My "workspace"

I'm always on the lookout for the perfect laptop bag, you know? One that holds *just* the right amount of stuff *just* the right way, with *just* enough extra room for whatever. This one's not bad, it's a carrying case for a PS2 Slim. It's just about the right size for my 10" netbook and my small Wacom Bamboo, plus misc. and sundry accessories. I scored it at a Goodwill for $8 I think, and when I got it home I found a COA for Windows XP MCE inside, pretty cool! I used the COA to upgrade my net-top at home from XP Home.

Anyways, this is all the stuff I manage to fit inside and carry around every day for "working" (browsing, drawing, gaming, etc.) See if you can name them all!

Benchmarks, Part 2

Remember a million years ago, when we were younger, the world was brighter , and I'd said something about running benchmarks on my Acer 522?  Well, it turns out I had a lot more testing to do than I'd thought.  OK, not really, but now that I have a decent machine, I finally took some time to play through Half-Life 2.  And Episode 1.  And Episode 2.  And Portal.  And Portal 2.  But I did finally get the numbers... and here they are!  Not many surprises really.  The CPU is still the limiting factor, but with more RAM and the 64-bit install of Windows, the graphics shine a little more.  (This uses the Fusion platform, with integrated CPU/GPU and shared RAM.)  The biggest change is in loading times, most credit going to the SSD.

Windows Performance Index - still 2.8, as the CPU score is the lowest and didn't change.  Everything else is better though, except graphics. I'm not sure what happened there, but I think it's due to Aero being fully implemented in Home Premium.  Before, WPI was judging my system's graphics based on Starter's stripped-down Aero.  It's got full Aero now, and wow, it looks good.  Primary Hard Disk jumped up the most, to 7.7 out of a possible 7.9.

Processor - 2.8->2.8
RAM - 3.9->4.9
Graphics - 4.2->4.0
Gaming Graphics - 5.5->5.6
Primary Hard Disk - 5.5->7.7

Crystalmark - 34372->51975

Portal loading time - 0:50->0:30
Portal FRAPS - unchanged

Windows boot, power button to posting desktop - 0:55->0:35
Windows shutdown time - 0:23->0:14
Hibernate - 0:18->0:21
Wake from hibernation - 0:23->0:21

Startup and shutdown times dropped 0:29 together, but hibernation and wake times increased 0:01.  The SSD has much faster reads and writes, but there's four times as much stuff in RAM to swap on and off of the HDD during hibernate/wake - the swapfile is four times bigger now.  Still, hibernating/waking is faster than shutdown/startup, and doesn't require I close all programs first.  I'm a little concerned for the SSD reading and writing a 4GB swapfile a few times a day but not enough to stop doing it that way.  The Crystalmark increase mostly reflects the move to a SSD, not much gain in the other categories.  I'd read some talk about running 3DMark11 on SSDs possibly being bad for them.  Not sure how much truth there is to that but I still gave it a pass, I had plenty of other benchmarks going on up in here.

Portal loaded much faster, as did individual levels, but in-game performance was pretty much the same before and after.  One thing I hadn't realized before: I wasn't running Portal at native 1280x720 but instead at a mostly-stretched 1024x600.  I was able to crank up the graphics pretty high without much of a hit to FPS.  Enabling full 720p, 2xAA, HDR, and some other stuff only knocked a few frames off the total.  Same for Half-Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, and Portal 2.

Over all?  I'm pretty happy with the performance I'm getting.  I've managed to turn it from a higher-end netbook into a fairly-decent gaming machine.  It's not going to blow the doors off of newer games but it's solidly capable.  I'm sunk into it for almost $800 (original machine plus upgrades) but in the absence of anything better in the 10" range I'm happy with the payoffs.  I know that could've gotten an Alienware M11x or a 12" netbook with higher-end Fusion chipsets, but really, I don't like using any netbook over 10".  I plan on keeping this one a good while, or at least until OEMs catch on that there's a market for higher-end 10" laptops.

Last thought: If you want any more proof this netbook now means Serious Business, check out all the official decals on the bottom.

Where is your god now?

Acer 522 Benchmarks, round 1

Just before hijinks commenced, I did finally get those benchmarks I was promising, but as the computer's been non-operative I hadn't gotten them up.

"Hello, IT?  Yeah, I did that too, it's still not working."

