=VG= SemlerPDX

Congrats, bro! Great to hear!

my bad, missed that bit at the top with the MoBo designation, and made a poor assumption based on his first post. Now for more assumptions! j/k Since he's got a desktop with a PCIe slot, he could buy an older GFX card and slap it in there to at least get it working in PR -- I'd look for a 5000-7000 series ATI card or a a 500-600 series nVidia card for a cheap but capable card for PR. And I second the notion to install 64-bit Windows if you can, you're gonna need as much RAM as you can muster for running Windows 10 Pro and a game at the same time, not that PR is RAM hungry; also, you should consider getting very pro-active with your Windows 10 install to maximize it for your own uses, and not Microsoft's uses -- so many things you can disable or uninstall that you will likely never use that can improve performance by lowering the RAM footprint of background applications, minimizing boot times, and maximizing disk access times and capacity. See my article on the Home page for How to make Windows 10 Look and Act more like Windows 7, it includes many bits that could help you get more control over your Windows OS.

ouch... yea, it looks like it's gonna try to use the CPU to process graphics, and with 2 cores/2 threads, it may struggle even at the lowest graphics settings to run Project Reality. Well, PR is free, and you can always try it, but beware that your laptop may get excessively hot, lowering it's lifespan and potentially damaging internal components if the airflow intake ports are blocked in any way, which happens naturally over time from dust and tiny debris. I used to replace a lot of laptop heatsink and fan components, people don't often respect how little heat dissipation is possible in a laptop and how important airflow is. Serious PC Gaming on a laptop such as that is not advised if you want to respect the health of the laptop.

