Off-Topic Thread V3.0

Serephucus

OSI wrote: »

My favourite switch is the the Clear and it's rear to see a tester with them fitted.

Ha, my bad. Apparently the key switcher I have has Clear. It's what I thought "White" was.

MX Reds all the way. Though i do like Gateron Reds too.

K.O.Kiki

I'm considering switching from MX Reds to a Topre-style keyboard.

TitianGerm

What are people's thoughts on a decent keyboard? Changing from the G413 but looking at the Ducky One 2 SF in white, a Ducky Meca Mini or a Keychron K2 along with a lot of others. Definitely want to get standard UK ISO though.

Ultrflat

I Like cherry MX speeds my self, I think the only issue with the corsair keyboard I use is the keys they Eco on the down stroke.

TitianGerm

TitianGerm wrote: »

What are people's thoughts on a decent keyboard? Changing from the G413 but looking at the Ducky One 2 SF in white, a Ducky Meca Mini or a Keychron K2 along with a lot of others. Definitely want to get standard UK ISO though.

I have the Mecha Mini. Wouldn't go back to anything bigger now. Used be a TKL user but just prefer the smaller form factor.

TitianGerm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I have the Mecha Mini. Wouldn't go back to anything bigger now. Used be a TKL user but just prefer the smaller form factor.

I think I'd like the arrow keys but it's something I could get used to not having. The metal case is a nice plus on the Mecca Mini.

Fn + I J K L for using the arrow keys when needed. Becomes second nature after a while.

TitianGerm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Fn + I J K L for using the arrow keys when needed. Becomes second nature after a while.

Yea that's what I'm thinking, just a learning experience. Not actually seeing it available in to many places but it's coming into stock on the 15th May with Novatech.

They have the MX Red version on Overclockers. (Mecha)

TitianGerm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

They have the MX Red version on Overclockers. (Mecha)

Hadn't checked there, completely forget about them to be honest. Just need to try a few different switches before I decide what one to get. There's RomerG in my Logitech.

Xenoronin

Yea that's what I'm thinking, just a learning experience. Not actually seeing it available in to many places but it's coming into stock on the 15th May with Novatech.

It's not great when trying to program, a lot of shortcut commands need to be relearned and even typing in word becomes somewhat cumbersome when relearning the arrow key shortcuts. You'd be surprised how much you use those arrow keys and how slow it is to hit the shortcut when all you want to do is select one more letter or move the cursor one position. You're relearning years of muscle memory! The function keys and 10-key pad I can live without, but the arrow keys are just plain annoying.

You wouldn't really get a 60% keyboard if that was your use case though.

TitianGerm

Xenoronin wrote: »

It's not great when trying to program, a lot of shortcut commands need to be relearned and even typing in word becomes somewhat cumbersome when relearning the arrow key shortcuts. You'd be surprised how much you use those arrow keys and how slow it is to hit the shortcut when all you want to do is select one more letter or move the cursor one position. You're relearning years of muscle memory! The function keys and 10-key pad I can live without, but the arrow keys are just plain annoying.

I really only use the pc for gaming at the moment but will be keeping the Logitech as a spare anyway.

Xenoronin

Most people use keyboards to type with

I jest, I'm working from home now so this is my main keyboard at the moment and it's... bleeeehhhhh. Gaming is perfect (none of my games rely on the function row or arrows) with the silent red switches but debugging in Eclipse is suddenly super annoying. Might just pick up a TKL keyboard at some point.

Don't get me wrong. I still use a full size in work as anything less just wouldn't work for me in what i do but for gaming i just love the compactness of a 60%. The Ducky is built so well and the keys, stabilisers are just top notch.
I know it was Tfue that put them in the mainstream but they really are a great keyboard.

Xenoronin

Deleted User wrote: »

Don't get me wrong. I still use a full size in work as anything less just wouldn't work for me in what i do but for gaming i just love the compactness of a 60%. The Ducky is built so well and the keys, stabilisers are just top notch.
I know it was Tfue that put them in the mainstream but they really are a great keyboard.

Yup, I forgot to mention what "this" is, it's the Ducky One 2 mini. It's a really neat keyboard with plenty of heft to it. I'm getting some double presses on my A key, but I think I just need to get some compressed air at it, and that's not a fault on Ducky since they are Cherry switches. Went straight for it once the UK layout was available on overclockers.

