Aaron44126

Yeah. Not just graphics though. With "meh" combat and a "meh" story, or at least that's what I'm hearing, it just doesn't sound interesting at all.

It is Luminous Engine right? AFAIK, other than some tech demos, the only other full game using that engine is Final Fantasy XV... Which I did play through last summer. It has a lot of wonky behaviors and odd performance problems on the PC, I am not surprised if Forspoken is similar. I was a bit interested in Forspoken when I first heard about it a couple of years ago. But, it seems like they've gone and thrown a lot of time/money at this game, and they sure are giving it a big marketing blitz, it seems like they only managed to come up with something mediocre at best. Pass.

Yes. Dell is pretty lenient with the warranty when it comes to adding and removing components. The rule is basically that the warranty is intact as long as you didn't break anything with your modifications, and Dell has the option to request that you put the system back into its original configuration before performing service. (Dell even provides the screws and heatsinks that you need to install additional SSDs in the Precision 7000 systems, something that you do not always see from laptop makers.) .......I myself just used Macrium Reflect bootable media and cloned the drive while it was still in the system (before booting it for the first time). You most likely would have to switch the BIOS disk controller mode from "RAID" to "NVMe/AHCI" in order for Macrium Reflect to be able to see the drive, and then switch it back before booting Windows for the first time.

With DLSS 3, the GPU uses AI to generate (up to) 75% of the pixels in a frame, and then it generates 100% of the in-between frames. So, between two frames, only 12.5% of the pixels might be "rendered" and the rest are "guessed" by the AI engine. So, it's no surprise that some weird artifacting can happen (especially in high-motion high-detail scenarios). Don't get me wrong, it's pretty awesome that this is technically possible to achieve realtime and I'm sure the algorithms will improve to deal with situations where you see artifacting like this. I sort of envision that in a decade or so, "most" pixels in "most" games will be AI-generated rather than directly rendered and things look just fine. And yeah, NVIDIA would really love to push people to buy their latest super-high-cost GPUs... But if you don't care about the latest and greatest in graphical fidelity, you can still play (almost?) all of the latest games, without ray tracing, on a GeForce GTX 1080 (1080p with, depending on the title, "medium" or "high" settings but probably not "ultra" or whatever), and probably most even run on a GeForce GTX 980 (1080p low settings or 720p with medium/high). I've found that as I get older, I care less about chasing the best graphics and I'm good as long as I can find a configuration for a game that gets a consistent 60 FPS. I guess part of it is that I'm just used to what games used to be like, and I think lots of modern games look pretty great by comparison even at "medium" settings. I feel like we're hitting a point of diminishing returns, and a lot of GPU power is just given to "effects" which are in many cases actually hard to notice while you're actually playing. I've also sort of stopped trying to run games in 4K (on my 17" laptop), because I can't really tell the difference between 1440p and 4K at that screen size, and running at 1440p instead of 4K cuts the GPU load about in half (if DLSS is not in play). ...I do play a lot of more obscure / indie titles where DLSS is less likely to be supported.

Yeah, I don't know about modern standby issues, I have had it disabled since I got this laptop.

I generally keep the screen at 90% brightness and I have never experienced something like this. The display has been pleasantly free of any sort of flicker issues. I do not run with HDR mode enabled for the desktop. I find that it makes the colors appear pretty washed out for non-HDR applications (...which is basically everything). I do have something funny that happens with the screen. Occasionally, I open up the laptop and it decides that it doesn't want to put the brightness above about 60%. In this case the brightness-up button (Fn+F7) actually makes the brightness indicator/slider thing and the screen brightness level to go down, like the system knows there is an issue with the display and wants to lower the brightness. I wonder if the display is overheating or something? It seems sort of like how my phone behaves if I run a high load and heat it up... it will eventually lower the screen brightness. If I repeatedly press Fn+F7, it will end up putting the brightness down to about 10%, but I can still move it higher by dragging the slider with the mouse (still won't go higher than about 60% — the slider will, but the actual brightness tops out well before the slider reaches the top). Very odd. When this happens, the workaround is to just wait a few minutes, shut and open the lid again (forces the display to power cycle), and then it will be working fine. It's an infrequent occurrence (maybe once every two or three weeks) but it has happened both before and after I had the display panel in this system replaced. Actually, I guess it hasn't happened since I installed the 1.8.0 BIOS (but now that I say that I'm sure I will see this issue recur tomorrow).

