Windows 11 and gaming performance

[Hyperstrike]

7 hours ago, Ironblade said:

Well, that's some serious BS.  NVidia needs to get their act together.  Their cards power draw can spike to around 1,000 watts and they say the power supply manufacturers are the problem?

It's basically a bunch of finger pointing.

To NVIDIA, it's a PSU problem.
To the PSU makers, it's a manufacturing problem with NVIDIA.

And, they're BOTH right.

Do you want to start measuring GPU generations in DECADES?
How much DO you want to spend on a very carefully build and managed power supply?

[Hyperstrike]

On 10/11/2021 at 3:17 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

Pretty sure he said a lot of silly things. For work, of course, I've had to support everything, but at home, I pretty much went from DOS to 98SE to XP to 7 to 10. Server 2000 and 2003 were in play for a while to learn stuff at one point.

 

I envy you.

I've pretty much used every version of DOS, all versions of Windows, and just about every Linux/BSD distro available.

Hell, I even had the misfortune of using CPM!

[lemming]

56 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

 

I envy you.

I've pretty much used every version of DOS, all versions of Windows, and just about every Linux/BSD distro available.

Hell, I even had the misfortune of using CPM!

My favorite geekcred OS I used was Kodak's version of Unix. (Interactive which they bought, then sold to Sun)

[tidge]

17 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

One recommendation I might  give is to over-buy your PSU at least moderately.

10K, 20K, 30K (and the upcoming 40K) cards are having higher power draw numbers.  Worse, their transient loads can be outrageous.  With spikes of 50-100% over their baselines.  So trying to dial in on card spec numbers could leave you with a system that might simply power down (like over-current protection) in the middle of a momentary power spike.

 

Right now, about the only way to avoid these problems is to step up the spec of your PSU.

 

(+1) for the video link.

 

15 hours ago, Ironblade said:

Well, that's some serious BS.  NVidia needs to get their act together.  Their cards power draw can spike to around 1,000 watts and they say the power supply manufacturers are the problem?

 

I've always (well, 25+ years anyway) always been over-specifying desktop power-supplies for a couple of reasons:

• I never knew just what I'd try to add to the box; for example, I had one desktop that I later added a whole lot of SCSI peripherals to, just because.
• I prefer to have the power supply working near the middle of its range, for power-supply theory reasons.

The first bullet lives on some spectrum of reasonable (future video card replacements were always the best example)  to just-plain-nuts, the second is one of those things that may only be anecdotal, but prior to this approach I found myself replacing PSUs which is not something I've done since adopting this practice.

 

I'm not thrilled that I now have to add "transient draws from video cards" to my thinking, both because of "duh, needs more juice than the supply can provide" (overpower trips) and it becomes incredibly difficult to even estimate what an appropriate PSU rating is when trying to account for headroom for transient spikes. Power supplies don't like to provide power at their low end (for a long time) either.

 

I only had time to watch the first half; The video makes a strong case (@ ~11 minutes) that I worry about the most... there are many PSU manufacturers that will compete on cost by things like:

1. less than ideal components
2. compromises on design

(1) is something that can happen even to a manufacturer that isn't explicitly trying to save $$$ this way, suppliers can "slip" lower-quality parts in as well.  (2) is a LOT trickier, I think the video briefly touches on this with respect to low form-factor PSU designs... the smaller amount of physical space means that geometrically there is unlikely to be physical room to fit necessary design elements into the PSU. These engineering compromises are ones that are essentially impossible for a consumer to be aware of... some PSU manufacturers may disclose/hint at certain compromises on spec sheets... but lay folks are unlikely to pick up on them. Even with some knowledge, experience, and equipment ranging from loads and scopes it can be difficult to understand the performance of a PSU.

 

My experience (such as it is) is primarily with PSU of the type that are used in desktops. PSU that are paired with battery monitoring/charging circuits are a whole other area of speciality that have an even wider design space!

 

If anyone wants to point and laugh at my old experience, that's fine. The basic theory hasn't really changed(ignoring battery-charging tech, and that's been somewhat stable) for a long time... I'll see if I can locate a digital copy of an older Agilent (it may have even been HP!) Power Supply Handbook that I remember being a decent resource explaining how PSU work (and how to analyze them. (Thanks, Internet Archive)

[Ironblade]

12 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

Do you want to start measuring GPU generations in DECADES?

