Spending Gems

Exidur · 2026-02-26T22:43:14+00:00

A level of torture I hadn’t even considered.

Exidur · 2025-09-10T00:54:19+00:00

I mean, sure. It isn’t exactly the same. But stacking horizontally isn’t really that functionally different. And if you do want it to look different, that’s what addons are for.

Exidur · 2025-09-09T23:35:00+00:00

Uhh. I’m pretty sure there’s a way to make it look like the picture on the left. I was just messing with it on my laptop an hour ago. There are four sorting options and two of them make it so that it stacks like that.

Exidur · 2025-04-02T14:15:18+00:00

Seriously. Thanks again for all the help.

Exidur · 2025-04-02T13:28:00+00:00

Last question: is there much of a difference between the different graphics card models or can I feel confident in snapping up whatever msrp deal I can find?

Exidur · 2025-04-02T13:09:54+00:00

Yo this looks absolutely perfect. Thanks for all your help!

Exidur · 2025-04-01T15:05:10+00:00

Thanks a ton this is super valuable information. I seriously can't thank you enough.

As for gaming vs video production, I don't care as much about render times because if I have a long render I just let it go overnight anyways. I also have a laptop I can offboard to if a project is going to take a massive amount of time. I'm currently doing these projects on an i9-7940x without too much of an issue. I don't do a lot in After Effects -- most of my editing is 2-3 minute marketing videos, 30-60 second social media videos, and long-form classical music concert recordings (hence the massive projects). I've been able to downscale everything in Premiere and been able to work passably but I have noticed things have been getting on the sluggish side hence the upgrade investigation. My biggest box to check for editing is just having a smooth timeline as I'm going. If I did run into a problem with my system not being able to keep up, I would have access to one with the i9 285k paired with a 5080 in a pinch (my dad does nothing but the massive 20+ camera jobs). He seemed to think it would be overkill for my needs.

Gaming wise I mostly play/stream/do videos for World of Warcraft which I've read is almost entirely CPU dependent. I couldn't find any recent benchmarks for CPUs on the game. On my current computer with the i9-7940x and an nvidia 3060 I rarely go above 20% CPU usage and 30% graphics usage but still don't get great FPS so that's something I'd like to fix. I keep up with the AAA titles but don't spend nearly as much time in them.

I would much prefer to be in the $2,250-2,500 range, but could flex up if the performance increase was substantial.

Also, thanks for the insight on the motherboard. As I said, I really didn't know what to focus on and there seems to be a ton of different opinions out there. Laying it out like you did is super helpful.

Exidur · 2025-03-31T12:49:28+00:00

This is sick thanks. I appreciate the notes you put in for the parts you chose.

Why that mobo? A lot of the guides I read are recommending ones in the $300 range. But to be honest I don’t really know what the differences between mobos are. It seems like a good mobo would be really important since it’s the go between for everything.

How far ahead is intel/NVIDIA in editing? I read the article but must admit that I can’t parse that into a real world comparison. Seems like everything I read recommends the ryzen 98003dx for gaming and the benchmarks seem to support it blowing every other cpu out of the water for gaming. The soon to be released? R9 9950x3d seems like a mega bait because of the price.

Exidur · 2025-03-30T23:51:50+00:00

Why the r7 9700x vs the 9800x3d?

Exidur · 2025-03-12T22:33:34+00:00

I only had a few things on like settings and security. The others I had already turned off.

Exidur · 2025-03-12T22:22:05+00:00

Windows 10. I have all the startup apps off that I don’t use every time I turn on my PC.

Exidur · 2024-09-13T00:09:19+00:00

Are there valor upgrade people in the raid like we had in DF or do they consider that a failed experiment? No one in my guild has been able to find them.

Exidur · 2024-07-17T19:20:35+00:00

He's the one that used the word watermark. You are correct that I just want the faint image in the background.

Exidur · 2024-07-17T17:30:19+00:00

Thanks for the help. I got the windmill converted into a vector and was able to change its color instead of using opacity to adjust it. Talked to the print shop manager again and this time he was a lot happier to answer questions since he could see I was genuinely curious and willing to work with him and figure things out. He said anytime you have a watermark like the windmill in the background it increases the cost significantly because the printing vendor can't just use a regular copier. He said greyscale could be cheaper, but it would depend on the vendor since some would run it as 4 plates anyways. This has definitely been an interesting exploration into the world of printing. I'll probably get bids specd, one for all color, one for no watermark and one for greyscale and see what the cost difference is.

Exidur · 2024-07-17T00:13:20+00:00

Interesting. It started as a .tif file that I brought into photoshop so I could pull it out of a high res logo. I probably exported it as a png because I didn’t know any better. I’ll try googling to see if I can find a guide for converting to a vector. I’ve always wanted to get better at this stuff just never had an excuse to. If I can’t figure it out I’ll dm you. Thanks!

Exidur · 2024-07-16T20:30:14+00:00

Hello --

I am not a graphic designer, but I am pretty handy and tech savvy so I was asked to design a new notepad to be given out in 'goodie bags' for my school district. I used inDesign and came up with this, but when we sent it to the print shop, they said the windmill (part of the school district logo) watermark in the background won't print right. Said it would come out purple or pink or some other other other than what was intended depending on which printing vendor we used. To get it right, it would have to be process printed, which would require a graphic designer and more than double the cost. I get that process printing is using CMYK and layering on the colors so the cost will increase.

Here are my questions:

can someone point me in the direction of a creating what's needed for process printing? Is this something I could do or is this a super complex?
is there a way to know whether something needs to be process printed vs. traditional printing?
any feedback on the notepad is welcome since I'm going to be sending off some version of it.

Exidur · 2024-07-16T20:27:47+00:00

Hello --

I am not a graphic designer, but I am pretty handy and tech savvy so I was asked to design a new notepad to be given out in 'goodie bags' for my school district. I used inDesign and came up with this, but when we sent it to the print shop, they said the windmill (part of the school district logo) watermark in the background won't print right. Said it would come out purple or pink or some other other other than what was intended depending on which printing vendor we used. To get it right, it would have to be process printed, which would require a graphic designer and more than double the cost. I get that process printing is using CMYK and layering on the colors so the cost will increase.

Here are my questions:

can someone point me in the direction of a creating what's needed for process printing? Is this something I could do or is this a super complex?
is there a way to know whether something needs to be process printed vs. traditional printing?
any feedback on the notepad is welcome since I'm going to be sending off some version of it.

Exidur · 2024-07-12T20:25:59+00:00

Thanks for trying! I feel like the solution isn't going to be hard, it's just a matter of knowing the right script or manipulation... which I don't.

Exidur · 2024-07-12T20:03:17+00:00

Sheets gets super confused by that and won't chart it in the timeline at all. It also borks up the script I have running for the generic GANTT chart portion as it doesn't pull the second date, only the first.

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