Sam's PCp
- Thread starter samjc3
- Start date
samjc3
#1 Female Member
No. This is for real games.zeturi said:
_________________
AfroLH said:
Anywho, Ive been playing around with and stuff. Im only running 1 gig of ddr2 right now, but my performance seems a bit lacking. Things like portal and l4d run fine, but they lag when stuff gets on screen. That shouldnt happen. I think its because I am currently running MicroXP, which is basically crippled. I cant even install Mass Effect 2. (gives me a driver signing error. But this version of windows is so stripped I cant open the driver signing control panel to disable it. And theres no (known) way to change it from the registry. And theres no gpedit.msc at all so I cant do it from there.
The boot sequence is crazy fast though, so thats good. And the system is plenty fast.
Twilight Wolf
Frequent Poster
Portal can't "lag." It's not an internet-based game.
REMEMBER, CHILDREN, LAG IS THE DELAY BETWEEN YOU PERFORMING AN ACTION AND SEEING IT ON SCREEN DUE TO CONNECTION ISSUES WITH A GAME SERVER.
I believe you're looking for framerate drops.
REMEMBER, CHILDREN, LAG IS THE DELAY BETWEEN YOU PERFORMING AN ACTION AND SEEING IT ON SCREEN DUE TO CONNECTION ISSUES WITH A GAME SERVER.
I believe you're looking for framerate drops.
samjc3
#1 Female Member
Ima install True TinyXP a bit later.XCVG said:
Got and installed my new RAM (OCZ ddr2 2gb 800mhz, up from 1gb of 667 ddr2) and it helped quite a bit. In portal I get an average of like 40FPS (detail and such at medium, for the most part).
In L4D1, I get great framerates until the zombies crowd me, and then they drop, but its always playable.
Audiosurf, World of Goo, Braid and the like all run EXCELLENTLY. I will try every game in my library after I get real TinyXP, and then we shall know how awesome this really is.
@ T_W:
Keep your Dang definition. there is a lag between when I press the button and the specified action happens. Thats lag in my book.
samjc3
#1 Female Member
No. We've been over this. I absolutely guarantee it will though. Its basically a 1.6ghz dual core celeron with an nvidia 9400.zeturi said:
I loaded up true TinyXP last night. seems to be much more stable. I am copying my steamapps directory over right now. (windows time says 34 minutes) Hopefully this time I can install direct X plugins. (or whatever the heck it does when steam does first time setup for a game and it says "installing Microsoft DirectX for windows")
Anyone have any Idea how I can change the memory allocation settings? It uses shared memory, and it gave 256mb to the GPU, and the rest to the system. I would like to give the GPU 512mb or maybe more.
samjc3
#1 Female Member
hmm. Its greyed out in the bios. Any Ideas?
Not that it seems to matter though. Mass effect 2 runs PERFECTLY, so I am happy. I could care less about any other games. After all, when I say "PC portable", I really mean "Mass effect portable"
Pictures and performance in all my games later tonight.
Not that it seems to matter though. Mass effect 2 runs PERFECTLY, so I am happy. I could care less about any other games. After all, when I say "PC portable", I really mean "Mass effect portable"
Pictures and performance in all my games later tonight.
samjc3
#1 Female Member
I havent been testing quite as much as I should like, but heres what I have so far:
L4D1:
-Medium settings
- ~30 fps, drops to as low as 12
Mass Effect 2:
-Whatever settings the system scanner put it at. i could probably increase performance. looks great though.
- ~40 fps, drops to as low as 19
Mount and Blade: Warband:
-Stock settings
- ~60 fps
Track Mania Nations Forever:
-Stock settings
- ~80 fps
Portal:
-Medium settings
- Fps fluctuates between 20 and 100.
Audiosurf:
- High settings
- runs great. Framerate unknown, but it doesnt skip or anything. takes a bit to load songs though.
World of Goo, Braid, Lugaru, Gish, Penumbra Overture, etc:
- all run great. Not surprising, but still worth saying.
Oblivion:
- framerate goes between about 2 and 200. does not seem to matter at all whether enemies are present, and changing settings from ultra low to ultra high changes nothing. it runs the same on high and low. I suspect its just incompatibility. I will check up on it more later.
