"We're going by car?"
Feb. 15th, 2011 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pseydtonneYesterday I learned at least three things.
One is that you can microwave bacon that you already cooked, but it'll sizzle off its fat almost instantly and turn into pork jerky. Meh. Today's corollary is that you can instead eat cold bacon (cooked and tossed in the fridge, not raw) on a sandwich and it'll work like a cold cut.
Two is that sometimes it's just easier to reboot, even in Unix and even when you could blow another couple hours reading logs to solve it without rebooting. This is the answer all the time in Windows, which is why we Unix putzim try so hard not to reboot. However I had jammed ports and I really just needed to get back to work, so I rebooted and things were swimming. I knew this, but it reinforced an older lesson: how long it's been since you rebooted is a pissing contest.
Three is the important one, and still not very important at that: a video card with four times the RAM can actually score lower on the Windows 7 Aero Experience test.
I have a Windows 7 Professional desktop at home. It's got a Core 2 Quad (Q9400, 2.66 GHz) and 4 GB of RAM. It also came with a video card with only 256 MB of VRAM, so it's Aero Graphics score was only 3.9 (on a scale of 1.0 to 7.9).
I tried putting in a big video card with 1 GB VRAM. This card sucked, something I haven't seen in a long time. I had to update the drivers because its concept of the edge of the screen was way off the edge, so I couldn't drag windows around if they were at the top of the screen and I had to guess where the Start icon had gone. Even after the update, stuff was still a little blurry when it wasn't before.
Then I ran the Experience Test on this new card: 3.7. Huh? I think the test has more to do with the speed of the card instead of memory size, or perhaps how it handles other stuff. I'll do some research after work, which will be pretty late.
I ran a test with another card (512 MB VRAM). The screen was in focus again but the test result was still 3.7. Thus I put the original card back into the tower, put the new card back in the box so I can return it and will do more research before I get another card.
I also found out this motherboard is surprisingly dated. It can be maxed out at 8 GB RAM (four sticks of 2 GB DDR2 800 MHz). It has PCIe 2.0 and other nice stuff, but it's really three years old and was sold as new last year. I bought it used, even though it had never been turned on, so I didn't get to choose the setup. Eight gig of RAM is very nice right now (and only usable on a 64-bit operating system: a 32-bit OS can only access up to 4 GB RAM) but will be a constraint very soon.
Besides, what does the Experience Rating matter? The box can crunch numbers fine and run scripts. It can show movies very well. It's quieter than most of my other towers, even with a video card that has a fan. That reminds me: I need to update my home media server once again as I keep hitting the edge of available drive space and I may want to check for dying fans.
I guess it goes back to the older lesson mentioned in #2: test numbers are pissing contests. Just because I did decently on my SATs but botched the logic puzzles on the GREs (back in 1996 when they still had that section) doesn't mean I lost any inches from my... ahem.
I'm an adult. I'm not trying to get accepted to an Ivy League school. My computers just need to do my bidding in a decent amount of time. Since a lot of what I bid them to do is simple by modern standards (run a script or two, keep the time in sync, let me research questions and see maps, show me pr0n or cartoons), I don't need big results.
The most intense thing I need is a quiet machine that can process audio editing as close to real time as possible. I've got that now. This means it's time to get back to work and not break the working visuals.
Oh, and I need to buy more soy patties. Protein for breakfast is vital. The bacon is nice, but it feels extravagant. A slice of turkey on my one egg and piece of wheat bread would do the trick, too.
-back to a lot of work, Ps/d
P.S.: Bonus points to anyone that can identify the quotation in the subject line.
One is that you can microwave bacon that you already cooked, but it'll sizzle off its fat almost instantly and turn into pork jerky. Meh. Today's corollary is that you can instead eat cold bacon (cooked and tossed in the fridge, not raw) on a sandwich and it'll work like a cold cut.
Two is that sometimes it's just easier to reboot, even in Unix and even when you could blow another couple hours reading logs to solve it without rebooting. This is the answer all the time in Windows, which is why we Unix putzim try so hard not to reboot. However I had jammed ports and I really just needed to get back to work, so I rebooted and things were swimming. I knew this, but it reinforced an older lesson: how long it's been since you rebooted is a pissing contest.
Three is the important one, and still not very important at that: a video card with four times the RAM can actually score lower on the Windows 7 Aero Experience test.
I have a Windows 7 Professional desktop at home. It's got a Core 2 Quad (Q9400, 2.66 GHz) and 4 GB of RAM. It also came with a video card with only 256 MB of VRAM, so it's Aero Graphics score was only 3.9 (on a scale of 1.0 to 7.9).
I tried putting in a big video card with 1 GB VRAM. This card sucked, something I haven't seen in a long time. I had to update the drivers because its concept of the edge of the screen was way off the edge, so I couldn't drag windows around if they were at the top of the screen and I had to guess where the Start icon had gone. Even after the update, stuff was still a little blurry when it wasn't before.
Then I ran the Experience Test on this new card: 3.7. Huh? I think the test has more to do with the speed of the card instead of memory size, or perhaps how it handles other stuff. I'll do some research after work, which will be pretty late.
I ran a test with another card (512 MB VRAM). The screen was in focus again but the test result was still 3.7. Thus I put the original card back into the tower, put the new card back in the box so I can return it and will do more research before I get another card.
I also found out this motherboard is surprisingly dated. It can be maxed out at 8 GB RAM (four sticks of 2 GB DDR2 800 MHz). It has PCIe 2.0 and other nice stuff, but it's really three years old and was sold as new last year. I bought it used, even though it had never been turned on, so I didn't get to choose the setup. Eight gig of RAM is very nice right now (and only usable on a 64-bit operating system: a 32-bit OS can only access up to 4 GB RAM) but will be a constraint very soon.
Besides, what does the Experience Rating matter? The box can crunch numbers fine and run scripts. It can show movies very well. It's quieter than most of my other towers, even with a video card that has a fan. That reminds me: I need to update my home media server once again as I keep hitting the edge of available drive space and I may want to check for dying fans.
I guess it goes back to the older lesson mentioned in #2: test numbers are pissing contests. Just because I did decently on my SATs but botched the logic puzzles on the GREs (back in 1996 when they still had that section) doesn't mean I lost any inches from my... ahem.
I'm an adult. I'm not trying to get accepted to an Ivy League school. My computers just need to do my bidding in a decent amount of time. Since a lot of what I bid them to do is simple by modern standards (run a script or two, keep the time in sync, let me research questions and see maps, show me pr0n or cartoons), I don't need big results.
The most intense thing I need is a quiet machine that can process audio editing as close to real time as possible. I've got that now. This means it's time to get back to work and not break the working visuals.
Oh, and I need to buy more soy patties. Protein for breakfast is vital. The bacon is nice, but it feels extravagant. A slice of turkey on my one egg and piece of wheat bread would do the trick, too.
-back to a lot of work, Ps/d
P.S.: Bonus points to anyone that can identify the quotation in the subject line.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-15 10:07 pm (UTC)This has been my thinking more and more for the "I need a machine to smoothly edit photos" thing.
I need that, a bit of not-super-high-end games, and the basics you say.
If you're looking for a movie, I have no idea about the quote, but there's a Woody Allen play about Death that has a funny bit where someone yells that out.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-15 10:51 pm (UTC)But yes, you have needs for a computer to let you do photo editing. Lemme know a good time to chat with you about that.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-15 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-16 01:25 am (UTC)