Random Question Thread: Tech

[Shibo]

Tryin to get my 360 controller workin on my laptop for ffxi.
When i go to configuration the buttons with ffxi the D-pad, both triggers and the left stick don't work. Anyone know to get them working?

You can't with the windows drivers. I just changed them to start and select to get to the macro pallets (that's the easy solution); but if you really want to have triggers, I have heard some people having success with xpadder and getting the triggers to work, but I just said fuck it and have been using start / select.

The left stick does work, just try recalibrating it in the ffxi configuration

[Shibo]

Was going to ask on the Benertainment sections, but they don't have like a random question thread and don't think it is thread worthy:

Does anyone know of any good, reliable websites / applications to stream TV online, as in watching live TV on your computer essentially the same as watching TV from your cable company?

I found a few websites that host really shitty free tv shows, but also found some that say they host a huge amount of channels and ask for a one time "fee", such as http://watchlivetv-online.com/

I wouldn't mind paying let's say the 50 bux or so if it is only a one time fee.
Also I don't really care about having a huge amount of channels, I mostly just leave it on comedy central (i have cable @ college, but not at home, and am home for the summer now), I really just like having the background noise of something tolerable and not having to reset or choose a different movie every 1-2 hours.

Can anyone share their experiences or finding with this?

[Cephius]

Was going to ask on the Benertainment sections, but they don't have like a random question thread and don't think it is thread worthy:

Does anyone know of any good, reliable websites / applications to stream TV online, as in watching live TV on your computer essentially the same as watching TV from your cable company?

I found a few websites that host really shitty free tv shows, but also found some that say they host a huge amount of channels and ask for a one time "fee", such as http://watchlivetv-online.com/

I wouldn't mind paying let's say the 50 bux or so if it is only a one time fee.
Also I don't really care about having a huge amount of channels, I mostly just leave it on comedy central (i have cable @ college, but not at home, and am home for the summer now), I really just like having the background noise of something tolerable and not having to reset or choose a different movie every 1-2 hours.

Can anyone share their experiences or finding with this?

You could always get a slingbox, hook it up at college, and just stream it to your computer when you're home. Added bonus of being able to stream it to remote devices and stuff.

[Shibo]

You could always get a slingbox, hook it up at college, and just stream it to your computer when you're home. Added bonus of being able to stream it to remote devices and stuff.

I can't leave anything in the room over the summer since I live on campus, but that's not a bad idea for like Christmas break and stuff.

[Kipling]

Is it better to go with triple or double channel ram? IE 2x4gb on a mobo that supports dual channel, or a 3x2gb stick set with a triple channel board.

[Decy]

Is it better to go with triple or double channel ram? IE 2x4gb on a mobo that supports dual channel, or a 3x2gb stick set with a triple channel board.

Would it be using an i7 processor?

The differences between the two would be hard to notice for the human eye.. i would say that if given a scenario where it really gets to stretch its legs triple channel might win out but again it might not be to a large degree..

After some googling around there seems to be a general agreement that triple channel RAM can win out but by very little, I guess whatever you can afford to get would be worth getting (in some of the tests i was reading the kits used were 2 x 1GB and 3 x 1GB so that could effect it)

Sorry if this wasnt much help, its quite hard to get it into the right words when there is alot of conflicting stuff out there!

[Isiolia]

Is it better to go with triple or double channel ram? IE 2x4gb on a mobo that supports dual channel, or a 3x2gb stick set with a triple channel board.

Use what your platform supports. If you're debating on which platform to get, triple channel is better than dual, but not by all that much. The X58 platform in general has been shown to really not outperform the lower end platforms by much, if at all, despite the better specs (and higher cost). http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...fire,2910.html for example.

[Kipling]

Just was browsing newegg for economical upgrades. Seemed cheaper to get a dual channel mobo with a twin set 4gb kit, but if triple is worth the money I can see it. Might go with the i5 2500K I think it was, hassle to link it on my EVO. The sandy bridge, was cheaper than the i7s but still seemed decent.

[Isiolia]

If you can wait a little, Z68 motherboards should be hitting soonish (the new iMacs already have the chipset). i5 2500K is probably the best overall pick for a CPU atm.

[Devolver]

One of these work in a psp?

http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-Memory...988889&sr=8-19

Edit:

or do I need this adapter to go with it?

http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-Memory...4989172&sr=1-1

psp 3001 btw

Edit Edit: Also, will it effect cfw'ing the system in any way using an adapter like that?

[Shadowhusky]

So my comodo firewall had to update three different times today. Did this happen to anyone else or is mine screwing up?

[sruon]

First question

Does anyone know anything about Network (PXE?) boot, I have this rack for school that contains Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian etc, and I tend to work at home a lot. Gets really annoying to move the rack around since I have 2 (soon to be 3) computers and i'm wondering if there is a way to have the computers boot from the rack on a small server connected by Ethernet.

I've read the Ubuntu page about Diskless boot, but I'm not sure it's exactly what I want, the files must be synced at all time, it has to be the exact same as if I booted from the rack directly... possible?

