Friday 30 November 2012

PC Format Magazine & Custom PC Magazine on AMD FX-8350

OK today I caught these two articles and was more interested in their overall scoring of this chip. To be honest they are both big name magazines and ones I have turned to since the dawn of time, almost literally and I think I owned issue 3 of PC Format prior to even owning a pc, think B-17 Flying Fortress featured in it, and Custom PC I had the first two dozen issues?!

Now over time one of these has changed and demeaned itself while the other is still a class publication and it is very disappointing as the one that has sunk low should know better. But they do not.

Now here we go and there is a big discrepancy between the two and I am going to go with one over the other as it made more sense. The Magazine that made no sense is the one out of the two that should know and I really do not know what has happened to it of late, but I could hazard a pretty good guess?!

PC Format scored the AMD FX-8350 gave it 4/5 STARS and said they had struck 'GOLD' this time around. They admitted they would rather go for the AMD FX-6300 though I would not at the prices I have seen the FX-8350 for?! But I can see why they would say that.

Custom PC Magazine gave it a measly 59% and totally shocked me. This is just utter madness and is typical of what I have seen from Custom PC since they were taken over and entangled or owned by BIT-TECH and have become biased beyond a joke.

In fact I am sure I emailed and tweeted as much to them a couple years back, oddly did not get an answer as I am obviously a lower life form so much I do not warrant an explanation.

Custom PC has turned from a real class magazine to utter trash and I have literally gone in a few years from buying just about every issue they produced to flicking though it, putting it back in Sainsburys while shaking my head and not buying a copy for three years now?!

It a company is involved is selling or manufacturing goods they should NOT be allowed to own a Magazine. Now anyone can say what they like about his but I would only tell you where to get off, you want an informed opinion when you read a magazine and an unbiased one. Simple as that or there is no point in shelling out the ludicrous prices they charge for them these days is there?!

Bearing in mind that of these two magazines it is PC Format that is more game oriented than Custom PC and with the former saying it would make a good budget rig and the latter basically sscaring their readers from buying it!

Now they have made it obvious for sometime that they are biased, well blatantly so to me if not to others but not much I can do about that, and I would go months and you could not find a mention of AMD anywhere in the mag?! Curious, do you own shares in Intel and nVidia by any chance?! LMAO!

Well does make you wonder!

Oddly this kind of behaviour is not only harmful to the industry, based on wrong facts really, but also harmful to themselves as if AMD disappeared so would Custom PC Magazine. After all with only Intel producing CPUs, nVidia producing GPUs and Tablets overtaking everything the very notion of a Custom PC Magazine would be, well pointless. Unless the switched it to an annual magazine?! LMFAO!!

No sorry I cannot see me ever buying an issue again after today which is a shame as I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread when it first launched. Will be PC Format only for me from now on!

It is a real shame that this sort of thing goes on really. God I hope they do not find this and do something really stupid like try and defend themselves as in my experience people like that do not do this very well...

...like that of someone on Squidoo who was obviously staff for the NHS and just came out with a throw away line which proved nothing nor explained what he was on about or even who or what he was defending. Umm if he was defending something ... I think he was, lol.

Just because your a member of staff, writer, Doctor nurse or whatever it does not mean to say that if you open your gob intelligent words come out and even when they do they need to be in the correct order?!

HEHEHE!

Still back to topic. It was encouraging to read PC Format say that and hats off to them for being straight down the line on everything over the past, umm 20 years?! lol.

As for Custom PC, how the hell do you give 59% to a CPU costing £165 that multi tasks a fraction slower than an 8 core Intel i7-3770k?! You bloody morons! LOL.

Sorry you deserve that, you are called Custom PC you know, maybe change your name to Custom PC Gaming PC For Rigs Built To Run Games Utilised for Intel Chips Only, or just CPCGPCFRBTRGUFICO?!

Hahahaha! Hmm should that last 'i' be a 'u'?

lol.

Too bad and a real shame.

Monday 26 November 2012

DEMISE OF AMD? I DOUBT IT! I BLOODY HOPE NOT!!!

I have been seeing many sites mentioning the demise of AMD along with talks of looking for a buyer and even complete disappearance of the company altogether.

There is also talk of the next FX architecture, codenamed Steamroller, likely called the AMD FX-8550 and FX-8520 if previous naming conventions are followed but I seriously doubt this too.

The way I see it and I know not his motives but there is a character out there that seems to be feeding much of this frenzied information and there are too many idiots out there who are so quick to want to repeat anything that is a case of sensationalising for the goal of getting hits.

Right at the source of all this is the OBR hardware website and never before have I ever come across such on opportunist that leans so far in one direction that you have to come to no other conclusion that he is either on the payroll of the blue company or indeed has been promised something. I know now what country he is based in but maybe there are certain things 'missing' from his country he has been promised?!

So much is his incessant ramblings on false information on AMD's products, guessing correctly did not make him correct the first time around, that it stands out that he is in pursuit of something or some benefit from all this.

In fact what I find most interesting is the way he reacts on his site when he does GUESS it correctly and he comes over as surprised and the use of exclamation marks run riot everywhere. A message to the site owner is this, you have a 50/50 chance of getting it right and from what I have read you do not even manage it 50% of the time so do not over-react and leap about the place when you do guess correctly...

...to anyone truly intelligent and not just banding about figures prised from a piece of software you will be seen for what you are.

Not only that only a complete MORON would want to see AMD disappear and that is a fact, no two ways about it, signed sealed and delivered for free. A MORON!

That is outside of those that have shares in the big blue company or have been promised certain ... benefits should the green company disappear.

If there are Intel fanboys baying for AMDs blood then they are morons too I am afraid and should get out of IT and computers as it is for intelligent people and not idiots! Or at least keep your statements and opinions to yourselves and do not invite ridicule and attack from people that have 50% more grey matter than some of you do?! LOL!

Hopefully I have guesses correctly on AMD and in a few months time some engineering samples of Steamroller will be out in the wild as since the introduction of Bulldozer and the SLIGHTLY disappointing figures I had ear-marked Steamroller, AMD FX-8550, Kaveri, call it what you will, as the big thing in AMDs  goals and our wants!

Mention Intel's Haswell, despite my surname being Haswell, and I will tell you to get a life!!!

Do not promote the capability of something that not only do you know nothing about but not even had an engineering sample released.

My estimations are based on things now very likely to be implemented on AMDs chips in the very near future, certainly in 2013. These are based on things I have read and what is likely to be achievable by what is now long overdue on AMD CPUs and must be not far away now, a die-shrink and FPUs per cored, ending this module is only one core with hyper-threading, yes that is why it has two cores dickheads?!

I see Haswell as more of Intel selling you an eight core chip that does not work!

So with Christmas 2012 and 2013 fast approaching I will be keeping an eye out for anything doing the rounds out there as well as any news on the 1090FX motherboards, if that is indeed what they will be known as, following recent naming convention again?!

Sometimes i do not to get to cheack around the Internet for this news as I am concentrating on facts that I DO have and not supposition and when this manages to stretch for a couple of weeks or a month I then have a good feeling I will pick up something new, from all the waffle banded about by bedroom  and armchair experts.

Oddly here is something else I had thought of, I had seriously considered what I would do if AMD vanished and we returned to those dark old days of years gone by? I thought it would be time to jump ship, NOOO ROTTEN APPLE?! LMAO. I honestly do not know what I would do but may have to consider something I never would have before. BBBRRRrrrrrr, a shiver just went down my spine?!?!?!

LMFAO!!

Sunday 25 November 2012

Sweex Optimuo 4GB

How does it come to be that you can buy a Music Player that does not even read its own built in memory right here in the UK?

This one looked very cool and nano looking and not really wanting to spend a vast amount of money on one of the big names who for some reason REFUSE to manufacturer portable players of Lossless, MP3s and Videos without an SD Card reader when their phones, which primarily errr phone, have them installed on all but the cheapest models?!

Here then is a picture of my Sweex Optimuo refusing to read its own memory and to be fair it only does this 50% of the time and the other 50%?

Well it then refuses to read the best SD Cards in the industry and even Sandisk Ultra Cards?!

Now this would not be so bad if it had 32GB instead of its 4GB and I could then put a 32GB card in it and put the same favourite songs and albums on both and know that I could then ALWAYS listen to what I wanted without fail?!