I was originally going to try a variety of benchmark programs, but interestingly(?) I couldn't get some of them to run or install, even after fiddling with permissions, compatibility modes, etc.  Unigine Heaven 2.1 wouldn't install, Game Mark wouldn't run, and PCMark Vantage was a no-go as well.  (I wasn't sure it would work anyways but thought I'd give it a go.)  That leaves CrystalMark, 3DMark11, and FPS testing (in Portal) with Fraps.  I also did some tests on time for bootup, shutdown, hibernate, and wake, plus loading of Portal.  Why Portal?  Because it's awesome, that's why.  The one thing I'm *not* doing is specific benchmarks on just the hard drive, as I'm not really concerned about swinging my huge 'numbers' (numbers=genitals) around the Internets, but more about improvement in usage in general day-to-day usage.  I also ran all tests with MSE 2.0 and a firewall running, plus VirtualCloneDrive, as I wanted real-world numbers, and I'm not going to go shut down these things every time I want to run a game or whatever.

So.

Windows Performance Index numbers.  What do people really think about these anyways?  The processor score is pretty low, as is to be expected, but otherwise not bad, even with stock 1GB of RAM.  (With W7x64, 4GB RAM and SSD I expect most of these will shoot up considerably.)

WPI - 2.8

Processor - 2.8

RAM - 3.9

Graphics - 4.2

Gaming graphics - 5.5

Primary hard disk - 5.5

Next, 3DMark11.  Pretty punishing for a stock AO522, framerates were in the 0-to-2 range throughout all tests.  I did the basic and Performance tests, but it seemed silly to attemt the high-end test.  Results are not fantastic but still better than pretty much any other 10" netbook out there.

3DMark11 - P189, E269.

Then, CrystalMark.  Again, not too concerned with specifics, more just the overall feeling of the machine, so no breakdown here, just the final tally.

CrystalMark - 34372

Timed tests.  These were all averaged over three runs.  I had one or two bootup/shutdown tests I threw out the times for as they were outliers that I figured had to do with one-time startup/shutdown stuff Windows was doing in the background.

Boot time to post to desktop - 0:56

Shutdown time - 0:23

Hibernate time - 0:18

Wake from hibernate - 0:23

Portal tests.  I picked Portal as I figured it's pretty representative of the level of game people will want to run on this type of system.  It's a bit scalable, has some fancy effects, etc but isn't too punishing.  Plus, you know, think of the possibilities.  The Fraps wandered a bit, except when a portal was in view, so I differentiated those scores below.

Portal load time - 0:50

Fraps range, no portal visible - 35-65

Fraps, portal visible - ~25

So there you go, round one down.  Probably a couple weeks now until I can get the 'after' benchmarks up, as I've got to wait on return shipping, delivery, installation, etc.  Don't worry though, it'll be awesome.

Also, rub the USB  ports with cheetah blood.

99 problems

I'd almost forgot how fun upgrading hardware was, and by fun, I mean a hellish agony of torment.  The main reason (other than laziness) for not updating in a week or whatever?  All that new hardware I was throwing at my new netbook?  Turns out everybody didn't all get along so well in there.  First, there was the RAM.  Turns out I got high-density, the laptop only takes low-density.  Seriously?  I didn't realize that was still an issue.  So, Craigslist that one and order a new one.  Next up: the SSD from OCZ.  OK, so benchmark-wise they're about the fastest.  At least, they were, until they changed the manufacturing process without really telling anyone that now they're slower and die more.  So, return to Amazon and order the Intel one instead, almost as good for a few bucks more, but they don't die out of the box.  As did mine.  On the plus side, the BT/WiFi combo works with stock drivers.  Oh yeah, and I kept the awesome sticker when I packed the SSD back into the box.  Consider it my fee for half-a-week's wasted evenings troubleshooting bad hardware.

Take that, you sticker-less bastards.

So, been a little busy.

To help explain the not-as-recent updates lately:  I get in modes.  I do one kind of thing, I want to keep doing that kind of thing, until all those kinds of things are done.  I don't like shifting gears all day.  So, here's the thing.  I just sold my old laptop, and Acer 521, because I bought a new laptop, an Acer 522.  It's 1 point better!  ...but I kid.  Really it's better, it's got a newer generation of processor, 2(?) generations better GPU, etc etc.  Mono sound and no BT though, ouch.  (#protip - for good articles, just keep linking to Cracked, TVTropes, and xkcd comics.)  Anyways, I was in Upgrade Mode, so I got new phones, with a different OS, on a different network; I got a new RAID NAS (to replace my old RAID NAS, naturally,) and while I was at it, a new SSD, more RAM, a 64-bit OS (to take advantage of the RAM) and (of course!) a BT card for the new laptop.  So what with all the rebooting, reinstalling, upgrading, copying over, buying and selling, and etcetera-ing, I've been busy.  It'd be easier (and cheaper) if I was into laptops over 10", but I'm really not comfortable with anything bigger.  Right now, I've tried to put together the most top-of-the-line 10" notebook I could, but we'll have to wait on the benchmarks to see.  I should have results in a week or two, but until then, you can all check out this funny photo I took.

You can really taste the savings.