Robert ninja

Warframe eats up all my NUMPAD keys so I simply couldn't game on a compact keyboard.

Does anyone have experience with capture devices like https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0781W1334/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_0SjJEbG2YVVMR ? I'm thinking of getting something like this but hopefully cheaper. I'm unfamiliar and want to know how they behave with higher resolution input. What I mean is I want to send this thing (or any other device recommendations) a 1440p mirrored signal which I then hope to scale down with xrandr

--scale

option, so I can have a separate system with OBS to do things with that feed. I know monitors have in-built scaling but I just don't know how devices like this will handle a 1440p signal, even when I scale it. I'm worried they'll just drop the signal as incompatible or too high bandwidth and that would be a big waste of €€€. I know monitors are fine with mirrors higher than their specs because I projected my 1440p signal onto my sub-HD secondary monitor and could fit it perfect with xrandr. Just worried these devices aren't as robust with that kind of thing as monitors.

Robert ninja

Yeah but my secondary old monitor is also only capable of sub-HD content yet I can throw 1440p at it with

xrandr --output secondaryDisplay --same-as primaryDisplay --scale 2

and it functions perfectly.

The use case btw is playing QHD games while sending the signal in FHD to a secondary system.

Cuddlesworth

Robert ninja wrote: »

Yeah but my secondary old monitor is also only capable of sub-HD content yet I can throw 1440p at it with

xrandr --output secondaryDisplay --same-as primaryDisplay --scale 2

and it functions perfectly.

The use case btw is playing QHD games while sending the signal in FHD to a secondary system.

Not sure I get you. You can only fire the correct resolution over the cable. Whatever commands you are entering in Xrandr is probably just superscaling the game, the output is still the monitors resolution.

Robert ninja

Well I wasn't running any game when I mirrored my primary physical display. It was 1440p, 144hz signal being sent into a VGA cable, which can't even handle FHD. So yes it's scaling it in terms of resolution, then effective size from the --scale option is for magnification to make it fit the borders. I know I'm not getting FHD on an SD display, that's not important. The thing is I don't know which is handling it better, xrandr or the monitor's in built scaler. I'm paranoid a capture device won't behave as well.

Cuddlesworth

Robert ninja wrote: »

Well I wasn't running any game when I mirrored my primary physical display. It was 1440p, 144hz signal being sent into a VGA cable, which can't even handle FHD. So yes it's scaling it in terms of resolution, then effective size from the --scale option is for magnification to make it fit the borders. I know I'm not getting FHD on an SD display, that's not important. The thing is I don't know which is handling it better, xrandr or the monitor's in built scaler. I'm paranoid a capture device won't behave as well.

Its not sending a 1440p signal to the secondary display. Xrandr(xwindow) is just compressing the image to fit that resolution, then displaying that compressed image to the secondary display on its native resolution. That's the redeeming feature of the program, it does that automatically.

xrandr --output secondaryDisplay --same-as primaryDisplay --scale 2
Program output-device rotation dimensions

Your not setting a output resolution, its auto detecting what the monitor can do.

Not sure what the end goal is, but most streaming services bitrate is so low that double compression of the video image(capture device, then streaming service) won't really make a noticable difference in video quality. In your case, you would be triple compressing, first to monitor, then capture card, then streaming service. Can't say that would work out well, would probably be lots of artifacts in something that moves a lot. Static work like teaching wouldn't make a difference.

To be honest, a separate capture machine is really only something you need for the pro's.

Robert ninja

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Your not setting a output resolution, its auto detecting what the monitor can do.

So it sounds like it'll be able to detect what a capture device can do because they appear as just another display to the system AFAIK. That's good news.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

a separate capture machine is really only something you need for the pro's.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Not sure what the end goal

Capturing a 1440p desktop source and streaming/recording it to 720p@60fps output. Nothin' fancy. Just wanna game/do things as normal without worrying about OBS dropping frames all over the place.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

In your case, you would be triple compressing, first to monitor, then capture card, then streaming service. Can't say that would work out well, would probably be lots of artifacts in something that moves a lot.

