Just Cause 2 keeps crashing

[Moai Mann]

I recently purchased Just Cause 2, but i cant seem to get it to run for more than 5 minutes.
When im playing, after 4-5 minutes the game freezes for a second, goes back to normal, and then a white screen with an error message, "Just Cause 2 has stopped working, windows is searching for a solution"

I have tried disabling decals, motion blur, rolling back drivers, pretty much every fix out there, but none of that has done anything.

Specs:
Processor:AMD A8 5545M APU
Graphics:AMD Radeon HD 8510G
Ram: 8GB
OS: Windows 7 64-Bit

[MasterZoen]

Цитата допису crazy_charlie321:

Intel® Core™ i7-5930K 3.5 GHz (overclocked 4.2GHz) (6-cores) with ASUS X99-A mainboard
Crucial 16GB DDR4-2133
Geforce GTX 970 4GB
Win7 home premium 64-bits
SSD Crucial BX100 1TB, SSD Crucial BX100 500GB
Asus Xonar DG for sound

Crashes that I experienced before I turned off decals and motionblur were just dropping me back to windows after a few minutes without error messages btw.

What brand is your video card?

I never had any error messages when JC2 crashed either.

Bokeh filter never caused a crash for me, but I keep it turned off because this would happen when it was on:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=855722762

The only other thing I turned off was GPU Water Simulation. I could play for 15 minutes to an hour with it on, depending on how much water was being put up on screen, but would eventually crash. Have you tried turning just that off? You have a similar CPU and GPU to mine, so I'm curious how the game works for you with the same settings that I use.

[MasterZoen]

Цитата допису Chris Solomon:

my concern was that there is no DOS or win9x version of steam, or Origin. GOG games might or might not work still on win9x and dos. I have a feeling any fixes they made to get said games to run on modern systems might make it so an older system, running an older OS might not be able to run said game anymore.

My old XP desktop does have sata ports, but it destroyed 4 different 500 Gb drives in a row. I have given up trying to use the sata ports since i don't want to buy more drives only to have them suddenly stop working.


but as far as JC2 is concerned, i guess the best thing for me would be too swap out my primary hdd, with the older 500gb that it came with and run a factory restore operation on it to reload win7 ULT and then do updates as neccessary, then put the older drive in my external caddy and hook it up to the ESATA port and then whenever i want to run JC2, boot to the external drive. Only problem i see is I will have to disable the hibernate abd fast boot/shutdown on one or both OS's.
Hiding the drivefrom the currently running OS, is another good countermeasre too use. Since i would not have office, and other applications i have loaded, it should run pretty quickly.

It is an awful amount of effort to have to go to, to play a game. But, theres no alternative i guess.

I will post back here on my progress, and my results as well

Chris, I just went back and reread most of your posts since I couldn't remember what OS you were running and noticed something odd. You said that you were using a discrete card, but listed GT330M. The M designation was only ever used with their mobile processor chips, not discrete cards.

Цитата допису Chris Solomon:

Цитата допису MasterZoen:

Yeah, Intel dropped their support for the first gen chips a while back. That's not too supprising considering they are now on gen 7, however.

What's your GPU? Oh, and please include make and model. Telling someone you have Mustang doesn't help as much as telling them it's a Shelby refit with a 350cc engine.

Well, my card is supported if only barely.... it's an nviidia GT330M 1Gb GDDR discrete card. I am well aware how lacking the card is, but upgrading the card is not possible becuase toshiba made the card in a really weird shape. I have been getting between 17 and 30 fps, depending whats on screen. avg is in the mid to upper 20's range.

You can see that the GT 330M is a notebook processor here:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/legacy.html

Are you trying to game on a laptop?

Edit: Also, the last driver release that supported the 300 series was released in December of last year. GeForce Experience shouldn't be using anything newer than 342.01. New driver releases won't directly support your GPU in regards to games, even if you download the latest release of the web. They should work fine for Windows though.

[SRediess]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/8190/discussions/0/154644598510833416/?ctp=4#c1520386297698795291

The real problem of the game is the bad memory handler. The old graphic stays in memory, while newer graphics want to take place. The game can't use more than 2 GB, so whatever RAM they have a max of 2 GB is used. And the game can't choose where to take the RAM from. This is always the first 2 GB. When the old Graphic is in already, but not longer in use, the game can't replace or overwrite these parts of RAM. They are locked. If you have programs, which stores their code in the first 2 GB the game no longer can use 2 GB. It is definately less. The game only find the first 2 GB and uses the rest, which is free. In some cases it is nearly 1 GB. The graphic will take part of it. The bad memory handler doesn't throw the old out but newer graphic wants to get in, but doesn't have free RAM. The game slows down and crashes. What filter or what graphic settings you will take out, the game will crash.

You have nVidia? So make an extra profile for the game and take the settings down, that the graphic card doesn't have to work so hard. Antialiasing should be set to the lowest possible. Take more options out so the RAM will be less maltreat and filled up. How many pictures you have to preproccessed. 4? or could you use 1? These are good options to give the game more RAM. 8 GB or more are not possible to read and / or write for the game. If you only have 2 GB the game can use all. If you have 3 GB the game can't use the last GB of RAM.

