brad's new PC

Toge · Post by **Toge** » 21 Aug 2007, 03:05

Lets talk about your new core 2 duo machine brad

whats spec, how much did you pay for it? also pictures if it has a nifty case

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 21 Aug 2007, 09:53

He has a laptop, with an utterly terrible onboard GPU.

Toge · Post by **Toge** » 21 Aug 2007, 10:29

Haha really?

Thought brad would be running some HTPC machine so he can play blu-ray and hd-dvd

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 21 Aug 2007, 10:36

He claims that there'd be no room in his flat for a desktop PC.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 21 Aug 2007, 11:08

Toge wrote:Haha really?

Thought brad would be running some HTPC machine so he can play blu-ray and hd-dvd

Hah!

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 21 Aug 2007, 11:28

I don't get what your guys' business is with brad's computer if he is satisfied with it.

Toge · Post by **Toge** » 21 Aug 2007, 17:46

we're just curious about what hes running, thats all

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 21 Aug 2007, 18:36

Its better than most peoples PC's on this furum

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 21 Aug 2007, 18:49

Speak for yourself!

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 21 Aug 2007, 18:55

Some have PC's older than my Gran

Mines 4 the poor thing, but not bothered latley as want new TV, HD etc.. before I go paying for a new PC. Unless it blows up tommrow

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 21 Aug 2007, 19:01

The PC I'm currently using as a server for my media is about 3-4 years old. I've just built a new machine & it rocks! I've been playing the Unreal Engine 3 powered BioShock demo at 1680x1050 in DirectX 10 with everything maxed out & its smooth as silk!

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 21 Aug 2007, 19:14

Ahhhh DirectX 10.... thats what I am really waiting for

maybe Vista will be perfect in another few months as well.

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 21 Aug 2007, 19:41

There's nothing wrong with Vista right now.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 21 Aug 2007, 21:06

The only thing holding my PC back is the graphics card. I'm waiting to see how Crysis performs with the 2900XT and 8800GTS before I even consider upgrading to a current gen DX10 card. Otherwise I'll probably wait for the 2nd gen DX10 cards, like NV9800.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 21 Aug 2007, 21:19

IronMonkey wrote:There's nothing wrong with Vista right now.

Tell that to Eva

he didnt last long, as with so many other people, Vista isnt working still for many people the way it suposed to. It may for you, but there are quite a few users who would argue with "nothing wrong with Vista".

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 21 Aug 2007, 21:21

My Vista Business 32bit installation died after ~3 hours and took my XP partition with it, lol.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 21 Aug 2007, 21:27

your not the only one either, even many so called PC experts on Big sites have had major probs and they suposed to know their shit backwards and forwards, if they cannot get it running smooth. Most average people have no hope.

My work got it in on about 20 PC's, then they took it off after a few moths

cost them a fortune I would assume to do that haha, Government cash by the way!

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 21 Aug 2007, 21:35

IronMonkey wrote:There's nothing wrong with Vista right now.

Coding under Vista is horrible, also theres are new 'features' which are bloody annoying. At work, our s/ware generates file locally, so the files would be placed in the subfolder of the program directory in "Program Files". Now Vista doesn't let you do that, even though you digital signed and paided M$, which is why we had to add a relocate feature, which placed the files in "My Documents" instead. This was kinda annoying, also Vista is way too paranoid, and even in the EULA statement, it does mention that Window Defender has a right to uninstall a non-digital signed s/ware. It was talked about on:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6319845.stm

The agreement does not define any of these terms, leaving it to Microsoft to determine what constitutes unwanted software. Once operational, the agreement warns that Windows Defender will, by default, automatically remove software rated "high" or "severe" even though that may result in other software ceasing to work or mistakenly result in the removal of software that is not unwanted. For greater certainty, the terms and conditions remove any doubt about who is in control by providing that "this agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights". For those users frustrated by the software's limitations, Microsoft cautions that "you may not work around any technical limitations in the software".

From a coder point of view, the above is just horrible. I have vista business to test out our s/ware, but for home use, there is nothing wrong with Windows XP.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 21 Aug 2007, 21:43

slasher13 wrote:but for home use, there is nothing wrong with Windows XP.

Except a lack of DX10 support. Other than that, XP all the way baby.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 Aug 2007, 01:38

Where on earth did this thread come from? I'm just curious. I've had my laptop for months.

I've downsized to a laptop due to A: Space, B: My needs and C: Portability.

