Gaming for truckers

Don't compare mhz to mhz. Smart phones run an ARM based CPU (For the most part) and desktops are on an x86 are calculate things very differently. Even among x86 cpus speed doesn't mean everything. Intel learned that the hard way with there cpus. Having 4ghz p4 and being slower then an AMD 2ghz.

Also unless I misunderstood your post I don't think that computer came out in 1998 seeing as the Geforce 4 series didn't come out till 2002.

That was the summer I bought my first computer for myself replacing hand me downs from the family. AMD Athlon XP 2000. 256mb of DDR. ATI 8500 128MB video card. I think I moved a 40GB hard drive from my old computer to that one.

Back in high school with all my friends learning about lan parties. They all laughed at me at first and then it seemed like they wanted to have one once a week. Ah the simpler times.

I'm amazed you still have a vertex 3 raid still working. OCZ had a massive issue with quality control. I had friends who barely got a year out of these. I was really lucky and got over 5 out of my vertex 2.

 

Intel won the cpu wars against amd with the release of the Pentium cpus and the introduction of hyperthreading. That's why to this day gaming systems built with intel cpus have a slight advantage over amd cpu systems. Most games side 2010 are using multichannel threads more efficient. Bf4 for pc was one of the first major titles that utilized more than 2 channels. Amd wins based on overall price but performance wise Intel is proven better. Even in the video editing, sound editing, and graphics design world, Intel cpus are utilized moor often because the amount of multitasking that the cpus are able to handle.

 

Any of you old school gamers ever play Corncob 3d for DOS? One of my favourite PC games. Fly around in a Corsair plane and blow up invading aliens. Its suprisingly addictive.

 

This article alone details the reasons behind my previous post.


http://www.digitaltrends.com/comput...basic-differences-between-intel-and-amd-cpus/

 

Hyperthreading didn't give intel the win. Intel going back to the drawing board and redesigning its cpus gave it the win. AMD had the best cpus till the core 2 duo came out. During the start of the 64bit era AMD was ahead. But ya at this point AMD is behind and can't afford the R&D to catch up. Not sure we'll see a battle between AMD and Intel like back in the mid 2000s.

 

Thank you for your post. This kind of information that corrects and breaks my rust of age off and poor memory shows why people work with me sometimes.

I appreciate the explaination of the smart phone. I am trying to example that perhaps the little ones are running with the 50 pound equivilant from the early 2000's then. It is a technology I do think will get bigger as it were.

The computer purchased that I spoke of was based on a Pentium IV 1.6 meg chip, I forget what I cooled it with but it was a large copper cube of at least a pound if not more. The Ti4600 card did come in the 2002's Back in 1998 we were working on the pentium III's then. I had a laptop that was driven by one. So, there is that. That copper would have been a profitable one for scrap now.

I felt that the Vertex 3 at the time was the absolute fastest that year. And purchased 5 of them at retail, something like 1500 sunk into the stack. Built a Raid 5 of them so that if one will fail that I have read some people complain that they do fail within a year I can hotswap maybe and drive the stack with a Intel Rapid storage technology to maintain it. Administrating the stack worked out well for me because prior to that I had the famous 4 Raptor 150's in raid zero howling on the box. I still have three left, one exhibits the chatter of pending death. It would be very hard to part with them. I don't know if I can find two replacements.

Back to the vertex. The first 5 did well for 18 months. Lost one. Blew the whole stack when I fumbled the wires. Found a source on the bay for Vertex 3 at 70 bucks NOS (New old stock) and started piling them in a case to ship. Something like 12 of them. The original stack was driven by a MSI Motherboard that was a military class II. I forget exactly what that one is called and it's really a shame because that board was driving a 3770, three 680's and 32 gig of trident 2400's at the max refresh, CPU at 4.2 and did 5 briefly on radiator cooling with fans everywhere. That rig lasted 4 years and two months before the board finally failed. Turned out that the temperature history with the board over that long time collapsed it. The current rampage board I use now is cooled to 28C 32C max. I never let it go that hot ever again where possible.