Picture time:
This is the computer with Shadow of The Colossus sitting on top. A standard DVD case can hide the whole computer if you look down at it from the top, and its a wee bit thicker, as you can see.
Top view next to the keyboard I had to run out and buy, since my only keyboard was PS-2.
And here we have it hooked up to the screen.
Movie time:
That video was a pain in the ass to make. I had my camera sitting on a stack of project boxes and such to get the angle. But the camera was between me and the screen, so I actually had to play looking at the camera's screen. it was really hard, partially because of the size of the screen, and partially because there was video lag, but no audio lag at all.
And dont worry, the video quality is excellent in real life. Its just the camera that makes it ass-tastic.
And the sound comes from the built in speaker in the PC. The spec-sheet said nothing about an internal speaker. But it exists, its TINY, it sounds great, and my god, its VERY loud. Its the little black box at the front of the PC, with a white sticker on it, above where F6 is in the 2nd picture.
L4D1:
-Medium settings
- ~30 fps, drops to as low as 12
Mass Effect 2:
-Whatever settings the system scanner put it at. i could probably increase performance. looks great though.
- ~40 fps, drops to as low as 19
Mount and Blade: Warband:
-Stock settings
- ~60 fps
Track Mania Nations Forever:
-Stock settings
- ~80 fps
Portal:
-Medium settings
- Fps fluctuates between 20 and 100.
Audiosurf:
- High settings
- runs great. Framerate unknown, but it doesnt skip or anything. takes a bit to load songs though.
World of Goo, Braid, Lugaru, Gish, Penumbra Overture, etc:
- all run great. Not surprising, but still worth saying.
Oblivion:
- framerate goes between about 2 and 200. does not seem to matter at all whether enemies are present, and changing settings from ultra low to ultra high changes nothing. it runs the same on high and low. I suspect its just incompatibility. I will check up on it more later.
Picture time:
This is the computer with Shadow of The Colossus sitting on top. A standard DVD case can hide the whole computer if you look down at it from the top, and its a wee bit thicker, as you can see.
Top view next to the keyboard I had to run out and buy, since my only keyboard was PS-2.
And here we have it hooked up to the screen.
Movie time:
That video was a pain in the ass to make. I had my camera sitting on a stack of project boxes and such to get the angle. But the camera was between me and the screen, so I actually had to play looking at the camera's screen. it was really hard, partially because of the size of the screen, and partially because there was video lag, but no audio lag at all.
And dont worry, the video quality is excellent in real life. Its just the camera that makes it ass-tastic.
And the sound comes from the built in speaker in the PC. The spec-sheet said nothing about an internal speaker. But it exists, its TINY, it sounds great, and my god, its VERY loud. Its the little black box at the front of the PC, with a white sticker on it, above where F6 is in the 2nd picture.
Kyosho
NOT KYO
Son of a... Why don't I ever click on the PC section of these forums? Sigh. I'm building pretty much the exact same thing. In fact, the motherboard I'm getting has the same exact CPU and GPU. We're essentially building two versions of the exact same project just with a couple different components. You're going to finish way before me though. I only just started getting some of my parts. I won't have the money for the rest for a week or so. And then there's the inevitable shipping wait. And the time to build. I was hoping to be the first to build something like this. Oh well.
I'm not sure if I saw you mention this anywhere, but you can get a stable overclock on the Atom 330 to 2.1GHz for a bit of a performance increase. If I recall from what I've read, it doesn't use much (if any) more amps, but it does run a little bit hotter. Obviously it's not necessary for all games, but for newer stuff, it would help. Most of these Atom motherboards run fanless, but I see your motherboard (or the case?) came with a fan, so you should probably be absolutely fine as far as the heat goes. Unless the fan was over the GPU? Can't tell in that pic. Could be over both. But regardless, you should be fine.
Edit: As far as Oblivion, have you looked into Oldblivion? The reason for your performance issues is likely due to the GPU struggling a bit with the graphics shaders. Oldblivion can downgrade them with very little difference in quality but a major performance increase (depending on the video card).