No, I am the one who is sorry. In no way did I mean to discount your advice or to minimize the importance of what you state. I very much understand that heat buildup is a major issue, particularly in confined spaces with little airflow. I completely respect your many decades of experience, I only had some questions and differing opinions based on things I have gathered from articles and posts I've read over the years, and reports from utility programs on my own PC (which of course may differ greatly from other PC's). Please accept my apology. I did not intend to make you feel that your advice and your post is unwanted or not helpful when I asked those clarifying questions about SATA and M.2 port speeds. I was merely confused thinking we may not be on the "same page", and often times, bits of knowledge we gain is by asking other professionals in the community who may in return raise our level of understanding. I cannot possibly know everything, and I've only been working with computers seriously for half the time you have been -- there is much I can yet learn. I will be more mindful of how I state my opinions or current understanding of a topic, and iterate where I would like clarification or correction in what I know to be correct. I was only asking the clarifying question about the SATA/M.2 port speeds as I thought M.2 was >=32GB/s and SATA III at 6GB/s MAX and SATA II at 300MB/s MAX. On my motherboard, I could install an M.2 drive, but it would nullify 2 of the SATA III ports (out of 6 total on this board), decreasing the number of storage drives it can support. In my setup, I use a 2-disk RAID-0 array, a Documents Drive, a Programs Drive, and a Recording Drive. Obviously, the M.2 would/could take the place of the 2-disk RAID-0 array and perform 60-80% faster, but the price per GB is just a bit too high (or was at the time I built this) for me consider that huge speed increase as a fiscally responsible option based on the budget of this disabled American with a kid heading for college. I considered it, for sure, but in the end I spent that additional money on other options (I believe it allowed me to go for the 80+ Gold Certified option for my PSU at the time - a component that may survive more than one PC build over 5+ years). Also, I felt it appropriate to present some data regarding the installation of my storage drives with regards to their physical installation during the system build and OS installation because I did not understand that I may be doing something wrong by installing them all at once pre-OS install but after my RAID-0 array was defined in the BIOS. If your method as described in your post is a preferred method for "x" reason, I very much want to know the value of that "x" reason so I can learn something new perhaps. We very much value the experience of others here, and if anything I wrote seemed less than a question or opinionated statement and more like some kind of slight against your post, I deeply apologize. I went back over my post and added a few EDITS to clarify my meaning as text is so terrible at conveying inference in the manner which one intends. I want to know more, and wanted to keep the discussion going regarding the health & performance quirks of SSD drives. I was under the impression based on the info I provided that given standard airflow, SSD's should have no problem with overheating, provided that the case is frequently cleaned and the blanket of dust is removed from the components inside. I also have an important question that only an expert such as yourself may be able to answer, and I don't always trust my google search skillz: I most certainly should update the firmware on my Samsung 850 Evo's, and regarding the pair in the RAID-0 array, I wanted to ask if I should be concerned at all about damaging the array or any data on those drives by applying a firmware update? I understand that the firmware data is not necessarily occupying the same data blocks as my drives use for storage, and my array is backed up very frequently, but still I wanted to confirm that there is no probable risk as I have never updated the firmware of SSD's in a RAID array before. I had presented a temperature report during a nearly full load after 30 minutes on this PC so that an expert such as yourself may provide insights as to why my temps may manageable now, as your post makes me worry that I may have more heat issues to deal with if there is something else I may be missing. If I understand correctly, you are recommending that SSD's not be used for PC Gaming as additional drives, and based on what I know now I understand SSD's to be helpful in decreasing load times and increasing performance of data streaming off the storage drive as textures load to RAM, etc. and if what I know is wrong, I would most definitely like to know why so I can spread that more correct knowledge than what I currently understand (which again, is that SSD's are good for PC Gaming) as I do not want to spread mis-information. Arma 2 and 3 particularly stream a large amount of data from the programs folder, whatever drive that may reside on - and we were seeing decent performance increases in that game (where it is difficult to get greater than 45FPS and avoid dips below 20FPS during high action scenes - even on rather capable gaming PC's). Again, being that RAM of a size/configuration capable of holding that game with overhead to run it would cost more than a fast SSD (and these days, an M.2 drive) made it the thing to recommend to our gaming friends here. Many of us have these SSD's now for PC gaming, and I am concerned that some may not be monitoring their temperatures and may have the problem you described with smoke literally coming out of the PC as the first notification that something is wrong with this method of improving our PC gaming experience. I wonder if you've seen fried drives of all sizes and brands, or if it was a set of brands in particular that were so badly overheating. Am I safe with this Samsung 850 EVO brand? As shown, I have consistent temperatures under load and during gameplay for hours on end and they've been in service for 2 years now. Am I just one of the lucky ones? I really want to know, because I do not always keep AIDA64 running, as I started to feel safe with my setup. I definitely want to know if I'm just lucky, or if I'm holding a false sense of safety and security with these Samsung EVO's. You are MORE than welcome to post up in any of these forums, and just because a young buck such as myself has questions or differing opinions or knowledge, that is no reason to pack it in. I appreciate someone with more experience passing along new knowledge on the topic, I was just under a different impression regarding the use of SSD's for PC Gaming, the speeds of SATA ports, and the delicate tipping point of SSD heat tolerance. Once again, sorry if my post made you feel unwelcome. You are most welcome, and we all value advice on these topics, and we do want to discuss it and present what we may have thought was the case, and you should feel free to point out where that may be incorrect or outdated knowledge.

To answer that question, go here, click the Download (run the .exe -- it is safe, a one time assessment that opens a website when finished to see your results) http://www.userbenchmark.com/ It will rate your computer, and provide you with a link you can share here. *I can tell you now, as long as you have an internal graphics processor or dedicated graphics chip on that laptop, you will likely be able to run Project Reality. It is not that demanding of a game compared to current games these days. Processore?! What the hell is that?!!?!! (just kidding)

Are you sure that your motherboard supports SATA 3 speeds that can allow your SSD to reach 6GB/s? If so, are you sure your SSD is connected to a SATA 3 port on your motherboard? I ask because SATA 2 ports are a 300 "megs/sec" speed range which is close to what you are reporting. The ports look the same, but some motherboards color the SATA 3 ports differently than the SATA 2 ports...