Of the 5, one replacement, that's 6. Those are in my current system and I don't exactly know how many years of service they have. I have 5 more left on the shelf in NOS retail wrap ready to go. 10 will go into the next and last build. I hope for a tera stack and back it with a couple 5 tera spinners that have gotten very cheap via USB last year. I have a couple 2 gig spinners, one backing the Raid stack and the other is a video capture for Fraps, firewire etc.

Im not sure what I will do with SSD's into the future. I experiemented using a flash drive on the rear of the machine as a cache for a time and found it to be very fast. I think maybe we are moving towards magnetic or mass flash storage. Or even a card that will stack a raid off a bunch of 256 gig cards.... You remember those? Irams I think they were called. They used modules in banks and behaved like a hard drive.

My current cpu is only about 2.9ish slow up to 3 something, I could kick it to 5 and keep it there, but I paid a great deal of money for that i73930 6 core and am cooling it with a 360 mm radiator. So... lumbering along like a B train once it gets going at 45 C under gaming I get 60 frames HD video or 120 HD video if I kick the third PCI slot going. Electricity has become a problem and I slowed the consumption.

I have a feeling the coming Titian Z with it's three slots, a pair of them will create a old style 4x SLI architecture and destroy whatever games today and in near future at 120 to 144 refresh.

To those who don't understand refresh on a screen, if you are watching TV it's like 24 to 30 a second ordinary for a VCR movie or something like that. Eyes like that rate. 60 was good years ago because it's fast. Now it's 120 to 144 meaning very fast refresh. Theoratically if a 144 refresher came around the corner he already has seen you by the time you did at 60 or slower. Yer dead.

Finally but not last, a word for the Vertex 3, it has been a ride and I don't think I will dare build anything else unless the manufactors can prove reliabiltiy and read/write speeds beyond what I average today with the stack. They have managed to come up with gooblydegook and bury, bamboozle and confuse people with numbers that don't mean #### in advertising new SSD's I think I'll stay with the ten and one spare I have until magetic or optical drives come out. Whatever is on those should be near instant with no wait to load into a map first. That is why many games impose a timer, to give the older spinner players a chance to load.

 

Since I'm always in the truck I don't keep a overly high end computer with me. Most of it I've had since before I started trucking.

Shuttle z77r5
I5 3570k
32GB of ram.
evga gtx 970 ssc 2.0+ (Bought abought a year ago.)
Samsung 1TB 850 EVO matx (Bought since it could go in the motherboard and I could toss the drive rack in the shuttle.)

I didn't trust a desktop hard drive in the truck so I bought a big enough SSD to install everything on instead of using an SSD and a standard drive. Might have been paranoia but I had the cash.

Sadly the tv I use for a monitor broke its stand so I can't keep it strapped down anymore so I only pull it out when I'm doing a reset so the desktop doesn't get used as much anymore.

I'm actually looking at one of those Acer 21inch 'laptops' that was announced a few weeks ago and just scrapping the desktop in the truck idea. But thats a huge chunk of change to drop.

Back before I started trucking I had two large storages areas. One setup for vitualization for testing for work. Another as an NAS for storaging all my tv/movies. Every time someone would come over they fell in love with that thing.

 

I used a basic laptop in trucking Tai, two of them> I think one was a Acer and the other was like a Dell 800 Coppermine on GPS. We had so much money flooding our life 3000 for a laptop new was not a issue. It's disgusting. Anyhow...

I don't take high end computers trucking. It's basic laptops. 200 dollar ones burn em up, I don't care. (I do... but they are disposable...)

Your info shows a good understanding. You probably can do better than me what with your Lans. I never had a Lan.

 

Before trucking I had 4 years in server admin and 3 year college diploma. (I was the guy everyone figured would wash out the first week in train) I was good at my job and hated it. I tried to make my hobby my career and it destroyed both. The desire for playing with computers beyond just basic gaming has returned. I want to get access to a server again so I can build an insane domain again just for the fun of it.