[MasterZoen]

Цитата допису SRediess:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/8190/discussions/0/154644598510833416/?ctp=4#c1520386297698795291

The real problem of the game is the bad memory handler. The old graphic stays in memory, while newer graphics want to take place. The game can't use more than 2 GB, so whatever RAM they have a max of 2 GB is used. And the game can't choose where to take the RAM from. This is always the first 2 GB. When the old Graphic is in already, but not longer in use, the game can't replace or overwrite these parts of RAM. They are locked. If you have programs, which stores their code in the first 2 GB the game no longer can use 2 GB. It is definately less. The game only find the first 2 GB and uses the rest, which is free. In some cases it is nearly 1 GB. The graphic will take part of it. The bad memory handler doesn't throw the old out but newer graphic wants to get in, but doesn't have free RAM. The game slows down and crashes. What filter or what graphic settings you will take out, the game will crash.

You have nVidia? So make an extra profile for the game and take the settings down, that the graphic card doesn't have to work so hard. Antialiasing should be set to the lowest possible. Take more options out so the RAM will be less maltreat and filled up. How many pictures you have to preproccessed. 4? or could you use 1? These are good options to give the game more RAM. 8 GB or more are not possible to read and / or write for the game. If you only have 2 GB the game can use all. If you have 3 GB the game can't use the last GB of RAM.

So the game needs a large memory patch?

I run everything at the highest settings, or on, with the exception of Bokeh Filter and GPU Water Simulation. You've seen why I keep Bokeh Filter off, since you're quoting my post, and GPU Water Simulation is what kept crashing my game. I could turn Bokeh FIlter on and keep playing despite the skybox ceasing to exist, but the Water Simulation setting causes CTD. With GPU Water Simulation set to off I can play JC2 as long as I want and it doesn't crash.
The only time JC2 crashes now, is when I Quit to Windows, but that's an issue with Win10 that came about after the latest round of OS updates.

[Chris Solomon]

Цитата допису MasterZoen:

Цитата допису Chris Solomon:

my concern was that there is no DOS or win9x version of steam, or Origin. GOG games might or might not work still on win9x and dos. I have a feeling any fixes they made to get said games to run on modern systems might make it so an older system, running an older OS might not be able to run said game anymore.

My old XP desktop does have sata ports, but it destroyed 4 different 500 Gb drives in a row. I have given up trying to use the sata ports since i don't want to buy more drives only to have them suddenly stop working.


but as far as JC2 is concerned, i guess the best thing for me would be too swap out my primary hdd, with the older 500gb that it came with and run a factory restore operation on it to reload win7 ULT and then do updates as neccessary, then put the older drive in my external caddy and hook it up to the ESATA port and then whenever i want to run JC2, boot to the external drive. Only problem i see is I will have to disable the hibernate abd fast boot/shutdown on one or both OS's.
Hiding the drivefrom the currently running OS, is another good countermeasre too use. Since i would not have office, and other applications i have loaded, it should run pretty quickly.

It is an awful amount of effort to have to go to, to play a game. But, theres no alternative i guess.

I will post back here on my progress, and my results as well

Chris, I just went back and reread most of your posts since I couldn't remember what OS you were running and noticed something odd. You said that you were using a discrete card, but listed GT330M. The M designation was only ever used with their mobile processor chips, not discrete cards.

Цитата допису Chris Solomon:

Well, my card is supported if only barely.... it's an nviidia GT330M 1Gb GDDR discrete card. I am well aware how lacking the card is, but upgrading the card is not possible becuase toshiba made the card in a really weird shape. I have been getting between 17 and 30 fps, depending whats on screen. avg is in the mid to upper 20's range.

You can see that the GT 330M is a notebook processor here:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/legacy.html

Are you trying to game on a laptop?

Edit: Also, the last driver release that supported the 300 series was released in December of last year. GeForce Experience shouldn't be using anything newer than 342.01. New driver releases won't directly support your GPU in regards to games, even if you download the latest release of the web. They should work fine for Windows though.

yes, my current PC is a Toshiba P500-ST6844 custom ordered laptop. It has a GT330M discrete video card with 1Gb of GDDR3 dedicated memory. There is no other video card in the system.

For the time being I will be setting up an external drive that is running Win7 Ultimate (what the laptop came with) and once once everything is updated, I plan on using the last known nvidia driver that ran JC2 without any issues with the graphics options.

one last note, I don't have the GEforce experience part of the driver installed as i find ita a useless program with a card as old as mine is

[MasterZoen]

Цитата допису Chris Solomon:

Цитата допису MasterZoen:

Chris, I just went back and reread most of your posts since I couldn't remember what OS you were running and noticed something odd. You said that you were using a discrete card, but listed GT330M. The M designation was only ever used with their mobile processor chips, not discrete cards.




You can see that the GT 330M is a notebook processor here:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/legacy.html

Are you trying to game on a laptop?

