Microsoft announce pricing structure for Windows 8

[Tiago]

Good info mate, thanks !

[Kin Hell]

@ Harrison

Like I said with Spunksters comment, "Stay out of my world or you are going to end up seriously pissed off."

I also have to ask this Dave. - If you're happy with your setup, do you honestly think your idea of a better monitor making the cards work harder is going to improve my gaming experience? I play FPS shooters & NEED VSYNC enabled to stop the horizontal tearing. So for blowing 700 bucks on 2 x GTX670's, there is no way as long as I have a hole in my ass that I am going to throw a BIGGER screen res at the cards and lock it all down @ 60FPS with VSNC on @ 60Hz. - And just to add to that last sentence, as I said earlier, 60FPS is NOT enough to play games smoothly. It's a simple fact that you either accept because you can't appreciate the difference or because you know no better. I'm sorry to appear blunt, but you already know a spade is a spade with me & there is no animosity on my part either.

You have also over complicated the topic for Tiago & I will merely suggest he re-reads my earlier post. Your answer was sort of right but also wrong in several places so to elbaorate for Tiago:

FPS is Frames Per Second. Minutes are not in the equation in any instance. I run BF3 @ 1920 x 1080 @ 120Hz on a 3D ready LG 23" screen. I set BF3 to run with VSYNC & hold 120FPS everywhere with the AA & Anisotropic all set out to MAX. Occasionally, I see FRAPS, the FPS counter, showing 116 but VSNC is still enabled keeping horizontal tearing out of the picture. In FB3 Operation Guillotine level, disabling VSYNC lets me see as high as 185fps in places, but I never see lower than 125 with VSYNC off, but the horizontal tearing is a bit of a piss off. Adding to this, Adaptive VSYNC is incoporated into these new 6 Series nVidia cards (probably why fraps reports 116fps from time to time) & I'm having to run beta drivers atm to avoid Micro-Stutter. Your statement is sort of right and as Harrison sort of said, ideally, we want to see at least 85Hz or above, though he shoots himself in the foot by making self contradictive remarks saying 60 FPS is enough, whilst also stating 85Hz fickers on a CRT. 85Hz does not flicker for any human eye on a decent Pro CRT & with VSNC set to on @ 85Hz, providing your Graphics card is man-enough to maintain 85+ fps, you won't see any dropped frames.

Now this leads me to Harrisons remarks about Movies. 30FPS is adequate for DVD not to stutter @ 720p & 1080p, but 24FPS BluRay absolutely sucks for me. I've re-mux'd BluRay rips from 24 FPS to 23.86 FPS & play back is smoother? - Can't get my head round why, but the difference is huge. BluRay picture quality is stunning, but the playback is worse than DVD for me. Take Star Trek XI when they are Sky Diving onto that drilling platform: OMFG @ the shaking. Thats 24FPS BS for ya & on the latest & greatest Panasonic Plasma's with this compensation mer-larky, it does help slightly over my now nearly 5 year old Pioneer Plasma, but I still wont by BluRay. I spent £200 on 2 x Chord HDMI cables & the difference of depth of field on my Pioneer was massive for your as supplied £10 HDMI cables. Again though, either you can see it and apprciate it or you can't.

@ Harrison RE Internet:

Yeah, BT really do need to get the f'kin fingers out, but then they also need to stop stealing Noise Margin from customers phone lines so the bloody service runs as intended. BT seem to think that 6db downsteam is adequate, when we all know 5db is disconnection teritory on any DSL/Fibre service & they quite happily suggest we can turn your Noise Margin up to 12 from 6. Are thes pillocks too f'kin stupid to realise that some of us out here know that Downstream or Upstream Noise margin is simply a resultant factor based on length of copper wire, quality of copper wire & the speed applied to it?? - These butt munching a$$holes are ripping off thousands of users in the UK by sharing Noise Margin because of inadequate provision by BT Wholesale & over the last 7 years, the quality of service for Internet Access to this address has been totally f'kd with housing developments. You could be right about some backbones being screwed here in the UK. I'm pi$$ed right off @ seeing less than 100k/sec from the likes of nvidia & Microsoft with a 40+Mb Fibre connection. Summat is seriously screwed & we're paying for it. Grrrrr!

