Accessories+ Hardware Latest Topics

Core i5-4690k build

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 15:04:47 +0000

I will make a new thread with the parts, but this machine has been upgraded.

I am hooking a friend up with the CPU, Motherboard, RAM and H20 Cooler from this install. I jumped to a Devil's Canyon i5-4690K CPU. Same video card, 850w PSU, Case and add-on sound card. I also went with the Corsair H80i cooler.

So far, I want to say the extra CPU cache is smoothing out a few games I was playing on my 570 GTX in the old rig. Performance seems smoother, granted I have only tested with Watch Dogs and a Final Fantasy XIV benchmark.

49" Odyssey G9 DQHD 240Hz 1ms G-Sync Compatible HDR1000 QLED Curved Gaming Monitor

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 06:23:07 +0000

I came back to 240 Hz displays but went with a Samsung instead. Been using a 49" Odyssey G9 DQHD 240Hz 1ms G-Sync Compatible HDR1000 QLED Curved Gaming Monitor. I have been using this daily since June 15th 2023 / 2023-06-15 and continue to use it as my primary PC and gaming display.

Split screen / PIP / PBP Works great. Downside coming from a 4K TV is that this PC display only has 1x HDMI Input. 2 DisplayPorts are nice but more HDMI would be more handy for console switching. I get by using a 4K HDMI switcher. I do get a clean 5120x1440 pixels at 60 Hz over HDMI. DisplayPort gives me 240 Hz at the same 5120 x 1440 resolution.

Downside for consoles, you are really only getting 1080P on PS5, despite PC based resolutions being 2560x1440 when using Picture-In-Picture / split screen mode. This is excellent for daytime and multi-input use at the same time. Use case being to play Switch on one half and lookup Zelda Tears of the Kindgom shrines and info on the other side or to have streaming content playing.

I see some slight text ghosting on PC at 240 Hz but it is pretty low a level to be seen. I don't notice it when playing console and particularly PS5 Games. This was my initial test when I picked up this Samsung Gaming PC Display. That being said, if you mess up and play PC at 60 Hz on games like Diablo IV, the ghosting from contrast changes would be huge and was immediately present. Making sure my PC was in 240 Hz mode at full or partial resolution, along with setting the monitor settings on device to Fastest Response Time, resolved this. In monitor settings, Turn the setting for Game > Adaptive-Sync to No to allow you to select the Fastest Response Time.

The Samsung Device Menu on this monitor is also more robust yet easier to use for direct setting control, than the Asus ROG device was. With response time set to Fastest, the color contrast was cleared up. This applies to HDMI @ 60 Hz as well. Speaking of HDMI, you can do higher refresh rates for PC and OS X / Mac, but not on PS5 for 120 FPS mode titles. It does not have HDMI 2.1 support. but does have VRR support. Version of HDMI support is 2.0 on this model.

The base gives some height and horizontal adjustment options. Vertical adjust is not too much but since you can raise the display and also change angle / pitch up and down, along with left to right, this is awesome for standing and angling the display away and looking at it from the side.

I added a desk photo and also you can see my Secretlab chair that I got last week. 5 year warranty and it is also way more comfortable than any prior chair I have personally bought yet. Got Wifey her chair last month and she loves it, so I ordered mine last week in the XL model, as seen with the Minecraft Creeper cover included.

Gen 12 Intel i9-12900KS vs 11th Gen i9-11900K Hardware with a 3090 RTX, plus a Nvidia Geforce 4090 RTX, Nvidia 3050 + 980 GTX

Sat, 17 Sep 2022 22:51:29 +0000

Got a 12th Gen Intel to go with my prior / other setup with a Gundam board and 11th Gen Intel.

Specs for the 12th Gen Intel build ( as of 2023-09-26 ) :

Quote

System: Micro-Star MS-7D30
CPU: Intel i9-12700KS
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z690 FORCE WIFI (MS-7D30) (all builds)
Memory: 109 GB free of 128 GB @ 4 GHz

GPU: Nvidia 4090 RTX ( 24 GB )
Display: 5120 x 1440 - 32 Bit colors
OS: Windows 11

Honestly so far, the 12th Gen has been a bit fucky to have good temperatures using Corsair H150i Elete LCD and H115i (dual 140 mm fans and radiator). I have a 3090 that runs well but hot damn, long graphics card. By that I mean, most depth used in a case and I had to move radiator upward for depth for cases. Angry 12th Gen Intel.

Edit! 2023-08-04:

Keep in mind I only recently resolved the reboots. Power supply was too weak!
I had a 750 W PSU trying to run the 12th Gen and a 3090 RTX. This works for an 11th Gen since that CPU pulls around 250 Watts give or take. 3090 will grab 350 W and a 12th Gen can pull about 350 W as well.

Fun fact as the 212 F was not causing reboots but is more due to poor contact with the default CPU Clip. As I mention later in this thread, I added a 12th and 13th Gen CPU socket block to assist in an even mount. Be cautious of over-clamping to not spread thermal compound out from between cooler and GPU, even with CPU support block installed.

Original post continues below:

Corsair Crystal Series 680X is my primary case for the 12th Gen. I still have some airflow tweaks but main goals are re-gooping thermal paste. For a nice thermal cap test, run https://www.userbenchmark.com/ benchmark. I also learned Cyberpunk 2077 also has a benchmark now. It's in the settings in-game.

Typing this wave of post on the 11th Gen before I redo thermal compound again. I saw the GPU price drops and things, went a little ham and got a 3090 RTX for $1350 instead of the $2000+ it debuted at in May of 2022. https://rog.asus.com/graphics-cards/graphics-cards/rog-strix/rog-strix-rtx3090-o24g-eva-model/
Specs: https://rog.asus.com/graphics-cards/graphics-cards/rog-strix/rog-strix-rtx3090-o24g-eva-model/spec/

The liquid smooth FFXIV Benchmarks are maddening. Baby watches them with me as well.

