MegamanXGold

Thank you for your responses! I appreciate the differing opinions and views. I think I'm stuck saving up some more if only for decision paralysis, as there doesn't seem to be a clear way forward. I suppose I'll struggle with what I've got for now and hope something decent ends up in my local second hand market to get me by for a while longer.

Two possible options for me might be to get a whole PC with a 3060 8GB in it, or to put a 4080 Super 16GB into a bottle-neck. I have a limited budget, I basically get to choose between buying an all new PC with something like a 3060 at most, or I can get a really good video card but let it be bottle-necked in my i7-4770k system until I can afford the rest of the parts in a year or two. I was gifted a Valve Index a while back and have been playing on it with my 970 GTX. I know pretty much anything is an upgrade, but I can't find any kind of benchmarks for VR so I just don't know at what point I'm throwing my money away if I'm targeting 144hz VR on the Index in something like Half-life Alyx or any other more graphically intensive game. I'm not going to be trying MS Flight Sim anytime soon either way, lol. I've seen people say a 3060 is good enough, and others say 16 GB VRAM is important for VR. I've also realized that I don't know if there's any titles that even support RTX ray-tracing/path-tracing in VR. I saw an MSI Ventus 3060 Ti with 16 GBs VRAM, but still with the 128-bit bus, and wasn't sure if that might be the sweet spot or just awfully overpriced. If I do get the 4080 Super, am I wrong to feel ripped off to pay that much for a video card? I've been checking my local used market but that hasn't been going well. I've only really ever used nVidia graphics, so if Radeon is the way to go then I'd also like to know what I would be losing going that route. I do like to edit video so I prefer the CUDA cores. I saw "ZLUDA" might make that worry moot now, but it sounds like early days on that one. Thank you

I'm sorry to necro this thread from 2019. I got here through a Google search. The OP surely got their answer by now, but if anyone else ends up here I want to add my two cents. TryGetValue assigns the value if it is found in the dictionary, or it assigns the default value for that type if it is not found. string searchKey = "mySearchTerm"; int outputValue = 7; // assigning a value here isn't worthwhile because... bool success = dictionary.TryGetValue(searchKey, out outputValue); if (success) { // outputValue now equals dictionary[searchKey]. } else { // outputValue equals default(int) or 0, not 7. } // ...the outputValue will never be 7 when read. The compiler should ignore the assignment of 7, and your IDE should recommend inlining. Inlining the declaration means you don't have to declare it sooner. string searchKey = "mySearchTerm"; if (dictionary.TryGetValue(searchKey, out string outputValue)) { // outputValue equals dictionary[searchKey]. } // Note that outputValue is still in scope here. outputValue = 9; However... string searchKey = "mySearchTerm"; int outputValue; dictionary.TryGetValue(searchKey, out int outputValue); // compiler error. outputValue is already defined in this scope. So, if only keys "a" and "b" have values but the key given is "c", then the out value would be 0 because that is the default for an int. If you want to try some of this out, I like doing quick experiments in .NET Fiddle I hope this constructively adds to the conversation and maybe saves another Googler some time some day.

Yeah, I got stuck there too. Then I got "Failed to fetch product data. Please try again later." I think I was still over #1000, though. P.S.: The video was great. Loved seeing Linus get roasted in one game and completely destroy the competition in the others.

Thank you. Some confusion is setting in, though. I restarted my computer into Optimus mode, and checked the panel again. Now that the Intel graphics are back on, it shows a graphic a lot more like the one found on reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/bsdmt1/oculus_rift_s_laptop_issues_usbc/ It shows a screen shot that has a Type-C connector on the Intel side, with the "Laptop Display" connected to that. In Optimus mode, that is what mine looks like, but my GPU side now only shows a DisplayPort connector. The reddit user who posted this says they got it to work, but another user below them said that it is because they have an RTX card that has a "virtual link connection", which GTX cards like mine do not have. I feel like I'm right back at square one. I suppose I will have to try the adapter out and hope that USB-C-to-DisplayPort-to-DVI-to-60hz-monitor will be enough to answer the question. lol

