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Rhammstein

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About Rhammstein

  • Rank
    Corporal

core_pfieldgroups_3

  • Interests
    Simulation, Aviation, PC.
  • Occupation
    IT/IS - Audio Engineer

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    DHRammstein
  • Biography
    Pilot, Producer, love Philosophy
  1. Rhammstein

    I have it on PC, Steam, buying iMac 27

    Tough situation you're in, so I figure I'll take a moment to chime in just a tad. I've been in audio production since 2003, mostly on PC, but; A good friend of mine, who's an audio engineer (got me started) used to use nothing but Mac. Basically because of tons of work we've done together, I've got a pretty decent amount of experience, producing on both PC and Mac. For a number of years, he was pretty commited to Apple, although we've both been producing on PC exclusively for about a year now. We both run Pro Tools on PC, and I've used both versions, so long as you have a good interface, there's really no difference, none that I'm aware of. Is there a specific piece of hardware that has you shooting for a Mac? If so, I'd have a look around and see what exactly is available. Honestly, you'll need to spend quite a bit to get even mediocre gaming performance on a Mac, and well, even my friend who preached Apple for years, wound up building PC, and using the money he saved to buy one hell of a nice audio interface, along with some additional really good software. It's really worth considering, although I realize you may have expensive hardware keeping you on OSX, this was his problem, for years. But the minute he decided he wanted a new machine, he realized how cost friendly it was building PC, and applying the money saved specifically to audio goods. Myself, I've never felt the need to buy an Apple product for production, but I certainly understand many enjoy it. But times have changed a bit, and production can be done on either. My bad for the length, thought maybe I'd post my experience with it. I use Pro Tools, FL Studio, Qbase, Sound Forge and some other smaller apps. I use a number of different devices and mics, all on Win7 x64 :) Edit: I should mention, I did really enjoy working on OSX. There certainly weren't any problems, and well, during the Vista times, it was pretty nice in some ways, but for production, nothing else really. Since Win7 though I've gotta admit, it feels 50/50 to me, so, it's not that I'm pro-PC necessarily, but if budget is a concern, and there's no hardware holding ya back, it's certainly worth thinking about. For the price of an iMac, that 'could' do what you want, well enough, you could build a rock solid PC workstation with both the video and audio hardware capability needed.
  2. Rhammstein