Speaking on this GPU, check these dimensions.

318.5 x 140.1 x 57.78 mm
12.53 x 5.51 x 2.27 inches

Haha yeah, 330 mm is the max for the Corsair 680X case. 4000x says 360 mm GPU but I would think front radiators would be tight. I moved mine to the top in the 680X case.

Off to operation. Here are some UserBenchmark results from the 11th Gen Intel with a 3050 RTX in here.

Quote

UserBenchmarks: Game 85%, Desk 111%, Work 86%
CPU: Intel Core i9-11900K - 106%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3050 - 74.7%
SSD: Samsung 980 Pro NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 453.7%
SSD: Samsung Portable SSD T5 500GB - 89.6%
RAM: Corsair CMH32GX4M2D3600C18 4x16GB - 109.3%
MBD: Asus Z590 WIFI GUNDAM EDITION

Peak Core i9 11900K Temperatures for package and Cores max was 155 F. / 68 C.

Collecting these from HWMonitor.

CPU Powers Package Max 195 W

Powers IA Cores Max 181 W

Editing in to share below benchmarks with 3090 in the 11th Gen Intel setup.

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/55377598

Current run 9/19:

Quote

UserBenchmarks: Game 252%, Desk 109%, Work 255%
CPU: Intel Core i9-11900K - 106.4%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3090 - 243.6%
SSD: Samsung 980 Pro NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 450.3%
RAM: Corsair CMH32GX4M2D3600C18 4x16GB - 108.7%
MBD: Asus Z590 WIFI GUNDAM EDITION

ROG ASUS 144 Hz Displays

Sat, 18 Sep 2021 02:45:53 +0000

Weird bit of a duplicate issue I see on PS5 when playing on ether my XG49VG or older PG248Q.

Bit of ghosting I never saw on the Samsung PC displays. I only notice this at 60 Hz on HDMI with the PS5 so far. Going to retest on a TV display as I had flaky HDMI on the LG 43" I was using before the circuit issue on that model. Glad I get the extended coverage from retail so I can drop if it is hard not doing it to specs.

I still see this for any input at 60 Hz, HDMI or DisplayPort. I put in a support ticket but I suspect this is a known issue on these screens? I can cheat by playing into my capture card to see the console do 60 FPS, while my desktop is running 144 Hz. No shadowing issue on the screen in that case. Keeping in mind I am tricking it with a capture card.

Blue Yeticaster microphone and retractable arm

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 17:12:21 +0000

Hola to you. I recently picked up a Yeti Microphone in a Yeticaster bundle. Starting out immediately, you will save quite a bit of money on this bundle versus buying each piece on their own. Included for $200 USD are:

Yeti USB Microphone ($130 by itself)
Compass Premium Microphone Boom Arm ($100 as a single item)
Radius III Custom Shockmount ($50 as a single item)

If you can find these in stock, $200 is quite a deal. The audio quality is superb based on my buddies in discord. The boom arm is awesome for having desk space and being able to push microphone out of the way when finished.

This microphone has a physical mute button! You can also pull the USB out of the microphone as the arm also has a cable management guide and quite long USB cable. You can plug a headset into the microphone to test levels but I have not used that yet. 😛 There is a headphone volume control on the front of the mic.
On the rear of the microphone you have Gain and Pattern. Gain being the level microphone activates. I have to test more to try and wash out my mechanical keyboard that comes it a little bit, but not super loud. Pattern is basically the waveform of range microphone will pickup on.
Switchable Polar Patterns are:

Stereo
Omnidirectional
Cardioid
Bidirectional

I have this as a recording source in Streamlabs OBS and adjust my microphone level to not wash out anyone else chatting from discord. If you are looking for a quality microphone with means to not eat space on your desktop, I would certainly pick the Yeticaster bundle up.

As for software and drivers? Literally plug-n-play. Windows picked it up with no applications needing be installed, it just acts like a regular microphone, as ones that come on laptops do.

Panasonic TC-39A400U

Sun, 17 Aug 2014 02:09:01 +0000

Hola. I have been thinking about a new display and by the power of a $250 sale and my paycheck, I picked up a 39" Panasonic TC-39A400U LED TV. This is my current main monitor :)

At first hookup, my 1080P resolution was showing off the screens horizontal range, looking almost zoomed in. I started with a custom resolution, but that was not a valid fix for me, long term. Luckily in the menus (Picture | Advanced Picture | Aspect adjustments) I was able to set the screen format to FULL. This fixed that issue and 1920x1080 displayed properly.

Currently I am using this LED as my main display and it is very nice. I am going to fire up some games and movies into the later hours of the night, as to fully test this display out.

I have to say the thinness and 20~some lbs is also a great benefit of this television. Fonts and colors appear to be very crisp, and I say this having used the Sony 24" 3D LCD as my main monitor prior. Thank goodness for back to school sales and my friend who tipped me off on this deal.

Very command center desk. Wow. :D

This TV has No 3.5mm headphone output jack. Your only output option is optical audio.

Elgato HD60 S

Mon, 21 May 2018 18:43:35 +0000

I've been toying with getting a HDMI video capture device for some time now. Checking around I decided to go with an Elgato HD60 S - USB 3 capture device. I considered the PCI-e options but I wanted the USB 3 option for my laptop use also. I was also able to pickup the capture device locally so that was a nice bonus. If you want a 4k capable capture card, the 4k PCIe device goes for around $400. I got the HD60 S for $180 and if you want the PCIe HD60 Pro, it's normally +$20 for that PCIe model.

