Blue-Ice 2

Monday 31st December 2007 (Happy New Year's Eve to all our readers)
I don't have anything to post - it's just an excuse to say Happy New Year's Eve to all our readers.
Did you know that this Blog has been viewed 284 times this year?
What will 2008 bring?
For a small outlay (£30-£40), all 3 Desktop PC's can be upgraded to 4Gb of RAM. To take advantage of this, the 64-bit version of Windows Vista would have to be installed - perhaps replacing Windows XP and dual-booting Vista 32 and Vista 64.
Sunday 30th December 2007 (Review of the Year)
I don't have anything to post - it's just an excuse to have a review of the year.
What a year it was! - I designed and built 2 PC's, specced a Laptop and substantially upgraded my own PC.
Manufacturer of the year = Intel (All 4 PC's have Intel processors in them).
All 4 PC's have 2Gb of RAM - as required by the Windows Vista operating system. Significantly, 2 of the PC's don't have Windows XP installed and the other 2 dual boot XP and Vista.
Now for the benchmarks - if you look back in this Blog you will find some benchmarks for Black Ice and Blue-Ice 2 but you will not have seen any from Pink Icing. All that is about to change...
Windows Vista Experience Index (out of a possible 5.9)
Blue Ice (old) = 3.5
Black Ice = 5.0
Pink Icing = 4.8
Blue Ice 2 (new) = 5.6
(Grandad's Laptop does not have a graphics card powerful enough to be considered in these tests).
3D Mark 06 (The higher the better)
Blue-Ice (old) XP
Resolution = 1280 x 768
3D Marks = 596
SM2 = 288
HDR = N/A
CPU = 600
Black-Ice
Resolution = 1280 x 1024
3D Marks = 4736
SM2 = 1838
HDR = 2056
CPU = 1642
Pink-Icing
Resolution = 1280 x 1024
3D Marks = 3736
SM2 = 1604
HDR = 1331
CPU = 1666
Blue-Ice 2 (new) Vista
Resolution = 1280 x 1024
3D Marks = 9955
SM2 = 3828
HDR = 4317
CPU = 3537
As you can see Blue Ice 2 is the clear winner due to it's superior graphics card but bear in mind that it cost as much as the 2 graphics cards in Black Ice and Pink Icing combined. Also, Sally may be disappointed in losing out to Black Ice but strangely, her Graphics card is newer and capable of playing the latest DX10 games while Black Ice is limited to DX9. In addition, I have made sure that all PC's can be easily upgraded by simply replacing the old graphics card with a new one. Finally, none of these systems have been overclocked - yet, so the scores could be raised even higher.
Wednesday 26th December 2007 (Happy Boxing Day to all our readers)
I don't have anything to post - it's just an excuse to say Happy Boxing Day.
Tuesday 25th December 2007 (Merry Christmas to all our readers)
I don't have anything to post - it's just an excuse to say Merry Christmas.
Saturday 24th November 2007 (Happy Birthday to Bryan)
What is this? Another Blog post from Crash Cursor? Surely not.
It's just an excuse to say Happy Birthday to Bryan.
No, I want to talk about games. Games? Yes, games.
When I built Blue-Ice 2, it was with the upcoming next-gen games predominantly in mind, particularly Crysis and if it also meant I could move the graphics sliders on Oblivion all the way up to Max, well that was a bonus.
So, now Crysis has been released and the last Digital Content for Oblivion has been downloaded, how am I getting along? Is everything running as well as I had hoped?
The truth is ... The Crysis Demo has been started (I am happy with my framerates and graphical eye candy) but Shivering Isles remains unfinished.
Why is this?
What can be taking up Crash Cursor's time, to the detriment of Crysis and Oblivion?
In two words ...

The Witcher.

