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Hey bud,

Have to agree, while I use 2 x 4K monitors on my main box, I only game on one (use 2nd for productivity stuff).

I have tried 'surround' gaming more than once and for many reasons, it just never took.

Btw, the U2913WM is an exceptional monitor, I used one on my music PC for a little while and I really enjoyed it (was great for Reason racks ;) )

For the kind of work you have said you do, I think it is an excellent choice.

Cheers for the info about the u2913 mate, as always, hands on experience info

4$$$k monitors are out of my league :) Plus i only run one 780, not double SLI titan black ninja stuff you're sporting ;)

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Cheers for the info about the u2913 mate, as always, hands on experience info

4$$$k monitors are out of my league :) Plus i only run one 780, not double SLI titan black ninja stuff you're sporting ;)

Actually, they aren't anymore :)

http://us.hardware.info/reviews/5269/samsung-lu28d590d-review-4k-becomes-affordable

I was worried about the TN panel but it is surprisingly good and cheaper than the U2913WM.

If you are doing a lot of color correction, I would probably still lean towards an IPS panel but the U28D590's panel is far better than most of the TN's I have used.

Unfortunately, the problem with gaming is not the price of the monitor, it's the price of the cards you'll need to get decent FPS :(

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Hi guys, I'm new to the forums, so apologies if I'm posting in the wrong place.

I've decided to shell out some money on a new PC mainly for playing ARMA III, and anything from the Total War series. I am currently using an AMD Athlon II X4 645. I didn't realise how old my PC was until I saw it's build date recently......how time flys.

I'm wondering whether or not to buy an Intel processor this time round. There seems to be a lot of mixed reviews, then there's the fact that one brand is considerably cheaper than the other. I am looking for a good processor for the range of games I choose to play, but I want the best bang for my buck. I can see from various benchmark results etc that the Intel processors consistently score the highest, but does it justify the price tag?.

If I were to go for an AMD, I would be buying the AMD FX8350 Black Edition. I like the look of the i7 4770k, but is it too expensive for my needs?. I'm not looking to push 100 fps or whatever out of my games. I just want a smooth, stable experience on preferably high settings.

I am also looking for a suitable Mobo to go with the CPU, and also RAM. My GPU and HDD's will also be receiving an upgrade, but at a later date.

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

AMD Athlon II X4 645

Biostar A780L3G

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 2GB GDDR5

8GB DDR3 1333 Mhz

Corsair CX600 PSU

Many Thanks

Andy

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Hi guys, I'm new to the forums, so apologies if I'm posting in the wrong place.

I've decided to shell out some money on a new PC mainly for playing ARMA III, and anything from the Total War series. I am currently using an AMD Athlon II X4 645. I didn't realise how old my PC was until I saw it's build date recently......how time flys.

I'm wondering whether or not to buy an Intel processor this time round. There seems to be a lot of mixed reviews, then there's the fact that one brand is considerably cheaper than the other. I am looking for a good processor for the range of games I choose to play, but I want the best bang for my buck. I can see from various benchmark results etc that the Intel processors consistently score the highest, but does it justify the price tag?.

If I were to go for an AMD, I would be buying the AMD FX8350 Black Edition. I like the look of the i7 4770k, but is it too expensive for my needs?. I'm not looking to push 100 fps or whatever out of my games. I just want a smooth, stable experience on preferably high settings.

I am also looking for a suitable Mobo to go with the CPU, and also RAM. My GPU and HDD's will also be receiving an upgrade, but at a later date.

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

AMD Athlon II X4 645

Biostar A780L3G

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 2GB GDDR5

8GB DDR3 1333 Mhz

Corsair CX600 PSU

Many Thanks

Andy

AMD is only for budget bastards though ;)

Go for a 4670K. 20% more cost but I believe it's very worth it. AMD boast high GHz and tons of cores but they're weaker than Intel any day of the week.

You can build a complete computer with a 4670 + 760 for about $1050 at least.

I believe that will max out any Total War game except maybe Rome II and do basically as well as is possible in ARMA3.

