Hi WWW
Here are some Cardinal Rules of game design:
Rule 1:
Don't mess with people's saves. EVER.
Rule 2:
Don't put an invisible walls anywhere inside the sandbox. to cage us inside is fine. But once inside; it is OUR PLAYGROUND.. no longer yours. .. stop picking at it.
Rule 3:
Intuitive control.. beg, borrow.. steal if you have to from other Devs and Dev publishers.. the middle tool is so vastly unimportant, that you, Dev, sweating about it, isn't helping! If a control method is popular use that instead.
Rule 4:
Let us skip EVERYTHING.. cutscenes, cinematics, intro movies (I am aware I own a Nvidia graphics card, no need to waste my time showing me a mini movie about it).
Rule 5:
Don't put things in the game I could mistake as a 'glitch'. Seriously.
Rule 6:
If I have near completed a quest and the final part fails .. not due to me misunderstanding what to do.. but the game did not allow me to do it; ensure you have checkpoints. If the game failed and not me.. that was your problem not mine.. so to stop any arguments between player and Dev.. have checkpoints while the mission is active.. if the player quits; they must *then* and *only then*.. have to restart the whole mission if it is not completed.
Rule 7:
All bugs MUST GO. Even if your game is 20 years old.. if you are making coin off the franchise and a bug is reported. fix it!
Break any of these rules and you are a BAD DEVELOPER.. it's like being a bad parent but instead of disappointing a handful of kids.. disappointing 10's of thousands of people in one go.
@Publishers
Have a 'Gamma Team'.. who are much like Beta Testers in reverse. Gamma 'Testers'.. small team that covers all franchised games, that make coin for you as a publisher. Team of 5 to 10 people.. like a dead letter office of games publishing. You send annoyed or concerned players to them instead of your media team having to deal with an old game.
Dava
-----
I *may* come back and update this with more.. but that's enough for now.
I would like to thank Ubisoft for inspiring this list.. FLIP!! It's just basic common courtesy.. don't mess with peoples save games! FC5-DLC. Whoever thought it was a good idea over at Ubisoft.. well they probably deserve all the twitter hate the Ubi media team had to deal with and I hope they passed that along to that person.. as 'feedback/suggestions'. I am sure other players had some suggestions what that Dev could do with the game!
Tuesday, 21 April 2020
Monday, 9 March 2020
The PCIE Lanes famine..or High Performance vs Drastically Reduced Functionality
Hi www
Today an amazing deal for a Ryzen came up. Less than half price!.. wow.. and then I thought.. 'wait don't newer CPU's have like no lanes?? (20 lanes) What does that mean for my many PCIE drives??..no, I don't have enough reason spend a fortune on a new rig, the rig I have (HP workstation) is more than capable and isn't PCIE gimped.'
Going forward we should even MORE lanes not less.. my dual X5650.. give 56 lanes EACH. Admittedly they are PCIE gen 2.. but.. 112 lanes of gen 2 vs 20 of gen3 or even 4.. nope.
This encourages me to do the unthinkable.. to recommend to people old tech.
I don't need the thing to be a server but I need the ability to have as many drives as I would like in the machine.
Let's face it.. if it's not PCIE its not the fastest possible speed. So it follows that all internal components should be PCIE to give us the fast possible performance.
Why do we need other busses in this day and age? What advantage does SATA have over PCIE?.. and even USB.. I DO think we should keep USB devices.. but couldn't the next new standard be a reworking of PCIE? For speed purposes only.. not the 75w requirement!
What can I get from on board busses that I couldn't get from a separate card of the same type?
To do as I suggest..we need 60 to 100+ lanes and 20 physical slots (at least 20 physical slots) each of the first four double spaced away from each other so no overlap. After that as tight as you like. These would be.. as I would dub them.. EXL-ATX boards and be near double the length of a ATX.. They would need fasteners at the side of the board for the lower 16 physical slots.. as the peripherals would be expected to be internal *only*..
I digress..
I don't why this isn't happening already.. but again I am bemused when case manufacturers don't work out a way to do vertical cases and insist on horizontal. The air wants to escape upwards anyway, why push it elsewhere?.. you would need a splash guard yes, but any decent fans would be able to be a splash guard anyway.
I digress .. again.. sorry..
We don't NEED all this new fancy hardware.. we have already reached a comfortable stage, however if the is .. IF THERE is to be new hardware, we should be designing it with the future in mind, not building in absurd obsolescence.
Dava
Today an amazing deal for a Ryzen came up. Less than half price!.. wow.. and then I thought.. 'wait don't newer CPU's have like no lanes?? (20 lanes) What does that mean for my many PCIE drives??..no, I don't have enough reason spend a fortune on a new rig, the rig I have (HP workstation) is more than capable and isn't PCIE gimped.'
Going forward we should even MORE lanes not less.. my dual X5650.. give 56 lanes EACH. Admittedly they are PCIE gen 2.. but.. 112 lanes of gen 2 vs 20 of gen3 or even 4.. nope.
This encourages me to do the unthinkable.. to recommend to people old tech.
I don't need the thing to be a server but I need the ability to have as many drives as I would like in the machine.
Let's face it.. if it's not PCIE its not the fastest possible speed. So it follows that all internal components should be PCIE to give us the fast possible performance.
Why do we need other busses in this day and age? What advantage does SATA have over PCIE?.. and even USB.. I DO think we should keep USB devices.. but couldn't the next new standard be a reworking of PCIE? For speed purposes only.. not the 75w requirement!
What can I get from on board busses that I couldn't get from a separate card of the same type?
To do as I suggest..we need 60 to 100+ lanes and 20 physical slots (at least 20 physical slots) each of the first four double spaced away from each other so no overlap. After that as tight as you like. These would be.. as I would dub them.. EXL-ATX boards and be near double the length of a ATX.. They would need fasteners at the side of the board for the lower 16 physical slots.. as the peripherals would be expected to be internal *only*..
