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Paul Vreeland

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  1. Agree
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from Combat_Killer in Who can solve this problem? Game not using the full power of my GPU.   
    Black Desert Online is a CPU bound game.  Notice all that physics, especially in highly populated areas?  (Player clothing and hair, boob jiggle, Horse clothing and hair, Wagon accessories)
     
    In BDO, all physics are currently handled by the CPU.  If you are in a populated area, your FPS will tank due to all the physics calculations.
     
    They are not offloading that work to PhysX or other Compute language in the GPU, all in CPU.  When your CPU is too busy to handle the load, delivery of data to the GPU is delayed.  (100% CPU / lower GPU %)
     
    You cannot turn down or disable physics in BDO.  You can use low poly avatar models I forget the setting name where Faraway people are like black shadows, NOT "high end mode" (keeps player and npc render distance lower).  But get more than 20 people and their horses on the screen and FPS WILL take a hit.  It doesn't help that most players play females with the added boob jiggle and more jiggly outfits such as skirts.
  2. Informative
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from kilgore_T in Need advice on strange PC boot problem   
    BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP.  If you have anything you value on that PC, keep it in a second location.  Second location, not a separate location.  Two places minimum.  Suddenly noisy HDDs can be an issue completely unrelated to what you are having and can result in data loss.
     
    Depending on the configuration of the system, that HDD could be a factor in your symptoms.  Starting with basic tests and visual inspection can reveal other issues as well.
     
    If I've learned anything in the last 16 years, it's that you don't want to just check and fix 1 thing.  If you are already in the machine, give it blanket testing and check as many things as you can.  If you aren't a technician, you may not know what to check unless you have some experience.
     
    Without "peeking under the hood", it's hard to say what the problem is.  There's "a million things" that all need to work perfectly for you to push power button and enjoy the computing experience.  One thing fails in the chain, one tiny component hidden away on a circuit board, and the chain fails.
     
    You can always call a technician, too.  There's a reason people pay us money to get stuff fixed, it's usually after they waste their weekend, month, year trying to hack at it themselves.  I'm not saying don't try, but this is a realm where the problem isn't easily reproducible so it sometimes requires a keen technical eye to spot the issues.
  3. Agree
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from Donut417 in Which router to get for my needs?   
    Mikrotik has some low cost prosumer/business class router offerings.  We have converted several businesses to Mikrotik that have lots of public wifi and private wireless users and it handles the load great.
     
    hAP AC comes to mind.  It is a triple chain capable AP/router combo.
     
    hAP AC lite is cheaper, has 100 Mbit instead of Gigabit and less CPU/ram.  It should be fine for your smaller home network, but doesn't give you as much room to grow like the non-lite version.
  4. Agree
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from KenjiUmino in How to remote control to PCs over LAN without using RDP   
    VNC is a popular Go-to app, but beware of the security implications of running unencrypted VNC.  There are ways to encrypt VNC.
     
    RDP is much better on supported OS due to native UI handling, it feels snappier.
  5. Agree
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from TheKalmTraveler in How to fix a VERY sensitive key (laptop)   
    Like @TheKalmTraveler said, something is stuck under the key.  This is typical if you eat food at the computer.
     
    As a technician, I would pop off the key in question and inspect the rubber dimple and see if there is anything under the membrane like food or liquid.
     
    Popping off keyboard keys and re-installing on a notebook computer is extremely frustrating if you have never done it.  It will take you more time than you think.  It helps to look up the technique because it is easy to break the clips and then have a missing key.
  6. Agree
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from ElSeniorTaco in Windows 10 BSOD instantly after BIOS   
    Start with diagnostic tests and go from there.  CPU/RAM/HDD
     
    After you establish the parts are passing tests, you can move into software and OS troubleshooting.
  7. Agree
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from Ace McPlane in Wifi problem, please God help me   
    It seems like the assumption so far has been that your WiFi is perfectly setup and optimized.
     
    Have you done a wifi site survey to check for signal loss, reflection/absorption, interference?
  8. Like
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from Mattias Edeslatt in Data hoarder needs help   
    As a technician, I have setup clients that process large volumes of photo or video data.  Sign shops, photo or video studios, etc.
     