YES, YES, OH PLEASE YES!  Well, maybe not decades, but many years would be awesome.

I would love for computers to be more like cars.  You don't hear people say, "Oh, GM just came out with a new transmission.  My car's only 2 years old but I'm thinking about upgrading it."

 

 

4 hours ago, tidge said:

I've always (well, 25+ years anyway) always been over-specifying desktop power-supplies for a couple of reasons:

• I never knew just what I'd try to add to the box; for example, I had one desktop that I later added a whole lot of SCSI peripherals to, just because.
• I prefer to have the power supply working near the middle of its range, for power-supply theory reasons.

 

Same here but the first bullet point doesn't really apply to me.  I generally don't upgrade my systems (hardware or OS).  I just wait until it's time to build a new one.

 

However, I used to run SETI@home which meant my CPU was operating at 100% utilization 24/7.  Power supplies degrade over time so if you're going to run it hard, you need to go with a larger power supply.  The consensus in my reading is that you want a PSU that exceeds your expected maximum draw by somewhere between 33 and 50%.  Now I guess we have an additional consideration.  My hope is that video card reviews will evaluate their transient spikes in power draw and rate cards accordingly.  People will then start AVOIDING the cards with big spikes and the manufacturers will be incentivized to do something about it.

 

Also, one piece of general advice - cut corners on any component EXCEPT the power supply.  It's the one item where a dramatic failure can destroy everything else.

 

[Golden Azrael]

I do have a Windows Box *looks over there.

 

12 Core AMD.

32 gigs of ram.

3070 GPU (had the 3060 until he could fit the promised 3070.)

1 TB SSD etc.  

Decent Power Supply.

 

It sits there.  Turned off.  The Wireless dongle seems to flux.  On my iMac?  Even on PC Bootcamp, it pick it up.  Not sure if it's a problem with the M/Board or wireless dongle.

 

My friend said.  Just get the thing 'wire cabled.'

 

Fair play to Apple, I never thought I'd see the day when sales with 'M' series cpus would hit 6-6.8 million a quarter?  (Maybe I imagined that number.  I don't follow their conference calls like I used to.)  I'm certainly looking to see what they do with the M3 on the die shrink.

 

As for the 4XXX series.  Nv have always had blowers and then reined it back in with efficiency.  Wasn't it the 5XXX series that ran hot with a blower?

 

I guess AMD Radeon are ratcheting up the pressure on them this time.

 

Azrael.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Golden Azrael

[Bill Z Bubba]

27 minutes ago, Golden Azrael said:

Just get the thing 'wire cabled.'

 

🙂

 

I have NEVER gamed over a wireless connection. Sounds like heresy.

[Golden Azrael]

8 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

🙂

 

I have NEVER gamed over a wireless connection. Sounds like heresy.

 

Heresy.  MOre than we'll ever know.

 

Latency.  Wireless k/b.  Wireless mouse.  Wireless connection 3 floors from the Modem etc.  All adds up.

 

I'd prefer wired.  I think I'll work to that.  I may even get my PC guy to check the 'pick up' on my PC.  Frustrating to have it sitting there doing nothing.  It can be great.  Then it takes ages to reconfig when it drops.

 

Azrael.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Golden Azrael said:

Heresy.  MOre than we'll ever know.

 

I'm a devil. I know heresy. 🙂

[WanderingAries]

On 6/23/2022 at 11:16 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

About 75% of the desktop market. But linux is creeping up to 2.5%!

 

What I find most amusing is where Apple likes to say "Macbook is best selling laptop" and yet their OS is only on a fraction of total devices. I wonder how many of what's in that graph is from Hackintoshes? 😛

[WanderingAries]

On 6/23/2022 at 1:33 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Seconded. When my 750W died, I replaced it with a 1000W for an nvidia 1080 vid card and a board that dates back to 2013. WAAAY overkill, yes, but future proofs me for if I do bite the bullet and go full ram/mb/vid/proc replacement.

