Off-Topic Thread V3.0

PostWoke

So those websites that are cropping up with custom thumbnail images for Steam games that haven't gotten an updated thumbnail for the new U.I.... are they stored locally somewhere, or do they use some kind of online storage built in to your steam account?

PostWoke

Looking at addresspal prices in case I want to import stuff from the US or stuff that doesn't ship from the UK... am I crazy or are they much more expensive than Parcel Motel? Are packages from either likely to get stung by customs on top of their fee or is that covered? What do people use in this use case for PC components?

Shlippery

Not worth it, what are you looking for in the US? Plenty of good UK/German sites available! https://uk.pcpartpicker.com

K.O.Kiki

cherryghost wrote: »

I seen this vid the other day. I hate his voice.

My new PC is done woo. Old vs new 3dmark

Didn't know you could compare side-by-side!

Here's mine (GTX 1080 -> 2070 Super)

PostWoke

Shlippery wrote: »

Not worth it, what are you looking for in the US? Plenty of good UK/German sites available! https://uk.pcpartpicker.com

Moreso for when price mistakes happen, or Cyber Monday. Best Buy can have some insane deals too sometimes.

wotzgoingon

You will get caught for import taxes if buying from US so calculate that into the price. It's usually not worth it. The only time buying from US is worth it is if you were over there on a holiday.

RossieMan

PostWoke wrote:

Looking at addresspal prices in case I want to import stuff from the US or stuff that doesn't ship from the UK... am I crazy or are they much more expensive than Parcel Motel? Are packages from either likely to get stung by customs on top of their fee or is that covered? What do people use in this use case for PC components?

Don't do this as customs is a nightmare to sort out.

PostWoke

RossieMan wrote: »

Don't do this as customs is a nightmare to sort out.

Shame. Would have to be a serious price mistake so.

Venom

Does anyone have any experience of dealing with CCL Computers Ltd? Looking to pick up a GPU but personally have never dealt with them before.

cherryghost

Venom wrote: »

Does anyone have any experience of dealing with CCL Computers Ltd? Looking to pick up a GPU but personally have never dealt with them before.

Excellent, no issues. Got some NVME drives delivered within 3 working days with them. They have excellent prices too, and their delivery to Ireland is cheaper than other UK retailers. I tried to get my PC build there, but they were out of stock on the GPU for me, went with Scan.co.uk because I was impatient, but I could have saved 25 pound for same spec'd machine if I bought on ccl

mp3guy

Venom wrote: »

Does anyone have any experience of dealing with CCL Computers Ltd? Looking to pick up a GPU but personally have never dealt with them before.

Bad. Got a monitor from them that looked pre-used and had defective pixels. Took them over a week to even RMA it, sent collection to wrong address first day. Avoid.

Skerries

PostWoke

IMO as long as you have 16 threads you're ready for whatever next November throws at us. I can't see devs finding a job for all those threads but you never know, their lead platform has been Jaguar cores for six years, they may want to stretch their legs.

wotzgoingon

OSI wrote: »

You’re being significantly bottlenecked. I went from a i7 970 to an 8700k with the same GTX 970s and GTA 5 went from low 40s to a solid 60 FPS.

What resolution? I can get solid 60fps at 4k now with my 5700 XT and X5660. It would be much the same as your i7 970. As both were 32nm and 6 core 12 threads. Same cache etc. What clock was your i7 970 running at? After reading your post my Vega 56 would probably have been able to do 60fps if I had a newer CPU.

PostWoke

So apparently the motherboard I'm eyeing (https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450M-MORTAR-TITANIUM) has two m.2 slots but the second drops to PCIE Gen 2 speeds if there is an nvme in the first slot. From my research that is still about 1500MB/s right? So still worth it instead of just going for a SATA III SSD?

I think I know the answer to this already unfortunately, but can a windows build and a linux build (on different drives ofc) share a 'SteamLibrary' directory on a third, high capacity SSD? Or does Proton not work that way? Or is formatting different across OSs?

wotzgoingon

This is the speeds I get on PCIe 2.0

You will probably get better write speeds depending on the SSD you get.

And yes, PCIe 2.0 is far quicker than SATA III.

ED E

PostWoke wrote: »

I think I know the answer to this already unfortunately, but can a windows build and a linux build (on different drives ofc) share a 'SteamLibrary' directory on a third, high capacity SSD? Or does Proton not work that way? Or is formatting different across OSs?

Windows and nix binaries are totally different. Sharing like that wont work to my knowledge.

PostWoke

Dang. Good news about PCIE Gen 2 speeds though.

