obobski

The GTX 1080 is, from what it sounds like, in effect your soundcard here (since it is sending audio via HDMI). So the driver update/install is resetting the 1080 and/or its audio settings. If you go into either the sounds/audio devices control panel OR the nVidia Control Panel, you should see an option for enabling/disabling audio over HDMI - if you have multiple monitors hooked up it may be 'picking' a different monitor and thinking that's where sound should go (instead of the HDMI going into your Denon), or it may be 'picking' onboard audio or some other soundcard (non-GTX 1080) instead as well. Those would be the first things I'd check.

Something to consider (if you haven't already discovered it): the GTX 760 only offers HDMI 1.x so while it can do 4K over its HDMI output, it will limit you to 24 or 30Hz (30 FPS). DisplayPort will get you 60 Hz (60 FPS) - you just need an adapter (DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0, specifically - they're a few bucks online, and you can get it where the adapter is part of a cable so its one and done). Source: https://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-760/specifications (see footnote 1 at bottom) Second to consider: 4K output is not available in Windows XP (this is documented in the driver release notes or observable if you setup Windows XP on the card - only mentioning it because the GTX 760 is compatible with Windows XP-forward; if you use anything newer (Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, Linux, etc) this is a non-issue). I've never heard of 32 fps (but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist - there's all sorts of standards for video) , but a lot of video/movie content is either 24 or 30 fps, which is what most TVs spend their time dealing with. Most HDTVs that I've seen will support 60 Hz (60 FPS) out of the box, from their HDMI or VGA inputs. Component inputs tend to be a lot more variable. To clarify some (and build on what JimmyRJump said): displays work in 'field rate' (refresh rate) which is in hertz (Hz) while the video/game content is in 'frame rate' (FPS) - the display cannot 'display' content with a higher frame rate than its field rate (that doesn't mean it won't work it just means the extra frames are discarded). So if your display is a maximum of, lets say, 60 Hz (which is very common for LCDs) then 60 FPS is the most it can display. Conversely if you have a 240 Hz display, you can do up to 240 FPS. As I said, a lot of HDTVs I've seen support 60 Hz out of the box, as long as the source can deliver whatever resolution at that setting (see above note on the GTX 760 and HDMI support - the card *can* do 4K60, but not over its HDMI connection). Refresh rates on newer 2 and 4K TVs is 100 to 200Hz and higher. I'm using an eight year old Samsung 37" 1080p Smart TV that can go to 100Hz but is set to 60Hz refresh rate thanks to a signal from my GPU. TV sets don't work in fps. That's something for Video cards. You have to be careful with the advertised refresh rates on some TVs - some of them really do support 120Hz (usually they also support 3D too), but a lot will advertise some sort of 'motion interpolation' and advertise high refresh rates that simply do not exist (see Wikipedia for more about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_interpolation). There are of course TVs that do both - have a higher-than-60Hz refresh rate *and* offer motion interpolation. If the TV is properly capable of >60Hz but your graphics card does not offer that mode, you can create a custom display mode - with modern TVs this is generally not risky because if it does not like the custom display mode it will just tell you that (and not display the image), the computer will (by default) reset to last-known-good at 15s and all is well. This is a really old guide (the example images are dated) but roughly covers how to do this in nVidia's drivers: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/custom-resolutions/ AMD has it more up to date: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/dh-032 To echo what JimboUK said: Also you will probably want to disable "motion interpolation" for most games (if your TV has it) because it usually adds some appreciable input latency (as in, you move the mouse and there's like half a second or a second of lag before the screen updates) because the processor inside the TV has to work with the data. Some games it isn't so bad though - just really depends (on some TVs its also really easy to turn it on/off so you can test it easily, versus going through 9 layers of menu). Finally, if the TV has some sort of 'dynamic contrast' mode you might want to disable it - in my experience this is the biggest 'downside' with TVs for gaming, because the dynamic contrast tends to be setup (I assume) to work with video content (like a movie), so it will dim the whole thing in very dark scenes - this is fine if I'm watching a movie (or even browsing the web) but its awful if playing a game like Fallout or Doom that has *a lot* of dark scenes, or something like Skyrim where a lot of the menus are predominately black background, so the whole thing dims down and makes it hard to read/see what is going on.

Can't say I can really disagree with any of those points/that reasoning, FMod. :thumbsup: On ALchemy and such - IME it was no more or less stable than "native" implementation (e.g. actual DS3DHW support) in XP or 2k, but I'm betting it depends heavily on the specific game in question. There are other, non-Creative solutions that will provide DS3DHW support (e.g. Xear 3D EX and 3D Soundback), and may be better or worse, but you won't have full EAX 5 support (because Creative restricts that to their own products); a lot of newer motherboards should have this kind of thing out of the box too.