Now that you know about their capture line of products, we can get into usage. There is a power connector USB type-C connector, HDMI input and a passthru HDMI output. You can use the Game Capture HD software from Elgato to play your input device on your desktop monitor (as a window or full-screen). I did notice the frame rate seems lower than if you play directly on your monitor by changing the display input to use the pass-thru (raw display). Mostly I noticed this playing faster rate game likes Naruto Storm Trilogy.
This this being said, I did not notice any input lag or audio delay. Just the seemingly lower frame rate, despite the device capturing @ 1080p 60 fps (frames per second).

If you like muxing audio with your game playing, I tend to open Game Capture HD or OBS Studio, so that I can play music while listening to in-game audio. Basically what I did on the Xbox 360 as it had it's own media player. If you would like to see video quality via streaming, check out my Twitch channel.
I started out streaming with the Game Capture HD software from Elgato and then switched to OBS Studio, once I figured out Sources control.

OBS Studio works very well with this. I did notice a glitch where you want to have the HDMI device turned on, before opening OBS Studio or you will hear a weird static noise. I would say OBS has better control options but the Game Capture HD is much easier to use. A nice feature of the Game Capture HD Software is it will let you change your Twitch.tv info in the program, without needing to navigate your way to the Dashboard | Live settings on the twitch site, for each stream.
Speaking of Game Capture HD software, it will write temp files out while running, so be sure to have free space or change your settings to write them out to a disk with space, HDD or large SSD. I'm writing to an HDD currently.

If you ever wanted to play something in VR on a big virtual screen like BigScreen or the Oculus Home environment, both of the viewer programs will go full-screen and you can play away with your headset on and potentially stream that environment out as well.

Game streaming is cool but since this is a HDMI capture device, you can also plug in a computer or laptop and capture that as well. You can capture BIOS video as well but that will depend on your device and if it outputs POST info over HDMI. I say this as my laptop does not do this, but my desktop will, so long as I don't have a DisplayPort monitor connected. If you ever dealt with desktop capture software and found some of it wonky, this is a nice method to outright capture anything you would typically see on a display and record it to video or a stream.

If you want to blank the screen or show a title card, OBS Studio will allow you to do this while recording, if you wish to avoid doing it in post-editing. I started dabbling with that on my twitch stream as well.

Wrapping up, this is a good device that works well. I noted the framerate drop when playing on your desktop but want to note it's not unplayable at all. Audio and Input button presses register without any lag I could notice. The included software is quite nice and gets you started without having to learn the ropes around using OBS Studio for Streaming and Recording.
The USB HD60 S makes a great option if you ever wanted to be able to record a PC boot process and desktop environment without using desktop capture software, thus removing an OS-specific means to record. Using the recording software and drivers, Elgato has native support for Windows and OS X. I have not tried to record anything in Linux yet.

Using the output passthru port lets you play at native console resolution and frame rate, while you record or stream on your desktop. It's a fun device and highly suggested if you want to get into some video capture for under $200 USD.
FYI this will not allow you to capture video from a HDCP device like a Google Chromecast. You will see a black screen and the Elgato Game Capture HD and a red icon that says HDCP with a line going through a circle icon. A Roku will allow you to record it at the OS-level but if you try to play video, it will honor the HDCP request not to show video and put an overlay over the video, noting HDCP lockout. So long as HDCP is not restricting your device, you should have no issues capturing video. Searching around it appears you have an option to disable HDCP for Playstation 4 consoles. I do not have one so I cannot verify this but Elgato has a PS4 guide to disable HDCP.

Oculus Thread - Quest Edition

Sun, 01 Nov 2020 01:39:27 +0000

Hey, Forums are up~! I recently sold my Rift S and got a Quest 2 headset. My jump was motivated by getting a Quest 1 headset a bit before the Quest 2 released. Long story short, the stand alone Quest headset functionality is pretty impressive but as a bonus, you can hook a Quest up to your PC and use it for PCVR / Rift Games.

This morning I got the Oculus Link cable. This is an expensive ($80 USD) USB3 cable that has a fiber optic connection apparently. I was using the USB cable that came with thew Quest 1 and thought it was a Link cable, but I was quite wrong. The Quest 1 cable looks very similar until you see both cables side by side, as the Link cable is quite a bit thicker.

Keep in mind the cable that comes with the Quest 1 is only USB2 and caps out speed wise at 360 MB/s or so. A Link cable connects as USB3 and the speeds are about 2.4 GB/s on my desktop.

Oculus Link cable support is still largely rolled out for Quest 1 support and does not upscale to Quest 2 at a higher resolution yet... but there are some tools available in the Public Test Channel / Beta line of the Oculus desktop software.

C:\Program Files\Oculus\Support\oculus-diagnostics

You can edit Oculus Link parameters here to increase your Encode Bitrate and Encode Resolution Width. Doing this on the USB2 cable is kind of a waste since it will not like being set to 350 to 500 for the Bitrate Mbps.

If using a cable to your desktop sounds shitty, you can also use Virtual Desktop to connect to your PC for remote desktop but also actually play desktop VR games from SteamVR or your Oculus Library. Quick overview is you buy the app on the Oculus Quest store, run the streamer app on your PC then you can connect.

If you would like some Quest diagnostics, feel free to sideload OVRMetrics to your quest headset.

Freeze frame to mention sideloading apps on your quest! This Oculus guide shows you how to sideload from the debug console. Better yet you can also use SideQuest to install custom APKs and browse the custom VR software community. Huge amount of games and utilities available.

