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| Cluster Shout Box Link » /matrix/cluster.asp/15 |   CanadaDave (303) Mar 13, 2007 - 01:03 pm » Edited on Mar 14, 2007 - 05:22 am
| | Hey, guys - I just updated my entry to reflect a mini-interview I had with Cari Begle from Stardock games. Thanks a lot to Cari (for the comments) and Kristin (for setting up the interview) from Stardock for supplying comments for the article - I really appreciate it! Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/62524/295 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 13, 2007 - 06:12 am
| Every time I see someone write that ("WALL OF TEXT CRITS YOU..."), I bust out laughing. :)
I really, REALLY don't mean to be a jerk, here, but are the rules for hardware content actually being enforced? A couple of the submissions have had only casual nods toward hardware, and this one has none. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/277 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 13, 2007 - 04:23 am
| That's the first time I've had one cheek slapped while the other one was being kissed. I kinda liked it - does that make me strange? :)
Kidding aside, thanks for the comments, and for taking the time to read the entry. I agree entirely on the formatting. I'll see if it can be cleaned up at all, but the editor is pretty restrictive. In any case - I'm very glad that you found something of value in the article. Thanks again! Flag this | Edit this post |
| Cluster Shout Box Link » /matrix/cluster.asp/15 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 12, 2007 - 07:26 am » Edited on Mar 12, 2007 - 07:27 am
| You could submit anyway....
I'm not trying to toss a rock at anyone, but there are a couple of articles up there that really have almost no hardware content in them at all - it almost looks like they went back into an article they'd written before the rules were announced, and added some vague hardware comments in there.
I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing (and certainly, they're well-written articles themselves) - but if those are deemed okay by judges, then certainly you don't need to exclude yourself from competition over a non-hardware-intensive entry... Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/277 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 12, 2007 - 05:47 am
| I thought a lot about what you said about FRAPS, and I think it's just a bit too subjective. At least the level loading idea is able to be consistently reproduced; if someone used the same (or similar) configurations as me, they could follow the directions and get basically the same result. Thanks for the idea, though!
You're right about Vista and caching. One of the pretty interesting features it has is the ability to use USB drives (specific drives) for that purpose... it's called ReadyBoost. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/277 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 12, 2007 - 05:23 am
| Heh - thanks, Bellboy - though I do have to say that you depressed me somewhat with your lack of faith in humanity (the whole Visa bill vs. hard disk purchase bit) - but hey.. happy to help. :)
You're spot on regarding marketing people. They just happen to be adept at finding positive things about their product... and then implying that the product solves the problem of world hunger. :) Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/18926/279 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 11, 2007 - 03:57 pm
| ^^ Agree with OldFriend.
You really need to ditch those graphics before the mods see it. I'd imagine plagiarism (ripping those graphics from HardOCP without proper notation) is pretty much immediate death. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Cluster Shout Box Link » /matrix/cluster.asp/15 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 11, 2007 - 05:47 am
| Yeah - it really is a surprising amount of work. I'm positive I had about 14 hours in my own entry, with all the tedious setup for each benchmark and all. :)
Hey! Being the nice guy that I am, I'm going to encourage you all to take a break. Don't worry about it - really, you should spend the next - oh, let's say, 4 days - outside enjoying the weather. :) Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/277 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 11, 2007 - 05:36 am
| OK - charts have had legends added to them (except for the first one, which was only a single bar).
Hope it helps - thanks again to Hipcheck and Power666 for the suggestions, and to everyone else for reading and the comments! They're very much appreciated. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/277 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 11, 2007 - 05:27 am
| | Oh - incidentally.... there is already RAID0+1, but that's "a 2 disk stripe plus another 2 disk mirror". Basically, you get a RAID 0, and then the security benefits of a RAID 1. Not exactly what you mean, but... Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/277 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 11, 2007 - 05:14 am
| Nice response - thanks, Power666.
A few comments -
1) I do make mention of the additional risk of running a RAID-0 in the last line of the second-to-last paragraph. I had a three-prargraph (and one image) explanation of what a RAID is, but when reading it myself, I found that it made the article really wordy, and I was tuning out as I read it - I wanted the article to be as snappy and to the point as I could, without boring people who already knew what a RAID was.
2) Array block sizes tend to be small - 128KB was the stripe used for this test, for example - and, quite honestly, I don't believe the impact to games (the slant of the article) would have had an impact.
3) You're right about the 'cheats' and 'hacks' - however, I assumed for this article that people are playing the retail version of the game without modification (except for ptaching). Equally, if you're referring to DaemonTools or something similar, it still loads from a fragment of the large file, and not the file itself - the seek effect will still be the same (and potentially even made worse - it needs to look at a TOC of some sort).
Let me know which one you were thinking of. If time permits, and it makes sense within the context of the article, I'll include it. I toyed with the idea of doing things like putting an install on a RAMDisk, but in the end, it strayed from the intent of the article.
Again - article wasn't "How RAID can help you" - the article was "How RAID *ISN'T* helping you for games. The rules of the article were such that it needed to be the primary focus of the article.
I'll update the charts today.
Thanks a lot for the feedback and suggestions - I really do appreciate it!
dave Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/277 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 10, 2007 - 06:28 pm
| Thank you VERY much! :)
I've played with the charts a few times, and I hid the legend. I can put it back in, though, if it makes sense.
Basically, the charts are labelled - the bottom axis is time (in seconds), and the lefthand side shows what category the bars are for (RAID, single disk, etc).
There are three bars for each chart - representing three attempts (to make sure the results were legit).
Which part is confusing? I'll definitely try and clarify it in the charts. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/277 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 10, 2007 - 02:45 pm
| Ah - nice catch - fixed it. You're absolutely right.
I'm honestly flattered that you read the article that closely! (Obviously slightly more closely than I did... *blush*).
For what it's worth, I honestly had scraped together a third hard drive, but none of the local computer stores carried a stupid power adapter for the SATA connector.
For want of a nail, and all that. :)
Thanks again for reading, and for the correction. It's appreciated! Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/277 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 10, 2007 - 01:29 pm
| Sorry about the skipping from text to images on the side, guys. There's no way to insert the images into the same frame as the text, unfortunately, and with an article heavy on benchmarking, I needed to make sure the user saw the images for maximum effect.
Any comments and suggestions appreciated.
Thanks - and good luck to everyone else in the round! Flag this | Edit this post |
| Cluster Shout Box Link » /matrix/cluster.asp/15 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 09, 2007 - 07:49 am
| Kessandra - my guess is that we're going to see a LOT of video-type articles (things like different graphics settings and whatnot) - there's bound to be some overlap.
They did define the contest to a fair degree this time around, and with 30 of us still in the game...
I don't really think there's a problem doing the same basic topic. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Cluster Shout Box Link » /matrix/cluster.asp/15 | CanadaDave (303) Mar 08, 2007 - 09:17 am
| | Bleah - It's going to take me until damned close to the deadline to finish mine off. Decided on a ridiculously intensive thing to do, and I'm too far into it to back out now. :) Flag this | Edit this post |
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