Yes, The Witcher is now, officially, the new Oblivion. For those who don't know, The Witcher is an RPG from Poland. This is significant in a number of ways, the most important of which is the fact it is not set in a sugar-coated candy world of Disney niceness to get around the American BBFC. You play as Geralt of Rivia - a white-haired albino monster slayer with 2 swords on his back. Atmosphere, action, style, moral greyness, consequences and even a touch of humour are all present, which makes a nice change. Did I mention that the lengthy CGI Introduction to the game is one of the best I have ever seen and initially got me interested in The Witcher.
Time to go, I have monsters to smite.
Wednesday 7th November 2007 (Happy Birthday to me - Crash Cursor)
What is this? Another Blog post from Crash Cursor? Surely not.
It's just an excuse to say Happy Birthday. No, I really do have some news about Blue-Ice 2. I had cause to use the System Restore feature of Vista today. Blue-Ice 2 was crashing regularly with a Black Screen of Death, so I booted into Safe Mode and ran the System Restore utility built into Vista. It suggested using a Restore Point from 4th November 2007 so I clicked on OK. After a restart, everything was back to normal. This is good news for Black Ice and Pink Icing because when I had problems in the past with Blue-Ice the System Restore in Windows XP would never work for me and so I had to resort to re-installing windows. That took a loooooooooong time, however Vista System Restore is quick, simple and - best of all - it works.
Time to play some more of that "Crysis" Demo. Also, the CGI intro for "The Witcher" is cool and impressive.
Monday 22nd October 2007
Sorry, I've been too busy playing Oblivion and it's add-on Shivering Isles to update this Blog. The eye-candy is great. I realise now that previously I had been playing it on a Spectrum Computer with really blocky graphics. Now I can crank those Graphics capability sliders all the way up to Max and turn on HDR + AA + AF (High Dynamic Range Lighting, Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering) and try out those 'power hungry' mods that I had not bothered with because they would have brought the old Blue-Ice to it's knees. I have neglected gaming for a while, but now it's back with a vengeance. Bring on those Next Gen DX10 games.
Saturday 13th October 2007
Yes, I thought this might happen.
Blue-Ice 2 has been "Benchmarked".
Here are the scores on the doors:-
3D Mark Score = 9955 (596)
SM2.0 Score = 3828 (288)
HDR/SM3.0 Score = 4317 (N/A)
CPU Score = 3537 (600)
Blue-Ice 1 scores are in brackets, so Blue-Ice 2 is 16.7 times more powerful than Blue-Ice 1 and bear in mind it is running on Vista at stock i.e. nothing has been overclocked ... YET!
You never know, one day I may get round to running 3D Mark 06 on Pink Icing.
Friday 12th October 2007
No time to waste - Graphics card is installed and working fine. Vista is looking the best it has been on Blue-Ice 2. No real problems encountered during installation, I just had to fiddle around with Monitor leads a few times but I have ended up using the Digital Connectors, so it's all good.
One more thing before I leave to install Oblivion - my Windows Vista Experience Rating has shot up from 2.0 to ... 5.6.
Thursday 11th October 2007
Wow, that was quick. My Sapphire 2900 PRO HD Graphics Card was delivered at 9:10am - less than 24 hours after ordering and the postage did not cost me a penny.
This weekend Blue-Ice 2 will be completed ... for now!
Wednesday 10th October 2007
The sites I was tracking did not receive their stock yesterday and today put up a date of 25th October for new stock. No thanks, unfortunately the ATI 2900Pro Graphics Card has gone out of stock at Scan (see, I told you it was a limited offer). Never mind, Novatech are selling a Sapphire HD2900Pro with free next-day postage so I have ordered one from them and I should get it ... erm ... tomorrow. Perhaps I could be taking a trip to the Shivering Isles this weekend. All those weeks without Oblivion but I am coping with it quite well, all things considered. Now, where's my Axe?
