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On October 14 2012 12:19 Aerisky wrote: Hey all, quick question :D
I just got a new laptop (yes!!!), a 15.6" 1080p. But the resolution is so high that all the text is tiny. Is there a way to scale stuff up without resorting to the Windows option that makes everything ridiculously blurry/pixelated and whatnot? I also tried changing some settings in chrome, and the text is indeed bigger but the google services bar is still miniscule, not to mention in google search everything is shoved over to the left and whatnot ><
I've been googling around but can't seem to find a solution, my head hurts ;_; (a condition aggravated by the tiny text)
Edit: also, how do I know whether my GPU (nvidia gt 650m) is activated? I have Intel HD gfx and the nvidia card both enabled, but dxdiag only shows that I have the Intel HD graphics. Is this supposed to be how it is, or should I disable the integrated graphics? Thanks!! ^_^
Update graphics drivers to use the nvidia.
as for the text.. for browser, I just usually ctrl+ up.down scroll
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Right, but that keeps the text on the left side of the page and only makes it bigger. Essentially the line breaks are still very restricted and what have you. My drivers are up-to-date, as I checked through Windows and I believe it's reliable at least when it tells me that I have the latest updates. Might try it from Nvidia's website directly, but I think that basically it idles on the integrated graphics and only switches to the dedicated card when I play something more intensive etc, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure whether it would be better just to set the computer to use the nvidia gpu alone.
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On October 14 2012 12:32 Aerisky wrote: Right, but that keeps the text on the left side of the page and only makes it bigger. Essentially the line breaks are still very restricted and what have you. My drivers are up-to-date, as I checked through Windows and I believe it's reliable at least when it tells me that I have the latest updates. Might try it from Nvidia's website directly, but I think that basically it idles on the integrated graphics and only switches to the dedicated card when I play something more intensive etc, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure whether it would be better just to set the computer to use the nvidia gpu alone.
Yes. You need to disable the integrated graphics.
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Alright, thanks! ^__^
Now to figure out how the hell I can get the words to scale up well, and STOP being not only be ridiculously small but also squished all the way over into the text blocks and weird line breaks >.<
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On October 14 2012 12:55 Aerisky wrote: Alright, thanks! ^__^
Now to figure out how the hell I can get the words to scale up well, and STOP being not only be ridiculously small but also squished all the way over into the text blocks and weird line breaks >.<
Post a screenshot of it.
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Alright holy fuck, I'm convinced at this point that I did something seriously wrong.
I first disabled the Intel HD graphics, and immediately the computer gave me a black screen out of which I couldn't exit. The display basically just turned off though the computer could still run. So I hard reset it by holding the power button.
When I started up the computer, the first thing I noticed was that I could no longer change the brightness with the F2 and F3 keys. Under device manager, the GT 650m card is listed as enabled while the Intel HD graphics card is listed as unenabled. The sound keys (F9, F10, F11) work, but not the brightness. To make matters worse, I cannot manually change brightness anymore by going to power options from right clicking the battery icon. The only option it gives is the amount of time it takes to turn off the display. When I go to dxdiag, under display the gpu ship only shows N/A for everything. I also installed flux, which dims the display and gives it a red tint. Upon installing it, there was no effect achieved, so I think something is wrong with my display or display adapter or something. Freaking out now :///
When I go to the adapter type (Default Monitor and Properties) from the control panel, everything is listed as unavailable just as dxdiag shows.
Alright, so I renabled the integrated graphics and everything is working again....I don't know what happened... I'm thinking I might have to go force the computer to use the dedicated card, not only enable it. Something about the computer tying everything to the integrated gpu or something? Not sure.
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Here's a solution to make the windows and taskbars in windows larger and smaller.
Type 'dpi' (minus the quotes) in the search bar and select the 'make text and other items larger and smaller' option. Choose a different setting, try 125%, and if that's too small 150%. Personally I like my 13" 1080p screen at 100%, but that's just me.