Edit: Also, the last driver release that supported the 300 series was released in December of last year. GeForce Experience shouldn't be using anything newer than 342.01. New driver releases won't directly support your GPU in regards to games, even if you download the latest release of the web. They should work fine for Windows though.

yes, my current PC is a Toshiba P500-ST6844 custom ordered laptop. It has a GT330M discrete video card with 1Gb of GDDR3. There is no other video card in the system.

For the time being I will be setting up an external drive that is running Win7 Ultimate (what the laptop came with) and once once everything is updated, I plan on using the last known nvidia driver that ran JC2 without any issues with the graphics options.

one last note, I don't have the GEforce experience part of the driver installed as i find ita a useless program with a card as old as mine is

GeForce experience accurately changed the settings of games when I switched from the 670 to the 970, with the only two exceptions being JC2 and a MMO that I no longer play. While my card should be capable of running it with everything enabled, the game itself has problems that prevent it, something that has been noted many times on many threads.

A "discrete" card is a video card you can install, replace, remove, or upgrade because it is not soldered to a main board. All mobile GPUs are considered "on board" graphics. Any GPU that is part of a CPU is considered "integrated" graphics. As a rule, I never try to use mobile GPUs, you may want to consider buying a GPU dock that practically every manufacturer is coming out with, assuming your system has the capability to connect to it.

Let me (re-)search a few things about the 330m and get back to you. Frankly, you might be better off using your old XP Desktop to game if you acquire a GPU for it. The GTX 1050ti is currently one of the best in regards to Price-Performance ratio.

Edit: The only thing I could find where someone was running a 330m with JC2 that actually showed settings and was visible is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZdVHoGQIF4
I'd say give those settings a try, but I think because the 330m is no longer supported you just won't have any luck with the current drivers. Considering that nVidia actually supported it until this year, I can't say they are to blame. Eight years is a long time to make sure something continues to work.

[crazy_charlie321]

Цитата допису MasterZoen:

Цитата допису crazy_charlie321:

Intel® Core™ i7-5930K 3.5 GHz (overclocked 4.2GHz) (6-cores) with ASUS X99-A mainboard
Crucial 16GB DDR4-2133
Geforce GTX 970 4GB
Win7 home premium 64-bits
SSD Crucial BX100 1TB, SSD Crucial BX100 500GB
Asus Xonar DG for sound

Crashes that I experienced before I turned off decals and motionblur were just dropping me back to windows after a few minutes without error messages btw.

What brand is your video card?

I never had any error messages when JC2 crashed either.

Bokeh filter never caused a crash for me, but I keep it turned off because this would happen when it was on:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=855722762

The only other thing I turned off was GPU Water Simulation. I could play for 15 minutes to an hour with it on, depending on how much water was being put up on screen, but would eventually crash. Have you tried turning just that off? You have a similar CPU and GPU to mine, so I'm curious how the game works for you with the same settings that I use.

Brand is nvidia/board manuf. (MSI). I have not played for a lot longer than an hour yet. I still have GPU Water Simulation on though, haven't switched that off yet but probably will if it crashes again. Oh and I got AA set to 4x.

edit 4-okt:
Played for a couple of hours, doing missions and besides that flying helicopters as well above water.. a few times no crashes yet.

[Chris Solomon]

Цитата допису MasterZoen:

Цитата допису Chris Solomon:

yes, my current PC is a Toshiba P500-ST6844 custom ordered laptop. It has a GT330M discrete video card with 1Gb of GDDR3. There is no other video card in the system.

For the time being I will be setting up an external drive that is running Win7 Ultimate (what the laptop came with) and once once everything is updated, I plan on using the last known nvidia driver that ran JC2 without any issues with the graphics options.

one last note, I don't have the GEforce experience part of the driver installed as i find ita a useless program with a card as old as mine is

GeForce experience accurately changed the settings of games when I switched from the 670 to the 970, with the only two exceptions being JC2 and a MMO that I no longer play. While my card should be capable of running it with everything enabled, the game itself has problems that prevent it, something that has been noted many times on many threads.

A "discrete" card is a video card you can install, replace, remove, or upgrade because it is not soldered to a main board. All mobile GPUs are considered "on board" graphics. Any GPU that is part of a CPU is considered "integrated" graphics. As a rule, I never try to use mobile GPUs, you may want to consider buying a GPU dock that practically every manufacturer is coming out with, assuming your system has the capability to connect to it.

Let me (re-)search a few things about the 330m and get back to you. Frankly, you might be better off using your old XP Desktop to game if you acquire a GPU for it. The GTX 1050ti is currently one of the best in regards to Price-Performance ratio.

Edit: The only thing I could find where someone was running a 330m with JC2 that actually showed settings and was visible is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZdVHoGQIF4
I'd say give those settings a try, but I think because the 330m is no longer supported you just won't have any luck with the current drivers. Considering that nVidia actually supported it until this year, I can't say they are to blame. Eight years is a long time to make sure something continues to work.

