Sam's PCP2

[samjc3]

Figured I should make a new thread, since its a new project, technically.

Estimated size when complete: 7"x5"x1"-1.5". (cant be sure on thickness till I have all my parts).

Specs:
AMD E-350 1.6ghz dual core
HD 4200 graphics
4gb DDr3 1333
Micron C300 SSD 128gb, 1.8"
5" 640x480 touchscreen (Dalian)
11.1v 5Ah battery (probably)
Custom controls, full standard controller (psp style sticks, unless anyone has a better idea)


Testing:
I was able to set my desktop up to be very similar to the final system (which should be headed towards me in an airplane)
I pulled my video card, and slapped in an old Athlon x2 (2.1ghz, underclocked to 1.4) into my desktop, which has HD 4200 integrated Graphics. I hooked up the SSD and did some tests due to being very antsy about using this SSD. My desktop is also slower as far as RAM and SATA are concerned. (ddr2 667 and SATA II)
Running tiny7 (win 7 ultimate 32 gutted) I got very impressive performance.

-Boots in 15 seconds.

-Games come up instantly.

-Oblivion at 30 FPS, no speedhacks, low quality preset

-Mirrors Edge at medium/low runs great

-Mass Effect 2 runs quite well, and I copied the installation, which rendered it unplayable last time I did it. (has to do with loading the wrong optimization files. On systems that can barely run it, having the wrong files renders it unplayable. It did not here, meaning a real installation will run great)

-L4d runs awesome at medium. No lag even in crescendo events.

-Borderlands runs fine at medium/low.

It should also be noted that this particular 4200, which is older than the APU version, handles clocking extremely well. I was able to push the clock to 1100mhz (over base 500mhz) with a substantial increase in performance (+800 3dmarks in 3dmark 06). Hopefully the APU version will also clock this well.

I am expecting my motherboard within the week (shipping from london, Payment cleared saturday, UPS express saver international) so hopefully I will be able to start actually doing something beyond screwing with my current PC.

Things that need to be solved:

-I want an application launcher. This may not be necessary, but its possible my screen is too small to be finger friendly with desktop shortcuts. If it is, I would like a grid based application launcher to make the interface much more finger friendly. I am thinking of running something like toolbox, which is fully customizable. However, if theres any beter alternatives, Id love to hear about em.

-Havent decided on an AVR chip to use for my controls. I plan on using the HID standard and an AVR dev board to build my controls (then xpadder to interface with games). I just am unsure which board to use. The teensyAVR has my eye (thanks for pointing it out, XCVG) but I have very little wiggle room in my budget, and if I could get a clone of that or something for cheaper it would be good. Just needs to be small and have enough inputs for a standard controller (4-6 analog, ~14 IO)

-Analog sticks. PSP ones suck. The ones in those pandora gamepads are better, but theres not enough money left for 2 of those to gut for analogs. I have some tiny analogs from a retrocon, but they have tall nubs on them. I need something like on the PSP2, or better slide analogs than a PSP.

-not particularly important, but colour scheme. Version one was gonna be black and lime green, but seeing as how this version isnt Nvidia based, that seems...wrong.

-Needs a name! PCP2 is all generic. This is my baby and I wanna show my motherly love with a sweet name. Hmm, gotta name it after a character in a good movie....."Toothless" doesnt really work though. Any suggestions?

 

[Mako321]

<3
White base paint, red bezels.

 

[J.D]

Light grey, blue bezels.

 

[vskid3]

Why not just start with a 360 controller and chop the board down to the bare minimum and wire your controls to that?
Palmer says the analog on Tapwave Zodiac's is great, but you'll have to find them. Are normal analogs completely out of the question? I would rather have a slightly larger portable if it meant I didn't have to use those abominations from the PSP.

Light grey with blue bezels sounds cool, but my pick would be white with grey bezels and orange accents.