Multiple lawsuits are now trying to recover money from Twitter. They've apparently not paid $7 million in rent for the main California HQ since the takeover, plus the UK office mentioned above (and most/all other offices), and also there was that lawsuit that resulted in Musk being basically obligated to buy Twitter... those lawyers have not been paid either. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/01/twitters-landlord-sues-for-millions-in-unpaid-rent-at-firms-us-headquarters/ It seems like bankruptcy is inevitable, but I'm sure at some point Musk will be trying to "renegotiate" the conditions of various obligations that Twitter has. Elon Musk's own comments continue to be fun reading. "My follower count is really high, so obviously I am very popular and doing everything right." https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/25/23571793/elon-musk-twitter-tesla-brand-image-damage-earnings "It's easy to raise money" (as Twitter continues to have trouble covering expenses). https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/25/23571568/elon-musk-twitter-loan-financing I feel like the main defense strategy at the trial is just to muddy things up for the jurors so much that they don't (all) come to the conclusion that he owes people money. I recently set up a Mastodon account to check that out. I found a few of my (old) Twitter followees on there, but I don't feel like enough people have moved over that I have a really interesting feed to look at.

I could be getting things mixed up (mostly a Dell guy here). I have also heard about the ThinkPad GPU whitelists. I know that HP systems in the past have had whitelists for the Wi-Fi card but maybe I jumped the gun a bit on suggesting that they also have GPU whitelists.

It's not a new driver; I downloaded that same version from the 7X70 support page back in August. Dell typically doesn't post new drivers whenever a new version is available upstream; they just do it if there is a specific reason (support for a new Windows version, security fix, critical bugfix, etc.).

You can get MXM 3.0b cards for RTX 3000/4000/5000 (Turing generation) which are sourced from HP ZBook systems and can often be spotted on eBay, etc.. They are "generic" enough to work in Dell Precision systems (older ones that support MXM) without any hassle, without any vBIOS flashing or anything like that. So, I would think that they would work in older HP systems if there is not a GPU whitelist in the BIOS (...which I know they have been known to do). Well, "almost" without any hassle. The board layout isn't quite standard. There is a little piece sticking out on one side so you'll have to have a bit of extra physical space next to the MXM slot for the card to fit. And, the GPU chip isn't quite in the same place so a mod to the heatsink is likely necessary (drilling some holes for the screws in different positions) to mount it onto one of these GPU cards.

Twitter (quietly) officially bans third-party clients https://www.engadget.com/twitter-new-developer-terms-ban-third-party-clients-211247096.html https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/19/23562947/twitter-third-party-client-tweetbot-twitterific-ban-rules

That's the only one that I have. @TheQuentincc is the only one I know of who had a P4000 working. I'm hoping he still stop by.

I'm sure I used the one from TechPowerUp when I did this. (It was a P5000, though.) https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-nvflash/

Hmm. @TheQuentincc, are you around? Do you have to do anything in particular to flash your P4000 .bin vBIOS file?

The file name extension doesn’t matter, it’s just a raw vBIOS dump in either case. You should be able to use it with nvflash directly.

This is normal. These days, CPUs turbo boost way higher than the base speed. Basically, automatic overclocking as long as thermal and power constraints are met. The base speed is basically the absolute minimum speed that you should be able to maintain (under load) if your cooling system is working properly. i9-11900H can turbo boost up to 4.9 GHz. Most systems will level off above the base speed but well below the max turbo speed, which can only be maintained for a short time.

Alright, I see. I thought you were not getting any display at all. I'm not sure what to make of that. I'm going to suggest that you try Linux Mint 18.3. When I did this (...about four years ago now...), I used a newer version and it did not work (I do not remember if the symptoms were the same as yours), but I tried an older one and I was able to boot to the desktop.

The "USB composite device" is a real physical device that offers multiple devices/services over a single USB connection. It could be a standalone device or it could just be a chip on the motherboard that just talks "USB" to the rest of the system. The fingerprint reader seems to be wired up to go through it. It might be this thing right here. -> My supposition is that it might not be included if you don't order the SmartCard reader. This would explain why Dell blocks configurations with the fingerprint reader but no SmartCard reader. If that is the case, I doubt that the fingerprint reader would work. The only way to find out is for someone to try it, really...

They're not independent in the system, both the SmartCard reader and fingerprint reader are connected to the same "USB composite device" — whatever that is, I am wondering if it is missing if you don't get the system with a SmartCard reader (and then the fingerprint reader would not be properly detected by the OS, even if there is technically a place to plug it in).

