The 'Look What the Postman Brought Me' Thread - Technology Edition

[DjchunKfunK]

I have found that the bluetooth connection with some games is sketchy, I'm not sure what causes it but sometimes the game and the controller wont recognise each other so I need to plug it in via USB. I also had the connection issue before I attached the antennas to my motherboard. It is a lovely controller though.

[Drarok]

FOMO finally got the better of me, and I'm now the owner of a 3060 Ti, now delivered and installed.

I've tried a couple of RTX-capable games and honestly can't see the difference, other than the framerate tanks. If there were a hotkey to switch it on/off I reckon I'd be able to notice it, but having to go into menu, settings, graphics, find the option, toggle it, then go back to the game...? Nope, just looks slower to me! Tried BF5 and CoDBlOpsCW which are probably the only things I have install that are capable.

With RTX off though, the framerates are waaaaay better and more stable than my dear old 1070.

[Pew-Pew]

Stuff like BFV is only reflections, not the full ray tracing experience. I don't bother enabling it on BFV.

[DjchunKfunK]

Yeah you need to play something like Control to see it in full effect, or grab the Quake II RTX demo.

[Drarok]

Ah, alright. I've got Control via the Xbox Game Pass, I'll install that and take a peep. I've been meaning to play it anyway!

[Achtung Englander]

I got my 3060 Ti about 2 weeks ago and only played Mafia DE (I finished the game, just pissing about in Lost Heaven collecting cards - my god that city is amazing) and Dead Space - so I am hardly stretching it

I saw a video that said 3060s are not really geared for Ray Tracing, that falls more in the 3080 lap. I am more interested in DLSS.

[Drarok]

I'm not even that fussed about RTX, I just wanted higher framerates. Even after I turned the settings up, I'm getting over ~215 (IIRC) FPS in Rainbow 6 which I play a lot. My monitor can't go above 165Hz so I'm well chuffed that I've averaged a steady rate above that.

Other games aren't so dramatic, but I've gone with the "optimised" settings for most, then tweaked from there.

For the price, I was hoping all my games would be such a dramatic upgrade. Destiny 2 is averaging somewhere around the mid-nineties on fairly conservative (but still high) settings every time I look which is good but not amazing.

It's definitely better, but for the price, is it better enough?

[Achtung Englander]

if you download the Nvidia GeForce Experience app it can find the best settings with a click of a button.

[Achtung Englander]

It's definitely better, but for the price, is it better enough?

In this market 100%. In a world where the supply shortage was not happening - no. I paid $460 for mine (bloody VAT) and if things were normal I reckon I could have got a 3070, maybe a 3080 FE at a push, but we live in abnormal times.

I know someone who paid over £1K for 3080, which is absurd.

[Raid]

So I got a signing bonus for the new role I started a few months back, points I could spend in an online shop specific to the company (but that is basically a front end for John Lewis, so pretty decent stuff). It was quite generous (for this company anyway), working out (with the stuff I've chosen to buy with it) at about £1250. I decided to treat myself to a new laptop, with my aging Surface Pro 4 not only getting to be pretty slow these days, but it never functioned as a very good laptop, given that with the kickstand and all of the weight being at the back, being quite uncomfortable if sat on your legs. So now I have a Surface Laptop 4.



This is my first actual laptop since my 2008 Macbook Pro (the first of the aluminium unibody models). I've gotten used to the quality of the Surface Pro line, but this thing really is incredibly nice. I haven't weighed the thing, but it certainly feels lighter than my Surface Pro 4 with the attached keyboard cover, and amazingly I think it's actually thinner too. It's pretty solid (although there's a little flex on the keyboard), looks great, and I really do love the fabric-coated wrist rest. The trackpad is massive (I always hated the smaller one on the SP4's cover), and the keyboard is nicely sized. Speakers are... well they're alright, and to be honest I'm not even entirely certain where they are (I think they're in the hinge somewhere). Microsoft claim it has some sort of Dolby Atmos capability, but as someone with an actual Dolby Atmos speaker setup, I'm not really feeling it. It's really snappy, with Windows Hello being immediate rather than the 10-20 seconds my SP4 takes these days. I've not really stressed it so far, but I haven't heard a fan spin up at all, which was a really important consideration for me as I hate fan noise when a laptop is practically idling.

I think if I'd had a fuller choice I'd have gone with a Dell XPS as it's supposedly the current king of premium laptops, but there was nothing in my price range (the shop doesn't have the full John Lewis catalogue). Still, for what I'm likely to use it for this thing is a really nice piece of kit.

[Achtung Englander]

dont jizz over it - step 1 to keeping it clean

[Raid]

So my new Fanatec racing sim stuff arrived a mere 7 weeks since I ordered it. I've had a sim rig for a few months now, I stuck a photo of it on the Discord but forgot to post it to the forum, so here we are:


It's a GT Omega Prime cockpit with an extra side bar added. It's all aluminium profile, so it's sturdy as hell, and infinitely configurable. The joystick and throttle mounts look a little janky because the profile they're attached to was part of the desk clamps I've been using for years, repurposed and bolted onto the new frame. I only race and fly in VR, so there's no screen (which admittedly is a bit of a pain in the arse when you need to configure something), but it's substantially more comfortable than at my desk, lets me bolt my rudder and racing pedals to something to stop them shifting, and means I don't have to set my desk up every time I want to fly or race. I still have some cable management to do and the new racing pedals to attach.

Anyway, the new racing stuff. I'll copy what I posted in the Forza thread:

- The CSL DD wheelbase with the optional boost kit that takes it from 5Nm peak torque up to 8 (as a comparison the G27 I've been using has a peak torque of 2.7Nm)
- The Clubsport Formula 2.5x wheel, which is more expensive than I ideally wanted, but some people have an issue with the plastic quick release that comes with the cheaper wheels (that's the bit that mounts the wheel to the base) breaking, and while you can upgrade those quick releases to the metal one that comes with my wheel, it makes the cheaper ones almost as expensive as the one I'm getting.
- The CSL pedal set, their new low-end option that I can upgrade at a later point.

Moving from an ancient Logitech G27 to this probably feels like going from a Reliant Robin to a Ferrari. The force feedback is just so smooth by comparison. The CSL DD is basically just a big motor encased in a heat sink that forms the outer casing, and that motor directly turns the drive shaft, whereas the older wheel had a couple of cheap motors and some plastic gears, and you could both hear and feel everything clunking together, plus it didn't have the same response time that a direct drive wheel has. And it's a hell of a lot stronger too; I need to spend some time understanding the masses of settings this thing has, but on the defaults and I think 90% strength in Project Cars 2, I was genuinely sweating. I'm not a man of incredible upper-body strength, but I feel like I may be after a few weeks with this thing.


The wheel itself is probably the most premium gaming peripheral I've ever used (which is saying something considering the flight sim kit I own). It's completely solid (that's real carbon fibre), the paddle shifters have magnetic switches which give them a really positive clunk, and it has more controls than I know what to do with (and it comes with alternative button caps for everything, but I'm leaving the XBox stuff on there as I can't see them anyway). I did deliberately choose something with too many controls, but as my flight sim experience has taught me, it's impossible to have too many controls (plus it lets you pick and choose which ones you bind, rather than needing to bind everything including the ones that are awkward to find with your fingers).

Have I spent enough money on my sim hobby now? Probably.

[Alan]

Have you considered buying the shell of a car to put it all inside of?

[Raid]

You'll have to recommend me a suitable car / aircraft. Something from the MI6 collection perhaps?

[Rusty]

Wa Wa Wee wa. Very nice.
Puts my little rig to shame