Posts by jackophant

  • de_venue [WIP]

    You can get really creative with area portals. Look for strange areas that could benefit from them that aren't just doorways. You can stretch them across stairwells or across corridors. Maybe try and block more vis on mid and area portal each side of it for instance.

  • Want Help Building / Upgrading a PC?

    30" has lots of real estate, but sometimes you need the second screen just to have everything visible.

    I still game on a 24", but next chance I get to upgrade my desired spec would be:

    • 27"
    • 1440p
    • 144Hz
    • IPS
    • G-Sync

    Depending on the quality of the IPS, it could mean any accurate colour work could be done on it, leaving the second screen to be something relatively cheap/rubbish (or in this case, whichever of my current screens survive).

    Anyway... my point is that I'm pretty sure the above spec is available.

    Found some Acer XB270HU and on Amazon, and ASUS have a RoG Swift version, by the look of it with an update coming out (which also supports up to 165Hz?). I'm still looking deeper into how these compare to the top spec TN models, but right now it seems pretty close!

    OH! and with windows 10, you can snap a window to each quadrant of the screen, not just left or right sides any more.

  • Want Help Building / Upgrading a PC?

    Quote from Skybex

    I don't really want dual 144hz, more just pointing out that it's what i could get for the price of the curved monitors. A gaming screen and a miltimedia screen sounds like a good idea.

    And so essentially to bring this to a machine that can give me another 4-5 years I would also need a new processor?

    Ah, fair enough! Point noted, but curved anything right now is just a new gimmick to make people buy.

    I just had a look on my trusted part sites and amazon and there are listings for LGA1156 motherboards but they're either out of stock or used. Couple are new, but are £190 and £220 which is about twice as much as I would suggest spending on a good modern mobo and I wouldn't touch second hand electronics at the best of times (from an unknown source), let alone this old.

    A new motherboard and CPU in itself is basically a new computer.

    Also, PSUs are usually the first part to fail, are a total pain in the arse to replace, and can bring a lot more down with them depending on how spectacularly they fail. I was having power issues, computer kept restarting and due to the continuous "system power fails" windows became corrupted :(

    I would just stick to what you've got until you're willing to completely upgrade. Picking a computer apart piece by piece leaves a lot of spare lying around, and sometimes that extra "complete" machine is useful. Could be a server if need be, or send VMFs to, to compile while you play games on your bitchin' new rig.

  • Want Help Building / Upgrading a PC?

    Quote from Squad

    Similar setup here. I have a 2560*1440 IPS for multimedia stuff and recently replaced my second monitor (which died after having served almost a decade iirc) with a 144Hz gaming monitor. Since the IPS is set as the primary monitor (because of the bigger resolution), games are also loaded on that monitor. Is there any way to choose what kind of software is loaded on the primary/secondary monitor?

    Yeah, monitors are probably the longest living parts of a computer. My Dell U2410 however many years on is still beautiful, but the backlighting is going now ;( very very slow to warm up and patchy backlighting at times.

    In windows under "screen resolution" or "display settings" (*right click on the desktop) you can change which screen is primary as well as how they align virtually. As games load automatically on primary screen I've set my 144Hz to be that, and as windows generally remembers which position an application was last opened in (apart from SDK, it's a stubborn SOAB) they often open in the second screen anyway. That's the best I can suggest natively. There may be custom software which can be more powerful, but I like to try and keep within the realms of windows as much as possible.

  • Want Help Building / Upgrading a PC?

    Your PSU has almost 3 times the capacity it needs for your build, so an unequivocal yes: it will support a lot more you can throw at it.

    You can use assorted outputs from one graphics card. Just need to make sure your monitors have the available ports.

    Your current motherboard is capped at maximum 16GB RAM, up to 1600MHz, so that's definitely a possibility with a 4x4GB setup.

    However, not to be the bearer of bad news, but I find it pretty hard to suggest an upgrade for this machine if I'm honest. We're talking first generation i7 and associated discontinued chipsets / architectures. Anything you can buy for them will be old stock and the pricing is usually comparable to that of a current generation (apart from the RAM which will be fine as it's still current).

    I'll get back to you after I poke around for some mobos regardless though.