LMAO!




http://www.flickr.com/photos/89426160@N05/8217716040/       NO NAND FILES (INTERNAL)


http://www.flickr.com/photos/89426160@N05/8216630087/       SCREEN CORRUPTED


It also alters the volume level, decides what it wants to play when it IS deciding to read its own memory, the buttons are stupidly arranged by someone seriously drunk or high and the screen quality is appalling and the pictures of this player are deliberately misleading.

I was nder the impression it showed album covers?! You must be joking?!

It is also slow and unresponsive.

The volume level was good though and was better than anyone smartphone I owned, well when it was not turning its own volume down though. Adjusting volume was badly designed too and do not think you get dedicated volume buttons, oh no. You press the volume button on one end and then go to other buttons to go up and down.

I quite literally could have got a 5 year ols to design the buttons in a more logical fashion!

Avoid Sweex at all costs. LMAO I know I will!

Thursday 15 November 2012

SEARCHING FOR A GRAPHICS TABLET ... or TABLET!

Right for my new found plans and what I want to do I think that a tablet is unavoidable as a necessity.

Now when I say tablet you may think of an Apple iPad type device but I was thinking more a straightforward graphics tablet to created my own artwork. So much easier than a mouse I can tell you.

So I been having a look at the Wacom Bamboos and ones I know from the past but to get anything wireless you are looking at over £300...

Now two things have emerged out of this search on is actually paying for something that will actually pay dividends and the other is that the Samsung Galaxy Tablet 10.1 with its Smart-pen has just launched?!

This includes a four core processor! SD Card slot, hmm why do tablets and phones all have SD Card slots when MP3 players do not?! Ohh not going down that road again ... yes so I CAN acquire a dreaded tablet via Littlewoods ... SHUDDER, but it will allow me to complete my current project to a much more professional and polished level!

So I will see how it goes with my project and maybe in a months time I may have to join the tablet crowd after all after swearing I would never do it?!

It will be useful to surf the net and browse Amazon's website on it than using my smart-phone or dragging my hot 17 inch Hewlett Packard Pavilion DV7 upstairs at night!

I might not even need the laptop any longer and then only needing to build a rig?! Groan! After I spent a month slowly upgrading the RAM to 8GB too?! Typical!!

LMAO!!

The Best Laid Plans...

Tuesday 6 November 2012

AMD FX-8350 LOOKING GOOD

OK so as I already stated the AMD FX-8150 bulldozer based chip was not THAT disappointing. Was a little but not as bad as people made out. Power consumption was the big deal for me mainly while the speed could have been a little better.

Well now we have both and best of all? I have seen this new AMD FX-8350 CPU chip priced at £164?! Considering that the FX-8150 was around £220 to £250 this is simply ... staggering!

What an absolute beauty?! I am salivating over a new rig I can tell you! When? Well that I cannot tell you?!        

:( BOOHOO!!! LMAO!

Despite a few depraved, misguided and dishonest Intel fanboys, or possibly people on Intel's payroll, I have seen and read good things of the new AMD FX-350 CPU.

It has improved on the AMD FX-8150 somewhat while also reducing power consumption by a far degree too! Oddly I found some sites that insinuated that this was not the case with their graphs up showing hardly an improvement at all. These people masquerading and trying to rubbish the products of others this way in the hope of bring about its demise should be careful...

In my opinion and despite the fact that certain companies have already been fined for anti-trust and anti-competitive practises it is my belief that the people responsible, should they be behaving in this way, then once caught should go to jail and take to board members of the company with them. No ifs and no buts. I cannot think of any other reason why the power consumption graph was slanted in the way that it was. Disturbingly sad practises and what I find amusing is that their fanboys, the ones not on the payrolls, will react very badly towards a company should this come to light. As the company in question would obviously be doing it so that they can then be charged over £1,000 for a CPU instead of £300 to £500 as yes they sis used to cost these amounts once upon a time. Anyone that thinks otherwise is no more than a fool. But then this is what you are all being treated as anyway!

Still back on topic from what I have seen is somewhat of a relief and what I pondered about even with bulldozer I am not wondering even more about Piledriver, what if it finally gets that all important and long overdue DIE-SHRINK from the current 32nm to 28nm or lower still?!

A die shrink improves efficiency, though sometimes this necessitates a new technology to be implemented, ad reduces power consumption and heat. This allows clock speeds to be raised further still so in effect there is every possibility that a die-shrink of an AMD VISHERA CPU can see base clock speeds rise from the current 4.0GHZ to anywhere from 4.4GHZ and even maybe 5GHZ, the latter will largely depend on AMD surprising me with a die shrink that is more so than that going around the rumour mill that is the Internet?! Say 22nm or even 20nm. Who knows what these companies are really up to and it can be anyones guess, though technically this is ultimately down the the fabs that produce the CPUs for AMD and they are Global Foundries, once a part of AMD, and TMSC.

I presume this shrink will come in the form of the Steamroller chip but will not show until around October 2013 but I hope this comes earlier. Or perhaps Piledriver will get a shrink and Steamroller will have design implementations to improve things further forward and more efficiency.

As for the single clock brigade harping in about IPC, well I would rather have a 8 core chip that will handle multi-core programming when its common place than have an expensive Intel chip that in 3 years time can still run 2012's software and games at an alarming pace?! LMAO!!

I must admit I am now eager to build a rig based on an AMD FX-8350. I would like to hear of an advancement on the 990FX motherboard chipsets too though and even in a few months time it will be interesting to see if there are any advancements on the 8350 with any revisions.

Let us hope the next 6 months will be fruitful and pleasantly surprising. Maybe we can then say 'welcome back AMD you were sorely missed!' while the top brass at the evil blue empire rad headlines in the papers and choke on their caviar on toast! Hehe.

CROSSING THOSE FINGERS.

FIND A FLAC-KING PLAYER?!?! LOL!

I have been after a new music player for a year now.

After recently seeing an rather rare and nice set of headphones going for a third of their RRP it has become more of a priority now to find this player.

It is a nightmare out there for these it really is! Trying to find one you do not have to take a mortgage out for that has all I require and one that I am happy with and gets good reviews is ridiculous to say the least.

May companies charge a way over the top premium for an extra memory, when 16GB extra over 16GB is £7 or £14 for two sets of 16GB and those are prices for Sandisks, no cheap rubbish. But many of the famous companies insist on NOT including an Micro SD Card memory slot on their device because they want YOU to pay THEM £50 or more extra for what should cost £7!

I want to play lossless, or FLAC, audio files which take up a great deal of memory. I have also noted that the storage capacity of these SO-CALLED dedicated Music Players have hardly moved on in the last 18 months. They are obviously anything but true MUSIC PLAYERS as they do not cater for these audiophiles and instead that of people using highly compressed MP3 files.

Odd too is how all the major electrical stores do not sell ANY of the players out there that DO have memory card slots, which is odd when they SELL memory cards?!

This was true of PC World, Tesco and Sainsburys!

I did see a Sony NWZ A856 16 GB player going at a reduced price of £95 but, of course, no slot. The 32GB version is over £200, indeed I saw it for over £300 on Amazon?!

I do like the sound, no pun intended lol, of the Cowons and in particular the iAudio 10 but no slot yet again but the Cowon J3 looks and sounds perfect and WITH the memory card slot but no longer in production?!?!

AAAAARRRRRRRG!!!

LMAO!

I want a player that...

Is not limited by these stupid EU volume laws and limitations

Plays FLAC FILES

ABLE TO STORE MORE THAN HALF A DOZEN FLAC FILES (OK that is sarcasm there lol) so 32GB should be minimum

Does not have a battery that dies in a couple of hours.

Does not cost the price of Richard Branson's island?! (Oh OK more sarcasm then! lol)

Has a good audio quality.

Bizarre then that after looking at dozens and dozens of these things (if I see ONE MORE player on Amazon I am going to head-butt my laptop screen!!) I have failed to find a single one that is currently available for sale at a sensible price?!

My word! What a mess this is all for corporate greed yet again. We only need AMD to go bust (joking as they wont) and e really will be stagnating again and big names ceasing production of certain things because they fail to understand that people do not trust them as they feck around trying to control what a customer does with the product they just shelled out a shed load of cash for!

Are you listening Sony & Apple?

I loved these two companies and the one of the ones I like currently is Samsung. But all my life it has always followed that the company I like that is innovative with great products turns big, corporate, greedy, controlling and evil so I guess all my current companies will end up on my hated list in a few years, lmao!

