To celebrate their 4th anniversary, Limited Run Games will be hosting a 24 hour Twitch Stream with proceeds/donations going towards The Video Game History Foundation. For those that aren't aware of this foundation, their goal is to preserve the history of video games, so all the hard work and lessons learned are not lost because of time.
The stream starts today (10/28) at 9 am PDT/12 pm EDT.
The Video Game History Foundation is here: https://gamehistory.org/
To celebrate their 4th anniversary, Limited Run Games will be hosting a 24 hour Twitch Stream with proceeds/donations going towards The Video Game History Foundation. For those that aren't aware of this foundation, their goal is to preserve the history of video games, so all the hard work and lessons learned are not lost because of time.
The stream starts today (10/28) at 9 am PDT/12 pm EDT.
Hey everyone! This thread is for all the bug reports you have for Tale of the White Wyvern. As this thread gets longer we may make a new one but we will keep this one open as long as it's sustainable.
If you have a general question or support, please post over in the thread below:
If you comment on this post, you will automatically follow it and get notifications, so if you don't want those, you can de-select the star on this post, next to the "Comments" button. Similarly, if you want to opt into notifications, just make sure it's selected.
Thanks for playing, and we're looking... Read All
Hey everyone! This thread is for all the bug reports you have for Tale of the White Wyvern. As this thread gets longer we may make a new one but we will keep this one open as long as it's sustainable.
If you have a general question or support, please post over in the thread below:
If you comment on this post, you will automatically follow it and get notifications, so if you don't want those, you can de-select the star on this post, next to the "Comments" button. Similarly, if you want to opt into notifications, just make sure it's selected.
Thanks for playing, and we're looking forward to what you have to report!
I think you have an off by one in the counting of invisibility for rogues. Level 7 is the first that damage during fights was a concern and I've seen the behaviour twice. The description of the skill seems to say 5 rounds of combat will occur with no damage. On the two occasions I counted rounds, including the skill invoking round, the 5th round ended in damage for the forest dweller.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 10/24/2019 at 07:55pm
Thanks for the report Chuckles. That's the intended behavior but I guess we didn't update all the documentation. Where did you see that so we can update it?
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 10/25/2019 at 11:11am
Yeah, for invisibility click the skill and count that as one, click attack 3 more times and then click invisibility again, if you have more. That's how I do it. So, click invisibility count 1, click attack count 2, click attack count 3, click attack count 4, repeat if you have more invisibility skill points.
Exactly what Greg said. We found a couple instances where it still said five and cleared those up, but let us know if you find more.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 11/12/2019 at 12:13am
I clicked on "(D)aily News" and it shows no news. At 7PMEST, this is most definitely a bug. I think you can go click through Previous Days news and Next Days News and see news though. Here's what is shown. Tale of the White Wyvern - Daily News Today's News (UTC)
(P)revious Day's News (2019-11-11 UTC) (R)eturn to Town Square
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 11/12/2019 at 12:25am
Also, these support, etc. posts are hard to find outside of the game. I clicked "Tale of the White Wyvern" in the post, which brings you to all posts regarding that game, but I could not find these posts. Maybe I some how over looked them. It would be good if they were easier to locate outside of the game in case someone cannot get into the game.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 11/12/2019 at 04:31am
I don't see how that's relevant, Travis. I'm not very familiar with UTC or even many time zones, though, so you probably know more about it all than I do. As far as I know, a new in-game day begin at 12AM PST and 12PM PST which translates to 3AM EST and 3PM EST. I guess it just means that nothing news worthy happened in the four hours of that game day when I logged on. I always long on some time after these times and I don't recall ever seeing an in-game day was blank like this.
No, it’s relevant. UTC is the same as the GMT time zone. Our News is sectioned off by the day it happened in real life, and since people live all over the world, the common thing to do is use UTC.
Game days and news days aren’t the same thing, in short.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 11/12/2019 at 04:51am
Your reply to my bug report seemed irrelevant, but I realized that I must be confused about something. Thanks for clearing that up. In short, I thought game days and news days were the same.
Predicting your next question; if we went to game days we couldn’t really easily distinguish if the news was from the first or second game day of the day. Again, because people live in varied time zones, we couldn’t just say 2019-11-11 (day 1) or something, because those will be different if you live in Australia for instance.
So the news days are 7pm to 7pm, eastern, to match UTC. UTC isn’t exactly a time zone, it just happens to match GMT. But it’s a common way to refer to time when you have various time zones to consider, and so it’s a sensible way to section the day there as well.
Attempting to predict your next next question 😉—
But while those time zones are varied, the majority of us are in the US, and 3am and pm eastern to 12 am and pm pacific seemed like the best bet for us to do the game day breaks.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 11/12/2019 at 06:30am
You predicted questions I hadn't even thought of. I was ok with game days are not news days. I didn't question that. I didn't even think of why. I just thought, "wow now I don't feel stupid" and let it go. It seems you and Jon certainly put some thought into this, something I wouldn't have even thought of if I didn't notice what I thought was an issue. Thanks for the enlightenment. Also, I really hate Math! I do understand that it's all confusing, especially on release days. If a game is supposed to release on a certain day and the devs don't give us a time, we wonder will that be when it becomes that day in Australia, the US, or what.
Currently I have 2 uses of the Rogue skill, but when I disappear the first time, my second use vanishes. I thought I had noticed it a couple days ago, but it wasn't until this morning that I definitely saw it happen.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 11/26/2019 at 04:30am
Looked into this Adam and I can't recreate it on my end as it operates normally.
Are there any other details to share so I can recreate this? You are on an Android phone using which browser? That might have something to do with it perhaps.
So I'm not sure if this is actually a bug or if I somehow missed something, but earlier in this run I had 30 Mage points. I know this because I had multiple attempts at the Wyvern where I cast White three times (and Warrior Screamed twice, for what it's worth). Yesterday, though, after multiclassing into Rogue, I went to fight the Wyvern again and noticed I had only 29 Mage points. I thought maybe that I had accidentally used one in a forest fight, so today I checked again before fighting and still have only 29? Is there some legitimate mechanism in place that allows for permanently losing a class point, or did I manage to stumble across a strange bug?
Whoa! That was a surprise. It was a minor issue of a difference between docs, that I'm sure aren't the focus of the players, and observed behaviour. I'll be a rogue again in a few days so I'll take a look to check for errant 'five's. Apologies for going dark.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 12/24/2019 at 09:39pm
When playing on a computer as and using the keyboard to navigate during a forest fight, both Run and Rogue Skill are mapped to R. When I press R (intending to disappear), I get the "Are you sure you want to run?" box, but pressing yes uses the skill as I intended (though not as I may have expected given the message). When you get around to it, it may be a good idea to map these actions to different letters. :)
I caught a 'Moronidae(?)' in the waterfall, attempting to eat it produced two error screens of the 'run away type' Didn't seem to affect anything else.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 03/10/2020 at 01:15am
Embarrassingly, died to a combat fish. Was taken to a post-fight screen, that included the option for Quark's, but was not able to actually navigate to that (by keyboard Q or clicking), page simply loaded again. (Not the best bug report, but I didn't think to record it at the time, sorry! )
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 03/20/2020 at 02:47am
I ran into this today, because I'm struggling with my keyboard, and hitting enter doesn't always work quite right, so I rapidly triple-quad-more tap the enter key.
Go to bank, withdraw screen. Set the amount to withdraw. Hit enter repeatedly. Result: Withdraw that amount repeatedly Expected: First enter accepted, others rejected
Using a stock safari on Catalina and I can see what you're talking about. That's... weird. lol. It's like it sometimes fails to disable that button and sometimes (maybe one in five) it disables it properly.
There seems to be a new decoration for player names that is leaking into inappropriate areas: Tale of the White Wyvern - Read Mail From: [ Blue ] Sent: 2020-04-04 20:19:56 UTC ....
(W)rite Mail Back To [ Blue ] (R)eturn to Mailbox
It started in the last few days, IAFACT. I don't think it's all names.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/05/2020 at 05:40pm
Question, inappropriate in which respect? Or is some aspect of that buggy?
Thanks for the report!
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 04/05/2020 at 05:50pm
Maybe it is confusing, because you can't tell if the character's name actually includes the special flair. So, in other words, is this character's name "[ Blue }" or is it "Blue" with flair? It is the latter, but I can see the confusion. Although you could just hit "W" or click "Write Mail Back To." However, this could be confusing if you want to write mail or transfer gold to the character (without replying to mail and without looking up the character's profile.) I don't know if that's exactly what Chuckles is talking about, but that's what I see as possibly confusing.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/05/2020 at 07:11pm
Yeah, I can see the confusion part. I did think about that. Removing the flair from the mail system makes a lot of semse.
Sorry, that did kinda miss the point. :) The decoration apears in the adresseee box and prevents the message from being sent. I see now that the HTML code is being evaluated in my posted comment. I am taking a quickndirty approach, this pastebin shows the actualy text in the mail reading page, does that clarify? https://pastebin.com/Qwa3Y7rb
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/05/2020 at 07:25pm
Next time I'll try and post in English, not 'typo'. :-D
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/05/2020 at 07:39pm
adahn: After talking to Travis, I've pushed an update where actually having 0 HP will actually kill you now. It's confusing but I always liked it because it's strange and I also wanted less ways to die.
It looks like using Mage:Teleport in a fish fight (perhaps when the next blow would be fatal?) causes the death messaging, but I did not actually die (hit points did not change from 5, my fish bag did not empty, etc)
Hi, so I just experienced the strangest bug in the main game. I was fighting Elah Forkwood to reach level 4 and suddenly I got the the note that was dead, which hasn't previously been possible when fighting masters. I proceeded to cash in 4 dead cards to be reborn, and it brought me back to where I was in the fight with 20 hitpoints. I then attacked and defeated the master, but this whole situation was very odd. Perhaps this is an artifact of the 0 HP update? It's worth looking into. Also, if it's determined that this was indeed something that should not have happened, I'd appreciate being refunded XP and dead cards if possible. No biggie if you cannot do that, though.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/11/2020 at 11:27pm
Yup, that should not have happened.
XP and dead cards refunded.
I'll let you know what I find.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/11/2020 at 11:36pm
I believe I fixed it. It was some subtle logic in a fight class that wasn't updated after after the 0 hp update as you say.
So, I'm not entirely sure what happened here, but I just got 0 shotted by trainer Molodrin.
I'm level 4, 4190 experience. I questioned the master, got the standard "you might be able to beat me" messaging. Chose the option to fight the master. In response, I got the "merciful death" messaging. So, he either got the first swing (?), and took me out with it, or something went weird.
I'm afraid I haven't had my coffee yet this morning, so I suppose I could have been low on hit points and not realized it.
Not useful as reports go, but... :shrug:
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/19/2020 at 09:25pm
> So, I'm not entirely sure what happened here, but I just got 0 shotted by trainer Molodrin.
In looking at it i'm not sure what happened because Masters can't get first strike. Is it possible you hit attack quickly? I'll keep looking. If something else comes to mind let me know.
So I noticed something that I'm not sure is new or always been there. I attempted to run from a fish fight, got knocked down, and still got defeated? I've run several times in the past and as far as I know I've never before lost hit points when getting knocked down.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/20/2020 at 02:34pm
> In looking at it i'm not sure what happened because Masters can't get first strike. Is it possible you hit attack quickly? I'll keep looking. If something else comes to mind let me know.
Honestly, I'd chalk it up to muscle memory and not-awakeness. Hopefully you didn't lose much time over it, and as a resident Mage, yay for Teleport being more useful!
Purely cosmetic, but I'm a little disappointed it didn't rollover to MAX_INT. Forest Fights : -1 After teleporting my scaredy cat butt away from the Wyvern.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 05/01/2020 at 01:45am
Thanks for the report Chuckles, bug is fixed!
Also, I agree in that maxing out forest fights would be a pretty fun bug. 🤣
I've read before that you get a gratis point for your current class. IIRC it was from someone who switched away from mage and lost a spell point unexpectedly. If that's true then the point isn't being given when switching 'back'. In my case I switched away from Rogue, but on switching back the extra disappear wasn't re-granted in the day the switch occurred in.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 05/27/2020 at 03:21am
> I've read before that you get a gratis point for your current class.
You've read correctly.
> If that's true then the point isn't being given when switching 'back'. In my case I switched away from Rogue, but on switching back the extra disappear wasn't re-granted in the day the switch occurred in.
The gratis skill point is granted on the new day. So when you switch you don't get that point until the next new day.
So it seems you are experiencing it as it is intended!
