What Have You Done Today - (Computer Version)

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Installed Windows 7 as a virtual machine so I can run CorelDraw X3 again.

Having never even installed an OS since Win 3.11 on a 486 DX2/66, and having never installed or used any VM program before I have to say... it's a ******* pain in the ass.

Any Oracle VM VirtualBox users got any tips for reducing mouse lag and actually getting the VM to recognise a sensible aspect ratio?
 
MatskiMonk
Installed Windows 7 as a virtual machine so I can run CorelDraw X3 again.

Having never even installed an OS since Win 3.11 on a 486 DX2/66, and having never installed or used any VM program before I have to say... it's a ******* pain in the ass.

Any Oracle VM VirtualBox users got any tips for reducing mouse lag and actually getting the VM to recognise a sensible aspect ratio?
Click to expand...

I use VMware Player.
But install the drivers for the VM.
Install Guest Additions or something like this.
This a will start a program to install the drivers for the VM in the Guest OS(in your case Windows 7)

Then look at the settings.
How much RAM, how many CPU cores does it use.
You can enable 3D acceleration and how much VRAM the VM has.
 
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MatskiMonk
Installed Windows 7 as a virtual machine so I can run CorelDraw X3 again.

Having never even installed an OS since Win 3.11 on a 486 DX2/66, and having never installed or used any VM program before I have to say... it's a ******* pain in the ass.

Any Oracle VM VirtualBox users got any tips for reducing mouse lag and actually getting the VM to recognise a sensible aspect ratio?
Click to expand...

I've never used VirtualBox (I have VMware workstation pro to run linux VM's from a windows 10 host) but as Grayfox alluded to, you may need to allocate more system resources to the VM to unlock higher resolutions in addition to improving performance. There may also just straight up be a resolution or aspect ratio setting you've missed in the host software somewhere so the guest is convinced the monitor is 4:3 or whatever.
 
I been trying to get my old Lexmark scanner/copier/printer to work again with my PC. I may eventually try to get a brand new printer. I had my Lexmark printer since about 2006. The ink cartridges are probably stones by now. I am eyeing a few cheap options. Since I don't print stuff often, and I don't even need a fax; I don't need a printer- just a decent scanner. I don't really know what low-priced scanner interests me. And I'm considering something I can get from Wal-Mart.
 
12469A74-A8F8-4BCA-8BAF-E5F35C10E0BA.jpeg
Replaced my thumbsticks to the Xbox One controller and fixed my controller functionality on the PC :)
 
I continue to put up with a friend who just got into PC gaming and annoys the 🤬 out of me. He holds benchmark scores in such high regard, he constantly quotes numbers to me as if I give a crap. Basically, I'm having a whinge about that "one friend". Good dude, but damn near every time I read a PC-related question from him I roll my eyes into the next star system.
 
@Terronium-12 I went through similar with my brother: "My case has space for two more fans in the front, two on top, one on the side and one on the bottom so I got all these extra fans to go in it" - meanwhile I'm here with two fans, low enough temperatures, no noise and way less dust. Although that was years ago and the only thing he's asked me about since is redoing the thermal paste on his GTX 680 which, to be fair, is almost ten years old, has seen a lot of use and has never been repasted so I guess it could be worse. His PC does still sound like an idling helicopter though.
 
Terronium-12
I continue to put up with a friend who just got into PC gaming and annoys the 🤬 out of me. He holds benchmark scores in such high regard, he constantly quotes numbers to me as if I give a crap. Basically, I'm having a whinge about that "one friend". Good dude, but damn near every time I read a PC-related question from him I roll my eyes into the next star system.
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I mean, my brother always asks me hardware questions with not a damn in the world of actual performance just to try and have a better PC than mine. Then he just buys my old parts instead of researching how to even build his own, so it could be worse...
 
New scanner! I picked up a Canon TS-series wireless printer. It's actually a Canon PIXMA TS3522. I was looking for an inexpensive scanner, and I originally wanted a low-quality Canon PIXMA printer. Until I got a price check on the printer I got, I got that instead. It prints well and scans nicely. I got a new scanner to replace my Lexmark 1200 series scanner from the mid-2000s.

Originally, I planned on trying to get a scanner and a graphics tablet. I was only successful getting a scanner. I wanted to get a graphics tablet so try to get into digital art. I wanted to use that for GIMP and Krita. I'll keep searching.
 
