Developers, developers, developers, developers

[Tsutarja]

I was able to find the Start Menu folder to create icons from thank gosh, but I honestly don't have a problem at all with Windows 8. The new start menu doesn't really bother me, but particularly because I don't really use it.

 

[Legendary Silke]

I think I'll hold off on upgrading the version of Windows installed on my laptop until a new Internet Explorer version stops being compatible with Windows 7.

 

[Puddle]

I think I'll hold off on upgrading the version of Windows installed on my laptop until a new Internet Explorer version stops being compatible with Windows 7.

Internet Explorer?
Boy you crazy!

 

[Tsutarja]

Internet Explorer?
Boy you crazy!

Have you ever even tried IE 11 yet? Internet Explorer is NOT the same browser it was when it was still version 8. IE has improved significantly since version 9.

 

[Legendary Silke]

I've noticed that Internet Explorer performs pretty well when it comes to these situations:

• Unbalanced CPU/GPU combination with a skew towards the GPU - think Ultrabook-grade CPUs and Intel HD Graphics, for example.
• High PPI displays, used in conjunction with DPI scaling in Windows.
• Anything involving touchscreens on Windows

Funny as heck, I expect stability when it comes to almost everything. Rapid release cycles don't make me feel right, to be honest. 6-8 weeks per major version upgrade that doesn't mean too much is a bit too much for me.

I actually like how they're taking things in a more structured manner, to be honest. I want to have a good amount of advance notice with regard to pretty much everything, even though I'm not a business IT tech right now.

 

[Tsutarja]

Note to self: don't play games at 1920x1080 on this laptop or else Windows will create a "running too low on memory" message after I exit the game :P

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

Note to self: don't play games at 1920x1080 on this laptop or else Windows will create a "running too low on memory" message after I exit the game :P

Why you're running 1080p graphics on a CPU that's only 200 MHz faster than my processor is beyond me. Is it a game invented after the loom?

 

[Legendary Silke]

Note to self: don't play games at 1920x1080 on this laptop or else Windows will create a "running too low on memory" message after I exit the game :P

Heh? Some games have virtual memory management issues in Windows 8.x.

If anything, try running graphics-intensive games at 1280x720 or 1366x768, if the former is not an option (perhaps due to a minimum requirement of 768 vertical pixels). Your laptop's Intel HD Graphics 4xxx will thank you for that. (That chip is mostly designed for low/medium setting gaming at HD resolutions, not full HD.)

Why you're running 1080p graphics on a CPU that's only 200 MHz faster than my processor is beyond me. Is it a game invented after the loom?

Clock speed is not everything. It's how much you can do with a given processor in a given period of time that's important. The Intel Core I-series processors are scary efficient and just gets better with each new generation. (Gaming Ultrabooks, anyone?)

Also, most games tend to want more GPU power these days.

 

[Tsutarja]

Yeah, the game was set automatically to 1280x720.. it was Portal 2 I was playing if you guys were curious :P

 

[Cordelia]

I need to play Portal 2 ;; if your PC can handle it I know mine can. Hell, mine plays L4D2 no problem either.

 

[Tsutarja]

I'm gonna put TF2 onto my laptop tonight probably.. I downloaded Portal 2 in literally half an hour yesterday. I love my internet <3

 

[Legendary Silke]

I still wonder whether my laptop can run Saints Row 4 well. Seeing as my laptop does pretty OK at medium settings at 720p (30-60 FPS) for Saints Row 3, and NotebookCheck.net says that even a "puny" HD Graphics 4000 should be OK for 30 FPS. Hmm...

There aren't any guarantees, but it's a good indicator. The GeForce GT 630 M probably will have more consistent frame times compared to the Intel chip, in addition to some extra frames per second...

 

[Tsutarja]

Hmm, does anyone have a suggestion on what percentage I should plug in my laptop battery at to charge, and which percentage to discharge it at? I really want to have my laptop on battery power as much as possible, especially after what happened with my previous laptop, which I made the mistake of keeping it plugged in a lot early in its life.

 

[Cordelia]

Hmm, does anyone have a suggestion on what percentage I should plug in my laptop battery at to charge, and which percentage to discharge it at? I really want to have my laptop on battery power as much as possible, especially after what happened with my previous laptop, which I made the mistake of keeping it plugged in a lot early in its life.

Let it get down to under 5%, charge it to full, rinse, repeat.

 

[Legendary Silke]

Recharging at 50% all the way to full is a great way to maximize your battery's longevity.

However, don't be afraid to use the battery like a real battery - it's perfectly OK to run it down or recharge when you have barely used the battery.

 

[Tsutarja]

What the ♥♥♥♥? My laptop just failed to login a few minutes ago from this error:

The Group Policy Services failed the sign-in.
The Universal Unique Identifier Type (UUID) is not supporter.

It fixed itself after a hard reboot. Weird.

 

[Legendary Silke]

Probably a transient error. If you don't see it again in the near future, pretend it never happened.

On another topic, I think I accidentally dented my laptop's top lid and base, and now the base seems to be... permanently unsealed. I probably should start moving to single-piece laptops, even though they will be more difficult to be serviced without professional help.

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

I love playing old school games on my laptop, meaning I don't really need a high-end laptop for that stuff. I think the newest I've gotten for both PC and online games would be either SimCity 4 or Old School RuneScape. and the oldest I've gotten is Raptor: Call of the Shadows and SimFarm for DOS. All those games kick ass <3

 

[donavannj]

Sim City 4 still needs enough processing power on a single core to run smoothly, though. It will crash to desktop every time it starts to use more than one core. Running it on a multi-core/multi-CPU system, it's a matter of when it'll crash, not if it'll crash.

I'm curious as to what you're running now and if you've chosen to limit the game to a single core.

I've actually had a game crash my entire system (actually my current system) once because there was more memory available to the system than the game could actually recognize. The game was barely even 10 years old at the time, too, so it was presumably a 32-bit game, so emulation should have generally played nice!

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

Sim City 4 still needs enough processing power on a single core to run smoothly, though. It will crash to desktop every time it starts to use more than one core. Running it on a multi-core/multi-CPU system, it's a matter of when it'll crash, not if it'll crash.

I'm curious as to what you're running now and if you've chosen to limit the game to a single core.

I've actually had a game crash my entire system (actually my current system) once because there was more memory available to the system than the game could actually recognize. The game was barely even 10 years old at the time, too, so it was presumably a 32-bit game, so emulation should have generally played nice!

Is it on single-core or multi-core mode by default? I haven't touched any settings and play it on a dual-core 1.4 GHz E-series AMD processor; it's only crashed once on me, and that only happened when the lag got so big from playing a large city at Cheetah speed that it just quit.