I'm not sure if I saw you mention this anywhere, but you can get a stable overclock on the Atom 330 to 2.1GHz for a bit of a performance increase. If I recall from what I've read, it doesn't use much (if any) more amps, but it does run a little bit hotter. Obviously it's not necessary for all games, but for newer stuff, it would help. Most of these Atom motherboards run fanless, but I see your motherboard (or the case?) came with a fan, so you should probably be absolutely fine as far as the heat goes. Unless the fan was over the GPU? Can't tell in that pic. Could be over both. But regardless, you should be fine.
Edit: As far as Oblivion, have you looked into Oldblivion? The reason for your performance issues is likely due to the GPU struggling a bit with the graphics shaders. Oldblivion can downgrade them with very little difference in quality but a major performance increase (depending on the video card).
samjc3
#1 Female Member
Cool! Competition!
I wouldnt go so far as to say I will finish before you though. I still need to figure out batteries (because I want more than 1 hour of battery life) and I also tend to procrastinate. Although I do have funding, so thats a general help.
Curiosity becomes me: Whats your motherboard? I wasnt able to find any ION sporting mobos smaller than micro-atx. So I bought this one, as an integrated product. its closest to the EPIC form factor.
I hadnt mentioned overclocking, but I have thought about it. I wasnt aware you could get stable that high, but it doesnt surprise me. I run my laptop at 1.6Ghz stable (900mhz Celeron/atom).
As far as heat is concerned, my RAM gets hotter than anything else on the board. (with 2nd place being the HDD, and 3rd being the CPU/GPU heatsink) So I am not at all worried about any heat issues, even if I do overclock. (<3 arctic silver so much)
I seriously doubt that its shader issues with Oblivion. The ION supports directX 10 (vista/7 of course), and I am running DirectX 9.0c. (march) I should probably update that, but it shouldnt have issues.
Also, what screen do you plan on using? If you havent got one yet, I HIGHLY recommend the one I got. (link on page 2 or 3, I think) It's video quality is awesome, and it has built in touch, at a much lower price point than any comparable screen Ive ever seen. ($140)
Oh, and if anyone cared to now, I realized Ive officially spent more than $450 on this project.
EDIT:
Far cry 2 Video stress test results:
Average Framerate: 13.42
Max. Framerate: 22.74
Min. Framerate: 6.00
Running at:
PERFORMANCE
-Real tree = very high
-physics = very high
-Fire = very high
RENDER QUALITY (DIRECT3D 9)
-Overall = optimal
-vegetation = low
-terrain = low
-geometry = low
-shading = low
-post FX = low
-texture = low
-shadow = off
-ambient = low
-AA = x0
-no HDR
-no bloom
Those are the settings it came up with when I loaded it. I will try it with real tree and such at low and see if it increases. Really though, the games looks pretty Dang good in the test. I dont know what the "No shadow" setting means, because there are shadows, and they look aiight.
EDIT 2:
I ran the stress test again, with real tree, physics and fire on low.
Average Framerate: 15.22
Max. Framerate: 22.76
Min. Framerate: 9.21
Very playable. That means this computer is a success. My desktop scored considerably lower than this. (although I did have Vista at the time. its much better now.)
An interesting side note though; L4D2 crashes. It gets through the video intro, and then crashes on that loading screen. No error message, no freeze. It just quits to desktop. Any ideas?
I wouldnt go so far as to say I will finish before you though. I still need to figure out batteries (because I want more than 1 hour of battery life) and I also tend to procrastinate. Although I do have funding, so thats a general help.
Curiosity becomes me: Whats your motherboard? I wasnt able to find any ION sporting mobos smaller than micro-atx. So I bought this one, as an integrated product. its closest to the EPIC form factor.
I hadnt mentioned overclocking, but I have thought about it. I wasnt aware you could get stable that high, but it doesnt surprise me. I run my laptop at 1.6Ghz stable (900mhz Celeron/atom).
As far as heat is concerned, my RAM gets hotter than anything else on the board. (with 2nd place being the HDD, and 3rd being the CPU/GPU heatsink) So I am not at all worried about any heat issues, even if I do overclock. (<3 arctic silver so much)
I seriously doubt that its shader issues with Oblivion. The ION supports directX 10 (vista/7 of course), and I am running DirectX 9.0c. (march) I should probably update that, but it shouldnt have issues.
