April News

[scott155]

how would you describe the current situation now that the terrorists finally given you their demands?

Still getting snipers in position, we need to have a clear shot, it's no good if we miss.

At this point I can't tell if that's a metaphor or not.

[K0Z]

At this point I can't tell if that's a metaphor or not.

 

DOOM GUY'S MIND: EPISODE 8

Filmed on location at the offices of Machinima.

[HLPrincess]

OMG I've just read this sniper thing.

 

Sniper guns are my favourite in games, just next to shotguns

 

Just a little bit more PATIENCE

 

 

[kasbi15]

Hello Mr.Ross why don't you do a vlog or a game commentary,somthing that don't need alot off work and time just until your problem is resolved to gain some new fans .because i find you a realy entertaining person.

[scott155]

More voice-acting sample reels!

[Ross Scott]

Hello Mr.Ross why don't you do a vlog or a game commentary,somthing that don't need alot off work and time just until your problem is resolved to gain some new fans .because i find you a realy entertaining person.

I really was considering something like that, though my system is less than ideal for capturing without stutter (all the Half-Life stuff is exported frame-by-frame). I'd have to buy a SSD to be comfortable doing that, and right now I'm penny pinching everywhere I can. Still, if somebody has ideas for something you'd like to see that could be done on a daily basis or multiple times a week, I can consider it.

[BTGBullseye]

Well, you shouldn't really need an SSD... Most decent video capture solutions should be putting it into RAM before writing to the HDD... Just getting a decent selection of high speed RAM in the 16-32GB range should remove 90% of stutter problems. (especially since RAM is about 1000x faster than an SSD, and is usually not very expensive)

[tnt90]

Did a quick search on both items mentioned. Looking at $150-250 or so it seems. While I can't afford to out right buy one of those and send it your way, I can give another $50 in donation.

[Ross Scott]

Well, you shouldn't really need an SSD... Most decent video capture solutions should be putting it into RAM before writing to the HDD... Just getting a decent selection of high speed RAM in the 16-32GB range should remove 90% of stutter problems. (especially since RAM is about 1000x faster than an SSD, and is usually not very expensive)

Well first off, RAM isn't nearly 1000x faster to SSDs in real-world tests, take a look:

 

More RAM would reduce the number of dropped frames via a larger cache, but it wouldn't eliminate it. Hard drives really aren't an ideal solution for capturing. If you're to capture at 1920x1080 at 30fps uncompressed, that's about 178MB/S, more than what a lot of hard drives can handle. You can split the difference with a RAID 0 or dxtory to distribute it across drives, but they just can't handle those speeds alone. Second, that's if everything is working flawlessly. The dropped frames come from when the hard drive is stuttering from random data access, for which hard drives are pathetic compared to SSDs. You have to look at where the slowest points in the chain are, and that's the hard drive.

 

EDIT:

I should mention that I have kind of a perfectionist attitude towards recording video footage, since I really hate having dropped frames in playback. You can still have video at lower resolutions or with some tolerance for dropped frames with just a hard drive.

 

Did a quick search on both items mentioned. Looking at $150-250 or so it seems. While I can't afford to out right buy one of those and send it your way, I can give another $50 in donation.

I just got a notification, thanks a bunch.

[BTGBullseye]

What speed was the RAM that they tested? (and the SSD, since the newer SSDs do about double that write speed) I get 10749MB/s uncached read (the slowest read speeds) and 8640MB/s write on the 8GB of PC3-12800 RAM in my laptop, and RAM for desktops goes much higher... Up to 20GB/s uncached read, and 14GB/s write. (AMD for some reason runs at below half that speed... Must have something to do with their processors/motherboards)

 

Though I disagree about the RAM itself, I do agree that SSDs are best for high-speed high-rez video capture/editing/etc... (and being a perfectionist myself, I understand the desire to have no dropped frames)

 

[EDIT] I just looked up some excellent (if small) SSDs on Newegg... $80 for a 60GB SSD, and $110 for a 128GB (a little faster too) SSD.

Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 60GB

Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120GB

 

[EDIT2] I also hear that SSHDs (Solid State Hybrid Drives) have very close to SSD performance for stuff like videos, but they don't compromise your total storage space. (they have 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB versions right now)

SSHD Drives from Newegg

[\\Vincent Vega]

I haven't been around for a long time but this topic caught my attention for a few reasons:

 

I have a Maxtor Diamondmax 10 250GB HDD which is an IDE (PATA) drive.

