The ask Nil thread! Ask Away!!

[Neatton]

Have questions about hardware? New stuff coming out? Have a question about a part before you slap down the green backs for it? Post here dont be shy take advantage of a geek while you can! I spend way to many hours reading and researching new gear and the latest greatest so you dont have to! If your to shy to post feel free to PM me as well. I am happy to be of service.

[Epidemic]

When is BTX coming out? What companies are coming out with it? Should I wait after it does cuz something cooler is coming out?

[Aredhel]

I smell a set-up, Neat!

[Neatton]

BTX didnt come out with a splash like many had expected. There are a few larger companies namely Gateway who are shipping BTX systems. Before they become mainstream and replace ATX some companies are going to have to get behind them. I honestly dont know if that is going to happen. It costs companies money to switch over to a different form factor so perhaps that is a part of why they are resistant. In any case I almost never recommend to wait for the next best thing unless you know exactly when it is coming out and that it will be worth you waiting. If you have the cash and want a new system I say go for it. Something newer is ALWAYS coming out.

[Pirotess]

Im not aware of any other standardized form factors in the pipeline atm. I think BTX will take off when we hit a major roadblock with the ATX form factor which really doesnt seem to have happened yet.

[Flagg]

Other then fps is there really that much difference between "value" ram high end stuff? If I was to get a higher end video card how much would cheaper ram bottleneck me? Do you recomend a heat spreader in ram for the average gamer? I guess more to the point how many hours in a row before you need the heat spreader? I tryed to be general because I would rather have general answers since I not sure what my system will really look like hope these make some sort of since.

[Neatton]

I would just go along with the rest of your parts. If your building a really high end system and your trying to get out every ounce of juice you can then stick in some really nice ram with tight timings. Tight timings is the CAS rating you see with the ram. It will say like 2-2-2-5 or 2-3-2-5 something like that. The closer to 2-2-2-5 the better. Back to the system. So like I said go along with the rest of the parts. You had mentioned a 7800GTX previously. I would consider that middle to upper end of the road. Off of that I would go a step or two above value. Let me know when time comes for you and I will be glad to help you pick parts.

[Flagg]

Do you happen to know anything about mkv video files? I dl the packs form this http://www.matroska.org/technical/gu...ows/index.html
Website and still could not get it to play the english track . Then I dled the TCMP cdl 1.7 v binary and windows was like o no you didn't. Ok it what it really said was the program was blocked by data execution prevention. any ideas?

[Neatton]

From a quite glance at the page it looks to be a file format they came up with for there specfic product. There is a codec noted there to download to make it play on regular media players. I did not however notice anything about the language it played in so if I had to take a guess I would say it was only recorded in one track and from the wording around the site I would have to guess russian?

edit: Oh I see its a container type format. It looks like you can put whatever you want in the container however you have to have there specific codec to replay it. Sounds pretty cool if you have an MP3 player or something that you are trying to play multiple formats on that cannot handle it. The problem would then be if it can except that codec. I would guess that if you got a video to play using that codec and it wasnt in english then the video never was recorded with an english track at all.

[rabb1t]

Originally Posted by Flagg

Other then fps is there really that much difference between "value" ram high end stuff?

You only really need the heat spreader and fast timings if you are going to overclock. If you are a 'standard' gamer and don't need that extra 1-3% boost in benchmarks, and you won't overclock your system, you don't need the elite ram.