Flock of Cats » Computers

Deal cards

sneaky — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:16:48 +0000

Here is some more C++, I am just posting it here to dump it somewhere to show it to someone with 1337 hacks. Please disregard if this sort of thing bores or confuses you. ^_^

#include #include #include #include

using namespace std;

struct cards { string face; string suit; int value; bool dealt; };


string face_choice[13] = {"A", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9", "10", "J", "Q", "K"};

int value_choice[13] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10};
cards deck[52];

cards your_card[52];
void initial_deck()

{

int  n(0);
for (n=0; n<52; n++)

{

deck[n].dealt=0;

if ((n/13) == 0)

{	deck[n].suit="Hearts";

deck[n].face=face_choice[n];

deck[n].value=value_choice[n];}
if ((n/13) == 1)

{	deck[n].suit="Diamonds";

deck[n].face=face_choice[n-13];

deck[n].value=value_choice[n-13];}
if ((n/13) == 2)

{	deck[n].suit="Clubs";

deck[n].face=face_choice[n-26];

deck[n].value=value_choice[n-26];}

if ((n/13) == 3)

{	deck[n].suit="Spades";

deck[n].face=face_choice[n-39];

deck[n].value=value_choice[n-39];}

}

}
void deal (int d_num)

{

int n (0);
srand((unsigned)time(0));

int random_integer(0);

int lowest=0, highest=51;

int range=(highest-lowest)+1;
cout << "Here are your card(s): " <

for ( n=0; n < d_num; n++)

{ random_integer = lowest+int(range*rand()/(RAND_MAX + 1.0));
if (deck[random_integer].dealt != 1)

{your_card[n]=deck[random_integer];

cout<< endl << your_card[n].face << " of " <<  your_card[n].suit << " which is worth " <<  your_card[n].value;

deck[random_integer].dealt=1;}
} 
}
int main ()

{
int deal_number;
initial_deck();
cout << "How many cards do you want? (0-52)" << endl; cin >> deal_number;
if ((deal_number > 52) || (deal_number < 0)){

cout << "Sorry, there aren't that many cards in the deck!" << endl;}

else if (deal_number == 0)

cout << "That's cool, I didn't want to give you cards anyway!" << endl;

else

deal(deal_number);
return 0;

}

Staring at a Computer All Day

Yulzopolis — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:03:45 +0000

It is hard to sit at work looking at a monitor all day. And in some
ways it is harder when I have less work to do. When I’m being
productive, I look at pieces of paper, make phone calls, type in MS
Word, and go back and forth to the printer. On days like today when I
have nothing to do, I just sit here and read the news and check my
email. It’s mind numbing and makes my eyes hurt. But what else can I
do? I can only talk to coworkers for so long before attracting
unwanted attention. And I can only go walk around outside for a few
minutes before my absence becomes conspicuous.

Oh! The trials and tribulations of an office worker!

Overclocking my i7 920 on an evga x58 SLI motherboard

sneaky — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:22:09 +0000

For the last few days, I’ve been playing with overclocking my computer. Now, I think I’ve found stable settings that will boost my CPU from the stock speed of 2.67 GHz to 3.84 GHz. These settings were stable for 7 hours of overnight Prime95 testing, so they are looking pretty good.

(Prime95 is a program that stresses the CPU by performing prime number calculations. This runs the CPU at 100% and heats it up. The program compares the computer’s calculations against known answers in order to check for errors).

For my computer at stock speeds, idle temps usually are about 38-42 C, and under a full load, the temps go up to around 65-70.

Overclocked, I get temperatures of 43-46 C idle and 77-81 C under load. These temperatures are considered safe for my chip and motherboard, so assuming everything stays stable, these will probably be my final settings. Though I might try to lower some of the voltages in the bios to see if I can cool it down a little, while maintaining stability.