Thank you so much! That gives me a great start! I have attached an screenshot of my Surround/PhysX panel. It shows the 1070 as having the internal connector, HDMI and a DisplayPort, but does not show that DisplayPort as being Type-C. When I select "CPU" from the PhysX settings > Processor menu, the arrow on the PhysX disappears / stops pointing at the 1070 box below it, and no other connections appear. That makes me think these are the only connections, and if that DisplayPort is forwarded directly to the discrete GPU, that gives me hope. The idea that I should buy the adapter and try it is a great idea, though I currently use a DisplayPort to DVI adapter to connect one of my monitors (DVI and VGA only). I don't have any actual DisplayPort devices, so I suspect being sure it will work is still a little sketchy, lol. Worth a try, though, just to see if anything happens. XD I am still very much open to more advice, but again, that's a great start! Thank you so much for finding that! (PS: Sorry for the quality of the image, I didn't know Snipping Tool would save the gif like that, yikes)

Thank you! in that case I would like to dive a little deeper here, because I really am stuck between getting an Index and getting a Vive, solely based on my HDMI limitation. Thank you for the recommendation of the Vive. That is the only headset I've ever used and I do quite enjoy it, but I have an opportunity to get an Index, so if anyone can help me with the following part, I would be extraordinarily happy. --- If it is possible that I could make the Index work on my Zephyrus, my worries about HDMI won't be relevant anymore. So with that, the following: I think I could connect a Thunderbolt 3 to DisplayPort adapter to my laptop, and this one by Cable Matters sounds like it technically can do the trick: https://www.amazon.ca/Cable-Matters-DisplayPort-Adapter-Resolution/dp/B07F17ZHJY/ref=pd_cp_147_4/144-5460476-7471268?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07F17ZHJY&pd_rd_r=54490977-8ec2-42c6-9c7e-cf8faf57d656&pd_rd_w=FSOkV&pd_rd_wg=kN6iV&pf_rd_p=2cf9199e-e65f-43e3-98e2-64b6dc3f6d60&pf_rd_r=KRBCFGDD1QCWK3QSRAV5&psc=1&refRID=KRBCFGDD1QCWK3QSRAV5 But I've read that laptops with nVidia Optimus send the card's frames to the Intel framebuffer. I can switch it out of "Optimus mode", and it says it's running in discrete graphics mode (required for G-SYNC and the Intel graphics are no longer visibly active), but I don't know if that means it has access to the Type-C Thunderbolt or not. Either way, that SHOULD be fine, because the monitor on the laptop is a 144hz panel, and even with G-SYNC turned off in Optimus mode, it runs at 144hz. So it is definitely capable on the display it has, but again... external connections are the issue. And finally, though I am skeptical of promotional text, the Newegg page for my laptop says "Zephyrus M is compatible with large ROG G-SYNC monitors via DisplayPort™ over USB Type-C™ (USB-C™) and HDMI port. Game on a bigger scale and at even higher refresh rates." That does not clarify for sure if it is compatible with 120+ fps over Type-C to DP for VR use. Please, if anyone can confirm to me that the ASUS ROG Zephyrus GM-501G (GTX 1070, i7-8750H) can output 120-144hz over the Type-C with a DisplayPort adapter (and what the best adapter might be), I will make the decision without any hesitation. I am not personally purchasing the headset itself, and I have to decide before the end of the month. I normally can't afford this kind of thing, so your help will be absolutely monumental for me. Thank you!

Not to hijack this thread, but what would the best HDMI 2.0 Headset be? I have a Zephyrus laptop rocking a GTX 1070 with an 8th gen i7, and then there's my desktop with an i7-4770k and a GTX 970. My laptop doesn't have DisplayPort and my PC just barely hits the minimum spec requirement. I would like to know what the best experience I can get is, assuming I can use it on both. Any thoughts?