@ Thread RE CRT v LCD Panels:

60Hz on a CRT flcikers for me. 75Hz also does very slightly on cheap brand CRT's but no where near as bad as 60Hz. @ 85Hz, CRT is flicker free, but the caveat for a higher Refresh rate on a CRT is less pin sharp definition. The only reason LCD looks so sharp is because it's 60Hz. Put the LCD out of it's native resolution & the display looks mushy & fluffy. CRT's only get mushy & fluffy over 85Hz on the desktop, yet for gaming, the more Hz-idge you can get, the better the FPS when VSYNC is enabled. Aside from the Radiation worries & the later CRT's were much more efficient at this than earlier years, there is NO banding on CRT monitors & the reason for this is all down to Colour Gamut. Your average home user LCD's do not display from a full colur Gamut so you will always see banding on gradient filled backgrounds & that really narks me tbh. If you do see banding on a CRT, either it's a really crap CRT or the coding in the game is bollocks.

[Harrison]

I've re-mux'd BluRay rips from 24 FPS to 23.86 FPS & play back is smoother? - Can't get my head round why

The original films are always made in 24p format. However normally they are transferred for the NTSC market first, which as usual decides to be difficult and not stick to standards. They transfer it at a rate of 23.976 FPS. Not far off the original, but annoying just that little bit slower than it should be. Then for the PAL and SECAM markets they speed it to 25FPS.

Therefore for a lot of DVD and BD we are ending up with video that has first been slowed down slightly compared to the original, and then speeded back up to 1fps faster than it should be. This is why we sometimes see motion issues.

A lot more Blu-Rays are however now being released with true 24p support, this should hopefully fix the issue on TVs that natively support 24p playback.

Regarding refresh rates. Yes the human eye can't perceive it flickering at 85Hz but it still is on a CRT. It will flicker whatever the frequency because it is still having to draw each frame from top to bottom, rather than switching the whole screen as one like an LCD.

One thing. You mention you are using a 120Hz 3D LCD. Did you know that these still operate at 60Hz? They need the 120Hz so they can deliver 60Hz to each eye (splitting the 120fps into left and right 60fps halves).

I also have to ask this Dave. - If you're happy with your setup, do you honestly think your idea of a better monitor making the cards work harder is going to improve my gaming experience?

As you seem to be focused mostly on just FPS then if you think your setup gives you the best results than fair enough. I don't play FPS that much. I'm mostly into RPG and Strategy games more and for those the extra screen real estate is very much needed. Everyone has a very different set of needs when it comes to the hardware and software we use. First and foremost I need a display that is capable of delivery as high a colour Gamut as possible for image and video editing, and more Dell is one of the best on the market for this (even comes factory calibrated). And for me 60Hz is fine for gaming, even FPS. I honestly don't notice any issues. You might and therefore using this monitor might not be for you, but for me it is perfect.

[Kin Hell]

[QUOTE=Harrison;49430]

One thing. You mention you are using a 120Hz 3D LCD. Did you know that these still operate at 60Hz? They need the 120Hz so they can deliver 60Hz to each eye (splitting the 120fps into left and right 60fps halves).

Correct, but only when running in 3D, which I don't & have no interest to do so & nor do I want to bombard each eye with a nasty flickering 60Hz.

As you seem to be focused mostly on just FPS then if you think your setup gives you the best results than fair enough. I don't play FPS that much. I'm mostly into RPG and Strategy games more and for those the extra screen real estate is very much needed. Everyone has a very different set of needs when it comes to the hardware and software we use. First and foremost I need a display that is capable of delivery as high a colour Gamut as possible for image and video editing, and more Dell is one of the best on the market for this (even comes factory calibrated). And for me 60Hz is fine for gaming, even FPS. I honestly don't notice any issues. You might and therefore using this monitor might not be for you, but for me it is perfect.

If it's screen real Estate you want with high FPS and VSYNC enabled, then you'd run dual or even 3 screens with 120Hz Monitors, but not a dell with 60Hz @ what-ever it's native resolution might be.
I would partially agree with you with Regard to video eding & hight Gamuts, but more so for picture editing or book publishing. The latter of course better supported with Mac's.
If you honestly can't appreciate the difference between 60Hz & 120Hz or greater for a more satisfying gaming experience, then there is nothing I can do to convince you. I've seen people @ huge professionaly organised Lan partys with all the kit to participate in the best possible way, but only running @ 60Hz. After fixing their refresh rates, I never had one person say they couldn't see or feel any difference & 85% of those I did fix didn't even know how to set up their refresh rates correctly or realise that VSYNC makes a massive difference to how their game experince potrays itself. I believe there are now LCD's claiming to do 144Hz, which should throw 72Hz into each eye, therefore helping alleviate damage to the eye with only 60Hz. I can't beleive the industry got away with that one, much like the shocking Sony bastardisation of BluRay @ 24FPS.