Buy something such:

Win 8.1 64-bit or Win 7 64-bit

MSI Z87-G41 Pc Mate

Intel Core i5-4670K

2x4GB Corsair Vengeance (or basically any other brand) 1600 MHz memory

MSI GTX 760 Gaming 2GB (or 770 ditto, a very cost-efficient upgrade)

Storage

ASUS DRW-24F1ST (or any other working DVD/RW, or Blu-ray if desired)

XFX Core Edition 550W (or other cheap 400W+ with “80+â€)

Some $75-100 case (Corsair 330R should be quiet)

I counted that to about $1050 a while ago based on Swedish costs excluding OS I believe.

You may also want to add a cheap fan such as the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo, if the CPU stock cooler is too noisy for you.

It’s the cheapest computer I could build with quality brands without giving up the ability to overclock which I believe is comfortable.

Examine the motherboard before buying. I’m not sure if it supports more than 2.1 speaker systems. More elaborate motherboards are the ASUS Z87-A and MSI Z87-G45 Gaming.

When it comes to storage it’s quite difficult to say what you need. Above I’ve counted the cost of a 1/2TB (basically the same cost) 64MB cache HDD (a Western Digital Blue or a Seagate Barracuda) but if you have the money an SSD is definitely something to consider. Samsung 840 Evo is the best and I’d say 250GB is a good size if you’re willing to go $200 over budget or however much it costs. SSDs are quicker and quieter. Currently I have 250GB SSD + 1TB HDD and I’m sort of wishing I went with a 500GB SSD and no HDD instead because of how noisy HDDs are compared to SSDs in my otherwise quiet computer. So anyways…

Can’t say how quiet the computer above will be because I’m not sure how much noise the 4670K makes with the stock cooler and I’m not sure how loud the XFX Core is but I believe it will be comfortable.

The cost for the above should be about $1050, then about $100 for Windows and alternatively $30 for a fan, $60 for a 770 instead and $90/$150 for a 120/250GB SSD. Then you can bling with a nicer case… buy a 1920x1080/1920x1200 monitor if you haven’t already… mouse, mousepad, keyboard, speakers, headset, external back-up drive, PC console controllers… many options.

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Are there any pics of performance for i5 & i7's around, with fps counters etc, or videos perhaps. Just pottering around in the editor or in mission, whichever.

What would the frame rates likely to be, in say 250-300ai mission, no more than around 50-70 meeting at once, sp or mp, for i5 or i7, mid-high end system ?

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I got a new computer and I still sometimes drop frames in Arma 3.

What is the next upgrade?

Another GTX 770 for SLI or moving over to an SSD instead of HDD?

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I got a new computer and I still sometimes drop frames in Arma 3.

What is the next upgrade?

Another GTX 770 for SLI or moving over to an SSD instead of HDD?

Post what your new computer has or we can't really help you. There is also a lot of settings tweaking possible to gain performance in Arma 3.

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Another GTX 770 for SLI or moving over to an SSD instead of HDD?

SSD is best option, even for Arma2, Arma engines like CPU and because islands are huge, much bigger in details and size than in other games , they require to read data fast, so SSD is option to go for, not another VGA imo

i have PC cheaper than some people have for gaming and i have good FPS, i even had more fps than people with much better VGAs , cause i put Armas on SSD :) SSD does the job

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I got a new computer and I still sometimes drop frames in Arma 3.

What is the next upgrade?

Another GTX 770 for SLI or moving over to an SSD instead of HDD?

I think a SSD would be a better choice than SLI. Indeed, if you have got a gtx770, the framerate drop is sure not due to your VGA. which CPU as you got? and which RAM? i think you could buy a not too large SSD (32/64GB) to use only with games you're playing, and, if you have a old RAM model, you could buy a faster RAM (2000 MHz).

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SSDs do not increase or affect FPS.

They are a fantastic upgrade and they will speed up your load times dramatically but they absolutely do not influence FPS.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/12/10/hdd_vs_ssd_real_world_gaming_performance/3#.U2kr7XwnIUE

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/12/10/hdd_vs_ssd_real_world_gaming_performance/5#.U2krWnwnIUE

SLI works in A3 but it is subject to CPU bottlenecks. Basically, if there is a lot of AI or geometry (buildings etc), your FPS will drop regardless of how many cards you have.

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SSDs do not increase or affect FPS.