I digress..
I don't why this isn't happening already.. but again I am bemused when case manufacturers don't work out a way to do vertical cases and insist on horizontal. The air wants to escape upwards anyway, why push it elsewhere?.. you would need a splash guard yes, but any decent fans would be able to be a splash guard anyway.
I digress .. again.. sorry..
We don't NEED all this new fancy hardware.. we have already reached a comfortable stage, however if the is .. IF THERE is to be new hardware, we should be designing it with the future in mind, not building in absurd obsolescence.
Dava
Sunday, 29 December 2019
Intel Discrete Graphics Cards.. my take on what would be beneficial to the community and Intel
Hi www
So over much time, I have been thinking about Intel graphics cards since before Intel themselves took it seriously..
In short.. Intel need to build a consumer-ship from scratch, and on every side they have the potential to be squeezed out of the market.
So with that in mind, I have some.. recommendations for the Intel Graphics Department..
1. you need a catchy name for your cards that has nothing to do with your other products.. you already have 'Optaine'.. perhaps 'nitro' ? 'Intel Nitro Graphics Cards'.. it makes it stand out as its own thing, if you just called it Optaine, then it's likely to get drowned when people search for info and pricing when shopping for one..
2. Sad but true.. it'll have to be a mid range graphics card.. just throwing out some lowend thing is not very smart, or trying to compete with the ultra high end is equally not as smart..
a.on the low end the market is full of both new and second hand cards that are more than capable
b. on the high end your drivers and driver Devs need time to mature and handle games better, just throwing a load of power at something doesn't translate well to 'good gaming' just ask AMD who have had endless woes with their drivers.
What imho Intel needs to do is put out something.. around 2000 shader cores.. seeing its Intel.. 2048 shader cores because its nerdy :)) 120 TMU 64 ROUs with 12GB of GDDR6 .. but with a pleasant caveat I'll come to in a moment.
So over much time, I have been thinking about Intel graphics cards since before Intel themselves took it seriously..
In short.. Intel need to build a consumer-ship from scratch, and on every side they have the potential to be squeezed out of the market.
So with that in mind, I have some.. recommendations for the Intel Graphics Department..
1. you need a catchy name for your cards that has nothing to do with your other products.. you already have 'Optaine'.. perhaps 'nitro' ? 'Intel Nitro Graphics Cards'.. it makes it stand out as its own thing, if you just called it Optaine, then it's likely to get drowned when people search for info and pricing when shopping for one..
2. Sad but true.. it'll have to be a mid range graphics card.. just throwing out some lowend thing is not very smart, or trying to compete with the ultra high end is equally not as smart..
a.on the low end the market is full of both new and second hand cards that are more than capable
b. on the high end your drivers and driver Devs need time to mature and handle games better, just throwing a load of power at something doesn't translate well to 'good gaming' just ask AMD who have had endless woes with their drivers.
What imho Intel needs to do is put out something.. around 2000 shader cores.. seeing its Intel.. 2048 shader cores because its nerdy :)) 120 TMU 64 ROUs with 12GB of GDDR6 .. but with a pleasant caveat I'll come to in a moment.
(update 31/May/2022 : 6144 shader cores, 384 TMU, 194 ROUs, 48 RTC with 16GB GDDR6 for mid level, £/$200.. top level, double the above: 12288 shader codes, 768 TMU, 184 ROUs, 92 RTC with 24 to 32 GB GDDR6 £/$400 )
Why have the media/game data in a separate device? Why not throw an integrated 1TB-4TB stick of PCIE Optaine as part of the graphics card? Direct on the PCB, with Optaine chips specially designed not to be Graphics RAM, but as fast as Graphics RAM.. how? .. I would suggest that the card has its own PCIE bus lanes and mini CPU.. 'system on card' but with the entire purpose of creating graphics. Some easier parts could be sent to the mini-CPU (2c/4t Low Power cores recommended) and anything that required heavy lifting could be sent to the mainboard CPU.
Imagine those with weak CPUs.. they could buy your card without the worry of getting the worst possible performance if their CPU is pants.. as some of what is done will go to the on-card mini-CPU.
All those people who want an easy life.. plug in and play, if they have an old desktop with 2 cores but its all they have, they could buy your card and job done. Dad or Moms work PC? this card = job done just by plugging it in.
Even perhaps cards that have no need for VRam.. but read and process the data directly, from storage from the 'system on card'.
3. It is has to be CHEAP.. unfortunately for you, you can't go the expensive route.. because you don't have driver confidence, and imho that will take 5 to 10 years of successful products including the drivers themselves.
NV is an excellent example of what a company can do if they pay attentions to gamers needs and put much effort in the features of their interface (NVCP). Not being able to make custom res's is a deal breaker for me.. something small like that even can make life just that bit nicer.
But NV isn't perfect.. oh they are the best in the business.. but still they have driver problems with each release.
And so with that explained.. Intel is new, doesn't matter your rep in the CPU market, this is GPUs and here its cut throat.. and its been mostly NV doing the cutting of the throats.
Being new means.. you need a competent product that is not irrelevant due to other companies offerings. You NEED to offer much more value for money than either competitor.. or AMD will swallow your marketshare whole.
So I suggest putting out the above card for around $250-300/£250-300. (update May 2022:mid level £/$200)
Yes you will make a loss.. but you are buying customers loyalty in the hopes they try>enjoy>recommend.
Don't worry NV has done this before to when they hit a slump or messed up so badly everyone started talking about jumping ship to AMD..
What place is there in the market for Intel?
To begin with.. not much, however if you can beat AMD on price vs performance AND have competent drivers with decent features.. releasing a new card every two years (four years for new refresh).. ohw maybe need to explain this..