God I hope not!

Sunday 28 October 2012

Windows 8 Try Out


OK now yesterday I had a play around with Windows 8 and it is not quite as bad as I first thought.
You can get to certain things like settings and Device Manager but I still do not like it. The TILE screen was presented on a vast array of different laptops and desktops in a local store and I went to each and everyone in turn with the tiled Metro screen.

The very first thing I did is go for the monitors with my finger as this is what the Metro was designed for so it stood to reason, to my mind at any rate, that all showing this screen would be touch sensitive. Out of about 20 I tried of both desktops and laptops? ONE!

The whole idea of having bigger monitors with higher resolution is 'REAL ESTATE' but in the case of this new desktop screen that very basic fundamental idea goes out the window. That is unless they have included a setting to make the tiles alot smaller, like half the size?! I mean to say that if you think about it with such a radical new interface going on screens from as as small as 7 inches to as big as 50 inches or more, oh OK so over about 30 inch is really going to be a TV screen but its still a big thing as the HDMIs are included on up to date PCs of different forms. Even my old-ish HP Pavilion DV7 purchased as ex-demo, turned out to be refurbed and had to go back for TWO failures (one KNOWHOW did not do correctly surprise surprise), has a HDMI socket and a 1600x900 monitor built in. I purchased this in January 2012 for £370.

In fact after messing around the very naming of Windows 8 being ... well WINDOWS seems wrong. It should have been called TILING?! (chuckles).

I really do not think this will go down well over time. It feels rushed, badly designed and considering how long the interface has been 'out there' already that looks bad. A friend of mine and owner of a local store has had this interface on his phone for sometime with Windows Phone 7, or whatever they call it.

Now if they had quite simply LEFT the desktop screen as it was and as an option this would been nowhere near as bad. Later and more modern version and design of the Metro interface might have slowly encouraged those used to the classic Windows design of old to gradually migrate over.

Besides my dislike of Steve Ballmer this worries me as I do like Windows and always have done. Many years ago I was more interested in the Apple MACS but never actually ended up with an Apple though I came close in several occasions. The market share of Windows I heard about recently was quite surprising and it seems the tables have completely turned over the years with Apple and Microsoft and just like the situation with AMD and Intel you do not really want to be left with just ONE monopoly. In concentrating on their rivals on an ever consuming passion to bring in large portions of cash they have forgotten and neglected the very people they are trying to get this cash from and in these global economic bad times this is NOT a good idea and it seems that as well as government big companies still have not 'GOT IT'. See blog asaintcallesallnights.blogspot.com

Quite how it takes a large firm like Microsoft so long to implement a few design details into their Operating Systems is beyond me. The Linux community seems to do quite alright and has done so for many years. In fact since my first try at Linux which was 15 years ago now I cannot help but wonder what using Linux is like today?!

I am just hoping that if I had played around with it a bit more I might have found that some other things I complained about here were actually there. There might not be that 'Start Button' but clicking on the libraries tab and then on computer in the left pane of the window your presented you will the find Device Manager in the toolbar section on the top of the Window, just in case you are the owner of a new Windows 8 machine and were trying to find it?! (laughs)

Me? Well I have already been looking at the retina display Apple Mac Pro as my laptop replacement! My new rig, if I ever get to that stage too, will be Windows 7 based but what I keep thinking is what happens after that? With newer upgrades like DirectX for games generally being tied into to newer Windows to force people, well gamers, to upgrade may well be a shot in the foot this time around. Then there are the games developers too?! I will be watching very closely to see what they have to say about Windows 8 and I always require a very broad spectrum from a great many places before I make a decision.

I for one am hoping it is not as bad as it currently appears to me and for once I am wrong!

Saturday 27 October 2012

WINDOWS 8 or WINDOWS HATE


Well so much for what a PC technician told me on the phone about this Windows 8 (and only a release candidate too) 'it is brilliant ... oh really good'.

From the things I have read and what I have seen in videos, and BBC Click, it has me somewhat confused...

They have focused primarily on the touch screen element because of tablets and yet not all software works for it, flicking over the a desktop screen on running it.

Then they removed the Start Button from that Desktop Screen?

Looks like a real pain if you do not have a TOUCH SCREEN MONITOR AND I DO NOT WANT ONE, as I do not relish the idea of wiping my screen every 180 seconds?! Maybe a wait until anti smear surfaces are applid to touch screens?! Anti-smear I hear you ask well Oakley have bloody sunglasses that do not smear so what better excuse than to put it in the things you are SUPPOSED to touch?!

Groan!! LOL!

I am not a big fan of the design of the tile interface it must be said. I liked the sound of it all when the little snippets of info were coming out and quite how they removed, or I should say did not provide, the option to go to a normal desktop screen like every other Windows has done previously I will never know.

IT LOOKS HALF FINISHED?!?!

This might be OK for tablets but for desktops I would not go near it.

I come from an industry and an academic background where Microsoft was disliked. This was mostly in part to what people heard about Steve Ballmer and his string armed tactics. He is seen by many as the sole reason there have been these actions against Microsoft with anti-trust, anti competitive law suits and I hear another one is on the way in Europe, once again over browsers. YAWN.

What is with that Steve Ballmer? Is he on drugs? Leaping around at a conference like a demented animals and I always think 'MADMAN' when he is ever interviewed. Those glaring eyes do not help his cause much!

He has spent years at Microsoft and behind many believed that his bludgeoning method with Microsoft and competitors purely came from what was reported at the time as his military background. This would be hard for me to say one way or the other as I do not know the man and they were purely rumours.

However the end results are just the same never the less...he comes across as insincere whenever I see him on BBC Click and find myself wincing and reaching for the remotes mute button until he disappears. He also talks about the products but he is clearly not an engineer or a technical man and sounds like a really bad and really over the top travelling salesman for shower curtain rings and would fit right in playing the spare wheel in that old comedy hit Trains Planes & Automobiles with veteran comics John Candy & Steve Martin!

I also die a little inside when I think f the things Microsoft could and should of done, as well as the things they should NOT have done, if he were NOT at the company. Despite his ape like leaping and banshee like screaming at the conference about how much he loves this company?! Anyone else wonder who he was trying to convince?!

LMAO.

So Windows 8 is not not only looking like another one of those Microsoft Balls-Ups they seem to do every now and then but just may well be the biggest one of all in my book.

They had better pray every night it takes off in tablets but against the competition, oh dear .. no.

This is typical Microsoft and Steve Ballmer as it seems they have now deserted desktop owners, I cannot see many being happy with Windows 8 in all honesty, because the market has shrunk a little and they think they can now barge there way onto tablets and phones. No Mr Ballmer, you cannot!!

What they should have done is released TWO versions as they obviously are miles away from achieving what they had planned but no, get it out, do not worry about usability, intuitive interfaces and therefore our customers let us just make a load of cash again and force people to keep upgrading.

It has taken its time but I now wonder what the desktop percentages will be in a couple of years between Linux & Windows?! My god I might have to migrate over the the dreaded rotten Apple?!

WINDOWS ATE MORE LIKE.

HEHE.

Wednesday 24 October 2012

AMD FX-8350 TESTS: LACKING UNDERSTANDING?!

Well I have perused a number of sites benchmarking the new AMD FX-8350 Piledriver and I have to admit that firstly the results are even MORE confusing than that of its predecessor, the AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer chip.

I have checked out, or dashed through would be more accurate, those at Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, Hexus and a few others.

Even more confusing than the results are the statements made by the testers and even their conclusions?!

I have suspected for sometime that there are too may CPU testers out there simply running a series of programs errr ... programmed by others and therefore not understanding the CPU core entirely nor the software and the algorithms employed. This can sometimes show up in statements they make that, on the face of it, do not match the overall numbers.

I think from now on I am going to totally ignore what these suites state in the benchmarks results, they are far too inconsistent for my liking and are causing people to make utter idiots of themselves. See the following, lol.

AN EXAMPLE...

One well known site states that the SINGLE THREADED (that is one core and in all honesty a MOOT POINT and pretty pointless today to harp on about - sorry but true) IS STILL DIRE based on one benchmark.

DISCREPANCY?...

Well hang on a minute as the latest Piledriver based FX-8350 beats the 8 threaded Intel Core i7 in several tests?

YOU JUST CONTRADICTED YOURSELF, SMART ARSES!!

