The Spam Thread!

[cpd2009]

Pictures incoming. Depending on your internet speed, this may take a bit.
Here are the pics of the tower itself, cool blue lights and all. The name I assigned the tower is Rusty, after this guy...
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My current desk setup:


The insides. I took a picture while installing the spare drive from the old rig, hence the loose SATA cable.



Now, the benchmark screenshots, starting with Mafia II. The first benchmark was with APEX Physx and AA on. The demo also lists the OS as Windows 7 when it's really Win10.


The second Mafia II benchmark turns APEX Physx and AA off while leaving everything else at max settings (which it defaults to as "Optimal")


Cinebench..

[huckleberrypie]

Physx performs poorly on non-Nvidia GPUs so I'd definitely leave that setting off. Then again it seems to have issues even on Nvidia cards anyway.

On slightly unrelated news, WRC driver Andreas Mikkelsen got his hands on a gaming rig so he could play his racing games and thus hone his skills. He clearly was no geek as they ordered a separate PCIe wireless card even when most high end motherboards do have Wi-Fi built in.

[cpd2009]

Well, appears that the RX 580 is stable under Windows 10. Don't know what's causing the graphical corruption under Ubuntu. Driver issue? I think it's using the open source AMDGPU driver but the hardware utility doesn't bring up any other proprietary drivers I could use.

I will troubleshoot it all tomorrow sometime, and if I can't get it to run properly, I'll give openSUSE a go.

[huckleberrypie]

Well, appears that the RX 580 is stable under Windows 10. Don't know what's causing the graphical corruption under Ubuntu. Driver issue? I think it's using the open source AMDGPU driver but the hardware utility doesn't bring up any other proprietary drivers I could use.

I will troubleshoot it all tomorrow sometime, and if I can't get it to run properly, I'll give openSUSE a go.

Not to mention that I heard about AMD having rather shoddy OpenGL support or something especially with certain emulators.

[cpd2009]

openSUSE is running, and so far, no graphical corruption or crashes in the last hour. I chose the KDE Plasma desktop and it works quite well.

I checked to see what graphics driver is in use, and it's the AMDGPU one.

[cpd2009]

I just noticed the Windows 10 Mail icon just got updated to the new Fluent Design motif. I kind of like Fluent Design icons, honestly. It makes modern Windows look far less flat, which was a minor complaint of mine with Windows 8 and the first versions of Win10. MS plans on updating all it's programs to use these new Fluent Design icons.


It never ceases to amazes me just how many old computers Clint from LGR has. Unless I manage to own my own house or get a two bedroom apartment, there's no way I could utilize more than two or three computers at one time. It's also why I chose an older iMac for using as an XP machine.

[cpd2009]

And, just like that, I got outbid on the iMac auction at the last minute. It was this one below:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-iMac-Core..._cvip=true

I was outbid close to the auction end, and I was at my job so I couldn't put in a higher bid either. Taking a look at what other iMacs are available, most of the affordable ones either have various issues (lines in the display, non functional DVD drives, etc) or are non working parts units. Seeing how difficult it can be to get these up and running or repaired, an older iMac is not looking viable now since I ended up with Rusty.

I'm also genuinely curious as to how well Rusty can run a virtual machine. May as well put that Ryzen 7 1800X to good use. Tonight, I'll get a VirtualBox VM set up with my old copy of Windows XP Pro and install some of my old games in it. There really shouldn't be any sort of performance hit as my older games are either in 2D graphics or very basic 3D. I'll let you know how it goes and I will see if I can find a benchmarking app for XP as well, and post the results of that.

EDIT: Found some XP benchmarks I can run. 3DMark has older benchmark programs available for legacy OSes free of charge. I chose PCMark05 and 3DMark05.

[huckleberrypie]

And, just like that, I got outbid on the iMac auction at the last minute. It was this one below:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-iMac-Core..._cvip=true

I was outbid close to the auction end, and I was at my job so I couldn't put in a higher bid either. Taking a look at what other iMacs are available, most of the affordable ones either have various issues (lines in the display, non functional DVD drives, etc) or are non working parts units. Seeing how difficult it can be to get these up and running or repaired, an older iMac is not looking viable now since I ended up with Rusty.