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Yeah, I've tried that option and it makes a lot of text really blurry and pixelated when I zoom to 150%. The default is 125%, which is puny as it is :/
Also, screenshots: On my old normal computer (1440x900): + Show Spoiler +
On my new computer (1920x1080): + Show Spoiler +
In any event, though, I guess a new question is: how do I switch to my dedicated card? Before, I tried disabling Intel and enabling the nvidia but that messed up my display settings as mentioned.
Edit: card issue resolved. I think the system will automatically switch to dedicated anyway. To be more sure, though, I set the nvidia settings to prefer the dedicated card.
I suppose I just have to deal with the resolution stuff? :/
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Are there any suggestions on external HDDs between 2-3 TB? Ideally my budget is around $150, but I'd like to save some money.
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On October 15 2012 01:25 Sovano wrote: Are there any suggestions on external HDDs between 2-3 TB? Ideally my budget is around $150, but I'd like to save some money.
I've learned from experience that it's far better to buy an internal drive and stick it in an enclosure or dock. Even the nice WD external drives are mostly made out of plastic bits that fall apart over time. Not to mention a lot of companies save money by putting crappy drives in their external devices.
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Not to be an attention whore or whiny, but erm here's another screenshot in case anyone has an idea. I figure I'm just going to have to deal with sized text because of the zooming-in and whanot, but it would really be nice if I didn't have to deal with all the weird boxes of text ><
+ Show Spoiler +
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On October 15 2012 05:30 Aerisky wrote:Not to be an attention whore or whiny, but erm here's another screenshot in case anyone has an idea. I figure I'm just going to have to deal with sized text because of the zooming-in and whanot, but it would really be nice if I didn't have to deal with all the weird boxes of text >< + Show Spoiler +
settings -advanced -web content -text size should be medium / zoom 100%
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On October 15 2012 03:01 TheToast wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2012 01:25 Sovano wrote: Are there any suggestions on external HDDs between 2-3 TB? Ideally my budget is around $150, but I'd like to save some money. I've learned from experience that it's far better to buy an internal drive and stick it in an enclosure or dock. Even the nice WD external drives are mostly made out of plastic bits that fall apart over time. Not to mention a lot of companies save money by putting crappy drives in their external devices. Hm well the reason I want an external HDD versus an internal one is because I'm not very comfortable with taking apart laptops. The last time I tried that was a few years ago and I ripped a cable on accident. If it were my desktop it would certainly be no issue. However, I tried opening my laptop apart a few weeks ago because of a fan issue, but I couldn't take it apart completely without it feeling like I'm going to break it. So right now I can hear the fan make an annoying sound whenever the computer is stressed for a minute or so because I still haven't gone inside to see what the issue is with my fan.
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On October 15 2012 05:52 Sovano wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2012 03:01 TheToast wrote:On October 15 2012 01:25 Sovano wrote: Are there any suggestions on external HDDs between 2-3 TB? Ideally my budget is around $150, but I'd like to save some money. I've learned from experience that it's far better to buy an internal drive and stick it in an enclosure or dock. Even the nice WD external drives are mostly made out of plastic bits that fall apart over time. Not to mention a lot of companies save money by putting crappy drives in their external devices. Hm well the reason I want an external HDD versus an internal one is because I'm not very comfortable with taking apart laptops. If it were my desktop it would certainly be no issue. However, I tried opening my laptop apart a few weeks ago because of a fan issue, but I couldn't take it apart completely without it feeling like I'm going to break it. So right now I can hear the fan make an annoying sound whenever the computer is stressed for a minute or so because I still haven't gone inside to see what the issue is with my fan. I don't follow how this is related. We're talking about using bare (internal) hard drives in external enclosures, right?
Like one of these: http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=66010&promoid=1387
plugged into a dock (top) or enclosure (bottom)? http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=55448 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817707250
btw there aren't any 2.5" 9.5mm-tall (side note: wtf how come the standard measurements are mixed imperial and metric units) hard drives, as in the kinds that fit in most laptops, that have 2 or more TB of capacity.
