WereCatf

The reason why using a second GPU for encoding actually performs worse is because when you're using the same GPU for both gaming on and encoding, the frames never have to leave VRAM -- the GPU can just access the frame-data directly in its own VRAM and encode them -- but when you're using two GPUs, the CPU has to first download each frame from the first GPU into system RAM, then upload that into the second GPU's VRAM for it to be encoded there. That's a LOT of extra traffic that can be avoided with a single GPU, like e.g. playing at 1440p resolution at 60FPS, that'd be 2560 * 1440 pixels by 4 bytes of data per pixel by 60 frames per second ~= around 843MB of data to download from one GPU, then upload to another, every single second.

Actually, they can affect those results quite heavily. There are many ISPs that redirect speedtest.net - traffic to their own dataservers in order to boost the numbers.
Yes, see above.
 
The one speedtest that I, personally, trust and have found to be very accurate is http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest -- give that a try as well.

Not directly a reply to you, but more of a clarification to anyone stumbling upon this thread:
 
If one takes a look at that list there, a good handful of those are just about various cryptocoins, so they're irrelevant to this conversation; OP's claim was that blockchain will replace pre-existing, centralized services. The rest are....well, as one can see, all about tracking changes in taxes/inventory/etc., and that was my whole point earlier: blockchain-tech is all about the transaction-history, that's the whole selling-point of it, and the VAST, VAST MAJORITY of public-facing, Internet-accessible services has zero benefit from something like that or they are already using something much better suited to the task.
 
One could use blockchain-stuff for e.g. tracking changes to source-code, but...git, subversion etc. are far better choices for that as they are purpose-made solutions. Websites? Do you really have any use for having access to a cryptographically-verifiable history of changes to a website's contents, for example? No? Yeah, you don't. Streaming-services? Again, there's nothing to be gained on the consumer-side. On the service-provider's side, they could use it for tracking changes to their catalogue and payments and the likes, but...that wouldn't make the service decentralized or anything, so again, blockchain-stuff would be both irrelevant and invisible to consumer-side.
 
There are uses for it, but it's not a magic bullet, it cannot replace centralized services, and it certainly won't do jack shit for most stuff people care about. If someone is peddling a rosy future made of blockchain, they're most likely trying to sell something, they've invested in something that tries to sell something, or they're just simply running a scam.

No, there isn't. It's all a load of bullshit and hot air.

You'd be surprised how many of us old fogies there are here.

Minor correction: OP will hit the rated tolerance in about 50 years. Hitting the rated tolerance doesn't mean it'll actually go bad at that point as some tests have shown; in many cases, you might be able to hit the rated tolerance several times before it getting too worn out for use.

I'm not sure I understand how I'm "locked in" to Steam. I mean, the games I have in my Steam-library are, but at the same time, it doesn't in any way or form prevent me from buying games on e.g. GOG. Also, I can make use of Steam itself to play games from e.g. the aforementioned GOG with features like Steam's overlay or Remote Play (something that I find a very valuable feature and which none of the competitors offer!)

I'm not sure I understand how I'm "locked in" to Steam. I mean, the games I have in my Steam-library are, but at the same time, it doesn't in any way or form prevent me from buying games on e.g. GOG. Also, I can make use of Steam itself to play games from e.g. the aforementioned GOG with features like Steam's overlay or Remote Play (something that I find a very valuable feature and which none of the competitors offer!)

NVIDIA released CUDA-based ray-tracing for Pascal-series cards. It is NOT fast enough to use for gaming, it's really slow on Pascal, but technically it kinda-sorta works.

FTFY.

None of the graphics APIs are about image-quality, they are about features and speed. You can get exactly the same quality with either API.

FTFY. I know she just graciously lets you pretend to have a say in anything.

I'll challenge you to give a good reason to bother.

I'll challenge you to give a good reason to bother.