I thought the big draw of the M.2 SATA was speeds around 32GB/s (or more) and SSD SATA (3) port is 6GB/s -- with some motherboards still having a few SATA 2 ports at 300MB/s. Maybe I'm reading the above sentence incorrectly. I don't have the money for an M.2 SATA drive myself, I use 2x120GB 850 EVO SSD's in RAID-0 for my OS and another much larger 850 EVO SSD that holds all my games. I run ALL of my games off of my Programs SSD, and it's decreased my load times immensely, and with the OS on the RAID-0 volume, I get boot times of less than 12 seconds. My case is an NZXT S340 which has very decent airflow, but the only liquid cooling is on my CPU. My SSD's never have a problem with heat outside the acceptable range, and they don't have any special cooling or anything. In fact, my 500GB SSD holding my games is in the lower bay of the S340 with less airflow than the main body of the case where the other two SSD's sit (the RAID-0 volume). The main body is certainly cooler, as the lower bay contains the PSU and 2 other HDD's. I installed my 2 RAID-0 SSD's first and created my RAID-0 volume in the BIOS, then shut it all down and connected ALL other drives, SATA II and SATA III SSD programs drive, at the same time. Then I booted from USB to install Windows 7 (then again recently, Windows 10 to take advantage of the Touch Control games of Oculus Rift CV1). (*EDIT: I have the PSU disconnected from the A/C wall outlet during this part, but...) I took no extra steps in removing the powerline of any of my drives during any installation, it was all connected at once after my RAID was built. Not sure about all these extra steps you have listed regarding the installation of storage drives to the motherboard... I'll re-read it again after I write this, but I'm confident I am confused (*EDIT: but I would like to know more, to know if and/or why I may be doing this wrong). I'm also a PC Tech, had my own business for years until I retired back in 2010. Never had to take so many steps to install a multi-drive system in Windows; all drives visible by Windows OS when I tell it to install on the RAID-0 array. I do understand what you are saying above, and that heat can certainly be an issue -- and I'd love to have enough RAM to run a proper RAM Drive for the execution of some of my more demanding PC Games, but I cannot afford 4x16GB or 4x32GB to make it large enough for the overhead and still have space for the game. My main games are too large to be feasible at this time; Arma 3, Fallout, and Skyrim are between 30-40 GB, GTA V is a 70GB game, ARK Survival Evolved is a 50GB+ game (and constantly updating each damn week as they push new models instead of fixing bugs), and the rest are so old and small that they already perform tip-top with no excess heat from the SSD's running them. For my less demanding games like Falcon BMS or Project Reality, I'm not sure a RAM drive would benefit any increased load times or even streaming data from the RAM instead of SSD's as these games are already performing optimally with FPS over 100 FPS at Ultra High settings. I could see a maximum of 144 FPS with this 144Hz monitor, but only older games come close to this. Not a super-system, by today's money, I could spend about $800-900 to rebuild this entire system from scratch - but it is a well optimized gaming PC with well thought out parts and configuration. Here's a live report from AIDA64 of my temps as I play GTA V on HIGH settings, driving around in dense traffic during a cop chase in the rain - plenty of explosions going on, reflections, particles, smoke, etc - a most demanding live test, more applicable to this gaming system than any virtual test program such as 3DMark -- FTR my ambient room temp is 21 C (70F): (*EDIT: In my setup,) SSD's don't seem to have any issue whatsoever with temperatures, and I don't see why they would. (*EDIT: I don't see what I've done so differently to achieve such manageable temperatures when as stated SSD's run unreasonably hot). When I use ALL of these drives during a video rendering, the MOST demanding task this system can perform, renders that take upwards of 6 hours at times with my CPU usage pinned over 90% and data streaming to or from all drives, they barely add 5 degrees of heat, again with ambient temperatures at a reasonable 21C (70F). SSD Heat is certainly a factor to monitor, I fully agree with you on that! I've just never noticed SSD overheating to be a such constant problem, or one that requires as much attention as, say, GPU overheat (usually due to dust bunnies in the fins). An SSD for decreased load times, and increased texture loading performance, is much more affordable than a RAM set that can run a RAM drive capable of holding these modern games that tend to be at least 20GB and up to 80GB. SSD's are more affordable than RAM, and they perform way better for PC gaming than HDD's. (*EDIT: I would love to learn more if I am mistaken in this understanding - I don't want to promote mis-information as I recommend to my friends that they get an additional SSD to hold their PC games for decreased load times and possibly increased data streaming performance for games that stream a large amount of data from the storage drive during gameplay)

No, that is not the ultimate solution, and yes, we can prevent legislation from getting passed. We don't take that sort of apathetic attitude towards this sort of legislation, and if we did, things would be a lot worse than they are now. We need to act, and not just scream and shout about it - we need to shout to the right people, and that is what this thread is all about - raising public awareness to take action.