I made a thread over in General Discussion before I realized this thread exists. I don't lurk here often, so I just forgot. Sorry [ LTT Forum: linustechtips.com/main/topic/1098796-louis-rossmann-is-moving-to-a-new-space-video-idea/ ]

Louis Rossmann is moving to a new space, and it's a pretty big step for him. Even if Linus just goes to help paint, or if someone will sponsor a video and give him something to help out, I think that would be amazing. Video linked below in case you haven't watched it. I just did, and I felt kind of moved (no pun intended), so I hope LTT finds a way to lend a hand, even if it's a small gesture to get involved. He hasn't asked for help, I just think the guy deserves it. What do you all think? [ VIDEO: youtube.com/watch?v=njxdmuZyA1o ] EDIT: I just found the "Thread for Linus Tech Tips Video Suggestions" and I can't see how to delete my thread. I apologize for putting this in the wrong place.

[EDIT] It has been almost a year since I made this post. The issues with GoDaddy that I list below have not improved. I am learning new skills in my second year of college that are useful for making our switch to the cloud, and we have begun redeveloping our project for AWS. All-in-all, our experience with GoDaddy's Shared Server platform is an unresponsive nightmare to develop on and, now that I have some AWS experience, I honestly can't see a reason for it to exist. Between AWS' trial (limitations apply, of course), cheap S3 storage, and other options, it's worth it to learn your options there. GoDaddy's shared servers are, in my opinion, only marginally more useful than building a free static website on a service like Angelfire, and by far not worth the $1000 my employer threw down for the year. The value proposition would be different if it were $50-100. As it is, nobody should waste their time on those options. I can't speak on the quality of their dedicated servers, but if the only tangible difference is a faster response time in exchange for the costs involved then, again, it doesn't make sense not to go with AWS. As long as you're smart with keeping server-side processing to a minimum, and use Cloudfront effectively, you're probably going to be paying about the same amount for a much more reliable service. This is all personal opinion based on my experience, of course. Perhaps others have had an amazing experience with GoDaddy. I wish I was one of them. But I'm excited to build sites using S3 buckets, React, API Gateway, NodeJS on Lambda, and Cloudfront. [/EDIT] In case this helps someone else, here's an update on my experience with GoDaddy so far: My client only wanted 1 year of hosting, which meant the $64.99/month (CAD) was marketing, and ended up costing around $950 for the year (~$79.17 CAD, or ~$60.78 USD, or 53,93€). Out of the included storage space, 20 GB are already used. Probably with garbage I'll never use, like WordPress. It took hours to figure out that a Shared IP results in a web address like http://xx.xx.xx.xx/~identifier/ (see edit) Because of the above, the DNS can't ever actually point to our site, and the forwarding options are complete garbage. (see edit) To add just one Dedicated IP to our service will cost about $8.99 CAD per month, but a basic plan (on sale) for $32.99 comes with 3 Dedicated IPs... The administration panel on the site kept timing out, and it took hours before something as simple as FTP finally started working just broke itself again, no changes. Loading my html pages from the host often (every 3-4 page loads) results in a long wait time, upwards of 30 seconds, but is otherwise quick. Still, that's unacceptable for text-only documents (so far). GoDaddy's site is so bad, I kept running into user experience issues. Example: When you pay for a host, the first step you HAVE to perform is to tell it your domain name. It didn't ask if we had that domain, it didn't mention setting up DNS, it just took in what I typed and the configuration panel started working (barely). I had read that Go Daddy and many competitors offer free domains when setting up a new web host. I was googling to see if I missed any steps, or if it just takes a long time to show up, before I finally realized that we still had to buy the domain separately. I am almost ready to push for a refund, instead of asking my client to throw down another $107.88 for something that should've been free at this "Business" tier. But since I've already wasted my client's time, I can't do that without concrete alternatives. I might call Go Daddy tomorrow to discuss my issues, but we'll see. I don't want a server made for hosting blogs, it has to host HD video, and it has to do that quickly and reliably for users in North America. It has to be hosted in North America. And it has to have a predictable cost. Personal rant: Taking $1000 from anyone and offering piss-poor quality like this is unbelievable. The day was an infuriating test of my sanity and patience, and I'm not even getting paid for this nonsense anymore. This is taking up my personal time now because my paid time is required for developing the actual site. The reviewers who wrote the articles I read that said Go Daddy was any good should be jailed. /end_rant (long-winded) EDIT : Concerning the odd URL situation, I wasn't wrong, but the expected behaviour wasn't working at the time I tested. When the DNS server aims the domain at the shared server IP, and the server is aware of the domain that site belongs to, the shared server will properly direct the traffic to the right virtual server. When I initially set the DNS to the correct IP it was simply misdirecting traffic at first, which led to me developing a convoluted javascript solution. Our domain works properly now, and I can SSH/FTP into the server with Bitvise, which seems (like magic) to be much more reliable than their slow web tools, and much better than their completely insecure FTP method. At least I couldn't get FileZilla or WinSCP to connect with SFTP, or FTP with SSL/TLS, and when I asked tech support about it, they specifically say "no, just use regular FTP". I don't use regular FTP in school, or even to my own Ubuntu VirtualBox test server on the same machine. One thing that makes me uneasy is that during tech support, the representative accessed files on our server without (as far as I remember) asking permission. Creating folders and moving files around to test it. That was the very first thing he did before I knew what was happening. He didn't cause any damage, of course, but it made me uneasy, again, considering our desire for a secure server for confidential content. When asking the rep about the slow performance, he just passed blame on to our ISP, using the scapegoat "nobody else is complaining" ...even though a tracert revealed the entire timeout period happens between the shared server and their load balancer. I have a feeling our shared server essentially goes to sleep whenever it finds a chance, causing a periodic delay while it wakes back up. I'm hoping the problem disappears when users have PHP sessions, assuming that keeps it awake for the 30 minute duration. But then I really have no experience with what might make a shared server or related tools behave that way. I will edit this post again if my experience with Go Daddy changes (for better or worse). Maybe some of my pain will help LMG make a video some day, lol.

