PC Tech Thread

Dough Spectrum so long as bought retail rather than directly.

@chrisbmx116 don't @ me.

100% not. Never. Stop.

I have LG 5k and 4k, 4k 144hz LGs on sale atm for very good prices, would recommend @Velocio

that's a good test... maybe I really should be trying to put a 32" on this desk

Dough Spectrum

Why not? Shit panel? Not bright enough? Fake 10-bit?

Ponzi scheme. 100%.

Which is why I said buy from retail stock not direct. You schmuck.

Still firmware issue and zero support.

You bought new headphones yet or just gassing?

You've got a firmware issue and provide zero support.

I’ll sort your firmware over a beer if you keep on with that.

Well I decided what I wanted was this https://uk.redmagic.gg/pages/redmagic-4k-gaming-monitor or this https://innocn.com/products/innocn-27-4k-mini-led-monitor-27m2v

But neither is available at the moment, and lots of 4k 27" reviews do speak of 32" being the sweet spot, so instead I've gone for this https://www.samsung.com/uk/monitors/gaming/odyssey-neo-g8-g85nb-32-inch-240hz-1ms-curved-uhd-4k-ls32bg850npxxu/

32" is going to be hard to squeeze onto my desk, so I'll have to also buy an additional Elgato Multimount to move the camera mount back a little so the 32" monitor can sit a little further back on my desk... so whilst I'm ordering from Elgato I'll get the new Stream Deck whilst I'm there.

What do you use the stream deck for? To toggle av or the stuff on the screen if you're doing a presentation?

Mostly lighting, which I adjust throughout the day depending on time of day and weather conditions.

I have 2 Elgato Key Lights, each about 20' offset to either side and slightly above the camera, and I set brightness and colour temp according to how much natural light is coming into the room and the temp of that.

That's 80% of my use of it... and just having it there and so trivial to adjust when I've already joined a meeting is bliss. I adjust lighting to ensure I look healthy (colour temp of home lighting is a huge part of whether you look like a waxwork or not), alert, alive, and to enhance the image the camera is picking up.

I would buy the Stream Deck again, just to control lights.

Additionally though, I use OBS and also use the Stream Deck to change the scenes, i.e. to switch camera or to place my camera picture-in-picture with a presentation rather than relying on Meet or Zoom to do this (makes for better recordings of the meetings or is how I make webinar recordings).

Finally... and used much less (because once it's roughly right it's always roughly right), I adjust the volume of different devices within Windows depending on source and output... meaning I can leave music playing at a lower volume whilst I'm in meetings and ensure that I can still hear people in the meeting just fine, and even if the volume of the music track changes I can prevent it being too loud instantly and without even appearing to be distracted in the meeting.

Mostly the Stream Deck means I'm more present in meetings, despite paying a little attention to this complex setup and the environment, or choreographed presentations. It's tactile, so you don't have to look at what you're doing to adjust it... whereas all of this stuff is controllable within the OS by going through menus and clicking things... but that would distract.

BTW... this stuff, I believe it's paid for itself (multiple times over). I probably dropped about £10k on my AV setup for work from home including the mic, audio equipment, lighting, desk, camera, lens, and controls... not including the beast of a computer itself. When I was with a customer last week, who pay us high millions per year, they even stated that they appreciate deeply the ability for me to come on the call, representing this one vendor, and the effectiveness of communication to bring a messy situation under control. Additionally I did all of this as I believe that transparent communication is the heart of a manager <> report relationship and builds trust, so I think it makes me more effective. My salary and package in the 3y since I went all in on this has greatly outpaced growth in salary measured at any other time in my career... during a time when the industry isn't growing salaries much. I do think I'm good at my job, but not to the extent of the what I've achieved... and honestly, I think that a home AV studio is to the work from home generation, as to what a wardrobe of tailored suits was to the late 1980s... it's status, it communicates, it's effective, and the psychology of it is so in the favour of those doing it that I think people are failing to invest in themselves if they aren't using it to their advantage... I want to physically shake the sales people and tell them to up their AV game... it's an advantage that is huge.

I would buy the Stream Deck again, just to control lights.

yeah, the elgato control centre plugin for stream deck is very good.

my temp setup is inside the wardrobe until I can build my office out in the garden so I'm just using the one key light for the time being but have a screen setup on my stream deck that lets me toggle between stepped color warmths and brightness levels plus up down adjustments for both if needed.

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What is that mad square telly?!

Possibly LG Dualup
https://www.lg.com/uk/monitors/ergo-monitors/28mq780-b/

Completely agree having sat through pitches on Zoom wondering why the punters on the other side of the screen haven't bought a decent webcam.

the 32" monitor fits my desk... just.

and it's a huge amount of screen space, and I'm choosing to run it at 4k as it is very readable.

I can see that a 27" 4k monitor would've been stupid, the text would've been so small that it would never have worked.

issue I did encounter is that I was running a single cable from the computer to my desk... the desktop PC is not on the desk, it's on shelving a couple of meter or so away. this is because the computer is massive, and it's also heavy, and with this being a sit-stand desk it was adding a lot of weight to the desk.

the setup is:

• DisplayPort cable exits graphics card and goes into a loop back DisplayPort on the motherboard
  
• Motherboard sends the video signal out through the Thunderbolt 4 cable
  
• a single TB4 cable goes from the shelving that has the computer, to my desk where it connects to a CalDigit TS3+
  
• the CalDigit TS3+ has DisplayPort to the monitor, as well as all of the USB and TB connections to things on my desk
  
  

the problem... the monitor is 4k @ 240Hz and the CalDigit only supports 4k @ 60Hz.

meaning I have to run a second cable from my desk to the computer, a DisplayPort cable to go alongside the TB cable. on the upside, I guess I'm freeing a lot of bandwidth on the TB cable and also giving the motherboard one less thing to do.

I want a HDMI (computer) to Displayport (monitor) cable. A bit of a look on Amazon seems to have all of the cables either being uni-directional (in the wrong direction) or bi-directional and expensive.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a HDMI to Displayport cable for under a tenner. I want it to occasionally do PiP on my monitor so guess only really need 1080P@60Hz.

Does your monitor handle DisplayPort++

If it does, you're going to be fine, buy a passive HDMI > DisplayPort cable, these are relatively cheap.

If it does not, uh-oh... you want to investigate active cables and these will vary in quality and all I can say is don't go cheap on this as you'll just have to buy multiple cables until you find one that works.

HDMI > DisplayPort is a minefield because "it depends", and what it depends on is your monitor.

It's not quite that simple - read this https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000125170/hdmi-to-displayport-dp-conversion-information

oh gosh, I got it wrong... I always thought this depended on the monitor, but it depends on the source!

so now it depends on the capability of whatever the graphics card or motherboard is, and also any hub or KVM you might've touched along the way.

Cheers both, it does look to be a minefield. "Active" seems to be what I needed to add to the search to get this kind of stuff
https://amzn.eu/d/iGdMLKz
Just need to decide if I want it enough to spend 20 quid.

So I've been trawling through those links that were shared on here the other day and have put together this part list for my sons gaming PC. I based it around the mid range build on the QuitePC site here that Hippy reccomended.
Is there anything else I would need for the build?
Do I need more storage? Do I need another fan?

As I said last time I'm a complete newbie to all this so any pointers before I go and order it all would be much appreciated.

My son's friend has sent him another build list, this one is using an Intel chip, he reckons its more upgradable. Similar price point but the graphics card doesn't look as good. Any opinions between the this and the previous set up?

colour temp of home lighting is a huge part of whether you look like a waxwork or not

Hey man, it works for Zuckercyborg.