 

[samjc3]

Why not just start with a 360 controller and chop the board down to the bare minimum and wire your controls to that?
I was gonna do that on the original. I got the smallest xbox contrller I could find, and it was still pretty large. (the teensy board Im looking at is like 1.2"x.6".) I already bought a 1.8" SSD, so it seems silly to skip on using tiny parts for the controller.
Are normal analogs completely out of the question? I would rather have a slightly larger portable if it meant I didn't have to use those abominations from the PSP.
Those tapwave analogs would be totally awesome, as they are real analogs, and not those nasty sliders from PSP. Real analogs arent totally out of the question, I suppose, but I would prefer to go as small as possible.
Light grey with blue bezels sounds cool, but my pick would be white with grey bezels and orange accents.
white on anything handheld always strikes me as a bad idea. Wouldnt it get all filthy and stuff? I know my xbox 360 controller isnt particularly clean. That said I do like the look of all the aforementioned colour schemes. White and almost any colour is always cool.

 

[Kyosho]

I'm not sure if this is on your radar or not. But have you considered using a ramdisk for the Windows swap file? It will prolong the life of your SSD, while also being nice and fast. You could use what is left of the last gig of RAM that 32bit Windows isn't using. Ramdisk's free version's 4GB limit is way more than you need. So it wouldn't cost you any money. Something to consider. I'll be doing it on mine, assuming I ever finish it. Just for the speed boost over using the swap file on my 5200rpm hard drive.

 

[samjc3]

Hmm, hadnt thought about that. Probably a good idea, as I rarely pass 2gb RAM used in game with this install, which is quite similar to what I will run on...geez, this projec t needs a name other than PCP2. Thoughts? Not sure what program I would slap in there, though. Cant really put steam there as it stores its games in the install directory, and that cant be changed. Not running much else. No security, no productivity apps or anything like that.

 

[Kyosho]

The thing about a ramdisk is that it can't save anything upon reboot. It can back itself up to your hard drive (er.. SSD) before you shut down, but it's slow. And you'd have to do it every time. You mostly just want to use it for swap files. The Windows swap file and maybe Firefox's (or whatever browser you use). So your hard drive isn't constantly being written to for swap purposes.

 

[samjc3]

Ah. That could be quite handy. I'll check it out when I get my mobo. Also, fun fact: When running l4d at 640x480 (yay native resolution) I can run it at my cloud settings, which are mostly high with 4x AA and anisotropic and all that jazz. Runs just fine. And in theory, my new mobo should be even faster since its got ddr3 and SATA 3. And a more technologically advanced graphics core (DX11, higher shader model, higher openCL, GL, etc). I am very impatiently waiting for my new mobo now.

 

[Zero]

Yea, if its in RAM it'd be lost when you shut down anyway. For future reference though, the issue with Steam and install paths is easily fixable with symbolic links.

 

[vskid3]

From what I've read, you probably shouldn't worry about the pagefile.
You can't cut a 360 controller board down to smaller than 1.2x6"? I would guess that you could go down to 2x3", but I've never opened one up.
The dirtiness of a color has a lot to do with the finish. A smooth finish like on the PSP makes it a fingerprint magnet in black, and the texture of a 360 controller catches every bit of dirt that it comes in contact with, the white being a nice contrast to the filth. I think a smooth finish would keep any color clean, but fingerprints will show up better on darker colors. Cleaning should be a breeze, though.

 

[samjc3]

Thats 1.2x0.6". Notice the period. Much smaller. As for symbolic links, seems like more trouble than its worth. If I use ramdisk I'll be putting my swap in it. But really Im not worried about the life of my SSD, so I may not bother. I fully expect this to be out of use (and out of my hands) long before the SSD goes out.

And you make an interesting point about the white, I will have to science it and find out. Also, any thoughts on main body white, deep purple accents? Pretty hefty accents too, not just a line around the screen. Im talking at least 30% purple.

 

[XCVG]

Black and red. I've seen the scheme before and it's slick. Also, AMD colours.

I like where this is going. What's the status on mark one? Are you going to build it and sell it, just sell the parts, or leave it in the corner?

I'm not sure what you mean by RAM drive, but it seems kind of pointless. Is this an actual virtual drive stored in RAM, or just extended caching? The latter would be kind of pointless to waste physical RAM on.