Here is another point, if a benchmark is doing badly on a particular CPU core, and lets so its on of these suites like SiSoft's Sandra or Cinebench then that pretty much renders the benchmark unfit for purpose and badly programmed!

You cannot have it both ways, either that ir you have to change your benchmarking and ONLY USE real world programs and games. SIMPLEZZZ!!

If the core performance was as dire as suggested in the FX-8350 and the Intel's so bloody brilliant like everyone one of them harps on about then even with the TWO extra threads, oh no wait a minute you all keep insisting they are only FOUR ANYWAY, would in no way allow it to beat the i7s by any stretch.

Especially as you keep on harping on about how you change everything so that the benchmarks are CPU bound?! Can you smell the stuff you are shovelling? Or is it a case that you are trying to rush the benchmarks online so fast to get hits, and therefore cash from advertising, that you write these things without going over the numbers?

On one lot of testing I was like 'OHHH YEAH NOW I WANT TO BUILD A RIG QUICK SHARP!' while on another I was then thinking 'OH NO THAT IS CRAP. I WILL WAIT FOR STEAMROLLER?!'

Then I started thinking 'NO HANG ON A BLOODY MINUTE HERE!!' LMAO!

Then another said it only matched the Phenom II cores, K10.5, when a couple of others said the it was faster and this was also said about Trinity, AMD's laptop intended APUs with four cores and a graphics chip built in. No wait! TWO CORES and a Graphics chip built in?! LMAO.

Steamroller is the code name for the next generation of AMD's cores. though some have stated April 2013 or around that date it has been a year since the Bulldozer FX-8150 and as much as I would like it to be April I think a year, so next October, is far more likely.

Here is my two penneth, it does reasonably OK for an 8 core, it does BLOODY FANTASTIC as a FOUR CORE?!

Now as I have since seen the AMD FX-8350 for £165 on Scan.co.uk and the FX-8150 launched at around £240 i think that is not all that bad. My only problem with the chip at all is though they improved the power consumption it could have been a little better.

My only gripe is that I would like to see the next motherboards out, to improve things a little further and ready, or better suited, to the Steamroller AMD CPUs when they are eventually launched...

...so a 1090FX motherboard, 990FX currently, and possibly even combined with a new socket so AM4 or AM3++, lol.

If I purchase one I just hope I get lucky with the silicon, or maybe this time round they might have released a slightly improved one by then, like they was going to do with the rumoured release of an AMD FX-8170 which did not materialise.

AMD FX-8370 anyone? Now that WOULD be cool! Well lets hope that is literal too?!

Drop the single threaded harping on too for the love of god, I was doing Access to Computing to get into my BSc Applied Computing and Pentium II's were the latest thing and even then I was talking of a motherboard with TWO sockets and XEONS! That was 1996 for the love of God and 3D Studio MAX already used as many cores as you could throw at it.

There is no PROBLEM with coding programs to run concurrently, it has been about for over ten years and as anyone would tell you in computing ... well that is an EON!!

If coders state there is a problem well... I know what I would say to that but they would not like it. Let us just say that they need time to get... their heads around it but others have long since done that.

As I stated previously four cores has been the norm for sometime now. I cannot see it being that long before games, no MOST games, launched will run on 3 minimum but 4 or even 5 cores. As Windows works best with at least two and something else might be running too.

For an eternity I have seen the statements to others asking advice 'oh you do not need this and do not need that, that is too much for what you want' and EVERY SINGLE TIME they have regretted going smaller and cheaper. though I dare say some times there will be people that do not.

I read about people buying the FX-4100 and FX-6100 and despite wanting AMD to do well I could not help but think, why would you do that? Especially as even the 8 core was struggling, I would have looked for a cheap Phenom 2 X6 1100T myself if I could not get the FX-8150 or FX-8120.

But maybe that is just me?

LOL.


Sunday 21 October 2012

LOCK ON FLAMING CLIFFS 3 :|.... DROOL!!!

If you are like me and long for a state of the art flight simulator you might want to check out ...

LOCK ON: FLAMING CLIFFS 3

...over at YouTube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut7bQSCkgyA


NEW PANTS PLEASE!!!

WMD by EPSON SX-535WD

After years of admiring their products but ending up owning and using printers by just about everyone else I have now been using a combo printer and scanner I adore...

...in fact whenever I look at it I think about getting something higher up the scale?!

This was an EPSON SX-535WD Printer.

Wireless works extremely well, last one was ... tricky and a different company.

I have had all the major makes over the years and all were good in varying degrees, though they did all suffer from the exact same problem and I hope this model is NOT affected by it.

My first printer was a Lexmark and over they years I have owned HP's and a particularly nice Canon PIXMA (wireless).

I always wanted an A3 Printer and would by one tomorrow by Epson if I could and these were even considered the number one brand way back when I was at University!

This was one of the necessary things I simply had to buy and at the price I found it for, around £70, I just had to buy it then and there as it was less then half price?!

Had I had the funds, mind you, I would have bought the up to date model that had just been launched and maybe in the Spring of 2013 I might just do that!!

First time I would have updated a product BEFORE it died!!








EXAMPLE OF EXEMPLARY SERVICE at AMAZON RE-SELLER


I purchased a game, attempts to keep me occupied AND grounded, called DCS Black Shark. You can see from my other blogs that one of my interests is gaming and on the PC.

Well I purchased this game on Amazon but through a re-seller and after some time and alot of trouble getting it installed I then set the resolution to match my screen, 1600x900, and the mouse pointer VANISHED?! It was there just ... invisible! I then spent several more hours moving the mouse and GUESSING where the pointer was on the screen in an attempt to change the resolution down to 1280x740 in the hope that the pointer would re-appear! You can guess from the time this took I was that successful but I eventually achieved it and my pointer e-appeared!

I then went back into options and maxed out all graphics and then stupidly tried again with maxing the resolution out and oh back to the guessing games again.

Eventually and after what must have been four hours or more and now late I hit the instant action button after plugging in my Thrustmaster Joystick. Then I was presented with a dialogue box requesting a code! Grrr!!

I searched high and low but there was no code and I was now 'chomping at the bit' and got to that stage where you have an irresistible urge to turn your laptop into a Frisbee?! Turns out after a search on the Internet that there was supposed to be a paper based Quick Start Guide in the DVD case with the disc that contained the Serial Code and was missing.

Very miffed about this I contacted the seller and was somewhat sarcastic while trying to remain calm.

The guys name was Daniel and although he reacted a little to me sarcasm to which I reacted a little too he then made some offers and did en exemplary job of customer service.

I still cannot and have not played the game I have had my eye on for over a year now but it matters not, lol. I Was that impressed with the fact that the conversation did not degenerate into some spat and his handling of it that I decided that I would use Daniel and his Store, called Trade-N-Go, on Amazon of a fine example of what CUSTOMER SERVICE SHOULD BE LIKE, even in a worst case scenario and a miffed off customer.

Now we only need to clone Daniel and each one in charge of the Energy Companies, Mail Order Catalogues, eBay, Public Offices and a long list of OTHER organisations and we will be sorted.

You might want to read my other blog, asaintcalledallnights.blogspot.com, to see what the hell I am on about on that subject, lmao.

Friday 19 October 2012

DCS Black Shark Problems

OK after a long wait DCS Black Shark finally turns up...

Freezes several times trying to install it! Then manage to get it to install and takes forever and I am thinking I hope this is good for the wait and trouble?!

Then it runs fine and I go into options and set resolution at 1600x900 only to find my mouse pointer then disappear and I have to GUESS where the mouse pointer is?!

Not solve that problem as yet and downloading a patch for it but turns out it is 450MB?!

Manage to go to instant action only it asks e for a serial number that the product has not got WITH IT?!?! GRRRRRR!!!!! Supposed to be printed on back of Quick Start Guide but not included in the case nor the envelope, what you get for saving £2.00?!?!

Email the seller on Amazon and rip a few shreds and god help them if they say anything stupid?!?! LOL, especially as I paid a little under the full price and have now discovered there is a DCS Black Shark 2?!?!

Emailed the publishers about both issues and hoping they will provide a serial but I seriously doubt it so likely going to have to return it for a refund?!?!

That is what you get for doing things the CORRECT WAY?!?!

Man alive, why do I bother?!?!

LMFAO!!

