Nosh Builds a PC: Update - The shift from OnBoard to Discreet Graphics

Now i know what you're thinking can this actually be a fresh post after so long. Yes, it's true i have finally managed to persuade myself to actually write something, it isn't that i don't have enough time or things to write about; I'm just Lazy!

So confessions and apologies aside i will get on with actually writing something of worth (i use the term loosely). I have recently built a new PC (see first post) for those who have visited the blog before and didn't get accidently directed here from some slightly dodgy looking Russian websites, BTW it's not us it just seems to happen every so often. However when i built my PC it was at best basic as it consisted of reclaimed parts for the large part with a scattering of new components to take it a few steps above a giant paper weight. It did however have a few glaring holes Physically (as anyone who has seen the pics in the previous post can tell you) as well as technologically.

Drum Roll please i have now plugged some of those gaps in both senses with a graphics card. About time you may well say and i agree it has been a long time coming. I can now play actual games and have a frame rate in the double digits. You may or may not know i am broke so you may be asking where this new addition came from. Well like much of the rest of my PC it isn't new, it came 6 months old from a friend and fellow gamer who was upgrading and gave me mates rates on his old card (check out his YouTube Page: Ratchet34321).

What is the card you may be asking and to be honest a good question as we are 3 paragraphs in and i haven't mentioned it yet! It is a Saphire Radeon HD6850 1GB. Can be seen here to buy and for specs

So an AMD card which is fortunate as my motherboard supports CrossfireX but not SLI i believe. Gives me a chance to add in another card when i have some cash if i so choose. How has it been so far? Well the step up from the onboard graphics of my I3 3320 processor has been stratospheric, i can now run many games at full or nearly full settings comfortable including Planetside 2 which before ground to a halt if there was even one person near me, League of legends is looking much nicer with the settings on high, Metro 2033 is looking really rich and detailed now. All of these running at respectable frame rates and actually enjoyable to play opposed to headache and rage inducing slowness and poor quality.

Now this wouldn't be a post by Nosh if there wasn't still a problem or new ones occurring  Well you would be correct, when putting the card in i did manage to set the resolution too high on all outputs so i couldn't see anything when i booted which was problematic for a day or so. I have also found the monitor i have "acquired" is a none standard size/resolution, with its maximum being 1280x1024 and this has proved unhelpful when trying to record anything, as it just becomes garbage on any one with a normal ratio screen (so pretty much everyone else in existence!).

So what else is there to upgrade/fix you might be asking. In all fairness everything is ok at the moment but money is available a decent monitor, SSD and an Optical drive are on the agenda. So if you have any tips/suggestions for any of those fell free to leave them in the comments section.

Nosh, Signing Out. 

Nosh Builds a PC - And Rises from the Dead!

To all and sundry who have followed the shambles that is HardlyAChannel for any length of time will know that i (Nosh) have been using what could only loosely be termed a PC. I am of course referring to the loving known "Hunk of Junk" that was my laptop. It is safe to say it was never meant for gaming and in fairness it was never meant for it either. However i valiantly tried to put its poor inadequate silicon coated ass through its paces and unsurprisingly it failed miserably.  It's greatest success was being able to play LOL with almost every setting at minimum.

I bring you news of both great joy and sorrow, the laptop is dead! Don't mourn for it as i shan't, in it's later months i had more BSOD than i could possibly count and it had to be propped up on four candles to even manage to stay on for more than an hour. However, from the ashes of the laptop and a few new parts a ugly miss-shapen phoenix has arisen! I won't lie it isn't pretty and it won't be winning any awards for cable management or sheer power. It does on the plus side work and has only BSOD once since i painstakingly built it without frying anything with static two weeks ago. 

View Inside: No Cable managment

A New Year - Go as you mean to go on!

They say you should start the year as you mean to go on, so i felt i better write something today or already doom 2013 to the scrap heap! Lets hope it isn't too literal that saying as i had curry and a cupcake with coffee for breakfast.

What can i say about 2013, not a lot so far. However i can look forward and muse over what will be and might be. Where to start, well the long awaited upgrade from the hunk of junk laptop which required fork handles (four candles, for those who didn't get the Two Ronnies reference and if you didn't then shame on you and see it here) to keep cool, is now imminent with the new desktop PC being built next week hopefully. Now before you all get your hopes up that i will have some all singing and dancing gaming beast of a PC, in true Nosh fashion it is only a half baked PC in need of more bits. I am cannibalizing an old case, disk drives and the Hard drive from my laptop as I'm too poor to get new ones, however they are on the to buy list when i have some money along with a graphics card, which does mean i am still using onboard graphics but they should still be better than my laptops.

Pushing my buttons

So the other day on Reddit I came across this image simply titled: “The problem I have playing multiple FPS the same day.” Grammar aside the poster makes a very important point I’d like to go into in more depth. Something which has plagued the consoles for a long time and something which is long overdue for change. I'm talking specifically about button mapping, or more clearly the lack of choice when it comes to mapping your buttons the way you’d like.

The Redditor who posted this (KyleGlen) clearly has a problem adapting to the different controller layouts of the different games he plays. It’s understandable, we’re creatures of habit. I've already talked about how difficult I found adapting to a new keyboard layout, and I still trip up if I have to switch between layouts several times. It’s especially difficult if all the games are of a similar genre, and so all the actions you can perform are the same. The obvious solution that spring to mind is simply to allow users to set the controls any way they want. I'm about to explain why more freedom is always better.

Steam Group

Would just like to let everyone know that we've had a Hardly a Channel steam group for some time, but I'd like to see it do a bit better than it's currently doing. It's open to anyone to join and we're looking to see if we can use it to get a couple of gaming sessions together every so often. Just look for the "Hardly a Channel" group on Steam. We look forward too seeing you there.

Jamie out xoxoxo

Hardly a Podcast -- Episode 7: You'd never see a loofah for sale in ASDA

This week, Nosh goes to spend the weekend with his folks, and Jamie and Simon take full advantage of the situation.

Hardly A Game Review: Section 8: Prejudice

Droppings

I’ve come to the conclusion that I do a lot of writing. Last week I wrote a 2500 word essay on a subject I knew next to nothing about 24 hours previously. This weeks, I’m looking at writing 3000 words for Tuesday so I have the opportunity to get it reviewed before I go on and write 10000 words for the end of the month... I’ve also come to the conclusion that I take these things very close to the wire. So in the grand tradition of procrastinating, I decided that instead of using the dregs of this evening to construct something meaningful, I’d write 800 words on something completely meaningless and give you another Hardly a Review! I know what you’re thinking, and yes, you are a lucky bunch.

Last time I wrote a review I decided to deliberately seek out something I’d probably dislike, so I could rant about it (I always find my anger to be far more entertaining than my unyielding praise). However, this time around, mainly because I haven’t prepared for this at all, I decided just to pick a game I’ve been playing a lot over the past couple of days. So here is my review on Section 8: Prejudice.