Ask something - We can help.

[HammerBlade]

Here's one for you hardware savvy folks:

I'm attempting to build a computer from scratch, as I'm concerned my laptop is wanting to kick the bucket, and want more control over whether my computer fails on me.  So, I've done some Newegg shopping and compiled a list of parts I think I'll need.  The end-result computer should be able to do the following:

-Run Windows 7 Premium x64 (Might run Windows Vista Ultimate x64 instead if driver compatibility is easier that way)
-Internet browsing, E-Mail, etc.
-Music Composition, possibly music production
-General software/game programming
-Occasional gaming (Such as TF2, Garry's Mod, KOTOR)
-Preferrably cost around $400-$600


To build such a machine, I've gotten as far as finding these components, which seem to meet these needs:

Computer Case:  Thermaltake SopranoRS VG7000BWS Black SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133046

Power Supply:  Thermaltake TR2 W0070RUC 430W ATX12V V2.2 Intel Core i7 Compliant Dual 80mm Fans Full Cable Sleevings Power Supply - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153023

Motherboard: ECS GeForce6100PM-M2(V3.0) AM3/AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135246

Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103688

Video Card:  POWERCOLOR AX4350 1GBD2-H Radeon HD 4350 1GB 64-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131159

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102012

Memory:  G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL6D-4GBMQ - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231112

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3160318AS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148511


My main concerns are the following:

-Should the on-board NIC on the motherboard be sufficient for plugging the computer directly into a modem (specifically an Actiontec M1000, if that helps)?  Would it be better to invest in an actual NIC instead?  If so, what comes well recommended?

-I noticed that the power supply is "Intel Core i7 Compliant".  Since I'm using an AMD processor and not an Intel processor, should I be concerned about this?

Any advice is greatly appreciated! 

[Nikolas]

Legion it is!

Thank you guys!

[Bulbapuck]

Just a quick question on perspective:

Does this sketch look okay?


Something about it strikes me as odd, and since this is my first time using two "perspective-points" I want to be sure I'm doing it correctly.

[Ryan Timothy B]

The vanishing points are too close to each other giving the image that fish eye lens look.  With two vanishing points, they have to be off the canvas and further apart.  There is probably math and stuff to figure out exactly how to determine where your vanishing points should be placed, but I just guess.

The easiest way to notice that this image is wrong with perspective is the bottom corner.  Try looking at a 90 degree corner of something, like a dvd/cd case and notice how the angle never gets as tight as this angle.

[Bulbapuck]

Thank you Ryan! Of course that's the problem.. I've been reflecting over this and I assume this is how it is:
Where you stand the lines drawn from the vanishing points to the vertical line in the midpoint of the two vanishing points must be 90 degrees, and in my room that is just not true.

It's a good thing I only worked on it for 10mins before noticing something was up Thanks again!

[Ryan Timothy B]

midpoint of the two vanishing points must be 90 degrees

It should only be 90 degree if it's being viewed as a flat surface (from top, looking down).  Any viewing angle beyond that will change the viewed angle of those two intersecting lines.  The lower the camera is to the ground, the larger the angle will be.

Like I mentioned earlier, look at cd case from the side and pretend it's the floor of your room.  Tilt the cd case and you'll see how if the camera changes height, it will affect the angles.  But as for the true method to finding out where to place your vanishing points, I've never bothered to find out, I've always guessed it for what I felt looked realistic.

[Bulbapuck]

midpoint of the two vanishing points must be 90 degrees

It should only be 90 degree if it's being viewed as a flat surface (from top, looking down).  Any viewing angle beyond that will change the viewed angle of those two intersecting lines.  The lower the camera is to the ground, the larger the angle will be.

Like I mentioned earlier, look at cd case from the side and pretend it's the floor of your room.  Tilt the cd case and you'll see how if the camera changes height, it will affect the angles.  But as for the true method to finding out where to place your vanishing points, I've never bothered to find out, I've always guessed it for what I felt looked realistic.

