Socket 1150 (Haswell) is the the good shit these days, ideally you want a quad-core and a nice mobo to suit, with 8 gigs of ram to replace your old DDR2. If you're strapped for cash you could go for a dual-core (which will still be a significant upgrade from your current processor), and a less full-featured motherboard.
What would be the total price for all that? I'm looking at Amazon now and apparently the mobo alone is $250?
I'd be willing to make the investment now for the whole thing provided I had a Bill Me Later option for the complete purchase (most likely Newegg). I just need to have a list of the right parts and an estimated cost.
$250 is a lot of money for a motherboard. Like, really a lot. I'm on my phone or I'd link to something a LOT closer to $100.
Socket 1150 (Haswell) is the the good shit these days, ideally you want a quad-core and a nice mobo to suit, with 8 gigs of ram to replace your old DDR2. If you're strapped for cash you could go for a dual-core (which will still be a significant upgrade from your current processor), and a less full-featured motherboard.
What would be the total price for all that? I'm looking at Amazon now and apparently the mobo alone is $250?
I'd be willing to make the investment now for the whole thing provided I had a Bill Me Later option for the complete purchase (most likely Newegg). I just need to have a list of the right parts and an estimated cost.
If your not interested in overclocking, then you could get a B85 LGA 1150 motherboard for about $70, an i5-4670 is $220, and 8gb ram would be another $65. In total somewhere around $350.
With a good sale or combo, maybe get that down to $300
So I'm interested in throwing together something to have Steam in my living room. I'm more interested in light gaming (platforming etc) than FPS, along with some HTPC stuff. I've never built a PC from parts before, and I'm not too up on specs etc. as I'm mostly a console guy. I've replaced/upgraded parts, though, and I'm not afraid to tinker.
So, any suggestions on this build? What could/couldn't I do with it, and what could be improved? Anything I need but don't have?
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Can you get a similarly-priced set of RAM with two sticks? Like this?
Ah, I see that no, there's a special deal on that RAM.
How about getting two of them, then? Your motherboard supports dual channel ram, which will literally double the memory access speeds if you use two sticks.
Ah, see, that's the kind of thing that I'm not clear on the workings of. I'm trying to keep costs down (in fact I was wondering if I could downsize on any of that), but if two sticks yields a big increase in performance then I could swing that.
Socket 1150 (Haswell) is the the good shit these days, ideally you want a quad-core and a nice mobo to suit, with 8 gigs of ram to replace your old DDR2. If you're strapped for cash you could go for a dual-core (which will still be a significant upgrade from your current processor), and a less full-featured motherboard.
What would be the total price for all that? I'm looking at Amazon now and apparently the mobo alone is $250?
I'd be willing to make the investment now for the whole thing provided I had a Bill Me Later option for the complete purchase (most likely Newegg). I just need to have a list of the right parts and an estimated cost.
If you just need CPU/Mobo/RAM, I'll price out a couple alternatives:
You can put alot of power into a small frame these days. I have been researching this out for awhlie now and I went the prefab route. I am more than happy with the unit so far. I lost my HD that had my Steam LIB in it so I have to redownload everything but last night I got Borderlands 2 downloaded and it ran very smooth. I went the AW x51 R2 route as I read some pretty glowing reviews of it. I have yet to hook it up to my 55inch 1080p but on my normal monitor the unit stayed @ 80deg on the gfx with the fps staying way over 60.
Plus the engineering on the build is just fantastic and much better than anything I could have pulled together.
Has anyone found a way to turn off mouse pointers in games yet?
There's got to be some sort of program that can hide cursors with whatever programs you tell it to.
For games that support controllers, usually the pointer disappears once the gamepad is used. But if it doesn't; I just pause, move the pointer off screen and turn off my mouse (it's the MS touch arc mouse, snaps open and closed, really easy).
An Autoit or similar type of script set to move the mouse by the width of your screen to the right and down by the height should work pretty well to get the mouse cursor into the bottom corner reliably.
Then you just need a way to execute it after the game is started up, either with a custom hotkey on a remote set to the script, or maybe using a batch file to start the game and then run the script X number of seconds later.
After using Big Picture for months, I just discovered a couple days ago that pressing the Guide button on my 360 controller with Steam open will launch directly into Big Picture.