Also, what screen do you plan on using? If you havent got one yet, I HIGHLY recommend the one I got. (link on page 2 or 3, I think) It's video quality is awesome, and it has built in touch, at a much lower price point than any comparable screen Ive ever seen. ($140)
Oh, and if anyone cared to now, I realized Ive officially spent more than $450 on this project.
EDIT:
Far cry 2 Video stress test results:
Average Framerate: 13.42
Max. Framerate: 22.74
Min. Framerate: 6.00
Running at:
PERFORMANCE
-Real tree = very high
-physics = very high
-Fire = very high
RENDER QUALITY (DIRECT3D 9)
-Overall = optimal
-vegetation = low
-terrain = low
-geometry = low
-shading = low
-post FX = low
-texture = low
-shadow = off
-ambient = low
-AA = x0
-no HDR
-no bloom
Those are the settings it came up with when I loaded it. I will try it with real tree and such at low and see if it increases. Really though, the games looks pretty Dang good in the test. I dont know what the "No shadow" setting means, because there are shadows, and they look aiight.
EDIT 2:
I ran the stress test again, with real tree, physics and fire on low.
Average Framerate: 15.22
Max. Framerate: 22.76
Min. Framerate: 9.21
Very playable. That means this computer is a success. My desktop scored considerably lower than this. (although I did have Vista at the time. its much better now.)
An interesting side note though; L4D2 crashes. It gets through the video intro, and then crashes on that loading screen. No error message, no freeze. It just quits to desktop. Any ideas?
Kyosho
NOT KYO
As far as my motherboard, I'm planning to go with this one. That is, assuming it's still available when my money comes. I also keep watch for Open Box deals on Newegg because you can save a bit, and since I'm going to be hacking this thing there won't be any returns anyways. Mini ITX is still a little big (6.7" by 6.7") but I already knew it wasn't going to be extremely small anyways. For anyone else who wants to look for similar ION-based motherboards, try this link for the search parameters already put in. I might go with something like this one because that larger L2 cache sure is tempting. But I'm not sure I want to spend the extra money. The "Next-Generation NVIDIA ION" (basically, the ION2) is getting mixed results. Some people say it performs better than the original ION, some say it's about on par and not worth the extra money. I don't know yet. I'll probably end up going with the ASRock unless there's a great Open Box deal on the day I get paid.
As far as screen, I'm undecided. I just bought two broken portable DVD players off ebay ($14.50 shipped, for the lot), and will be checking out those screens. They're probably pretty low res though. We'll see when they arrive, I guess. The screen you got does look really nice, but might be a bit out of my price range. I'm planning on trying to get a decent screen and then just buy a touchscreen digitizer of the appropriate size and a USB controller for it. If all else fails and I don't have the money for a good screen, I may end up using a PSOne screen. The majority of the games I'd want to play on it are older 4
games anyways so a widescreen isn't absolutely necessary. The PSOne screen is still a little low-res though. We'll see. I was previously considering this screen but with the digitizer and usb controller, it'd probably be about the same price as your screen. If I have the money, I may just go with yours. Not sure yet.
You know, I wasn't planning to even mention my project until it was finished (or near-finished). But I couldn't resist after seeing this thread. It's nice to finally talk to some one about it though. I'm afraid I can't help you with L4D2 as I don't have the game.
As far as screen, I'm undecided. I just bought two broken portable DVD players off ebay ($14.50 shipped, for the lot), and will be checking out those screens. They're probably pretty low res though. We'll see when they arrive, I guess. The screen you got does look really nice, but might be a bit out of my price range. I'm planning on trying to get a decent screen and then just buy a touchscreen digitizer of the appropriate size and a USB controller for it. If all else fails and I don't have the money for a good screen, I may end up using a PSOne screen. The majority of the games I'd want to play on it are older 4
games anyways so a widescreen isn't absolutely necessary. The PSOne screen is still a little low-res though. We'll see. I was previously considering this screen but with the digitizer and usb controller, it'd probably be about the same price as your screen. If I have the money, I may just go with yours. Not sure yet. You know, I wasn't planning to even mention my project until it was finished (or near-finished). But I couldn't resist after seeing this thread. It's nice to finally talk to some one about it though. I'm afraid I can't help you with L4D2 as I don't have the game.
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