Fresh new day. Went to the outhouse for ablutions. Got my turn. Went for a light fish breakfast and found this funky dive bar. Hung out with a cool foreigner but as so as I tried to play a game I was told I could only 'Interact with an NPC' once a day. n/m it's the sending-mail-doesn't-switch-focus-to-text-input issue that messes with the keyboard starers. Apparently the sentence I typed had me getting 500gold from jon boyd. Terrific.
Sooo I think I may have benefitted from a bug and didn't notice until afterwards. I mindlessly bought up hit points in the Season 2 game so I could challenge some players in a fight, healed up, then did some fights before I noticed that I had (I believe) *way* too many hit points for the amount of gems I spent. I went back to the Healer's Hut confirm this and it looks like each pair of gems is increasing my HP by 1,403 instead of the stated 3. I did eat some fish earlier which buffed my HP, so maybe doing so applied some sort of multiplier? That season is over so I don't think much there is terribly important, but it may be worth checking out to make sure it doesn't trivialize fights in an active season.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 06/20/2020 at 07:38pm
Thanks for the report, I've fixed the bug and it's being pushed to production now!
Level 11 on prime, it says I have enough xp. The fight starts and I make my first attack and the response is: Tale of the White Wyvern - Tarbreth's Adventurer Training
You enter the halls that have trained many legendary adventurers. Many people are here training together, old as well as the very young. Tarbreth surveys the entire training hall from the balcony.
Your current master is Tarbreth. Tarbreth prepares to deal you a death blow then stops. "You are ready to seek the White Wyvern!" Tarbreth halts the fight and heals you before you go.
Yup, says I'm still 11 and: Tale of the White Wyvern - Tarbreth's Adventurer Training
You enter the halls that have trained many legendary adventurers. Many people are here training together, old as well as the very young. Tarbreth surveys the entire training hall from the balcony.
Your current master is Tarbreth. "I would like to battle again, but you should try again tomorrow." Tarbreth tells you. You figure you will try again tomorrow.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 08/02/2020 at 10:56pm
Able is building out the back room in anticipation of getting new pole sets to sell. He ushers you back and tells you "We'll have more back here soon, but you can still check out the special Cheerful Ghost Member-only poles."
Member (M)ember Armor Set Return (R)eturn to Able's Fishing Shop
Now why would I want to look at armor in a fishing shop? :)
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 08/05/2020 at 09:30pm
Well you "fixed" it a minute ago, just as I was going to add a funny comment. I was thinking "Member Rod," but that makes me want to laugh like Beavis & Butt-head. Huh huh huh huh
If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.
Hey everyone! This thread is for all support and question you have for Tale of the White Wyvern. As this thread gets longer we may make a new one but we will keep this one open as long as it's sustainable.
Feel free to post any support topics such as game suggestions, questions about how the game works, or other types of feedback. This is also a space where you can find out why we made the game the way we did, as sometimes it's not obvious.
Before asking a question, please check the game Instructions first. Your question may already be answered there, as we update them regularly when new things are added, and when we run into things that are not obvious about how the... Read All
Hey everyone! This thread is for all support and question you have for Tale of the White Wyvern. As this thread gets longer we may make a new one but we will keep this one open as long as it's sustainable.
Feel free to post any support topics such as game suggestions, questions about how the game works, or other types of feedback. This is also a space where you can find out why we made the game the way we did, as sometimes it's not obvious.
Before asking a question, please check the game Instructions first. Your question may already be answered there, as we update them regularly when new things are added, and when we run into things that are not obvious about how the game works. Many frequently asked questions are covered in the Instructions:
If you comment on this post, you will automatically follow it and get notifications, so if you don't want those, you can de-select the star on this post, next to the "Comments" button. Similarly, if you want to opt into notifications, just make sure it's selected.
Thanks for playing, and we're looking forward to what you have to say!
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 11/05/2019 at 09:36am
I've come up with another color theme, so I'll describe the first one I've already suggested and then the second one I just thought of.
I'd like to see blue text on a black background. I think I'd like to see the (first) letters that correspond to the key to press to enter that area (like the "F" in "Forest) could be purple or a brighter or darker blue. I usually tell people my favorite colors are blue, black, and purple. No, I don't like bruises! LOL
Secondly, remember those beautiful rainbow blocks in Terraria that I love so much? How about that? On a black background every letter is a different color of the spectrum. That is a limited spectrum such as ROYGBIV or rather red, orange, yellow, greeen, blue, purple, and white. I think that would be cool, too! Of course not *every* letter would have a different color on the spectrum, colors in such a limited spectrum would, of course, replicate.
Although, an option to be able to change colors in-game would be cool. Like you could change the background, the first letter, and main text colors. Then we wouldn't need to suggest a theme, we could just customize it ourselves.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 11/06/2019 at 03:38am
Oh! I just remembered I have also suggested that Rogues could see a counter that indicates how many turns of Invisibility are left. Something like after clicking on the ability button, the game could say, "you are now invisible for x more turns." The last turn of Invisibility would make the game say "0 more turns." At first it was confusing, not just for me, but then I realized how to accurately count how many turns were left. So, I can do it now with ease. It's just a tiny bit of counting. Still, an indication would be helpful, especially to those who've never been a Rogue before and are new to the game. I'm not sure if other classes have abilities that have a duration, but if that's true now or in the future, this counter could be used for them as well. Maybe to make this counter more useful, other classes could get abilities that have a duration, so that it's a tool not strictly for the Rogue.
Now that I remember, one last suggestion (for this comment). I would like to be able to know or see how much charm is required for each NPC interaction. Right now, you could click on the last and if that doesn't work select the one below it and repeat until you get to the one that will work. I'm sure if I really wanted to, I could spend some time and figure this out on my own, but it'd still be nice if the game would let us know. :)
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 11/08/2019 at 12:25am
Added the theme suggestion and theme creator to the list.
As to your suggestion about charm being display for NPC's and a turn counter for disappear those are interesting. Travis and I will talk about it.
Thanks!
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 11/08/2019 at 12:57am
Thank you for "listening" and giving my suggestions some thought! :)
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 11/08/2019 at 01:21am
Oh, and also perhaps an option to change your name. Maybe this could be after a wyvern kill and the game asks if you'd like to continue as X ("GregoPeck" in my case) or be reborn as someone new. Perhaps it could just be a simple name change or perhaps you could be reborn as a completely new character and thus resetting pretty much everything. So, it'd be just like when we started out for the very first time. This could be helpful if players decide we don't like our name or just want a fresh start. Perhaps, someone notices a typo in their name and they'd like to fix it.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 11/08/2019 at 02:54am
So the reason why username changes aren't in Wyvern games now and won't be (or until I can figure out how to do it in a way that justifies the time and UI clutter):
1. If you change your name that might be fun but what's the benefit to the player?
If the benefit is a fresh start, strap in, I think what you might hear in the next month will excite you, but it's not a username change it's way cooler than that.
2. If we allowed username changes it would mean that a user becomes somebody else as far as all players in the current game are concerned.
A few scenarios concern me:
A: User X has a rivalry with User Y. They trade PvP kills and have a fun time or sometimes less fun time but, generally speak, both enjoy killing each other. User Y changes their name.
How does everyone know that? Should everyone know that? Should a username change be someone wipes their slate clean, because it might as well be. Do we keep username history? If we do why?
I guess other scenarios are versions of the one above where someone changes their username and i'm not sure if the benefit outweighs the negatives. It's not that I can't keep a username history on a profile or I can't set a daily news notification or something. It's just that makes things more complicated for a benefit that seems dubious to me.
So it's not really that it's hard to do more that it seems like a cool feature until I think about how it effects a Wyvern game community and then i'm not sure it's worth it. There could be a world where a game has so many players that you can't know everyone like World of Warcraft and a name change is natural because, essentially your username doesn't matter. But in Wyvern it's nearly your entire identity and matters a lot so for each game, I think you should keep it.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 11/08/2019 at 03:15am
Wow, I'm very impressed with how much thought you put into that one. I didn't think of or consider the things (scenarios) you mentioned. As for user typo, I know one user name that ends with a space. It confused me as to why I couldn't copy and paste his user name when I was trying to send him some gold, but I ended up figuring it out. Really, the easy way to do this is to just click on their profile and select "send gold" (I think).
My primary reason for this suggestion is because I think I have quite a unique user name in that it's the same as my user name here. For some reason everyone, except for me (and another I think), created a character with a user name that doesn't match their user name here. I don't know how I missed out on that. It's not a big deal really, although it does make me feel odd. Maybe there was something I didn't read or maybe I misunderstood something. Maybe I was surprised to see that (almost) no one used their Cheerful Ghost user name in the game. So, I guess I got confused there and am still confused as to why I did this. Otherwise, I could have created a character with a different name. Although, it really doesn't matter, honestly.
Maybe in the Daily News, it could mention that someone changed their name or was reborn as X (X=new name). Obviously, as you pointed out to me, if you really want to know who someone is, all you have to do is check their profile, which will tell you who they really are on this site.
Now I remember something else I thought of possibly before launch and that was for us to have multiple characters we could play. From what you just said in your reply, I can see how this one could be an issue. I can imagine some other scenarios (possibly at least one) where this would be an issue.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 11/08/2019 at 03:23am
Thanks for letting me know about the username space thing i'll file that as a bug, that shouldn't happen.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 11/11/2019 at 02:54pm
> Is it possible to telnet into the white wyvern?
When I created Tale of the White Wyvern I wanted to the game to be accessable to the widest audience possible and as part of that built it to work in a browser. The ability to play it over Telnet or SSH would be awesome and for a future game I could see us adding support for Telnet or SSH. That said, that's some time away and I wouldn't put in on your calendar. Personally, i'd love to see it happen though.
In the warrior ending I'm pretty sure 'nobile' should be noble. I'm old but I don't think nobile is a 'thing'. Thanks, still having fun.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 01/01/2020 at 05:16pm
If I recall correctly, at the character creation screen, the game asks you to "create an account" and give that a name. This turns into your character name. I think, instead, that it should say something more like "create a character." That might be at least part of why my character is my user name in the main game. Although, only one other person used their user name as their character name. It was also slightly confusing for the seasonal game, because I already have a Cheerful Ghost account, which I was already logged in to. So, I suggest perhaps separating creating a character vs. an account.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 01/04/2020 at 06:53pm
Good point Greg, change that word to character. Thanks for the feedback!
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 01/29/2020 at 09:29am
A couple of quick suggestions. 1) I know there's a confirmation for when selling a weapon and armor, but if you accidentally do it, you're screwed (AFAIK). What if there was some way to remedy that? I'm not sure what. Maybe there could be some kind of post/place where you could "beg" or ask for gold and hope that people would be willing to share some with you, with which you could buy a weapon or armor. If this game had something to sell, that would be useful in this situation, too. 2) Could we get something like a transaction history in the bank that could help us keep track of how much gold we've sent to other players? Some players are giving to others. When it's given to me, I like to give back to the player, but I'd like it to be easier to keep track of how much I've sent. Thanks for listening and for making a really great and successful game!
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 01/31/2020 at 04:29am
Travis and I have talked about 1 before. We have some solutions but since it never came up it hasn't really been something we addressed.
2) Transaction history is interesting. I'll drop it on the list and see if we get it to it.
Thanks Greg!
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 02/02/2020 at 08:47am
Oh! How about some indication of how a weapon or armor will change our stats? I know hats tell you the strength and defense (among other attributes) that they add, but weapons and armor don't. So like each weapon would say +X (x=number) attack damage or whatever.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 02/16/2020 at 01:46am
I think it would be nice to know how many wyvern kills we have. Is there a place for that or could you add it to our stats page? Maybe also total player kills, total deaths,...etc.?
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 02/16/2020 at 04:59pm
Total Wyvern kills is at Tarbreth’s Hall of Honor. Total deaths in the Graveyard under Leaderboard of Death and total player kills in the fields under PVP leaderboard or something.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 02/16/2020 at 08:54pm
So sorry, I overlooked those places. Thanks!
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 02/17/2020 at 04:03am
👍
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 03/15/2020 at 07:48am
I'd now like to suggest a "sell all" button for fish.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 03/18/2020 at 01:27am
Yeah that’s not a bad idea.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 03/18/2020 at 07:05am
Although, I think I've discovered (a pro tip) that it's better to eat or sell a fish after you catch it, instead of holding on to fish, because if you lose a fish fight, you lose all the fish you caught.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 03/18/2020 at 02:35pm
Oh yeah, that’s a good thing to consider.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 04/21/2020 at 10:30pm
I don't know if the full players list is sorted in anyway, so could we possibly get it sorted or the ability to sort it? Personally, I think it should be sorted alphabetically. If you need to know why this is important, I can go into further details.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/22/2020 at 03:21am
> I can go into further details.
