No Schild Left Behind - Updated 2/18/2007

[WayAbvPar]

We should use the children as bait to trap Santa Claus.  Then we can shoot him in the head.

Think of all the phat lewtz he would drop!

[Falconeer]

All I want is The Black Hole on DVD.

There you go. 0.99$

[Yegolev]

Used?  Ebay?  Who am I, Fred Sanford?

[Riggswolfe]

All I want is The Black Hole on DVD.

I'm holding out for the super special edition that comes in a tin case shaped like Maxmillian, the killer robot from that movie.

[MisterNoisy]

We should use the children as bait to trap Santa Claus.  Then we can shoot him in the head.

Think of all the phat lewtz he would drop!

And Signe's plan sidesteps the faction grind entirely.

[Lionhunter]

I'm a poor romanian kid who had to act in Borat's movie to fee his family.

GIMME THE MONEY.

...not

[Signe]

What is a senior quad?  I googled it but it didn't help.

[Rasix]

Split and denned the negativity.  As a result, some posts got taken for a ride and some stuff may not make sense anymore.  OOPS.

[Signe]

Stop it!  You're making me run around in circles! 

Suddenly I feel like nesting.

[Murgos]

What is a senior quad?  I googled it but it didn't help.

Lots of military schools are broken up by how the dorms are laid out.  In this case it would be the sort of courtyard outside where the senior cadets live.  I.e. expect a lot of hazing to junior cadets that are caught there.

edit for linkage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrangle

[bhodi]

When I think of a quad, the first thing that comes to mind is the walk of shame. I used to love watching the crowd headed back home in the morning.

[Signe]

When I think of quads, I think of naked men with HUGE leg muscles riding around on one of those off road thingies.   

[Cheddar]

Updated first post.  The case we are looking at is extremely sweet.  As such I am going to build up my own system, though mine will be multi media based (I already have an ExxXXXxxxxXXXxxXxxxxXXXtreme gaming computer). 

[Yegolev]

Be sure that what you end up with is about the size of a toaster and has strategically-placed acrylic.

[schild]

I see what you did there.

[Rasix]

Moved attempted revival of hostilities back to the abyss.   

Those of you that feel I'm over sanitizing are free to send me a PM.  Savvy?

[Yegolev]

I kid because I love.  And I know what's in your closet.  If I had any parts worth a damn that I could not fit into my chassis, I'd send it your way.

[Sky]

Those of you that feel I'm over sanitizing are free to send me a PM.  Savvy?

You're like some kind of sanitary...napkin? ;)

[Cheddar]

I am slightly behind on getting a parts list for Schild; he is extremely picky and wants particular things.  Currently I am looking at video cards, preferably Radeon, and mobos.  RAM is easy enough, 2-4 gigs should suffice.  Sound card is easy as well, a sound blaster Audigy 2 is more than useful enough.

[Morfiend]

2gb of RAM should be plenty and with a decent motherboard, onboard sound should do fine. Thats a savings of $300 right there.

[Riggswolfe]

I am slightly behind on getting a parts list for Schild; he is extremely picky and wants particular things.  Currently I am looking at video cards, preferably Radeon, and mobos.  RAM is easy enough, 2-4 gigs should suffice.  Sound card is easy as well, a sound blaster Audigy 2 is more than useful enough.

If you want any advice I would not touch a Radeon card. Their drivers are shit and I've never had a good experience with one.

[schild]

I am slightly behind on getting a parts list for Schild; he is extremely picky and wants particular things. Currently I am looking at video cards, preferably Radeon, and mobos. RAM is easy enough, 2-4 gigs should suffice. Sound card is easy as well, a sound blaster Audigy 2 is more than useful enough.

I'm not entirely sure a soundcard is necessary at all. Is onboad sound all that bad? Is there any advantage to a soundcard? I've had the same Soundblaster since before 2000, still chugs. I only use 3 speakers and 99% of the time I use headphones. I can just throw that in the machine. If you insist on outfitting it out across the board, find the cheapest audigy 2 you can and chuck that in there. I think they all have digital output. Sound = Almost maybe nearly unimportant. It's not a matter of _extremely_ picky, so much as - I don't know any other way. I've always used Radeons and obviously an upgradable motherboard is key. If someone can make a good argument for NVidia over ATI other than ATI DRIVERS SUX LOL, then I probably wouldn't care. Unfortunately I've been using ATI cards since my Pentium 75 and I've never had a driver issue.

So yes, we want everyones advice.

[Rasix]

When I had onboard sound, I had nothing but issues with it. But it was an earlier NForce board, so maybe they're rock solid now. I'd also rather not update motherboard drivers when updating sound drivers. 

You can get a cheap, decent soundcard and I'm sure it'll do fine.

[Engels]

AC'75 standard onboard sound is ok. If you're not a sound geek, don't worry about it. There's some persnickety argument that having an actual card takes some load off the CPU, but I think that's only the case with the newer fancy Creative cards, which I hear are having issues with Vista. All in all, I'd put it on the bottom of my priority list.

Video cards, I've had both. I like both companies. there's some noise about ATI's drivers not being as versatile as Nvidia's in their universal packaging, so folks go to some dude's website and download customized ATI drivers, and that seems to make 'em run better. But heck if I could tell the difference.

Also, for what little its worth, the ATI Catalyst Control interface has a nicer, more intiutive layout than Nvidia's control center.

[Signe]

I also had tons of problems in games with onboard sound, all of which cleared up when I installed a proper sound card. 

[Strazos]

I would just toss a basic SB card in. Take the supposed load off the CPU. Plus, you don't have to mess with the mobo when fooling with sound drivers (which always seem to be a pain for me).