Wednesday 10 October 2012

PS4 and XBOX 720 ABSENCE

Despite my ongoing reluctance to own a console I am always interested in the technology that they employ and the companies they turn to for the hardware.

Of course their are THREE main contenders that everyone looks for when I new system is going to be released in the not too distant, oh OK DISTANT, future...

Intel for the CPUs
AMD for the CPUs and GPUs (Graphics)
nVidia for the GPUs or (Graphics)

The two main machines, Sony PS4 and XBOX 720, have been curious by the absence as regards rumours or leaks to what technology they will use. Sure and as ever there are no end of rumour mills circulating the net and like with the major PC CPU releases and next iPhone there is no end of falsification going on.

But we have been given and shown details of the upcoming Wii U but nothing on the big two?! I had envisioned earlier in the year that this Christmas, 2012, there would be at least one release and that about now the Internet would be awash with pictures and details but there is nothing?! Curious.

Now I remember seeing pictures of the Sony PSP over a year before its eventual release and when launched was exactly as pictured in one of the top gadget magazines, Stuff I think it was. But other then the silly mock ups that some poor soul spent months faking, god knows why, there is nothing concrete and no talk of a launch as of yet.

I cannot help but wonder if these big two are now highly suspicious and the rivalry, and possible of what is at stake, is causing them to keep their cards close to their chests until the very last minute! Indeed the PS4 was rumoured to make an appearance recently but instead we got a new SLIMMER THAN SLIM PS3?! Why would you do that? With a machine that is now very long in the tooth why on earth would you plough money into it? A game of misdirection? Who knows.

So I wonder whether or not one or both are secretly planning a pre-Christmas release but do not want the rivals to know, or indeed one is having difficulties with finalising the machine, or indeed BOTH the machines, and do not want the other to know?!

Well it will be interesting to see hat happens and despite the talk of a Spring 2013 release I really do think that in this economic climate that a pre-Xmas release is surely a GIVEN!

A couple of months time will surely show us the answers to that.

GAME! STAR CITIZEN by CHRIS ROBERTS

OK here is a bit of news that came to me via Twitter and PC Format Magazine...

An old hero of mine, Chris Roberts, who started off with the old Wing Commander series of games has been working on something for the last year.

To say that I was astounded at what I have seen, heard and read would be one of the greatest understatements of my life.

I had often wondered what had happened to him and it seems he took a ten year sabbatical after burning himself out but now is making a comeback!

He also wants to utilise the full power of not only TODAY'S PCs, consoles not allowed I am afraid, but also of the power that will be available over the coming year?!

To state his exacts words he wants to "MELT YOUR PC"?!

OH .. MY .. GOD!! I think I just soiled myself?!

Now here is a link and I suggest you watch the video and listen to this guys views?!

http://robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen/

I am rather excited and I will fall on my sword if I do not have the RIGHT PC built by the time this is launched!!

Curiously the talk is a 2014 release but in all honesty the massive amount of eye candy in the videos and the humongous scale of the battleship interiors are head spinning and it looks like a great deal is already done to me?! Another 18 months to launch makes me wonder just how big this thing is going to be?!

Prepare for salivating and get out the dinghy!!

Tuesday 9 October 2012

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!

My gaming controllers ..

..both are pretty good bits of kit for the prices and as the flight controller I would like off Thrustmaster is the A10 Hotas and at around £300 and something similar for a wheel these are not bad at all!

First up is the ...


Thrustmaster Joystick T-Flight Stick X (around the £30 mark)
used for X3 Renunion only



Next up is the ...

Thrustmaster GT Experience Ferrari Control Wheel (around the £40 mark)
used for DiRT 3 and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit


Monday 8 October 2012

A NEW RIG PLANNED!!

Well the winter is approaching ... or here now it feels like with the weather whirling around outside my door and the time has come as it does each year for me to build a new rig.

Only most years I never manage to do this, or end up doing it for other people who fail to realise and appreciate how much money you have saved them before you go back to doing other chores I happen to be very good at, like looking after their aquatic pets that resided outdoors, indoors, temperate, tropical and brackish! I digress.

This year I am planning for this to be different and oddly most of what I had wanted for several years now are about to have their second generations launched while others have come down to more sensible, albeit still high, prices.

I shall now list these...

AMD FX-8350 CPU
AMD RADEON HD 8870 Graphics
256GB OCX Vertex 4 SSD or 128GB x2 RAID 0
GIGABYTE 990FX MOTHERBOARD

(usually would use Asus motherboard  and likely Crosshair V (Z?) but not after what I'm reading!)


It is currently the 8th October 2013 and the CPU is due to be launched in a couple of weeks? Hopefully! The graphics I was surprised to read is about to be launched too and could be about the same time or up until December but with my luck probably January. But then I might not have the cash until then at any rate, if I manage to acquire it at all?!

Despite the so called 'bedroom or armchair' experts out there harping on about IPC and that multi-threaded programs and games are not out there so more (moar) cores are pointless I will go this path...

...as despite what the so-called 'bedroom and armchair' experts out there (oh did I mention suddenly biased magazines I used to buy regularly?) they have failed to take a couple of things into consideration...

i. Multiple cores have ... well been about a bit and software DOES exist to take advantage of it, more appears all the time and within a year or two there will likely be a great deal coded for it and this coding improves over time which leads me onto...

ii. Benchmarks are just GUIDES, they are not the be all and end all, you did not code them, these things are intricate, the algorithms, branching and coding that goes on in code is ... A MINEFIELD so please do not presume to know firstly how they work and what the results they give out actually mean. Not even I would do that!

iii. Making stupid statements that you cannot game on the first Bulldozer chips is ... well just showing you up for being STUPID!!! I should also add that if you are only worried about IPC then you cannot call yourself an enthusiast as, well you can only be running Windows and one or two others at the same time?! Odd this is I mean you do not need all these cores?! But Windows will use a fair few on its own, then you may have other programs running, playing music while video-encoding while typing a letter with a Browser Open watching the football updates? No?!

Oh dear! These new fandangled PCs can do that you know?! LMAO.

So the statements 'this is too many' or 'that is too powerful' and 'you will not need that' and 'that is more than enough' are the oldest and therefore the most stupid and naive statements to ever be made in the computing world.

i.e. In the first year of my degree at Middlesex University BSc Single Honours Applied Computing my fellow students, some older and some younger made all the above statements to me when I bought my machine! This I reacted to with a confused look and a raised eyebrow to which they said 'WHAT?' lmao and I then explained what I did here. Maybe they thought I could have got away with using my original computer, a Commodore VIC-20, or my Commodore Amiga, or a ZX Spectrum or even a ZX-81?!?! My PC righ at the time? I will list the main ingredients ...

Pentium II
3.5GB Hard drive
Matrox Graphics Card, late switched to a Voodoo Card
GOD KNOWS WHAT THE RAM WAS!

I will never use the power of the CPU but was having slow downs in 6 months. I will never use up the hard drives 3.5GB and they were shocked when I had actually scaled this down from 4.5 when I ordered from Mesh Computers?! Was running out of space on this hard rive in 6 months and regretted scaling down?!

Dare I actually make my own mistake and actually admit that I have had the feeling that it is hard to see this continuing for very much longer? Admittedly and with the graphics being as good as they are, even on my Phenom X3 HP Pavilion DV7 and the AMD Radeon HD5470M Graphics that the results I get are even impressive on this compared to the last time I played games. Sure there is room for improvement but a gargantuan amount less so that there once was and even the current graphics to end on desktops is way, WAY beyond what this is capable of.

Indeed with these armchair experts regularly scoffing at people asking if they can play Elder Scrolls V Skyrim on a leptop with my graphics chip in it my Fallout 3 (also by Bethesda) looks pretty neat on my machine and I am constantly wowed by things I see and I keep thinking 'my God what must these games look like if your running an AMD Radeon 6000 or 7000 series or nVidia 480, 500 or above??

With these things in mind and with the 8000 series Radeon and 700 series GFs not far behind I would likely be salivating at the lips at the thought of the looks of the games that would max out these cards? I also ask myself how long a wait that would be?! One year? Two years? Three maybe?

Oh no, what am I thinking?! The PC Games industry will be dead by then?!?! LMAO!

Tuesday 2 October 2012

RAM WEIRDNESS!!

OK side stepping way from the main blog for some attention to be given to my other posts.