ProjectWHaT
I've been incredibly busy working on my classes this semester, but it has also been incredibly rewarding.

Last semester I took an intro computer graphics class



This semester, I'm in the advanced course. So far, we've implemented a real time interactive ray tracer in C++ using Intel's Embree library. You can move the camera around in 3D space and it'll calculate the shading in real time. It includes point lights, area lights, and ambient obscurance. The last two are calculated using Monte Carlo estimations. You can ray trace any scene given an obj or dae file, but you need to manually write a JSON that contains the light and material info.

Our next assignment is creating our own rasterizer using OpenGL.

View attachment 999693

View attachment 999695



At the same time, I'm taking an intro game design class. The class is split into teams of 8 where we basically develop our own indie game for the semester. My team is making a platform puzzle game with magnetism physics. We made a "gameplay prototype" last week based on example code that was given for practice and we are now working on a "technical prototype" which should finalize most of the physics. The game is coded in Java using the LibGDX engine

View attachment 999696
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My semester ended a few weeks ago.

For computer graphics after completing ray tracing, we developed a rasterization program using OpenGL and then we implemented mesh animations.

In my game design class, we finished our game and had people play it during a showcase event. It's available online on my school's website.

https://gdiac.cs.cornell.edu/showcase/gallery/change_in_charge/

It was a lot of fun learning game development. It was so much work but in the end I'm super proud of what we were able to accomplish. We didn't win any awards, but we did get a solid A for our game which is good enough for me.
 
I had my first-ever Zoom call tonight! Most people are used to services like Zoom during this pandemic. Tonight was my first usage of any video-conferencing software. It's also my first video conference of any kind. Pretty cool! I joined a Zoom call on my tablet PC. I may do something like maybe get a modern webcam for maybe doing video conferencing from my PC. I have a webcam already, but just want a modern one. My old webcam was a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000.

Anyhow, I enjoyed doing my first video conferencing.
 
JohnBM01
I had my first-ever Zoom call tonight! Most people are used to services like Zoom during this pandemic. Tonight was my first usage of any video-conferencing software. It's also my first video conference of any kind. Pretty cool! I joined a Zoom call on my tablet PC. I may do something like maybe get a modern webcam for maybe doing video conferencing from my PC. I have a webcam already, but just want a modern one. My old webcam was a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000.

Anyhow, I enjoyed doing my first video conferencing.
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You can take some of mine if you like? I'm averaging 5-6 per day at the minute!
 
GilesGuthrie
You can take some of mine if you like? I'm averaging 5-6 per day at the minute!
Click to expand...

We're using MS Teams and if its not face to face calls with managers or team mates its the constant jibber jabber over the teams platform. Trying to get work done is a core :D its not like I can ignore it either as it maybe important.
 
Fixed my CPU fan error. But I now have a startup problem. I loaded the default Bios settings and I can't make my M.2 SSD the priority boot device anymore. I disabled the two HDDs, which are both for DATA storage, so it has to start from the SDD.
 
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kikie
Fixed my CPU fan error. But I now have a startup problem. I loaded the default Bios settings and I can't make my M.2 SSD the priority boot device anymore. I disabled the two HDDs, which are both for DATA storage, so it has to start from the SDD.
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I take it you've tried going into the UEFI boot priorities click on the HDD/SSD section and selected which HDD/SSD is the first in the list.

Otherwise you can change the EFI boot priority
 
Grayfox
I take it you've tried going into the UEFI boot priorities click on the HDD/SSD section and selected which HDD/SSD is the first in the list.

Otherwise you can change the EFI boot priority
Click to expand...
I fixed it yesterday.
 
Replaced my old but still working 24" FHD monitor with a 27" FHD one that I obtained from family.
It works fine, just needed an external 19v power supply but me being a pack rat found an old Asus lap charger works fine on it
The charger is 19v and the DC barrel plug is same size.

So Money saved.

Just need to get a display cable.
This monitor has 2 HDMI ports and a VGA

My GPU has 3 Display port, 1 HDMI and 1 DVI-I
The HDMI is being used by the TV, 1 DP is being used by my primary.
Now I have to source a DP to HDMI cable.

Going from 60Hz to 75Hz will be OK, I guess.
Not that I use the secondary for gaming these days.
2021-06-28 20.30.02.png


If I had the desk room.
I could run 4 monitors.
But that is a bit much even for me.
Or is it?
 