Last but not least, a little correction. The E-350 has Radeon HD 6310 graphics, not HD 4200. Not sure if the APU graphics cores are actually Northern Islands derived or if they are still evolving the same core (which is R600 based IIRC).

 

[Kyosho]

I'm not sure what you mean by RAM drive, but it seems kind of pointless. Is this an actual virtual drive stored in RAM, or just extended caching? The latter would be kind of pointless to waste physical RAM on.

It is a virtual drive stored in RAM and you can use it like any other drive, but it's not entirely useful for anything but caching because it gets purged. For Windows systems, anyways. You're familiar with Linux-based OSes that run off Live CDs? They basically load the OS completely into RAM. No hard drive or flash drive necessary, unless you want to save settings or files.

The main advantage to it in a Windows system, in my mind, is to take advantage of the full 4GB of RAM on 32bit Windows. Windows will only really use just over 3GB. Which leaves that extra bit just sitting there useless pretty much. By putting a swap file on it, you're taking advantage of it. In this manner, you can actually use more than 4GB.

When it comes to SSDs, many people are afraid of them wearing out too quickly. Whether this fear is warranted or not, I do not know. But by putting caching on a ramdisk, you're doing far less reads and writes onto the SSD, hypothetically prolonging its life.

 

[samjc3]

Black and red. I've seen the scheme before and it's slick. Also, AMD colours.
Maybe, maybe.

I like where this is going. What's the status on mark one? Are you going to build it and sell it, just sell the parts, or leave it in the corner?
Because Im lazy, i'll probably sell it as is. anyone interested?

I'm not sure what you mean by RAM drive, but it seems kind of pointless. Is this an actual virtual drive stored in RAM, or just extended caching? The latter would be kind of pointless to waste physical RAM on.
Probably not gonna bother with it.

Last but not least, a little correction. The E-350 has Radeon HD 6310 graphics, not HD 4200. Not sure if the APU graphics cores are actually Northern Islands derived or if they are still evolving the same core (which is R600 based IIRC).
The 6310 is based on the HD 4330 mobility radeon, it just doesnt have integrated memory. Based on the benchmarks I have seen, the difference between the 6310 and 4200 is +/-3%. Figured it was plenty close for my purposes.

 

[vskid3]

I like where this is going. What's the status on mark one? Are you going to build it and sell it, just sell the parts, or leave it in the corner?
Because Im lazy, i'll probably sell it as is. anyone interested?

What exactly is it's as-is condition?
Are you going to use 32 or 64bit Windows?

 

[samjc3]

I like where this is going. What's the status on mark one? Are you going to build it and sell it, just sell the parts, or leave it in the corner?
Because Im lazy, i'll probably sell it as is. anyone interested?

What exactly is it's as-is condition?
Are you going to use 32 or 64bit Windows?

As is condition is technically, "screwed onto the back of my desk." However, were I to sell it, its condition would be, "Not wired, full pinouts provided, includes case, screen, batteries, RAM, HDD, Pc, controls, and charger etc. Clean install of OS of your choice. (windows is either cracked or not activated)"

Total parts cost on the thing was like $510, and Id probably sell it around that. Its fully functional, but it should be noted that some of the ports (DVI, usb) are gone from the motherboard. Id also be willing to part it out, if people agree on what they want.

As for 32/64, for now I will probably install 32 bit, and then upgrade down the road. As light as I run my install, reinstalling only takes an hour or so, so its no big deal.

 

[samjc3]

Well poo, folks. Looks like my mobo is 2 weeks out. Their first batch had a bad bios flash that broke video output mostly. I may attempt to get some of the broken boards (to my knowledge, its only HDMI that doesnt work) and get em out to people who want em at a reasonable price. I'll let you know in a few days.

 

[vskid3]

Well poo, folks. Looks like my mobo is 2 weeks out. Their first batch had a bad bios flash that broke video output mostly. I may attempt to get some of the broken boards (to my knowledge, its only HDMI that doesnt work) and get em out to people who want em at a reasonable price. I'll let you know in a few days.

If you need some extra capital, let me know.

 

[samjc3]

Bump from the grave for shipping confirmation! Expect pictures and stuff next week!
I am super excited now!