TML wrote:Notable bumps were installing the cooler (my own idiocy)
Always a stumbling block for first-time builders! Not idiocy! It's hard!
TML wrote:The issue seemed to be the order in which the PCI-e power cables were plugged into the GPU, because the two connectors come on the same cord (is this standard?). Anyway, I switched them, and everything works fine.
Huh, sounds strange. Having two connectors on the same cord is very normal, but switching them shouldn't matter. Seems more likely you had one of them halfway plugged in and reseating them fixed it.
TML wrote:Boots up, I install Win8 to the (GLORIOUS) SSD, and I am operational! Windows boot times are <10s, and I can do a full restart in <15s. The way personal computers were meant to work!
Hehe. If you really want, you can grab the Windows Performance Toolkit (part of the
Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit) and do a few boot traces to make it even faster. If you're really desperate for quicker boot, open MSConfig and enable "No GUI Boot", but this will make you unable to see error messages at boot time.
TML wrote:That issue is fixed, but mouse/keyboard lag persists. It turns out, its my stupid TV to which this thing is hooked up. Some of you are probably reading this saying "obviously", but to other n00bs out there, your display can really affect this. If I put the TV into "game mode" mouse lag all but disappears. Not as good as going to VGA into the TV (no digital decoding BS on the TV end of things) but almost there, and since my GPU doesn't have a normal VGA output, I will have to use this solution until I can get a DVI>VGA adapter.
I really don't recommend using VGA! It will probably look kind of bad unless you can use a really short cable, and even then...
VGA wasn't really designed to carry resolutions as high as 1920x1080, and it's susceptible to ghosting, blurring, and a whole host of other issues. The
REAL solution to your problem is just to get another display. TVs aren't monitors!
TML wrote:On to the next issue. What should I do with it? As I said in my initial post, I like FPS games in general. I not only don't care about campaigns in these games, I don't like it. Just multiplayer. Any suggestions? I am also open to other types of games if anyone has any strong opinions. (If I should move this to another thread, let me know)
Blacklight: Retribution!
Blacklight: Retribution! It's an amazing near-future FPS game with gorgeous DX11 Unreal Engine 3 graphics, and it's totally free! It's also free of "pay 2 win" garbage, because the starter equipment is very good. Just make sure you stay on the "Proving Grounds" servers when you first start.
You can add me ingame if you want; my name is the obvious, preceded by "lunatic hime". (bit of anti-idiot encoding there.)
You might also want to check out Warframe; it's third-person, rather than first-person, but still a fantastic experience and a great test for that shiny new GPU!
Speaking of which, make sure you have your display plugged into your GPU! You might laugh, but a friend of mine paypal'd me $1000 and asked me to build and ship him a PC. This was 2 years ago. I put together a really nice system with a sandy i5 and a GTX 560 Ti, killer stuff. Sent it out to him and he gets it and he's like "it's ok, performance isn't as good as I hoped, but I guess $1000 isn't that much" and I didn't diagnose it because, well, I just wasn't that interested.
Later we start playing TERA Online and he is showing me screenshots and I'm like "why does it look so bad?" and he's like "well it runs really bad so I turned it down." I was like, "what?" and did some investigation -- turns out he had the monitor plugged into the motherboard the whole time. This was like 8 months later.
Yeah. It was a revelation for him.
Grats on your first build!