Tuesday, November 22, 2005

DFS - File Filters

How to modify the file filters used by dfs.
Link

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Microstation Clip To Boundary

To clip the reference files outside a specified area:

Place a fence.
Select File, References
Select all reference files
Select Tools, Clip To Boundary.

Microstation Bring To Front

V7:
wset add
wset drop

V8
ORDER ELEMENT FRONT

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Microstation V7/V8 Parallel Install

Error: version mismatch. Program=(7.1.1.57). Resource File=(8.5.0.64)

C:\Program Files\Bentley\Program\MicroStation\ustation.rsc
Cannot find the resource file, microstation shutdown!

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Monday, August 15, 2005

Inno 3D 128MB GeForce FX5200 8xAGP TV-Out

Review
According to most reviews etc, this card comes with a large passive heatsink. However, the model I received came with a small, cheap looking fan which worried me greatly as I want this for a MCE PC. When I plugged it into my PC and turned it on I was pleasantly surprised. I tested it in a near silent HP box, and it is completely inaudible so the fan must be very quiet (I would guess <25db).

I was expecting the card to have a standard VGA output and an S-video out, with a composite converter. It actually had a composite port built into the card in addition to the above, which is a nice feature. Unfortunately, the quality of the composite output is quite poor and the NVIDIA flicker filter (which blurs things) needs to be turned up.

Performance is pretty good for a budget card on my ageing P4 2.0 Wilamette with PC133 ram. I got a 3DMark2001SE score of 4200-5200 compared to a score of 7200 when using a Radeon 9700Pro on the same machine. Interestingly, the score for both cards does not vary with resolution, which suggests the PC itself is the bottleneck (probably the memory). I tested it on FS2004 and with the settings at medium-high (capped at 50fps) it ran brilliantly, averaging above 30fps. It even runs adequately with AA turned on.

For MCE use it seems to fit my needs perfectly. It is very quiet, and on my machine live TV requires approx 25% CPU utilization compared to 30% for the Radeon 9700Pro. I am not sure why the utilisation is lower with the FX, unless it has something to do with the hardware mpeg decoding.

As noted above the composite output is pretty poor and lots of flickering can be seen without the flicker filter. I found the colour balance incredibly hard to setup, but perhaps I was just being fussy. Fortunately, the S-video output is completely the opposite. Images are very sharp with no flicker, and much better colour balance (I needed to make no adjustments).

In summary, this is a great MCE card, and easily fulfils my requirements for playing FS2004 on reasonably high settings with an ageing PC.


Tuesday, June 07, 2005

HP iPAQ h4150 Hard Reset

Turn unit on whilst depressing reset switch.