Hit me.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 04/22/2020 at 04:27am
It's kind of obvious, but it basically makes searching for other players easier. A friend and I usually trade gold. Whoever has the higher level sends gold to the one who has the lower level. Sometimes, I like to look for his name on the list to see which of us is at a higher or lower level. His characters have odd names and it's difficult to remember how they are spelled as they were randomly generated. That also seems to be the only way to see someone's character info profile. In other words, it makes looking up player information easier. I hope that clears it up.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 04/22/2020 at 07:36pm
Although, I just realized you can click the person's name in the profile in the news section. That's good enough for me.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 04/23/2020 at 02:16am
> Although, I just realized you can click the person's name in the profile in the news section. That's good enough for me.
🕺
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 08/07/2020 at 07:52am
Do you ever forget what you wrote to someone and thus have no idea what they're talking about when they reply to your mail? How about a way to figure that out? Because, you know, as you get older your memory starts to fade.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 08/07/2020 at 08:11am
Oh! I just realized a curiosity! Sometimes I see that a friend has replied to my mail, but seems to not have done anything newsworthy. So how does the Daily News work? Is it only certain events that make the news? Or is it just that not everyone who plays all the time does something newsworthy? I feel like I always see myself in the news and usually a about a few others.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 08/07/2020 at 03:53pm
I’ve heard that about the messaging system. It’s that we meat for it to be simple but losing context is very easy for sure.
Daily News is triggered on certain events. Winning Master fights, PVP, killing the Wyvern etc. If a new worthy item hits we record it.
One persons play session should always record at least one event and a lot of time more than that.
Though it's possible for someone to be between levels and unable to level up that day, and forget to interact with an NPC, thus never registering anything in the daily news. Not that *I* would ever forget to interact with an NPC... nope... :/
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 10/23/2020 at 07:39pm
I just thought I'd share some positive feedback. I like how the main page of the game changes color showing us that there's an event going on, but it also doesn't force us into keeping that color. So, like right now the Pumpkin Festival is going on and you know this because the main page is mostly orange, but once you get into town the colors change back to what you've chosen.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 10/24/2020 at 01:53am
Yeah, that's something we decided on that I like quite a bit too.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 06/13/2021 at 07:07am
I thought I asked this before, but I'm still not sure of the answer. Which is the best place to fish? I'm wondering if fish in different areas are worth more money.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 06/13/2021 at 04:25pm
Selling fish you get from fights are worth the most money. There are some common fish that don't have any bonus when you eat them that sell for more. Without looking at the code I can't say which is which offhand.
The three areas focus on different attributes for the fish, since you've unlocked them all you can see the themes. HP, Defense and Strength bonuses. Depending on your style each has it's own benefit.
When I was playing more I focused on strength to sneaky sneak and PvP better.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 06/13/2021 at 06:34pm
Ah, well I don't think I've ever eaten a fish, I just sell them. I've been fishing in the shallows mostly and seem to make good money from it.
Also, I'm guessing the fishing pole is pretty much like a weapon. I think the amount of money you get from selling a fish depends on what level you are. I could be wrong about that, so feel free to correct me.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 06/14/2021 at 12:29am
> Also, I'm guessing the fishing pole is pretty much like a weapon.
You need one to fish and you need to have it leveled up with you as you progress to keep fishing. If you get into a fish fight and it's too weak it will break. If it's strong enough you can begin the fish fight and if you win you can sell the fish or eat it for a larger reward.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 06/14/2021 at 12:30am
Selling the fish value DOES move based on your level.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 06/14/2021 at 12:55am
Thought so.
I'm kind of curious about the damage you take as well. I think I could have the last pole and still take damage, but later not. I don't know if how much damage you take is due to your level, the pole, or the armor you're wearing.
jdodson Admin Post Author
wrote on 06/14/2021 at 03:37am
The fish fights work like a forest fight in that your weapon+attack, armor+defense and skills are driving the outcome.
AzureAzule Super Member
wrote on 06/14/2021 at 03:42am
Cool, I thought so, but I don't think I was entirely clear on it. Thanks for answering my curiosities!
If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.
I recently built a new PC and decided to get a new monitor as well. My old monitor is actually fine, it’s a 24” Dell and I can’t recall exactly what model it is. It’s a 60hz monitor and I decided I wanted to try one with a higher refresh rate. More hertz means more FPS in a game. I got the impression that once you see over 60hz, you’ll never want to go back.
Recently, I bought a recertified Acer Predator XB241H. I have some problems with it, but I’ll not get into that here as it’s irrelevant to this discussion. One feature of this monitor is that it can be overclocked to 180hz. I had no idea you could OC a monitor! It’s a 24” 1080p monitor, just like the one I was... Read All
I recently built a new PC and decided to get a new monitor as well. My old monitor is actually fine, it’s a 24” Dell and I can’t recall exactly what model it is. It’s a 60hz monitor and I decided I wanted to try one with a higher refresh rate. More hertz means more FPS in a game. I got the impression that once you see over 60hz, you’ll never want to go back.
Recently, I bought a recertified Acer Predator XB241H. I have some problems with it, but I’ll not get into that here as it’s irrelevant to this discussion. One feature of this monitor is that it can be overclocked to 180hz. I had no idea you could OC a monitor! It’s a 24” 1080p monitor, just like the one I was using. I think I’ve decided that 1080p is a resolution I’m quite happy with and don’t really see a reason to change. Higher resolutions require more GPU power and higher resolutions decrease your FPS. I have a GTX 1660 Ti, which is plenty of GPU power, although I can’t recall whether or not it can do 4K (probably so). I also don’t think 2K or 4K would look good on the desktop, I imagine it would make icons much smaller than I want them to be. I remember progressing through resolutions as time progressed. Those older resolutions look horrible today (I think)!
Because I’m able to monitor my FPS via counters, I can see that I’m getting more than 60FPS without screen tearing. Before, with the old monitor, I turned on Vsync, because screen tearing was an issue and I hated it. Now I have a Gsync monitor and have it turned on. I am seeing about 10 more FPS in some graphically intense games like Atlas and Monster Hunter: World. My FPS in CivVI has more than doubled, in my testing I saw around 180. Surprisingly, when I tested Minecraft (without Optifine), I saw over 1,000FPS without any screen tearing! Whoa!
Other than having a counter, I don’t feel like I can personally notice or see the difference in FPS. All games I’ve played seem to look the same to me no matter what FPS I’m getting. Although, there is definitely a difference when I’m getting very low FPS. I don’t know at what point that becomes noticeable, but I kind of think less than 30 or even less than 10 is definitely noticeable.
What do you think? Is FPS something you can see and notice with your own eyes without a counter? Does FPS really matter to you? Are you unwilling to accept anything less than 60FPS or another number? Let me know in the comments, I’d like to discuss this.
A few things. Yeah, the frames per second matter. On some games it feels like it matters more. Maybe it’s the engine? I feel like I enjoy the id engine games like Doom and Wolfenstein more with a frame rate as close to 60 (or above) as I can get. But some, 30 is fine. Below 30 and you really start noticing problems.
That said. Some games (and I can never predict which ones) will give me motion sickness, and one thing I can do to limit that is reduce the fps to 30. Paradoxically, if the frame rate gets too low I will start feeling motion sickness too.
But yeah I can definitely tell a huge difference between 30 and 60, but over that I can’t.
As for 4K and screen tearing, I just recently upgraded my monitors and I have some thoughts there.
I have a 1060 and it can run 4K so yours surely can. The desktop resolution running at 4K CAN make everything way too small to use, but in modern operating systems you have to go out of your way NOT to use display scaling. You’ll be running in 4K but the interface elements will stretch to appear as though you were in 1080p or 1440p. Everything just looks more crisp. It’s kinda magical to use a desktop in 4K because you’ve never imagined how great a simple web page can look. Google search results will blow your mind 😂
My monitor isn’t Gsync certified but it IS freesync, and you can make your nvidia drivers treat them the same, and yes, it is incredible how that limits screen tearing.
But yeah, there are plenty of games I can’t play at 4K. But I can get 1440p in almost all the games I want to play, and a few games will give me some gorgeous 4K. Honestly, one of the best things I’ve played with was Quake 3 Arena. In 4K. Yep, kinda odd. Old meets new. But it is GORGEOUS in 4K and more frames than my eyes can even see.
If you set v-sync it will limit it to something your monitor can display. On a 60hz monitor, that’s what you’ll max out at with v-sync on.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 09/11/2019 at 07:59pm
That sucks that you get motion sickness. I don't have that happening to me. I don't don't feel like I can notice the difference between 30 and 60 or more. Like I said, though, below 30 or around 10 is where it's definitely noticeable (the game barely runs).
You just changed how I feel about 4K. I thought there was probably something you could do, I didn't quite think about resolution scaling, but that makes sense. Higher resolutions do drop your FPS, though. For some games getting 60 at 1080p is easy, but getting 60 at 4K is very tough, from what I've seen. You made me interested in 4K, I'd like to see how that looks. I actually thought about Googling some pictures of 4K to see what the desktop would look like. Maybe I'll have to look into it.
Since I'm having problems with this monitor, I may actually return it. There is an Alienware 1080p monitor I really want it. It's 240hz. I may end up getting it, even though it looks like it'll be overkill. Although, now thanks to your comment, I'm starting to think whether or not I want to upgrade to a higher resolution. LOL
Also, I'm aiming for a 1ms response time. That apparently makes a difference in gaming, especially shooters, although I don't usually play them. I'm not sure I'm noticing this change either.
In the end, I'm thinking maybe it all has to do with our own individual eyesight. My eyes are imperfect, so perhaps I can't see what others can (like the difference in higher than 30FPS).
Thanks for joining the discussion! This is something I've been thinking about lately and I wanted to share it here.
Honestly that 1ms response time is something I don’t think I’ve ever noticed. That said, every flatscreen I’ve ever had has been 5ms so I’m not sure what it feels like but I’ve never felt like there was a delay. Maybe if I played with 1ms I would change my mind.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 09/11/2019 at 08:26pm
Yeah, I understand the correlation between VSync and FPS. With the Dell that came w/ my Alienware PC, I play with VSync on. With this Acer, I turn off VSync, but turn on GSync. CivVI has in-game VSync and frame limiter, which I enabled for the Dell, but disabled for the Acer. Without those enabled, the Dell had screen tearing, where as the Acer does not.
So, I looked at pcpartpicker.com and it looks like 4K monitors are very expensive. 4K means that the second dimension is 4,000+ (like for example 1000x4000), right? The 2K monitors also look expensive, but I found a 1440 that looks reasonable. So now I'm wondering, should I get one with the highest refresh rate (the Alienware) or one with a higher resolution. I found a Dell 1440p that is 144hz or 165hz (depending on the model). I won't buy another Acer monitor due to the issues I'm having with the one I have and their technicians. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find a good monitor on Amazon, because there are positive reviews, but also negative ones, so I'm kind of trying to find one that has a lot less negative ones. The Alienware seems good, it seems like many people got a good unit, while only a few received a defective one. The one I bought (Acer) seems to have more people reporting defective units.
If you’re just worried about gaming the 1440p would be fab I bet. I went 4K for the extra pixels I could put stuff in for development. Being able to spread even more windows across two monitors, and seeing more stuff within those windows, is pretty great.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 09/11/2019 at 08:55pm
Thanks for the clarification, I should have just Googled. That certainly changed things on my pcpartpicker.com search, but they're still a bit expensive. Now I'm thinking about high refresh rate vs. resolution. I'm thinking I might look around at recommendations for a monitor that best fits my GPU.
Feel free to comment with your thoughts on my new-to-me debate (high refresh rate vs. resolution).
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 09/11/2019 at 09:12pm
Ok, now I'm leaning towards a Dell with a higher resolution. I haven't tried a high resolution out yet. I've experienced higher refresh rate and don't really feel the difference. This one seems good, be cause it's a like a middle ground for high refresh rate and resoltion. I still have to look at reviews. So here's what I'm thinking of getting now: https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Gaming-S2716DGR-LED-Lit-Monitor/dp/B0149QBOF0/ref=cm_wl_huc_item
I'm still not sure when I'll get a new monitor. Luckily, I don't *have* to get one as my old Dell that came w/ my Alienware PC is still really good. But, I want to experience newer tech. I am working on a refund for the Acer. That won't give me enough for the Dell or Alienware monitor, so I may have to wait a little bit to save.
> Is FPS something you can see and notice with your own eyes without a counter? Does FPS really matter to you?
Depends on the game. I think a solid 30 fps is the baseline and anything lower than that is painful. That said the more frames you have the easier time I have with a shooter.