    Arma 2 Crossfire Specs

    I get fantastic frame rates with everything on Normal and High, with max AA and AF in 1680x1050. However in that benchmark I lag a bit also, even on my workstation it lags a bit, but as stated, it's a Cpu bottleneck. Never in game have I had the frame rate drop like it does in that benchmark, it's pretty extreme and not a perfect example of your typical game session. Your Cpu should do as well as mine I'm sure, probably better, except in extremely high resolutions, for some reason AMD does better there. As for upgrades, well it's a tough choice.. A second 4890 would be pretty nice, although.. it would require more power, and you won't get support in "all" titles, but most, and certainly the ones that matter, will support it. If it were me, I'd sell the 4890, and go with a Radeon 5870. Less power, less heat(vs two 4890's Xfired), DX11/SM5.0/DirectCompute support (Yay tessellation and DC shadows), this would be a smarter choice in the long run. Far less power consumption, less heat + better airflow in the case, and the ability to run two 5870's down the road. The difference in idle power consumption alone is worth going with the 5870. It's just better to get all that performance in a single package, for those reasons and more. Although...you can get a second 4890 for really cheap now..
  3. So how is it I'm using a WD Caviar Green 7,200rpm SCSI drive and I have absolutely no issues at all? I have every setting in the game maxed, I've only just started using AA. Running at the res in my Sig. I realize how the game engine works, I just don't understand why so many people seem to have issues with their drives, when mine, nothing special at all, gives me no issues. Regardless of my specs, the HDD is certainly the bottleneck I would think, yet I have no problems of any kind, ever. Are my high end specs somehow negating issues I would see if I were on weak hardware? Why don't I have these issue so many seem to have, and it certainly seems very important to many of you. ....in all honesty, the game runs with absolute perfection, unreal framerates, no stutters, ever, and I don't see foliage or buildings or anything loading late or blurry/fugly and then getting nice and sharp, not when on the move, not when zooming, just your typical LOD as you move around, and it's virtually unnoticeable, just like any other game I play....
  4. Dude you shouldn't have any issues, if so it's because you're running the game on that IDE drive. My second rig runs the game perfectly, maxed out (No AA, everything else maxed) never below 60fps and always very much higher, not the PC in my sig, my second rig, specs: It's an HP Elite with a 850w Psu and 4890 Psu AMD Phenom II 925 2.8Ghz 2MB L2, 6MB L3(This Cpu isn't too much quicker than your Intel Quad) AMD 785 Chipset 8GB DDR3 Dual Channel Ram XFX Radeon HD 4890 (Much more powerful than a GTX 260 tho...) 1TB good hard drive, but nothing crazy like RAID or SSD. I mention my second 925 rig because it more closely resembles about the performance of your rig, except for your HDD issues and a weaker Gpu, and slightly weaker Cpu. You should be able to run the game perfectly, because this rig I mention runs it absolutely perfect, incredible really. Graphics entirely maxed accept I don't use antialiasing on this rig in Arma 2. Anyways I spend most of my time on my main rig in my sig. Windows 7 Pro 64bit seemed to help, and of course keeping the HDD healthy. Your Gpu is enough for the game, so is your Cpu, anyone that says otherwise, well, I very much disagree. If you're having issues, it's your HDD or drivers, most likely that fugly HDD. Do you have enough space to install Arma2 onto your better drive, with your OS? If so, I'd try that, and then you'll know, you'll see a difference or you won't. But your specs should run medium perfectly regardless. Hell I played on medium with playable frame rate on an Athlon64 X2 6400+ 3.2Ghz dual core/4GB 800mhz/4890....
  5. Rhammstein

    Patch 1.05 Satisfaction Survey

    +1 What he said. I'm kind of hoping some kind of Windows Live integration can help with the DRM issues, but what then of opensource? Uhg.. I don't know. But absolutely must give props to BIS for doing it exactly how they did, and still are.
  6. Rhammstein