I'm just using the term the manufacter did in the specs for the PC. I was under the impression they called it that to differentiate it from lsptops that had two video cards and laptop cards that used system memory to provide video memory. my video card is not part of the mainboard and is on a seperate card. If toshiba had not made the card in such a weird shape, it could be upgraded. as it is now, I can only replace the card with another of the same type. whether there are any other cards that have the same weird shape as mine, is unknown to me. I have been unable to find any that are.

an image of my card can be found here if anyone is interested
https://www.dhgate.com/product/original-for-toshiba-x500-p500-gt330m-1g/380893871.html

[MasterZoen]

Цитата допису Chris Solomon:

Цитата допису MasterZoen:

GeForce experience accurately changed the settings of games when I switched from the 670 to the 970, with the only two exceptions being JC2 and a MMO that I no longer play. While my card should be capable of running it with everything enabled, the game itself has problems that prevent it, something that has been noted many times on many threads.

A "discrete" card is a video card you can install, replace, remove, or upgrade because it is not soldered to a main board. All mobile GPUs are considered "on board" graphics. Any GPU that is part of a CPU is considered "integrated" graphics. As a rule, I never try to use mobile GPUs, you may want to consider buying a GPU dock that practically every manufacturer is coming out with, assuming your system has the capability to connect to it.

Let me (re-)search a few things about the 330m and get back to you. Frankly, you might be better off using your old XP Desktop to game if you acquire a GPU for it. The GTX 1050ti is currently one of the best in regards to Price-Performance ratio.

Edit: The only thing I could find where someone was running a 330m with JC2 that actually showed settings and was visible is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZdVHoGQIF4
I'd say give those settings a try, but I think because the 330m is no longer supported you just won't have any luck with the current drivers. Considering that nVidia actually supported it until this year, I can't say they are to blame. Eight years is a long time to make sure something continues to work.

I'm just using the term the manufacter did in the specs for the PC. I was under the impression they called it that to differentiate it from lsptops that had two video cards and laptop cards that used system memory to provide video memory. my video card is not part of the mainboard and is on a seperate card. If toshiba had not made the card in such a weird shape, it could be upgraded. as it is now, I can only replace the card with another of the same type. whether there are any other cards that have the same weird shape as mine, is unknown to me. I have been unable to find any that are.

an image of my card can be found here if anyone is interested
https://www.dhgate.com/product/original-for-toshiba-x500-p500-gt330m-1g/380893871.html

OH! I remember that, yeah, Toshiba thought they would manage to increase the lifespan of their laptops by putting the graphics chip on a secondary board. A way to allow for upgrades in the future. Might have worked too, except the cards didn't work for models they weren't originally shipped with. The graphics boards registered an identifier with/to the mainboards that was checked at every boot up, and would shutdown if the codes didn't match up. Even if you found a way around that you couldn't take a more powerful card out of a X500 and use it in the P500 because they had different power requirements and the P500 wouldn't run. Heard the same was true with trying to put more powerful 450m cards in the X500s that had originally used 250m or 360m cards. Heck, the cards didn't even run if they weren't in a P500 or X500 case even when connected to the proper mainboard of the laptop for some reason. Kind of put the kabosh on their plans right quick.

[Chris Solomon]

i dont know anything about that, bu i do know the main limiting factor for me was the bizzare shape of the video card. I have been unable to find any others that are the same shape that would be better than what i have now. I assumed the weird shape was to try to prevent upgrading of the laptop.... maybe not, based on what your saying. but i guess, in typical toshiba style, the suddenly dropped any plans to provide upgrades for the model, followed soon by dropping the model altogether. there is a little evidence that they at least started to make the system compatible with win8 before they decided to cancel support. the system runs win8 and win10 just fine, with the only real issues being the lack of toshiba software support.

I had reservations back when i bought my laptop, becuase previously, years ago, my mom bought a Toshiba infinia 7200 desktop, and even tho it was a new system, after 1 year, toshiba dropped all support of the system. many of the functions stopped working properly after windows 95 came out with proper USB support. not to mention there was next to no support for the model. i beleive there was even a class action lawsuit over the infinia series.

heres a story about that mess with the infinia.....

http://www.zdnet.com/article/toshiba-kills-infinia/

if i get another computer, (hopefully this spring, it will be either from Xidax, or i will go back to building it myself. I won't be gettign another laptop for quite some time. mostly because it looks like the vendors have stopped doing customizable models (i.e. allowing selection of more ram or beter cpu, or version of OS, etc.)

I plan on putting an i9 20 core Cpu into any new system i get..... that will be tons of fun.... XD

[MasterZoen]

Цитата допису Chris Solomon:

i dont know anything about that, bu i do know the main limiting factor for me was the bizzare shape of the video card. I have been unable to find any others that are the same shape that would be better than what i have now. I assumed the weird shape was to try to prevent upgrading of the laptop.... maybe not, based on what your saying. but i guess, in typical toshiba style, the suddenly dropped any plans to provide upgrades for the model, followed soon by dropping the model altogether. there is a little evidence that they at least started to make the system compatible with win8 before they decided to cancel support. the system runs win8 and win10 just fine, with the only real issues being the lack of toshiba software support.