Every two years GPU manufacturers release 'new' cards.. they take the higher cards from their previous line and rebrand them as mid level cards while they get ready for totally new cards in two years.. so for Intel you would be starting with a blank slate and potentially only one or two cards so you couldn't do it this way until you had 6-8 years under your belt..but you could do an initial release and then 'beef up' the cards specs.. all the time in the interim tightening the drivers with feedback from customers..
Flip! no one will tell you this, but customer feedback is an essential component of GPU production.. because IF you listen to their feedback.. however obnoxious or nasty.. they may have a grain of truth in what they are trying to say.
Look at AMD.. ignores its customer feedback, drivers are usually awful. So they end up just throwing power at it and hope it works. That's not a good way to keep your fans.
For CPUs I was an AMD guy for many years, I used NV for Graphics cards.. I tried the AMD + AMD thing.. welp doesn't work if your drivers are nonsense. I bought a HP Workstation after a water incident.. with my twin Xeon X5650s (at the time of writing*) and am happy with them. I also rock a NV 2080ti.. but I'm not your target customer base just yet.. people who can afford this stuff will buy NV. They aren't coming over to be the test rabbits for your experiment..
Aim too high and no one will care. Aim too low and no one will care. Harsh but I imagine no one else will tell you this stuff.. and by the amount I have written.. I think you can see I have hopes for you in this marketspace, Intel.
I digress..
Why have the media/game data in a separate device? Why not throw an integrated 1TB-4TB stick of PCIE Optaine as part of the graphics card? Direct on the PCB, with Optaine chips specially designed not to be Graphics RAM, but as fast as Graphics RAM.. how? .. I would suggest that the card has its own PCIE bus lanes and mini CPU.. 'system on card' but with the entire purpose of creating graphics. Some easier parts could be sent to the mini-CPU (2c/4t Low Power cores recommended) and anything that required heavy lifting could be sent to the mainboard CPU.
Imagine those with weak CPUs.. they could buy your card without the worry of getting the worst possible performance if their CPU is pants.. as some of what is done will go to the on-card mini-CPU.
All those people who want an easy life.. plug in and play, if they have an old desktop with 2 cores but its all they have, they could buy your card and job done. Dad or Moms work PC? this card = job done just by plugging it in.
Even perhaps cards that have no need for VRam.. but read and process the data directly, from storage from the 'system on card'.
3. It is has to be CHEAP.. unfortunately for you, you can't go the expensive route.. because you don't have driver confidence, and imho that will take 5 to 10 years of successful products including the drivers themselves.
NV is an excellent example of what a company can do if they pay attentions to gamers needs and put much effort in the features of their interface (NVCP). Not being able to make custom res's is a deal breaker for me.. something small like that even can make life just that bit nicer.
But NV isn't perfect.. oh they are the best in the business.. but still they have driver problems with each release.
And so with that explained.. Intel is new, doesn't matter your rep in the CPU market, this is GPUs and here its cut throat.. and its been mostly NV doing the cutting of the throats.
Being new means.. you need a competent product that is not irrelevant due to other companies offerings. You NEED to offer much more value for money than either competitor.. or AMD will swallow your marketshare whole.
So I suggest putting out the above card for around $250-300/£250-300. (update May 2022:mid level £/$200)
Yes you will make a loss.. but you are buying customers loyalty in the hopes they try>enjoy>recommend.
Don't worry NV has done this before to when they hit a slump or messed up so badly everyone started talking about jumping ship to AMD..
What place is there in the market for Intel?
To begin with.. not much, however if you can beat AMD on price vs performance AND have competent drivers with decent features.. releasing a new card every two years (four years for new refresh).. ohw maybe need to explain this..
Every two years GPU manufacturers release 'new' cards.. they take the higher cards from their previous line and rebrand them as mid level cards while they get ready for totally new cards in two years.. so for Intel you would be starting with a blank slate and potentially only one or two cards so you couldn't do it this way until you had 6-8 years under your belt..but you could do an initial release and then 'beef up' the cards specs.. all the time in the interim tightening the drivers with feedback from customers..
Flip! no one will tell you this, but customer feedback is an essential component of GPU production.. because IF you listen to their feedback.. however obnoxious or nasty.. they may have a grain of truth in what they are trying to say.
Look at AMD.. ignores its customer feedback, drivers are usually awful. So they end up just throwing power at it and hope it works. That's not a good way to keep your fans.
For CPUs I was an AMD guy for many years, I used NV for Graphics cards.. I tried the AMD + AMD thing.. welp doesn't work if your drivers are nonsense. I bought a HP Workstation after a water incident.. with my twin Xeon X5650s (at the time of writing*) and am happy with them. I also rock a NV 2080ti.. but I'm not your target customer base just yet.. people who can afford this stuff will buy NV. They aren't coming over to be the test rabbits for your experiment..
Aim too high and no one will care. Aim too low and no one will care. Harsh but I imagine no one else will tell you this stuff.. and by the amount I have written.. I think you can see I have hopes for you in this marketspace, Intel.
I digress..
What place is there in the market for Intel?
To begin with.. not much, however if you can beat AMD on price vs performance AND have competent drivers with decent features.. releasing a new card every two years (four years for new refresh)..increasing your performance 10-20% every four years for the same amount of money for the same price point.
This is where Intel could snuggly fit into the market.. getting enough press about the gaming performance itself to salivate consumer appetites, all free press garnering curiosity and interest.. but something deeper.. prestige that people can tell other people they own one and have a conversation about owning one.. maybe I'm over stating it..yes I am but its illustrative of something Intel has NEVER needed to do.
Create a userbase and brand recognition from scratch.
Dava
To begin with.. not much, however if you can beat AMD on price vs performance AND have competent drivers with decent features.. releasing a new card every two years (four years for new refresh)..increasing your performance 10-20% every four years for the same amount of money for the same price point.