SSD is not only faster loading map, when map is loaded than engine can display renders (FPS), when engine is busy with loading, than engine cannot display all renders so engine is "busy" with loading maps (i say about difference on Chernarus-like size maps)

i noted better game (Arma2, big maps, maaaaaaaany units, large battles) performance on SSD,

maybe difference is not visible with 4 units on small maps, but try difference when you make big battle with 200 soldiers, 30 vehicles (i usually make such missions for myself editing CWR2-OFP missions),

when i changed HDD to SSD with Arma2 my performance increased , of course Arma engines basically count most on CPU,

maybe Arma3 engine is different (when it loads units, textures it is not try to display) but on Arma2 i noted small difference in fps (but mostly lack of "white" models or "lowpoly" models from far LODs like LOD 6 )

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Nooooo... suffering from BSODs lately while playing ArmA. First BSODs in my whole Win7 time, and I have it since the beginning...

Already happened third time for me now and only with ArmA. One was something in ntoskrnl, now it talks about memory. Well I know the hard way to investigate. Will start with mem checking.

Anyone knowing, there was a tool from MS to analyze crash dump .dmp files, do you have a name for me?

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SSD is not only faster loading map, when map is loaded than engine can display renders (FPS), when engine is busy with loading, than engine cannot display all renders so engine is "busy" with loading maps (i say about difference on Chernarus-like size maps)

i noted better game (Arma2, big maps, maaaaaaaany units, large battles) performance on SSD,

maybe difference is not visible with 4 units on small maps, but try difference when you make big battle with 200 soldiers, 30 vehicles (i usually make such missions for myself editing CWR2-OFP missions),

when i changed HDD to SSD with Arma2 my performance increased , of course Arma engines basically count most on CPU,

maybe Arma3 engine is different (when it loads units, textures it is not try to display) but on Arma2 i noted small difference in fps (but mostly lack of "white" models or "lowpoly" models from far LODs like LOD 6 )

SSDs don't increase FPS Vilas, insisting that they do is just spreading FUD.

In terms of raw video game performance our conclusion is that upgrading to an SSD made absolutely no difference in gameplay performance. Honestly, we did not expect that it would, hence why we held back for so long on upgrading to SSDs. In every game we tested the performance fell within the margin of error for a realworld gameplay run-through. We tested some very demanding games as well such as Battlefield 4 and ARMA 3. However, no game showed any performance advantage with the SSD versus the HDD. The framerates were the same, the frame consistency was the same.

Here is what was better with the SSD, as you might guess; load times. Loading each game was significantly faster on the SSD. Transitioning maps during gameplay was also significantly faster on the SSD. Loading times were improved, and we had a better experience overall simply because game data loaded faster.

They help with loading and streaming and that's it.

@ Tortuosit - Try 'Whocrashed'

http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed

Edited by BangTail

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Thanks Bang! Unfortunately I don't always get a dump file. But today I did:

On Thu 08.05.2014 11:47:32 GMT your computer crashed

crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\050814-13494-01.dmp

This was probably caused by the following module: nvlddmkm.sys (nvlddmkm+0x195940)

Bugcheck code: 0xA (0x8, 0x2, 0x1, 0xFFFFF800034D0E83)

Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys

product: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 337.50

company: NVIDIA Corporation

description: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 337.50

Bug check description: This indicates that Microsoft Windows or a kernel-mode driver accessed paged memory at DISPATCH_LEVEL or above.

This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.

A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: nvlddmkm.sys (NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 337.50 , NVIDIA Corporation).

Google query: NVIDIA Corporation IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Will try to use an older version of NVidia driver. Version 335.23... Hasn't ever happened before the latest NVidia driver.

EDIT: Thanks again, Bang. I think I'm fine now, played with the old stable NVidia driver for over an hour with no crash.

Edited by tortuosit

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Thanks Bang! Unfortunately I don't always get a dump file. But today I did:

Will try to use an older version of NVidia driver. Version 335.23... Hasn't ever happened before the latest NVidia driver.

EDIT: Thanks again, Bang. I think I'm fine now, played with the old stable NVidia driver for over an hour with no crash.

You're welcome mate :D

I know there are a lot of 'kinks' in the 337.50/61 branch so you might want to wait a bit and then try a newer implementation.

Edited by BangTail

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Noooo. Bluescreens again.. Sad part of the story: Must be hardware, which ever... Sometimes computer turns off even at BIOS level. Sometimes keyboard not working at BIOS level, sometimes BSOD prior to Win7 login, sometimes BSOD while playing, while not playing, sometimes computer turns off while doing something....