For geeks curious about the settings, at stock speeds my computer has a clock speed of 133 MHz and a multiplier of 20. Thus, 133×20=2.67 GHz. The chip also has “Turbo mode”. The multiplier for the chip is capped at 20x, but turbo mode will boost it to 21x.

Now I have my computer set to 183×20, with turbo mode enabled. This results in a speed of 183×21= 3.84 GHz.

In the next few days, I’ll run some benchmarks to see if this results in a noticeable improvements in the computers performance.

Desk Upgrade

sneaky — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 08:37:14 +0000

Today I upgraded my desk…now it has a cup holder!

This is to protect my new computer from my cat. The new computer is going to sit on the floor to the right side of the desk and the top of the case has a fan. This could be very dangerous since my cat has a habit of knocking over cups full of liquid. If he knocked over a drink on the right side of my desk, it could easily spill into the fan grating and ruin my whole system.

At first I thought I’d simply refrain from putting beverages on my desk, but that isn’t realistic; there’s no way I could stick with it. Setting cups on the left side of the desk away from the computer could work, but it is still a little risky. If I forget once, it could be disaster.

So I bought a cup holder with a sticky bottom for use in cars, and stuck it on my desk. This should be sturdy enough to keep the cat from spilling stuff. As an added benefit, it will aways be there reminding me of the proper place to put my beverages.

Benchmarking the Old Computer

sneaky — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:31:27 +0000

Tonight, I decided to run some benchmarks on my old computer so that I can compare the new one once I get it built. Here are my old computer’s stats:

AMD Athlon64 3000+ (Winchester, 90 nm, 1800 MHz, 512 KB L2 cache)
Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard (Rev. 1, American Megatrends 1018.001 BIOS)
2×1 GB Dual Channel OCZ Platinum DDR3200 RAM
Radeon x850 AGP graphics card
75 GB system drive / 500 GB storage drive, SATA

I ran tests of file compression, system boot time, image processing, Firefox load time, mp3 ripping, file copying, and 3Dmark05. Here are the results:

File Compression – Using 7-Zip, I created an archive of a 314 MB file. This took 5 min 40 s at an average rate of about 900 KB/s.

System Boot Time – The time it took from powering up to the windows loading screen was 39 s. From there, it took 29 s for Windows to load to the user selection screen. After logging it, it took 56 s for all the startup programs and processes to run. The grand total: 2 min 4 s.

Image Processing – To test image processing, I used the Gimp to do a Gaussian blur on a 1920×1200, 172 KB JPEG image. I then scaled the original image 400% and ran the Gaussian blur filter again. I then made a copy of the enlarged image and ran the Gaussian blur filter on the two large images simultaneously.

Gaussian Blur (1920×1000): 7 s
Scale 400%: 33 s
Gaussian Blur (7680×4800): 45 s
Gaussian Blur x 2 (7680×4800) 1 min 30 s

Interestingly, using the filter on two images simultaneously resulted in an exact doubling of the processing time. The CPU was at 100% the whole time, so clearly this is a CPU-limited function. I’ll be interested to see what the i7 chip will do for this test.

Firefox Load Time – After rebooting, Firefox took 13 s to load for the first time following a reboot.

MP3 Ripping – Ripping an audio CD (Uta Baka by Ken Harai, Disk 1) took 4 m 10 s using my DVD-ROM drive and 4 m 50 s using my DVD burner. Next, I ripped the CD using the DVD-ROM drive while playing “Portal” at the same time. This bumped the time up to 7 m 40 s.

File Copying – Copying 2.54 GB of Battlestar Galactica Season 2 from my storage drive to my system drive took 2 m 10 s. Then, when I made copies from the system drive to the system drive, it took 3 m 20 s.

3Dmark05 Lastly, I ran the free version of 3Dmark05. This gave me a 3Dmark05 score of 4474 and a CPU score of 1001.