On Sunday previous something rather bizarre occurred I can not quite fathom out so I am just going to explain it here, this is despite half expecting it but how it took place makes no sense whatsoever.

As I stated previously I have a 64 Bit Windows 7 laptop with an AMD Phenom X3 and a Radeon HD 5470M Graphics Chip. I failed to realise it could actually run games, listening to idiots on forums, and only realised it could 8 months after owning it. The laptop only had 3GB Ram installed and knowing this was really not enough for WIN7 64 I wondered if doubling it would make a difference to gaming as well as the OS.

Now as I stated previously many seemed to state that this would have no affect, I did not ask I only read forums whereby others actually asked on the same sort of system and going from 3GB to 6GB. Everyone seemed to say know, probably the same experts that want to talk about why the latest processors do NOT perform as they wanted and making future predictions on many companies that they think will no go bankrupt because of it, God that are business experts too?!

Well I went ahead and ordered it and I did post something about it the fact I tested it with Elder Scroll Oblivion and there appeared to be no difference whatsoever. Slightly disappointed as I thought that with so man programs vying for that fairly small 3GB would be slowing things down across the board.

Well on the previous Sunday one brother and my nephew turned up and the have and play a PS3. I had spoken to them previously and my renewed, and long overdue, interest in gaming and the games I had been playing. So they turned up to take a look and a play as they had not played them themselves.

They worked there way through Elder Scrolls Oblivion first before spending an hour on DiRT 3. My brother wanted to go but his son said he wanted to play Fallout 3 for awhile before they did. So he played that while we chatted about different things. Eventually my brother became interested in the game and went and sat beside his son and watched him play. Once they left Vault 101 in the game, and after complaining it was slow and I said just wait, they were making statements like 'oh this is really good' and 'god look at those graphics' the latter of which surprised me. Yes I had previously told them they were good but they owned a PS3?!

Now I had not played Fallout 3 for a couple of weeks and therefore way before my RAM turned up, concentrating on Elder Scrolls and X3 Reunion in the meantime. But after listening to them and trying to remember the tricks, tips and different creatures in the game I then wanted to play it after they had left.

Later on a put it on and was in an underground section and before long managed to get back out into the Wasteland. Only when I did I walked about 20 yards before I noticed something and stopped and thought 'hang on here a minute!' The game was different, VERY different! Suddenly the scenery looked much better than before and the lighting was also different. Reflections were different too but most of all water was radically different looking to how it was when I last played the game?!

I was dumbstruck and it seemed like a different game the improvements were that great but the odd thing is I had NOT changed any setting at all. None! I had messed around with the setting and what it was on previously was the most I could get away with but now it was all very different and running just as smoothly as it had done before. I had wondered whether my nephew had altered the settings but then remembered I ran the game!

The only conclusion that I can come to is that some features I turned on, which seemed to make no difference to my eye anyway, did not run purely because it needed more RAM and that when I installed the 4GB stick suddenly these features suddenly switched on?!

Now I might have expected to have raised to setting a little and improve the visuals with the new RAM but I did not expect things to IMPROVE on their OWN.

What makes it even more bizarre is that the game is by the same company as Elder Scrolls and is a younger game! But I cannot get Elder Scrolls any higher on the setting ans still run smooth while Fallout 3 looks better anyway and now far better?!

BIZARRE OR WHAT?!

God I stayed out of this tech for too long!! LMAO.

Now I cannot leave Fallout 3 alone for 5 minutes lmao.

Wonder if I would get away with it with another 4GB, which will then run in DUAL CHANNEL (twice the speed)??

Pushing my luck no doubt lol

Sunday 30 September 2012

DOUBLING THE RAM

Well finally and after an inordinate amount of time my 4GB Corsair RAM Memory finally turned up and was quickly installed inside my laptop.

I got a couple of shocks when I opened the case as firstly there was a second and empty drive by and SATA connector, scratched my head on that one, while the memory sticks were actually manufactured by Samsung?!

I removed the 1GB stick and swapped the 2GB stick into the second slot and fitted the new 4GB Corsair in place, close it back up and booted up Windows 7.

The one thing I knew I could run to see if there was a difference was Microsoft Office, albeit STARTER, as just running Word would previously take around 15 seconds before I could start typing?! I ran it and there was a slight pause and just when I was starting the think nothing would change it then appeared in a flash, not gradually as it would previously. Oddly, and likely due to being held in the Cache Memory after this clicking on it would have it appear IMMEDIATELY and this had never happened before, not even close!

So that was nice!

Was not sure, as I have been out of this tech research for awhile now, if the Graphics shared portions of RAM with the OS so did not know if it would make any difference to actual gaming at all and though frame rates might not be affected, only played Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion this far, I did suspect strongly that the 3GB RAM having these games and Windows 7 vying for it would make a difference. I had some curious peculiarities before hand and often Elder Scrolls would crash upon starting and this would always be due to another program firing up late and while Oblivion was first loading. Rather amusingly this particular and late loading program turned out to be a gaming one called Origin which for all intents and purposes seems to be Electronic Arts answer to Valve's Steam!

Well I have run Oblivion a few times and have not had that crash so far.

What I did think would change is that I ordered a game that I thought was somewhat ambitious to try and run if I am honest and this was only because I was having doubts I would get the previous versions to run on Windows 7. That games is the car rally game called DiRT 3 and in this the between game graphics go slow, VERY SLOW. Indeed when I first installed it I could not believe how slow it started up and how long it took to get to the first menu screen, choosing options or even just moving around the menu was absolutely excruciatingly painful and I nearly un-installed it and tossed it to one side until later in the year.

This was just bad programming and all other games I had installed checked out the graphics hardware first and then set it appropriately so it was instantly smooth and I could then easily adjust the settings and bump things up a bit. Even when the hardware was NOT recognised the settings were suspiciously always set to MEDIUM.

DiRT 3 did not do that and gave me the impression this was a none starter, but NO. I now run the game and it runs very smoothly but not before several fist clenching and keyboard headbutting first!! LOL!!

I have not run DiRT 3 yet nor any of the others, X3 Reunion/Need for Speed-Hot Pursuit/Fallout 3 yet so cannot comment on them. But as far as X3 is concerned it would bot be relevant because this game runs on MAXIMUM SETTINGS?!

Oddly and I have not looked into it yet the resolution on X3 only goes up to 1600x900 and I am curious about this as I am sure that this is a resolution for a 4:3 screen and kept thinking surely the monitors were largely wide screen 16:9 when this was launched? So now I think I should have bought a more up to date version of the game!! Like one out about now called X3 Albion Prelude or the earlier X3 Terran Conflict and maybe even the forthcoming X REBIRTH?! Now that running on maximum settings on my laptop with no problems would be kinds cool while at the same time disappointing as if I did manage to build a desktop PC at some point I would want that new X REBIRTH to look as good as is possible on the latest hardware!

So I guess I hope it would run and look fantastic on my laptop while only being on medium setting?! HAHA!

After seeing the empty hard rive bay I have been thinking now about an SSD and an Upgrade Kit and I am also wondering if another 4GB stick would no make much of a difference.

Now telling myself to resist these urges for more RAM and an SSD!!

Friday 28 September 2012

INTERNET: JEKYLL & HYDE PERSONALITIES

Side stepping away from gaming for a post I would like to speak about the Internet and the strange effect it seems to have on people that use it, and this means everyone everywhere though there are exceptions.

Now I used the Internet from very early on in its infancy. I got into it in a big way when I first attended Middlesex University in 1997 and back then Social Sites were non existent. Chatting to people far away and overseas involved using something called Internet Relay Chat (or IRC) and one program that was popular to do this was called MIRC.

Programs such as this were purely text based, there were no profile picture and such like and pictures were normally only sent via an email. Indeed even pictures themselves were normally poor as digital cameras were barely in existence if at all.

What I immediately found was that back then, and this still occurs today, is that people took on a different personality while on line to the extent of a Jekyll & Hyde type persona! This was sometimes to the extremes, like a girl called KatGirl who was bold, brash and in your face if you was a man trying to get her attention on line but when I met her she was as quiet as a church mouse, and many shocked guys that got nowhere with her as regards to meeting her were keen to ask what she was like in person.