Oh no no no, from experience I know that will take ages to find out. Mainboard... Power... RAM... Oh it sucks.

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Noooo. Bluescreens again.. Sad part of the story: Must be hardware, which ever... Sometimes computer turns off even at BIOS level. Sometimes keyboard not working at BIOS level, sometimes BSOD prior to Win7 login, sometimes BSOD while playing, while not playing, sometimes computer turns off while doing something....

Oh no no no, from experience I know that will take ages to find out. Mainboard... Power... RAM... Oh it sucks.

I think you have the right suspects.

First you check if all cables are connected well.

Then check the RAM first,

then the PSU

If both are OK then it is likely the MB (wich means it will get expensive).

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I think you have the right suspects.

First you check if all cables are connected well.

Then check the RAM first,

then the PSU

If both are OK then it is likely the MB (wich means it will get expensive).

Not expensive (5 yrs of warranty - www.greycomputer.de, their gaming department is http://www.combatready.de) but of course I need to sort things out first, because of course they cannot easily find the cause of problems. I like that shop btw, I bought many computers there for business, but also for my private computer and gaming. I'm not interested in building it by myself any more - hey, I'm 40+, it's also a question of time.

The computer is so full of stuff, huge cooling towers in there, so cabling has to be all properly done. It's good to have people offering such service and who know which parts go well with others, because I couldn't do that. My DIY times in hardware are over since my 30s.

Edited by tortuosit

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Hey guys I´m searching for a new Headset

Currently I have the Roccat Kave 5.1 wich has really great sound, but it is starting to have some malfunctions.

My Realtek onboard Soundcard can provide 8 channel audio

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8P67_PRO_REV_31/

I wouldn´t mind a headset with USB audio if it has a build in souncard that is on the same level as the one on my MB, especially since Realtek seems to have problems with some games, especially console ports that use WWise where the sound levels get completely borked.

Alternatively I would also be happy with a good pair of Headphones if someone suggests a good microphone.

What is important to me:

Powerfull and clear sound.

Good directional detection in games.

It has to be comfortable.

Decent Microphone.

Any recommendations?

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I have an interesting (read annoying) issue right now, something is calling wavepad.exe and I can't figure out what the hell it is, this keeps popping up:

ygen1w9.jpg

When I go to task manager I see this:

3iLxXV3.jpg

I uninstalled Wavepad (it was in another folder), I removed every entry in the registry relating to wavepad.exe I checked event viewer and can't see anything throwing up wavepad.exe anyone any ideas?

I did first move wavepad.exe to that folder and sure enough instead of an error message something would simply launch wavepad, but I've no idea what it is!

I've even disabled Program Compatibility Assistant in the hope that stops it!

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Try using the sysinternal taskmanager, it should show by wich process the programm was started.

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Thanks, installed and waiting for whatever it is to try to call wavepad now, it's like fishing waiting for a bite ;)

Edit: Think I've solved it, for some reason there was a task scheduled related to wavepad, found the specific task and deleted it so we'll see if it happens again! :) sysinternal taskmanager definitely helped, will keep that installed! Thanks again Tonci :)

Edited by Placebo

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EDIT: Posting an updated list later...

Edited by sesdelta38

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Anyone using a Strike 3 KB, would like to know what they're like. Want something reasonably priced and fairly lightweight to carry. Just to replace my ageing V7 KB, which is showing signs of wear a little.

I know the size of the Strike3 is the same as my G19, going off advertised sizes (or thereabouts), which would suit me a little better than the V7, which is larger all-round.

Edit: Gone for the Strike 3 KB, looking forward to it arriving. :)

Edited by ChrisB
decided

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Here are my Computer specs will this run arma 3 good?

Processor AMD FX-4130 Quad-Core Processor

Manufacturer AMD

Speed 3.8 GHz

Number of Cores 4

Video Card AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series

Manufacturer ATI

Chipset AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series

Dedicated Memory 1.0 GB

Total Memory 4.0 GB

Memory 8.2 GB

Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition Service Pack 1 (build 7601), 64-bit

Service Pack 1

Size 64 Bit

Edition Home Premium

Display Maximum Resolution 1920 x 1080

DVD TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224DB ATA Device

CD TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224DB ATA Device

Drive

Size 465.7 GB

Free 296.3 GB

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