I had reservations back when i bought my laptop, becuase previously, years ago, my mom bought a Toshiba infinia 7200 desktop, and even tho it was a new system, after 1 year, toshiba dropped all support of the system. many of the functions stopped working properly after windows 95 came out with proper USB support. not to mention there was next to no support for the model. i beleive there was even a class action lawsuit over the infinia series.

heres a story about that mess with the infinia.....

http://www.zdnet.com/article/toshiba-kills-infinia/

if i get another computer, (hopefully this spring, it will be either from Xidax, or i will go back to building it myself. I won't be gettign another laptop for quite some time. mostly because it looks like the vendors have stopped doing customizable models (i.e. allowing selection of more ram or beter cpu, or version of OS, etc.)

I plan on putting an i9 20 core Cpu into any new system i get..... that will be tons of fun.... XD

LOL, 20 cores, eh? You've certainly got more money to spend on components than I ever will. I've built my system up over the years, a $3,000 USD system built over a period of 10 years. It's my pride and joy, something I can point to and say, "I assembled this!" I definitely recommend building your own desktop, but these days you don't have to.

Mobile options are abundant these days. As for gaming on laptops, Razer, HP, Galax, Gigabyte, Asus, Zotac and others either already have or are soon to be releasing GPU docks, and that's the reason that customizability has been reduced. All the docks will connect via USB Type-C via Thunderbolt 3 cable and have their own PSU, but they will all have max limitations on how many watts will go to the actual GPU.

Razer at least still offers a couple of options for their Blade Ultrabooks, the options are just the screen resolution and HDD, however. The Razer Core GPU dock has a 500W PSU supporting cards with upto 375w power demands and is compatible with a fairly wide range of video cards from both AMD and nVidia, but not the GTX 1000's, yet. The GPU dock will only be compatible with Razer Blade Stealth and new Razer Blade Ultrabooks, but these are true gaming laptops in the first place. The Razer Core costs $500 USD and does not include a GPU, and current models of the Razer Blade ultrabooks typically start at $1,100 USD and go higher with better specs. A combo of a GTX 1050 Ti for $170 plus a refurbished dock for $400 and a refurbished razer stealth v1 4K 12.5" laptop for $750 would total @$1320. Not a bad value at all for a "gaming laptop." Even if you went with a new Core and Blade Stealth 4K 12.5" for $500 and $1,350, respectively, you'd only spend around $2,100. The only problem with this option is availability of the Core is pretty spotty:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/razer-core-dock-price-gpus,31419.html

HP's OMEN Accelerator has an ethernet port for online gaming and 4 USB 3 ports for keyboard, mouse, headset, etc. It has a 500w PSU but only delivers 300w to a GPU. It comes in models with either a nVidia GTX 1060, GTX 1070 or an AMD RX580 GPU, and either a 2.5 inch 256GB SSD or 1TB HDD. It also comes in a driveless and cardless barebones option for @$350 USD on Amazon. It will also deliver 60w of charge your laptop via the USB 3.1 Type-C Thunderbolt 3 cable. HP states that it is intended only for use with OMEN laptops but according to reviews it works with any laptop that has FULL Thunderbolt 3 compatability like the Dell XPS 15 9560. The XPS 15 9560 w/ Core i7 and 16GB RAM runs @$1550 USD, combined with the dock @$350, and a GTX 1050 ti for @$170 is just under $2,200 USD. Not bad for a "gaming laptop" but the Razer Refurb is a better value overall:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hp-omen-accelerator-gpu-dock,34682.html

Galax's SNPR External Graphics Card Enclosure will just house a GTX 1060 on a custom PCB powered by an external PSU that will also deliver 45w charge to the laptop via Thunderbolt 3. Unit will output video via HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI-D. They intend to mass market it as a Graphics Amplifier compatible with many brands of laptops/ultrabooks. Expect it to cost @$400 USD:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/galax-snpr-eternal-graphics-enclosure,34664.html

Gigabyte's Aorus GTX 1070 Thunderbolt External Graphics Box will have a 450w PSU powering an impressive GTX 1070 mini GPU and will have two USB 3 ports. It's expected to work with any laptop/ultrabook that can connect to it and has full Thunderbolt 3 compatability. There's no price listing but expect it to cost @$500 USD:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/gigabyte-aorus-gtx-1070-external-graphics-box,33876.html

Asus' XG Station 2 will connect via USB Type-C Thunderbolt as a primary connection, but will also allow for a USB Type-B connection for added data throughput. It has a 500w PSU, and can provide 100w of power to the laptop and will be plug an play with no need to restart your laptop. It will be compatible with AMD and Nvidia GPUs, R9 and later, and GTX 900 and later. The dock is planned to be compatible only with ASUS ROG G701VT, GL502VM, and GL702VM gaming laptops, T303Ua and T305CA Transformer Books, and certain ZenBooks, but that may change in the future. Price is $550 USD on Amazon:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-rog-xg-station-2,33212.html
https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-ROG-XG-STATION-2-Thunderbolt-External-Graphics/dp/B06WGRT5GS?tag=cnet-api-20&SubscriptionId=AKIAJ3NOW7JKGQLTEY4A&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B06WGRT5GS&ascsubtag=fb3817b0-b0a1-11e7-8f0d-75ba9768966f