Because they are. There is no explaining taste, mate.
No one's telling you to do jack shit. Soundbars are for people who want them.
If you don't like surround-sound, then you don't. I don't care. I like surround-sound and to me it does make 100% sense, it adds to the soundscape and when used well, it can really set the scene in a way that's just not possible with stereo-sound.

Looks, for example. One, sleek-looking soundbar looks far cleaner than those ugly speakers of yours. Soundbars also often have a bunch of connectors on them, including HDMI, so it's really easy to plug consoles and TVs and the likes to them, ie. easy-of-use.
For many of us, yes.
Because if something is happening behind you, then the sound does come from behind you. I mean...duh?

What's there to discuss? A list of freeware software is not the same thing as a discussion, and people just making new threads with something along the lines of "This InsertAppHere is cool and free!" would very quickly make the category both uselessly unwieldy and cluttered and it still wouldn't induce any sort of discussion.

I have no idea what you just said. I've seen 5-year olds write more coherent posts than this!

You keep referring to rabid fanboys and similar things, you keep bashing Steam/Valve, and it all seems like you just have an axe to grind. It's hard to take anything you say seriously with such an attitude.
 
For one, why are rabid fanboys and such even relevant? Literally everything attracts those kinds, including the other storefronts, but they're all in tiny minority and not a driving force here. Secondly, you seem to be insinuating that people are boycotting EGS just simply because it's a competitor to Steam. Sure, for the most rabid fanboys that may be true, but for the rest of us that's not the reason. I mean, if that was the reason, then why would many of us still support e.g. GOG, which is also a competitor? No, there's more to it, but I'm not sure if you just don't want to see it or if you don't even understand it.

Mmmno. They've always had to vet patches, this is not new in any way. The issue is that universities were expected to be more trustworthy than others and thus patches coming from universities specifically -- not everyone -- were let through with less scrutiny.
Of course there is. E.g. many UI-design improvements come from telemetry -- knowing what features get used the most, which ones get used the least, how long it takes users to find their way into this or that feature and so on and so forth.

It's only hysteric alarmists and journalists looking for clicks that keep making claims about an incoming pandemic, that's for sure. I have a hard time imagining some disease managing to spread worldwide and killing even just 100k people with modern protocols. I'm no virologist, but 10k worldwide deaths seems to me like something that just about might be possible at most.
 
Granted, 10k would still be a lot of people.

If you wanted over-the-top, just plain retarded cooling, you'd sink the cards in mineral oil or similar and then cool the oil with e.g. refrigerators or peltiers to below zero.
 
That said, it's both a retarded idea and not interesting, either.
No.

That's such a massive oversimplification that I don't agree on the point still standing.
Valve runs their own servers Given the size of games, especially AAA-titles, they need absolutely massive amounts of storage They also allow people to save screenshots and upload videos and all sorts of other content of their own, which increases storage-needs They have their own CDNs all over the world They consume insane amounts of bandwidth at all times and, as you might be aware, that doesn't come cheap They have their own, entirely free streaming-service, which also consumes bandwidth and storage They have their workshop, which also consumes bandwidth and storage The Remote Play and Remote Play Together - stuff goes through their Steam Network if all parties are behind strict NAT and that consumes massive amounts of bandwidth -- they are proxying all the data through their own VPN-servers for no fee on the customer Voice-chat in and out of games also goes through their Steam Network, if needed. While it's obviously a lot less bandwidth, it is still an additional drain Ask anyone who actually runs something that consumes massive amounts of bandwidth and you'll very quickly find out that it does not come cheap.
 
The software could use quite a bit of work, but it's not like they haven't been doing anything at all with it. What they've been doing as of late has been more about designing a good AI-like system for recommendations, trying to find a way of getting the less-easily-found games out and about, giving them some much-needed visibility and so on -- it's all entirely non-flashy stuff and uninteresting for most people, but I tend to pay attention to such things.

You could, but you'd get worse performance, not better, and you'd also get worse quality. This is to say, it'd be pointless.

What I want to know is, why do you care about that metric? It's such an arbitrary thing, since it's still an "up to" - value.