You misunderstood me, I didn't say it's 90 degrees at the corner but it's 90 degrees where you stand.
I did a few tests of this theory and it seems to stand up. I'll edit with a picture later.

EDIT:


If the marked angle is 90 degrees then that is where you stand. This is helpful because it means you can draw several things that aren't lined up perfectly.

Really ugly example:

[Ryan Timothy B]

Ahh you're correct about the 90 degree.  But the better method is to use a circle.



This one pretty much shows that it'll be 90 degrees from the intersection line to the circle.  Cool stuff.


If the images don't show up, or you want to read the full crazy long article it's here:
http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/perspect3.html

It even explains how to choose the proper distance from the vanishing points to show proper viewing distance.
This for example is a cubic box which is 2 meters high (but obviously not scaling the cube to show distance, this is about perspective not depth):

1st is viewed from 3 meters away.
2nd is viewed from 6 meters away.
3rd is viewed from 12 meters away.
4rth is viewed from 24 meters away.

The 4th (the flattened, far apart vanishing points) is mostly for telescopic lenses or something you'd see using binoculars looking at something far away.

And the bulgy 1st cube has close vanishing points which is a badly done perspective given the size of the cube and proximity of the vanishing points. It's something you'd see using a wide angled lens at a close distance. It's also the most common incorrectly done 2 point perspective people use on their backgrounds, like your first image or even the second one.

Interesting read if you've got the time, I've even read a few sections.

[Tuomas]

So basically drawing a tiny tiny background you should draw a huge circle around it to make it look authentic? I mean, I know choosing 2 vanishing points can get tricky, but doing it like this, or anyway, would mean I'd have to have a huge image and only later on scale it to 320x200?

[Ryan Timothy B]

Not really since resizing the image will only change the resolution of the image but the perspective would remain the same (unless what you meant to write was crop instead of scale).

You'd actually need a large canvas but with the same size background image.
Like how a draftsman uses a large table, but draws on a small sheet.  

What I basically do in Photoshop is start out with 640x480.  Color the background to some light brown or something, then add to the canvas making it something like 2000x480 (if the horizon is inside the 480 height, but if it's higher or lower you'll need a higher vertical canvas too) and make sure the extra canvas is a different color to make the general area of the background easier to determine.

You could also do the perspective lines and decide how to crop it depending on the composition, rather than a predetermined location.

Edit: Basically what I mean is the lighter area may actually be your background area (320x240 or whatever) and the darker area will be the extra canvas used only for perspective lines.  And imagine that box being your room or whatever.

[Tuomas]

What I meant, sorry for being hard to  understand

[Bulbapuck]

Thank you again Ryan I'll definitely give that a look.

[Stupot]

I'm having serious computer woes.
After having problems playing MystOnline someone suggested (among other things) making sure I had the latest Service Pack installed.  So I checked and I didn't, even though I usually update quite regularly.  So I went about installing SP" (Vista), and all seemed well, until I upon the next restart of my comupter, apparently the process hadn't finished... it was on stage 3 out of 3 at 69%, and stayed there for a very long time.

Perhaps this was normal, so after well over 2 hours of waiting for any change I decided to go to bed and leave it running.  Sure enough, when I awoke at about 5am this it seemed to have finished.  It was on the Vista welcome screen, asking me for my password.  It accepted my password, and then the screen went black, and a window came up asking  me to 'Activate Windows now' or 'Activate later'.. I clicked 'now'... and an error message came up telling me to reinstall Windows... something I'd rather not do if I can avoid it.

Then it crashed anyway, when I brought up the 'How do I reinstall Windows' help link.

So I restarted my computer, and guess what?  it went straight back to the installation screen saying it was on stage 3 out of 3, but this time it got stuck at 65%... I decided to leave it running, go back to bed and deal with it in the morning.

Morning came, sure enough, there it was again asking for my passwords, which it accepted, and sure enough the black screen came up asking me to 'Activate' Windows...  this time I clicked 'Later', which is why I'm able to use my computer...