PowerColor's Devil Box has a 500w PSU that delivers upto 375 to a GPU, has an ethernet port and 4 USB 3 ports for @$390 USD on Newegg. It's a bare bones box, bring your own video card to this party.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814999049

Zotac is well known for making compact systems that pack a powerful punch. It's a shame that the impact is usually felt in your wallet. Nevertheless, they may soon have a GPU dock designed to power one of their mini-pc systems:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/zotac-external-gpu-dock-gtx-1080-mini,33279.html

Finally, we have a couple options from 2015, but you'd be better off getting one of the above.

Dell's Alienware brand has had a GPU Dock available for a while now and currently sells for @$200 USD. It uses a proprietary PCI-e x4 connection to run with the following laptops: Alienware 13 R1, R2 & R3, Alienware 15 R1, R2 & R3, Alienware 17 R2, R3 & R4, Alienware X51 R3, Alienware Alpha R2, M17xR2, M17xR3. I recommend you skip this and get one of the above options, but this GPU Dock for $200, plus a GTX 1050 Ti for @$170, and an Alienware 15 Laptop for $1100 would only be @$1470 USD, but you're still choked by that PCI-e x4 connection. Skip it and get an option that connects via Thunderbolt 3.

MSI came out with a specific laptop+GPU dock combo in Q2 2015. The GS30 Shadow with GPU Dock is a laptop that locks into the GPU Dock with a proprietary PCI connection. When you turn on the laptop with it docked, the GPU Dock takes over all video tasks, and outputs a display to a monitor. It has additional storage bays and built in speakers but it's a bulky, ugly setup IMO, and the dock doesn't work with any other laptop but the GS30 Shadow, but it's an option if you can find it being sold somewhere. The video card in the GPU dock can be upgraded, but only within certain limits and, frankly, I don't recommend this laptop at all. Again, skip this and get an option that connects via Thunderbolt 3.


Again, I'd recommend a desktop, there's just something really satisfying about assembling a kick-ass PC. Of course, considering you were talking about buying a 20 core processor when the 12 core version is $1,200 USD and the 18 core version is $2K, then you could afford to put a $800 11GB GTX 1080 Ti into the $500 Razer Core dock with ease and combine it with the 14" 1080p IPS w/ Quad-core Core i7-7700HQ Razer Blade for $1900 totalling $3,200 USD.
Will it be as ridiculously powerful as that 20 core desktop? No. Will it still be powerful and portable when you need it? Yes.

[Chris Solomon]

I was going to build my self a new system back in '10 because i needed a new system, but i was talked into (pehaps foolishly) getting a laptop. the best offering at the time was the laptop I use now. I was able to get a laptop that was at least as fast as my old athlon XP desktop (in terms of clock speed). though the almost $4000 dollar laptop has been a true workhorse, I don't think I will get another laptop anytime soon. I have built my own systems before, and i think I will probably return to that path once more. I have never really built any fancy systems with 'case mods' or anything, just a simple tower case with the 'computer guts' that i pick out. thats really all you need to game....

I do realize i will have some studying to do as it seems that there have been some major changes in how desktops are assembledsince the last time I built one. like the power supply going on the bottom of the case now, instead of the top. some components will be reused from my current desktop system because they are still considered valid. like my X-fi elite pro, and my corsair 880w psu and maybe my linksys wifi N card. I live in an area that only has 6MBPS ADSL so getting anything faster in terms of networking is pointless. what i have already far outstrips the capability of my internet connection. the 450MBPS that the card does is plenty fast enough

[MasterZoen]

Цитата допису Chris Solomon:

I was going to build my self a new system back in '10 because i needed a new system, but i was talked into (pehaps foolishly) getting a laptop. the best offering at the time was the laptop I use now. I was able to get a laptop that was at least as fast as my old athlon XP desktop (in terms of clock speed). though the almost $4000 dollar laptop has been a true workhorse, I don't think I will get another laptop anytime soon. I have built my own systems before, and i think I will probably return to that path once more. I have never really built any fancy systems with 'case mods' or anything, just a simple tower case with the 'computer guts' that i pick out. thats really all you need to game....