When you have Virtual Desktop installed, you want to sideload the patch from the SideQuest community. The Dev added functionality for your SteamVR games to keep working well. Most all stuff works pretty well wirelessly however you will possibly want to plug in a cable for the more intense game like Half Life: Alyx

That is a good overview for the time being. Speaking of Alyx, I'm off to play more of this with a mix of Tetris Effect. Tetris Effect is rad and I cannot even explain why it's so good. I play so much of it, especially on weekends for the community events.

I'll add more as I think of it and feel free to ask any questions. 🙂 I also have a prescription lenses insert for my headset. Happily, the same ones I got for my Rift S, work on the Quest 1 and Quest 2. Glad I didn't have to buy a new pair of lenses.

Oculus Rift VR

Mon, 17 Jul 2017 21:36:00 +0000

Jack in, it's cyber-time. Seriously though if you are still reading, I squeezed on the Rift $399 bundle with touch that went active last week. I want to describe the experience of moving through a virtual environment and seeing your hands map in that realm, as to in reality, but it's really something you have to try to get full appreciation of. I'm going to overview the hours I spent in so far, using Oculus software, enabling SteamVR and also some games and titles.

2017-08-17 Edit:
I wanted to mention Oculus Tray Tool and setting Super Sampling. I have since upgraded my GPU to a 1080 Ti and am running Super Sampling @ 1.5. Oculus Tray Toll will also let you disable USB auto power save in one click and also give you access to Visual HUD Overlays / debugging options. The super sampling really cleans up the image quality to try and mitigate screen door effect / seeing pixels obviously.
/edit

Primer here. You need a computer of comparable performance to drive the display of your Rift headset. I see a recommended spec of an Intel i5-45xx series processor / CPU and Nvidia 970 or higher for your video card / GPU. I recently built up an i7-7700k w/ 1080 Ti GTX build and it has performed extremely well in VR, without frame rate slowdown.
Your VR headset uses 1 HDMI and 1 USB connection, with the HDMI going directly into your video card. In my case, I already had my external display on DisplayPort. As the 980 GTX (and most recent cards from what I have seen) have 1 HDMI and the rest of ports are DisplayPort, you want to make sure your primary monitor is not using that HDMI output on the GPU / Video Card.

Additional hardware setup will be calibrating your spacial sensors, syncing any controllers and of course installing the Oculus software. Fair warning that Windows 8.1 seems to be the baseline and there are some games that require Windows 10. I'm on Windows 10 and wanted to warn you in advance, especially if you are still main-lining Windows 7. Most important of all, you need physical space to play the Rift.
There are a few sitting compatible games I have found, but the more explorational titles are going to need you to have at least a 3 x 3 foot area clear. From the center of your area, you will need to fully extend your arms to the side without being restricted. Movement depth is less relevant but also important. Some titles actually need you to be able to move back significantly far (as in around 7 feel away from the sensors). I have so far tested in a 3 x 3 area, as I would need to use the living room for the deeper dimensions. Since I picked up the Rift and Touch combo, I have 2 physical sensors installed. 1 came with the Oculus headset and the other came with the touch sensors.

I mentioned some of the contents but what you can expect to unbox are:

1x Oculus Rift headset
1x Sensor bar. It looks like a small camera. I suspect it works off Infrared similar to the Wii and Kinect devices.
1x Xbox One gamepad, USB dongle and extension cable.
1x Oculus remote.
2x AA batteries for the Xbox gamepad.

2x Oculus Touch controllers.
2x AA batteries. 1 for each Touch controller.
1x Oculus sensor

Once you clean up a space for you to move in VR without falling IRL, your first step after trying the tutorials (FYI: you can repeat these @ any time by clicking them in the desktop Oculus application, under your Library tab.), will be to get used to recalibrating center. This will be most appropriate when changing from standing or sitting play. In Steam you will get to the system menu by Right controller Menu button. There you will see a re-center calibration. If you are sitting, set your height to approx where your head is from the ground. I find 42 inches (3 ft 6 inches) works well for sitting. Some of this will need you to interact with Windows desktop for the height adjustment.
If you load SteamVR and are below the ground, you need to change your height settings.
Similarly in Oculus VR, the Right controller Menu button gives you a similar option to re-calibrate center. For height adjustment in Oculus, you'll want to go to Settings | Devices | Configure Rift to change your height. You should be able to pick the re-center option without taking your VR goggles off, as with Steam as well.

Next post will cover some applications run in VR.

Core i7-7700k build

Thu, 06 Jul 2017 15:35:11 +0000

Welcome to another PC Build thread. I have been on an i7-7700k desktop for a week and some change. In the last few builds I seem to be on a 2 to 3 year rotation, largely because I know people who could use computers and my custom builds would smoke a retail setup while also having good cooling layouts. Fancy means to say the equipment should run for a long time.

Current edition kit is:

Processor / CPU:
Intel i7-7700k
Motherboard:
Asus Hero IX Z270
Memory:
32 GB Corsair DDR4 3000 MHz LED RAM
Primary OS on a Samsung 860 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD
Power Supply:
Corsair 850w PSU
Cooler:
Corsair H115i CPU Cooler
Case:
Corsair Obsidian 750D Airflow
Video Card / GPU:
Asus Strix 980 GTX (Gen 1 - Non Ti)

I kept storage, graphics card, power supply from the previous build. I have so far put together some benchmarks from Final Fantasy XIV tools, 3D Mark products, and ran some GTA V and Watch Dogs 2 for comparison.
The short hand is that, each of the FFXIV Benchmarks gave about 1000 points higher of a score. Effects like elemental magic casts and screens with many extra objects on screen, ran much smoother. Checking benchmark details such as 3D Mark, the i7 does vastly better handling PhysX performance heavy content. Keeping in mind I am running the same video card as I did in the prior i5-4690k build.