Monday 8th October 2007
I decided to hold off on the purchase of that Graphics Card as I found out that I could save £15 - 20 by waiting until 9/10/07 i.e. tomorrow, despite this being a limited offer. Looks like ATI are clearing out surplus stock before the launch of a new range of cards. So why don't I wait for the new card? Well, I don't think it will be as powerful and it won't overclock as well.
Thursday 4th October 2007
Apparently ATI's new Graphics Cards, the 2900PRO, are great overclockers. This is good news as it means you can get the power of a 2900XT but at a much lower price. Seeing as they are available now and in stock at Scan, I won't be able to resist ordering one this weekend. You see, it's all very well having a new motherboard and CPU but it's the Graphics Card that really shows it all off. (I may be making a similar argument around Christmas time for a new Glass Screen Monitor).
Sunday 30th September 2007
Blue Ice 2 is running fine on Vista. It has coped well with everything I have thrown at it so far. I have not tried any games yet as I am waiting for October to order a new Radeon 2900PRO Graphics Card.
One thing that stands out is the onboard sound. I listen through headphones and in the past there was always some background noise but the Hi-Def Audio on my Asus P5K Deluxe Motherboard is whisper quiet. Blue Ice 2 is also noticeably quieter running than Blue Ice although I will have to see what affect the new Graphics Card will have.
There is going to be a 1Gb version of the 2900PRO which may be worth a look as, if I can overclock it to 2900XT levels, I will save around £120.
Monday 24th September 2007
Fortunately things have settled down now and Vista Blue Ice 2 seems nice and stable, as well as cool. The temps on my 4 cores are 32 33 27 and 32 Degrees C. The max core temp is 70 so I am well within limits. This should give me loads of room for overclocking.
An obvious question is - Why am I not using the old Graphics card from Blue Ice.
The answer is due to the evolution of the PC.
A few years ago, when 3dfx was all the rage, graphics cards connected to the Motherboard via a PCI interface. Later, this was superseded with AGP. Now, PCIe has taken over from AGP. My old graphics card is an AGP type and so is not compatible with the PCIe slot on my new motherboard. However, I still have an old, old PCI graphics card which does work on Blue Ice 2 but is obviusly much slower than current (or even 4-year old) cards. The solution is to purchase a modern PCIe card and it looks as though my patience may be rewarded. There is a straight choice between 2 manufacturer's of Graphics cards: ATI and Nvidia. I favour ATI (Radeon 1950 Pro in Black Ice) because Oblivion runs best on this hardware, but currently Nvidia have the edge (hence an Nvidia 8600GT in Pink Icing). I found out today that ATI will soon be releasing a 2900Pro card. This is a slightly slower version of their 2900XT card but is much cheaper (around £150 as opposed to £240). The good thing is that it can be overclocked to near 2900XT speeds. In other words you effectively get a 2900XT for £150. In my eyes this is the VFM (value for money) I am looking for. The ATI 2900Pro graphics cards are expected to be on sale in the UK in early October - my birthday present is sorted.
Sunday 23rd September 2007
I spoke too soon - Everything was going well, I was making good progress with Vista and decided to install XP so that I could dual boot, just like Black Ice and Pink Icing.
I had major problems trying to get XP installed. The system would BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) at the same point requiring a reboot and I lost my boot to Vista as well. I tracked the problem to the new SATA DVD Drive. Previously I have always used IDE DVD drives but SATA is the future and I had read that Windows Boot times were much shorter, if you did not have any IDE devices, so I chose to purchase a SATA DVD drive for Blue-Ice 2. When I connected up my old IDE DVD drive from Blue Ice, the BSODs went away and I was able to install Windows XP. I updated Windows via the Interweb and upon rebooting I was told that Windows could not load because the HAL.DLL file was missing. (What is this? 2001: A Space Odyssey?). I had to install Vista again, overwriting the XP partition just to get back to the Vista install I did yesterday, then I deleted the temp Vista.