    Patch 1.05 Satisfaction Survey

    I just reinstalled since upgrading from my X2/4GB/4890 rig, and it ran well then, but now, wow...all four cores between 60-85% at all times, it's great. The old x2 rig was very good tho, still is, 3.55ghz, great memory, lots of it, vista 32 bit, and a 4890 (950mhz core, 1025 mem, stable!) and although was very playable, it always had frame rate issues, especially near towns with a lot going on, etc etc. The new rig (Windows 7 Pro x64), I'm only using a simple 1TB HDD, nothing special, loads perfectly, no issues, the frame rate (I even tested putting the 4890 in this PC to see how much difference the 965 with 790 chipset would make, just incredible) went up nearly 40% in the rough area's, and in area's where it's wide open, or at night, the frame rates are VERY high and awesome. It's so weird, now... The game runs so smooth I can't get used to it, it surprises me every time I load in, it's just incredible how much a newer platform can help. I won't go so far to say it's "all" because of the Cpu or Chipset, but there's no doubt my old platform was holding that 4890 back, I proved it very easily. Now, heh, it just runs so absolutely perfect, I don't think the frame rate has fallen below 60 one time since finishing this PC. I can honestly say Arma 2 had a lot to do with this build, except I wound up not going with a RAID setup or any SSD solution, at least not for now. Yet still, absolutely no issues, the hard drive keeps up "perfectly"! (I honestly never thought this possible after watching the performance monitor lol, CRAZY HDD activity while playing!) I must say, I did run 1.4 a little before the 1.5, and there is improvement, it seems more optimized, it uses more of my available Ram(I'm now using 8GB DDR3 dual channel 1066, not the triple channel, had too many problems with it, and haven't noticed any difference at all, plus I'll OC when necessary) and eats up all the Vram necessary, and before with 1.4 I don't recall the sim using so much of the Cpu, I think it's "really" taking advantage of that L3 cache, and it's chewing right through the physics and AI like it's nothing. GREAT WORK And totally badass to see for myself first hand the difference a patch can make, and thanks for the content, I'm a pilot, so it was a real treat :)
  7. For the cost of that Cpu I'd get an AMD Phenom II black edition/Motherboard Combo. For around $200-$300, depending on the performance you want, you can get one hell of a Cpu and overclock the living hell out of it. These Phenom II's are fantastic overclockers. For nearly the performance of an Intel Extreme I was able to get a great motherboard (For great memory and Xfire support) and the best memory on the market! But I understand some people just love Intel. Um, you could certainly run Arma II, no problem with that i5. Although for the same price of that i5 and the GTX 260 you can get a Phenom II quad and a Radeon 4890, and the 4890 is ~ with a GTX 275, and OC'd ~ with a GTX285. Also IMHO Arma II runs better on Radeon Gpu's. It just so happens my favorite games are almost all Euro of origin, Arma II, all of the Stalker games, and they all (Absolutely and proven for the Stalker games) run better on Radeon Gpu's. I was as blind & obedient a Nvidia Fanboi you could ever find until about 10 weeks ago. After realizing DX support is more important that Physx/Cuda, I walked away from Nvidia, and I'm so happy I did. Games that support DX10.1 run so kickass good, even the low end Radeons match medium-high end Geforce cards because of the 10.1 performance gains, removing pipeline bottlenecks and much more. Hey this isn't all addressed to you hehe, this is just a rant. Although I meant what I said about a Phenom II and a 4890, Hell you could purchase my setup for under $600(Not including the cooling solutions, high end board and platinum memory, and a case to do it proper| However you don't need an OC like mine, nor the memory, nor the mobo to run Arma II), and there's no game or application that can bring this PC to it's knees, maybe 3Dmark Vantage, but not really, anyways it's the only 3D app that really shows the limit, the brick wall I guess you could say.
  8. Rhammstein

    Radeon HD5870 troubles

    Interesting, you moved from ATI to another... all other games work and it can handle benchmarks that'll get it about as "hot" as possible, and also pull every watt needed... Huh... Well just because I've seen it happen, uninstall the drivers, completely. Uninstall catalyst, remove the folders, leave nothing behind. Before hand download those same newest drivers as I can assure you they work with the game. Restart, install the drivers. Go to Microsofts website and grab the newest redist of DirectX, regardless, install it. Try running the game again, also, if you'd like beforehand, as well, attach a dxdiag just to be safe, and why not afterwards. Any other details you can think of? Edit: I know there's an issue with this game and running 8GB of ram, but you ran it before with the other card so.. Maybe someone else can drop in, but I'd try what I recommended first. Get a nice clean install of drivers and d3d.
  9. Rhammstein

    How old are Arma2 Players?