For grins I also re-installed Bioshock Infinite and ran the Benchmark.exe in the install folder. Considering I recently switched to a 144 Hz display, I was able to see the benchmark ran that steadily. Looking back, I think I played the game on a 560 GTX and recalled some performance drops in some areas. Worth saying that would have also likely had been when I was on an i5-2500k setup.

Burn in on Samsung S8 screen

Thu, 09 Aug 2018 19:15:35 +0000

Quick topic to share that I have a Samsung S8 and have an issue with icon burn in from my bottom deck of icons. If you have any icons with white in their icon, I really suggest not putting them in the persistent icon bar.

Searching around, I found some people on the Samsung forums noting a similar issue. I tried the whole 'flush your phone cache by pressing {Up Vol, Bixby then holding Power Button} on the Android menu but flushing cache made no change. For grins, I'm trying the Cycle Red, Green and Blue with a program called OLED Tool to see if it allegedly resets the pixels, as is a rumor with AMOLED screens.

The specific icons that caused burn-in on my shortcut dock are Clock and Riot (chat messenger). I moved all my icons off there for now but do not to appear having any residual pixels on the bottom of my screen for the Email, Messages or Camera icons.

Most apparent will the burn in be, when you are looking at a white page. At first I thought it was some sort of desktop transparency thing, until I looked up the issue. I made the thread for something to keep in mind, as this is the first phone I ever noticed this issue on.

PS4 Controller PC Use

Wed, 23 Nov 2016 17:04:23 +0000

I mentioned borrowing a PS4 and thanks to playing Watch Dogs 2, I decided to grab a Dualshock 4 pad for PC use.

You can use an existing Bluetooth Radio but I decided to go with the official adapter. You will only be able to connect 1 gamepad per bluetooth radio / USB stick. The Official USB Wireless Adaptor has a push in Sync to Bluetooth option and this is a nice physical option, versus setting bluetooth to connect / pairing mode, in your OS software settings.

The USB device is listed as CUH-ZWA1U with a part number of: 3001729 (roughly about $25 USD).
The Gamepad goes for about $60 USD and ships with an internal rechargeable battery pack.

This will work on OS X or a Windows machine. You can confirm the buttons by going into Control Panel | Devices and Printers. Confirming that your DualShock 4 pad buttons register in the diagnostic tools there. If you need some help over using Steam to update your dongle driver, check this TechRadar guide for DS4.

Pretty easy and no diabolical 3rd party driver needed, as was the case with Dual Shock 3 controllers being used on PC.

Jumping back to my PS4 use, the headphone port on the gamepad is really nice. Especially since my TV does not have a headphone out port, I can put some headphones on and plug into the gamepad. I am still checking if you can control the advanced options like Light Color and Brightness for the gamepad on PC, that you can do on the PS4.

Personal opinion, I prefer the analog sticks being next to one another, instead of the offset Xbox approach. I was also considering an Xbox One controller, but for that and the accessories (like rechargeable battery and cable) being extra money, I went with a DualShock 4.
Here is the link from the documentation for the adapter, linked to the Sony product page.

Razer Blade 1060 GTX (Late 2016)

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 21:09:05 +0000

Howdy and thanks for reading this thread about a Razer Blade (late 2016) with a Nvidia 1060 GTX video card. I have been playing with this over the weekend, as I did research and found this to be the best bet for what I was looking for. Both by performance and laptop size. I went with the 512 GB FHQ model.

Starting off, Yes you can install Linux on here and it will run pretty well, granted I spent most of the weekend in Windows, running benchmarks and checking out multimedia and games. I got Ubuntu 16.04.1 on a 40 GB partition that I carved out of the 512 GB SSD M.2 Drive. To do that, I loaded up a Live USB of Ubuntu, ran gparted on the Windows partition and had it cut 40 GB into a new partition. Installed Ubuntu onto that. Best part being, GRUB and the Windows boot loader can co-exist. You may want to jump in the bios and change your default boot device, once the install is finished.

Temperature wise the GPU was hitting 179 F. While not great for temps in a desktop, this is passable for me as the games continued to run smoothly. You will absolutely hear the fans increase in noise and speed when playing any intensive games. That being said, I do feel the laptop is basically silent when not in a game.

I mentioned getting the FHD (1080p) model display over the QHD+ one. FHD is a matte finish, the brightness is higher than the QHD, and honestly the 1060 GTX will not be able to run max settings smoothly on newer games like Watch Dogs 2, or even to an extent GTA V, unless you scale down some of the advanced video fluff. Point being there, QHD resolution is going to be really daunting on the video card. I also feel 1080p on this 14" LCD is hard to read sitting back on the couch, especially without my glasses on. So you would be even more crunched @ 3200 x 1800 (QHD+). QHD comes with a glass cover instead of a matte finish and also is + $300 to the purchase price. So I got to avoid my reflection and light bouncing, while also saving some loot.

Performance:

Fire Strike (3D Mark) scores over 9000. 9264 actually. You can check the details from the run on the Futuremark site.
Final Fantasy XIV: I can play this @ 1080p with maximum settings with a smooth 60 FPS. You will want to use the system and character config options to scale up the UX, as I did playing from the couch.
Doom 2016: 1080p with maximum settings is smooth and looks great.
GTA V: Ultra settings will get you some dips into the 40 FPS range. Tweaking some of the more expensive graphic options, will get you to or close to, a smooth 60 FPS.
Watch Dogs 2: My configuration from the desktop with a 980 GTX, got me into the 30 FPS range. I heard some forum chatter about this game and 1000 series cards having extra performance hits. I was able to change some of the detail settings back to High, and I got closer to 60 FPS. Even on my desktop though, driving will get you some dips into 50 and some 40 FPS ranges.