THANK YOU EVERYONE! My client and I had our meeting today. I discussed a lot of what was said here with them, and we ultimately agreed to start by trying GoDaddy's "Expand" option under their Business Hosting Plans. On sale for $64.99/mo (then $128.99/mo on renewal), 4 allocated CPU cores, 8 GB of RAM, unmetered traffic/bandwidth and unlimited databases. If it isn't enough for us then it looks like migrations to higher tier plans won't be difficult. I expressed specific interest in Hetzner, including the cloud option, but we needed to make a decision immediately and we both felt more confident with GoDaddy. It is possible that we might try a Hetzner cloud account at a later date just to see how the service feels and if it is worth it to move the site there - but that assumes we would have a reason to migrate before this project moves to other developers. I may try some Hetzner services in the future even if just for personal use. Thank you jake9000, I've used hyper-v in Windows Server, and I've used VirtualBox for just playing with Ubuntu occasionally. Now that I understand how esxi works, I will likely set up VMWare just for the experience. About your additional points, that's all a lot of really great info. About the Warranty, that's an extremely useful point that's very easy to forget. If we had chosen to still build a server, I would have asked for more time to investigate that option. The regular KVM switches at my school are 'hot garbage' too, so I can't even imagine using one over IP! Though I would have logged in with bash over SSH anyways. -------------- Once again I appreciate all of the help here! Definitely helped me to see reason before I had my client spend a drastic amount of money. -------------- EDIT: Right after posting this I found a Forbes article from 2012 that doesn't paint GoDaddy in too good a picture, and I never had time to look into other hosts beside Hetzner. We've already made our choice and we're going to stick with it, but if anyone finds this thread and thinks they'll choose GoDaddy too, there are more hosts to investigate that I wish I had time to look into. Here is an article that lists some of those hosts: https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/web-hosting-services/best/ I still think, given the type of content we need to have hosted, GoDaddy was still a good choice. But not everyone has the same needs. For literally any other site I've ever made, the cloud hosting options all sound awesome. Particularly Hetzner's. EDIT 2: I marked SupaKomputa's post as the answer because renting a server was what we ended up deciding. But every answer was fantastic, and it was difficult to choose a Best.