I'm also genuinely curious as to how well Rusty can run a virtual machine. May as well put that Ryzen 7 1800X to good use. Tonight, I'll get a VirtualBox VM set up with my old copy of Windows XP Pro and install some of my old games in it. There really shouldn't be any sort of performance hit as my older games are either in 2D graphics or very basic 3D. I'll let you know how it goes and I will see if I can find a benchmarking app for XP as well, and post the results of that.

EDIT: Found some XP benchmarks I can run. 3DMark has older benchmark programs available for legacy OSes free of charge. I chose PCMark05 and 3DMark05.

That bites... Must be one of them snipers who took the shot at the last minute as the offer ends.

Had I gotten my hands on a B350 or B450 board I would've considered doing a mild overclock on my 2200G, but other than overclocking my graphics cards on occasion out of mere curiosity I've never been into pushing the clocks higher due to fears of overheating. 'Sides, the most I managed to get from overclocking the GTX 1050 was a few more frames per second in Watch_Dogs.

[cpd2009]

Reason number two why I'm not pursuing an iMac via eBay or other online store... possible shipping damage.

I ordered a Sony mini stereo system, model CMT-mx500i for use as a bedroom system. Ordered from a seemingly reputable seller. Item was sent quickly and arrived in two days in box marked fragile and wrapped in air pockets and bubble wrap.

Turns out, the dependable and reliable USPS roughhandled said box, damaging the stereo in the process. Nearly all the air pocket wrapping was broken as well. The speakers are fine but the plastic bezel on the main unit sheared competely off. Functionally, the unit still turns on and the radio and speakers work fine. CD player is broken though. I also had to take the metal cover off to let out some of the broken plastic that fell inside, and with that came a thin metal rod, which I assume is the reason the CD player doesn't work.

The cosmetic damage can be easily repaired with super glue. The CD part would be a bit more difficult to repair since that would involve working on the internals. I have emailed the seller to explain what went on and what the next steps will be. If I can't send it back or get a refund, I'll just use it as a set of TV speakers and move my better Sharp mini system (which I bought brand new) into the bedroom instead.

Silver lining is that the system works great as TV speakers and the radio tuner isn't as good as the Sharp. With eBay, you sometimes have to take a loss if the USPS is careless with your item.

I once bought an old PowerMac G4, and it arrived in perfect condition. It's very hit or miss.

[huckleberrypie]

Reason number two why I'm not pursuing an iMac via eBay or other online store... possible shipping damage.

I ordered a Sony mini stereo system, model CMT-mx500i for use as a bedroom system. Ordered from a seemingly reputable seller. Item was sent quickly and arrived in two days in box marked fragile and wrapped in air pockets and bubble wrap.

Turns out, the dependable and reliable USPS roughhandled said box, damaging the stereo in the process. Nearly all the air pocket wrapping was broken as well. The speakers are fine but the plastic bezel on the main unit sheared competely off. Functionally, the unit still turns on and the radio and speakers work fine. CD player is broken though. I also had to take the metal cover off to let out some of the broken plastic that fell inside, and with that came a thin metal rod, which I assume is the reason the CD player doesn't work.

The cosmetic damage can be easily repaired with super glue. The CD part would be a bit more difficult to repair since that would involve working on the internals. I have emailed the seller to explain what went on and what the next steps will be. If I can't send it back or get a refund, I'll just use it as a set of TV speakers and move my better Sharp mini system (which I bought brand new) into the bedroom instead.

Silver lining is that the system works great as TV speakers and the radio tuner isn't as good as the Sharp. With eBay, you sometimes have to take a loss if the USPS is careless with your item.

I once bought an old PowerMac G4, and it arrived in perfect condition. It's very hit or miss.

Now imagine ordering a hard drive online lol.