How did I not know this sooner? Now if only Big Picture could somehow bypass game launchers (or game launchers supported controllers ala Borderlands 2), I wouldn't need to use my mouse much at all anymore.
This seems as good a place as any to ask this. I am completely ignorant of all things related to home networking (so much so that I'm not even 100% certain that "home networking" is the proper term for what I want to do). I have my computer upstairs hooked up to a wireless router. Downstairs I have a wifi capable TV. If I get the wifi dongle for the TV will I be able to connect to my computer and play my Steam games off of it?
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minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
Nope.
Wifi on a TV only enables certain "smart" features like a web browser, twitter access, and various other dumb shit.
You'd need to physically run an HDMI cable from your computer to the TV if you want to play games on it.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
This seems as good a place as any to ask this. I am completely ignorant of all things related to home networking (so much so that I'm not even 100% certain that "home networking" is the proper term for what I want to do). I have my computer upstairs hooked up to a wireless router. Downstairs I have a wifi capable TV. If I get the wifi dongle for the TV will I be able to connect to my computer and play my Steam games off of it?
No. The wifi ability on your TV just lets it use apps like netflix,internet browsing, etc.
If you want to send a video signal down to your TV, your going to need to either run a long hdmi cable to it, which you can do up to about 100' lengths. If you need to go further then that, then your going to need a couple of hdmi over cat5 converters and that lets you run the signal over a cat5 cable up to about 300' long.
Wireless hdmi transmitters also exists, but the range on them varies as to the exact locations and what is between your computer and the TV in the way of ducting, pipes, joists etc. But they usually can get around 100-150' in range.
I'm still trying to find a script or program that hides mouse cursors on certain games.
It's so annoying.
Have you tried an autohotkey script? Just set it to move the mouse to the bottom right/left corner on a button press from either a remote or your gamepad. Not actually hidden, but close enough.
Edit: doing some searching through the functions available in autohotkey led me to this example:
; Example: Hides the mouse cursor when you press Win+C. To later show the cursor, press Win+C again.
; This script is from www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic6107.html
OnExit, ShowCursor ; Ensure the cursor is made visible when the script exits.
return
ShowCursor:
SystemCursor("On")
ExitApp
#c::SystemCursor("Toggle") ; Win+C hotkey to toggle the cursor on and off.
SystemCursor(OnOff=1) ; INIT = "I","Init"; OFF = 0,"Off"; TOGGLE = -1,"T","Toggle"; ON = others
{
static AndMask, XorMask, $, h_cursor
,c0,c1,c2,c3,c4,c5,c6,c7,c8,c9,c10,c11,c12,c13 ; system cursors
, b1,b2,b3,b4,b5,b6,b7,b8,b9,b10,b11,b12,b13 ; blank cursors
, h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h7,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13 ; handles of default cursors
if (OnOff = "Init" or OnOff = "I" or $ = "") ; init when requested or at first call
{
$ = h ; active default cursors
VarSetCapacity( h_cursor,4444, 1 )
VarSetCapacity( AndMask, 32*4, 0xFF )
VarSetCapacity( XorMask, 32*4, 0 )
system_cursors = 32512,32513,32514,32515,32516,32642,32643,32644,32645,32646,32648,32649,32650
StringSplit c, system_cursors, `,
Loop %c0%
{
h_cursor := DllCall( "LoadCursor", "uint",0, "uint",c%A_Index% )
h%A_Index% := DllCall( "CopyImage", "uint",h_cursor, "uint",2, "int",0, "int",0, "uint",0 )
b%A_Index% := DllCall("CreateCursor","uint",0, "int",0, "int",0
, "int",32, "int",32, "uint",&AndMask, "uint",&XorMask )
}
}
if (OnOff = 0 or OnOff = "Off" or $ = "h" and (OnOff < 0 or OnOff = "Toggle" or OnOff = "T"))
$ = b ; use blank cursors
else
$ = h ; use the saved cursors
Loop %c0%
{
h_cursor := DllCall( "CopyImage", "uint",%$%%A_Index%, "uint",2, "int",0, "int",0, "uint",0 )
DllCall( "SetSystemCursor", "uint",h_cursor, "uint",c%A_Index% )
}
}
I'm sure it could be edited to use a remote/gamepad button instead of win+c.
i just got an HD Homerun Prime setup on my network. its awesome, streams are high qulaity and it works great on my computer via WMC
problem is i can't figure out how to get it to workon my TV
originally i thought my blueray player which is DLNA certified would be able to pick up the server. i can get it to find it, but it spits out an no playable file error when trying to play it.
i have an older intel mac mini (1.8 gHz Core 2 duo)
i can't figure out he best way to watch the HD Homerun stream. i have plex on th emini, but i was unable to get it working on my macbook
an alternative is to build a small htpc box so i can use WMC on it which i know works.
