Halo 1 & 2 for PC
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  • Subject: My computer sucks
Subject: My computer sucks
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Exactly what is overclocking? (and what are the disadvantages and how can you do it?)

I have a premade computer by Dell. (I was not prewarned of making one yourself.) I hope actually upgrade this thing. Other than when the plasma rifle and pistol overheats my computer slows down dramatically and that i crash every once in a while on single player, i have absolutly no problem running halo on highest detail i can get. But i noticed when i enable sound card buffering, when i have my head phones on i have to put my left on my right ear and my right speaker on my left ear. Also i have outside halo issues like when my CPU usage goes up or go into a full screen game, my mic volume all the sudden shoots up an extra mic boost on teamspeak. (as if you could mic boost +40 instead of +20) Always have issues with recording programs throwing up that mic volume.

Anyway, mine is... (I'm not proud of my peice of crap. That's what i get for being an utter hardware moron, software on the other hand, don't you dare start anything. lol Note: DxDiag readout.)

Video: Nvidia Geforce MX 420 (if you upgrade your drivers, never do it through automatic updates, compy will crash.)
Sound: Creative SB Live! Series (yes, i'm ashamed.)
Memory (Random Access): 256 MB (Sad, right?)
Memory (Read Only AKA Hard Drive): About 60 gigs. (Sick, but i really don't need all the ROM.)
Page File(Probably what makes the damn thing handle all that i put it through): 3635 MB
Processor: Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 CPU 2.53 GHz

What i put it throuh:

Halo (High Detail), Trillian 3 (with plugins and all my names = 46924 mem usage on task manager. NOTHING else eats up that much or even gets a 4th. And if some one not on my bl ims me, comp goes into major lag.), my horrible C++ programming. Other than that i don't do much accept keep over 10 windows open at all times. Actually, for a company made computer, this isn't bad at all handling it. But maybe my brain runs with as much lag as my comptuer so i don't always notice it.

  • 07.03.2005 3:16 PM PDT
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Posted by: Kohlrak
Exactly what is overclocking? (and what are the disadvantages and how can you do it?)

I have a premade computer by Dell. (I was not prewarned of making one yourself.) I hope actually upgrade this thing. Other than when the plasma rifle and pistol overheats my computer slows down dramatically and that i crash every once in a while on single player, i have absolutly no problem running halo on highest detail i can get. But i noticed when i enable sound card buffering, when i have my head phones on i have to put my left on my right ear and my right speaker on my left ear. Also i have outside halo issues like when my CPU usage goes up or go into a full screen game, my mic volume all the sudden shoots up an extra mic boost on teamspeak. (as if you could mic boost +40 instead of +20) Always have issues with recording programs throwing up that mic volume.

Anyway, mine is... (I'm not proud of my peice of crap. That's what i get for being an utter hardware moron, software on the other hand, don't you dare start anything. lol Note: DxDiag readout.)

Video: Nvidia Geforce MX 420 (if you upgrade your drivers, never do it through automatic updates, compy will crash.)
Sound: Creative SB Live! Series (yes, i'm ashamed.)
Memory (Random Access): 256 MB (Sad, right?)
Memory (Read Only AKA Hard Drive): About 60 gigs. (Sick, but i really don't need all the ROM.)
Page File(Probably what makes the damn thing handle all that i put it through): 3635 MB
Processor: Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 CPU 2.53 GHz

What i put it throuh:

Halo (High Detail), Trillian 3 (with plugins and all my names = 46924 mem usage on task manager. NOTHING else eats up that much or even gets a 4th. And if some one not on my bl ims me, comp goes into major lag.), my horrible C++ programming. Other than that i don't do much accept keep over 10 windows open at all times. Actually, for a company made computer, this isn't bad at all handling it. But maybe my brain runs with as much lag as my comptuer so i don't always notice it.


my comments:

overclocking is making hardware run faster than it's rated for. Premade computers such as dell lock the settings needed for overclocking. The main thing to overclock for gaming is the video card. Check your video card manufacturer's website to see if they have an overclocking application. The main enemy and mistake of overclocking is making it run so fast that it overheats, so only make the speed slightly faster at a time (5 Mhz steps), run it for an hour or 2, and see if you get errors. This may void your warranty sometimes, so check that out too.

slowing down with plasma overheat: excessive particles during the overheat is normal.

reversing headphones: make sure that a sound card setting isn't switching the L and R signals. I do not think buffering is the main cause.

mic volumes: dunno. i don't use teamspeak or have a microphone to use.

you should upgrade your ram before anything else. Maps and stuff are loaded into main ram, not video card. video card just holds textures for the map and stuff. I just got a half-life 2 demo, and it stutters occasionally because of my ram. I looked at my free space on my ram with half life 2 demo running, and i only had like 3MB left.

you should only have the page file set to 1.5x of the ram you have. more than 1.5x of your ram is really just wasted space.

You might get a slight boost in performance if you:
scan for viruses and spyware
defragment your hard drive regularly
shut down unnecessary background programs (instant messenger, special control panels)




[Edited on 7/3/2005]

  • 07.03.2005 3:26 PM PDT
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scans for viruses at 8:00 every morning eastern time (-5 hourst gmt). You'd be surprised how much of my page file is used. I'm thinking about contactign my half brother and building one from scratch. According to the owners manual, this thing can't handle hte best. I want the best. As for the reversing head phones, how would i check if that's happening. Despite the fact that i only notice it in halo, i think it runs fine. How exactly would i check that?

  • 07.03.2005 3:48 PM PDT
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if you have a separate sound card, it should have it's own control panel, shouldn't it?