    What sort of thing do you want for your monitors? 144Hz on both is probably a little overkill right now as the main benefit of it is for gaming. I personally have a fast TN 144Hz 1080p gaming screen and a beautifully crisp fantastic IPS 60Hz 1200p multimedia screen.

  • Want Help Building / Upgrading a PC?

    Quote from Pampers

    Because one of the gpu fans sounds like a rusty gate being constantly opened

    Well if you really can't fix it then sure. How much do you want to spend on a graphics card then?

    Going too extreme could cause bottleneck issues, but at the same time could also future proof you for your rig upgrade when it happens.

  • [WIP][CSGO]de_tango

    @Michael Greenwood my apologies for being the bearer of bad news, but you definitely don't need to scrap the map! You've got some interesting spaces and ideas, but you just need to refine them.

    I'm not sure what sort of level you play csgo at, but I'm more than happy to give you a little 1 on 1 session in your map to go around and discuss the pros and cons of the different areas regarding level design and how it affects competitive play.

    Analysing your own map is the best way to learn what does and doesn't work just like Vaya said. There's knowing in theory what was wrong with certain areas, but unless you fix them to know what makes them work, there's a high chance the same could occur in a new map.

    It's an iterative process, and you'll very likely never make the perfect map first off so being able to improve like this is a skill unto itself to learn.

    My offer's there, feel free to message me here or add me on steam if you want to progress :)

  • Want Help Building / Upgrading a PC?

    Quote from Beck

    When I'm not using headphones (Whilst in single player games, doing work etc) I have a good set of speakers (Logitech Z5500's) so a good sound card would be nice just for sound quality. Though I'm not a massive audiophile I can notice a difference between onboard and a dedicated sound card usually. I'll try read up a bit more on some sound cards.

    If that's the case, some of the mobo manufacturers tout special onboard audio which has been specially isolated etc etc, blah blah blah, and I credit this mostly to ASUS in my experience. They generally make quite a big deal out of sound hardware/software on a whole range of their products, so an ASUS mobo may be the way to go. I still use an ASUS RoG Spitfire USB soundcard from an old pair of headphones and it's fantastic (but im a sound noob as well :D )

    Good luck getting FO4 ready, we don't have long!

  • Want Help Building / Upgrading a PC?

    Quote from Pampers

    Yes, that is my current build, I can spend more than 1k if a full re-buy is recommended. That ram amount is needed if I want to do some high quality scan work at home, but not really worth at all for that price :)

    I'm intrigued to see what can be done with all this RAM, but you'd need a huge mobo as well to have 8x8GB sticks of RAM for a 64GB. You could have 4 16GBs but then price is eye watering and that's just DDR3 @ 1333Mhz.

    However! You can pick up 4x8GB of DDR4 @ 2133MHz for £140ish which is pretty reasonable imo, so what you lack in terms of capacity you make up for in speed. I'm unfamiliar with your use of RAM so I'd need to do some more research into what the ideal setup would be. Either way, food for thought...

    You can build a pretty good 1080p@144Hz rig for around £1k, so if you've got a bit more to poke at it you could have something very nice indeed. However, regarding upgrading, buying a similar generation, higher performing CPU will be unnecessarily expensive, so the only thing I would suggest upgrading if that is your path of choice is your graphics card as the CPU is still fairly decent.

  • Want Help Building / Upgrading a PC?

    Quote from Beck

    I'll take you up on this!

    Would like to hear your input

    Eurgh, nested quotes don't work...

    Looks like a solid build to be proud of! The 980Ti should work plenty well for what you want right now, but it depends what sort of games you'll want to be playing on maxed settings, using the example of witcher 3:

    [Blocked Image: http://media.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2…-witcher-4k.png]

    In my personal opinion, 4K gaming is overrated and I would take good framerates with "optimised settings" over jerky lens flares.

    I've seen a lot of dedicated gaming builds pairing the 6700K with DDR3 for the lower latencies and the fact that the DDR4 speeds are overkill for what games utilise atm. However, if you're using it for game development and other tasks, you should still see a benefit.

    Motherboards are funny things, and in my experience it's more down to benchmarking than anything else. Intel's Z chipsets just carry a premium for overclockability so if that's something you're into then go for it, but I don't OC, so I would just choose a mobo that best suited my needs for the lowest price possible.