That said, some fps lag on a turn based game like Civilization is less important because it's not a twitchy game.
> Are you unwilling to accept anything less than 60FPS or another number? Let me know in the comments, I’d like to discuss this.
Historically yes because I haven't had the greatest PC hardware but this is changing. Next year I plan on buying a monitor that will be between 100 - 120 hz / fps and plan on upgrading my PC video card to see about getting games over 60 hz / fps and into the 100 territory.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 09/12/2019 at 04:40am
Now I'm thinking about getting an IPS panel, pretty much for better color. LOL I've been looking at Amazon and there are quite a few different monitors to choose from. The Dell seems to be the highest rated, so I might go with that. I may get it sooner than the Switch and make the Switch wait.
Thanks for the input Jon! I'm definitely interested in seeing what hardware you get and what you think of that higher refresh rate and more FPS. What are your thoughts when it comes to resolution?
If you want, feel free to share with me what monitor(s) you are using, along with specs. and what you think about it/them.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 09/13/2019 at 01:27am
Oh yeah, I forgot to ask. Travis, you said you're using 4K, right (or at least higher than 1080p)? It seems like you don't use resolution scaling for your desktop. My question is, how does YouTube look? Most videos I've seen only seem to have 1080p as their highest quality level, although there are videos that are created in higher resolutions. I thinking, maybe that if you full screen a video, it can be stretched to fit your desktop resolution. I'm wondering if that has a noticeable impact on the video, or if the video just displays at 1080p with a black box around it covering the remaining of the resolution.
> It seems like you don't use resolution scaling for your desktop
Not sure where you got that. I definitely do, it would be insanely hard to read otherwise.
1080p video will fullscreen, the same way 240p video full screened back in the day. It won't look 4k but it'll still look 1080p, it's not like the extra pixels degrade the video quality. You can find some 4k youtube videos, but there aren't a ton.
> I'm wondering if that has a noticeable impact on the video, or if the video just displays at 1080p with a black box around it covering the remaining of the resolution.
Like Travis said, the video will stretch and it will be a 4K sized video without the pixel density to back it up and depending on if you have an upscaling video player could look better? Like VLC might do that? The PS3 did that very well for DVD's, I remember watching Star Wars on DVD and the upscaler made it look incredible. Then I got it on Blu-Ray and found true religion. 4K DISNEY PLZ!
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 09/13/2019 at 05:58am
>Not sure where you got that. I definitely do, it would be insanely hard to read otherwise.
Well I kind of assumed. You mentioned how a 4K desktop looks and that Google search results will "blow your mind." You mentioned desktop rescaling, but you didn't exactly say whether or not you were using it, so it was a bit of an assumption on my part. So, what resolution have you scaled your desktop to? I imagine you've set it for something that looks good and is comfortable.
>Like Travis said, the video will stretch and it will be a 4K sized video without the pixel density to back it up and depending on if you have an upscaling video player could look better? Like VLC might do that? The PS3 did that very well for DVD's, I remember watching Star Wars on DVD and the upscaler made it look incredible. Then I got it on Blu-Ray and found true religion. 4K DISNEY PLZ!
Thank you both for explaining. It makes sense, really, because I can watch videos that are <1080p and still fill the screen without a black border. Not sure what I was thinking there, I guess, because I haven't experienced greater than that then I didn't really know. I barely remember the upscaling on the PS3. I haven't used my PS3 in a long time.
So, Jon, you're running at 4K, too (like Travis)? Do you both use that resolution for gaming? If not, what do you use? Being that you're both devs., 4K's extra desktop space makes sense. Do you both also have IPS panels? Those are usually recommended for people like content editors for their better color. Travis mentioned 5ms response time and I have recently seen something that pretty much less than 10ms is good. I have no idea what this old Dell of mine has for that spec.
I've gone back and forth between this old Dell and the Acer and I really feel like I can't tell the difference. It seems like the Dell has better color, or maybe it's because that's what I got used to. I've also seen that OCing a monitor for a higher resolution will or can in some cases make the colors worse. I've read where people have said colors looked "washed out" on things. I've never really color calibrated this Dell, but I did tinker with the Acer, although I never got it set good enough. I'm still not sure this Dell's color is completely good enough, but generally, I think it is.
Yeah so— the text blowing your mind that I mentioned is a function of the desktop scaling. You can have something that looks 1440p or 1080p, but the text has so much pixel density that it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It’s surreal really. Mine is set at 1440-alike, which I found comfortable. My old monitors were 21 inch 1080p, and upgrading to 27inchers gave me more room to play with. The text looks about the same size as it did on my old setup, but I can fit more stuff on them because of the extra virtual resolution.
TBH, I have no idea what exactly IPS does, I haven’t looked into it much, but yeah these are IPS.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 09/13/2019 at 05:29pm
Cool, thanks for the info! I'm more excited now to get a new monitor. :)
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 09/28/2019 at 11:11pm
Now gaming at 1440p @ 165hz! :) Time to test some more games!
> Might have to turn on GPU rendering in your browser for the best results.
Phssshhh! I compile mine with -funroll-loops!
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 10/08/2019 at 03:58am
Do you guys notice the higher resolution in your games? I'm not sure if I did. Spending all weekend troubleshooting the issue w/ the new monitor and not playing any video games has me thinking I should just stick to my good ol' [email protected] IPS. That would save me the trouble I've been through w/ two new(er) monitors and money, especially since I feel like I'm not really noticing a difference. Maybe I am, but the difference isn't greatly significant to make me "wow!" Maybe the replacement that arrives tomorrow won't have the same issue and I'll be able to grasp the difference more easily.
Minecraft looked like it was on a lower resolution when I tested it again with my good ol' monitor, although that might have had to do with the GUI scale (in-game). The upside to all of this, also, is that I realized my good ol' monitor not only has ports for VGA and DVI (which i was using), but also DisplayPort. I was surprised when I realized this and now have it (temporarily) connected via DP. Although, I'm not sure if I'm noticing the difference between DVI and DP, but I am generally aware that DP is better and supports higher resolutions and is required for GSync.
Feel free to share w/ me your "new" monitor/panel specs and experiences here. :)
My main monitor resolution is 2560x1600 and I can totally tell when it's less or 1080p. I like having more room as I'm a developer by trade and it's nice to have room for the terminal, code editor, browser, music player, etc.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 10/09/2019 at 01:28am
Cool, thanks for the info! I don't think I noticed the resolution in games, although the old monitor is displaying MHW in full screen, but it has top and bottom black borders. I don't know if this was the way it was while playing at a higher resolution. That may be, because I don't recall really noticing it or paying attention to it at all before. I did notice resolution difference in Windows and in Steam, but Windows automatically rescaled and wasn't really different. But as it goes for image quality, I don't think I noticed a difference.
As it turns out, the replacement Dell sent me was manufactured this year as opposed to the one it was replacing which was manufactured last year. Unfortunately, the image quality was exactly the same and I've decided to get a refund and stick w/ my good ol' Dell. I don't know which part or technology was at fault for the picture that didn't look as good on the new as the old. Maybe the difference between a TN and IPS are just that different and I can't stand it. I may try out some other TN panels in the future, but for now, I'm sticking w/ my good ol' Dell IPS, even if it maxes out at [email protected] Maybe I'll just wait until I can afford a good IPS panel.
If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.
It’s kind of old news revealed recently, this summer, but I want to at least give it a mention here. There’s a new Star Trek show coming out called Star Trek: Picard, based on perhaps my most favorite captain in all of Star Trek. He’s also one of my most favorite characters. The Next Generation was probably my most favorite of the series as that’s what got me into Star Trek. I later watched all of Star Trek, including the original’s animated series, and I love it all.
The trailer shows that Picard has retired and is making wine. He seems to live alone with his dog named, “Number One.” We see a young woman coming to him for help. We also see him open a case that... Read All
It’s kind of old news revealed recently, this summer, but I want to at least give it a mention here. There’s a new Star Trek show coming out called Star Trek: Picard, based on perhaps my most favorite captain in all of Star Trek. He’s also one of my most favorite characters. The Next Generation was probably my most favorite of the series as that’s what got me into Star Trek. I later watched all of Star Trek, including the original’s animated series, and I love it all.
The trailer shows that Picard has retired and is making wine. He seems to live alone with his dog named, “Number One.” We see a young woman coming to him for help. We also see him open a case that contains parts of TNG’s android named Data. Data is one of my most favorite characters in the series. He sacrificed himself in the last movie and it’s unsure exactly how he’ll return in this show. However, we do see him talking to Picard later in the trailer.
It’s not exactly what’s known about this mysterious woman, Dagh, who’s come to him for help. Picard does apparently go to Star Fleet to request assistance. Dagh is apparently a dangerous woman, who seems to be in danger and we can see her fighting. In the trailer we also see new Romulan and Borg ships. We’ve been told that Seven of Nine will return from Voyager along with the Borg named Hugh from TNG. From what I can tell from the trailer, it seems that the Romulans are doing something with the Borg, I believe they are holding them captive in a prison, which you can see in the trailer. The Borg ship in the trailer looks damaged. But, what exactly is going on in this show is still pretty much a mystery.
It seems clear that Picard will join a new crew in order to help Dagh. One member of the new crew is a Romulan. Romulans don't usually get along with Star Fleet, which makes this character interesting. At first, I thought this character was a Vulcan, but that's not what others have said in other videos I've watched. There are a few other characters, of the new crew, that we get briefly introduced to.
It is not publicly known when the show will come out, but it seems to be “early 2020.” The show will come to CBS All Access. This, to me, is the only negative part as I’m not at all familiar with this service. It seems like Internet streaming services like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, and Disney + are rapidly growing and it’s hard to keep up with all of them. The one thing I do like about these services is that they usually don’t have commercials, although sometimes you have to pay extra for this. These services are also extremely accessible as they allow you to watch TV shows or movies on just about anything; PC, game console, tablet, phone, etc.
I write this today, because I just watched a video giving some details about the show. I’d recommend watching it, if you’re interested in the show. You can see it here: https://youtu.be/gWYiRwBpdeI
So, what do you think about this? Are you interested? Will you be watching this? Let me know.
I am a really big fan of Star Trek The Next Generation. I watched all the episodes back when they were brand new on TV and then re-watched them all on Netflix a couple years ago. The show holds up pretty well even though the first couple seasons can get pretty "monster of the week" in that they are a bit grindy. The later seasons are a highlight and the Borg wars and Locutus stuff was a highlight. That said, my favorite episodes were always with Q and I hope he is incorporated in some way. With that, I know the show is going to be a handful of episodes (the new standard show format seems to be 8 episodes) so they don't have a ton of time, but kicking things off with Q would make Picard pretty incredible.
I hope they drop all the episodes at once, though they might do one episode a week to help people keep subscribing as long as possible. I suppose I don't mind that but might wait until they are all out then binge them all to only sub a month.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 09/04/2019 at 06:46am
I liked Q, too. I loved Female Q2, who we saw in Voyager. The same woman also played the mother of Worf's son, I felt strongly attracted to her. LOL She also had other roles in the series. (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Suzie_Plakson) I doubt Q will make an appearance in this show, but who knows. I believe Riker and Troi are returning as well, I think that was confirmed in a video I saw.
I think "dropping" all the episodes at once would be awesome, because then you could easily watch them all in one binge sitting, although I don't know if networks actually do this. I do enjoy not having to wait for episodes to be released, though. I enjoyed binge watching a season of Game of Thrones, although I missed the last season and am thinking about buying the full series when it releases (in December I believe).
As wonderful as these shows are (Game of Thrones) and seem to be (Picard), I'm still not really too interested in paying a subscription to a streaming network to watch them. I liked Amazon Prime mostly because I could easily rent and stream movies. I was a Prime member with my own account, but then an annual fee came up and I decided it was too expensive. Now though I'm actually tied to my mom's Prime account, so I could actually continue to watch it. I'm actually tempted to do this so I can catch up on the MCU movies I've missed. Netflix had some good stuff on it, too. I enjoyed a lot of Sci-non-fiction, but also Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but when they increased their price, I left. I watched some stuff on Hulu (like Quantum Leap which I watched when it was out on TV and Rick & Morty which was good). I did watch most of Family Guy and American Dad, but I really wasn't entertained by them as much as I thought I'd be, so I left that service, too. So, I don't really feel too compelled to join CBS All Access for this show nor Disney+ for the Star Wars stuff. I'm kind of overwhelmed with these services right now. Although, I do very much prefer them over cable/satellite TV, because I can watch exactly what I want, instead of having to pick from whatever the network decides to air at the time. I also love that they usually don't contain commercials, or their commercials are short.