Thank you. I tried to use the AWS cost calculator (with the limited knowledge I have of the services and with no clue what most of the fields mean), and if the site gets the usage I expect, it could cost $750 a month or more. But ultimately the issue with cloud is the uncertainty, it could be free one month and $4000 the next. Unless there's a better cloud service, or one that it's easier to calculate costs, it isn't worth consideration. If anyone knows a concrete way to figure this out for someone who's never used the cloud before, can you share that with me please? I haven't really had any issues setting up Docker before, but I haven't used it in a production environment, just school. Kubernetes, on the other hand, I haven't touched at all. I just felt it would be necessary to familiarize myself with it because it seems to be the direction that large web servers are going, so it seemed natural to develop for that environment. SupaKomputa definitely has me questioning my logic behind that decision, and with only 3 actual weeks of real development time it likely won't matter at all what environment I develop for. A VM with nginx running as a reverse proxy and another VM with LAMP might just be the way to go. Thank you for your input! ------------- A general update on where I am For renting a server: Right now I'm just trying to gather information so that I can discuss the options with my client. I've looked a bit more into Hetzner, and will consider that. Hetzner auctions has the pro of having an actual dedicated server with large amounts of storage space, for affordable pricing. But both Hetzner and GoDaddy's managed options might suit our needs better. For building a server: This is quickly becoming an unfavourable option, for sure. Even if my client prefers this option, the highest tier of the available business internet line has a similar cost to the highest tier of hosting available from GoDaddy. But if the client chooses this route regardless... I looked at EPYC (16-core), the Xeons available from Newegg (six Kaby Lake, five Broadwell, and one Coffee Lake), four Core i7 CPUs (7700k, 8700k, 9700k, 9900k), the W-3175X, Ryzen 7, and Ryzen 5. Without factoring in the cost of the platforms, and relying on PassMark scores at cpubenchmark.net, I came to these conclusions: No surprise to anyone, ever, the W-3175X wins on pure performance overall, and specifically in Multi-threaded. The 9900k wins on single-threaded performance, and takes second-place in multi-threaded (at 51.72% of the W-3175X). The winner of performance per dollar for single-threaded was the Coffee Lake Xeon E-2124. The winner of performance per dollar for multi-threaded was the Ryzen 5 2600. Reasonably well-balanced for performance vs value seems to be either Ryzen 7 2700X, and 9700k. The closest compromise for Xeon, for me, is probably the E3-1275 v6 which, at least, has integrated video to make first-time set up and maintenance a bit more convenient. It has 81.33% of the single-thread score versus the 9900k, and multi-thread score is 28.19% versus the 9900k's 51.72%. Worst performance per dollar, before factoring in platform which just makes it worse, is the W-3175X, then EPYC, then the E5-2660 v4. So if we still build a server, we will probably just forget ECC RAM, and go with a consumer desktop rocking either Ryzen 7 2700X or a 9700k. Leaning towards the 9700k with a Gigabyte Aorus board of some flavour, or a 3rd gen Ryzen if that's practical and possible to get. tl;dr: Cloud pricing seems unpredictable or hard to calculate, and I'd appreciate help sorting that out for my client. But we'll probably be lame and stick to GoDaddy, or build a consumer grade system as a server with a gen 3 Ryzen or a 9700k, using nginx as reverse proxy VM and LAMP as main server VM.

