The BEEBSTER 8887 Review!! - Page 5

Well, the max settings will depend on what you're doing. In my case, I always serve and I always like to have tons of bots, lol. I put all of the settings to max and I use a resolution os 800x600x32 because that's exactly half of UXGA and I prefer it now that I've looked at that vs 1024x768. But, you can put it at 1024x768 and still squeeze by even if you have lotsa bots on as a server. If you're not the server, you shouldn't have any trouble with it PERIOD, lol. I even run it with the Desert Combat mod (HIGHLY recommended :-)) and that hasn't had any optimization passes. It's still an alpha. Most computers die trying to serve with that mod with lots of bots, but I have no trouble.

I ran a dvd battery benchmark with the usual settings I use... I got about 1:40 on max battery, which leads me to believe that there's some settings I'm missing that makes the laptop underclock. Sandra says the CPU is running at full speed, battery or not, max battery setting or otherwise. I'm going to check the bios and see if maybe when I flashed the bios it didn't change some setting. I'll report back on my findings, as always.

Some observations after more time with this sweet machine.

The keyboard does get warmer than before now that HT is active. I keep the screen open more often now to allow heat to dissipate. It has not caused any problems whatsoever, though. It's actually comfortable in my opinion, since typing is generally bad for blood circulation and your hands get cold. The keyboard has been great for typing. The letter "M" lost a lil paint, lol... Kinda funny actually. You can always tell if I have been using the keyboard a lot when the M is missing a lil part of it's leg. It has happened to every keyboard I've used in the past. I don't know why... it must be because of how I type or something. I rub my finger on the M or something like that. Oh well, it's not a problem. If it takes more off or if other letters start disappearing, then I'll be worried, lol.

I definitely love this screen, and so does anyone else who sees it. I pointing out the ghosting effects that happen on the desktop and my friend said that it happens on his trinitron monitor sometimes (a CRT, oddly enough). It's something that only happens in high brightness with light colors. He loved the screen, though. He is one of the types of guys that hates LCDs for gaming and such, but he said he'd definitely take this one. It is huge and vibrant, no doubt.

With HT, I am able to rip a dvd while browsing the internet and playing music... It's kinda funny. I can't wait til more programs start to come out that take advantage of HT, because at this point the ripper program shows 50% CPU usage max, which means it's only using part of the processor (since it's not HT optimized). Oh well, it still finishes in great time (usually in about the time it would take to watch the movie... and I do excellent quality at NTSC resolution... lol, talk about wowness).

The laptop is quite sturdy. I take it to class frequently now and take notes on it. It catches attention from sheer size, lol. It's not too hard to take around, either. I take it around on Wednesday, which is my heck day. I am gone at 11 and I don't come back til 6, so I carry it between classes all day. I also take it around on Mondays and Fridays... It has held up well to being stuffed in my backpack and swung over my back repeatedly and set down on the ground, etc. No signs of wear and tear. It performs like a dream, no less.

I have been making more and more use of this laptop as a cd player. The functionality of being able to use it while the laptop itself is turned off is excellent. I can use the remote and listen to my music without leaving the computer on. I can also use the audiodj buttons while the laptop is on. They interface seamlessly with Windows Media Player. I wish it worked with the program that comes with the laptop for the soundcard, lol, but that's alright, I doubt many people will use that program anyway. Also, you can use the TV tuner software to play cds and thus use the remote control for it while the laptop is on as well. I just plug in external speakers for some bass and I listen happily.

The TV tuner software is sweet as well... I use it to record some VHS movies and make them DivX avi files. Definitely beneficial to have your VHS movies on cd for trips and the like. Especially in an age where VHS is starting to be less and less popular. I don't know about anyone else, but my VCRs at home are all going caput. I, for one, am anxious to get all of my VHS stuff digitized so I can watch it in the future. Just plug a VCR into the coax, record the movie or whatever it is using the tuner software, and then use a converter to change the mpeg to divx (or to SVCD if you want to watch it on a DVD player). Functionality galore.

Loving it :-)

Van, do you have a Sager yet? What computer are you using that has the M problem? My desktops at home both got it shortly after I used them for a lil while. M must be the most used letter or something. (Wierd... for a gamer I would have thought W would be... cuz of WASD for directional settings).

I did check the clock speed of the graphics card. It's not that. In any case, that choppiness is now gone. Apparently the HT bios alleviated it.

Why should the E key technically go first?

Anyways, just like to report that this beast is handling everything well. I don't really know what else to say about it, lol, it's just a great system. I couldn't ask for a better computer. Definitely just had fun playing Age of Mythology for a while... Definitely fun. Anyone have any questions or requests.

Yeah I guess it would make sense that it'd be one of the vowels. Oh well. Sorry to put it like this, lol, but no more posts about the keyboard keys in this thread... Makes it longer than necessary :-) Thanks everyone!

I used the 8887 in the car on battery power for a while. Played some lil arcade games to make a half an hour car trip go by really quickly. I had the laptop in my lap... It was fine for that trip, but I would venture that the heat level could get pretty uncomfortable after that point. This only happens where the processor and heatsync are on the right side of the system. If I had something to put the system on that would raise that part away from my skin, it would be fine. The weight was no problem (again, for the half an hour). Overall, a great experience.

After having dx9 for some time... I think I'm going to go back to dx8 until a game comes up and says "You MUST have dx9 installed"... I've had many games not liking dx9 for some reason. I think what I'll do is do an upgrade install of the Windows Longhorn beta (my friend is a beta tester for Microsoft :-) sweetness, HT here we come). After playing with that for a day, I'm going to do a complete format and reinstall of XP Pro and just do dx8 with the default 8887 drivers. I get the best performance out of that combo for dx8 apps, and that's all that I use now. The only thing is that I won't be able to run 3dmark2k3, lol, but I couldn't care less about that. I'm beginning to be weary of benchmarks...

I'm going to do this stuff starting on Friday hopefully. This weekend is loaded with homework, as always, but I will be here at school in the good old dorm and so I can get network access. I will report on Windows Longhorn and any HT effects I see in there (it is reportedly optimized for HT... it's just XP with a kick). Then I'll go back to dx8. If anyone has any recommendations/suggestions/questions, post up or PM/email me!

Well, I tried Longhorn... Umm, lol, I was kinda dumb with something, though. In order to install the Windows XP drivers, I was supposed to run those driver install programs in compatability mode for XP... I didn't do that, and so the entire OS was non-functional. It looked nice, though, lol, and it should be pretty nice I guess. I didn't really notice much of a HT difference between it and XP... I expect that it will be up to the program makers to make their programs HT optimized.

I did a complete format and reinstall of XP, and it's running beautifully (as expected). I am glad I kept dx8... I'm not encountering some of the problems I encountered in games when I had dx9. I also like the default drivers that come with the 8887... I will stick with them until dx9 is a bit more "necessary" and then I'll go to the latest s-seven.net drivers (unless there's something better).

Yeah, I realize that... :-) It was mainly to see if there was any difference in HT utilization. I am loving HT more and more, though. Yesterday, I ran a dedicated server for battlefield and had 8 people join up plus computers and I also played... I played on the 8887 while it was a dedicated server, and I had no choppiness and all of the other guys that played reported that it ran better when I served than when my friend used his second desktop as a dedicated server, lol. His second desktop is pretty nice, too... 1.7Ghz, 768ddr, etc. I also decided to turn off my page file completely, because windows likes to use it more often than not and until I have a 7200 rpm hard drive (even then it'll be slow), it's not something I like. However, XP definitely still shows use of the page file that doesn't exist, lol, so that's gimp. We'll see how it works, though.