The upshot of this is that I am currently using Vista an the C: drive and nothing else. I will format the D: and E: drives later, and will probably revert to my new SATA DVD drive, since Vista does not have a problem with it. It looks like I will have to Game on Vista after all.
Saturday 22nd September 2007
This Blog is being compiled on Blue-Ice 2 on Saturday evening.
Everything went well considering I had to dismantle a lot before I could start building, which was quite scarey. With a new build I could always have Blue Ice running at the same time, so I could look for some advice from the InterWeb or have an eBook such as "How to build a super Computer" open. However, I did not encounter any real problems.
A few obsevations:
1. My old Motherboard and CPU cooler were incredibly dusty. It was surprising how many layers of dust had built up over the years.
2. New PC's are so much more 'streamlined'. SATA HDD and DVD cables are tiny compared to the large ribbon cables of old. This should aid the air flow around my case and perhaps help to avoid No. 1 above happening again.
3. The only real decision I had to make was how to divide up 1 Terra-byte of Hard disk space. I decided on two equal partitions on Drive 0 (approx 250Gb each for Vista and XP) and a 500Gb (Data) partition on Drive 1.
4. I have a Zalman CP9700 cooling my Quad Core 6600 chip which was really loud to start with but now I have connected it to my front panel fan controller, I can adjust the Speed/noise to suit. I have CoreTemp running at the moment and my temps are hovering around the 32 degree mark so there should be plenty of headroom for Overclocking.
5. I have only installed Vista for now and will use it for everything except Games and software which I can't get to work on Vista.
6. I have an Asus motherboard and sound worked first time (after Vista auto-downloaded 33 upgrades). Asus > Gigabyte methinks, although I made sure to plug my headphones into the Light Green socket.
7. My Windows Experience Index is 2.0 due to my crappy graphics card but with a decent upgrade it should go up to 5.6.
Friday 21st September 2007 (Welcome to Blue-Ice 2 weekend)
Yes, it's my turn now. Time to put this hardware together and see what Quad Cores can do. I don't have a decent Graphics card yet (I will have to use the PCI card from Sally's old computer for testing purposes) but I have not chosen an upgrade so it will have to do.
Pink Icing is running fine, even though it's not quite finished - I still have some more pink lights to put inside.
Tuesday 18th September
When I am next able to get anywhere near Pink Icing I notice that the lead is already in the Light Green socket, so I turn the speakers on and Boot into Windows Vista.
What is that four bar tune I can hear?"
Problem solved, Bryan. I know it's hard work for you to move all the things on Black Ice, but if you plug your speakers into the Light Green socket then I am sure you will have a tuneful Vista.
Oh ... the Hard drives for Blue Ice 2 arrived today. Ho-hum.
Monday 17th September 2007
Not another post about Pink Icing!!!
Yes, but the problem I am trying to solve affects Black-Ice as well, so that makes it O.K.
There is no sound in Vista on both Black Ice and Pink Icing.
Sound works great in XP but in Vista the speakers are silent.
I am really going to have to earn my I.T. stripes to solve this one.
First-up ... Get the drivers installed. I loaded the Vista sound drivers from the CD which was bundled with Sally's Gigabyte Motherboard. Everything went well and I was impressed to note that the drivers were 80Mb big.
Next, I turned the speakers on and ... nothing.
O.K. you probably need to plug the lead in the back again to get it working.
Unplug lead.
Plug in lead. Up pops a requester asking what it is that has been plugged in. I select 'Rear speaker'.
Test sound ... nothing.
Hmmm I will have to think about this.
Next, Sally tells me that there is no sound in Sims 2. While I have been thinking, she has gone back to Windows XP and loaded up Sims 2. Try pulling the plug out and putting it back in again. Up pops a requester asking what it is that has been plugged in. I select 'Line Out'.
Sims 2 bursts into song.
O.K. It works in XP but not in Vista.
Everything seems to be installed in Vista but why do I not get the option to choose "Line out", since that works in XP? I don't know.