I do realize i will have some studying to do as it seems that there have been some major changes in how desktops are assembledsince the last time I built one. like the power supply going on the bottom of the case now, instead of the top. some components will be reused from my current desktop system because they are still considered valid. like my X-fi elite pro, and my corsair 880w psu and maybe my linksys wifi N card. I live in an area that only has 6MBPS ADSL so getting anything faster in terms of networking is pointless. what i have already far outstrips the capability of my internet connection. the 450MBPS that the card does is plenty fast enough

The primary reason that the PSU is mounted at the bottom now is so that it can draw in cool air from under the case and expel it out the back of the PSU. A lot of people had systems that the PSU would fry itself back in '05-'09 drawing in the hot air from inside the case that was generated by the old Intel Core 2 Extreme or Core 2 Quad CPUs and a monster card like the GeForce 8800 GTS. Those two components alone would heat a bedroom up in the winter. The GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB would generate 50-80 degrees celsius while using 200-300 watts at idle/load respectively. The Core 2 Extreme QX6700 was a 130w TDP that used 150 watts at idle and 250w under load, and the heat... well, I remember hardware sites recommending the Zalmann all copper giant radial coolers [www.zalman.com] and similarly huge coolers for those processors. So, yeah, that's @600w of power easy in just the CPU and GPU, then add drives, fans, addon cards and other stuff in a system, plus making sure that it only used 85% of your PSU max load and then factoring 10% load drop off transformer efficiency decrease over 10 years of age, and you were grabbing 800-850 watt PSU for your single gpu system, back when everything ran hot, Hot, HOT! No one wants a high load PSU pulling in hot air to cool itself with, and so now they mount on the bottom and pull air directly from outside the case.

In regards to your addon wifi and sound card, I myself have a X-Fi Titanium HD and have used it on 3 mobo's now. The last 2 have been ATX boards since the Micro-ATX boards no longer make room for a good sized sound card and a dual slot GPU. It seems like if you have a dual slot GPU you can't use the 1x PCI-e slot for a sound card. I imagine you will also need an ATX mobo for your new build. In regards to your wireless card, you might want to switch to a USB 3 wireless adapter, since it's very rare to find 2 1x PCI-e slots on mobo's these days. I had to do that with my guest rig, since I had been using a PCI card in it and no manufacturer includes PCI slots now-a-days.

[Chris Solomon]

Цитата допису MasterZoen:

Цитата допису Chris Solomon:

I was going to build my self a new system back in '10 because i needed a new system, but i was talked into (pehaps foolishly) getting a laptop. the best offering at the time was the laptop I use now. I was able to get a laptop that was at least as fast as my old athlon XP desktop (in terms of clock speed). though the almost $4000 dollar laptop has been a true workhorse, I don't think I will get another laptop anytime soon. I have built my own systems before, and i think I will probably return to that path once more. I have never really built any fancy systems with 'case mods' or anything, just a simple tower case with the 'computer guts' that i pick out. thats really all you need to game....

I do realize i will have some studying to do as it seems that there have been some major changes in how desktops are assembledsince the last time I built one. like the power supply going on the bottom of the case now, instead of the top. some components will be reused from my current desktop system because they are still considered valid. like my X-fi elite pro, and my corsair 880w psu and maybe my linksys wifi N card. I live in an area that only has 6MBPS ADSL so getting anything faster in terms of networking is pointless. what i have already far outstrips the capability of my internet connection. the 450MBPS that the card does is plenty fast enough

The primary reason that the PSU is mounted at the bottom now is so that it can draw in cool air from under the case and expel it out the back of the PSU. A lot of people had systems that the PSU would fry itself back in '05-'09 drawing in the hot air from inside the case that was generated by the old Intel Core 2 Extreme or Core 2 Quad CPUs and a monster card like the GeForce 8800 GTS. Those two components alone would heat a bedroom up in the winter. The GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB would generate 50-80 degrees celsius while using 200-300 watts at idle/load respectively. The Core 2 Extreme QX6700 was a 130w TDP that used 150 watts at idle and 250w under load, and the heat... well, I remember hardware sites recommending the Zalmann all copper giant radial coolers [www.zalman.com] and similarly huge coolers for those processors. So, yeah, that's @600w of power easy in just the CPU and GPU, then add drives, fans, addon cards and other stuff in a system, plus making sure that it only used 85% of your PSU max load and then factoring 10% load drop off transformer efficiency decrease over 10 years of age, and you were grabbing 800-850 watt PSU for your single gpu system, back when everything ran hot, Hot, HOT! No one wants a high load PSU pulling in hot air to cool itself with, and so now they mount on the bottom and pull air directly from outside the case.

In regards to your addon wifi and sound card, I myself have a X-Fi Titanium HD and have used it on 3 mobo's now. The last 2 have been ATX boards since the Micro-ATX boards no longer make room for a good sized sound card and a dual slot GPU. It seems like if you have a dual slot GPU you can't use the 1x PCI-e slot for a sound card. I imagine you will also need an ATX mobo for your new build. In regards to your wireless card, you might want to switch to a USB 3 wireless adapter, since it's very rare to find 2 1x PCI-e slots on mobo's these days. I had to do that with my guest rig, since I had been using a PCI card in it and no manufacturer includes PCI slots now-a-days.

yeah, they used to be placed at the top. Not sure, but i think that styel blew air out instead of sucking it in.
I intend on getting a full ATX board if possible, so there will be planty of room to work with.

also my X-FI elite pro is not PCI-E it's PCI so that would not be an issue for me. I just need to choose a MB that has some PCI slots. There are a few one out there that still have between 1 - 3 PCI slots.