Honestly, you try to multitask way too much for what you have. 10 windows at a time!!!!! 10 windows is a little extreme, even for hyper threading. really, you need to slow down. According to your last post, you're using up almost all of the 4GB of page file that 32bit computing allows. That is insane!

[Edited on 7/4/2005]

  • 07.04.2005 2:50 AM PDT
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I know but my computer dosn't lag that much. Just in games. As you can probably notice if you go into the teamspeak testing thread no one else has problems either using hte server programs on my computer. I will say this is heck, but jeeze, this computer has a nack for taking crap. And either the sound card control panel is this crappy thing that messes with windows sounds or they have it nice and hidden where you're not supposed to find it. Or they just might not include one. Wouldn't shock me much.

  • 07.04.2005 6:20 AM PDT
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I have a monster.....


1 GB RAM
2.81Ghz
pentium4
and last but most certainly not least.......


Nvidia Geforce 7800 GTX.......that baby just hit the market, its very expensive but i have halo, chaos theory, battlefield 2, half life 2, and farcry all installed on my comp with all highest settings and i get absolutely no lag.

  • 07.04.2005 11:05 AM PDT
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one more new graphics card on the market means a better deal on the next lower model for me. lol.

  • 07.04.2005 12:18 PM PDT
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lol i was saving up for that graphics card for SOO -blam!- long you have no idea

[Edited on 7/4/2005]

  • 07.04.2005 12:23 PM PDT
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i can't save money. It's just too tempting to spend it.

  • 07.04.2005 12:27 PM PDT
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Yea well you just gotta keep reminding yourslef

  • 07.04.2005 3:33 PM PDT
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I'm saving up for the R520 ATi cores myself. One hits above 10,000 in 3D Mark, which is about a 2,500 increase over the 7800GTX. I'm sure it'll be higher in price than the 7800GTX, but I can't tell. All I know is that 10,000 in 3D Mark is already hard to impossible to get...

10 windows? I think you need to slow down. That's insane. Your brain must be tired after a few hours :S

  • 07.04.2005 6:11 PM PDT
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Update:

an X800 XL which has 16 pipelines and 400 mhz core

is better, and cheaper then an X800 pro, so yea screw the X800 pro, cuz for cheaper you can get the X800 XL which performs better

  • 07.19.2005 12:48 AM PDT
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what do all of these abbreviations on graphics card models mean:
SE
XL
XT
PE

EDIT: so that i don't double post, i was wondering if you could check out this new option that i found. It's under a thread called "performance options". Sorry for spam/ads.

[Edited on 7/19/2005]

  • 07.19.2005 12:52 AM PDT
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For ATI

SE= is beasically called shytty edition because it has less pipelines and a very low clock speed, not worth it unless you want to do some hardcore Modding and overclocking, like unlocking pipelines, flashing bios and so on,,,,

XL= is a new line that was born in the X800 series, it is better then the pro because it has 16 pipelines, cheaper, and performs better then the pro.

pro= back in the day when the 9600 and 9800 were first out, these were great cards if you were on a budget and didnt have enough for the XT edition....but now the X800 pro, is worse then the X800 XL, and is more expensive....again, modding is possible... you can unlock pipelines but the risk of artifacts is high and sometimes you can permanently damage your card if you unlock them...so yea also the X850 pro is 12 pipelines which is kinda lame....

XT= this version is the second best because they have the most pipelines and the fastest clock speeds but if you want more......

XT PE= this version was born in the X800 series.... the XT PE(platinum edition) has the highest of everything...so far the PE's have about +20 mhz core speed then XT, but the upcoming X900 XT PE will have more pipelines 32 to be exact....but for the X800 and X850 the XT PE's only have higher clock speeds...

For nVidia

LE= a waste of money unless your on a tight budget, equivalent to SE

plain or Vanila ex. 6800, 6600= these cards arent the greatest but if you overclock youll be fine

GT= this is a new version in the 6 series of Nvidia cards and this version is probably the best bang for the buck

Ultra= top of the line

Ultra Extreme= slightly overclocked ultra, not worht the extra money

also the 6800 Ultra 512 edition is a waste of money the 7800 GTX is cheaper and is much better

and now for the 7 series

GTX= this card is best out of all so far

GT= I believe there will be a 7800 GT and a 7600 GT so yea these cards are awsome


so there ya have it, to sum it all up....stay away from SE, LE, plain...plain is ok on budget, EZ cards...some 9600 are EZ which suck.....

  • 07.19.2005 12:02 PM PDT
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i have a radeon x300se. can i unlock pipelines like you said? If so, how can i unlock pipelines?

  • 07.19.2005 1:58 PM PDT
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I doubt it will make a huge differnce, the card wasn't designed for more so you will probably run into problems that aren't worth it. I'm looking at the x800xl for the comp I'm building.

  • 07.19.2005 9:22 PM PDT
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Yea I wouldnt bother unlocking pipelines because you wont see much difference in Performance and if you do, you could probably end up wih artifacts....so I would stick to how the card is now, save up money and then get a better video card.....

The X800 XL is an awsome card

  • 07.20.2005 12:12 AM PDT
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i wonder if this will help put a big dent in the lag of today.

  • 07.20.2005 4:49 PM PDT
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It looks expensive. I am waiting to see the internet over the power cables.

  • 07.20.2005 5:26 PM PDT
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the best bang for the buck these days is the nVidia 6600 GT....which beats the 9800 pro and XT and any older family Radeon card basically 9800 XT and below.....and its only around 150 to 200 bucks!

its an awsome card.... you could probably find a cheap one at www.newegg.com

  • 07.21.2005 12:36 AM PDT