Yep. That's pretty much what we do as Americans - us "little guys". But one step at a time. THIS legislation needs to stop here and now, and only Americans can do it. *I appreciate our discussion here, and I respect our differing views. I don't mind. Of course, we never discuss politics publicly on our forums here for good reason, but I'm glad none of us are going too far off topic or devolving into what some of these crazy people get like. It's probably best to keep it light. No public leader is going to read our words here, and not one of us is going to win or lose any significant battle for the success of the human race in this little forum here, we're merely trying to help spread the word about this issue to our fellow American gamers in this community who most certainly all support our current Net Neutrality rules and the protections they extend in an effort to motivate them to act before it is too late. Too much legislation roles through unnoticed, gets passed without input from those it effects, and many times that is the actual plan of those proposing it. Remember, this is the goal of this post. Not necessarily to debate the rights of these poor, unfortunate internet service providers and their struggling business models. When you ask yourself how I can say so confidently that every American gamer here in the VG community is against repealing our Net Neutrality rules, just ask any one of them if they would like to pay more money for their internet bill to keep if from slowing down from their currently rated Mb/s Up/Down. Again, remember, this is DIFFERENT that paying more for faster speeds - we already do that. This is getting us coming and going!

Welcome back, bro! I've also been playing a bit of PR again lately, I could complain all day about the old school graphics or the technical mechanics of the bots, but in the end, it's the teamwork and cooperation with others that makes VG PR COOP so much fun - the sort of place you can lose yourself for 8 hours like it was five minutes. Good fun! See you around!

Your options are based on where you happen to live. You don't get to choose your electric company, or your water company, and if you want the fastest internet, in most major cities in America, you're going with a major telecom company who laid the lines (and one per major city, the big boys don't compete on the same turf). If you are going with some other ISP in the area, if I am not mistaken, they may well be a re-seller on the same infrastructure, meaning your true "choice" in high-speed cable internet is a bit of an illusion. Smaller areas have fewer choices, in the end, shit rolls downhill. If the big ISP's start pulling this crap, everyone will fall in line. Like I said before, they'll be charging for the internet coming, going, and in-between as well. Of course you could always go with satellite internet.... For me in my city, it's Time Warner (Comcast) holding the power - spend an hour on the phone with these pricks and you'll have as little faith in "fair businesses regulating themselves" as I do.