Is the file storage server for making regular back-ups? 30% per container sounds crazy. Are you saying that if Kubernetes decides to open a fourth container that the whole physical machine will crap the bed? Or just that each container is 30% slower than it would be if it ran on 4 physical machines? I'm starting my second year of College in September. Anything I can set up to be automatic is a must. If something fails, I need it to get shut down and replaced on-the-fly without my intervention. I will not be paid for servicing or maintenance the second my first day of classes start. Kubernetes seems to be a solution that can do that. My client is not the leader of a company, and so resources are limited. But there are three possibilities: 1. The server I build and the site I develop only ever serves the 50 users. 2. The higher-ups say "that's great" and needs to relocate everything I've done for further development or to be redeployed immediately on hardware I will never know anything about. 3. The higher-ups say "that's great", opens it up to thousands of users in its current state while I'm in school, and suddenly they have to hire someone else to make the existing server handle that... I am documenting everything as well as a 1st-year software engineering college student knows how. If my client can hire someone else, then I need to know that that person can scale it easily without any additional input. If they have to troubleshoot because my documentation missed one thing that could have been avoided by using a Docker image, then doesn't that just make me look bad? So far, assuming I still build this server instead of renting one, the specs will be: AMD Epyc or Intel Xeon 16 to 64 GB ECC RAM Samsung 970 Enterprise SSD Thank you so much! Your continued input is invaluable.

Some more information: I have a hard deadline of August 15th to completely develop the site with a working database and ability for my client to upload video and audio files which will be shared with his users. Sadly, with my time constraints, I need to make a decision and live with it. Currently my project will max out at 50 users, but it may get moved to an existing larger server with thousands of users, and I will no longer be the developer if this happens. I have to guess what that server is like because my client doesn't have access to that information (large company). It is my understanding that Kubernetes and Docker are rather industry standard. Everything I develop has to be capable of being moved. Cloud services, instead of building a server, are not out of the question but I have zero usable experience there. And unpredictable costs will not fly. --------------- Assuming I still build my own server, but make it a single Linux box running two Ubuntu Server VMs, one using Kubernetes/Docker for web serve and the other strictly be the database, what hardware could I go with? Should I be rocking a Ryzen 5 with 16 gigs of ECC RAM? Or should I stick to a Xeon platform? SSD for the reverse proxy cache and WD Red drives for large video file storage? What kind of drive is most appropriate for a DB? @Jarsky It's good to know that there's the option to use VMWare for free commercially for one machine. @SupaKomputa For LAMP vs Docker, I'm a little confused by your comments. Unless I am mistaken, Docker enables running containers, and Kubernetes controls Docker containers so that I can scale or load balance based on concurrent connections. So I would run an instance of Apache with PHP in a container, and if that container is getting overloaded then Kubernetes can automagically run a new container with Apache to support those connections. I don't really expect the database would ever need to run multiple dockerized instances. I have read conflicting information that Apache can handle tons of connections versus Apache with PHP can only handle one connection at a time. I have to be 100% certain that if 49 users are streaming video or are all interacting with an element that uses PHP to access the database, that a 50th user wouldn't even notice a speed loss. Would a single bare-bone LAMP still perform better than Kubernetes controlling load balancing? For cloud, I can't risk the cost going from $10 one month, to $4000 the next. I don't see a way to be 100% certain that I can say to my client "it will cost you this much to do what you need". Is there a way to find that out? Keep in mind, I don't actually know how many services with AWS, Google, or Cloudflare I would need, or even which services give me what I need (I assume for AWS it would be CloudFront, S3, and RDS). I would probably have to start a new topic for those questions. For renting a server, what would the benefit be there versus something like GoDaddy.com? I have no idea who Hetzner are. I already have reservations about asking my client to upload confidential files to a cloud, so I don't think I'll be asking him to trust a server on another continent that I know nothing about. ------------- I know I'm asking a lot of questions, and there's a lot to digest here. It would definitely help if I had a better idea of what I need. So your feedback really helps! Thank you