Quick web search yielded this: https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/1891/skyrim-rift-headtracking-mod-works-with-controller No idea if that could plug-in to your homemade solution, but its an interesting read at least.

I think, depending on how broad or narrow you want to define words like "screen" or "mental health" that yes, there should be checks/screening/reporting/etc for mental health issues, like there are for physical health issues (e.g. hearing and vision tests that are common in schools). But the ADD/ADHD "thing" is a good example of the other side of that coin. I think the success, or failure, of such a program would ultimately come down to how well its goals could be defined (and clearly articulated to the population served), and then how well the implementation could live up to that. And, as some have pointed out, not all "mental health problems" are something that can be easily and objectively measured in an assembly line fashion, and therefore "screening" can take on a different meaning. But in general yes, I would not be opposed to beneficent public health programs - on the whole they tend to help people, on average, and that's a good thing, generally speaking ( :teehee: ). More narrowly, there's lots of gruesome case studies when things "don't quite work out" and those shouldn't just be brushed aside into the category of "oppression olympics" but instead should be regarded as examples of how not to do things, and evidence of how problematic attempting to provide a canned assembly-line solution to individually complex problems can be. And no, this isn't meant as a two-handed answer - I don't see why it isn't possible to design and implement a successful program that actually benefits the community at large, but that doesn't mean doing so wouldn't be very challenging.

"Not awesome" - its not a bad machine, per se, but has fairly low-level/entry-level parts (which reflect its lower price; it doesn't look like you're being "duped" there or anything) that will impede performance (vs a higher end machine). Would I expect it to run Skyrim, however? Absolutely. But it probably won't run it on full-max-ultra at 4K with all 8K textures, the most demanding ENB add-ons known to man, and 250 mods. Some general idea of a "higher performance" machine these days: - AMD FX-8300 (or higher) or Intel Core i5-4600 (or higher) - GeForce 680/770/960 (or higher) or AMD 270/370 (or higher) - 8GB (or more) RAM These specs are extremely broad (and by no means represent the "minimum requirements" for Skyrim), but should point you in a better direction if you're after a higher-performance machine. If the one you linked is more in-line with your budget, the graphics card and CPU should be relatively easy to upgrade down the line as needed.

Just to add on "why stick to Windows 7 over Windows 8/10" - there's a few other features that were deprecated with Windows 8, these are generally of zero use to average users, but if you're into old games it might matter. Specifically, MIDI support (http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/blog/2013/03/what-happened-midi-mapper-windows-8) and the further gutting of DirectDraw (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-gaming/directdraw-emulation-is-broken-in-windows-881/4edfc685-72b2-4688-95ed-c745ddd38825?auth=1) - again none of this matters for typical modern users (because it all affects software that's easily 15 years old at this point) but it may be worth considering, primarily, if you're into old games. Of course, you could just have a second machine running Windows 98 (did I mention "old"?) with the appropriate hardware if you're really needing that stuff (XP will mostly work too), but for contemporary DirectX 9/10/11 gaming there should be no difference. EAX, to the very limited extent that anything remotely modern uses it, is still supported via emulation (e.g. ALchemy) by many sound devices in Windows Vista and beyond. About the #s posted for Skylake as providing a "clear benefit" - we're talking a few FPS total performance difference (comparing 6700k and 4790k), in frame-rates well above 60 FPS (which is a no-no for Skyrim; the physics engine doesn't behave right). Personally I'd regard that as "it doesn't really matter - modern CPUs of many types are extremely well suited to this game." Any of the three Intel platforms discussed would do equally well with Skyrim.

Glad to hear you solved that! Some generic advice that won't void the warranty, and is probably still a good idea to investigate/do: - Clean out the fans of dust/junk - you can use a gas duster to do this, and it can help with the system's existing cooling performance by bringing it closer to factory original. - Get a "cooling pad" (its a plastic thing with fans in it) - this will help cool the underside of the laptop, and usually also lift it up to a nicer angle for typing, and doesn't modify the system itself so no warranty issues there. These usually only cost a few bucks too. For anti-virus, Microsoft provides a completely free utility called "Security Essentials" (I think its been re-named for Windows 10 but the concept remains the same) which is sufficient for general use (as in, better than nothing, its free, its fairly lightweight, it integrates with Windows Update to keep itself up-to-date, etc). There are more esoteric, feature-laden options from third parties, but they will inevitably require/request you to insert money at some point (such as Avast did) - whether or not you're up to that is ofc your choice. Comodo, Avast, Kapersky, etc are all examples there.