This is where Intel could snuggly fit into the market.. getting enough press about the gaming performance itself to salivate consumer appetites, all free press garnering curiosity and interest.. but something deeper.. prestige that people can tell other people they own one and have a conversation about owning one.. maybe I'm over stating it..yes I am but its illustrative of something Intel has NEVER needed to do.
Create a userbase and brand recognition from scratch.
Dava
------------
* Now I have a HP Z840 twin Xeon E5-2660v3's 20c/40t, DDR4-2133 32GB, 2080Ti, load of PCIE and SSD and couple of HDD, totalling idk 15TB? 4K TV and a small HP 900p monitor.
Old set up was.. twin Xeon X5650, 48GB of DDR3 1066, 2018ti/1070 and drives/monitors as above.
Sunday, 31 March 2019
Drive Capacities the return.. or a drive is a drive of course of course except of course when they are the famous mister RAID
----------------------------
Hi guys
Firstly please read my complaint of drive manufacturers laziness here:
https://ftr-ceu.blogspot.com/2018/08/ssd-and-drive-capacities-or-king-has-no.html
Q: What stops drive manufacturers putting multi layered PCB multi slot cards of M.2 (M Key) drives?
A: nothing..
The PCIE specification can default to the appropriate maximum speed, now while I do not recommend putting one of these hypothetical drives into a PCIE-1 x1.. it is much more common to have higher speeds.. even at a x16 PCIE-1 that's 250MB/s for 8 drives..but let's take a typical scenario;
Scenario 1
PCI-E 3/four slots of x16
15.8 GB/s
each PCB would have four 1TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean 750MB/s - upto 1GB/s per PCB (still being double the SSD speed)
total: 16 Terabyte
RAID 0 Speed: upto 12GB/s
Suggested price point: £100/$130
each PCB shows up as a separate disk, which you can choose to software JBOD or RAID 0, using RAID 0 theoretically (if the RAID controller on the PCB is any good), usual max speeds are 3GB/s x four would be upto 12GB/s in RAID 0 for the entire drive.
-----
Scenario 2
PCI-E 4/four slots of x16
31.5GB/s
each PCB would have four 1TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 7.8GB/s per PCB.
total: 16 Terabyte
-----
Scenario 3
PCI-E 5/four slots of x16
63GB/s
each PCB would have four 1TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 15.75GB/s per PCB.
total: 16 Terabyte
Scenario 8
192 Terabyte : Suggested price point: £1500/$1800
Hi guys
Firstly please read my complaint of drive manufacturers laziness here:
https://ftr-ceu.blogspot.com/2018/08/ssd-and-drive-capacities-or-king-has-no.html
Q: What stops drive manufacturers putting multi layered PCB multi slot cards of M.2 (M Key) drives?
A: nothing..
The PCIE specification can default to the appropriate maximum speed, now while I do not recommend putting one of these hypothetical drives into a PCIE-1 x1.. it is much more common to have higher speeds.. even at a x16 PCIE-1 that's 250MB/s for 8 drives..but let's take a typical scenario;
Scenario 1
PCI-E 3/four slots of x16
15.8 GB/s
each PCB would have four 1TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean 750MB/s - upto 1GB/s per PCB (still being double the SSD speed)
total: 16 Terabyte
RAID 0 Speed: upto 12GB/s
Suggested price point: £100/$130
each PCB shows up as a separate disk, which you can choose to software JBOD or RAID 0, using RAID 0 theoretically (if the RAID controller on the PCB is any good), usual max speeds are 3GB/s x four would be upto 12GB/s in RAID 0 for the entire drive.
-----
Scenario 2
PCI-E 4/four slots of x16
31.5GB/s
each PCB would have four 1TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 7.8GB/s per PCB.
total: 16 Terabyte
RAID 0 Speed: upto 23.6GB/s
-----
Scenario 3
PCI-E 5/four slots of x16
63GB/s
each PCB would have four 1TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 15.75GB/s per PCB.
total: 16 Terabyte
RAID 0 Speed: upto 47.25GB/s
-----
Scenario 4
PCI-E 4/four slots of x16
31.5GB/s
each PCB would have eight 1TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 3.9GB/s per PCB.
total: 32 Terabyte
PCI-E 4/four slots of x16
31.5GB/s
each PCB would have eight 1TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 3.9GB/s per PCB.
total: 32 Terabyte
RAID 0 Speed: upto 23.6GB/s
Suggested price point: £230/$280
-----
Scenario 5
PCI-E 5/four slots of x16
63GB/s
each PCB would have eight 1TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 7.8GB/s per PCB.
total: 32 Terabyte
PCI-E 5/four slots of x16
63GB/s
each PCB would have eight 1TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 7.8GB/s per PCB.
total: 32 Terabyte
RAID 0 Speed: upto 47.25GB/s
-----
Scenario 6
PCI-E 4/four slots of x16
31.5GB/s
each PCB would have eight 2TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 3.9GB/s per PCB.
total: 64 Terabyte
31.5GB/s
each PCB would have eight 2TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 3.9GB/s per PCB.
total: 64 Terabyte
RAID 0 Speed: upto 23.6GB/s
Suggested price point: £450/$500
------
Scenario 7
PCI-E 5/four slots of x16
63GB/s
each PCB would have eight 2TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 7.8GB/s per PCB.
total: 64 Terabyte
PCI-E 5/four slots of x16
63GB/s
each PCB would have eight 2TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 7.8GB/s per PCB.
total: 64 Terabyte
RAID 0 Speed: upto 47.25GB/s
------
Scenario 8
PCI-E 4/four slots of x16
31.5GB/s
each PCB would have twelve 2TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 1.95GB/s per PCB.
total: 96 Terabyte
31.5GB/s
each PCB would have twelve 2TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 1.95GB/s per PCB.
total: 96 Terabyte
RAID 0 Speed: upto 7.8GB/s
Suggested price point: £750/$900
------
Scenario 9
PCI-E 5/four slots of x16
63GB/s
each PCB would have twelve 2TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 3.9GB/s per PCB.
