Hardware – Page 4 – Nalates’ Things & Stuff

Hardware: AMD CPU’s – Review – What’s Up with Zen?

2016/09/20 by Nalates Urriah

I don’t use them. The basic reason is cost and timing. When I’ve been ready to buy Intel has had a CPU with a better performance to price ratio. I have no particular love or hate for either AMD or Intel. Its who has a well performing CPU and what will it cost me at the time I need one?

One of the commenters here suggests people looking for a new CPU wait for AMD to release its new Zen CPU. One can always wait for the next new thing but, then they wait. However, I did wonder if a wait would be worth the time. I started researching AMD and their next CPU.

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Hardware: Picking a New CPU for Second Life

2017/02/022016/09/18 by Nalates Urriah

The skeleton and brain of a computer is the motherboard and CPU. A CPU is the Central Processing Unit. This is most like our brain.

The mother or main board is like out nervous system or skeleton. It is the large circuit board that every part of the computer plugs into, including the CPU. It holds everything together.

For detailed information on CPU’s see the video: (jump to TM 6:07 to skip the explanations and see the benchmarks.

There is a lot of jargon in the video, I’ll get the important stuff explained.

First the TL:DR, the video shows there is very little difference between the various CPU’s. When it comes to frames per second. The three tested CPU’s are about equal. However, if you are going to use Intel’s HD Graphics without a dedicated graphics card, he shows there is a difference and the 6^th generation CPU wins. So, laptop people… go for 6^th gen CPU or a dedicated video chip.

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Hardware: Data Storage – What is the Best Buy?

2016/09/17 by Nalates Urriah

As I built my new computer and researched hardware I realized I was falling behind in my technical knowledge. I had to sort out a number of things to be able to intelligently decide which was best technically and for the money. This article is on the aspects of storage devices and proves a lot … Read more

Hardware: Disk Performance Compared

2016/09/16 by Nalates Urriah

I just getting to where I can use my new computer for most of my daily tasks. I am still researching what aspects of the new computer most affect Second Life™ viewer performance. One of the more effective things one can do is look at data storage speed. Here is what I find.

RAM Disk Performance - New Computer — RAM Disk Performance – New Computer

I used Crystal Disk Mark to measure storage performance on both the opld and new machines.

RAM Drive

The above image is the benchmark for my RAM Disk in the new computer. I purchased DataRAM’s RAMDisk software. I devoted 5GB of my 32GB of RAM to a RAM Drive.

It automatically writes the contents of this drive to my Western Digital hard drive at power down. At startup it inserts the data back into the RAM Disk.

SpaceNavigator, Windows 10, and Second Life

2016/09/132016/09/07 by Nalates Urriah

3DConnexion has a Windows 10 driver for the SpaceNavigator, version 10.4.5 August 11, 2016. They come in 64-bit and 32-bit versions. If you are on Windows 10, you most likely are on 64-bit. Don’t worry about it too much. If you are on 32-bit and try to install 64-bit software/drivers the 64-bit software/driver will refuse to install.

Two years ago I got my SpaceNavigator (SN) and had a heck of a time getting it working as I wanted. So, I wrote the tutorial: 3DConnextion SpaceNavigator v10 for Second Life (8/2014). I used it as my guide for getting my SN working on my new Windows 10 machine.

VR Catching On?

2016/08/29 by Nalates Urriah

Interesting uses of Virtual Reality Headsets are turning up. Some examples: Obduction – Of course games. This is a big Myst sibling puzzle game where you are magically transported to an alien world and have to figure out how to get home. The graphics are awesome. All versions of the game will have VR support. … Read more

Nvidia Titan-X Pascal

2016/08/15 by Nalates Urriah

August 2, 2016 Nvidia released their top of the line video card the Titan-X. There is a previous generation Titan-X. To distinguish between the previous gen and the current generation we have to include the architecture descriptor; Maxwell (previous) or Pascal (new).

How much faster is this Titan-X Pascal than the previous one? Almost twice as fast.

You can see the card is about 30% faster than the GTX1080.

Nvidia vs AMD: Serious Problem

2016/08/13 by Nalates Urriah

In the last 10 minutes or so of the Third Party Developers’ Meeting the problem with AMD video cards problems came up.

It seems especially the R series of video cards (RX480 etc.) have a problem with OpenGL. See: BUG-20057 – Visual Artifacts with ALM enabled on some AMD graphics cards.

AMD Screen Artifact - No Fix — AMD Screen Artifact – No Fix

This bug is dependent on screen size. So, you may be able to escape it by changing your viewer window size or screen resolution.

There is a thread in the AMD forum about the problem. It is way techy. See: OpenGL display artifact on W7100.