The thing is, everything is working, an my computer even now has SP2 installed on it according to the System Information.  But the worrying thing is a) I clearly can't wait 2 or more hours every time I want to use my computer, and b) my wallpaper has disappeared, leaving a black background, with a little message in the corner saying "this copy of Windows is not genuine"... Well I assure you it IS genuine.  It's the very Windows that came bunged with my computer in the first place.

What do I do?
(Clearly the first thing you are thining is 'Reinstall Windows' but I'm woried about the consequences...  Will I lose everything?  I mean I have a lot of stuff backed up, and the means to back up anything that's not, but I'd really rather avoid the faffing about if there is a simpler solution I'm not aware of.)

Cheers.

[Rincewind]

Arr, I'm in desperate need of some help right now.
I have this song playing in my head that I heard about ten years ago that I would love to find again, but as usual, I don't know who did it or what it's called. All I know is this:

- Musically, I seem to remember it as a mix between an organ/keyboard-melody and a more modern, dance-oriented beat(though still a rather subtle one) Rather repetitive, most likely intended to be a club-hit or something.

- There was also more or less one vocal line repeated constantly throughout the whole thing - If I remember it correctly it was something like "I see you ride o-on a storm / I see you ride o-on a storm / I see you ri-i-ding on a storm", sung in a rather cheesy, crooning, baritone-like voice. I'm not sure if this is sampled from some other song or if this was actually written for this track, though.

- The music video for the song featured an extremely and deliberately kitschy/colorful 50's/60's-styled party in a living room or something similar, with an equally kitschy/campy live-band playing the song in question.

The one time I heard the song and saw the video was through the Swedish tv-show "Mosquito" that aired between 1998 and 2001, and showcased new music/visuals/3D-graphics, so I suppose it's most likely a song made somewhere in between that timeframe. Anyone who has the slightest idea what this song might be, do please tell, because I think I'm going insane from hearing this song play in my head and not being able to find out what it's called...

[Calin Leafshade]

The Doors did a song called Riders on the storm, which might be the track that was sampled if thats any help.

[Wyz]

@ Bulba: Few days ago I stumbled onto this tutorial, I found it rather useful.

[Haddas]

Arr, I'm in desperate need of some help right now.
I have this song playing in my head that I heard about ten years ago that I would love to find again, but as usual, I don't know who did it or what it's called. All I know is this:

- Musically, I seem to remember it as a mix between an organ/keyboard-melody and a more modern, dance-oriented beat(though still a rather subtle one) Rather repetitive, most likely intended to be a club-hit or something.

- There was also more or less one vocal line repeated constantly throughout the whole thing - If I remember it correctly it was something like "I see you ride o-on a storm / I see you ride o-on a storm / I see you ri-i-ding on a storm", sung in a rather cheesy, crooning, baritone-like voice. I'm not sure if this is sampled from some other song or if this was actually written for this track, though.

- The music video for the song featured an extremely and deliberately kitschy/colorful 50's/60's-styled party in a living room or something similar, with an equally kitschy/campy live-band playing the song in question.

The one time I heard the song and saw the video was through the Swedish tv-show "Mosquito" that aired between 1998 and 2001, and showcased new music/visuals/3D-graphics, so I suppose it's most likely a song made somewhere in between that timeframe. Anyone who has the slightest idea what this song might be, do please tell, because I think I'm going insane from hearing this song play in my head and not being able to find out what it's called...

Crap I remember that. For some reason I remember cowboys aswell. I've been trying to find it ever since.

[Adrian  ]

I'm having serious computer woes.
After having problems playing MystOnline someone suggested (among other things) making sure I had the latest Service Pack installed.  So I checked and I didn't, even though I usually update quite regularly.  So I went about installing SP" (Vista), and all seemed well, until I upon the next restart of my comupter, apparently the process hadn't finished... it was on stage 3 out of 3 at 69%, and stayed there for a very long time.