 

Repeat after me: "ALWAYS buy a PSU with 20%+ higher Wattage than what you need"

 

And be careful when you upgrade/add parts. The Reason I have a 1kW PSU and GTX970 is because when I finally was able to afford the GTX770 I had the 750W PSU. They ran ok for a while and then suddenly something took them Both out. After checking, I had miscalculated somewhere in the build and that led to RMA time.

[WanderingAries]

On 6/23/2022 at 1:58 PM, arcane said:

I use one of them silver rectangles from some kinda fruit company

 

 

[WanderingAries]

16 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

 

I envy you.

I've pretty much used every version of DOS, all versions of Windows, and just about every Linux/BSD distro available.

Hell, I even had the misfortune of using CPM!

 

Heh, I've been using Dos since like v2, all of windows, MacOS since it was first given to schools, and one or two Linux flavors for beta testing (per request). Between that and the mobile device OSes, I'd say I'm pretty well rounded, experience wise.

[Hyperstrike]

4 hours ago, Ironblade said:

YES, YES, OH PLEASE YES!  Well, maybe not decades, but many years would be awesome.

I would love for computers to be more like cars.  You don't hear people say, "Oh, GM just came out with a new transmission.  My car's only 2 years old but I'm thinking about upgrading it."

 

So, any color you want, so long as it's black?

No.

I'm a big fan of FRUs.  Which is why I'll never buy Mac.

[WanderingAries]

2 hours ago, Golden Azrael said:

 

Heresy.  MOre than we'll ever know.

 

Latency.  Wireless k/b.  Wireless mouse.  Wireless connection 3 floors from the Modem etc.  All adds up.

 

I'd prefer wired.  I think I'll work to that.  I may even get my PC guy to check the 'pick up' on my PC.  Frustrating to have it sitting there doing nothing.  It can be great.  Then it takes ages to reconfig when it drops.

 

Azrael.

 

Heh, I've never played wired for the most part and much of it is about convenience. I mean I Could run the wire across the hall again if I wanted to, but I'd rather avoid fall risks and the signal strength is good anyway. Even when CoX was in beta (I started around i2), I was converting to laptops. Now my TV is across the room from me as is the desktop PC, but my KB/M are wireless. IDK, if I were some hardcore FPSer, then I might care more.

[Hyperstrike]

3 hours ago, Golden Azrael said:

The Wireless dongle seems to flux. 

Never mind that most wireless dongles are crap...
Power delivery is shoddy.
Antenna surface area and positioning suck (as you're stuck in the middle of a metal plate, and usually pushed against a wall).

This is the equivalent of Lamborghini vs Yugo.

Well I removed the spark plugs from all but one cylinder on the Lambo, and it doesn' work now!

Yugos at least WORK!

[DoctorDitko]

One of the reasons I hate Dell so much. Work bought me a workstation from them that I added one USB3 card to and it started to get flaky. Tech support refused to acknowledge that their power supply was a POS.

IIRC, 250 watts on a workstation? In the 21st century?

And of course, a stealth proprietary connector, so you'd fry everything if you tried to sub in a 3rd party power supply.

 

[tidge]

8 hours ago, DoctorDitko said:

One of the reasons I hate Dell so much. Work bought me a workstation from them that I added one USB3 card to and it started to get flaky. Tech support refused to acknowledge that their power supply was a POS.

IIRC, 250 watts on a workstation? In the 21st century?

And of course, a stealth proprietary connector, so you'd fry everything if you tried to sub in a 3rd party power supply.

 

Dell (Desktops) were notorious for using marginal PSU designs, most obvious in there explicit "just enough" power ratings.... and without cracking open the PSU themselves it would be impossible to tell what blatant compromises were made internal to the PSU. I originally thought that Dell was screwing with us because of their custom connectors, but I later realized they were saving people from 'accidentally' using their shoddy parts in conjunction with others. I have often shared my observation that Dell desktops used to scrimp on using fractions of micrograms of copper by not connecting all the ground (i.e. power return) pins on motherboard drive connectors for external drives... so you have to believe they scrimped everywhere and anywhere else.

