Hello all. Title says it all really. I have been thinking about redoing my desk for the last few… Well months really. Since July at least, though maybe before that. I have very limited space for what I want to do and have been making do, for the most part, with what I even have available. I want to set my computers up so that I can do my priorities as best as I can, and as efficiently as I can. I have a few different machines that I want to use as core systems, then I have other systems available that don’t get use but have power enough to be used for things like video rendering or something like that (EG being my gaming laptop with a C2D E8135 and a 9800MGS w/ 4GB ram that can even run OSX, and does most of the time).
So what are my goals that I am not completely meeting currently that I want to achieve?
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Streaming: At random, I will drop frames on a stream because I am trying to stream out at native res, so I need to downscale in OBS. I also have random stream breaks. I plan on doing some form of upgrade soon, but at the moment that is not an element I can take into account as funds are non-existent. For the moment, I am completely OK with downscaling my stream a bit, its just annoying me only, probably. I stream games most of the time, though me and some friends are looking to make time to start a podcast. I play anything from league and CSGO up to Deus Ex MD.
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Music Production: I am majorly moving into my old habits right now, including picking up the horns again (trumpet and double french if you want to ask). I plan on attacking some of my musical curiosities with REAPER and maybe doing some midi stuff. This doesn’t need to be on my streaming machine, though it might be neat to stream some of this sorta stuff later on? No clue really, this is mostly pre-stage at the moment.
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Video Editing: On top of streams I handle a youtube channel. Videos are anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours long. I use KDEnlive as my editor and its the editor I am comfortable with. I tried to learn Final Cut X but it annoys the shit out of me, so KDL is where I stay. I know it can run in OSX, but I would prefer a linux environment to handle this sort of work.
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Code Testing: Believe it or not I do some debug work for some groups. For the most part I do this on whatever machine I have around on the time that has sublime text, VSCode, and some memory monitors on it, which is normally my thinkpad (has been since july). I haven’t had any tickets come in so I don’t have anything set up for this at the moment.
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Basic Crap: Anything from downloading YT videos and organizing that stuff or document handling. Listening to music, whatever really. All the mundane shit any user does underneath what I listed above.
“Well alright how can we help you with that? Seems like something you would just majigger into working like normal right?”
Well… Sorta.
Like I said I plan on doing a streaming system upgrade here pretty soon. I don’t have a massive budget and what I need is more cores. My plan is FX, probably an 8370, and to use the best buy trade ins system to my advantage with that. Sure I could do Zen or something with that, but an 8370 or 50, not sure about 20, has the same single core perf as my current Xeon, I just need more cores. Don’t really need to be sold on a R5 1400 or whatever. Thats already mapped out unless someone has a convincing idea for me. If you need a better explanation as to WHY FX, ask me below as this is already a huge post.
I need to figure out how to organize all of this to work with the space that I have, which is one L shaped TV-Table-turned-desk that is about 3.5 X 5.5 FT at a guess with lots of space underneath. I have another desk in my room/office, but its not really useable as a desk. Its just there as storage space really. My desk needs to house my:
- Streaming system
- TV / Console Stack
- Secondary System
- 3 - 4 monitors (4th could be my TV but eh?)
- 2 keyboards
- Probably at least one laptop
Here is an image of the current setup so you guys can get an idea:
Sorry about the shitty image quality, but you get the idea. I may have a deep desk, but between my old 1080p monitor having a ridiculously huge stand and using a milk crate to hold consoles and be my TV stand, I’m inbetween the two. I’m not finding it effective, obviously.
With the space I have, I am trying to figure out if my TV should just go somewhere else completely and have the desk to my computers only. Though, I don’t really have anywhere else to put it, and its already in the most convenient location I feel. I’ve tried having it in the center of the desk but… meh. It didn’t really save all that much space to be honest.
On top of placement, I am trying to see what I could do to maximize the CPU power I have now. Heres a list of my machines that I currently use, and have available for other things.
- Streamer
- Xeon 1225v2 4C4T @ 3.2 GHZ | 16 GB DDR3 @ 1600mhz | RX 580 | 64 GB Boot drive, 1TB /HOME, 3TB Storage | Ubuntu 17.04 / Arch
- Mac Pro
- 2X Xeon 5150 2C?T @ 2.66 GHZ | 16GB DDR2 @ 800 - 1250mhz | R7 370 | 250 GB 7200 RPM Boot, 500GB and 750 GB Storage | OSX 10.11.6
- iMac
- C2D T7200 2C2T @ 2 GHZ | 2.5GB DDR2 @ 667mhz | ATi X1600 | 160 GB Velociraptor | OSX 10.6 or 10.7
- Thinkpad
- i5 2520m 2C4T @ 2.5 - 3.15 GHZ (is at 3.15 most of the time) | 12GB DDR3 @ 1600mhz | Intel HD3000 | 1TB WD Hybrid | Linux? Unsure yet. Redoing this one rn
- Fizo - Asus G50VT-X5
- C2D E8135 (6M cache makes the speed here) @ 2.4 GHZ | 4GB DDR2 @ 800mhz | Nvidia 9800M GS | Some shit hard drives | OSX 10.9.5
And then I have some other random shit that I probably won’t want to use for the above listed goals.
At the moment #1 is probably the most concerning machine. Since its how I interact with stream viewers and such I have to look at how I want it set up. I am finding a hankering to play League of Legends again, and perhaps to stream it, but its a windows only game. At that, with the mix of hardware that I have (wireless card, can’t do eth, plus GPU makes windows 7 impossible to make work for some damn reason) makes windows 7 a pain in the ass to make work and anything higher impossible to use without exchanging hardware (such as wifi card, which I don’t exactly mind doing tbh its just annoying af). I am finding more windows games that I want to get back into that I can’t run in wine, and I don’t even really need to run my streaming PC in linux to be completely honest. Except, I run KDEnLive on this machine. Would it be better to move KDL to my thinkpad and have it as a pseudo desktop at my desk and my mobile when I’m not here? Blech, I have no idea how to even make that work well.
Mac pro is what I do a lot of my mundane shit on, or would rather do most of it on. The imac is mostly there to do USB formatting and imaging, ISO hosting for the LAN, so I really could just throw this in the basement or something and get it out of the way. Its very handy to have it right on the desk though, rather than remote sharing a USB port. Thinkpad is what I am thinking of making permanent code machine and editing machine, but I don’t know how I would use that on the entire desk as a whole. An the G50V is just available processor space. I have done a LOT of upgrade work to it, and its actually really good for what it is with the cooling system being completely revamped and a beta BIOS flashed in to fuck with GPU speeds some. It could be anything. Right now it thinks its a mac pro 3,1.
Also, I realize synergy is available. I just have had problems with it lately. Clients don’t want to connect to the server and so on. Its rather annoying.
So thats my predicament. If anyone has any constructive input, I would be happy to listen. Wifi cards that are worth looking at, hell a new mobo for machine #1 that I could get for a PCIe wifi card and possibly a capture card in the future. If hardware is suggested I would love to have it be at least windows 8 compatible as I kinda hate 7 with a burning passion at the moment, though it does have its place.
Future posts will be if I actually tackle this and burn everything down and start anew.
Thanks for any tips or ideas.