    Again, OCing, If you're using a full size case with plenty of airflow then a big air cooler like mine, the Noctua DH-N14 runs super quiet. Water cooling only really has an edge on upper limit OCing, but if you're set on the H100 GTX then it's the marginally better of the two. It's basically a redesign with slightly better materials, but the dimensions are a little different so in some of the tighter cases, people will need the H100i.

    I'm not a fan of some of these grotesque cases with unnecessary lumps and grills, they look like they're trying too hard to be sci-fi and it pisses me off. I think corsair have a gorgeous range of cases (see above CPU cooler screenshot for my 350D) but a lot of cases these days seem to be taking a much more modest approach to design which I welcome. Nothing is really "best", and these days everything is very simple to work internally so I'd say it mainly comes down to what you like the look of and will it fit your parts inside.

    In the interests of gaming I've always stuck with a USB headset for more reliable sound production across any PC I play on, and sound cards have caused me nothing but trouble in the past (fucking creative...). But what do you want from your soundcard?


    Just need to clarify here: this is your current build and with £1kish you want to either build a new machine or upgrade the current one?

    I'm not entirely sure why you would want 32GB/64GB of RAM unless you were running a server, but it will cost you upwards of £4-6/GB. Your current CPU can't utilise RAM faster than 1333MHz and cannot see more than 32GB and neither can your mobo.

    To find a CPU that can access 64GB you'll also need an extreme edition chip, or one of the more modern architectures (even my i7-4790K uses max 32GB).

  • [WIP][CSGO]de_tango

    You have the bombsites the wrong way round in game/radar.

    I would advise using "bot_show_battlefront 1" to see where team rush times meet to get a feel for how teams will occupy an area because right now CTs molest the Ts from all angles.

    Mid is very wide open and CTs can close the distance very quickly.

    For Ts, the left connector whcih takes you out on to the bombsite with the arches is such a massive risk as you can be shot from literally every angle, including the pallet bombsite (which massively needs to have brushes in the pallets to stop nasty viewing angles).

    Speaking of the pallet bombsite, you can plant as a T (going long) pretty much outside the bombsite, and can also plant for mid which can be camped from a long way away, especially using wall cover on the arch bombiste.

    As a T, if you run out of the rat maze towards the pallet bombsite, you drop into an area which feels much more like a bombsite in every way.

    You have a lot of routes which overlap each other and should either be separated properly, or simplified into 1 route with a split at the end.

    I'm afraid to say that words cannot describe how much I disliked the CT/T fights if you went "long" to the arch bombsite. That balcony area which CTs shoot down from and can then jump down to flank any Ts that do slip past, plus the window in the side which allows CTs up on the arches to look down into that route.

    CTs always managed to be behind Ts, and that is usually a sign of too many routes.

    Going from here, I would advise tightening up some of the areas as there was a lot of dead space, and very few people every progressed toward the arch bombsite. I would also put some real thought into the timings and after that, look how Ts have to engage. Pretty much every chokepoint Ts have to run in sideways through a very narrow opening. It's important to get a balance of long/short sight lines to make a map interesting, too much of either leads to bad meta such as AWP or shotguns/P90 only.

  • What have you purchased recently?

    Quote from Beck

    I had the diesel version (2.2 litre) and it's kind of quick if you want it to be and you still get the good MPG

    If you really wanted you could get the diesel engine remapped to add an extra 55BHP for about £250 which makes it as fast as the petrol Type-R version

    Oh shit! I didn't realise they packed such a huge diesel engine in that little thing!

    I had a 1.6l diesel in my 2006 fiesta and have another 1.6l in my 2012 Focus. New engine gets about the same mileage (47mpg) pushing 115bhp, but might see about remapping...

    As much as I love my diesel, I've developed a need for speed so am looking out for something a little sportier these days!

    Quote from El_Exodus

    You just screwed with my mind. In germany Vauxhall is called Opel and i'm so not used to read/hear Vauxhall :D

    Buick (US) / Vauxhall (UK) / Opel (EU) / Holden (AUS) are all regional variations of a GMC subsidiary iirc