Write a 3D graphics feature for Custom PC magazine

Uh-oh... Digi's sniffing out his competition...

 

BTW :

The difference is that one is a texture compression algorithm and the other is a rendering model covering shading as introduced with the latest publicly available DirectX.

I'm not sure I'd want to write for a mag that doesn't know the basic difference between the two.

8)

 

you don't have a life anyway...

....or do you?

 

The man's a newlywed! Ah yes, the finer things in life. . .burnt dinners and a young eager to please wife.

Tho an *experienced* eager to please wife is a damn fine thing too, but not everyone can be as lucky as I am. [is she gone yet?]

 

As I sometimes say in my day job when well meaning executives toss out conflicting "goods". . .There's a certain tension there.

But I'll ask the obvious (tho not for myself), since magazines aren't web and usually an editor has a slot size in mind to fill. . .how "large" did you have in mind?

 

I nominate WaltC to write it! He'll keep it short and to the point!

 

That's what I was thinking; just what kind of editor runs a magazine that leaves such in-depth articles to the last minute? It's not as if the work is going to cover breaking news. I get to write for the Institute of Physics now and then - I'm given a minimum of 6 weeks notice each time.

 

Well not quite - I have the article at home so am not looking at it right now. Note I am not trying to be critical of your magazine - I actually think it's the best new entry to the UK computer mag scene in a long long time.

But from memory, in the summary table at the end of the article, there was a column giving % numbers that referred to PF. No mention in the data was given at all to the actual conversion efficiency of the PSUs, which as a reasonably knowledgable consumer are what's important to me - several orders of magnitude more so than how good their PFC is. How much extra heat the PSU is adding to my computer is of great concern. And I would expect numbers ranging from the 60% or so of generic PSUs up to high-70s for decent ones. The only person who I have found who does this in what I would call a scientific manner (as opposed to your definintion) in reviews of PSUs is Mike Chin at http://www.silentpcreview.com/

So perhaps whilst not factually wrong the article was (in my opinion)misleading in giving the impression that PFC is more important than conversion efficiency in a PSU.

Late addition: found a relevant thread at SPCR (conveniently ) here: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=16637

I hope you don't think I'm attacking you or your magazine vindictively; apologies if my earlier post came across as aggressive. It's just that in the days when there are lots of very authoritative articles and reviews freely available on the web, and when news in print magazines is always a few months older than what you read online, the only real benefit of buying a print magazine is to (a) read something on the tube and (b) to get a higher standard of journalistic integrity and accuracy that can be relied upon. Hence using a twisted sort of logic, by holding you up to account I help to keep the print mags like yours in business

Gnep[/url]

 

Thanks for the comments on the article. I didn't mean to sound too defensive on my first post. Just had quite a lot of people commenting on this article on other forums who hadn't even read it.

The main reason we didn't test total effeciency was that this wasn't possible on the PSU test machines we had access too. Secondly, to some extent this is covered by the voltage stability tests which form the core of the article. e.g. when fully loaded (or close to, we did 5 different levels of load) the voltage is stable then it obviously is pretty effecient. Unless you are talking about how much it actually drains from the mains?

It looks like the main gripe of this thread is about a Tagan press release, not the article in the mag. Obviously we don't control what Tagan say, although if they are misrepresenting what we wrote in an article that is a serious issue.

 

Neeyik, you can do it as a collaborative effort alongside Stress Piggy.

@Ben_CustomPC, have you the leeway, for example, to allow one person to write a couple of pages outlining graphics history on the PC upto the 3D era, another person write from the start of the 3D era till the present & someone else write an introduction to the technical aspects? Just a thought as it seems to me (I'm just guessing) that it is a lot of work in a short period.

'fraid I can't help anyway; have trouble writing three paragraphs.

 

Nah, I'm not qualified on this one. I'm looking forward to reading the completed article and learning from it, I'm not knowledgeable enough to write it unless I cheat and pick Hanners & John's brains for the whole thing by PM.

I just really, REALLY want a good article to read that will help me understand it better...I know where my edumacation on these things are lacking.

@Ben - Is the focus of this article the history of 3D cards or is it how a modern graphic card works? Now I'm a bit confused, or is either fine as long as it's well written and can fill 8 pages in 2 weeks. (BTW-8 pages with or without graphics? You're going to need a few pictures to describe how a viddy card works now a days.)

 

well, I might be qualified to write it (despite me usually not participating in the tech threads, I'm a bloody sponge... and no I'm NOT saying I'm a tampon!) as far as the knowlege goes. I'm also a fairly decent writer... only, not about technical stuff.

And, now to the point of my post- whomsoever does write this eight-page article in a mere two weeks deserves above-average compensation. I mean, really, eight pages with two weeks notice? I think which ever of my good friends here at Beyond3d (or bitter enemies, even) manages to pull this off deserves a vairy generous sum of money as compensation. and they'd better give me a cut for standing up for them and getting them more money!

 

Good point, what kind of payment are we talking about here for the article?

If you want a lot of e-mails about this in a hurry, put up an actual dollar/pounds amount range. It's all just hypothetical, 'til someone lays the cash on the table

(Sayeth the keyboard jockey assuming a jaunty typing position....)

 

Thanks for your reply - I actually am referring to how much the compontents are using (in W) compared to how much is drawn from the mains (in W, not VA) when I talk about efficiency. This is important and not necessarily linked to how stable rails are etc. The reasons it is important are (a) the "wasted" energy costs you money (PF is only important if you are on a corporate supply contract with your mains supplier!) and (b) this same wasted energy ends up as heat generated in the PSU - which the fan therefore has to work harder to expel, hence needing to be faster and louder. As you might have guessed, I am very interested in keeping my machines as quiet as possible whilst still getting decent performance - and the first thing to do for peace and quiet is remove unnecessary sources of heat, before you start removing sources of noise To test for my sort of efficiency you could have applied a known load (even a lighbulb would do at a stretch - doesn't have to be computer related!) on the output side and then measured draw on the input side with a kill-a-watt meter or whatever; ideally though you are right you need decent equipment to draw known variable loads from the different rails that does approximate typical use ... not so straightforward!

Anyway, this has drawn the thread completely off-topic - for that I apologise!

 

True, but it also showed us a great deal about what the people at the magazine looking for an article are like and I must say I like their attitude.

Even if they did make a mistake, it sounds like they were trying pretty damned hard to be accurate....I like that.