    ALL of them have some kind of pruning process during the intake.  It doesn't matter how much storage space you have, if you don't prune as you take it in, you will never watch it all or look through it all to find something useful later.
     
    In the home environment, I like to refer to this effect as the "camera phone mom syndrome"  15,000 images, 10,000 are blurry.  Out of the 5,000 remaining, 1,000 are "oops" photos from the pocket or at the ceiling.  Out of the 4,000 left you get down to groups of 5-10 pictures of the same moment where none of them were pruned for the "best" one.  This is most commonly found among Mac users surprisingly, not bashing Mac users at all, just the truth.  Maybe more Mac folks are into "casual photography" more than others.
     
    It is a discipline to review the data or even think before importing "is this worth storing?", but it will pay off ten-fold when you need to actually go into the archive.  There is no such thing as a storage space amount that won't fill up, there is no infinity storage.
     
    Some successful pruning techniques:
    After the moment is fresh, review the data.  Not days or weeks later. Delete older than XX days Set a hard limit for how many images to keep (or clips of video) Yes, clip your video.  2 hours of video for 2 seconds of important stuff is wasteful. Share and review with friends or family, this will force pruning more often (holidays, events, etc)
  9. Like
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from Jaok in Can I stream on twich in 720p 60fps with this internet speed???   
    It is common for ADSL and ADSL2/+ lines to have less than 1 Mbit upload speed.  The old copper phone lines have a small range of frequencies/tones they use to carry data, for simplicity, say 1-100 for total bandwidth.
     
    Since 99% of folks are consuming data only instead of producing, they allocate the system to use say tones 1-96 for downloading and 97-100 for uploading.  This is just a limitation of ADSL/2/+
     
    VDSL has much higher potential speeds, but is available pretty much only in metropolis sized cities.
     
    Changing providers is your only hope of streaming 720p.  With the current trend in ISPs (only 1-2 per city), you are pretty much stuck.  This is also why network neutrality is such a hot topic, but that is a separate conversation.
     
    In other news, last week SpaceX launched 10 low orbit satellites to provide the world with low latency satellite internet.  The current problem with satellite internet is the providers are using satellite nodes 25,000 miles up in high orbit.
  10. Like
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from johnukguy in About Reinstalling Windows!   
    Well, take any tech advice from others with a grain of salt.  Including me!
     
    I've been professionally repairing PCs for over 15 years and the simplest way I can explain receiving tech advice from someone who isn't a techie:
     
    There's a million things that all have to go right, in the right order, for your tech to function optimally.  From plugging it into the wall, electricity flowing through all the tiny parts in the power supply, through the motherboard's parts, through the processor and RAM, sending bits around in the Operating System and finally send signals to your output devices that allow you to enjoy the technology: the display, speakers, etc.
     
    Any one part of that chain breaks, and you might have a PC (or any tech) that might as well be a door stop.  The technician knows how to find which part has the failing component and fix the problem.  "Some guy" may have had a similar symptom but drastically different parts failing or software issues.
     
    Another example: Just because my stomach hurts doesn't mean I have tumors, ulcers, appendicitis, or just gas.  The symptom is the same (stomach hurts), but the treatment is different in each case.
     
    The point of all that is that if you want to learn, you should try to find out what is the problem before blindly following someone's advice.  The tools mentioned above can help you discover hardware issues.
  11. Like
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from Jaok in Can I stream on twich in 720p 60fps with this internet speed???   
    720p would not be a great viewing experience with that speed.
     
    I have streamed with .5 Mbps but at 360p and 2 pass encoding with NVENC.
  12. Agree
    Paul Vreeland got a reaction from Crunchy Dragon in About Reinstalling Windows!   
    BACKUP FIRST!
     
    Before you do anything, if you value your documents, pictures, videos, music.  Put them in a second location.  A backup is just a second copy somewhere else of everything that is important.
     
    Reinstalling Windows is definitely territory for losing information on your computer if you don't have a backup.
     
    Also you should test your parts before going through the trouble if you are getting freezes and crashes.
     
    Here's a few to get you started:
    Prime95 = CPU/Cooling test
    Memtest86+ = RAM test
    GSmartControl = HDD SMART testing
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