What do you think about all of these services? Are you going to subscribe to CBS All Access for this and Disney+ for Star Wars?
> What do you think about all of these services? Are you going to subscribe to CBS All Access for this and Disney+ for Star Wars?
Disney+ for sure. Right now we just sub to Netflix and one more doesn't seem too bad. I'm not sure how many more we'll get, I just don't watch that much TV so at some point it's a really limited return on the money.
They’ll definitely do them week by week, same as with Star Trek Discovery. Looks like 10 episode seasons, same as Discovery. Much like Discovery, I will watch these every week, and much like with Discovery, I will not be paying for All Access. ;)
Disney+ is another thing altogether. CBS has a couple series I care about, Disney+ seems like it’ll have half the shows I watch.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 09/04/2019 at 06:58pm
Star Trek: Discovery is something I've missed out on, unfortunately.
I saw Picard last night and the first episode was good. It was fun to see how this timeline differs from the JJ Trek timeline. I think there were aspects that were odd but they did more right than wrong and I look forward to the show.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 01/24/2020 at 11:48pm
Awesome!
If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.
For the first time in over 5 years, maybe even a decade, I'm building myself a new PC. Probably for the first time ever, I'm building an Intel CPU based PC (I used to build AMD ones). I bought my last PC, which was definitely an expensive beast, but I had the money for it. At the time, I also really wanted some top of the line hardware. That was a good Alienware computer for the last 4-5 years, but the time has come to move on.
For the first time in over 5 years, maybe even a decade, I'm building myself a new PC. Probably for the first time ever, I'm building an Intel CPU based PC (I used to build AMD ones). I bought my last PC, which was definitely an expensive beast, but I had the money for it. At the time, I also really wanted some top of the line hardware. That was a good Alienware computer for the last 4-5 years, but the time has come to move on.
That site gives you the categories of parts you'll need to build a complete PC and in those categories you can search for individual parts. There are a lot of options to search with, making it easier to find exactly what you're looking for. Once you've found a part, the website will tell you where you can go to get it (NewEgg.com and Amazon.com are two of the main places you'll see, but there are others). As I did above, you can also share your builds with others. Also, the site gives you an estimated wattage of your build, so you'll know how much you'll need from a power supply. There's also a section of your own inventory where you can add parts that you already have. The site will also help you search for compatible parts and warn you if you've selected some things with compatibility issues.
This build costs under $700 according to the website. Part of why it's not extremely expensive (other than the budget I gave myself) is because I have parts I plan on reusing, like the CPU cooler I bought last month. I also have a great keyboard and mouse to use along with storage devices (one new SSD and one old HDD). I also bought a GTX 1660 Ti last month. I could probably have saved some money by reusing the Alienware's PSU, but I figured I'd go ahead and get a new one. I could have also chosen to leave out the monitor, but the one I've chosen is a surprisingly excellent value for new-to-me monitor/panel technology. I found this build to be cheaper on Amazon than NewEgg, so that's where I've ordered all of my parts. However, the full ATX motherboard wasn't available soon enough for me, so I've chose the microATX version.
The main search criteria I used was for parts with 5 star/highest ratings. I also searched for the particulars that I was looking for, and then I sorted by price. I kind of had my own idea of what limits I had for the budget. I really didn't feel like spending more than $300 for any part, particularly the CPU and monitor.
I've decided to go with a non-overclocking set up, because I'm not interested in overclocking. I realize overclocking has come a long way over the years, but there are a few things about it I don't like. One has to play the "silicon lottery" and hope that they get a chip they can OC well. OC'd chips draw more power and run at hotter temps and I'm just not sure that it's really worth it. I have an i7-4820k in the Alienware and feel like I couldn't settle for less than another i7. So, I've chosen the i7-8700. I'm not sure if I would notice a change in going from a 4th gen i7 to an 8th or 9th gen i5 or comparable AMD CPU. I'm not even sure if I'll notice a change in going from the 4820k to the 8700. As such, I've also picked out a compatible motherboard. I would really like to get a 9th gen i7 or even an i9, but I'm working with a limited budget. Those parts are a bit more expensive and probably excessive for my use-case.
I've been running with 16GB of RAM for the last 5 years or so and I don't see a need to change it. I'm not sure if I'd notice more or less RAM and I'm not sure if I'll notice the faster DDR4 (as opposed to the DDR3 in the Alienware) RAM I'm getting for this build. Since the Alienware has spoiled me in this area, I don't want less than 16GB of RAM.
JayZTwoCents made me aware of the Fractal Design brand and I have chosen one of their blue cases. I like what I see (pictures and descriptions). It comes with two front fans, which is definitely nice. The motherboard I've ordered has 4 headers for fans and I know my CPU cooler is going into one of them. But, it looks like I'll be able to add more fans, which I wasn't able to do with the Alienware. I'm hoping for positive airflow and max air cooling, since my GPU is air-cooled.
I've ordered an EVGA 600W 80+ Bronze ATX PSU. It might actually be over kill for my system, but I'm sure it will be ok. I am familiar with EVGA and like their products. I was looking at other PSUs, particularly from Corsair, which is another brand I use and enjoy, but I just picked one and went with it. The reviews for all PSUs I looked at on Amazon had plenty of negativity, so it was difficult to choose.
Again, I learned about some new-to-me monitor/panel technology from JayZTwoCents. Apparently, I will notice the difference with the monitor I've ordered for this build. It has 144hz refresh rate, it has FreeSync, but is apparently G-Sync compatible (I'll have to test that), and it has a 1ms response time. It's only 1080p, but I'm ok with that. I'm definitely not interested in the more expensive and hardware taxing of 4K (and we're soon moving onto 8K supposedly).
I'm glad I still have the Artic MX-4 thermal paste I bought last month, because I'm going to need it for this new build. The CPU cooler came with thermal paste already applied, but I'm sure I'm going to need to reapply thermal paste for use on the new CPU.
I might update this post with an edit or something in the comments section as the parts arrive and I get it built and running. Feel free to share your builds or PC building experience or PC specs in the comments below.
I haven’t built a PC in quite sometime but plan on it during my next upgrade cycle. Might be a while as I just got a PC from Will that is quite apt to handle quite a lot of games.
That said, how long until all your stuff arrives?
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 07/24/2019 at 03:38pm
Everything has arrived, except the case. According to Amazon, it's supposed to be here between 7/26-7/31. I've already set up my new monitor as a external display on my mom's laptop. I already took parts out of the Aurora that I'm using in the new build and set them aside. The case comes with two fans, but can hold more and the motherboard has four fan headers, so I ordered two more fans.
Cool. I’d love to see a picture when it’s all built.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 07/24/2019 at 04:43pm
LOL You could check out my pcpartpicker.com link, open up the link for the case, and imagine everything in there. I remember you and Travis wanted a picture of the Alienware, but I never did it. I'm not sure if I'll do it for this one. Laziness aside (although probably mostly why), my cable management skills are terrible, so it might be embarrassing to show it off. When it comes to cable management I really just don't give a duck. Plus, I imagine the flash of the camera would reflect on the case. I'll see when it comes, who knows, maybe I'll do it.
I actually think I found the name I'm going to give this build, "Azul." :)
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 07/25/2019 at 06:43pm
LOL
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 07/27/2019 at 11:50pm
I updated the build on pcpartpicker.com. It's kind of a long and complicated story, so I'll just say I'm keeping the original monitor I ordered and (hopefully) returning the latter. There's a bit of a price difference between the two. The original has G-Sync, while the latter has FreeSync, but is G-Sync "compatible." The original can also be overclocked to 180hz, which will probably not be necessary (but I might try it anyway). I know I did not pay full price for the original, it's a "recertified" (or "refurbished") monitor. It looks and feels brand new to me, so I'm ok w/ that. I can't wait to get this PC built, it's been a week now since I've been w/out a decent working PC. ;(
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 07/29/2019 at 01:05am
The case arrived today, which meant I had everything and was ready to put my new PC together. So, of course, I did! At first, I had a power issue, but I think that's because I didn't actually turned the power on (the PSU and case have power buttons). Then I had "no signal" trouble when first booting. I took out the GPU, tried another, same thing. Then I realized that I should probably try the on-board video, which worked. I think my GPU wasn't fully seated and plugged in. Once I got it working for sure, I screwed it in so that it wouldn't move when I tried to plug in a cable. Now I'm using a Display Port for the first time ever! I'm sorry, but I don't want to take a picture of it and share it, because (as I said) the cable management is awful! I added a molex cable so that I could get an extra fan in the case, but I didn't have enough adapters and headers to add one more fan that I got.
Anyway, that's my update! Time to go test some games!!
Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member
wrote on 07/29/2019 at 04:38am
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 07/29/2019 at 05:17am
Yeah, the RTX 2080 Super costs about as much as this build cost. It's too bad the devs couldn't have considered that the majority of players probably can't afford such expensive GPUS. I don't have at i7-9990k either. So, yeah. LOL
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 07/29/2019 at 08:37am
Wow I'm impressed! I can't explain it, but Ark just looks better! It looks more 3D, I think, it's really hard to explain. It's on "Epic" settings, which I believe it was before, but it didn't look this good. Plus, I am seeing more FPS. Before it wouldn't go above 40-ish(fps), but I saw it hit like 92fps while I was in a cave. It's also running almost 10c cooler (no higher than 75c, before it stayed at 81c)! I didn't think this case would be that effective at cooling, but apparently it does have good airflow. I have the two pre-installed fans in the front and one I got installed in the top. The CPU cooler has a radiator sandwiched between two fans blowing through it and out the case. The PSU is also installed upside down (on purpose for this reason), so that when it uses it's fans, it sucks air from the case, through the PSU, and out the case. I thought I was going to need more fans and fan headers. I thought I'd order a fan controller, but now I don't think that's necessary. The overclock on the monitor did give me nearly 180fps in Civ6, although the color in the game looks off, so I'm trying to work on that.
My games didn't seem to load faster, they loaded about the same as before. I feel like I noticed a different in how applications worked and were "poof" right there immediately when I opened them. But, this might because I may have gotten used to the crappy laptop I was using to watch YouTube while waiting on my parts to arrive. That laptop is terrible!
Anyway, that's probably about all I have to say about this build. Thanks for joining in the conversation!
> Wow I'm impressed! I can't explain it, but Ark just looks better!
Sounds like you got an impressive FPS gain from your upgrade, which has a huge effect on how the game feels. I went from a fairly blah/laggy Rage 2 on my laptop to a really smooth experience on the Desktop I got recently and that game feels so much better.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 07/30/2019 at 01:07am
> Sounds like you got an impressive FPS gain from your upgrade, which has a huge effect on how the game feels. I went from a fairly blah/laggy Rage 2 on my laptop to a really smooth experience on the Desktop I got recently and that game feels so much better.
It's kind of difficult to gauge how much of an FPS gain I got. This is because FPS varies greatly. In some places just even looking in a different direction will give you a variable amount of FPS. However, I can see a difference between the highest I got before (even though VSync was on) and the highest I'm getting now (with GSync on). There is definitely a difference. Whether or not I can actually visually tell the difference between 30fps and 90fps is kind of something I haven't figured out yet. As long as the FPS doesn't drop extremely low, I don't seem to notice a difference. I think the <1ms response time on the monitor might have something to do with it, but honestly, I think just about everything is contributing to it (new faster RAM, new CPU, and new motherboard). In a way it kind of seems like the game might be loading a little faster, I'm not sure, but I kind of think so.
Are you talking about the MSI gaming laptop you got? Are you also talking about the desktop you got from Will? (Correct me if I'm wrong on those.) It is actually quite fascinating how different hardware can make a significant difference in gaming. But, I actually believe (especially after watching some videos by JayZTwoCents and his testing) that you don't really have to have a beast to get a good gaming experience, but it does help if your computer isn't a POS. I tried Minecraft, too, and the FPS was incredibly high in some areas, I don't know how it got so high. I had Geforce Experience optimize my settings (in all games). I have installed Optifine for Minecraft, but haven't played it since I installed it, so I might give that a try soon.
If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.