My brain is working overtime on this conundrum and I decide to RTFM. (Read the Flipping Manual).
It does not mention the fact that you can plug the lead in any socket in the manual - each socket has a definite function.
*** Brainstorm ***
What if you actually plug the speaker lead into the socket that is meant for the speaker lead? According to the manual it is the Light Green coloured socket. I will have to wait for Sally to finish playing Sims 2 before I can try this out.
Sunday 16th September 2007
Don't worry, this will be the final post about Pink Icing on this Blog (Sheeh! Yeah! Right!).
I managed to get on Vista just long enough to update the Graphics Card Drivers which allowed me to obtain the Windows Experience Index for Pink Icing.
It is ... (pause for effect) -
4.8
Just to remind you, Black Ice was 5.0 and Blue Ice 3.5 all out of a possible 5.9. You never know, one day I may get to run 3D Mark 06 to benchmark Pink Icing.
I don't think sound is working properly in Vista. I would know for sure if The Sims 2 game was installed on Vista instead of XP.
Saturday 15th September 2007
I had to order a new Hard Drive today from Scan, as my old one in Blue-Ice is very nearly full. I have ordered 2 SATA 500Gb drives for a total of 1Tb. I will install them along with the other components I have and Blue-Ice 2 will be born. All I need now is a new Graphics Card. Nvidia are supposed to be bringing some new cards out in November. Can I wait that long?
Pink Icing news.
Vista is installed and updated. The wireless card worked straight away, without needing to faff around with drivers. I don't know how well anything else is working because Sally is playing Sims 2!!!!
Friday 14th September 2007
I am going to hijack this Blog to talk about Pink Icing (perhaps I started too soon), think of it as Sally getting her own back for all the times I hijacked her Blog.
I have managed to get Sally's PC internet working with a great piece of detective work.
I decided it was a Driver problem but I downloaded 3 sets of drivers from the Netgear site and none of them worked. "I know", I thought, "I only need to look at Sally's old PC Hard Drive to see which drivers she was using when the Netgear Wireless PCI card was working last week. As soon as I had a look I knew I had found the answer. I had downloaded a V3 set of drivers but had not tried them since I thought the Netgear was a V1 card. When I checked the old PC I saw it was using the V3 drivers. Problem solved. Sure enough, once installed on Pink Icing the V3 drivers detected the PCI Wireless card straight away and it was only a matter of moments before we were on the Tinternet.
Now to twist Sally's arm to allow me to install Vista.
Thursday 13th September 2007
Welcome to the Blue-Ice 2 Blog. The first thing to note is that I am not going to colour the words "Blue-Ice 2" in blue anymore.
The next thing to note is that there is not much news on Blue-Ice 2, as I need to buy a few more components before I can complete the build.
So I will talk about Pink Icing instead. The good news is that Several expansion packs for The Sims 2 Game have been installed and are fully working. However, Vista is a non-starter (perhaps this weekend) and there is a meaty Networking challenge to get my teeth into. To update Windows after building Pink-Icing, I connected it to my Broadband Router directly with a Network Cable. Now that Pink-Icing is in Sally's bedroom, the cable is not long enough so I need to install a Wireless PCI card that was in Sally's previous computer. Obviously, I know it is functioning because it worked last week. However, I plugged it into Pink Icing, installed the software and was greeted with the message "Netgear WG311 card is not plugged in". I, of course, disputed this claim, but my protestations fell on deaf ears. This often crops up in Computing e.g. "Please insert disk" when you have put the CD in the CD drive.
How to resolve it? I have tried the card in both PCI slots but still get the same message. I have searched around in the BIOS and set some IRQ's manually but to no avail.
I am not sure what I can do next. I could try another PCI peripheral to see if the slots are working or I could update the BIOS on the Motherboard. Perhaps the Netgear PCI has developed a fault after removing it from the old PC.
More research is obviously required.