That's only 2 layers actually because the "first to monitor, then capture card" is actually just the capture device. I was only using my secondary physical display to try out how xrandr behaves with scaling. So there's only 2 compressions. 1. to the device, and 2. OBS. I'm not too worried about visual quality; most of the footage I capture even now turns out fairly OK looking and nice n' smooth @ 60fps. I just can't do that with any modern titles or things running @ 1440p. If I kept everything at 720p, locally and on OBS, I'd be golden. But I want to actually use my monitor

Thanks for the help lads

jebidiah

Bit of tech support required. Work Laptop wouldn't install a program this morning, so after some advice from coworker, I ended up uninstalling previous version, still wouldn't install, and then I did a system restore. Now when I try to run anything I get a message saying

"You'll need a new app to open this .exe file" Have tried most of the solutions online, registry checks, sfc, dsim, etc nothing is working.

Any ideas to save me having to call work "IT"?

EDIT: I edited the registry in safe mode and that seems to have solved the issue.

Cuddlesworth

Robert ninja wrote: »

Thanks for the help lads

I'd just use OBS, especially at 720p. External capture gets messy
What if you want another video source, like a webcam?
What if you want to change scenes, different mouse/keyboard?
What are you going to do with audio, Windows is kinda picky on that?

And yeah, there is a first step. That program still has to take a video image, manipulate it because the pixels don't match 1 to 1, render it and send it out the video output.

Robert ninja

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I'd just use OBS, especially at 720p. External capture gets messy

That's what I have been doing for a long time. But I can't play anything @ 1440p now because OBS tanks.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

What if you want

True, these things make it quite hard to set up and it can get expensive.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

What are you going to do with audio, Windows is kinda picky on that?

I had some solutions in mind but you're right, I should probably just stick to using OBS on the system I'm playing on. 720p gaming for life I guess Btw it isn't a windows system, not that it would make setting up a 2-system audio capture any less complex.

Cuddlesworth

Robert ninja wrote: »

That's what I have been doing for a long time. But I can't play anything @ 1440p now because OBS tanks.

True, these things make it quite hard to set up and it can get expensive.

I had some solutions in mind but you're right, I should probably just stick to using OBS on the system I'm playing on. 720p gaming for life I guess Btw it isn't a windows system, not that it would make setting up a 2-system audio capture any less complex.

Whats your setup right now? Seems odd that OBS tanks the system, you would be telling it to take the 1440p screen(already rendered) and encode it at 720p. There are hardware offload options available which would take the load off the CPU. Like Intel IGPU's or encoders on AMD/Nvidia cards.

Robert ninja

You mean my OBS settings? Here: https://imgur.com/a/iiwFAKB
I'm using AMD hardware encoding. It gives me better in-game performance which in turns makes the stream look smoother as a 30fps game on 60fps is pointless with CPU encoding. Screen capturing, for whatever reason, is much too heavy for gaming. I always have to window (xcomposite) capture the specific game.

z0oT

Dusted off my old laptop that took me through my engineering degree over a decade ago today just to amuse myself during the lockdown. It's a Dell XPS M1530, with an Intel T7500 dual core & 2GB of DDR2.

It was a reasonably high-end laptop at its time all the way back in 2008, but Windows 10 is dog slow on it now.

So today I installed Debian 9 with the Xfce desktop on it, I figured the newer 10 release might be too much. I'm genuinely surprised at how well it runs. It might still hang if you try to do too much at once but for a basic internet surfing/movie watching/music machine it would be just fine.

It's nice to breathe life into a really old system, even if I've no use for it anymore.

BloodBath

Windows for laptops seems to be awfully ****e. I bought my mum a new laptop for her birthday thinking it would be more than good enough for what she uses it for. Just internet browsing and listening to music. Some intel quad core atom, 4gb of ram, 14" full HD IPS with a built in small SSD.

It's nowhere near as fast as I was expecting even after I reduced the memory footprint removing unnecessary apps, disabling all monitoring and data sharing, reducing windows effects and choosing performance over power savings.

Maybe I'm just used to my own PC being as fast as it is but I've been thinking about changing the OS on it. Do Microsoft do any barebones lite version of windows for laptops and if not why not. Any alternatives that are basic enough and similar to windows in terms of UI?

What's the best lite/fast internet browser?