Summing this up, the 1060 GTX in this laptop is certainly slower than the desktop 980 GTX in my desktop. While the laptop card has 6 GB of VRAM, the processing power of the 980 GTX and it's 4 GB VRAM is superior. Saying that, I'm comparing a video card integrated into a 14" laptop weighing less than 5 lbs, to a full sized desktop GPU. Performance was relatively close. I will throw some benchmarks versus the laptop to my desktop, below.

Benchmark wise, you can peep the Fire Strike comparison between my desktop 980 GTX system and the Razer Blade 1060. Saving you a click, the 1060 GTX scores @ 9264 while the 980 GTX scores @ 10921.

I will add some more benchmark scores in the next post. I have to be in front of the machine to check the log results.
I think it's pretty apparent that I am happy with this purchase and the performance of this laptop. Let me confirm that I am happy with this purchase and love this device. It looks like a black Macbook, that happens to run Windows and Linux, while also having some quality, fast components in it. That being said, I got mine for just under $2000 (USD)

I did start by looking at laptops in a local Microsoft store to see what price, performance and form factor options were on the market. I used to travel for work and had a quite nice Sony Vaio laptop. This is the 1st high-performance laptop I ever bought with my own funds. Looking at the other models in-store, they either had weak video cards, or were of the Asus tier laptops, that honestly looked really crappy with all the big plastic cases and odd curvature. I didn't want a laptop that looked like a malformed lego and weighed 10 lbs. I would say Razer is owning that market segment, for anyone wanting a fast, light weight and smooth looking laptop.

Continuing my researching, I took for Razer support forums, reddit and some review sites. Review sites are good for some insight but can gloss over some big issues. Especially if they are getting a review model, instead of a consumer production model. I started with deciding between QHD or a FHD display. That actually led me to read some folks who had an older model QHD+ but decided to go with FHD both for less pixels on a 14" LCD, and the increased visibility from a matte finish.
The wireless card that comes in the laptop is a Killer Wireless-AC 1535 card that some reddit users noted, kind of sucks. I did run the Killer wifi briefly, but since I have a wired cable by the couch, I used a Plugable USB-C / Thunderbolt LAN NIC dongle. Using the Killer in FFXIV, I was getting some in-game lag. Also doing some ping tests on local devices, I saw quite a few 50 ms+ replies. Switching out the Killer for the Intel reduced the amount of high ping replies. YMMV, but for $25 and the use of a T5 screwbit, it's a fairly simple replacement. As the linked reddit page notes, I also went with that Intel 8260 wifi card.

Speaking of the wired connection, it's super fast. I was steady steam downloading, network transferring and the laptop didn't slow up at all. My internet connection was being worked but the internal network and this wired adapter kept up without fault.

The Chroma keyboard is quite nice. Quality typing experience and the lighting effects are really enjoyable. I use the starlight pattern most of the time, unless I'm playing an MMO in the dark. Dark playing with a fixed color is really nice. If you press the 'Function' key, your F1 to F12 will be the only lit keys to use the multimedia functions. However the icons for the brightness, track skip, volume, etc will not light up. Because the smallness of those indicators and the main letters, I figure the light bleed would be too intense. Speaking of intense, if you pick a white-based color, you might see some blur reading the keys at night in a dark room, because they are so bright. Disclaimer / reminder that I wear glasses. Still a factor with my glasses on. In the Razer application you can juggle your lighting options for the keyboard, pick a color or pattern, and adjust the brightness of the keyboard illumination. Have fun messing with the ripple effects and other keyboard light presets.

Oh yeah. You will have 3x USB 3 standard ports, 1x USB-c connection, and 1x HDMI connection on the laptop. In addition you have the power brick connector on your left and the kensington mount on the right side. In respect to battery life, I haven't done any benchmarks yet. If you are playing games, I would just keep it plugged into the wall, as that is exactly what I was doing. By the way, here is the laptop product page. I will get some game benchmarks and comparisons later in this thread.

VorpX and Non-native VR games

Wed, 09 Aug 2017 15:57:10 +0000

This thread is very preliminary as I only have an hour or 2 of using VorpX. Starting this off, you can buy this addon software for $40 from VorpX website. Once you pay, you will run the installer and get a software key. Send an email by the form that comes up with your name and email address you paid with, and you will get the activation code to use the full software.

VorpX will play games in a living room emulated screen couch enviroment, or by pressing 'Delete' in the supported games list, you can play Fallout 4 and other games in a 3D and VR presented environment. You will need to change your game configuration to have it be a playable experience and the #1 change to make is increasing the FOV (Field of Vision) for any game you are trying to play in stereoscopic 3D via VorpX. Search for config guides, however setting a FOV to 120 or higher is the most relevant setting you will want to apply.

Playing Fallout 4 in my case was cool, but weird. Keep in mind you will see a performance hit, considering you are then rendering 2 screens (each eye @ 45 FPS) to your Rift (or HTC Hive). Playing was intense but the weird part was transparent objects around some objects. Disabling Ambient Occlusion can help smooth this out, but I have not fully done the re-tweak for the sake of VorpX in 3D. After playing maybe half an hour, my head felt a little weird. I am guessing the combination of moving in VR and doing the shooting is a large factor to that, in addition to some dropped frames, as I was playing the game @ 1080P with most all of the graphical ice improvements on.