Instead of installing the onboard audio, you could alternately just disable it in the BIOS and then give the Creative card a try. I'm more inclined to point towards driver problems (especially since we're talking about a Creative card here) than hardware problems. Also, any reason you can't use the onboard audio itself? Agreed on going for an FX-6300 or FX-8300 if possible. WRT Vista and newer games - it supports DirectX 11 and will work with newer AMD/nVidia drivers so I don't see why it couldn't work. It'll take longer to start-up (this is, I'm told, an extremely important metric to many users; what it actually measures I haven't the foggiest though) than Windows 7, and you'll have a few more UAC prompts (by default), and some stuff may whine at you for not having the latest-and-greatest Windows, but otherwise I don't see where it'd be a problem, and if you're used to using it after a few years I doubt any of its specific idiosyncrasies are a problem either.

I would still dump the 5820k and the X99 platform - simply put nothing in gaming will use it, and its just spending extra money for the sake of spending extra money. But more on that in a minute. On the drives - sounds like a reasonable plan. I don't know what modern Ubuntu does with backups but generally you're right that the backups don't eat a lot of space. Be cautious, however, with Windows' image backups that you *only* include Windows itself in the backup (it will happily image ALL installed programs, documents, etc which CAN take up an obscene amount of space) if you're limited on space. But 2x1TB should be perfectly functional for most users and usage scenarios, and additional drives are always cheap these days if you just need more bulk storage. Skyrim doesn't really benefit from multi-core, and if you go and dig up benchmarks on X99/6-core platforms vs the quad core i5 and i7s there's generally no difference in performance - everything is pretty stagnant these days, and fast single-threaded performance still rules the day. The higher-end i5/i7 on 1150/1151 will be pretty much comparable to what you can get on 2011-3 in terms of single-threaded performance. If you're doing a lot of heavily multi-threaded stuff (e.g. video encoding, 3d modeling, distributed computing, audio editing/encoding, etc) then the 6-core (and beyond) processors can be of more utility. Example: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8426/the-intel-haswell-e-cpu-review-core-i7-5960x-i7-5930k-i7-5820k-tested/6 Also - you probably won't be upgrading that often. Again, everything is pretty stagnant, and has been for years, and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. You also won't need to upgrade to keep playing things the machine already does well, so if its doing Skyrim great today, it will do it great tomorrow too - you won't need to upgrade to keep playing Skyrim. Windows 7 will also not mediate "constant upgrades." Any of the x64 variants will do - Professional is probably the best choice since it has network backups and a few other features you may use at some point. But Home Premium is just as capable. I don't get why on earth you're buying a 3-pack though. You're exactly right, unfortunately. Broadwell and Haswell are the last Intel CPUs that will get to use Windows 7 until the 2020 end of life. There is a "Broadwell-E" coming for 2011-3 later this year, if you're really set on the X99 platform, which will be faster and offer more cores than Haswell-E. You can also get Haswell and Broadwell for 1150 (if you're going for a Broadwell (5675/5775) explicitly check motherboard compatibility as not all 1150 boards support Broadwell; the same will apply for Broadwell-E on 2011-3). Looks decent, but not as great as I'd like to see - still has fans blowing into a brick wall at the intake, bottom-mounted PSU, and as you've noted the front intake is partially a brickwall too. Doesn't mean it won't work, of course. Overall not a bad revision, but I'd trim some more bodyfat and switch over to a Z97, 4790k or 5775c or similar, drop down to less expensive RAM, and re-think the case a bit more - you can probably save a few hundred more dollars this way, and will still have excellent performance. Some quick edits: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kvzp9W You can dump the Fury X ofc - snagged it because it fit into that same ~$1400 budget and honestly why not. But the 390 is a perfectly competent card in its own right, and a lot less money.