    Sry to run off topic but I see people mentioning OFP, is this the like, original game that gave birth to Arma series? I'd like to try it, is there a demo? Is it worth my time? Btw I don't mind old games/graphics, gameplay is all I care about..
  10. This is a grey area, where people give very bad advice. A quad core is usually a newer Cpu than a dual core, it usually carries more cache memory, more instruction sets, and also more likely to be produced on a smaller die, making less heat, using less power.. Also a quad core, typically being newer, at least a generation ahead of a dual core, is more optimized, just a smarter Cpu. Other things to consider, with a quad core, when you're gaming it's far less likely to have any issues when your computer does something in the background, with 4 cores Windows has more resources and can allocate better, also, quad cores, since they're "likely" newer, most support faster memory, newer and better chipsets, etc etc. There are many many qualities to having a quad core. I will say, in many games a highly clocked dual core may outperform a low clocked dual core, but it's only a matter of time before quad cores destroy dual cores all around, including gaming. If you can get your hands on any quad core 2.8Ghz or higher, IMHO, always take it, over "ANY" dual core, it's future proof, better optimized, better for Windows... I could go on for 2,000 pages and get technical, but there's no need. Just avoid slowly clocked quad cores, this way even older games will run just as good, but still probably better.
  11. His post is confusing, all missions use the same area and graphics engine. He may be pointing out a bug or something, that would make sense I guess.
  12. Sorry absolutely no way that video card is gonna run the game, not even in the losest settings, lowest resolution. Cpu is okay, quad cores helps, but it's a bit slow, about the slowest of all Quads, rather modern Cpu's period. If you can build, you can do much better..... If you want advice post or PM. Nope, for the same reason I posted for the above PC you listed. This PC will run it. The 9600GT is about as fast as a 8800GT, just uses less power and makes a hell of a lot less heat. The Cpu is better than all the others, not just the speed but the front side bus and cache. I don't know what resolution you plan on running, but I wouldn't recommend higher than 1280x800/1280x960 if widescreen, if standard 4:3 no higher than 1280x1024. Antialiasing (AA) disabled, Anisotropic Filtering (AF) no higher than 4X. Post processing low or disabled. Experiment with everything else, but you won't be able to use any setting higher than medium, and you may be forced to use low on some. Shadows require a lot of shading power, I'd keep that on low, but this will really hurt the graphics. If you can run it on medium it will look pretty good.
  13. Sorry there's absolutely no way you can run this game, even if you turned every option to low or disabled, at the lowest resolution possible. It's tougher for notebooks in general to run high end games. You have plenty of Ram, but your Cpu is pretty much the worst of all dual core Cpu's, and what's worse the speed is extremely low. And as said above, you have no real video card, which is "required". It really sucks, maybe you have a household PC that's somewhat modern that you can slap a decent video card in, ATI 4870/ Nvidia GTX 260, with 4870's as low as $100 and the GTX 260 as cheap as $140. Otherwise you're out of luck, until you buy/build your next PC.
  14. Nah, haven't made any Arma II video's yet. I guess I should look into that tho, having the video power I have I may be able to record great stuff in HD. Anyways trust me I didn't pay what anyone may think for my two 295's, a friend bought them, and then had a very, very serious cash crunch (property tax!) and so he called me and offered them at not much more than half price, still in the box, unopened. Couldn't pass it up, it inspired my new build, which is in my sig. No way I'd ever drop two grand on video cards, I'd invest that into my Terminator.
  15. How can I tell if Arma II is using both of my 295's? Because when I monitor temps, at times they're the same, at times they're a few degrees celcius apart... With everything maxed, running Fraps in the background, area's with nothing going on the frame rate skyrockets over 160-200, but during normal gameplay it hovers around 90-100, explosions and chaos and lots of buildings, vehicles, men, crazyness, it falls more, but never below 60, and that's all that matters to me, to maintain 60^ no matter what. When a frame rate falls below 60, and you're used to it being above or at 60, it effects the sensitivity of the mouse, the input of the mouse, naturally. Anyways I think it should be higher, although the game engine isn't exactly optimized, so maybe it's using all 4 Gpu's. I just wanna better way of knowing besides watching temps, my setup keeps things so cold it's hard to even tell that way, cause they're the H20's, water cooled, and with my case I have a ridiculous amount of air and ventilation, it's not accurate to judge by temps for me. Please help. If it's not using both, well, these cards are pricey and I want my moneys worth when I'm playing Arma II, I'm sure anyone can understand that. Also, I'm replacing the BFG 9800GTX+ 1GB with a BFG GTX 260 Core 216 in about 3 weeks, in my old rig. So when friends come over, it's more fair for lan gaming. How much difference is there, I've heard about 50% from BFG. My only resource is TomsHardware which I used for years until recently, their numbers are terribly off. They showed a 4870X2 running behind 2 9600GSO's in SLI, that's insane.. There were many other examples of this, I no longer trust them, they show only an improvement of around 15%, between the 9800 and the 260, no way... Can anyone shed some light, I mean the 260 has a little slower core clock and shader clock, but it has almost double the amount of shaders, and a 448-bit memory interface, vs a 256-bit interface for the 9800. I'm thinking the higher the resolution the bigger the difference, but even at 1680x1050 the GTX 260 should be a nice upgrade over the 9800GTX+.
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