If i build it, budget is under $300
I have a small SSD and some random drives. if i upgrade my big pc, i could have a 5770 or 6770 or i could just pull the 5770 out and not crossfire anymore.
i do have a license for win 8 but am open to a steam os/linux build.
the only things it needs to do is be able to easily be run with a remote for inlaws, play the tv via HD Homerun, and be able to do HD resolution on a 37"+ tv, also have a small quiet form factor
alternatively help me get the mac mini working with it
Posts
$250 is a lot of money for a motherboard. Like, really a lot. I'm on my phone or I'd link to something a LOT closer to $100.
If your not interested in overclocking, then you could get a B85 LGA 1150 motherboard for about $70, an i5-4670 is $220, and 8gb ram would be another $65. In total somewhere around $350.
With a good sale or combo, maybe get that down to $300
So, any suggestions on this build? What could/couldn't I do with it, and what could be improved? Anything I need but don't have?
pcpartpicker.com/p/1eCXO
Ah, I see that no, there's a special deal on that RAM.
How about getting two of them, then? Your motherboard supports dual channel ram, which will literally double the memory access speeds if you use two sticks.
If you just need CPU/Mobo/RAM, I'll price out a couple alternatives:
Intel i5-4430 - $190
ASRock B85M - $73
8GB of RAM - $60
I'm going to throw out some AMD options too since this is budget-sensitive situation
FX-6300 -$120
ASUS MB - $69 after rebate
A8-6600K - $120
ASRock MB - $65
Total prices:
Intel i5 : $323
AMD FX : $249
AMD A8 : $245
In games, the largest spread between these CPUs would probably be around 1 FPS unless you are planning to go to multiple GPUs soon.
I've got Steam installed on my primary drive, and all my Steam games spread out to other drives due to the Steam mover program.
If I have to reinstall Steam, what happens to all those other games? Will they link up automatically, or will I have to redownload them all?
Blog||Tumblr|Steam|Twitter|FFXIV|Twitch|YouTube|Podcast|PSN|XBL|DarkZero
Plus the engineering on the build is just fantastic and much better than anything I could have pulled together.
Steam ID: Good Life
There's got to be some sort of program that can hide cursors with whatever programs you tell it to.
Blog||Tumblr|Steam|Twitter|FFXIV|Twitch|YouTube|Podcast|PSN|XBL|DarkZero
For games that support controllers, usually the pointer disappears once the gamepad is used. But if it doesn't; I just pause, move the pointer off screen and turn off my mouse (it's the MS touch arc mouse, snaps open and closed, really easy).
But that's still an extra couple of actions that would be nice to eliminate with an automated program, so I'm holding out hope.
Blog||Tumblr|Steam|Twitter|FFXIV|Twitch|YouTube|Podcast|PSN|XBL|DarkZero
Then you just need a way to execute it after the game is started up, either with a custom hotkey on a remote set to the script, or maybe using a batch file to start the game and then run the script X number of seconds later.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
How did I not know this sooner? Now if only Big Picture could somehow bypass game launchers (or game launchers supported controllers ala Borderlands 2), I wouldn't need to use my mouse much at all anymore.
Steam ID: Good Life
I meant that BL2 launcher supports controllers. Right now I'm playing Skyrim and I have to use the mouse when I get to the launcher.
Thanks for the disable tip.
I wish to God this worked with Ubisoft games.
Motherfucking Uplay piece of shit stop making me get up to use the mouse.
Blog||Tumblr|Steam|Twitter|FFXIV|Twitch|YouTube|Podcast|PSN|XBL|DarkZero
Wifi on a TV only enables certain "smart" features like a web browser, twitter access, and various other dumb shit.
You'd need to physically run an HDMI cable from your computer to the TV if you want to play games on it.