I dabbled with FFXIV in VR but this defaulted into the couch mode I mentioned. I have seen other posts mention the locomotion sickness concerns before but I didn't really experience this until I rolled Fallout 4 in VR. I'm going to try some more tweaks to see how it goes. The depth and head tilting is really wild though. It's fun to try but I am still tweaking to see if it's a viable means to play, short of a demo configuration.

Reminder that I am currently playing on an Intel i7-7700k with a Nvidia 980 GTX (4 GB). If you are rocking a Ti or 1080 Ti you may fair better with all the fancy graphics options turned on. Crawl the supported games list for items to test. I'm pretty interested in Alan Wake in VR. I was playing with an Xbox One controller but the Touch controllers are supported and work as well. I played Fallouts on a gamepad, so it's hard to do otherwise, unless I'm sniping.

I am playing with version 17.2.3. I also see the attached Game Settings Optimizer. I will play with this and sadly also lower my resolution from 1080p and see how that goes for me.
Alt+f will show your FPS while playing. If you are seeing below 45 FPS, scale down your graphic options or you will get ill. This is what I was battling with Fallout 4 running @ 1080P.

Corsair Hydro Coolers and Fan Headers

Thu, 13 Jul 2017 00:42:57 +0000

This is kind of an odd issue, as the documentation for Corsair Hydro coolers will tell you to plug the power into the CPU header on your motherboard. Having build a new machine recently, I see newer Asus board have a dedicated Pump header. I like these coolers as they work well and cost less than custom copper water blocks. The point of this thread however, is for older boards like the Asus Hero VII I had prior.

You want to disable the Q-fan options in your BIOS, as otherwise it will limit the pump output and not cool properly. For the Windows users, there is a Corsair Link application that will show you the pump rpm. In the case of a H80i cooler, this is typically running at 3200 rpm when set to the Performance preset.
Default will be around 1900 rpm with the balanced setting. So long as you are not running in an extremely hot room, that preset should be fine.
In your BIOS, check the following tree: Monitor | Fan Speed Monitoring | Fan Speed Control.
Set those to disabled and you should be good to go. Also under those settings, disabling the fan controls can prevent the CPU fan error on boot.

For item's sake, I am using a H115i on this i7-7700k and was previously using an H80i with the i5-4690k. On the i5-4690k setup after a BIOS flash, the fan settings were reverted and I was feeling significant heat buildup in the top tube coming off the CPU back to the radiator. Temps were also quite high. Fixing the Qfan settings resolved the nasty temps on the rebuild.

Steelseries Sensei Wireless

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 19:32:02 +0000

Welcome to another hardware thread. This installment is about the Sensei Wireless mouse from Steelseries. I have been using a Diablo 3 mouse modeled from the Sensei wired mouse for a few years now. Considering I have also used Razer mice before, but did not like how heavy or high they seemed to arch, I went with the Sensei Wireless for my laptop.

You can use this mouse wired as well, but a thing to keep in mind is that you need to have the charging base plugged in, because that is the wireless receiver for the mouse. There is no direct bluetooth or other connection methods, short of using the charging base for wireless, or directly plugging the charge cable into the mouse for wired mode. So if you are traveling you need to bring the base and cable, or run the mouse wired.

Besides that nuance, this mouse performs awesome. I primarily use it in wireless mode while playing Final Fantasy XIV or doing general UX stuff. Clicks are smooth and the cursor is responsive. DPI goes crazy-high, but for my uses @ 1080p, I tend to run it around 5000 DPI or so. Charge life says about 20 hours, but I tend to base it when not in use. I have yet to have the mouse die on me in respect to battery life. I did have one night where it would not reconnect, but I think I had the base too close to the mouse.

In respect to usage, I use it on my desk with a mousepad, or on the bed with a pad as well. Even on the cushion it works well. As i mentioned the weight, 115 g, 0.253 lbs is what it comes in at. Compared to many mice and reviews, this is a sweet spot, as to not feel heavy or a burden to move around over time. I considered the newer Steelseries mice but the little LCD and significantly heavier weight were a turn-off. The charging base is probably around 2 lbs, so if you are traveling often, you might want to just use it wired instead of schlepping the charging base around too.

Lights. You can change the LED colors of the charging base, mouse logo and scroll wheel. Similar to the Diablo 3 / Sensei model mice, you have side-buttons you can program to custom keys. My favorite button is the DPI switch button under the scroll wheel. I tend to keep it in high mode, but being able to change back to 1800 or so DPI is a nice bind to have on the fly.

I really enjoy this mouse and started out with my most relevant complaint, the charging base. If there was a little usb dongle for wifi use like a logitech device, that'd be nice for travel. Other than that, well worth the $100 price I got it for on their website.

I considered a Razer mouse to go with the laptop, but I had the MMO mouse before and found it heavy and the side button bar kind of clunky. I have had the Diablo 3 Steelseries mouse since Diablo 3 released and have put many clicks into it. It continues to work to this day on my desktop. That's the main reason I went with this wireless sensei. It takes a beating and keeps on rolling, while also feeling smooth and durable.

Steam Controller

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 21:25:32 +0000

Howdy to anyone interested in the Steam Controller. This device works wirelessly by the dongle and 2x AA batteries in the controller, or by the micro-usb connector.

There is no cable that comes with it, so your phone charge cable, etc should do the trick.

The right pad of the controller is your mouse cursor. I am playing Fallout 4 with this and my biggest initial issue relates to the top trigger placement. I also find myself offset in using the face buttons, as X B A Y are further in than I am used to on my Xbox 360 controller.

Left pad is similar binding to the left analog stick. You will need to press down enough for it to click, to have the left pad detect your movements.