I don't know where the hell you are coming from (aside from the fact that you stated where you came from and where you are now) When you say those things as if government regulation of industry is a bad thing, when in fact it is absolutely necessary in at least some level of monitoring and oversight, I have no clue where you are coming from. This doesn't mean handing over control of these things completely to the government, but it does allow for fair and equitable business practices to be enforced, and a whole host of other important factors to be determined not solely by the business itself. In all industries, it is common to have some level of regulation. There must be some middle ground. It's been proven that greedy ass businessmen would do any number of immoral or unjust things in order to make money, and they cannot all be trusted to act in a right manner. You say these things as if you've studied American history, so you may already know. This country has been fighting back the Baron's for hundreds of years, and only through blood, sweat, and tears have we come to some sort of equitable state of what we call freedom in our democracy - a freedom that includes a degree of government regulation in nearly all industries. It certainly is not perfect, and could use plenty of work, but when an organized group of bully businesses attempt to pull this kind of crap, it isn't hard to boil it down to what we all know is just another attempt at a market share cash grab, and I could give a damn if they think it's better for the internet to be segregated between the "fast" and "slow" lanes. I'll say it again, it's Un-American. It goes against the freedom we now enjoy on the internet. I do not believe the ISP's should have this level of control over the specific traffic on their infrastructure. I could come up with a million reasons, but I could also point your attention to the links I've posted. Have you even read this thing? Do you even know what Title II does for us Americans? It prevents these greedy ISP's from "charging consumers more money in exchange for not reducing their Internet speed". That is damn important enough for me as a dyed-in-the-wool tax paying & voting American to oppose this deceptively named "Restore Internet Freedom Act" aimed directly at my already light wallet. You seem to assume that, while I'm no government loving political party enthusiast, I am a fool to think my government can be a savior to me at times, that some of the regulations my government puts on industries here help us greatly. You're talking to a disabled American here. For years, I could not even get health insurance if I had cash in hand, my friend. If I worked my 40 hours a week back when I worked, when I punched my time clock just like everyone else, I was unable to get the same health insurance (or any) as my co-workers - I had the money, just like they did. I could not get regular medical care. I had a pre-existing condition; I messed my body up a bit when I was a young man, still living with my family under their health insurance. When I went to live MY life on my own, my condition prevented me from ever getting health care again. Over 15 years without a doctor. Then the government stepped in and made it so I, and so many more like me, could actually get insurance and health care. A little regulation and the system is more fair - things could always be better, tweaked, fixed, amended. But I can enjoy some of the same freedoms as my fellow Americans now.

...only if you lost your current Windows product key. It is not a "per motherboard" license, you can reinstall it again and again. I got Windows 10 Home for $120 digital download online at NewEgg. They still have Win7 if you lost your key (or other reasons).

Wow - that is an impressive tool! Should be able to use the SSD section to review your actual SSD speeds. I knew I had a decent gaming PC, so was expecting a decent score - but what is most impressive is that you can use this tool to analyze which components are under-performing or even bottlenecking the PC. I built my own PC from parts I spent months researching, and not everyone has that time or technical know-how to build a PC out of the better components on the market. That website and tool make it easy to see which components are the fastest on the market and worth investing in, from SSD's through CPU's and Graphics Cards as well. I'll probably come back to that site when it's time to upgrade components because it's list of parts sorted by performance is easier to read than the many articles on Tom's Hardware. It seems my Gaming PC is a "Battle Cruiser" (5th highest rating) which means that out of 100 computers with similar configurations, only 38 of them outperform my gaming PC. http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/4323037 I was also able to identify a serious speed problem with my 2TB Documents drive - gonna see if there is a missing driver update or something; or maybe I can review my SATA ports to ensure my fastest drives are on 6Gb/s connections as appropriate. I might have just connected them all willy nilly and I might not be getting the best speed because the drive is only connected to one of the 3Gb/s SATA connections. So, with their comparison builder, you can see your current build, and tweak a few items to see where you can improve -- if I were to change my i5-4690k to the i7-4790k and my GTX 970 to the 1070, use a better set of RAM, I'd see a serious performance boost up to "Nuclear Submarine". This comparison section of that site is VERY helpful: http://www.userbenchmark.com/PCBuilder/Custom/S9109-M11612.14719.1478.1305.89932vsS5175-M11601.141989.1478.1305.90080?tab=MBD zero - don't be modest - all our PC's, even the good ones, have parts that could use an upgrade; after a few years, all parts tend to lag behind and what was a killer system becomes just another PC. Would love to see your results, we may be able to find small places where you can affordably upgrade it to eliminate bottlenecks or to get the most out of the PC without completely replacing it.

okay /locked

No, not completely, though I will admit it is a bit of a stretch. The Slip N Slide is Netflix, a company or third party product that relies solely on the infrastructure created by the owners of the infrastructure, and puts a larger than standard usage on that infrastructure. The supply does not meet the demand, and this is the situation they see - this Act is not targeted at the peering agreements so much as it is aimed at sectioning off the very traffic itself in order to make more money off of the new "smaller pieces of pie" they have in mind. The Netflix Data Server Farms already pay their internet bill, if it's not enough, raise the damn bill. I already pay MY internet bill to allow me to USE the Netflix, if it's not enough, raise my damn bill. That is where the "fees" need to stop. These ISP's have no right to make the money coming, going, and also in-between. While most every other developed country connects to the world wide web the same way as every other individual connection, further division of the traffic on the infrastructure into fast and slow lanes will only benefit the company who owns the infrastructure, and other rich companies that can afford to take priority on the internet over the small guy, perhaps a start up small business for example. This is outright un-American. Allowing those companies more fortunate than others to monopolize the "real" speed of the internet puts them at an unfair advantage over companies that may be just starting or having a difficult period of growth.