Second question

Summer is coming, my GTX 470 is killing me when all I'm doing is coding 90% of the time so I am going to build a small "HTPC" that will be the host for the rack (granted what I want is doable) to act as the server, as a generic NAS and also be used to code on Debian or Ubuntu

MB + CPU : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-653-_-Product
Case : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...%20Element%20Q
DDR3 : random G-skill I have already
KVM (to share mouse/keyboard between it and my gaming machine): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0-%202%20ports

I think the build is decent, cheap and covers about all my needs, monitor is 1920x1080, only going to browse internet, code, possibly very lightweight 3D.

[Caiyuo]

Question:

I was thinking about making a separate "converting to linux" topic but thought I'd start here. My laptop is really showing it's age lately and while I'm stuck with it I was considering trying out dual-booting with linux to both try out distros as well as see if it helps performance compared to Win7. Would the latter be a realistic expectation?

If so, any suggestions on distros? I'm aware Ubuntu is pretty popular as a general OS-alternative, but I've had friends pan it as far as actually learning anything about linux. I'll say right now I'm an absolute stickler for aesthetics and spend way too much time tinkering with themes and fonts. I was just trying the most recent Ubuntu live CD for a different reason which is why this came up, but for the most part I thought it looked really impressive.

Taking this test recommended OpenSuse, but I'd still love feedback: http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php

As far as the point of making a topic, I guess that'd be more in line with talking about software alternatives for common programs or tasks that aren't compatible. Thanks for any halps.

edit: thought I should give more context here: my main tasks on this laptop are web browsing, watching subtitled anime and music media players, so nothing extensive. If specs matter, it's a Dell Inspiron 6000d from 2005:

# Intel Pentium M Processor 1.86GHz
# 2GB, DDR2, 533MHz
# 128MB DDR ATI's MOBILITY RADEON X300 PCI Express x16 Graphics

[Blasta]

Having a problem with my cable internet. DCs every hour or so for a few minutes and then comes back up. Anyone knows if a somekind of log exists somewhere where I could check what's going on?

[Niiro]

I have a few....strange issues with my video card drivers.

There are a grand total of 5 ATI-related folders and only 1 of them has a folder with anything labeled "Drivers" in it.

C:\ATI
C:\Program Files\ATI
C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies
C:\Program Files (x86)\ATI
C:\Program Files (x86)\ATI Technologies

Only the C:\ATI folder has any actual drivers in it

C:\ATI\Support\11-5_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_ocl\Packages\Drivers

and this is what's actually inside:

Spoiler: show

Now, the driver version is supposed to be 11.5 (as labeled by ATI, which can be seen from the folder name), but when I go into device manager and look at the driver details for my video card it shows the driver files in system32 and sysWOW64 which is where I assume they're supposed to be and it identifies them as version 8.850.0.0.

So I'm all sorts of confused, no idea what the problem is or how to fix it, update them manually somehow?

For reference this is the card info

Spoiler: show

and this is the driver I'm using (or trying to)

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloa..._vista-64.aspx

The description doesn't get any more specific than "4800 series".

Starting to wonder if I'm even trying to install the right drivers.

Edit: running Vista 64 bit

[Jojimbo]

C:\ATI should be the 'backup', it's created when you install drivers and is used to repair/uninstall stuff (I think, I delete it after unistalling drivers anyway).

I can't see any ATI folders in my programs, but have ATI Tech in both x86 and x64 (the one in x86 is App/CF profiles). It's possible you installed the backup for some driver versions in program files at some point? They don't delete themself on uninstall.


Best thing to do is uninstall the drivers/manager/app profiles if you have any > Restart, delete all the remaining ATI folders and run Driver Sweeper > Restart (can run CCleaner to get rid of some leftover reg files) then install the latest drivers and see if that solves your issue.

EDIT:: Drivers seem to be correct, at least it's the page I get taken to after filling out this with Desktop / HD 4xxx / Vista x64

[Niiro]

So the driver files (the list at the bottom of the 1st pic) should be the ones in system32/sysWOW64?

As an aside, what's the deal with the different "Program Files" folders? What are the X64/X86/etc (I don't have the X64 one) for and why are some things put into the regular one and some the others (and some are in both)?

I've used Driver Sweeper before (most recently before installing the 11.5 a few days ago) and use CCleaner too.

[Kipling]

If my monitor is 1080 HD, do I need a special cable, or will the standard DVI cable do the trick? From what I have been reading, the only difference is HDMI will give sound as well. But in terms of HD video/gaming, am I fine? Thanks.

[Jojimbo]

x86 is were 32-bit programs are installed, x64 (just called Program Files actually, I added x64 on my shortcut to it) is where 64 bit programs are installed. If they are put in both it's possibly because you have both versions installed, or you have 32 and 64 bit programs from the same company (ie ATI drivers will default to 64-bit folder, but their app profile will install to x86).

Current driver version seems to be 8.850.0.0 for 11.5 (8.850.6.0 if you installed the hotfix, but I'm not sure if that's relavent for your card). And the visible Driver Details list is identical to mine (I also have some *32.dll in the SysWOW64 folder). What problems are you having exactly?


@Uryuu: DVI(-D) is enough for pretty much any current monitor res, it's no different other than the lack of sound.

[Kipling]

I see, thanks. If I get an HDMI to DVI (-D) cable, will that work if my future gpu has 1x mini hdmi?

Edit: Nvm, the GPU comes with an HDMI to mini HDMI adapter, my bad.