On the 960 suggestion/pricing, what I'm looking at is roughly a $100 price difference between the 960 and 970 ($200 vs $300, respectively) - neither is bad, but if your budget can carry a 970 (or Radeon 390) I'd absolutely say "faster is better" and go that route. The SSD "variety show" (ha!) won't do much to save you - basically when dual-booting each OS will be on its own partition and that's that. If you have two hard-drives each representing one partition, or one hard drive with two partitions, or whatever, it doesn't really matter to the bootloader or the "hosted" software. Whatever you're more comfortable with is fine there, but the stacks of disks just didn't make sense to me. On Windows 7, OEM and refurbished keys can be re-activated/re-installed just fine (that myth needs to die) - you just aren't allowed to install them on multiple systems simultaneously (which has never been allowed under Microsoft's EULA; one key per machine). I'd just go with 7x64 OEM/Refurb and be done with it. Go with something that's fulfilled by Amazon and you have their customer service behind it. On airflow - I'm a big proponent of "standard ATX" layout, with a low front intake and high rear exhaust, and ideally a standard-mounted PSU (top mounted) with rear fan. This design has been around for ages and worked successfully for years. Newer cases tend to stray pretty far from that - that isn't always a problem, for example some "inverted" cases are also great, as are some of the cube/desktop designs. The "big gotchas" I'd look out for are: - Front intakes that blow right into a solid wall (e.g. hard-drive cage). - Cases that primarily use <120mm fans. - Cases that want the airflow to make crazy turns (e.g. 45*, 90*, etc) to try and provide ventilation. - Intakes/exhausts that are very obstructed (especially if there's a lot of fairing/fascia/etc over a grilled intake). The Lian-Li PC-7 is an example of a "standard ATX" layout with 120mm fans, and works quite well for many types of builds, but there are other cases out there that are worth looking at, depending on your personal tastes; just make sure it looks to have unrestricted airflow, logical air in/out, and can fit your various components (e.g. you probably want something that can support longer graphics cards).

The "artificial 4GB limit" has nothing to do with Windows 10 - it's a limitation on 32-bit applications (like Skyrim). It will apply anywhere/everywhere (e.g. XP x64, Vista x64, 7 x64, etc all are subject to it as well) as it is a function of the Win32 API limits. The flickering in Skyrim sounds like the framebuffer issues that CrossFire used to exhibit YEARS ago (like back in 2011) which were fixed with later drivers (you can probably go dig up old guides on workarounds for that from back in the day too, but honestly since AMD fixed it in their drivers I haven't bothered with such in years). Thanks for the reporting on the rest! :geek:

Immediate issues: - CPU is going to be a huge bottleneck for basically everything. If you're married to AMD, bump up to an FX-8350 or better, but ideally switch over to an Intel i5 or i7; it'll be faster (especially for games that are heavily single-core dependent, like Skyrim). - The motherboard is overkill/overpriced/etc for that CPU (ditto on the CPU cooler). - The stack of SSDs/HDDs makes no sense to me, but perhaps you have a good reason for it. Storage requirements tend to vary from person to person so I assume people are making the right choices for their needs; I'm only saying something because its purpose isn't immediately apparent. - Holy mother of expensive computer case/fan/etc - the "this is definitely your first build" joke rings true here. I'd personally recommend significantly re-working the enclosure/fan layout, especially on your limited budget (you're putting over $300 into a case and fans here out of a ~$1000 budget - you could have a much faster overall computer if you gave up some of that fluff); I'll also add that expensive cases are (in my experience) often not worth it. Pros: - RAM is good - GTX 960 isn't a bad graphics card choice and EVGA is a good maker. - Arctic makes good heatsinks. - ASRock makes good motherboards. Questions for you to research/consider: - Some Rosewill PSUs review very well, some are borderline gutless wonders - how does the one you've selected stack up? - Why Windows 8.1 and not Windows 7? (you mentioned Windows 7 in your post) - Do you actually need WiFi? And is the adapter you've selected supported outside of Windows? - Many motherboards (especially high end models like ASRock Extreme) will include fan control on their own (and just as a side point, you do not need 47^18 fans for a build like this; two or three should be a realistic limit, and if your case is requiring more than that to achieve good cooling (because you're needing lots of spot cooling) the case has badly designed airflow and should be trashed in lieu of something that works better (I'm a strong proponent of conventional ATX spec - if it ain't broke don't fix it)). - Is there anything you can gut from the Lenovo (and I'm always curious when people say computer parts are "wearing down" - most computer parts don't experience "wear and tear" as you're not dealing with mechanical moving bits (it isn't like a car or a bicycle) - what's specifically wrong, or believed to be wrong, with it?)

I think all of your examples are "correct" and you're right to note the different contexts as changing meaning - more qualifiers would help, e.g. "game development tools" can help to add clarity. Alternately, what you're referring to as "tools" are also known as "trainers" or "utilities" in some contexts (especially depending on what they do specifically). However, as you've noted, there isn't going to be perfect 1:1 transferability between contexts and people.

Honestly the OEM cooler being "bad" isn't surprising - I'm partially convinced that OEMs just hate their own products and want to see them burn, having taken apart a number of OEM coolers over the years. :psyduck: