'No Stupid Questions' (NSQ) Internet & Technology Edition

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Is it a good idea to have two GPUs for one gaming PC? I currently have an Nvidia GPU and while I like it, some games aren't that well optimized for it; RE2make for example is broken unless you use older drivers. At first I was thinking about building an AMD rig in the future just to cover my bases but then I thought why not just buy the AMD card for the one I currently have? It's got three GPU slots anyhow.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

I'm moving from Mac back onto a PC and I'm planning on my own build. It's been over 10 years since I've built anything and I'm stuck on cooling for the processor.

Planning on going with Ryzen 5 3600. I'm aware that it comes with a stock cooler, but I dunno if I should upgrade it to something else. I know there are benefits in using an all in one liquid cooler, but I'm worried about the risk of pump failure and the whole idea of anything liquid inside makes me feel very nervous.

Is anyone here using any liquid cooling? What has your experience been like? Any horror stories?

By liquid cooling, do you mean an AIO setup? Most of them are no better than good air coolers. You have to go to the top end 360mm kits to get an appreciable difference.

If you mean custom loop, that's a whole different beast. Totally not worth it for almost everyone, unless you enjoy doing it as a hobby like me.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Is it a good idea to have two GPUs for one gaming PC? I currently have an Nvidia GPU and while I like it, some games aren't that well optimized for it; RE2make for example is broken unless you use older drivers. At first I was thinking about building an AMD rig in the future just to cover my bases but then I thought why not just buy the AMD card for the one I currently have? It's got three GPU slots anyhow.

You can't use an AMD card and a Nvidia card together. Even if they were the same brand, SLI/Crossfire can be extremely picky to where you usually need the same model of card to connect together. Even then, for most uses, SLI/Crossfire is extremely janky and it's almost always better to have a single, more powerful card.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

You can't use an AMD card and a Nvidia card together. Even if they were the same brand, SLI/Crossfire can be extremely picky to where you usually need the same model of card to connect together. Even then, for most uses, SLI/Crossfire is extremely janky and it's almost always better to have a single, more powerful card.

I don't have a good understanding of SLI, but that's when you use two cards together to perform the same task, right? That's not really what I'm looking for. I want to know if it's possible to switch between them individually within the rig in case a game, like say REmake 2, doesn't work properly with one of them.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

I don't have a good understanding of SLI, but that's when you use two cards together to perform the same task, right? That's not really what I'm looking for. I want to know if it's possible to switch between them individually within the rig in case a game, like say REmake 2, doesn't work properly with one of them.

Hmm, that's a weird one Idk, having 2 sets of gpu drivers might confuse the system. Worth a look into I suppose.

 

[theshep]

By liquid cooling, do you mean an AIO setup? Most of them are no better than good air coolers. You have to go to the top end 360mm kits to get an appreciable difference.

If you mean custom loop, that's a whole different beast. Totally not worth it for almost everyone, unless you enjoy doing it as a hobby like me.

Yeah, I was thinking of an AIO for the processor only. Definitely not a custom loop! That's something I wouldn't dream of touching.

Anyway, last night I was watching some youtube videos which basically back up what you say. I'm gonna stick with an air cooler, I'll try the stock one out at first and then decide if I need to upgrade from that.

Thanks for your help. (You too, @Vecr).

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

I mainly use a dualshock 4 to play games on my PC. However I've been having a ton of issues with bluetooth lag spikes and was wondering if you guys can recommend a new USB adapter since all the ones on amazon seem like chinese knockoffs.

 

[Vecr]

Bluetooth was a mistake.

Per-device wireless dongles are unironically better, even though they are crap compared to wired devices.

 

[Ex Cummunicated Sasser HD]

ASUS USB-BT400 3Mbps Bluetooth v4.0 Mini USB (Model number: 90IG0070-BW0600)

This works fine for me, on both Windows 10 and MacOS with 2 DS4's. (No drivers or kexts needed).

Your mileage may vary, but for me it works great for up to 4 players with a stock Sony DS4 (0r 2) and/or a Hori PS4 BT fight box and 2x BT SNES pads connected at the same time.

edit: For some reason it's shite for audio, (as in really shite), but who does BT audio at home anyway? Very very good for game pads... Not a lot of lag.... There might even be an upgraded version by now, because I got mine in 2018.

edit: 2: I run a Hackintosh if anyone was wondering why a Mac would not have BT built in. I had "native" BT but no WiFi on the MB I got, so changed the card out and got no BT but faster WiFi than the fastest iMac Pro... BT dongle is fine, apart from it has to take up not just one port, but 2 with the other port not being used on my MB to be fast, but that's just USB bus and motherboard designers adding more ports by doubling up.

 

[byuu]

I got several of these little no-name bluetooth adapters from China.
They are really good and work out of the box in Linux:
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&SearchText=usb+bluetooth+4.0+csr
2-3$ delivered

 

[Tour of Italy]

Most modern wireless PCI cards also do bluetooth. There’s a chance you might not even need a USB dongle.

I know a lot of people forgo wireless cards on home builds and just use wireless connections, but if you have one, see if it’s Bluetooth compatible. I use mine and it works okay.

 

[Give Her The D]

ASUS USB-BT400 3Mbps Bluetooth v4.0 Mini USB (Model number: 90IG0070-BW0600)

I actually owned this one I think. It was on rebate and I figured why not, it's really good.

 

[Alpacawitz]

I recently upgraded my laptop to a 2017 model with a video card. There is 8 gigs of DDR4 2400 SODIMM ram and there is an expansion slot for more ram. Would it be worth it to upgrade it? I can get a cheapo 8 gig stick of ram for ~30 USD.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

I mainly use a dualshock 4 to play games on my PC. However I've been having a ton of issues with bluetooth lag spikes and was wondering if you guys can recommend a new USB adapter since all the ones on amazon seem like chinese knockoffs.

Try using it wired. Any old micro USB cable will do.

 

[He Who Points And Laughs]

I recently upgraded my laptop to a 2017 model with a video card. There is 8 gigs of DDR4 2400 SODIMM ram and there is an expansion slot for more ram. Would it be worth it to upgrade it? I can get a cheapo 8 gig stick of ram for ~30 USD.

It depends on what you use it for. If you throw Gentoo Linux on it you'll want the extra ram for the larger ebuilds that eat shitloads of ram during build. But $30 for an additional 8gb seems like an obvious buy for me. The other thing I would do if I were you is replace the hard drive with a nice SSD. Just buy a 1TB SSD and you'll have a huge performance boost and plenty of local storage space. Slow hard drives suck, and they can make an otherwise nice laptop feel sluggish.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

Try using it wired. Any old micro USB cable will do.

Every DS4's port that's I've used (3) go to shit when I play wired.

 

[Alpacawitz]

It depends on what you use it for. If you throw Gentoo Linux on it you'll want the extra ram for the larger ebuilds that eat shitloads of ram during build. But $30 for an additional 8gb seems like an obvious buy for me. The other thing I would do if I were you is replace the hard drive with a nice SSD. Just buy a 1TB SSD and you'll have a huge performance boost and plenty of local storage space. Slow hard drives suck, and they can make an otherwise nice laptop feel sluggish.

I got a 500 gig Samsung M.2 SATA that I'm going to add to it. I was thinking about changing out the HDD for an SSD too. Is the Samsung premium still worth it?

 

[He Who Points And Laughs]

Is the Samsung premium still worth it?

I have no idea. It would depend on your needs.

 

[NOMYBITCASH]

Is there any way to reduce the amount of memory taken for an intergrated GPU without touching the bios?, as there is no option in this laptop its a athlon 300u with vega graphics.

its currently "reserved" 2.1GB out of 8GB.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Hmm, that's a weird one Idk, having 2 sets of gpu drivers might confuse the system. Worth a look into I suppose.

Oh it's possible. I can't find the 90 minute video of the fat guy chortling while explaining how they made a virtualization implementation to make a 1080 output through a Vega from a Windows host to a Linux guest. It was the dorkiest thing ever, almost peak Linux, but also pretty cool and potentially useful down the line. I don't remember the specifics right now but modern D3D and OpenGL natively supports rendering on one GPU and having another GPU output the finished framebuffer(multi-adapter systems).

And there was a guy earlier in the thread that accidentally ran his GeForce through the Intel IGP which honestly was pretty cool.