BF2S Forums Tech: Open thread

I trust Steam to make a navigable interface as much as I trust a raccoon not to raid a trash can. The primary app, after all these years, has only gotten slower, clunkier, and more click-heavy.

It's still got this weird thing where if I don't open a chat window within (undefined) minutes of starting the program, I have to restart it entirely before I can send a message. No confidence in something called SteamOS.

Unless she is tech savvy and willing to fuck around with program's settings, it is better to get one single monitor. Keyboard and mouse...keep it simple and go Logitech.

Single ~26" or ~28" IPS, can get for cheap. Larger if she's going to sit across the room. Two monitors (and hear me out, even three) if she runs lots of applications all at once, otherwise the one to the side can look a bit awkward. Not the biggest fan of ultrawides, some resolutions can get a bit borked. Double/triple monitor, if one of them winks out you still have some redundancy. Desk space should be taken into consideration here, and proximity to wall. Might be easier to mount than leave on desk. More secure against cats anyway, if that's a factor. Here's a calculator for viewing distances: https://goodcalculators.com/tv-viewing- … alculator/

Keyboard/mouse are highly personal choices imo, hard to recommend unless we have some clue as to what's being done with the workstation. Does she like loud keys? Quiet keys? Ergo? What color of plastic? Numpad needed? What kinds of programs/use?

I don't even know where to start on mice. Preference for left/right-handed? Ambi? Grip-style? Weight preference? Button count? What kind of applications?

Ergo keys: Something like the Kinesis Freestyles (or Freestyle Blue), with the interesting split design, might work. Gives you as much separation as the joining cable allows. All of them mechanicals, I think, but no numberpad. Microsoft has OK options for bluetooth but are membrane. There are some keyboards with retro-rounds that are visually interesting. There are some really interesting colors and styles on newegg currently, but you're kind of limited if only browsing for ergo.

Since we're talking workstations, I assume work's going to be done. So consideration for chair/desk ergonomics and a fit for proper typing posture must be taken into consideration. If I was still working PC retail (was part of my old IT job), I'd probably be upselling entire office setups right now lol.

If she doesn't specifically need Windows-specific applications, why not an Apple?

e:

pirana6 wrote:

Dell D6000 for dock (use a windows machine to upgrade the firmware when you get it)

Single Ultra widescreen as a monitor like Mac suggested, but honestly two 24" is probably just as fine too.

Any mouse/keyboard

D6000 is a bit old now, there might be a newer model out.

I would recommend 2+ to anyone who keeps more than one app open at once. You run out of screen space fast on one monitor. I'll admit an ultrawide is a bit more of an elegant-looking solution for that, but all down to personal preference, and I suppose screen-space managers.

Single monitor setup at the moment is a pain considering I swap between browser tabs, a pdf file or two, and some combination of opened word and excel documents. A lot of time is wasted finding ways to tetris and otherwise optimize swap-between of open windows and folders. Mind, this is still like ~30".

Even for gaming, I have to alt tab to check out the detailed map (Valheim) or third-party chat software without decent in-game UIs. PITA.

Yeah I use triple monitors at work but she has a single curved monitor she currently uses. I'm thinking of replacing that, but it's her workstation so it's whatever she wants.

Re: "why not apple"? It's her company laptop, it's a dell something or other.

Absolutely not. We have an armed guard for the next month.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Yeah I use triple monitors at work but she has a single curved monitor she currently uses. I'm thinking of replacing that, but it's her workstation so it's whatever she wants.

Re: "why not apple"? It's her company laptop, it's a dell something or other.

Yeah I typed that before remembering the computer already existed. Forgot to back it out.

The 4090 reviews are coming out. Huge leap in power from the 3080 which was a huge leap from the 2080. Actually some really impressive gains over the last few generations.

The negatives:

- Power consumption for the 4090 is at least 450w. Testers saw it go as high as over 500w. Nvidia said 850w PSU is enough though some of the board manufacturers are suggesting 1200w.

- You really don't need cutting edge hardware to get the most out of games nowadays. They don't make games that require a whole new PC like they did in the 90s/early 2000s. For example, the gap between Half Life 1 and HL 2 is 6 years. HL2's minimum requirements to play are absurdly larger than HL 1's recommended requirements. 90's PCs couldn't play HL2, Meanwhile you can pop in a 2016 GPU like the 1050ti and still game play modern releases just fine.

Uuuuuugly. Why does that Asus have a 2 slot bracket on a 3 slot card? Why are the ATX power connectors still so flimsy in these? Why did they decide to decorate the cooler housing with red and blue markings (barf!)?

I was concerned about stress on the PCB with much smaller cards (which would sag to the point where they are visibly no longer 90 with the motherboard). I would never install one of these without some kind of brace. The one provided looks fairly inadequate. As with the bulky adapters, probably fated to remain in the box.

I will be unsurprised if demand for the 3080 remains steady. The power supply requirement and comical size make the 4090 unattractive.

Wait 6 months to a year and the thing will be shrunk down I am sure. But there still won't be any games worth buying it for.

Nvidia wrote:

The RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it’s not named right. Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing.

So, we’re pressing the “unlaunch” button on the 4080 12GB. The RTX 4080 16GB is amazing and on track to delight gamers everywhere on November 16th.

If the lines around the block and enthusiasm for the 4090 is any indication, the reception for the 4080 will be awesome.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/ne … -unlaunch/
lol

i've seen lots of very interesting stuff being done at the intersection between AR/VR and machine learning. not much ready for consumer-level tech or entertainment centres, though.

i saw a video demonstration the other day of a VR headset equipped with this image-generating AI that could just keep morphing a full 360-degree environment using a huge bank of images. it was like a 1080p LSD trip in real time. actually crazy. in the space of 2 minutes this guy went from being in an environment that looked like a hotel lobby to being in a giant walmart. and every object continually, adaptively changing into something else. really, really lysergic.

e: found it.

https://twitter.com/ScottieFoxTTV/statu … 1943569410
(the video looks better on twitter than youtube).

the future is to connect this AR/VR+ML stuff with real-time health monitoring technology. have the ML algorithm adapt the images in response to physical triggers of mood, pulse, enjoyment, etc. basically a lucid day-dreaming app.

i imagine this stuff requires an immense amount of GPU.

Last edited by uziq (2022-10-16 03:27:08)