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Today I finally did something I should've done ages ago. I finally decided to move my PC from my TV to my makeshift work from home setup. This is important because before this, playing games took two forms:
  1. Playing on my 40" 2160p 60Hz TV at a distance slightly too great to really be able to see what I'm doing in most games, usually at 1440p becuase my GTX 1080 can't do 2160p at 60fps reliably enough in many games (luckily my TV upscales it pretty well) and strictly only with a controller, or
  2. Streamed to my 27" 1440p 144Hz G-Sync monitor via a Raspberry Pi 3 running Steam Link, able to use a mouse and keyboard but limited to either smoothly upscaled 720p or very badly upscaled 1080p (I chose 720p, and played the MCC remastered versions of Halo 1 and 2 like that!)
So now I've reversed the setup - my PC is connected to my monitor and I can stream to my TV (at 2160p 60Hz) using its built-in Steam Link app, wired end to end so the latency is good enough for Dirt Rally 2, believe it or not.

I think I resisted doing it because I thought working from home wouldn't last that long, but it now seems to be a permanent thing I'll be doing for at least a couple of days a week which means I won't be constantly packing/unpacking my monitor and moving the dining table and sofa around as and when required. It's not a pretty setup by any means, definitely not one that'd win any awards, but I'm glad to finally get some use out of my fancy £700 monitor again. Forza Horizon 4 looks absolutely incredible at 144Hz, it has to be said!

Edit: oh yeah, I was spurred on to do this by the fact that I installed another 1TB 870 QVO earlier and had it on the table for cleaning (which it didn't need, it's astonishingly dust-free for a PC that lives on the floor), I figured it was probably just easier to move it to under the table than to put it back where it was next to the TV...
 
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Added a Samsung 980 1tb nvme m.2 drive and doubled my ram from 16gb to 32gb in my razer blade 15.
 
I've been fighting random black screen crashes for the last few weeks. Tried loads of solutions, tried to identify the issue in event viewier, the only consistent error was a DCOM 10016 error which led to a dead end.

Kept finding solutions that eemed to solver the problem for a while but then it would happen again and come back. Changed the power management options for the Ethernet pors and adapters etc. Thos fixed it for a few days, but then it started crashing again.

Finally decided to pull out one of the RAM sticks and it's worked fine since, but only been a couple of days. I've been here before, so let's see how it goes.
 
Dave A
I've been fighting random black screen crashes for the last few weeks. Tried loads of solutions, tried to identify the issue in event viewier, the only consistent error was a DCOM 10016 error which led to a dead end.

Kept finding solutions that eemed to solver the problem for a while but then it would happen again and come back. Changed the power management options for the Ethernet pors and adapters etc. Thos fixed it for a few days, but then it started crashing again.

Finally decided to pull out one of the RAM sticks and it's worked fine since, but only been a couple of days. I've been here before, so let's see how it goes.
Click to expand...
Does the PC generate a crash dump?
If it does try a program called "BlueScreen View" by Nirsoft.
 
Grayfox
Does the PC generate a crash dump?
If it does try a program called "BlueScreen View" by Nirsoft.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I'll take a look at that.

It's been another full day without the 2nd RAM stick and no further crashes though so it's promising.
 
Dave A
Thanks, I'll take a look at that.

It's been another full day without the 2nd RAM stick and no further crashes though so it's promising.
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To test RAM.
Use a ram testing program and test each stick by themselves then in together.
If you have 4
Test A and B, then A-C, then A-D, then, B-C, then B-D, then C-D
 
Ordered a headphone amp (Schiit Heresy) so that it can power my new sim rig headphones i just got.

250 ohm Beyerdynamic DT880 Special Edition.

The computer mobo definitely needs more power to run the headphones well. Pretty much maxing out the volume in windows and in game.

Let me tell you, the velour ear pads are soooooooooo soft and comfortable! They're not super high end headphones but damn they're good.

20210702_155103.jpg


20210702_155437.jpg
 
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SlowGrayAudi
Ordered a headphone amp (Schiit Heresy) so that it can power my new sim rig headphones i just got.

250 ohm Beyerdynamic DT880 Special Edition.

The computer mobo definitely needs more power to run the headphones well. Pretty much maxing out the volume in windows and in game.

Let me tell you, the velour ear pads are soooooooooo soft and comfortable! They're not super high end headphones but damn they're good.

View attachment 1064838

View attachment 1064839
Click to expand...
Whats the ohm rating?

Was looking at getting the DT770 32Ohm headphones myself.
 

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