Archive for October, 2009

Resolved Question: Graphics card to handle games for this pc? (needs T&L)?

——————
System Information
——————
Time of this report: 10/25/2009, 21:13:49
Machine name: CARYLL-B
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.090302-1506)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: Inspiron 530
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4700 @ 2.60GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
Memory: 2036MB RAM
Page File: 1404MB used, 2913MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 10
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 6.00.6001.18000 32bit Unicode
—————
Display Devices
—————
Card name: Intel(R) G33/G31 Express Chipset Family
Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
Chip type: Intel(R) GMA 3100
DAC type: Internal
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_29C2&SUBSYS_020D1028&REV_02
Display Memory: 286 MB
Dedicated Memory: 0 MB
Shared Memory: 286 MB
Current Mode: 1440 x 900 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Dell SE198WFP(Analog)
Driver Name: igdumdx32.dll
Driver Version: 7.15.0010.1666 (English)
DDI Version: 9Ex
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 2/26/2009 11:34:14, 536576 bytes
WHQL Logo’d: Yes
PLEASE HELP i want to be able to handle games that require hardware T&L, so cod4, crysis etc.

WSJ Confirms Barnes & Noble “Nook” Reader Price at $259

According to the WSJ, the Barnes & Noble reader will be announced tomorrow at $259. The descriptions match our exclusive photos exactly. They found the device through a premature ad shown on the NYTimes website! Who scooped who here?

Features of the Nook include a wireless connection to download books from the retailer’s online e-bookstore and an e-paper display from E-Ink Corp. that is separate from the color controls.

The only discrepancy we’ve found with our original story is that B&N was not priced lower than the Kindle, as our sources said it might be. It’s tied at $259. But given the lending feature and color screen, a price match may be more than enough to compete with.

They also reveal the name as “Nook”. It’s kind of a dumb name. [WSJ via Engadget]

Exclusive: First Photos of Barnes & Noble’s Double Screen E-Reader

Barnes and Noble’s late to e-books. But the company’s new gadget—first seen here—should address the weaknesses of all other readers with screens evoking a Kindle and an iPhone. A source from within reveals.

The Barnes and Nobles e-reader project, set to be revealed next week, has been under development for years, with several devices of varying size and capability in the pipeline. First rumors said it would have a color e-ink screen. Then people said it didn’t. They were both kind of right: The layout will feature a black and white e-ink screen like the Kindle has—and a multitouch display like an iPhone underneath other. Pow!

More hardware details of the Barnes and Noble E-Ink/LCD reader here:

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What’s interesting is that B&N will sell the books it also publishes (yes, remember, they are also a publisher and not just a store) at a deep discount compared to print editions. And the device will have some sort of access to all books scanned by the Google Books project; probably books that are out of print.

The name of the gadget, which I cannot reveal and may have changed anyhow, is freaking terrible. I hope they change it before it ships. Oh and yeah, it runs Android.

Resolved Question: Emachines E1641 running aion question.?

Back when money was tight and my dell crashed, i was playing WoW and i bought this emachine. Everything ran totally fine on wow, i got decent (not great) but decent FPS that i could play on. My dell had an ATI Raedon 256mb 9550 graphics card that i thought i could run in my emachin but the hookups are different inside the computer. Which leads me to ask, is this like DDR and DDR2? Being my dell ran DDR and my emachine runs DDR2 type things? My first worry was that my emachine didnt have a place for a graphic card but theres a long slot that looks something like this: —- ——————————– while my raedon one looks like: —————— ——-. Well you get it. I beleive my new computer is running on a built in nvidia type set up, and even with the lowest settings im making 5 fps IF that! Also when i first started aion the graphics ran as they should have (laggy though) but one day after altering ingame graphics settings i was playing and anytime i get near water the graphics go haywire, blue colors run all over the screen and the land itself tries to look like water and sometimes it all goes white. When i turn my character away from everything it stops. I set the graphics back to default and nothing changed. Also it takes awhile for the game to load distances and NPC’s, im not even able to click them until maybe a minute goes by. Like i said before this computer ran WoW flawlessly with very little FPS drops (only in highly populated areas and big cities but it was still playable). I’m not really understanding why it cant comply with Aion, the only thing i know to do is buy a new graphics card but i feel that theres something not right. Also im running everything on the lowest settings. So tell me anything i can do to improve this games performance, buying another computer isnt an option right now ( i know i made the mistake of buying an emachine) but theres gotta be some way to make everything run smoother.