And then I guess the next question is, will it work if you don't have a SmartCard reader? @craigeryjohn, does your system have a SmartCard reader? (It's a slot on the left side and it is labeled "SC" at the front.) On Dell's web site you cannot configure the fingerprint reader without a SmartCard reader. The reason is that the SmartCard reader really gets you Dell's "Control Vault" security solution which also runs the fingerprint reader. It used to be in older systems that the fingerprint reader actually plugged into the same little board that the SmartCard reader plugs into but I'm not sure if that is still the same since they integrated it into the power button. [Edit] Just checked @MyPC8MyBrain's eBay link; $100 for one of these things? Holy cow. You can get a tiny USB one for like $20.

This is after putting the new GPU in? Do you know if you have an LVDS or eDP display panel? Did you have Optimus (graphics switching) enabled in the BIOS? If you have an LVDS panel then Optimus must be enabled to get any signal to the laptop built-in display. You can try running with an external display, it might work. Turn the laptop on and quickly shut the lid and the BIOS screens should come up on the external display.

It's not the same as prior generations. In Precision 7X60 and earlier, you can easily pull out the keyboard trim separately from the palmrest so the keyboard is easy to access. (You just have to disconnect cables from the bottom, like you say.) In Precision 7X70, there is no separate keyboard trim. The chiclet keyboard "lattice" is essentially part of the entire palmrest. The keyboard can only come out from the bottom, and that means getting the heatsink, motherboard, and inner frame out of the way. (This is similar to their XPS-style systems which have been like this for many years.) You also can't pop the palmrest off separately as you could in some prior systems. I've already whined about this a few times. It's a major step backwards in serviceability — the keyboard is a part that should be easily replaceable. I think I ended up replacing the keyboard in three different older Precision systems that I have used for one reason or another. It was a job that could be done in just a few minutes. I hope the Precision 7770 keyboard holds up, I'm not looking forward to the day that I might want to replace that. There might be a slightly easier way to get to just the power button. I haven't looked.

I wonder how easy that would be to access. Replacing the keyboard itself requires basically taking the system entirely apart, motherboard and everything, to replace it from the bottom.

Fingerprint reader — Definitely possible, but I have no idea what parts you'd need. Obviously it serves two purposes (fingerprint scanning and power button) so there is probably two cables running off of it. It's probably part of the palmrest, as far as Dell's part system is concerned. .......You can get tiny USB fingerprint readers that can just plug into the side of the system and work with Windows Hello, that could be an OK workaround. BIOS — 1.8 is a great one to be on, they have made the loadline fix in this version (you don't have to do it yourself), and you can still use undervolting. We are concerned about the end of undervolting but Dell hasn't pushed out a BIOS version for this system yet that kills it. We have seen undervolting killed in other models (from Dell & others) so it's probably a matter of time. [Edit] Noticed that you said you bought a Precision 7760. Maybe you meant 7670? This is the Precision 7670 + 7770 thread, but we do have a separate Precision 7760 thread.

In the old days, I'd just RDP to my desktop whenever I was using my laptop, because that's where all of my stuff was. I actually still do that to access my personal laptop from my work laptop. The RDP experience is pretty slick if you don't need to run full-motion video or games, you could give it a try instead of buying a KVM. More recently, since I moved to a laptop as my primary daily driver, I have taken to migrating my entire Windows install every time I get a new system pretty much for this reason... My Windows install is highly tailored to me with many years of history and I don't want to set everything up again; I simply do not have time for that. I just did such a migration when I got the Precision 7770 this past summer. There's a little bit of work to get driver issues sorted out and cruft to clear out with this approach, but it takes way less time than getting everything configured all over again. Migrating your whole Windows install used to be a pain, but it is easy nowadays, since Windows 8 came out. Just clone your drive, throw it in the new system, and boot it. Windows will recognize that it is in a new system and do a pre-boot device discovery. Afterwards, you will just be left to install whatever drivers it couldn't find on its own, just as if you had done a clean Windows install, but all of your old programs and files will be present. I've done a number of migrations for other people (friends & family) as well, including desktop-to-laptop migrations and vice-versa. Rarely is there an issue that takes longer than a few minutes to work through (assuming that you are generally comfortable working with Windows configuration + drivers + Googling + etc.). ...I guess in your case, this might not be easily possible because of the space crunch of just having a 512GB SSD. Really, you'd just have to clone your base OS drive (after upgrading it to a version of Windows supported on your new system); data drives could be mapped for use over the network? ...I don't have such a storage issue on my system, but those 8 TB drives that I threw in admittedly weren't exactly cheap.