Perhaps this was normal, so after well over 2 hours of waiting for any change I decided to go to bed and leave it running.  Sure enough, when I awoke at about 5am this it seemed to have finished.  It was on the Vista welcome screen, asking me for my password.  It accepted my password, and then the screen went black, and a window came up asking  me to 'Activate Windows now' or 'Activate later'.. I clicked 'now'... and an error message came up telling me to reinstall Windows... something I'd rather not do if I can avoid it.

Then it crashed anyway, when I brought up the 'How do I reinstall Windows' help link.

So I restarted my computer, and guess what?  it went straight back to the installation screen saying it was on stage 3 out of 3, but this time it got stuck at 65%... I decided to leave it running, go back to bed and deal with it in the morning.

Morning came, sure enough, there it was again asking for my passwords, which it accepted, and sure enough the black screen came up asking me to 'Activate' Windows...  this time I clicked 'Later', which is why I'm able to use my computer...

The thing is, everything is working, an my computer even now has SP2 installed on it according to the System Information.  But the worrying thing is a) I clearly can't wait 2 or more hours every time I want to use my computer, and b) my wallpaper has disappeared, leaving a black background, with a little message in the corner saying "this copy of Windows is not genuine"... Well I assure you it IS genuine.  It's the very Windows that came bunged with my computer in the first place.

What do I do?
(Clearly the first thing you are thining is 'Reinstall Windows' but I'm woried about the consequences...  Will I lose everything?  I mean I have a lot of stuff backed up, and the means to back up anything that's not, but I'd really rather avoid the faffing about if there is a simpler solution I'm not aware of.)

Cheers.

I'd use the repair option with a vista install disc (if supplied) or get hold of windows 7 and perform a upgrade both should replace the system files, system restore is a option too if you have it enabled.

[Jared]

Arr, I'm in desperate need of some help right now.
I have this song playing in my head that I heard about ten years ago that I would love to find again, but as usual, I don't know who did it or what it's called. All I know is this:

- Musically, I seem to remember it as a mix between an organ/keyboard-melody and a more modern, dance-oriented beat(though still a rather subtle one) Rather repetitive, most likely intended to be a club-hit or something.

- There was also more or less one vocal line repeated constantly throughout the whole thing - If I remember it correctly it was something like "I see you ride o-on a storm / I see you ride o-on a storm / I see you ri-i-ding on a storm", sung in a rather cheesy, crooning, baritone-like voice. I'm not sure if this is sampled from some other song or if this was actually written for this track, though.

- The music video for the song featured an extremely and deliberately kitschy/colorful 50's/60's-styled party in a living room or something similar, with an equally kitschy/campy live-band playing the song in question.

The one time I heard the song and saw the video was through the Swedish tv-show "Mosquito" that aired between 1998 and 2001, and showcased new music/visuals/3D-graphics, so I suppose it's most likely a song made somewhere in between that timeframe. Anyone who has the slightest idea what this song might be, do please tell, because I think I'm going insane from hearing this song play in my head and not being able to find out what it's called...

As Cailin says this is a cover/sampling of The Doors' 'Rider on the Storm'. The only dance-y remix I've heard is one by Puff Daddy, which was on the soundtrack for, IIRC, Need For Speed Underground. I remember that one being quite dance-y but I can't recall if there were additional lyrics.

[GarageGothic]

As Cailin says this is a cover/sampling of The Doors' 'Rider on the Storm'. The only dance-y remix I've heard is one by Puff Daddy, which was on the soundtrack for, IIRC, Need For Speed Underground. I remember that one being quite dance-y but I can't recall if there were additional lyrics.

It was Snoop Dogg if you're thinking about Need for Speed Underground 2 (I playtested that game for two months, and boy was I sick of the soundtrack by the time we signed off on it). The music video Rincewind describes doesn't really sound like Snoop Dogg though, so it's most likely a different cover version.