The Right pad will detect your thumb rolling over it, without the need to click. If you keep your contact on the outer-diameter of the right pad, it will continue to pan your view / movement. Swipe speed is also relevant to how fast the right stick pans. I felt comfortable pretty quickly right the right pad, probably as I am a trackball user and have the familiar feel of rolling my thumb for movement.

Like I said, the trigger placement is odd for anyone used to a 360 gamepad. I got better with it, but still feel my adjusting is a work in progress. Awesome buttons? Those would be the bottom click ones. Right-clicking the under button is a jump. Left-clicking is the interact / use button. If we played games online together, you know I am a jumper. Speaking of online play, there is None in Fallout 4.

So far, so good. I am enjoying the right pad most of all. Swipe gun aiming is pretty effective to keep my cursor straight. Fault wise, running and aiming accurately can be tricky, due to the right trigger placement.

HP Laptop 11 inch Stream x360 P010NR

Thu, 02 Jun 2016 17:45:20 +0000

When I call this a fire review, I mean it covers some uncommonly answered questions and critiques.

Does this device run Linux distributions? Yes. Ubuntu 14.x and 16.x work, but I did have some display glitching when resuming from a power state. To mitigate this, I could switch to a TTY screen and back to X (Ctrl+Alt+1 then back to X via Ctrl+Alt+7). Same case for Ubuntu Studio.

This laptop will also run Tails distributions. You can boot from USB in either UEFI mode or Legacy BIOS mode USB.

I also had Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 on this device. As it has 32 GB of SSD space and 2 GB of RAM, Windows 10 would constantly complain about free memory when opening a web browser. Considering this is an Intel Celeron N2840, I did pick a x64 bit installer despite not having 4 GB+ of RAM. Besides the error nagging, the OS did work fine.

I picked it up for $250 on sale at a local store. Considering I use this for configuration and testing, the weight of about 3.5 lbs works well for me. Also handy is the 'convertible' function that lets you flip the screen to the rear of the keyboard, like a giant tablet. Windows touch and tablet use works vastly better than Linux out of the gate, but short of messing with the on-screen keyboard and doodling pictures with the multi-touch screen, I don't use the touch options often.
When the screen is flipped, the keyboard is disabled. Considering this also is the case in linux, I figure there is a hardware detection of when the screen is flipped to disable the keyboard from accidental presses.

There are 3 USB ports, an SD Card slot, HDMI output, Ethernet port, bluetooth, headphone output on this model. The SD Card is handy to help with the limited hard drive space. CPU wise, you have 2.2 GHz with a burst of 2.58 GHz. Display size is 11" at a resolution of 1366 x 768. Maximum brightness is a little lacking, so you will have some glare issues in heavier sunlight.

The restore partition ate up about 6 GB iirc, however I wiped that from the drive. When you are dealing with a 32 GB hard drive, that stings, especially if you were looking to setup a multi-boot environment off the SSD. When I say SSD, this is also not a standard SATA one.

That concludes this fire review. Especially the question of if it runs linux distros or not.

Backbeat Go Plantronics Headset

Tue, 24 Jun 2014 22:00:59 +0000

I have owned a set of Plantronics Backbeat Go bluetooth headphones for a year or so now. There is a 2nd edition of this device, but I have (and an referencing) the original model of this headset. This will be a very brief review with performance points. These work well on an Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S4.

Battery Life: 2.5 - 3 hours. When you hear a single bell chime while listening to audio, you have approximately 1 hour of battery left.

Range: 50+ feet? I was able to walk around my house without my phone and keep an active signal. Going into the back yard reduced the range from the mobile in the house, thanks to a solid brick wall.

Controls: Power on/off, volume control, pause / call answering.

This headset also works as a microphone. I would rate the microphone sound quality excellent, as even when driving with my windows down, anyone I spoke to reported clear dialog.

Charging: Micro B USB connection. LED shows Red when charging and Blue when finished. Blue also displays on the right earbud (also the charger insert) when the headphones are powered on.

Synchronization: Quite easy to do. The power button will double as a 'new device scan mode' toggle if you hold it down. Make sure to remove the headset from any old devices you synced too, as to avoid connection issues.

Ear placement: This headset uses 'stabilizers' that can keep the buds in place by going into your ear curves. I rate these moderate, as I occasionally would re-adjust them when riding around on my bicycle. Throwing a dart at usage, I would say I have put ~250 hours on this headset since I got it. I did loose one of the stabilizers, but got some replacements on ebay, as the parts are no longer available on the plantronics site.

Bluetooth is extremely nice in a headset. The only cable is from earbud to bud, going around the back of your neck. If you want to secure the headphones while riding a bike and such, I recommend a lanyard. I had one from an old MP3 player that works well. Be sure to adjust the slack on the back of your neck, so you have good side to side range for each earbud and you should be doing well with this headset.

As for the revision, it seems to come with a carrying case that charges your headphones. Both versions use a Micro B USB connection, so in my case, I have the same charger compatible with my headphones and mobile phone. You can use those external batteries to recharge your headset too. I recently got one and gave it a passing test this week. I have well gotten my use out of this ~$80 (at my time of purchase) headset and continue to use it to this day.

Very nice for making cell phone calls too. Granted you can hook it up to any Bluetooth enabled device you wish.

PS4 USB Keyboard Support

Mon, 03 Mar 2014 15:31:39 +0000

It seems the PS4 does not inherently support USB Keyboard and Mice. From what I am seeing on this project, that was a deliberate "dick move" on Sony's part to ensure devices from prior are not compatible. Anyways, with some hardware and handshake authentication, you can have USB input devices back.

USB Keyboard and Mouse for PS4 @ Hack A Day. Some other info can be found at this link.