total: 96 Terabyte
PCI-E 5/four slots of x16
63GB/s
each PCB would have twelve 2TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 3.9GB/s per PCB.
total: 96 Terabyte
RAID 0 Speed: upto 15.6GB/s
------
Scenario 10 (industrial)
PCI-E 5/four slots of x16
63GB/s
each PCB would have twelve 4TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 3.9GB/s per PCB.
total: 192 Terabyte
PCI-E 5/four slots of x16
63GB/s
each PCB would have twelve 4TB drives in Raid JBOD (spanned)
Four PCBs would mean upto 3.9GB/s per PCB.
total: 192 Terabyte
RAID 0 Speed: upto 15.6GB/s
192 Terabyte : Suggested price point: £1500/$1800
192 Terabyte : Suggested price point: £1500/$1800
Inside the drive would be: a very slim riser with four slots, one for each Slave PCB, each would be x16 mechanically but through the onboard chip, each would be x4 electrically.
On the industrial drives, they have splitters to increase speeds:
A double sided PCIE Gold Connecter Master PCB, the splitter simply joins to the other side of the PCIE Connecter, then the end of splitter has multiple ends which fit into the various motherboard PCIE slots.
On the industrial drives, they have splitters to increase speeds:
A double sided PCIE Gold Connecter Master PCB, the splitter simply joins to the other side of the PCIE Connecter, then the end of splitter has multiple ends which fit into the various motherboard PCIE slots.
Price points grouped:
16 Terabyte : Suggested price point: £100/$130
32 Terabyte : Suggested price point: £230/$280
64 Terabyte : Suggested price point: £450/$500
96 Terabyte : Suggested price point: £750/$900
192 Terabyte : Suggested price point: £1500/$1800
::RANT> ::
OR Drive Manf.'s can sit there and let users drown in drive management problems, not doing their job in this industry. Failing all consumers.To drag out mechanical drives for profit.
Remember its regularly 50GB A GAME! 1TB is filled by 20 games!!!
FAIL FAIL FAIL.
It's the same chips that are on SSDs using the SATA bus.. SATA is dead, only good for Optical Drives for ripping old discs.. long live the King PCIE!!
It's the same chips that are on SSDs using the SATA bus.. SATA is dead, only good for Optical Drives for ripping old discs.. long live the King PCIE!!
:: <RANT::
Sorry, its not EVERY company, but it just burns me to think of certain drive manufacturers sitting back and letting the cash roll in.. to the frustration of their customers.
Monday, 4 March 2019
Refresh Rates CheatSheet for 4K TVs
Hi
Time to dump a load of info here:
Increased Refresh Increased Resolution
---------------------- --------------------------
4K/60hz = 4K/60hz =
1080 @ 240hz 3200x2400 @ 72hz*
-2K- 3840x2400 @ 60hz
1536 @ 162hz 4096x2560 @ 55hz
1440 @ 144hz 5120x2160 @ 50hz
-3K- 5120x2560 @ 44hz
1800 @ 94hz 6120x1900 @ 50hz
2048 @ 72hz* 6120x2160 @ 40hz
6120x2560 @ 35hz
All used NVCP. All used CVT Reduced Blank. on my Philips 4K 58" HDR TV (HDR was of course off). No Down or upsampling was used for the above resolutions, however in the pictures I think? I still had two test down sampled resolutions, but 95% of the ones in the pics are all active pixels.
To show all pixels were active:
------------------
Use this info at your own risk.
*3641x2048 = 16:9 for 2048p
*3K pix, but 2400 wider so 72hz.
-------------------
Big shoutout to those who helped me no end with their work and websites:
ARC Aspect Ratio Calculator
https://andrew.hedges.name/experiments/aspect_ratio/
Good place to start learning:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions
https://www.unravel.com.au/aspect-ratio-cheat-sheet
16:9 Cheat Sheet:
https://pacoup.com/2011/06/12/list-of-true-169-resolutions/comment-page-1/
few decent 5K's (but rest a bit old/depreciated):
http://blog.chameleondg.com/post/111891072017/resolution-aspect-ratio-cheat-sheet
General Approximations of Terms:
2 million pix. = 1K commonly; 1920x1080
3 to 4 million pix = 2K commonly; 2048x1536 and 2560x1440
5 to 7 million pix = 3K commonly; 3200x1800
8 to 10 million pix = 4K commonly; 4096x2160
11 to 20 mil. pix = 5K commonly; 5120x2160, 5120x2880
20 to 30 mil. pix = 6K commonly; 6400x4096
30 mil. to 36 mil pix = 7K commonly; 7680x4320
37 mil. pix is 8K don't get sucked into the 7K as 8K nonsense, 8192x4608 is *true* 8K. It comes from 8 for the first digit.
4K TV =
(2 million pix.) = 1K //// 244hz
(3 to 4 million pix( = 2K //// 162hz
(5 to 7 million pix) = 3K //// 144hz
(8 to 10 million pix) = 4K //// 60hz
(11 to 20 mil. pix) = 5K //// 50hz
(20 to 30 mil. pix) = 6K //// 40hz
(30 mil. to 36 mil pix) = 7K //// 30hz?
37 mil. pix is = 8K //// 20hz?
above is a rough guide to ?K x 2K
But the higher the V-Res, the harder it hits the refresh rate.. asin~
6K x 2K has a baseline of 40hz but
6K x 3K, 6144x3456 overall is 27hz max. clean.
This is because.. well.. idk.. but I strongly suspect it has something to do with the reason V-Sync uses vertical refresh and not horizontal.
My panel in 1K did 243 because 244hz gave me a bit of wobble.. but since 240 is 100% stable and the refresh so high, I don't want to argue over a couple of hz.
Sunday, 25 November 2018
Fallout 76.. A Game of Woes..or how can FO76 be fixed?