Once I get the new computer up and running, I’ll run these tests again using the new rig and compare the results. Since my new processor has multiple cores, I’m interested in seeing the results of the the Portal/mp3 test and the 2x image processing test. Will the mp3’s rip just as fast as if I wasn’t playing portal? Will I be able to process the two images in roughly the same time as one? Copying files within the system drive should speed up since I’m getting a VelociRaptor drive, though I’m curious if there will be any improvement copying from the storage drive to the system drive (if the speed of my 500 GB drive is the limiting factor, the improvement may be small).

**Update:

Portal FPS

Normal Settings (default, 1920×1200)
Min: 37
Max: 189
Avg: 113
High Settings (AA: 4x, AF:4x, most other settings maxed, 1920×1200)
Min: 37
Max: 157
Avg: 102.66

This probably isn’t the best test since I only tested the very beginning of the game, and Portal isn’t the most taxing game on a system. Also, if I set the AA/AF above 4x, the game crashed and wouldn’t load when I restarted. Although the results for the high settings listed above aren’t bad, at those settings, my system was totally incapable of rendering portals. Possibly a major problem for a game called “Portal”. The fps dropped to 1 whenever a portal came onto the screen.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll test another game. In the comments, Naft recommended F.E.A.R.

New Computer

sneaky — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 06:49:07 +0000

I just bought parts to build a new computer system. I spent way too much money on it, but I think it should be pretty nice. Also, the system should have a lot of room for upgrades in the future.

The system has the following parts:

Intel i7 920 2.66 GHz Processor I was thinking about going with a Quad core processor since I could save money on the CPU, motherboard, and RAM, but I decided to splurge on the new architecture since it is supposed to perform well and I’ll be able to upgrade the CPU later without having to get a new motherboard. Also, this CPU apparently can do a decent overclock under air cooling – probably up to 3.5-3.8 GHz without much trouble.

Cooler Master HAF 932 Case I probably could have saved money on the case, but I thought this one looked cool. It should give good air flow to keep the components cool.

Scythe Mugen 2 Cooler Most components in Japan are super expensive, but this looks like a nice CPU cooler that was cheaper than what I could get in America. Right now, the selection isn’t great for LGA 1366 socket coolers, but maybe I got lucky ordering in Japan for this one. And I hope it fits in my system.

Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB Hard Drive I’m gonna move a 500 GB drive from my old computer for storage and a 75 GB drive to use for Ubuntu, so I thought I’d buy this fast drive for my windows drive.

BFG GTX 260 MaxCore OC2 Only one video card for now. This one comes with a factory overclock (630 MHz vs. 576 MHz for the reference design). Hopefully, I can bump it up a little more.

Samsung 2443BW 24 inch LCD Monitor Got this from Amazon.co.jp where it was only $300 bucks and shipped over night for like 2 dollars. Seems like a good deal for a pretty big monitor.

Corsair 1000HX Power Supply I probably spent too much on the power supply, but it’ll be good for future upgrades. If I want, I could add 2 more video cards to run in Tri-SLI. Also, everywhere I read said not to buy an off-brand power supply.

6 GB (3×2 GB) Patriot Viper 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM Hopefully this is more RAM than I’ll ever need. I also got the 64-bit version of Windows Vista so that the system can recognize more than 4 GB of memory. But if I ever want more RAM when the prices go down, my motherboard has 3 more slots where I could put in another 6 GB. I got 1600 MHz instead of 1333 MHz to give more head room for overclocking.

EVGA x58 SLI Motherboard This can accomodate up to 3 graphics cards and 12 GB of RAM and can handle overclocking. Of course it has networking, sound, USB onboard.

LG Blu-ray Burner Not sure if I’ll need a blu-ray burner, but I thought it would be nice to have. And since I’ll have an HD monitor, I thought it would be good to be able to play HD media.

The total for the system was about $2100 plus $300 for the monitor and $170 for Vista 64. And I’ll probably have to pay about $100 for my brother to ship all the stuff to me from America. Hopefully I can start putting this badboy together in a couple weeks.