With Windows 10 you may want to be sure you have the correct drivers installed to ensure your SSD is performing at it's stated speeds. I've had a terrible time trying to get proper speeds out of my secondary SSD's since I switched from Windows 7 to Windows 10. If you google the problem "windows 10 slow ssd speed" you will find a number of articles and posts, many with different solutions. I tried many myself with no success before giving up and dealing with inconsistent SSD speeds. You can get technical and get some actual speed data using the Event Viewer I believe, but I've forgotten the method. There are also third party tools that can give you the actual speeds so you can see if you are getting the 540MB/s read speed that SSD is capable of.

Lemme guess: It was during off hours, there were disruptive players who required an Admin, but there was no Admin online at the time. Then TeeJay001 has the realization that he COULD be an admin and handle the situation himself, but he lost his Admin powers due to his own actions during his time as an Admin. The frustration of knowing he used to be able to handle such disruptions but will forever have to rely on OTHER Admins or the !R report system now makes him feel it is not worth playing on our server because he is often online when there are no VG Admins on the server. Life is all about our choices and actions, and the consequences of our choices and actions. Teejay001, you may be frustrated by this situation, but you own it. It is entirely of your own making. Had you been the upstanding player that we know you CAN be 100% of the time, you would still be a PR Admin here, and would be able to clean up the server when you play during off-hours where no other Admins are online. These are just video games - our hobby time. Real life is not so forgiving, and the consequences of one false move or saying the wrong thing to someone can have dire results. Take the lesson here, where it's safe, and apply it to your real life before you burn bridges during a period of "frustration" that cannot be rebuilt in the real world. We like you - you are a fun person to play with (when you are in a good mood, and we're all joking and having fun!) - but we cannot take ownership of a situation you put yourself in. Best wishes, bro!

https://dearfcc.org/ also https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/proceedings?q=name:((17-108))

Not sure that metering a connection for the purpose of charging an appropriate fee for the rate of usage is the same thing as what they have in mind with metering and throttling traffic in the Restore Internet Freedom Act. The most important difference being that businesses, schools, and government facilities are all on equal speed lanes of traffic and there is no prioritization model governing that traffic at this time; this Act will change the current internet landscape far more than just giving the ISP's more power over charging businesses for internet connection and data transfer usages. It goes against the very concept of internet freedom as it is today. Again, going by the water utility analogy, obviously the Fire Department may use more water than a residential customer, and therefore it's right that their usage is logged so an appropriate fee can be charged. It's also very important that they have access to water for emergencies BUT... they do not have a switch to turn off or limit all the rest of the water customers (residential users) so that the Fire Department has all the water they need, and everyone else come second (possibly losing water pressure in their homes). It is all still equal and all have the same freedom to use water for whatever they wish without any oversight. There is no one deciding that because the Water Park pays more money, they will have priority access over the rest of the people on the same infrastructure. Should the Water Company directly go after the makers of the Slip N Slide because their product causes an inordinate use of their service and taxes their infrastructure? Because of services like Neflix, many people purchase a home internet connection. This alone should compensate the companies who maintain that infrastructure. I could check my email on my phone, but I'd be pushing to get my internet installed at a new home quickly for my Netflix, for sure! Many more people have high-speed home internet connection subscriptions now due to the popularity of websites such as Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, Hulu, Amazon, and so many more. Of course, because of Neflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video, I shut off my cable TV from the same company, so I guess they are losing money. Would make sense for them to raise my internet bill each month, but that's the limit of the control they should have over my use of the service I pay them for. Thoughts?