No. The wifi ability on your TV just lets it use apps like netflix,internet browsing, etc.
If you want to send a video signal down to your TV, your going to need to either run a long hdmi cable to it, which you can do up to about 100' lengths. If you need to go further then that, then your going to need a couple of hdmi over cat5 converters and that lets you run the signal over a cat5 cable up to about 300' long.
Wireless hdmi transmitters also exists, but the range on them varies as to the exact locations and what is between your computer and the TV in the way of ducting, pipes, joists etc. But they usually can get around 100-150' in range.
It's so annoying.
Blog||Tumblr|Steam|Twitter|FFXIV|Twitch|YouTube|Podcast|PSN|XBL|DarkZero
Have you tried an autohotkey script? Just set it to move the mouse to the bottom right/left corner on a button press from either a remote or your gamepad. Not actually hidden, but close enough.
Edit: doing some searching through the functions available in autohotkey led me to this example:
; Example: Hides the mouse cursor when you press Win+C. To later show the cursor, press Win+C again. ; This script is from www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic6107.html OnExit, ShowCursor ; Ensure the cursor is made visible when the script exits. return ShowCursor: SystemCursor("On") ExitApp #c::SystemCursor("Toggle") ; Win+C hotkey to toggle the cursor on and off. SystemCursor(OnOff=1) ; INIT = "I","Init"; OFF = 0,"Off"; TOGGLE = -1,"T","Toggle"; ON = others { static AndMask, XorMask, $, h_cursor ,c0,c1,c2,c3,c4,c5,c6,c7,c8,c9,c10,c11,c12,c13 ; system cursors , b1,b2,b3,b4,b5,b6,b7,b8,b9,b10,b11,b12,b13 ; blank cursors , h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h7,h8,h9,h10,h11,h12,h13 ; handles of default cursors if (OnOff = "Init" or OnOff = "I" or $ = "") ; init when requested or at first call { $ = h ; active default cursors VarSetCapacity( h_cursor,4444, 1 ) VarSetCapacity( AndMask, 32*4, 0xFF ) VarSetCapacity( XorMask, 32*4, 0 ) system_cursors = 32512,32513,32514,32515,32516,32642,32643,32644,32645,32646,32648,32649,32650 StringSplit c, system_cursors, `, Loop %c0% { h_cursor := DllCall( "LoadCursor", "uint",0, "uint",c%A_Index% ) h%A_Index% := DllCall( "CopyImage", "uint",h_cursor, "uint",2, "int",0, "int",0, "uint",0 ) b%A_Index% := DllCall("CreateCursor","uint",0, "int",0, "int",0 , "int",32, "int",32, "uint",&AndMask, "uint",&XorMask ) } } if (OnOff = 0 or OnOff = "Off" or $ = "h" and (OnOff < 0 or OnOff = "Toggle" or OnOff = "T")) $ = b ; use blank cursors else $ = h ; use the saved cursors Loop %c0% { h_cursor := DllCall( "CopyImage", "uint",%$%%A_Index%, "uint",2, "int",0, "int",0, "uint",0 ) DllCall( "SetSystemCursor", "uint",h_cursor, "uint",c%A_Index% ) } }I'm sure it could be edited to use a remote/gamepad button instead of win+c.
sorta crossposted in the build thread
i just got an HD Homerun Prime setup on my network. its awesome, streams are high qulaity and it works great on my computer via WMC
problem is i can't figure out how to get it to workon my TV
originally i thought my blueray player which is DLNA certified would be able to pick up the server. i can get it to find it, but it spits out an no playable file error when trying to play it.
i have an older intel mac mini (1.8 gHz Core 2 duo)
i can't figure out he best way to watch the HD Homerun stream. i have plex on th emini, but i was unable to get it working on my macbook
an alternative is to build a small htpc box so i can use WMC on it which i know works.
If i build it, budget is under $300
I have a small SSD and some random drives. if i upgrade my big pc, i could have a 5770 or 6770 or i could just pull the 5770 out and not crossfire anymore.
i do have a license for win 8 but am open to a steam os/linux build.
the only things it needs to do is be able to easily be run with a remote for inlaws, play the tv via HD Homerun, and be able to do HD resolution on a 37"+ tv, also have a small quiet form factor
alternatively help me get the mac mini working with it