Here is a Dxdiag if that helps:

DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow: 0/6 (retail)

—————
Display Devices
—————
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 7050 / NVIDIA nForce 610i
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 7050 / nForce 610i
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_07E3&SUBSYS_298D1019&REV_A2
Display Memory: 889 MB
Dedicated Memory: 249 MB
Shared Memory: 639 MB
Current Mode: 1440 x 900 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor
Driver Name: nvd3dum.dll
Driver Version: 8.15.0011.8585 (English)
DDI Version: 9Ex
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 4/30/2009 22:02:00, 7593472 bytes
WHQL Logo’d: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp:
Device Identifier: {D7B71E3E-44A3-11CF-2052-860902C2C535}
Vendor ID: 0×10DE
Device ID: 0×07E3
SubSys ID: 0×298D1019
Revision ID: 0×00A2
Revision ID: 0×00A2
Video Accel:
Deinterlace Caps: {6CB69578-7617-4637-91E5-1C02DB810285}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{F9F19DA5-3B09-4B2F-9D89-C64753E3EAAB}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY
{5A54A0C9-C7EC-4BD9-8EDE-F3C75DC4393B}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
{6CB69578-7617-4637-91E5-1C02DB810285}: Format(In/Out)=(UYVY,UYVY) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{F9F19DA5-3B09-4B2F-9D89-C64753E3EAAB}: Format(In/Out)=(UYVY,UYVY) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY
{5A54A0C9-C7EC-4BD9-8EDE-F3C75DC4393B}: Format(In/Out)=(UYVY,UYVY) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(UYVY,UYVY) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
{6CB69578-7617-4637-91E5-1C02DB810285}: Format(In/Out)=(YV12,0×32315659) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{F9F19DA5-3B09-4B2F-9D89-C64753E3EAAB}: Format(In/Out)=(YV12,0×32315659) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX Vid

Voting Question: Can my computer run Empire Total War? Or any of the total war games?

Here’s my dxdiag:
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.090302-1506)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gateway
System Model: ET1161-03
BIOS: )Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ (2 CPUs), ~2.3GHz
Memory: 2942MB RAM
Page File: 1102MB used, 4995MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 10
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 6150SE nForce 430
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03D0&SUBSYS_26061019&REV_A2
Display Memory: 1336 MB
Dedicated Memory: 121 MB
Shared Memory: 1215 MB
Current Mode: 1440 x 900 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor
Driver Name: nvd3dum.dll,nvwgf2um.dll
Driver Version: 7.15.0011.7824 (English)

Can this run any of them smoothly? (Prefferable Total War, but i hear appearatly it is a no =(
yea i tried but can you run it is having some problems right now haha….my laptop can run it but…should i even try on a laptop?

Qualcomm’s Mirasol Ultra Low Power Display Is Almost Magic

Ebook readers suffer because they use E-Ink, which isn’t in color and doesn’t refresh fast enough to do video. Qualcomm is quietly showing off its Mirasol display, now in full color with 30-frame-per-second video. See for yourself:

The video was shot by IntoMobile. As they describe it, the tech sounds like a massive DLP chip—that is, a panel covered with tiny reflective mirrors. Each mirror can change color but it’s a passive screen, with no backlight (like most LCDs) and no self-illumination (a la OLED). They get lit up by whatever light is in the room. Saving energy is the key here—anytime you eliminate a light source, you cut way down on the juice. No word on when this will appear on devices, but it’s Qualcomm, so you can bet there will at least be some experimental products before too long.

Speaking of experimental products, Time’s Josh Quittner points out, on his blog, that several of Qualcomm’s components could go together to make a formidable ebook device. Besides this screen, they’ve got the multi-network mobile chipset (Gobi), a respectable mobile CPU (Snapdragon), and a powerful media delivery system (MediaFLO). Forget the Kindle—who needs Amazon? Oh right, books. [IntoMobile via Netly]

Resolved Question: Video game texture problems and then freezing PC with beeping coming from computer?

Sometimes when I play a game like Counter Strike: Source of Left4Dead the textures will change color completely. Sometimes the walls have numbers on them, the people turn rainbow, and the guns turn invisible almost.

I can’t play at all with the textures like that, so I quit the game. Then right when I quit my computer freezes for about ten seconds and when I try to click a few times the computer makes a loud beeping noise, Not the speakers, the computer.

How do I fix this? Here’s my system specs:

Processor Information:
Vendor: GenuineIntel
Speed: 3.04 GHz
2 logical processors
2 physical processors
HyperThreading: Unsupported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported

Network Information:
Network Speed: DSL/Cable > 2M

Windows Version:
Windows XP (32 bit)
NTFS: Supported

Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
DirectX Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.11.8585
DirectX Driver Version: 6.14.11.8585
Driver Date: 1 May 2009
Desktop Color Depth: 32 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 75 Hz
DirectX Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
VendorID: 0×10de
DeviceID: 0×5e2
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
No SLI or Crossfire Detected
Primary Display Resolution: 1440 x 900
Desktop Resolution: 1440 x 900
Primary Display Size: 16.14″ x 10.08″ (19.02″ diag)
41.0cm x 25.6cm (48.3cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 896 MB
Supported MSAA Modes: 2x 4x 8x

Sound card:
Audio device: Realtek HD Audio output

Memory:
RAM: 2046 Mb
Re-Installing would be meaningless because I know that’s not the problem. I play games on Steam and it still happens, and I play games off steam and it still happens.

It’s not overheating, I have EVGA precision keeping the fan at a good temperature when I play. It happens even when I’m playing games that don’t push the video card’s capabilities and keeps the temp below 50.

Any other ideas?

(Did you mean re-installing the BIOS or the games?)