The GPU is pants by desktop PC specs but I don't give a monkey it handles 1440x900 (not that my laptop monitor does

, my main monitor does though) and Vista's Aero, anything more would be completely useless to me. What's the point buying a whizzy laptop GPU if you're never going to use it? Besides aren't pretty much all laptop GPU's pants?

As to the rest of the spec. it's a Core 2 Duo with 2Gb RAM and a 120Gb hard disk. I'd have preferred bigger but when you consider 2.5" hard disk only go up to 200Gb (and most are still 160Gb) it's not to bad. Besides I have 50Gb left anyway

.

It was a fair price. I'm not going to say cheap as there is no such thing as a decent and also cheap laptop, laptops are expensive.

I cannot remember the speed of the Core 2 Duo (I think it's 1.66Mhz, laptop cpu remember). It doesn't really interest me tbh. It does the job. I don't play computer games, barely never copy DVDs. My needs nowadays are much less than they need to be. I wouldn't want to go back to a big and ugly PC now though. A laptop is just right for me.

At work, our s/ware generates file locally, so the files would be placed in the subfolder of the program directory in "Program Files". Now Vista doesn't let you do that, even though you digital signed and paided M$, which is why we had to add a relocate feature.

No offence Slasher but you cannot blame Microsoft for closing a loop hole in previous OS's on Vista. It's bad programming practise to ever save user data in the Program Files or Windows folder, it's just until Vista nothing has stopped you doing it. I can see why programmers put user data in Program Files but from a security perspective it's never been a good idea, not in the days of 2000, XP or today.

The whole point of the C:\Documents and Settings\xxx\Application Data folder under 2000\XP and C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming under Vista is for Application Data. Why are you saving user data in My Documents? Granted it will work but that's not good practise either.

If programmers are going to ignore this rule and put files in Program Files anyway Vista is just going to stop you, it has nothing to do with Digital Signatures. I hope you realise come the next release of Windows Folder Virtualisation will be gone which means your software won't even work period. Right now it's only working as Vista is moving the files into the correct place the programmers should be doing anyway.

You're not alone though. eDonkey to name one such software still insists in writing user data to his program folder then winging it cannot. I've just relocated the user data to another folder and let it's config files work in the virtualisation folder Vista moves them to (C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\VirtualStore).

How do you mean Vista is paranoid? If you mean UAC it drove me round the bend so I installed TweakUAC. I certainly wouldn't recommend disabling UAC as it takes a slew of options with it (including folder virtualisation).

As to Windows Defender it's shit. I've disabled it and get a proper Spyware tool, but agreed that EULA is rubbish then.

Shen · Post by **Shen** » 22 Aug 2007, 01:47

i used Vista for a couple weeks whilst my laptop was in the repair shop. god how i hated it, every freaking action you had to confirm. i clicked on the damn thing of course i wanna do that you fucking muppet. i've read things about major security holes in vista too...overall i dont like vista, i'm quite happy with XP, never had any issues with it at all.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 Aug 2007, 01:52

Shen wrote:i used Vista for a couple weeks whilst my laptop was in the repair shop. god how i hated it, every freaking action you had to confirm. i clicked on the damn thing of course i wanna do that you fucking muppet.

Oh agreed that is annoying but there is ways around it. You can even get rid of them entirely if you wish but that's definitely not a good idea (it's also a painful process), it's easy enough to get rid of most though. Search for TweakUAC on Google.

Think back when you first got XP I bet there were new things you didn't quite like but you got used to them and now probably cannot even remember what they were.

Shen wrote: i've read things about major security holes in vista too...overall i dont like vista, i'm quite happy with XP, never had any issues with it at all.

Oh for sure. There is no such thing as a security free OS. Linux secure bollocks, Apple Mac secure yeah right.

My only point being Vista is better, it's nothing revolutionary and there isn't much big but it's just lots of tweaks and little things which are better.

Well I say nothing big memory management is a lot better. I never hear page swapping any more, also due to Superfetch applications open almost instantly. Page swapping being where hard disk space is used as memory and Superfetch being where commonly used programs load entirely in memory, but crucially memory you aren't using anyway.

but for home use, there is nothing wrong with Windows XP.

There is nothing wrong with 2000 for Home Use either but I bet no one wants that.

If you're a business I can see a valid case to stick with XP (or 2000 frankly), if you have an old home PC do some homework first before considering Vista. If you're buying a new PC you'd be nuts to consider anything less than Vista (assuming all your add-on hardware and software works with it).

Vista is easily better than XP in many ways (those who disagree at least use it for more than 10 minutes). Obviously it's no great leap like 98 to XP was but does it really need to be?