Hi WWW
Back in March I wrote an article about how Zenimax could maximise profits:
https://ftr-ceu.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-second-tier-or-why-zenimax-should.html
I see they *may* have took my advice, however when it's ES or FO.. people come FOR the story, not despite it.
FO76 is a FO themed Rust clone without PVP.
Crazy huh?
IF FO76 was a FO themed Borderlands jump in co-op style game.. that would make sense.
An EPIC story you could play with friends, every 6 months launching a new episode, with new (NV sized) lands, new bad guys/huge bosses and new story.
BUT surprisingly, I say.. this *can* be fixed!
Please, kindly.. do what I suggest in the original article.. hire Obsidian and/or Chris Avellone, give them half the cash to fix the game, introducing a new storyline.. idk.. a new huge boss threatens the land.. Chris could work it out, I'm just riffing.
First episode is free if you already own the game, then every 6 months new episode done by Obsidian, split the cash 50/50.
OR
Do nothing.
Be resigned having your studio's name in the bargain bin.
Watch future title sales plummet.
Be Sega in the 90s.
(quite famously.. Sega didn't care what fans thought of them and pumped fans wallets for irrelevant hardware.. by 2002 they had ended their hardware division)
I am shrewd enough to guess this was a port of the old studios game that was almost canned due to Dev purgatory.. and that the game was whipped up from 6 months work.
I don't have a problem with that. It's smart to recycle assets to minimise profit loss .. but Zenimax.. guys you missed the things I bulletended most about FO
"The years on these assets seem to be rolling by, with it being over 2 years since Bethesda release Fallout 4. As I said.. that's 2 years without them making any 'new' money. Ultimately when a game becomes a gamers 'main game' what they are usually looking for is;
1. plenty of content.
2. an excellent story.
3. excitement with occasional comedy."
FO76 has:
1. Very little content.
2. No story, aside from lore.
3. a bug every 5 minutes.
I have finished any rebuke I have for you, Bethesda/Zenimax..
You are now responsible for fixing this game. Give it to Obsidian/Chris Avellone.. roll huge trucks of cash up to their front door and say.. 'please fix this'. Because people.. they wanted a Fallout game with a co-op flavor ala ~ Borderlands, not a non-PVP Rust clone.
peace
Back in March I wrote an article about how Zenimax could maximise profits:
https://ftr-ceu.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-second-tier-or-why-zenimax-should.html
I see they *may* have took my advice, however when it's ES or FO.. people come FOR the story, not despite it.
FO76 is a FO themed Rust clone without PVP.
Crazy huh?
IF FO76 was a FO themed Borderlands jump in co-op style game.. that would make sense.
An EPIC story you could play with friends, every 6 months launching a new episode, with new (NV sized) lands, new bad guys/huge bosses and new story.
BUT surprisingly, I say.. this *can* be fixed!
Please, kindly.. do what I suggest in the original article.. hire Obsidian and/or Chris Avellone, give them half the cash to fix the game, introducing a new storyline.. idk.. a new huge boss threatens the land.. Chris could work it out, I'm just riffing.
First episode is free if you already own the game, then every 6 months new episode done by Obsidian, split the cash 50/50.
OR
Do nothing.
Be resigned having your studio's name in the bargain bin.
Watch future title sales plummet.
Be Sega in the 90s.
(quite famously.. Sega didn't care what fans thought of them and pumped fans wallets for irrelevant hardware.. by 2002 they had ended their hardware division)
I am shrewd enough to guess this was a port of the old studios game that was almost canned due to Dev purgatory.. and that the game was whipped up from 6 months work.
I don't have a problem with that. It's smart to recycle assets to minimise profit loss .. but Zenimax.. guys you missed the things I bulletended most about FO
"The years on these assets seem to be rolling by, with it being over 2 years since Bethesda release Fallout 4. As I said.. that's 2 years without them making any 'new' money. Ultimately when a game becomes a gamers 'main game' what they are usually looking for is;
1. plenty of content.
2. an excellent story.
3. excitement with occasional comedy."
FO76 has:
1. Very little content.
2. No story, aside from lore.
3. a bug every 5 minutes.
I have finished any rebuke I have for you, Bethesda/Zenimax..
You are now responsible for fixing this game. Give it to Obsidian/Chris Avellone.. roll huge trucks of cash up to their front door and say.. 'please fix this'. Because people.. they wanted a Fallout game with a co-op flavor ala ~ Borderlands, not a non-PVP Rust clone.
OB/CA know how to write stories..
Just tell everyone: 'I am very sorry we screwed up. Honestly. It was a mistake. But a mistake we are going to fix, so kindly.. we ask ever so gently, even though we know we do not deserve it, please consider FO76 Bethesda launch as a beta and look forward to Obsidians launch as the prime launch.'
Hey maybe even work out a deal for Obsidian to debug Gamebryo.. that engine is old, backwards and buggy as bug season in the tropics. Seeing if they were doing regular releases of FO76 episodes? why not?
peace
Dava
----------------------
Update: 30/11/2018
About 5 minutes ago I was doing some research and it struck me.. Zenimax/Bethesda owns the Doom Engine (id Tech 5) from id Software.. its an excellent engine and can keep pace with the most detailed engine there is: Unreal. why not retool it with a Gamebryo style front face.. like when you skin an OS to look like another OS.. make the tools work the same as Gamebryo (last update to Gamebryo 2012 4.0) .. I think this would limit modularity for Mod Devs, but so long as Bethesda are willing to release tools .. 'build it and they will come.'
----------------------
Update: 30/11/2018
About 5 minutes ago I was doing some research and it struck me.. Zenimax/Bethesda owns the Doom Engine (id Tech 5) from id Software.. its an excellent engine and can keep pace with the most detailed engine there is: Unreal. why not retool it with a Gamebryo style front face.. like when you skin an OS to look like another OS.. make the tools work the same as Gamebryo (last update to Gamebryo 2012 4.0) .. I think this would limit modularity for Mod Devs, but so long as Bethesda are willing to release tools .. 'build it and they will come.'
peace
Friday, 3 August 2018
SSD and Drive Capacities .. or the King has no Clothes..
