses, both eyes see 120 refreshes per second and it LOOKS SMOOTH AS GRAVY!! !cool
These monitors are in the $275-$350 price range to start, and I wish I could afford one!!


Hope this helps someone, I know it would have helped me before all that time spent reading and messing around. If you can, off-load sound and NIC (internet) to a PCI(-e) card(s). Less for the MB/Primary CPU to deal with. These give minor 5-10 FPS increases, respectively.

Good Luck!!

Have a blast, bro!

Would be nice to have a camera person in each flight. Then 'ol Bones can assemble the clips into one of his famous 3hour YouTube vids! !2cool Or edit it for content...

Perhaps we could organize an event, even set up a TE that could accomodate such a flight (or be restarted in the event of a tech problem).

Obviously, we'd need a lot of people and the group is spread from West Australia to Russia - Lotta time zones to sync up + work schedules.
!pilot

You gonna fix that link, Bones?

Cache in Sadif Ab, NE of Rasman Airport, kept blowing up after we set it off. Was BAF, server had been up 140 minutes, 2 caches were blown prior to that. Server FPS 16.

The secondary explosions kept going over and over. Didn't end, so I restarted server. Not sure if it was hack or script problem. Witnesses were .:frosty:. and FarFarLars.

"You Have Zero Friends" South Park -
"Dad, it's just a stupid button that takes like 3 seconds to press. It doesn't mean anything!"
"So...what? You don't have the 3 seconds? Or..."

I'm back, and beat. Lotta running around, setting up. Then, I thought I'd hike around to some familiar spots. I didn't expect to do that, just staying over night, and wanting to waterproof my boots, I did not bring them.

Not easy on the body hiking off-path in Vans.

The most exciting part of the trip was the wind storm mid-day that felled a tree about 50 yards from the camp. Crap was falling everywhere, and all of a sudden, I hear a huge snap and see this giant, 6ft-round tree fall along the back path leading upstream.

It hit the ground with a thump I could feel in my feet, bounced into 3 pieces and hit the ground again. It settled right over "Tom Thumb's Cabin"; a small, moss-covered hole that looks like a hobbit house or something with a baby tree growing out of it's roof. It was spared from being crushed by the 80ft long, rotten tree falling.

I had no battery left in my camera at that time, but I will photo it next trip.

Downstream:




Upstream:




Fire-bellied Salamandar:

Actually, it's a little pre-season, but Cousin John is heading up camping for the summer. He's a tough old mountain lion, and used to be a camp host for Thousand Trails many a summer. Now, retired, he likes to spend the entire season up in the same valleys with his dog, Roxie.

I run him up blocks of ice and any supplies he asks for every 5 days. That starts today, and the weather is just beautiful for setting up! Here's hoping we find enough dry wood to build a fire. Always easier to burn wet wood on a hot fire.

Here's a few pictures of what it looks like this time of year:






And here's the river, high and fast:

The USA Ins Server name reads TS3 Port 9887

You're all doing something right; This room is seldom empty, and often there is a wait to join for many players.

Server is now the 5th most popular ArmA II server!
s/f

Arma II, mostly
Falcon 4 when I get rolling again.
PR not so much anymore, but would possibly be into events.

Amen
Angels in flesh-colored suits.

Awesome, Solar! I hardly know ye! Maybe we can cap some townships and blow up some weapons cache's now. (or soon, as it were) !eatmyuzi