Okay, so I am going to be building my new computer tomorrow, but in the meantime I hooked up the new 24" monitor to my old one, in extended desktop mode with the smaller monitor.. It's glorious, but I've run into a small issue.

When I run Star Wars: Battlefront II in full-screen mode on the main monitor, like most fullscreen games it takes control of the mouse cursor and hides it when you're in the main game for FPS style controls. However, it seems like Windows is still tracking the cursor in the background, because when the cursor goes outside of the virtual window, the game goes out of focus and minimizes itself.

Is there any way to prevent this short of deactivating the second monitor when I launch a fullscreen FPS? Battlefront II is apparently too primitive to have a windowed option.

edited 13th Mar '15 8:34:48 PM by Fighteer

Does anyone have experience installing Linux on a Chromebook? What is it like? How hard is it?

That's an issue with a lot of older games and some newer ones that don't keep the mouse locked to the window. I think there's a few programs that will constrain the mouse within a specified window but I've never looked into it so I can't point you at a specific software or say exactly how they work (or even that the definitely exist but I'm fairly sure I've heard about them somewhere).

Yeah I used two monitors for Unreal Tournament and UT 2004. T He best thing is to pick one and use that. It sucks.

There might be a hack to fix the two monitor issue, check the web.

I want to say there are tutorials online for doing the Linux on Chromebook thing. I know that when the first-gen Pixel came out, one of the Google developers wrote Linux drivers for some of the Chromebook's more unique features in order to support folks throwing Linux onto it.

My new build is done! Album link

I didn't fully appreciate just how much of a monster the HAF-912 case would be. It may not fit on the shelf on my corner desk that's designed for it. Hardware build time was about three hours, a chunk of which was due to my unfamiliarity with installing aftermarket coolers, and a bit more due to playing around with cable routing.

The HAF-912 includes a very roomy space behind the back panel to hide all those ugly cables, and I spent some brainstorming time figuring out how to best make it work. This was my first time doing any kind of serious routing and the result is by far the cleanest looking PC I've ever built.

Most of my core apps are installed and I'm busily copying all the stuff from my old PC to my new one.

edited 14th Mar '15 5:12:15 PM by Fighteer

Is it possible to use a wireless keyboard and mouse for the initial setup of a new PC? I ask because I think most of them need to install some software before they can be used, so I'm not sure if a computer can recognize them the first time it boots up.

I'd think so. My wireless mouse tends to work with anything I plug it into. Drivers are only needed to remap the extra buttons.

Thank you. Another question: I'm planning to use for my monitor one of those small HDT Vs that you can connect an HDMI cable to. I don't need to buy external speakers, do I?

HDMI carries audio, so no, you do not need external speakers. Mind you, external speakers might be superior to whatever your HDTV has.

OK, thank you.

You Tube now supports 360-degree videos, and it's awesome. Currently available on Chrome and the latest android Youtube app only, though.

Interesting, but very specific in use. We're built for having our attention focused ahead of us, quite literally.

Ugh. Double ugh. The Gigabyte GTX 660 OC that I had trouble with in my old computer is giving me the same trouble in the new one: graphics driver crashes in gaming. I want an nVidia card to replace it, and looking around I find two basic models available in the sub-$200 price range: the 750 Ti and the 940. How much of a boost is the latter over the former?

Check reviews, sometimes the "cheaper" card is simply a downgraded version of the high priced one.

OK, so the mouse I brought to use with my laptop has finally pissed me off enough to make me replace it.

Logitech makes good mice.

Fighteer, dunno about the 940 (can't even find much info on it), but so far my 750 Ti has been great, though I'll grant you that I don't often stress my computer enough to give much of an evaluation.

Beautiful map shows the mind-boggling extent of our underwater Internet cables

That is freakishly cool.

My GTX 750 Ti arrived yesterday. Installing it was a breeze and it was up and running in minutes. No crashes, flawless performance. I'd estimate it being about 20% less powerful than the GTX 660 OC, but obviously reliability is more important.

My one pet peeve is that there's only a single DVI port, so I have to go get an HDMI cable if I want to hook up dual monitors. Or I could get a second one and run it in SLI mode, but that's a bit extreme for my budget. The extra $150 to buy this thing already messed with it enough.

Anyone want a defective Gigabyte GTX 600 OC? Cheap!

Uses Mercator. Not Interested.

Upgraded my storage this week. Added two 4GB hard drives, partitioned such that I have 4TB of BTRFS RAID-0 storage and 2TB of BTRFS RAID-1 storage. Still need to move my home directory to the latter, but my SteamApps are now striped and TF 2 loads noticeably faster.

tl;dr: the big three reasons old games can't come back: Technology Marches On and leaves the game behind. DRM complicates things and some license holders are just stubborn and won't license their content eve if the game can be updated.

Wee, I think my motherboard or my processor are dying (to be fair, they're the oldest parts of my computer, and I've had this thing since 2007), so I guess I'm in the market for a new one.

This is the board I currently have, with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield processor. Anyone recommend a replacement board and processor?

EDIT: So I'm basically thinking this along with either an Intel i5 or i7 processor and some matching memory. I'm sort of assuming that all of my pre-existing hardware (HDD and SDD, video card, USB 3 hub, and maybe something else I'm forgetting) should transfer over or be otherwise disposable.

edited 26th Mar '15 9:25:06 PM by AFP

Who here owns a 10,000 RPM hard drive? I do, and for me, it's the best compromise between the speed of SSD's and the capacity of today's HDD's that I can buy, even if it's a bit pricey (but still cheaper than the average SSD with the same capacity).