Re: Hard Disk Power ON time / Spin count

Posted on 2014-07-28, 21:01

by

by obobskivich

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't think there's any pre-determined value for how long they're able to last - the oldest drive I have is from the late 1990s and still works, and I know people who have drives probably a decade older than that that will still spin up and run. On the other hand, I've trashed newer drives that've …

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Re: The demands of playing @ 1600 x 1200

Posted on 2014-07-28, 20:27

by

by obobskivich

in Windows

in Windows

What make and model please? Yeah that would be interesting to see. I know neither of my monitors has that, but they do seem to have no issues with 4:3 letterboxing. Newer nVidia drivers also offer the scaling feature, so that's worth considering as well (I'm not sure if the newer ATi drivers …

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Re: Hard Disk Power ON time / Spin count

Posted on 2014-07-28, 20:24

by

by obobskivich

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

+1 to AlphaWing. I've got some pretty ancient drives that show even higher power-on time and start counts, but are still properly quiet and reliable.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2014-07-28, 20:22

by

by obobskivich

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mmmm, Cooler Master ATC series. If I remember right the folks behind those cases went on to form/contribute to Silverstone as we know it today. What all is going into that beauty foey?

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2014-07-28, 05:28

by

by obobskivich

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You can do it in Paint or just take your pictures in a lower resolution next time. Gimp/Photoshop/Paint.NET/etc (basically any image editor) can also do it (the "next step" if it isn't apparent is to re-post the new, lower resolution image). And some image hosting sites can also resize for posting …

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Re: Fidelity vs Enhancements: Which One Do You Prefer?

Posted on 2014-07-27, 21:47

by

by obobskivich

in Milliways

in Milliways

Actually, it happens in audiophile world as well. The fact is it's impossible to perfectly re-create what the sound engineer intended, because in order to do so, your listening room needs to be an exact replica of the studio where the sound was recorded - exact acoustic environment and the likes. …

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Re: VGA to HDMI converter/scaler vs monitor's built-in scaler?

Posted on 2014-07-27, 16:01

by

by obobskivich

in Milliways

in Milliways

Anyway, would an Atlona VGA to HDMI scaler yield better result than (a) converting VGA to YPbPr, then (b) upscaling and converting YPbPr to HDMI on a receiver? That's a trickier question - it depends on how good the Atlona is at A/D conversion and scaling I would guess. Newer graphics cards will …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2014-07-27, 15:56

by

by obobskivich

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Replace EVERY cap, that's the correct way to deal with these situations. 90% of them are in the affected areas anyways. +1. That's consistently what I've read and seen done as "proper practice" over the years. Sure I've seen guys only replace the bad ones, but usually they're pulling the board …

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Re: The demands of playing @ 1600 x 1200

Posted on 2014-07-27, 15:39

by

by obobskivich

in Windows

in Windows

Just make sure you rule out that the graphics card driver doesn't do any scaling quietly :) Quadro FX was enabled for scaling for 3D (although defaulted to "On Display"); turned all of it off and re-set to 1280x960 - still letterboxes correctly. :happy: Since I'm in the QFX's control panel to check …

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Re: Emulating EAX on any onboard sound hardware?

Posted on 2014-07-27, 15:27

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by obobskivich

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

Thing is, i'm guessing that this software solution and also the new creative cards without the proper sound chips don't sound correct anyway? Similar in a way to how, back in the day, eax would sound on a realtek onboard chip (way too echoey and without a sense of space) compared to getting an x-fi …

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Re: The demands of playing @ 1600 x 1200

Posted on 2014-07-27, 15:08

by

by obobskivich

in Windows

in Windows

I really like the look of 1024 x 768. While it is non native, most LCD monitors scale this resolution really well. Many games support the 1280 x 1024 resolution, but I wonder if they adjusted the aspect ratio to 5:4. Might have to look into this. But not all games do. Many support 1280 x 960 …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2014-07-27, 14:51

by

by obobskivich

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mmmm 975BX2. Gonna build a hackintosh with it?

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Re: Would anyone even care about oversampling?

Posted on 2014-07-27, 14:42

by

by obobskivich

in Milliways

in Milliways

Sorry can't stay for long, but... My guess is that it's an overlooked feature - consider how small of a percentage of the population would even actually notice, let alone need, such functionality in their display. Wait, such functionality exists in display monitors? How to use it? The only feature …

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Re: Would anyone even care about oversampling?

Posted on 2014-07-27, 03:46

by

by obobskivich

in Milliways

in Milliways

My guess is that it's an overlooked feature - consider how small of a percentage of the population would even actually notice, let alone need, such functionality in their display. I'm not saying you're wrong (and it's actually very nice that you've provided illustrations as examples), just that it's …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2014-07-27, 03:34

by

by obobskivich

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Maybe the cards with DDR3 were made after 2005....Just sayin. I'm still very skeptical and will maintain it's a lazy/common typo (really it's not uncommon to see the "G" dropped, and folks tend to equate GDDR3 = DDR3 or GDDR2 = DDR2 as a result), when in reality they're quite different). I looked …

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Re: Fidelity vs Enhanchments: Which One Do You Prefer?

Posted on 2014-07-27, 03:12

by

by obobskivich

in Milliways

in Milliways

Well I think it's also a matter of taste. obobkivisch has serious speakers, yet he still enjoys DSP effects for music. If you still like enhancements even after you buy yourself some serious speakers, don't let anyone stop you. :) On headphones too. :happy: In general though, I think "less is more" …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2014-07-26, 20:04

by

by obobskivich

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Eh - it's a nice card, I think it earns a pass. :-P You gonna game with it, or use it for GPU computing? And on the 6800s - I'm still saying it's a typo; DDR3 as we know it today in desktops did not exist in 2004-2005 outside of R&D (it's a very different thing). Just like how a lot of review sites …

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Re: VGA to HDMI converter/scaler vs monitor's built-in scaler?

Posted on 2014-07-26, 19:18

by

by obobskivich

in Milliways

in Milliways

YPbPr will have much better color separation/definition than S-video, so it would be worth setting it up that way vs S-video if possible (although an old graphics card with YPbPr may not be as easily found as one with S-video). Colorspace converters exist to translate VGA (RGB) to YPbPr, which may …

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Re: VGA to HDMI converter/scaler vs monitor's built-in scaler?

Posted on 2014-07-26, 18:41

by

by obobskivich

in Milliways

in Milliways

Is it good enough to outweigh the signal degradation from converting DVI out to VGA and then to S-Video? Technically impossible... Agreed. It's the conversion to S-Video that will destroy your signal (especially since s-video is very resolution limited). Going from YPbPr at high resolution (like …

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Re: My Pentium 4 rig (LAN and MIDI recording)

Posted on 2014-07-25, 20:38

by

by obobskivich

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I'd pass on any "bridged" AGP or PCI cards. Stick to something native and from the P4's era - GeForce FX, GeForce 6, Radeon 9, Radeon X, or older, and you should be good to go. Another note - DX10.1 won't function without Vista or higher (doesn't matter if the card supports it or not, it requires …

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