Serephucus

ED E wrote: »

Windows and nix binaries are totally different. Sharing like that wont work to my knowledge.

It's possible you might be able to do this by running the Windows version of the game through Proton. Would introduce overhead, but (if it works) would let you keep the single library.

PostWoke

Serephucus wrote: »

It's possible you might be able to do this by running the Windows version of the game through Proton. Would introduce overhead, but (if it works) would let you keep the single library.

Oh really? So instead of whatever Linux distro registering the existence of the hard-drive, Proton would do it?

Can Windows really not register the existence of a Linux formatted drive? They seem to be getting pretty good with open source stuff lately.

The newest AMD APU's aren't Zen 2, but Zen+; so would a B450 board need a BIOS update to run one or no? Good to go out of the box?

ED E

It has nothing to do with the drive. Its the code. The code compiled for linux is not the same as the code compiled for windows. Getting windows to mount ext wouldnt help.

Such a setup would be far from turnkey/100% reliable. If you're willing to tweak and troubleshoot then try and see.

wotzgoingon

Just use the Windows version as main and then when in Linux(since you can read NTFS) copy over the games you actually want to play

But that will not work as what ED E said the game files would be completely different for both platforms.

Homelander

OSI wrote: »

You’re being significantly bottlenecked. I went from a i7 970 to an 8700k with the same GTX 970s and GTA 5 went from low 40s to a solid 60 FPS.

Are you sure the cpu was the only factor? An i7-970 can easily deliver 60fps in GTA5. Obviously it's an old CPU and no good for modern games but GTA 5 runs at solid 60 on it very OK. I would not agree with using such an ancient procesor in 2019 for modern games, but for GTA V specifically it's definitely OK for 60fps gameplay. If you were getting low 40's in GTA 5 specifically then something was wrong with your setup, maybe GPU bottleneck or something.

z0oT

Here's a side-by-side video of an i7 920 vs an 8700k with a 1070 at 1080p with some more modern titles.

It's interesting to see the bottleneck in action, look at the frame rate difference, the frame times, and also the GPU utilisation on both.

The 920 still gets over 60fps, although it would be a big problem for a driving a high refresh monitor.

Cuddlesworth

z0oT wrote: »

Here's a side-by-side video of an i7 920 vs an 8700k with a 1070 at 1080p with some more modern titles.

It's interesting to see the bottleneck in action, look at the frame rate difference, the frame times, and also the GPU utilisation on both.

The 920 still gets over 60fps, although it would be a big problem for a driving a high refresh monitor.

I see a 10 year old processor still throwing out decent frame rates, which is either impressive or sad depending on how you look at it.

The fact it struggles to hit 50% CPU in some games is another good example of how single threaded game engines are, even today(looking at you Far Cry).

PostWoke

ED E wrote: »

It has nothing to do with the drive. Its the code. The code compiled for linux is not the same as the code compiled for windows. Getting windows to mount ext wouldnt help.

But if you're running Proton, you're running the Windows version of the game?

K.O.Kiki

GTX 1660 Super rumours getting specific

GPU | Shader cores |VRAM | Price | Release date
GTX 1660 Ti | 1536 | 6Gb GDDR6 | $275 | 2019-02-22
GTX 1660 Super | 1472 |4 or 6Gb GDDR6 | $150 | 2019-10-22
GTX 1660 | 1408 | 6Gb GDDR5 | $210 | 2019-03-14

wotzgoingon

Well the time has come to throw in the towel for my x58 system. I bought October 2009. So just about 10 years I got from the system. It originally had a i7 920 but it really came alive when I got the hexa core Xeon. Same 6GB's of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM 7-8-7-20-50 1T a few different graphics cards GTX 580, R9 290, R9 Fury X, Rx Vega 56 and currently a Rx 5700 XT that will go into the new system.

I have been saying for years I will get a Ryzen and I eventually got one it may have taking me saying it for about 2 years but I said f**k it why not.

R7 3700X
Gigabyte Aorus X570 Ultra (My system above had a Gigabyte and never had any issues so went with them again, I also got a small bit above middle of the road back then so went with same tier again)

3600MHz DDR4 16-16-16-36


I will transfer over the SSD's so I may upgrade to a fast NVMe eventually. Didn't bother at the minute.

Skerries

did you do any 3D Mark testing before you upgraded?

Cuddlesworth

wotzgoingon wrote: »

(My system above had a Gigabyte and never had any issues so went with them again, I also got a small bit above middle of the road back then so went with same tier again)

Can't say I have had the same experience.