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On October 15 2012 06:09 Myrmidon wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2012 05:52 Sovano wrote:On October 15 2012 03:01 TheToast wrote:On October 15 2012 01:25 Sovano wrote: Are there any suggestions on external HDDs between 2-3 TB? Ideally my budget is around $150, but I'd like to save some money. I've learned from experience that it's far better to buy an internal drive and stick it in an enclosure or dock. Even the nice WD external drives are mostly made out of plastic bits that fall apart over time. Not to mention a lot of companies save money by putting crappy drives in their external devices. Hm well the reason I want an external HDD versus an internal one is because I'm not very comfortable with taking apart laptops. If it were my desktop it would certainly be no issue. However, I tried opening my laptop apart a few weeks ago because of a fan issue, but I couldn't take it apart completely without it feeling like I'm going to break it. So right now I can hear the fan make an annoying sound whenever the computer is stressed for a minute or so because I still haven't gone inside to see what the issue is with my fan. I don't follow how this is related. We're talking about using bare (internal) hard drives in external enclosures, right? Like one of these: http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=66010&promoid=1387plugged into a dock (top) or enclosure (bottom)? http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=55448http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817707250btw there aren't any 2.5" 9.5mm-tall (side note: wtf how come the standard measurements are mixed imperial and metric units) hard drives, as in the kinds that fit in most laptops, that have 2 or more TB of capacity. Oh shit I read that wrong lol....thanks for clarifying. I missed the part where he mentioned to use a dock/enclosure instead. I never knew something like this existed; definitely neat! Thanks for the help guys. I'll grab that HDD and dock. I'll probably be switching out HDDs in the future anyways, so buying a dock seems more reasonable in the long term.
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On October 15 2012 05:51 a176 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2012 05:30 Aerisky wrote:Not to be an attention whore or whiny, but erm here's another screenshot in case anyone has an idea. I figure I'm just going to have to deal with sized text because of the zooming-in and whanot, but it would really be nice if I didn't have to deal with all the weird boxes of text >< + Show Spoiler + settings -advanced -web content -text size should be medium / zoom 100% Sure, but it just ends up looking like this: + Show Spoiler +
I ended up just setting the font size to medium and then setting zoom to 125%, which appears to be marginally better :/
Thanks! I guess the solution wasn't to fiddle around with default text size, which is what I was doing, and was just to let it be medium but increase the default page zoom. First world problems, but yeah....1080p on 15.6" screen is hurting my eyes for some reason I can't get the display setting in general just right either, so that it doesn't hurt my eyes, but whatever.
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IS it worth getting the K (e.g. 2500k) if you don't plan on ocing? What is the equivalent of a 2500k in SB? Is a 2500k the minimum requirement for streaming?
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On October 15 2012 13:01 m1rk3 wrote: IS it worth getting the K (e.g. 2500k) if you don't plan on ocing? What is the equivalent of a 2500k in SB? Is a 2500k the minimum requirement for streaming? No, unless it's cheaper or you're actually using the integrated graphics (HTPC?).
i5-2500k is Sandy Bridge, so what do you mean? If you're talking about the Ivy Bridge equivalent, that's the i5-3570k. Why would you even want Sandy Bridge these days, anyway, unless it's non-trivially cheaper?
You can stream with a lot worse hardware, depending on settings, fps, picture quality, and so on. It just won't go well if your CPU is already busy with something else, like running a game. If you're talking about streaming SC2, you probably want at least a Sandy Bridge quad core, but some people are satisfied with their streams using Phenom II X4s, for example. You can just pick some kind of Ivy Bridge quad core, and it should be okay unless your expectations are relatively high.
But if you're not overclocking the processor and want slightly better quality, you can also consider a Xeon E3-1230 V2 (E3-1235, etc. higher numbers okay—these can't be overclocked), which for your purposes is effectively an Ivy Bridge i7 at a similar price as a i5-3570k or just slightly higher. These work on the consumer motherboards, with normal non-ECC DDR3 RAM, and so on—a drop-in replacement.
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I've been debating whether to save up for a 2560x1440 monitor or just get a 1920x1080, when I realized that I don't even know if my computer could really handle it. I have an i3 2120 and an HD 6870. Will these be good enough to still get good framerates in SC2 and maybe the odd Skyrim/MassEffect/DeusEx?
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Depends on your definition of "good."
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