If you haven't heard of Honest Game Trailers before, you're in for a treat! I found this online recently and watched most of them. They seriously made me LOL! So, they are funny, but in a way they also kind of make our favorite games look dumb, kind of like how Pokemon games repeat the same formula, but we keep buying them. Still, these are pretty funny, so I thought I'd share them with you. I'm including a playlist link, but you'll find Honest Trailers for many of the games we love like Minecraft, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X, Animal Crossing, Mega Man, Star Fox, Metroid, Castlevania, Pokemon, and many more! Check out the playlist and prepare to laugh: ... Read All
If you haven't heard of Honest Game Trailers before, you're in for a treat! I found this online recently and watched most of them. They seriously made me LOL! So, they are funny, but in a way they also kind of make our favorite games look dumb, kind of like how Pokemon games repeat the same formula, but we keep buying them. Still, these are pretty funny, so I thought I'd share them with you. I'm including a playlist link, but you'll find Honest Trailers for many of the games we love like Minecraft, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X, Animal Crossing, Mega Man, Star Fox, Metroid, Castlevania, Pokemon, and many more! Check out the playlist and prepare to laugh: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHkNwtRZFo2g74tWgElcOO2T3WWbN7Aga
It is time to give a status update on the Alienware Aurora R4 that I got a little over 5 years ago. The reason for this is because of it's current condition and some things I think fellow Alienware Aurora R4 owners may need to know. Although if you own an Alienware/Dell or heck any PC, some of this may be relevant to you.
I remember how learning about PC technology was a big thing in my teens. I grew up as a kid with a Commodore 128d, but we got our first Acer PC in 1995. Wow, what a change! I had gotten a little advanced with the Commodore. I knew how to program it, basically (pun not intended....BASICally), and I began to learn about it's hardware (300 baud modem... Read All
It is time to give a status update on the Alienware Aurora R4 that I got a little over 5 years ago. The reason for this is because of it's current condition and some things I think fellow Alienware Aurora R4 owners may need to know. Although if you own an Alienware/Dell or heck any PC, some of this may be relevant to you.
I remember how learning about PC technology was a big thing in my teens. I grew up as a kid with a Commodore 128d, but we got our first Acer PC in 1995. Wow, what a change! I had gotten a little advanced with the Commodore. I knew how to program it, basically (pun not intended....BASICally), and I began to learn about it's hardware (300 baud modem yay!). The PC was a step up and jump into a new world. I continued to visit my favorite BBSes, while at the same time learning more about Windows and PCs in general. As I got older, I learned more, bought more computers, and was actually able to upgrade them. I seem to recall a time when I had 12MB (yes MB!) of RAM. Wow, those were the days! Haha. Eventually, I was building my own. However, at the time, I was pretty much "an AMD guy." I even wrote a paper in college about AMD Vs. Intel (and why I believed AMD was superior). It seemed to me that AMD was using newer, better technology (RISC), and they're CPUs were cheaper. It wasn't until about 5 years ago that all changed.
In early 2014, I posted here on Cheerful Ghost that I was thinking about a PC upgrade, a new build or a new buy (you can see that post here: https://cheerfulghost.com/GregoPeck/posts/1888/thinking-about-a-pc-upgrade). I did a little research and came up with what I wanted for hardware (Intel i7, GTX 690). I realized that the hardware I wanted was expensive, but I had some money to spend, so I wasn't too worried about it. However, I decided that it would probably be cheaper to actually just buy a PC. This was in part, because of the cost of Windows. So, I decided to "save some money" and buy an Alienware Aurora R4. However, I paid a lot for it, more than I've ever paid for a PC, so it seems my "save some money" logic kind of failed. In part it was because I really wanted an i7 and a GTX 690. I also decided on 16GB of RAM. And thus my life with my most favorite PC of all time began.
It wasn't too long before I realized that maybe I had selected the wrong GPU for this new PC of mine. Ark: Survival Evolved had just come out in Early Access and I loved it. Unfortunately the GPU wasn't up to the task. This is because the 690 is a two-in-one 4GB GPU, which means it was two 2GB GPUs working together as one (technically in SLI mode). Unfortunately, some games (particularly Ark) couldn't fully optimize the GPU. The game was only able to use half of it, sadly enough. I had to tone down the settings drastically (I think in DX10 or DX9 mode). The game really didn't look great, but I was able to play it.I had started playing on an official server and I really loved the game, but I had a strong feeling that I wanted to play the game and see it as it was meant to be played and seen. So, I decided it was time to retire the 690 and get an upgrade. My fellow players seemed to agree that a 980Ti was their best recommendation and that is what I decided to get. (You can read more about it here: https://cheerfulghost.com/GregoPeck/posts/4094/evga-geforce-gtx-980ti-6gb-classified-gaming-acx-2-0-post-mortem).
I got an EVGA GeForce GTX 980Ti 6GB "Classified Gaming" with ACX 2.0+ (thermal technology).I seem to recall that one of the first games I played was Subnautica, but I didn't really get into it until about 3 years later. I really just cared that it could run Ark and it did! I was greatly impressed and loving how beautiful the game looked and that I actually had a PC that could run it. Granted, I couldn't really run it on the highest "Epic" settings, but that was for a Titan or better GPU. I really loved this GPU much more than the more expensive 690. My memory tells me I paid $400-$600 for it, but Amazon says it's still for sale at about $700! Wow! How is this 3 year old GPU still worth that much? Is it really that good? Well, actually yeah, I think so.
I believe the GPU was overclocked out-of-the-box. I never did try to overclock it myself as I am not experienced with overclocking. I'm still used to the old days when doing so could be very dangerous, you could actually destroy a CPU or GPU trying to overclock it. So, I never messed with it, never tried to do it. Even though I got an overclocked GPU, I decided to let software take care of it for me. I used EVGA Precision X16, although I really only used it to control the GPU fan, which I set to 100% while gaming. At the same time I used the Alienware Command Center to set my HDD and PCIE fans to 100% while gaming as well. I didn't mind the noise.
Unfortunately, I began to pay attention to how hot the GPU was running. I eventually noticed that my GPU was running at 91c (celcius) while playing Ark and this seemed normal. I never experienced any issues that seemed as though the GPU wasn't working because it was too hot. I ran into some confirmation bias while researching the issue when I saw a post that said these GPUs run hot and it's max temp was 91-92c and if it got too hot it would throttle itself. I never applied thermal paste to a CPU or GPU before, but that was one recommendation I saw on the Internet and from a local friend. I finally bought some Arctic MX-4 from NewEgg as it's the most popular thermal paste on there and at Amazon (although it was cheaper on NewEgg and would arrive sooner). Before this, my PC actually shut itself off a few times. I did some more research about cleaning a PC (especially w/out compressed air) and used a hard plastic straw to blow some dust away and clear some fans. Later, I bought a can of compressed air at Wal-Mart and used it. However, I was watching my GPU thermals while playing Civ6 and getting nervous as it found it's way to the upper 80's (Celsius). Then, it dawned on me that I should check the CPU temperature, which I never worried about, because I had liquid cooling for it.
And there's where things ended recently. I used CPUID/HW Monitor and found out that my PC was running too hot (90c+)! I did some more research and found multiple people reporting issues with their CPU liquid cooling system. Some people had replaced their cooling system with a Corsair system. So, I ordered one, but then later decided I wanted a newer (and still compatible) model. Some people posted pictures of cooling systems that were clogged with green "goo." Luckily, they told you that you could clean them with isopropyl alcohol. I decided to take mine apart, but I didn't see any "goo." I put it back together and things seemed better, but the good "repaired" feel didn't last. I remember seeing "artifacts" on my screen (green lines, abnormalities) and the PC shut off. Finally, I was trying to get my PC on, but it would only beep at me continuously 6 times and then repeat. After more research, I found out that (at least for the Alienware Aurora R4) this meant a GPU failure. So, I took the 980Ti out and put in the 690. It came on the but 690 displayed different "artifacts" (white lines). I took the GPU out, tried to turn on the PC and again it beeped at me the same (it does this if you have a bad GPU or if there is no GPU).
I did notice the bottom of the two GPUs (the point of contact to the PCIE slot) was wet. I didn't see why or how. I even took the 980 apart, but didn't seem to find the source. However, I did later see the liquid cooler drop some water onto the PC while the GPU was out. So, I think this is how the PCIE slot got wet. I finally got it dried and tried the GPUs again, but it would only beep 6 times again with the 980 and the 690 still had white lines. So, I tried the 8800 I had in an old computer and it worked. So, it seems I have one definitely dead GPU and another damaged one. The 8800 seems fine, but it only has less than a gig of VRAM, crazy! So, I thought I need a new GPU and liquid cooler for the CPU.
I seriously started to think about getting a new computer, but I really didn't want to. This Alienware has spoiled me. I really love it and don't want to be without it. I went to Wal-Mart to look at their PCs, but I knew I wouldn't find anything, because I had looked at them weeks or months ago and scoffed at them. I'd look at the system specs and say aloud "are you kidding me?!" The "gaming" HP PC had an Intel i3 or i5! It also had maybe a 3GB VRAM GPU. It was only about $600, but there's no way it could come anywhere close to my Alienware w/ it's i7! Looking online was disappointing. Even though this computer isn't exactly worth what it was 5 years ago, it's still expensive (or rather over $1,000)! I couldn't get an affordable one with the specs I wanted (i7, 16GB RAM, 6GB GPU, etc.). It blew my mind that even though I spent a lot of money on this PC 5 years ago and then again 3 years ago (GPU upgrade), it was still a beast! I wouldn't mind having an i9 even though I don't know about them, but even an i7 means an expensive PC and there's no way I could possibly settle for an i5. So, basically I decided that my PC was just fine (specs wise) and I would be very happy if I could just get it running again even with most of the same hardware/components. I didn't need a new computer nor did I need an upgrade. However, I needed to replace some parts, which should save me some money. Although at this point, I've ordred almost everything except for a CPU and PSU (power supply unit).
I did run into a problem when it would not POST nor beep. I did some research, tried some things to no avail. I figured the motherboard must have fried with the wet GPU socket, so I ordered one on Amazon, but it was about $200. I really don't want to have to replace the motherboard, although it doesn't look as complicated (in the manual) as it seems. I may do it just because I know I have one or two USB ports on the back that no longer work (I have two on the front that have issues to due to water damage last year). During this whole time I did not test all the components and that was my mistake. I assumed too much. I reseated the CMOS battery multiple times and made sure that the PSU was good (it is, there's a way to test it for these computers). I thought everything else was fine, it had to be the CPU or motherboard, right? Well my mistake lied in my assumption. I actually watched a video on YouTube called "How to Repair a Dead Computer" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz9pMKy9Mbs&t=1824s). I was actually surprised that even though I am an experienced IT tech support guy, I learned something from this video. I had already taken out all of my RAM when the PC was not beeping nor POSTing and it beeped twice, which meant that RAM was missing. I put the RAM back in and it went back to no beeps no POST. But, after I watched this video (spoilers!), I thought "hm, that's one thing I didn't try" and it actually worked!! By removing and replacing individual RAM sticks, I found out that one of them was causing my problem. Here I assumed my RAM was all good, but apparently something happened to it. I figured one stick would be cheap, but I couldn't find (on Amazon or NewEgg) a stick of RAM that was exactly the same (same brand, same specs., etc.). I did a little research and concluded that it's probably either not good nor optimal to mix brands of RAM. I'd rather have all of them exactly the same and working together. So, I ordered a 16GB kit on Amazon.
So, here I sit borrowing a laptop that has a hard drive that's completely full and doesn't have space even for Windows Updates. (Wow!) I'm actually writing this post in Notepad! I can't wait to get my PC back up and running again. It really is hard to believe that a 5 year old computer could still be decent. Although, after reading my post history here, I found out that I had said the previous PC I built was 7 years old. I feel like I'm more used to the days where every few years a new computer was kind of necessary. I think at that time technology just progressed so steadily. It reminds me of Moore's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law). I wonder if technology has slowed down at all or if it's still going at the same pace. Maybe as I grow older time gets taken into different perspectives. 5 years as a kid is a long time, but it passes so quickly when you're reaching 40.
Would I recommend an Alienware PC? Yeah, pretty much. If you have the money and don't want to build one yourself, sure. You can actually buy a refurbished version of my PC (with a different GPU) on NewEgg for under $1000. I didn't see it when I was looking for a new computer, otherwise I might have just bought it. Right now, I don't know that I'm ready to mark up how much this repair is costing me. I can just be glad that I can do it and that I have pretty much solved the puzzle of "what's wrong with my PC?" Here's to hoping the CPU is still undamaged. Well, even if I have to replace every part of my PC, I think it's worth it.
While there are arguments for building your own PC and not buying from a manufacturer like Dell or HP, there are some advantages such as warranty and tech support. My PC is now out of warranty (and so is the 980Ti), so I cannot freely rely on tech support. Although I did email EVGA requesting instructions on how to reapply thermal past to my out of warranty GPU. I got a reply saying there is no such "guide" or instructions, but I could find something on YouTube. He even sent me a link to a YouTube video I had already watched (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDLQ7FjPMf8). He could have just said "you're out of warranty, I can't help you", but apparently EVGA has good customer service. I can also attest to Amazon's excellent customer service. One more advantage to buying from a manufacturer, even if it's an older or refurbished PC, you can easily find resources online to help you figure out what's wrong. In my experience there are plenty of people out there who have the same PC as I do and have had similar problems with similar solutions. Luckily, parts also still exist for it on Amazon and NewEgg, making this rebuild possible. I can't wait to breathe new life into my PC.