EvaUnit02 wrote:Other than that, XP all the way baby.

Bollocks. Use Vista for 2-3 weeks and XP quickly becomes very outdated. I've used XP since (and except for Explorer, which I hate in Vista) and it seems really old and had it.

thelostdragon wrote:I don't get what your guys' business is with brad's computer if he is satisfied with it.

Thank you LD. Eva is just weird

romerojpg wrote:Vista isnt working still for many people the way it suposed to.

You reckon every XP user had 100% success when they moved from 98? Please, that was an even bigger jump. Have you forgotten all the complaints XP got at the time? (or is your brain not capable of thinking back 5-6 years

)

The entire kernal was different then. XP to Vista is pocket change in comparison.

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 22 Aug 2007, 08:36

bradavon wrote: Oh agreed that is annoying but there is ways around it. You can even get rid of them entirely if you wish but that's definitely not a good idea (it's also a painful process), it's easy enough to get rid of most though. Search for TweakUAC on Google.

Thing is, that if you develop a s/ware which is based for customers likes our, then support get hammered, as clients are asking if this is okay to use. M$ really didn't need this feature in Vista

Think back when you first got XP I bet there were new things you didn't quite like but you got used to them and now probably cannot even remember what they were.

Actually it wasn't that bad, XP was just a continuation of 2000 in some respect, it was just a bit prettier

Oh for sure. There is no such thing as a security free OS. Linux secure bollocks, Apple Mac secure yeah right.

Yup, No O/S is truely secure, the thing with Linux is that it is open source, therefore in theory, if a bug has been found it can be fixed pretty quick. Especially if you use SVN to download the source, fix it locally, and commit the changes. An counter argument to open source would be, in theory, if you have the code, you can see the weak points of the O/S, so it possible that if people don't regularly update then they could be hacked.

My only point being Vista is better, it's nothing revolutionary and there isn't much big but it's just lots of tweaks and little things which are better.

Well I say nothing big memory management is a lot better. I never hear page swapping any more, also due to Superfetch applications open almost instantly. Page swapping being where hard disk space is used as memory and Superfetch being where commonly used programs load entirely in memory, but crucially memory you aren't using anyway.

I believe there are some memory issues with Vista, I remember we had to do a fix in our application concerning this area. In XP, when we close down the s/ware, we unload/unregister everything that is being used, especially the connection to the database, this works fine. But for Vista, for some reason this wasn't happening, and alot of our clients was getting out of memory error, it was a pain to track and debug. Thankfully the lead developer actually pinpointed the problem, and commited a fix.

There is nothing wrong with 2000 for Home Use either but I bet no one wants that.

Actually 2000 is still great, I use to love that

If you're a business I can see a valid case to stick with XP (or 2000 frankly)

Yup, as with all new s/ware especially ours

, give it 6 months to a year, and it will be stable, don't rush to get the new O/S yet. Vista will be usable next year, that what I think, Its the same with XP. I didn't use it straight away, I waited, M$ fixed alot of things, and now it is stable, and everyone loves it.

Vista is easily better than XP in many ways (those who disagree at least use it for more than 10 minutes). Obviously it's no great leap like 98 to XP was but does it really need to be?

Err I have been using it more than 10 mins, In fact, In work, I did the first form of QA with our s/ware on it and I still prefer XP currently [/quote]

Bollocks. Use Vista for 2-3 weeks and XP quickly becomes very outdated. I've used XP since (and except for Explorer, which I hate in Vista) and it seems really old and had it.

You could say this to upto the person taste, frankly I still think XP got a few years in itself

Thank you LD. Eva is just weird

Poor Eva, didn't post this thread up

You reckon every XP user had 100% success when they moved from 98? Please, that was an even bigger jump. Have you forgotten all the complaints XP got at the time? (or is your brain not capable of thinking back 5-6 years )

My brain is, as I was working in Tech Support when XP first came out, and actually from our point of view, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't as horrible as ME coming out, god the amount of phone calls I use to get with that, also blue screen of death. Actually 98 first edition was bad, it wasn't until 98 2nd Edition where things was getting stable.

The entire kernal was different then. XP to Vista is pocket change in comparison.

Yup that is true, however the main crux for me, is that M$ have not really given the user total control which I want. Instead Vista would tell me if I want to do this and for myself I don't want treaks, because when I use Vista, I am using it from our client point of view, and we really don't need to tell them to download tweaks. Also another point is Visual Studio simply doesn't work in Vista, 5 developers installed it on their vista machine, and it crashes out.