If Creative and other cards were still making hardware backed cards (with DSP, and ASIC and so on, and so on instead of relying on codecs and the CPU power), i might get a newer sound card. I know changes to the windows sound stack since Vista have favored codec and 'soft' cards, ut that dowsn't mean they are better, it just means there are more out there becuase they are cheaper to produce.

I have noticed that with new desktop systems, just having a heatsink/fan combo and maybe a case fan or two, is no longer enough. I will have to do some research into what will work best for my budget. If i had the money, I would either go with liquid cooling, or an oil bath setup, where the M/B and components are imeresed in tub of mineral oil for to keep the components cool. Obviously this setup poses a problem if you need to adjust or change out the hardware frequently, but as i understand it, It provides superior PC cooling. as all the bits and so on, on the M/B are imiadetly cooled by the oil bath, leading to longer lif of the parts.

[MasterZoen]

Цитата допису Chris Solomon:

Цитата допису MasterZoen:

The primary reason that the PSU is mounted at the bottom now is so that it can draw in cool air from under the case and expel it out the back of the PSU. A lot of people had systems that the PSU would fry itself back in '05-'09 drawing in the hot air from inside the case that was generated by the old Intel Core 2 Extreme or Core 2 Quad CPUs and a monster card like the GeForce 8800 GTS. Those two components alone would heat a bedroom up in the winter. The GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB would generate 50-80 degrees celsius while using 200-300 watts at idle/load respectively. The Core 2 Extreme QX6700 was a 130w TDP that used 150 watts at idle and 250w under load, and the heat... well, I remember hardware sites recommending the Zalmann all copper giant radial coolers [www.zalman.com] and similarly huge coolers for those processors. So, yeah, that's @600w of power easy in just the CPU and GPU, then add drives, fans, addon cards and other stuff in a system, plus making sure that it only used 85% of your PSU max load and then factoring 10% load drop off transformer efficiency decrease over 10 years of age, and you were grabbing 800-850 watt PSU for your single gpu system, back when everything ran hot, Hot, HOT! No one wants a high load PSU pulling in hot air to cool itself with, and so now they mount on the bottom and pull air directly from outside the case.

In regards to your addon wifi and sound card, I myself have a X-Fi Titanium HD and have used it on 3 mobo's now. The last 2 have been ATX boards since the Micro-ATX boards no longer make room for a good sized sound card and a dual slot GPU. It seems like if you have a dual slot GPU you can't use the 1x PCI-e slot for a sound card. I imagine you will also need an ATX mobo for your new build. In regards to your wireless card, you might want to switch to a USB 3 wireless adapter, since it's very rare to find 2 1x PCI-e slots on mobo's these days. I had to do that with my guest rig, since I had been using a PCI card in it and no manufacturer includes PCI slots now-a-days.

yeah, they used to be placed at the top. Not sure, but i think that styel blew air out instead of sucking it in.
I intend on getting a full ATX board if possible, so there will be planty of room to work with.

also my X-FI elite pro is not PCI-E it's PCI so that would not be an issue for me. I just need to choose a MB that has some PCI slots. There are a few one out there that still have between 1 - 3 PCI slots.

If Creative and other cards were still making hardware backed cards (with DSP, and ASIC and so on, and so on instead of relying on codecs and the CPU power), i might get a newer sound card. I know changes to the windows sound stack since Vista have favored codec and 'soft' cards, ut that dowsn't mean they are better, it just means there are more out there becuase they are cheaper to produce.

I have noticed that with new desktop systems, just having a heatsink/fan combo and maybe a case fan or two, is no longer enough. I will have to do some research into what will work best for my budget. If i had the money, I would either go with liquid cooling, or an oil bath setup, where the M/B and components are imeresed in tub of mineral oil for to keep the components cool. Obviously this setup poses a problem if you need to adjust or change out the hardware frequently, but as i understand it, It provides superior PC cooling. as all the bits and so on, on the M/B are imiadetly cooled by the oil bath, leading to longer lif of the parts.

There's not a single mobo that is compatible with the Core i9 series and has PCI slots. Sorry, friend, but that's one of the reasons I switched from a working SB Live 5.1 PCI card to the X-Fi Titanium HD. On board isn't horrible these days, especially on the "gamer" mobo's, so you could scrape by with that until you replace your X-Fi. Although, according to a number of audiophile gamers, using a DAC and Headphone Amp with a really good pair of headphones with games that have proper stereo HRTF is better, and also I'm of the opinion that stereo with HRTF is better. If you have FO4, try the "True 3D Sound for Headphones" mod from the Nexus or just watch this vid with headphones if you don't. Sadly, games with HRTF are few and far between, though at least a couple companies have sites that offer software to convert game audio to proper HRTF 3D sound and Fallout 4 has a mod that does it.

In any case, I whipped up a quick parts list for you based on your comments.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Gyrnbj
The case is available at Amazon for $90USD, for some reason the parts site didn't find it, and you can get the OS for $30-40USD from a grey site like King uin. That's where I got mine.

Edit:
"Kin guin" is apparently a bad word.