Want to share your PC specs? How often do you buy or build a new PC? Do you buy or build? Who do you buy (PCs or parts) from? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments!
*Update* I'm replacing so many parts! I wanted to include links for you, so check them out below. I found a pretty cool YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/Jayztwocents/). While I am an experienced IT guy and quite knowledgeable when it comes to computers (most people know me for that and often ask me some kind of computer question or for tech support), I'm actually learning! The more I learn, the more I want to do with my rebuild. So, although my HDD seems fine, I've decided to make the jump to SSD. These (along with other technologies) are apparently cheaper now and definitely worth getting. With this I won't have to sit around waiting for Windows or my games to load. Luckily, too, it seems easy to install Windows 10 on a new SSD, if you already have it installed on a HDD, because you have a digital activation that is stored on Microsoft servers. So, it seems, there's no need to buy a new copy of Windows or purchase a new key if you've already activated one. (Good job Microsoft!)
I'm running out of money, but I'm also very tempted to upgrade my monitor and get into high refresh gaming. I haven't experienced it yet, which is why my basic 60hz/60fps gaming is fine w/ me, I may decide to make that jump, too, although I may wait on it a bit.
I may come back and update this post as I install my new (or new-ish) parts, or if I find that I want or need another part.
I forgot to share with you the other parts I've ordered for this PC rebuild. Here they are:
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 06/06/2019 at 01:52am
*Update* The new CPU liquid cooler arrived today. I managed to get it installed, although it was quite frustrating. Trying to put the (long) screws through the back of and into the case and into and through a fan and into the radiator was difficult. I did watch a YouTube video of someone doing just this thing with my PC. I think at first he had the system (cooler) in the wrong orientation. It took me a while to realize why I wasn't having any luck with it, so I had to flip it upside down (or right side up). Then I got it all screwed in and plugged up. My CPU with the old cooler just days ago was running at a blazing 91c! I downloaded an Intel program that can tell you whether or not your CPU is thermal throttling and sure enough at that temp, my CPU was doing it. No wonder it shut itself off! It's still in the 90's but that's no longer the celsius measurement, that's the fahrenheit temp (which is what the cooling system's software from Corsair is telling me). However, HWMonitor is telling me that the CPU is running at a very cool 36ish (in celcius) at max. Wow this tech is seriously awesome! I must admit at first I was sceptical about liquid cooling, it's well known that water and electronics don't mix. However, there (obviously) are some good systems out there that remove all worries (just don't try to take it apart yourself and fix it or you might spring a leak). From what I've been through with this PC, I believe that liquid cooling is very necessary, especially if you're planning to run a beast and do some really good gaming.
On that note, I'd like to add that I upgraded a couple of other pieces of hardware in recent years. I got a Razor Chroma keyboard, which has lit keys. Now I believe this kind of hardware is essential, especially if you're gaming in the dark (WASD are not the "home keys" unfortunately). I also got a Corsair Harpoon RGB mouse. I needed a new mouse, went to Wal-Mart and found "gaming" mice, so I picked one up. It's pretty good and the Corsair software (iCUE) controls my mouse and my new liquid cooling system. I've been a fan of Corsair for a long time, I've bought at least two of their PSUs.
Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member
wrote on 06/06/2019 at 02:11pm
I just picked up an alienware m15 laptop a few months ago. It has a i7, rtx 2070 max q and 16 GB of ram. I wanted a powerful slim laptop that I could use at my desk and then carry into my game room, which has my vive set up. When this machine works, I enjoy it, but sadly I have had to go through a whole new computer and two motherboards in the few short months that I have had it.
The first one I got, did not work 100% out of the box. I would set the laptop down and the video would freeze. The charging would also cut out after a few minutes. Alienware replaced it for me with a brand new laptop, but it took them 3 weeks. After this ordeal, I decided that getting the extended warranty was a good idea (maybe this was their plan all along? :) )
After a couple of months with the new laptop, my rtx 2070 max q gave up the ghost. I called Alienware/Dell and they gave me an option to send it in for fixing or they could send someone to my house to replace the motherboard. Given that it is my primary pc, I went with option two. The tech came out within 2 days and replaced my motherboard, but something was wrong. The new rtx 2070 max q would not increase its core clock speed beyond the base 300 MHz. What this meant is that high end gaming would not work.
After some diagnosing with Dell/Alienware (they pretty much asked me to do all the debugging I had already did) they ordered up another motherboard for me. This motherboard seems to be working well for now.
When this machine is working, it does an awesome job, but it does run hot and the CPU can peak and it can throttle itself. That being said, I haven't noticed any performance degradation. Given that I have an extended warranty on it for several years, I don't think I will repaste it. If things fail, I will just get it fixed.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 06/06/2019 at 02:38pm
It's good that you got an extended warranty, although bad that you had to get some replacements and such. I initially didn't have a problem w/ my PC, except the mouse's optical piece was damaged shortly after getting it, but I quickly replaced it.
Anyway, I'm glad we have another Cheerful Ghost Alienware user. :)
Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member
wrote on 06/06/2019 at 02:55pm
I too see computers lasting longer these days. I can't decide if it is because I am old and don't care 100% about cutting edge anymore, or if there aren't as many leaps in video cards and processors (at least from a gaming standpoint) anymore. I think it is probably a little bit of the former and more so of the latter.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 06/06/2019 at 03:45pm
I agree with you and I think you're right on both accounts and so am I. LOL I haven't really cared much about "cutting edge" tech for a while. But, I've decided it's time to try some out. The CPU Liquid Cooling System in this PC was new tech to me when I got it 5 years ago. The GPUs I've order are a bit "cutting edge," too. Now, I'm making the jump to SSD, which is long overdue, I'm sure! Now I might even get into higher def gaming. I might not go 4k, but I might take the step above me w/ 144. I don't know much about ray tracing, just that it's new. I'm not too worried about it, but you're good because it's on your GPU. I'm not quite up to date on CPUs, either. However, I did read that my i7-4820k is still actually a really good processor. I'm sure your's is better and you have faster RAM, but I think what I have has been very good and I don't have too much reason to change (yet I'm doing some upgrading). I like computer tech, but I haven't been staying "in the loop," so I've missed out on a lot. Luckily, I found a great YouTube channel that's helped me get up to speed on things (https://www.youtube.com/user/Jayztwocents).
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 06/07/2019 at 09:38pm
Update! All parts have arrived by now and are installed. I'm now running a fresh install of Win10 on the SSD and the difference is astounding! Before I had to wait maybe 5 minutes before Windows was ready for me to do stuff, now it's pretty much like *BOOM* right there! Whoa!
I tested the GPU, it got just over 120fps in Heaven benchmark (which is double what my monitor can display). It did reach 80c, so I emailed EVGA to see if this is normal or if they have suggestions for a water cooler or if I should reapply thermal paste with my new tube of Artic MX-4. I might let you know what they say, but I bet this is normal. It idles about 40c, but the CPU w/ the new water pump idles, well it looks like less than 25c. I did a stress test on it and I think it reached 40c. That's freaking sweet! I found out I can overclock it, but I'll see how things go and if I need that extra horsepower.
I have returned the motherboard as I didn't need it. I installed the new RAM in the first pair of slots. There were only 2 and for some reason I was expecting 4 (I got 2x8 not 4x4). So I decided to let the old RAM stay in DIMM 3 & 4 slots, but it wouldn't POST with both sticks in, so I had to settle w/ just leaving one of them in. So now I'm running at 20GB RAM. Wow!
I ran CineBench and well, the results didn't look so good, but that's a hard stress, demanding test. The only way I can check my CPU is to keep an eye on it and see how it goes. I've installed lots of monitoring software, but HWMonitor feels like the best while Prime95 is quite confusing.
I think that's it. I may update this post more in the comments section (since I used the max amount of characters in the post). I might get a new higher refresh rate monitor, otherwise I think I'm good for now. Oh and I did get that 10 year warranty for the GPU, not cheap, but I think it's worth it considering my GPU history in the last decade.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 06/08/2019 at 11:26pm
I have successfully revived my PC. The difference is astounding! It really feels like a brand new PC. I think the major key involved is the SSD. If you don't have one, you seriously need to get one, it makes a world of difference! I also firmly believe a liquid cooler kit (as the one I got, read the post) is essential, especially for a CPU and if you do heavy gaming.
Hi GregoPeck , I have an Aurora R4 ALX. Important to note that this system shipped in 2010. I got it 2nd hand from Goodwill. Before starting the system I opened the stock CPU liquid cooler and made sure there was no gunk. Later, I considered the Corsair one but instead opted for Dell Part# 01YGW (38mm wide rad + 38mm fan) since I just didn't want to modify connectors or run the Corsair utility. I also switched to a Xeon E5-2665 processor- 8 core/ 16 threads... but then went to a Xeon E5-2689. I also had the Samsung EVO SATA drive with the IcyDock but then went to the Samsung 970 EVO which is an NVME drive. To boot from this, I use a modded BIOS by edmoncu. For graphics, I use an Nvidia GTX 1050ti and this is just a 75W card but performs nicely. I have to say, this system has given me so much for my money. I used it in college for MultiMedia Authoring, Photoshop, VMware with virtual machines for networking labs... never had a single hiccup while other students had to go to the campus to finish coursework because their home PCs gave them a fit. I will try to run Passmark and get a score to post soon for this antique PC.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 06/18/2019 at 06:27pm
That's awesome! I don't know much about the Xeon processors. I'm assuming as long as the CPU is an Ivy Bridge with the same socket it might be compatible. I'm not sure exactly what CPUs are compatible with this motherboard. I don't know much about NVME, but I just Googled it and it looks cool. I don't think my SSD is NVME, but Windows boots up incredibly fast now. As for the CPU cooler, I love this Corsair one. It was a pain to install it, though. I had to put four screws through the case, through the fan, and into the radiator and didn't have very much screw to do so. At first it wouldn't work at all, then I realized I had to change how I had it positioned. I finally got it to work. My PC is incredibly quiet now! I don't mind running the Corsair iCUE software as I was already running it because of my Corsair Harpoon mouse that I got months ago. I put the iCUE cooler on "Extreme" fan control and I either can't hear it or barely so. The one that came with the PC was much louder.
Here's my Passmark score for this old PC. I took a hit on graphics since I don't have a 4K monitor :( but I'm still happy. https://i.imgur.com/7FlnzVN.jpg
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 06/22/2019 at 06:32pm
Cool. I haven't done a benchmark like that in a long time. I don't have a 4K monitor either, although I'm thinking about getting an upgrade to 1440p.
I’m thinking I want to get a new video card for my PC. Rage 2 has been great on what I have but I’m entering new areas that make it chug a bit. Thinking I can get a solid deal on a 1080 or something even more powerful for pretty cheap.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 06/23/2019 at 12:19am
Sweet! You probably can find a good deal on something like that. Like I said in another post, $300 for the 1660Ti, was a great deal considering the past few GPUs I've had. What do you have now? I've been going w/ 6GB of VRAM for a while and I feel like that's enough, for now.
After thinking more about it and talking to Travis I think I’ll hold off. The next games I’m playing will be on Switch but when I play another graphically intense game I think I’ll upgrade. One nice thing about waiting is prices go down so you don’t lose doing that. 😂
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 06/23/2019 at 02:34am
After your comment, I actually watched a new video explaining why now is not a good time to buy new hardware, because new stuff is coming soon and what's new now will get go on sale. https://youtu.be/kip0axDBjQ0 However, I think you'd be fine, because you're not really looking for currently brand new. But, still, if you wait then yeah prices are definitely going to get reduced. I was thinking about upgrading to a better monitor, but I pretty much blew what I had saved over recent months on all the other parts to get my PC back up and running. I might wait until next month or longer to get a new monitor, or maybe not at all, I don't know yet. I haven't done a whole lot of research or "window shopping," yet. I think I want a 1440p GSync monitor, that's about it, I'll need to do more research.
I agree with what you've decided. If you're going to be playing your Switch instead of your PC then yeah, do that and wait for GPUs get get cheaper. Playing on your Switch gives you something nice to do while you're waiting. As JayZTwoCents mentioned, waiting for the "back to school" or end of year (holidays) sales would be wise.
Back to the Switch, hit me up and tell me if you're going to get Civ 6, or write about it so I can read and comment!