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/maxtor/en_us/documentation/quick_specs/dm10_ata_quickspecs.pdf

 

I use this drive to record too with fraps and hypercam in 1080p and I get smooth recording @30fps in both programs

 

If you are recording 1080p I do recommend a Quad Core CPU, yes recording only uses 2 threads but this does allow the game or program to run off the other threads resulting in no or much less performance loss.

 

SSD's are incredibly overrated in my opinion and are way overpriced.

A Western Digital Velociraptor with 10,000rpm is a better choice

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236243

1TB for $230 right now try and beat that with a SSD.

 

If you really need the bandwidth and top of the line speed go with a PCIE SSD

Reports of 1000+ mb/s write speeds

Still I think it is a waste of money unless your filthy rich.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227743

 

Other things to consider:

Don't record to the same drive your Operating System, Page File, or Game is running off of.

 

I run 4 HDD's

1 for my OS (Crucial m4 128gb)

1 for my games (Western Digital Velociraptor 1TB)

1 for junk and temp stuff (my maxtor drive which I use for recording)

1 for media entertainment like movies, tv, music, etc. (portable USB Western Digital 500GB)

 

System:

X38 Asus p5e3 deluxe motherboard

Core 2 Quad Q9550-E0 @3.75ghz

4x2 (8GB) Crucial Ballistx Tactical Ram DDR3 7-7-7-24 @1408mhz

Sound Blaster X-fi Titanium HD

GTX 480 SLI

[Ross Scott]

While I could discuss this in more depth, I think the thread is getting sidetracked, I'm not capturing anything anyway unless I get an idea of what people would want to see uploaded on a daily basis or else multiple times a week

[kasbi15]

Well it depends what is that you're comfortable with,and what is that you're good at.

for what i know, you make a good and funny smartass comments parodying and pointing things out,so commenting or narrating can be a start.

Commeting games,well i would Watch that,its not original but people can gain a good audience whit it.I saw some retarded people with no talent in whatsoever do it, and they have like 50.000 veiws per video.But if you don't play different games on daily basis that mit not be the thing.

what else :/

reveiw stuff,news commentator,vloging,taking about random stuff, pointing fails in movies or video games,teaching people ross scott's philosophy,interviewing,over recording voice on movies "parodying",or just not give the f*ck and stare at the wabcam like Magibon .i don't konw

well i will try to come up whit something more.

[tnt90]

Ideas... hmmm.

 

Maybe play some games that have flagrant abuses of physics as Gordon Freeman. Singularity might be good, a bioshock title, ... others. Though as a physicist (in-training) I'm not sure how well I could point out all the many many abuses myself. In any case, I would put forth as a supposition that you're a lot more entertaining than some of the other 'lets play' commentators with millions upon millions of subs and would do well in any game. If you can make the endless corridors of HL entertaining to watch, I don't think there is a limit.

[Descriptor]

I would watch all these things. At the same time, if possible.

 

And tnt90, do you mean it would basically be a let's play where Freeman is the person playing the game (which is to say, not actually living it, but just commenting on it as a game)? Because that would be pretty humorous, I think.

[tnt90]

That's what I had in mind. I thought as much as well. Well as long as Machinima can't lay claim to the rights to Ross Scott's portrayal of Gordon Freeman, which, as ridiculous as it sounds is sadly possible in our world.

[scott155]

I want to see Ross Scott do a (preferably blind) Let's Play of Limbo. But only if he can't to any of his other, undoubtedly much better ideas.

[BTGBullseye]

Could do some riff trax... I'd watch them.

[K0Z]

We've got much more control than money. You can't get everything. We live in a society where money is what people want, so they can't get the control. We chose. Control is freedom. People say we're control freaks, but control is controlling your destiny without controlling other people. We're not trying to manipulate other people, just controlling what we do ourselves. Controlling what we do is being free. People should stop thinking that an artist that controls what he does is a bad thing. A lot of artists today are just victims, not having control, and they're not free. And that's pathetic. If you start being dependent on money, then money has to reach a point to fit your expenses.

I imagine that this is what you're sort of shooting for here Ross.

[JudasPhysicist]

April is ending and there is no Freeman on the horizon