Now me personally I found that a surprise while amusing but most of all quite interesting. Like an animal let out of its cage going wild or someone who felt no affects of inhibitions. Unfortunately this did not work out quite so well for me on other occasions. Like an ex-girlfriend who was tall interesting and attractive who was emotional and heavy handed towards her partners, though I never found out until AFTER that I was not the first!! This often also involved object regardless of how sharp nor how heavy. AS for me, well I was trying to finish my degree at the time?!?! HAHAHA!

What I get nowadays with more access to the people I interact with is that I can often find that people behaving a bit odd have highly professional jobs?! I remember the early days when people would state that only oddballs go on the Internet and that is all you meet. Well I often find that a great deal of people I have got to know HAVE later turned out to be oddballs, like my evil ex lol, and that what difference is there. I then explain that if the Internet encourages people to show their real sides, regardless of what level of odbballness is revealed, is this not better than having a rude awakening later on? Much scratching of chins have occurred after hearing that philosophy over the years.

Indeed and rather oddly and even in the early days I become very well known and popular for one reason, other than my caring personality of course lol, and that was that being nice and genuine on line also was the same they experienced upon meeting me! Many people that had spent months or even YEARS chatting to me and from the USA, Australia and here in the UK would quickly ask others that had met me in person! They did have what they called 'Channel Meetings' where even people in the USA would fly over but these were normally held centrally and in the UK that means Birmingham and I just could not get there. The responses to what is 'allnights' really like was answered with 'oh TRUST ME (or one occasion TRUST US) he is EXACTLY THE SAME in person as he is online'. Of course if this conversation involved women would be followed by my 6 feet in height, muscular but not over the top physique and my blue eyes! LOL.

Over the years as other forms of contact have become available this has not only never changed but shown me that regardless of who they are or what they do, for a career or job, it seems to follow suite with almost everyone!

Unfortunately this results in a fair portion of lacking in sincerity, and I am not singling out women in this oh no. Indeed and as I was known as the nicest guy in the two IRC channels I chatted in, #England mainly and sometimes #London, I was also about to become intimately involved, or was to extent already, the nicest woman in the channels called Sarah, or known as Sarah1. One guy from Hull in the North East of the UK, known by a great on line name as Toytown, had the rare privilege of meeting us both. He told everyone else that us now becoming romantically involved was indeed as perfect in 'real life' as it had been on line.

However Sarah had become INVOLVED with me while trying to find out about her boyfriend and his whereabouts. Though I knew of this boyfriend, named Craig and called MrSarah1, turned out he was a lecturer at MY UNIVERSITY?! How weird that was! However when I checked around on line and checked the university databases some rather bizarre things had come to light...

First off his 32 inch waist and 44 inch chest had the correct measurements but just in the wrong order.

Secondly he had become romantically involved with several other women, unknown to each other though they KNEW each other! One was a married woman called Rebecca, or Red due to her fiery hair, who had her bags packed and about to leave her husband?!

Thirdly his Ferrari was indeed a Renault Laguna!

Also and upon checking the Database at University turns out he was NOT a lecturer he was some kind of mature associate student who had subsequently disappeared?!

Bit of a shock all that was and not what I expected at all, I expected to hear there was some kind of family tragedy that would explain his disappearance!

As Sarah rang me for any information I had gleaned from my various sources it suddenly appeared that she was not only ringing me a great deal but staying on the phone for quite sometime. She was also still ringing me AFTER the reality of Craig's bizarre double life was out and known to all. Her daughter has the same name as my own too. One time I put this too her and she admitted she had found me and my personality somewhat of a strong draw and had realised that she had wanted to continue talking to me and that Craig she had not cared for the details discovered for several weeks now?!

She also explained how her daughter had said to her one morning during the walk to school 'Mummy? Why are you all bouncy?' lol to which a friend of hers said 'Yes Sarah! What gives? There is definitely a spring in your step' to which she then informed them about me.

She was some way away from me in Wolverhampton but we were planning on me going up there when suddenly the phone calls stopped. Then i started to hear onlone that CRAIG had reared his head online and had found out that I had discovered all this stuff about him at the request of people that had been duped. I was told that he was informing people he was going to hospitalise me and this continued until one time I appeared in the channel when he was doing his bit...

'Err HELLO CRAIG!! I understand you are going to hurt me in several ways and that you are going to hospitalise me?! Well yu KNOW what campus I am at, my last lecture finishes at 3pm I will wait in the rear car park for you, I need the exercise!! If you do not like what has happened and what I have done for the women you have duped well then you should not tell them things and make promises when all you are is a fat lying bastard!!!'

He went offline much to the roar of laughter to everyone, even those that were originally on his side and I mean guys by that. Some that had engaged in arguments with me over him approached me later and stated they were sorry, he had lied to them and a great many men and women and that I had done the honourable things and hoped we could be mates. No problem and always take my hat off to anyone who accepts and admit they were wrong. I will always have an increased respect for anyone that does it but unfortunately it IS a rare thing in this world. Just look at MPs?! LOL!

I never got to see a picture of Sarah, though she had seen one of me and liked it. I was only told by Toytown that the description I have of Princess Diana with Celine Dionne's eyes, or was it the other way round, was spot on.

I was blown out for Craig who did not last long, annoyed Sarah's daughter by always hogging, arguing and fighting over the Playstation, or whatever games machine it was at the time, lol.

That was one of the very few times when I really regretted not getting to meet someone and cursed the outcome of it as I know that meeting each other would have ... sealed the deal. But then I did tell myself for the longest time that I likely had a lucky escape. In truth I will never know!

Was not the last time something like this would happen and nor the worst as that was yet to come. Oddly this was only recently and took place on Facebook. Oddly it was her, along with the aforementioned and late friend Ken, that encouraged me to actually write a book about my experiences that I cover in my shock blog! A book that then became two!!

That story I will cover another time in a post where I talk about my findings, and inevitable disappointments, of Facebook and sites just like it.

CIAO!

Wednesday 26 September 2012

HP PAVILION PHENOM X3 AMD RADEON 5470M err I think and GAMES

Just thought I would add this for now while my main BLOG POSTS take a break for a couple of days, well other than one document just arrived i need to put up of my wasters of tax payers money, lol.

Now I have managed to install and play several games and before I list them and the effects I have experienced I will point out something about one of them I love and that would be Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion. In the local Game store I saw the 5th Anniversary Edition for sale and asked this chap if he knew his game engines and Elder Scrolls stuff, Windows 7 and graphics cards tech? He said yes and I waved Oblivion in my hand and stated my above listed tech details.

Ohh no I doubt it! Not the M version of the graphics, was his reaction.

Now I would not dream of attemoting to install Elder Scrolls V Skyrim on my laptop but thought I might get away with the previous game in medium settings and told him that.

Oh not really no, he repeated.

Oh that is a shame as I play Fallout 3 by the same company and thought that as that was OK this would be too?

You play Fallout 3 OK on your laptop?

Err yes and on medium to high settings too.

Really?

Yes.

Oh well if you can run that OK then Oblivion will be fine, it is older version of the game engine!

PURCHASED! PLONKER! LOL.

Another issue I had was that not only was i surprised at the games I was able to install and play but was also surprised at the level of detail I was able to achieve, been out of games for too long.

Part of that is that this was NOT the laptop I wanted to buy and even so I wanted to build a RIG but needs must and thanks to all the corrupt government departmens and the lying and cheating this has not been possible for some years now. But I only had 3GB Ram in this laptop when I really wanted a machine with 8GB in it.

I was aware and recalled how 32 bit operating systems can only address up to 4GB of memory and this wall was hit some years previous, despite what some bright sparks are stating around forums on the internet, like its 3GB or 2.5GB, or 2.7GB or 3.25GB or 3.5GB?!?! Morons out there that have never heard the saying 'a little bit of knowldge is a dangerouns thing'?!

Oddly running my Office Start Up for anything was slow, Had resisted installing Open Office as Office starter was pre-installed, so thought gaming would be a no-no.

But as I run Windows 7 64 Bit I thought that if I increase the RAM to 6GB, any day now the 4GB stick will arrive, that this would dramatically increas the performance of Windows 7 and at the sametime free up memory for gaming. But looking around forums for confirmation the same idiots with all the different answers state no?! Well wait a minute these are not very bright statements, it was already clear that Windows 7 64 eats up RAM and with only 3GB which will also likely be shared with the built in graphics surely you have not worked out your figures correctly??

Now if you already had, say for arguments sake, 6GB or 8GB installed and was going to 12GB then it is highly likely that there would be no difference. But with a 64 Windows 7 hogging 3GB when it needs more than 4GB?!

