Computer Upgrade, part 2

corey    Computers    

Well, I was going to wait until I got more RAM before making this post (so I can do some more testing) but didn’t think waiting 3 months to make a Part 2 post would be a good idea.

I got my computer parts the following Tuesday, even though FedEx had the packages in Denver Sunday night.. I guess since I didn’t pay for 3-day-air they weren’t going to deliver it to me on Monday! Ah well, it was still pretty fast.

Anyhow, I installed all of my new stuff Tuesday night. I decided I would do some tests with my old RAM (DDR333) and see how much (if any) my new RAM (DDR400) made a difference. After a bit of tweaking and trying various video drivers I was finally able to get a score of 10086 with 3dMark 2003. This seems pretty comparable to other systems out there with my same setup, though I have seen some overclocked systems in the 12000′s. You can see my full system specs by clicking on the score above.

Unfortunately, I can only “publish” one test at a time since I’m using the freeware version; thus I can’t show you the difference between my old system and new. Suffice it to say, I gained about 2000 points (which is a good amount) and the CPU tests went a whole lot better.

After that test I put in my new Corsair XMS Memory, but got a slightly lower score of approximately 9900. Not much difference, but thats with only 512MB compared to my original 1Gig. I’m planning on buying another set of 256mb sticks, but I just haven’t done it yet. I’ll do more testing once I get those.

The best tests were done with the Omega 4.7 drivers. ATI just came out with 4.8 beta drivers that I was going to try as well, but I don’t think they will help that much. EVE Online does play a lot better with the new card, but not as well as I had hoped. Loading times are a lot faster (takes less time to load all those celestial objects), but framerates are still low. I think it’s just because they need to optimize their graphics engine more, which they are currently in the process of doing. Though I still hear of people getting 40fps, which I don’t get! Grr!

I guess my next step is to do a complete reinstall of Windows XP. This is something I do every couple of years, just because it seems to get bogged down the longer you have it running. Maybe I’ll get one of those cool 10,000 RPM drives while I’m at it..

Metallica, Bourne, and PAX!

corey    Games, Movies, Music, News    

We watched the Bourne Supremacy and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster this weekend. While Bourne was kinda same-ol’ same-ol’and a bit slow, Metallica was pretty interesting. Even if you don’t care for Metallica this is a great film highlighting the changes they’ve gone through over the years and an insight into what a multi-million dollar band deals with daily. Forget Bourne, see Metallica.

Cheryl and I are finishing up the arrangements for our trip to Seattle later this month. I was originally going simply to be at PAX (the Penny-Arcade Expo) in Bellevue. It’s turned into a vacation with Cheryl (which is more than fine), so we’ll be spending a week in Seattle. We hope to get to do some sea kayaking, sightsee Victoria, BC, and visit some of her relatives in Oregon.

PAX should be fun, I’m looking forward to the Soul Caliber 2 tournament. Jeremy is going as well; we’re suppose to be in the Splinter Cell tournament but since we haven’t been playing it I doubt we’ll get past the first round. Oh well, should still be fun! Maybe. If we last longer than 30 seconds.

Cheryl and I have been trying to plan out the days we have there, ie: go here this day, here this other day, blah blah. The Seattle area has so many islands and ferries that it’s getting annoying! We just want to go to Port Townsend and maybe jaunt over to Whidbey Island, but that means 4 ferries (there and back) unless we want an even longer car drive. Ah well, I’m sure it’ll all work out.