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 07/22/2019 at 07:00pm
Sadly, I've grown to actually hate this PC, mostly because I took the case a part and didn't put it back together very well. This caused an issue with the power button, which I had fixed, but then I accidentally ripped two small cables in the front and now the power button no longer functions. There's also an amber light inside that I don't think I've seen before. I don't really want to repair it, because I don't want to go through the frustration of trying to put the case back together yet again. So, I've decided to build a new PC. I'll be posting about the new build soon, in case you're interested.
Today it grieves me dearly that I must report that my newest, most favorite GPU, has died. I am now realizing I've only had it for about 3 years, but it feels like I've had it much longer. Before I get into things about it, I'd like to get back to a bit of an introduction to my beastly Alienware Aurora R4.
When I was inexperienced (and pretty much in my teens), I bought computers. I grew more experienced and I remember occasionally finding more RAM that I could fit into my PC, I think I remember a time when I had 12mb (yes mb!). Some time after that, I began to build my own. I pretty much went with AMD CPUs as they were cheaper and seemingly superior. In fact, I wrote... Read All
Today it grieves me dearly that I must report that my newest, most favorite GPU, has died. I am now realizing I've only had it for about 3 years, but it feels like I've had it much longer. Before I get into things about it, I'd like to get back to a bit of an introduction to my beastly Alienware Aurora R4.
When I was inexperienced (and pretty much in my teens), I bought computers. I grew more experienced and I remember occasionally finding more RAM that I could fit into my PC, I think I remember a time when I had 12mb (yes mb!). Some time after that, I began to build my own. I pretty much went with AMD CPUs as they were cheaper and seemingly superior. In fact, I wrote a paper in college on AMD Vs. Intel and why I thought AMD was superior. However, things changed. About 5 years ago I was looking into buying or building a new PC. I ended up deciding that the parts I wanted were too expensive and that it might be cheaper to buy a PC. I bought an Alienware Aurora R4 for a lot of money, which kind of seems to negate the logic I came to. Haha. However, this post is not about the PC itself (I plan to write one up for it soon), this is about the GPU.
Before I got the Aurora, I was running a PC I built myself with an AMD CPU and a GeForce 8800 (which has less than a gig of RAM). I'm pretty sure I thought I had a good computer back then, but looking back I think it's pretty terrible! The Aurora completely spoiled me, but again I'm kind of saving that for later. So, back to the GPU. I wasn't all too familiar w/ GPUs and I wasn't really doing any heavy gaming, just Minecraft, Terraria, and Starcraft 2, pretty much. I probably didn't need a super PC or GPU, but one (of each) really caught my attention.
For some reason the beastly GTX 690 became what I wanted. Yeah it was a $1,000 GPU, but I had some extra money. Maybe it's that price tag that gave much so much confidence in it. So, when I ordered the Aurora, I selected the 690 as my GPU. When I got the PC, I felt pretty great. However, it didn't take too long before I realized the downside of the 690. Looking back, I now feel foolish for selecting that GPU, but hind sight is always 20/20, isn't it? What I didn't fully realize is that while the GPU has 4GB (I scoff at that now) of VRAM, it's really two 2GB GPUs built into one. When it came time to play Ark: Survival Evolved in Early Access, I quickly learned that my newly beloved beast of a GPU couldn't do what I wanted it to do, so I had to run it in lower settings (DX10 or DX9 mode I think). This made the game much less attractive, but I was able to play. Having 2 GPUs in one sounds good, at least until you realize that not all games can actually utilize such a configuration. Ark was one of those games, which could only access half of my video card. I was disappointed. So, I decided it was time for an upgrade.
I was playing Ark on an official server, wishing I could play it the way it was meant to be played, and how it was supposed to look. So, I asked my fellow players what kind of GPU they would recommend. They all pretty much agreed that a GTX 980Ti would be what I want and after just a little bit of research, I agreed with them. Luckily, I had some extra money so the near $600 price tag didn't bother me too much. My memory tells me I paid $400-$600, but if you look (at the link provided above) on Amazon, it's still selling for almost $700!
It's interesting to me that a card I bought 3 years ago is still selling for the same price! Perhaps a used one could be found for cheaper, but I have a strong preference for new products (they come w/ warranty, you know what you're getting, no real surprises, they're easily exchangeable, etc.). Wow, what a beast though! If this GPU is still worth that much after all these few years, it has to be good, right? Well, yeah pretty much actually!
Before I bought the 980Ti, I really wanted a Titan, but I didn't have that $1,000 to spend on a new GPU, so I had to go for something cheaper. I seem to recall seeing that it is comparable to a Titan and can preform very well. I can actually now attest to its performance, although keep in mind I don't do 4K high-rest gaming. My simple Dell monitor is locked at 59-60hz, so I pretty much don't expect more than 60fps, but I do expect 60fps. It did that beautifully, actually. I don't recall a game that gave me any problems with this GPU.
I remember when I got it. One of the first games I played w/ it was Subnautica. I didn't really get too into the game at the time, though I did about 3 years later. My main concern was how would this GPU handle Ark and it really impressed me. I don't think I was able to run it at the highest "EPIC" settings, but those settings were designed for a Titan (or better). Still, Ark performed and looked beautiful to me now finally, I was definitely impressed and satisfied. One thing to note is that I ordered a special edition of the GPU from EVGA (hence all the stuff within the full name).
I believe it was overclocked out of the box and came with additional thermal protection (ACX 2.0+). Maybe I'm weird, but I think I do like overclocked stuff, I'm just not confident in my own ability to overclock something. I'm used to the earlier days when it seemed like a dangerous thing to do. Now it seems as though it's quite easy and actually safe to do. I pretty much left it up to software to decide how fast it actually ran. I remember it reaching about 1200mhz, but it usually ran at about 1190mhz. This didn't really mean that much to me. It performed very well, it did pretty much what I wanted to, so I wasn't really concerned with how fast it was. It also came with 6Gb VRAM, which was an improvement over the 690.
Now is where the problem comes in, pretty much thermals. I don't know exactly when I started to pay attention to how hot it was. I was using EVGA's Precision X16 to run the fans at 100%. I was also using the Alienware Command Center to run the HDD and PCIE fans at 100%, whenever I was gaming. But, the point is that I started paying attention. Earlier this year or late last year I realized that it was reaching 91c while running Ark. I did some reading and confirmation bias hit me. I found a post that said that this GPU runs hotter and can run fine at 91c and that (or 92c) was it's threshold. I read that it would throttle itself if it reached that point, so it wouldn't work too hard. So, I stopped worrying about it so much, until things happened again. My PC shut off on its own and I believed that my GPU was overheating, which was kind of correct. I never re-applied thermal paste to a CPU or GPU and had to do a bit of research on that. I finally ordered some Arctic MX-4, because it was very popular on Amazon and NewEgg. Unfortunately, something else seems to have happened and my GPU is now dead.
How do I know the 980Ti is dead? At the same time of paying attention to my GPU thermals, I realized that my CPU was overheating, too. The CPU was using a liquid cooling system, so I never really worried about it (even though it's the first of it's kind I've used or seen). At one point, I had taken the liquid cooling system apart and got it to work again. Things seemed find and to be working better, but then suddenly my PC crashed again (shut itself down). I tried to get it back on, but noticed "artifacts" on the screen, which were pretty much green lines and such oddities. After that, my PC would beep 6 times and not POST. After much researching, I learned that those 6 beeps meant that there was something wrong with the GPU. So, I brought the old 690 out and tried it. Unfortunately, it ran into some of the same trouble (artifacts). It didn't take me a while until I realized that GPUs were actually wet on their contacts with the PCIE slot and that the socket was wet or oily. I took the 980Ti apart to see what was wrong and it didn't look like it was coming fron the GPU, honestly I couldn't really tell where it came from. However, I did later notice at least one drop of water from the CPU liquid cooler, which I now think could have actually leaked onto the 980. The socket got wet, so the 690 had trouble, too. I did end up managing to dry the socket and trying again. The 980Ti was dead and the 690 was still displaying artifacts (white lines). I pull the 8880 out of an old PC and put it in and everything on the screen was fine. I also accidentally broke a fan blade on the 690.
So here I am without a working "decent" gaming GPU. However, I luckily have some extra money. While I cannot right now afford a new Alienware or beastly PC, I can actually afford to replace some parts, like the GPU. I did some research and I finally decided to buy a GTX 1660 Ti (etc. see links below). While this has the same amount of VRAM as the 980Ti, it's faster. This GPU also costs about 50% less, but is definitely newer and seemingly superior. It also seems to have much better thermal technology. It doesn't include the new RTX (ray tracing) technology, but does include the new Turing core technology. At first glance, this model does look strange. It takes up more slots than the other GPUs, but I believe I have room for it. If not, it seems pretty easy to return/refund/RMA something with Amazon and EVGA.
I'm really looking forward to the new GPU, while watching multiple videos about it. It definitely seems like a good gaming card and especially a valuable one. Perhaps in the future I will update this post or create another giving an intro to the new GPU. But for now, I have to wait for it to arrive from Amazon. I originally ordered the non-Ti edition, which arrived today, but yesterday I realized my mistake so I have a return/refund going on for it while I ordered the Ti edition.
I feel like I've learned quite a bit about GPUs lately. Learning is good. I don't fully understand all the technology involved and can't talk about it like some of the pros I see on YouTube, but I have some good basic understanding. Right now I just want my PC back to life, even if it means getting the same or relatively equal parts for the ones I have to replace.
What GPU do you have? How often do you upgrade? Do you have your eye on a certain GPU? How much are you willing to spend on a new GPU? Let me know in the comments section and we can talk about it!
Want to see what I'm talking about? Check these links:
The GTX 1660 Ti is a great card and I think that will work out well for you. Currently in my PC I have a 780 ti and it works pretty well. I think at some point I will upgrade to something like the card you bought but i'm waiting for the new tech to get a bit more ubiquitous and a smidge cheaper.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 06/07/2019 at 10:13pm
It seems to be a great card for it's price! I went from $1,000 > $600 > $300 GPU upgrades!
Yeah, going a bit between upgrades means you can get a way better card for less.
AzureAzule Super Member Post Author
wrote on 06/09/2019 at 07:02am
Just for reference. I've been sitting here playing Civ6 on some high settings, though I think I did so w/ the 980Ti, although it might have had a different shadows resolution, I'm not sure. However, the 1660Ti has hit 1935mhz. The 980 hit 1190mhz. The 1660 is running 60-68c while the 980 idled at that temp or even higher when I last had it running. While playing Civ6 last w/ the 980 I watched as it climbed into the upper 80's (c). I did some looking around and it seems difficult to find an advanced cooler for this card, yet it's obviously running well. I tried to add some more fans to my case, but I failed, there's just not enough room. Any way, I thought I'd share this point of reference. I don't remember the 980's temps when I got it, so I can't say. I'm still impressed by the "value" of the 1660.
Oh and I am using the frame limiter setting and vsync, I also have vsync enabled on the Nvidia Control Panel. I turned these settings off on Civ6 for a test and saw major screen tearing. Eventually I may have to get a 144hz monitor to get this GPUs full potential. It can do up to 144fps, maybe more, I'm don't remember atm.
If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.
I just wanted to give you a quick heads up about this great site I found recently, IsThereAnyDeal.com. It can import your wish lists from Steam, GOG, and Humble Bundle and alert you when games go on sale. There are a lot of sites that sell games, but it's difficult to know what's legit and what's not. There are sites out there that sell stolen keys, which places like Steam may find and deactivate. So, it's important to know where you're getting your game keys from. All the sites connected to IsThereAnyDeal are totally legit. I did some researching after finding a few different sites. There's a reddit group for games that explains all of this and which sites are legit.... Read All
I just wanted to give you a quick heads up about this great site I found recently, IsThereAnyDeal.com. It can import your wish lists from Steam, GOG, and Humble Bundle and alert you when games go on sale. There are a lot of sites that sell games, but it's difficult to know what's legit and what's not. There are sites out there that sell stolen keys, which places like Steam may find and deactivate. So, it's important to know where you're getting your game keys from. All the sites connected to IsThereAnyDeal are totally legit. I did some researching after finding a few different sites. There's a reddit group for games that explains all of this and which sites are legit. You can check out deals at https://www.reddit.com/r/GameDeals. You can use Google to find out if something's legit, just say (for example) "Is IsThereAnyDeal" legit and you'll find out it is.
I bought Monster Hunter World for about $20 off when I got from one of these sites. I'm still waiting on the Divinity series to go on sale.
*Note* My account was not hacked. I did write this bit because I wanted to share my discovery with my favorite gaming community. :) I'm sorry if it sounds too much like an ad.