Well I will find out in a few days and the plan is to then get the exact same memory stick again so that I have 8GB and with the two sticks they will then work in DUAL CHANNEL mode and therefore produce another incremental jump in speed. Whether this is noticeable or not time will tell.

As for the games currently running on the above specs these are...

Edler Scrolls IV Oblivion by Bethesda  (RES: 1600x1080)  Med- High
Fallout 3 by Bethesda                              (RES: 1280x768)    Med-High
DiRT 3 (yes I DID type THREE LOL)   (RES: 1280x768)     Low-Med
Need for Speed : Hot Pursuit                 (RES: One of the above lol) MED
X3 Reunion                                             (RES: 1600x900 annoyingly) HIGH 4x AA 8x AF

Need to edite this and take note, I dunno what the AF and AA are of the above, DiRT does have trouble with what I have more so than the others followed by Fallout 3.

Now another winter is fast approaching and another year where I think about building a rig for games playing during the crap weather. Only now I am desperate because ...

Elder Scrolls V Skyrim!!!!
X REBIRTH (Rebuilt X Universe Engine?! Supposed to be out 2012?!)
Metro 2033
Crysis
FarCry 3

along witht he fact that next Playstations XBoxes imminent and therefore gaming and graphics will move up a very big notch and the PC, which in all honesty is already in that notch, well get the games to use the power of graphics cards now coming out?! Oh boy! Total Immersion expected!!! LMAO!

NEW PANTS PLEASE!!! LOL

So after listening to idiots and wasting EIGHT MONTHS I could have been gaming I am now drooling that if things look like they do on my current laptop then what are these new fandangled, albeit way overpriced (see below) graphics cards like?

The only downside to this is the astronomical prices I have seen of these cards. It is utter madness and considering it would likely take two years for a game to utilise it makes the figures even more ridiculous...

I remember some years back when top end cards being released hit the £400 mark and remember thinking how stupid that was. Even THAT is more than the £370 I paid for the laptop I am currently typing on! But today I am seeing cards of £700 or more! Are they crazy?? LOL.

Then I read that the number of PC computers sold is falling ... WELL DUH!!! YAH THINK!!!

Oh and the best one is the console guys all taking about gaming on the PC is dead and at an end soon..

WELL NEWS BULLETIN ... I have heard this argument every year for as long as I can remember. In fact I was the owner of an Amiga and watched as PC titles became popular, over took the Amiga and me and another Amiga enthusiast and a right boffin with computer tech started talking about switching over. He said he wouldn't but ended up making the jump before I did.

If there is a market then there is A MARKET!!!

I will eat my hat if this ever happens! LOL.

After all they are ALL computers and are just housed in different boxes!!

I will also throw myself off the nearest bridge if all that is on offer are plastic slabs and touchy tablets?!?!

Hehe.

Friday 7 September 2012

Cores & Clocks

Well I seem to in a situation i have found myself in many a time in the past only this time the goalposts are shifting. This is certainly true when reading the many 'opinions'expressed on the internet.

I have been around computers a very long time and I find some of the opinions and stuff being banded about as absolutely astonishing. especially considering that their opinions are that and only that and have no way of knowing, even trained hardware engineers, what a product will perform like BEFORE it is launched.

Especially sad or those individuals who continue to run down the underdog, AMD in this case, and praise the hell out of Intel. The latter a company that is awash with anti-trust issues and has been for years. The ones that take an expensive processor and then disable parts of it, effectively BREAKING IT, and then sell it to you at a reduced cost.

I never seen a customer who could not afford to by a kitten and asking the store manager if they have any cheaper ones with legs missing?! Madness and I have hated this method for as long as I can remember.

At the moment I am waiting to see the results, or benchmarks, of the Piledriver based AMD Vishera CPUs as the long awaited Bulldozer chips were somewhat disappointing. I was aware if someone that called himself JF-AMD who made remarks about his opinions are his own and it was obvious he worked for AMD.However he made a statement in one forum thread I was keeping an eye on for details on BD and I have to interject, god do not ask me to recall, when something he said was just not true. I told him so and suddenly many things he had been claiming my mind simply put in the trash-can, pardon the pun! At that point I suddenly realised that this was going to be disappointing and when it turned out thus I was also disappointed that AMD had allowed him to do what he did and likely put him up to it.

This was not the company I had come to admire over the years and what they did was absolutely stupid and even more so considering the money and salaries being banded about the company! *sigh* I only hope they have now learned their lesson and do not even think about pulling anything like that again. I also hope that the situation is improved with the Piledriver cores in the upcoming AMD FX CPUs?!

I would have thought so as there would be some improvements and each of these in turn should mount up with

1 Minor alterations that improve the IPC
2 Clock Frequency
3 Lower Power Consumption

Now what I am hoping is that the IPC will improve and whether this turns out to be 3% or 20% the fact that the base frequency will be higher will then increase the speed of the processor overall. This will, and can only ever be proved by, real world benchmarking....

But then even this has become a grey area if the mixed Bulldozer benchmarks are anything to go by, as nothing makes any sense in reality. In other words some things it is good at, as the naysayers hmm no intel fanboys... hmm intel reps state 'cherry picking', and some it is not. Sorry people it is either crap or it is not, if a processor can run SOMETHING well then there is obviously something up with the coding on the other parts and this is NOT down to the processor. Yes at the end of the day you CAN take this into consideration for your purchase but you simply can NOT blame the processor. These are the pitfuls of attempting innovation. But be honest about it, do not lie about it as no one will respect you for it and it will not work anyway.

The Harbingers of Doom predicting the demise of AMD and the speed desktop CPU crown also has me in fits of laughter. Why would you do that? Just ...WHY? It baffles me it really does. You look stupid for a start, you preach about things you obviously know nothing about, or maybe you actually WORK for Intel?! You talk about how easy it is to make CPUs, do it in your bedroom do you, and best of all is you have just handed over to Intel £600 to £2000 you were completely ripped off for and then you go around arguing and defending them and attempt to bring about the very thing Intel want, AMDs demise?!

Blind leading the Blind except that it is not. God the Executives at Intel must be crying into their Lattes with laughter over people like that. I can imagine the lunchtime chats "'ere this spotty teenager in his bedroom went and upset some AMD enthusiasts by saying this..." LMAO.

The funny thing is I have noted something about these newly designed BD based CPUs and that is that with the improvements and the upcoming die shrink, though not as small as 22nm (nanometer) as I understand it, this will allow a big jump in the clock frequency and this is not mentioned a great deal in many of these forum heated debates.

Now this comes in, again as I understand it, with the Steamroller CPU and I believe the die shrink will be 28nm, though I hope its smaller even by a small margin. I would estimate that a 22nm AMD CPU whether it was Steamroller, WITH its improvements, or the soon the be released Piledriver Cores I would guess that the GHZ would be a fair leap forward to what they are currently doing.

If you consider that Intel's Ivy Bridge was NOT the big leap these spotty Intel fanboys claimed it would be and that Intel's Haswell (hmm did someone mention my name?) might not be a big leap either it is not far fetched to state that at the time of Steamroller the margin of difference will be pretty minimal and even non-existent.

Also what I find is irritating is that these Doom Mongers serve themselves no good at all....

Her dopey if AMD bring out a faster chip then so will Intel!!

'Oh you can't play games on them'?! Oh please!!!!

I for one would hate a world where Intel has no competition and some magazines that cover hardware, primarily thinking of Custom PC here, might want to remember that as if it goes back to a snails pace then so will magazine sales and many other things besides. Intel would not give a crap about that though!

Not wanting to sound like JF-AMD this is just my opinion and I definately do NOT work for either company, and no Intel Haswell was NOT named after me at all!!!

LMAO.

Just food for thought!

Saturday 25 August 2012

Introduction to a bizarre world of electrons

Well another of my loves and the one I decided to do my BSc Single Honours Degree in.

This one will be more for GEEKS that go by as at the end of the day, and I di hide it well, I am a geek at heart. Though many women have bene pleased to see that on meeting me i am not scrauny and bespectacled and look nothing like a geek, lol.

This is also not on of, what is known as, fanboyism and there is many of that on the inetrnet and to such a degree it makes me want to vomit repeatedly.

No vomit inducing moments on here I can assure you.

Hope viewers get to enjoy this...