 

I am aware of the reputation of Dell's current "gaming" rigs, but I've avoided everything Dell as much as possible since the early 2000s. The only real positive experience I had with a Dell machine since then was that I had a business-issued laptop that performed well for me (I was an outlier at the company in that my laptop did not go belly-up) AND was of a generation that had a peculiarly significant number of "external" connectors/features (for a Dell machine). That laptop had swap-able batteries (and accepted "oversized" batteries), a physical switch for (dis)engaging WiFi (valuable to me for several reasons not worth going into *1), a dedicate slot for an SD card, an internal spindle drive (CD? I never used it LOL), as well as full-sized USB/Enet/Display connectors.... based on my earlier experiences with Dell, I couldn't believe the features on this thing... most of which were complete overkill for business purposes for 90% of users. As I implied above, many of my colleagues had very serious issue with their (identical) laptops, but my traveled all over with me and I was reluctant to surrender it when the lease expired.

 

(*1) The primary reason for wanting to be able to physically disable the WIFI was that my corporation had implemented an understandably-motivated but peculiar method of controlling access to corporate network resources, If WIFI was enabled, upon turning on the laptop it would try to connect with the corporate network before getting to the local log-in prompt, but the only wireless network credentials that were available at this time were the corporate-established credentials (not user-established credentials)... so if you were anywhere but on the corporate campus it would take 12 minutes (I timed it!) before the laptop gave up and would allow you to try to log in. It didn't have this problem if the machine was hard-wired to a foreign network... but that really isn't an option at hotels, etc. It's one thing to worry about network security, it is another to brick a machine from any use!

[DoctorDitko]

An excellent point! Frying the motherboard when you connected a proper power supply was an engineer's way to keep you from descending into Dell Hell.

 

OTOH, their Enterprise support a decade ago was very good. All I had to say was the magic word "Linux" and I would be connected to someone who knew what they were doing. (Otherwise it was "Go to the Start Menu and..." And I would be all, "Do you want to wait while I install Windows?")

 

True story: We used to buy HP machines for our cluster, because they had better hardware. But the customer service was really bad. (Our record was two months to fix a blade with expensive "Next Business Day" support.) So our new cluster will be Dell.

Fingers crossed!

 

 

Edited June 25, 2022 by DoctorDitko
hardware

[WanderingAries]

Yeah, I'd wager that any prebuilt system, especially business devices, aren't designed to be upgradeable, thus allowing for the nose to the wall PSUs.

[Greycat]

3 hours ago, WanderingAries said:

Yeah, I'd wager that any prebuilt system, especially business devices, aren't designed to be upgradeable, thus allowing for the nose to the wall PSUs.

 

Well, quite a few do just use standard parts you can swap out (NZXT, for instance, makes... PC parts and cases, which they also sell separately, so why make custom screw-the-customer parts?) Dell (and Aliendell) is just notorious for custom connectors, oddball mainboards, etc.

[WanderingAries]

49 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

Well, quite a few do just use standard parts you can swap out (NZXT, for instance, makes... PC parts and cases, which they also sell separately, so why make custom screw-the-customer parts?) Dell (and Aliendell) is just notorious for custom connectors, oddball mainboards, etc.

 

For the same reason that they apparently Intentionally reduced the lifespan of lightbulbs?

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, WanderingAries said:

For the same reason that they apparently Intentionally reduced the lifespan of lightbulbs?

 

Planned obsolescence is very common in capitalism. Hell, it's why I still smoke.

[Rokkeb]

On 6/24/2022 at 11:18 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

🙂

 

I have NEVER gamed over a wireless connection. Sounds like heresy.

My city was horrible in adopting broadband. It took ages to be available everywhere in the city. So back in those early years you'd go to he mall and see people playing WoW on wifi hotspots offered by some of those stores. Then see nerd fights when too many people were using one store or another's WiFi. "Go down to sears jerk! There's already 5 of us here!"

[Hyperstrike]

5 hours ago, yardenwar said:

It's because of such news that I don't want to upgrade to Windows 11 yet. I need to have maximum performance in games, because I like when there are a lot of fps in the game.

Honestly, on latest generation wifi, the appreciable difference between wired and wifi can't really be seen outside of BENCHMARKS.