Hi
I'm Dava, I have been blogging about tech for around 10 years for a hobby.
I started blogging on ZDNet UK then moved to Overclock.net, which I am proud to say, one of my articles (2012) caused a minor stir in the industry:
Realworld Performance and What It Means to You…
I'd like to draw attention to something that I hope you too will feel passionate about..
Over the last 3 years I have slowly saw drive capacities grind to a halt. I mean we are already on to the next drive technology with M.2 PCIE and things like.. games and (for YTbers) editing video files are regularly what? 50 GB each? And I have to spend HOURS managing drives to fit everything in.. and it's ridiculous, I have 9 drives* .. to be frank and francine; we are using 8 year old tech with SSDs, and still paying through the nose for a terabyte or under.. where are the 50TB, 100TB+ and 1 Petabyte drives we have been needing so badly for so long now?
'HOLDING THE WHOLE INDUSTRY BACK ..AND OTHER FABULOUS TALES.'
Welp not really as far fetched a statement as it may seem.. let me explain:
1. It starts with game designers, they have a .. responsibility.. Q.Q .. to keep file sizes small, they are conscious of this when making games and so we don't get as good a textures as we possibly could, as texture file size is the largest consideration about space management.
2. AMD/NV don't need to try as hard to develop as high performance cards as they would because the textures loading are smaller than they would be.
3. AMD/Intel CPU performance to keep up with the graphics cards (this one hasn't happened because of different competitive reasons) but could have in a different world. AMD and Intel WILL fight it out like Cat vs Dog regardless.
We have 4K TVs now.. so we need 12K+ textures to fill that*. What do we get? I would guess around 3K upscaled.. and we all go WOW.. :/
Micron, Samsung, Toshiba, SK Hynix, Renesas and Hitachi are dragging the whole industry down by selling us gramophones. SSD's are nice everyone gets that.. but the capacities are *so* small, so stingy.
1. I realize the price has fallen for SSDs.
2. I realize there was a shortage of chips (I know this was ram but I'll assume this also affected SSDs)
But even that given, being understanding towards these manufacturers, is there any *real* excuse for not giving us decent size storage? It's 2018.. not 2010. We should have PB drives by now.. and imho those manf. are being lowrez tramps* not giving us a decent cost effective option, and by not doing so holding the whole industry back^. It's a low thing to do, to keep us paying for tiny capacity old tech.
I mean if they said 'hey it's not financially feasible because we use the latest lithography'.. is anyone really bothered if they started stacking older style chips to give us the capacity.. flip even if it was 300MB a second.. at least that would be *something*. But no.. some companies still have the cheek to sell us 8 year old tech for 1GB = 1 £/$/E .. it boggles the mind!
With the news that WD is winding down one of its HDD manufacturing plants.. I gotta ask: it's 2018.. what on earth is going on? Why am I using 20 year old technology in my PC? HDDs are whatever came before gramophones.. those cylinder record player things... phonographs!
Why are we treating them with such respect, as they parade old tech in front of us and ask for money? Am I the only one who sees this?
Something is broken in the PC drive/storage industry.. and peeps are so caught up with AMD/Intel/Nvidia no one's asking the above manuf. hard questions.. where are the capacities we NEED?.. they slipped under the radar of tech enthusiasts and journalists alike..
why? because they are quiet. because the storage/chip manuf. don't like change. That's not acceptable.. you are in the tech industry. things change. it's its nature to change.
Someone needs to call them out.
peace
Dava
----------------------------
*(2 HDD,4 SSD, 3 M.2 PCIE)
*I don't like swearing. back to the future reference.
*see Perspective of Correct Distance; POCD:
A Tree! A Rock! A Bush! 20 Answers on the misconceptions of distance in games
Intel and Micron releasing 'Enterprise drives' SSD's of higher capacity
https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-microns-first-ever-qlc-nand-flash-cheaper-denser-ssd-storage-is-coming/
1 point 92 Terabytes and 7 point 68 terabytes.
IMHO this should have happened years ago..
Will we be getting 50TB for £100/$130 and 100TB drives for £180/$210? probably not.. I very much see it as a strange price gouging.
Bit of background..the drive manuf. are the part of the industry that is always dragging their heels to go anywhere.. it took them 40 years to a develop new technological breakthrough from HDDs to SSDs (1970s-2010s).. AMD, Intel and NVidia are dragging drive manuf. along the floor backwards just to keep the industry profitable as far as price/performance goes.
It's a total joke.
It might be hyperbo'le but I imagine; some nand engineer having the bright idea of hooking a USB drive up to the SATA protocol for fun and goes 'oh wow' around 2008, and if he/she didn't do that .. we wouldn't have SSDs at all.
UPDATE:
I have researched drives sizes more thoroughly since writing this article, and it seems the Nand drive manuf. are struggling with capacities themselves. HOWEVER.. profit margins are still high on SSD which are 8 year old tech.
High capacity drives are STILL possible, if you made SSDs the 3.5" format and size of the old HDDs with 512GB chips, 5x4x512 = 30TB Drives/ times three 5x4x512 boards = 90TB Drives. With QLC next year coming this can only increase.
See here: https://ftr-ceu.blogspot.com/2019/03/drive-capacities-return-or-drive-is.html
A cooling solution would need to be employed three small quiet fans pushing air front to back out of a vent would probably be ideal. However remember around 40C is the optimal temperature for Nand, unlike other tech if it gets too cold it won't work as well.We see this the most clearly with M.2 PCIE drives. It enjoys to be around 35-40C ..even 20C can see a loss in performance and if too hot (60C) also a loss in performance.