Also, I thought you were done with ATI cards, Schild? I've only owned 5 video cards in my life: a Voodoo2, 2 GeForce TI4600s from Leadtek, and 3 different Radeon cards. Not counting the backup card I have running right now, both of my previous ATI cards and both of my Leadtek cards have all had different problems - the fans died on the ATI cards, one of the GeForce cards slipped partially out of the slot...somehow, while the PC was running, and the second replacement card somehow corrupted its own drivers all to hell eventually.

I have a BFG 6800GS on the way, so I can tell you about the newer GeForce cards once it gets here and I install it next week. (also, any comments on BFG?)

[Trippy]

There's some persnickety argument that having an actual card takes some load off the CPU, but I think that's only the case with the newer fancy Creative cards, which I hear are having issues with Vista.

No you have it exactly backwards. Creative has the best hardware support for OpenAL which is what you want under Vista.

[Trippy]

I am slightly behind on getting a parts list for Schild; he is extremely picky and wants particular things.  Currently I am looking at video cards, preferably Radeon, and mobos.  RAM is easy enough, 2-4 gigs should suffice.  Sound card is easy as well, a sound blaster Audigy 2 is more than useful enough.

I'm assuming you are going Intel Core 2 Duo. If you want an ATI GPU you'll probably want a board that support Crossfire but that means using a technology that AMD bought out with its acquisition of ATI which I wrote about more here. That may be some unwarrented FUD on my part but I personally would not want to invest a lot of money in such a combination of technologies.

I'm also solidly in the camp that believes that the ATI drivers are still not as good as the NVIDIA ones. I had an ATI card a while back (an AIW 9600 Pro) and was constantly having to fiddle with it and non-id engine OpenGL games never worked quite right even after all the fiddling. If you search through this forum you see people asking for help with their ATI drivers on a regular basis (with the standard answer being "use the Omega drivers"). How many times have you seen that for the NVIDIA drivers? Which is not to say that the NVIDIA drivers are perfect but I think the evidence is pretty clear that they have fewer problems than the ATI ones. That doesn't mean you shouldn't get an ATI GPU but it does mean you'll probably have to fiddle with the drivers more compared to an NVIDIA card unless you are like schild and don't play PC games all that much.

The Audigy/2 cards I've had over the years have always been somewhat "noisy" through the headphones jack. I would recommend an X-Fi card instead.

[Trippy]

I am slightly behind on getting a parts list for Schild; he is extremely picky and wants particular things.

Then why don't you have him pick out the parts?

[schild]

I don't know enough to do that. Short of the case being a certain dimension (full towers for example don't fit anywhere around my desk) and the motherboard being reasonably futureproof (I'll obviously eventually want to upgrade), my pickiness is due to my lack of knowledge. You know how I was going to build my new computer when I finally got enough? Max out the shit on the Dell custom page. Yea. I'm nooblish.

[Cheddar]

Sound blasters are so cheap it would be silly not to include one.  Personally I am a fan of Radeon; mind you I have used Omega drivers for years and am pretty good at making windows run relatively slick.  Schild is doing most of the picking; Perhaps people could post suggested configurations for what he should get.  I will put my parts list together; as I said earlier, my computer will be a media center thingamajig so will be easy to piece up. 

My issue is I lack knowledge on video input.  If anyone could point me in the right direction I would be ecstatic (I prefer input be coax with output as S-video, though RCA is fine as well). 

[schild]

Video Input I'll look up. It would be neat to hook up consoles via Component in and take direct feed pictures. I'll look into this. Unless someone already has.

[Trippy]

My issue is I lack knowledge on video input.  If anyone could point me in the right direction I would be ecstatic (I prefer input be coax with output as S-video, though RCA is fine as well). 

If video input is important you may want to consider an ATI GPU card with "Avivo" support which has support for video in (S-Video being the best you can get) and various video out including component. For "VIVO" stuff (Video In Video Out) ATI is better than NVIDIA. schild is, however, dreaming if he thinks he's going to be able to do component input video capture on a gaming video card. You'll need to get a separate card/external converter box for that sort of thing.

If you are just looking to turn your box into a PVR-type device you are probably better off getting a dedicated PVR board like one from ATI or Hauppauge. The VIVO chips on the ATI video cards only do software MPEG-2 encoding which probably isn't so bad on a dual-core processor but it'll still suck up a lot more CPU cycles than a card with a dedicated hardware MPEG-2 encoder. The disadvantage of a hardware encoder is that you can't play a console game through it cause it introduces too much of a delay between input and output. Building a robust PVR box that you also want to be able to play games on while recording simultaneously will require you to have at least two hard drives. 3D game performance really sucks if a single hard drive is trying to steam video data onto the disc and load game data at the same time.

[Cheddar]

<lots of words>

I have no idea what the fuck you just said little man, but you touched a brother.  Tell me what to buy.

[Trippy]

<lots of words>

I have no idea what the fuck you just said little man, but you touched a brother.  Tell me what to buy.

For a dedicated PVR card Hauppauge's line of cards is best supported so if you aren't sure what to get that's what I would recommend. Then you have to decide if you want to use Windows XP Media Center Edition.

With MCE:

http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr150mcekit.html

There are other MCE specific choices but they don't include a remote which is problematic.


Without MCE:

http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr150.html or
http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr350.html if you really want to listen and record FM radio

The software that comes with the non-MCE cards is not TV friendly so you'll need something like BeyondTV or SageTV or GB-PVR if you want a TV-style UI to control things.

Edit: here's the table of WinTV cards if you want to see all the options available:

http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/compare/compare_pvr.html