I remember Steve from Gamers Nexus pointing this out in one the GN shows some time ago, coincidentally the same week I read about it on a forum.
I'm Dava, I have been blogging about tech for around 10 years for a hobby.
I started blogging on ZDNet UK then moved to Overclock.net, which I am proud to say, one of my articles (2012) caused a minor stir in the industry:
Realworld Performance and What It Means to You…
I'd like to draw attention to something that I hope you too will feel passionate about..
Over the last 3 years I have slowly saw drive capacities grind to a halt. I mean we are already on to the next drive technology with M.2 PCIE and things like.. games and (for YTbers) editing video files are regularly what? 50 GB each? And I have to spend HOURS managing drives to fit everything in.. and it's ridiculous, I have 9 drives* .. to be frank and francine; we are using 8 year old tech with SSDs, and still paying through the nose for a terabyte or under.. where are the 50TB, 100TB+ and 1 Petabyte drives we have been needing so badly for so long now?
'HOLDING THE WHOLE INDUSTRY BACK ..AND OTHER FABULOUS TALES.'
Welp not really as far fetched a statement as it may seem.. let me explain:
1. It starts with game designers, they have a .. responsibility.. Q.Q .. to keep file sizes small, they are conscious of this when making games and so we don't get as good a textures as we possibly could, as texture file size is the largest consideration about space management.
2. AMD/NV don't need to try as hard to develop as high performance cards as they would because the textures loading are smaller than they would be.
3. AMD/Intel CPU performance to keep up with the graphics cards (this one hasn't happened because of different competitive reasons) but could have in a different world. AMD and Intel WILL fight it out like Cat vs Dog regardless.
We have 4K TVs now.. so we need 12K+ textures to fill that*. What do we get? I would guess around 3K upscaled.. and we all go WOW.. :/
Micron, Samsung, Toshiba, SK Hynix, Renesas and Hitachi are dragging the whole industry down by selling us gramophones. SSD's are nice everyone gets that.. but the capacities are *so* small, so stingy.
1. I realize the price has fallen for SSDs.
2. I realize there was a shortage of chips (I know this was ram but I'll assume this also affected SSDs)
But even that given, being understanding towards these manufacturers, is there any *real* excuse for not giving us decent size storage? It's 2018.. not 2010. We should have PB drives by now.. and imho those manf. are being lowrez tramps* not giving us a decent cost effective option, and by not doing so holding the whole industry back^. It's a low thing to do, to keep us paying for tiny capacity old tech.
I mean if they said 'hey it's not financially feasible because we use the latest lithography'.. is anyone really bothered if they started stacking older style chips to give us the capacity.. flip even if it was 300MB a second.. at least that would be *something*. But no.. some companies still have the cheek to sell us 8 year old tech for 1GB = 1 £/$/E .. it boggles the mind!
With the news that WD is winding down one of its HDD manufacturing plants.. I gotta ask: it's 2018.. what on earth is going on? Why am I using 20 year old technology in my PC? HDDs are whatever came before gramophones.. those cylinder record player things... phonographs!
Why are we treating them with such respect, as they parade old tech in front of us and ask for money? Am I the only one who sees this?
Something is broken in the PC drive/storage industry.. and peeps are so caught up with AMD/Intel/Nvidia no one's asking the above manuf. hard questions.. where are the capacities we NEED?.. they slipped under the radar of tech enthusiasts and journalists alike..
why? because they are quiet. because the storage/chip manuf. don't like change. That's not acceptable.. you are in the tech industry. things change. it's its nature to change.
Someone needs to call them out.
peace
Dava
----------------------------
*(2 HDD,4 SSD, 3 M.2 PCIE)
*I don't like swearing. back to the future reference.
*see Perspective of Correct Distance; POCD:
A Tree! A Rock! A Bush! 20 Answers on the misconceptions of distance in games
Intel and Micron releasing 'Enterprise drives' SSD's of higher capacity
https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-microns-first-ever-qlc-nand-flash-cheaper-denser-ssd-storage-is-coming/
1 point 92 Terabytes and 7 point 68 terabytes.
IMHO this should have happened years ago..
Will we be getting 50TB for £100/$130 and 100TB drives for £180/$210? probably not.. I very much see it as a strange price gouging.
Bit of background..the drive manuf. are the part of the industry that is always dragging their heels to go anywhere.. it took them 40 years to a develop new technological breakthrough from HDDs to SSDs (1970s-2010s).. AMD, Intel and NVidia are dragging drive manuf. along the floor backwards just to keep the industry profitable as far as price/performance goes.
It's a total joke.
It might be hyperbo'le but I imagine; some nand engineer having the bright idea of hooking a USB drive up to the SATA protocol for fun and goes 'oh wow' around 2008, and if he/she didn't do that .. we wouldn't have SSDs at all.
UPDATE:
I have researched drives sizes more thoroughly since writing this article, and it seems the Nand drive manuf. are struggling with capacities themselves. HOWEVER.. profit margins are still high on SSD which are 8 year old tech.
High capacity drives are STILL possible, if you made SSDs the 3.5" format and size of the old HDDs with 512GB chips, 5x4x512 = 30TB Drives/ times three 5x4x512 boards = 90TB Drives. With QLC next year coming this can only increase.
See here: https://ftr-ceu.blogspot.com/2019/03/drive-capacities-return-or-drive-is.html
A cooling solution would need to be employed three small quiet fans pushing air front to back out of a vent would probably be ideal. However remember around 40C is the optimal temperature for Nand, unlike other tech if it gets too cold it won't work as well.We see this the most clearly with M.2 PCIE drives. It enjoys to be around 35-40C ..even 20C can see a loss in performance and if too hot (60C) also a loss in performance.
I remember Steve from Gamers Nexus pointing this out in one the GN shows some time ago, coincidentally the same week I read about it on a forum.
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