General computer talk/advice

I'd like to use an Android tablet as a second screen (preferably with touch capabilities) with my PC. I am not sure how to do this though...

 

You'd have to take apart the tablet and find an adapter from VGA/DVI/HDMI/DP to whatever the tablet uses for video connection. You won't be able to use it as a screen and a tablet unless it's built specifically for that, which AFAIK no tablet is.

 

Nah, they advertised them as 8 core processors. They explicitly said, 8 cores. False advertising, it does not have eight independent cores.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103960

 

except there are 2 true instruction pipelines and ALUs

yes certain functionality is shared, But each AMD module is truly 2 cores,.

 

A core is, by definition, an independent processing module. AMD's modules share a FPU, which I know you know, but it is false advertising to call these eight modules independent cores and that's why this is going to court.

 

however the floating point unit is a peripheral device and not necessarily required in the x86 standard at all.

 

One could argue both ways. Why don't we see what the verdict is in court? Let the lawyers argue about it.

 

The lawyers that cant tell a megabyte from a gigahertz.

Its total bullshit. AMD have never hidden anything.

Are there 8 independent processing units going by the x86 standard. Yes. the higher levels of cache are shared, they are in intel too, the sharing just occurs at a lower point in the pyramid, each core in a module does get a small amount of its own cache. Yes the floating point units are shared, the floating point unit that isnt required for spec.

 

There is no specification for what constitutes a core, though. I have no idea how you think the x86 "standard" (quotes because it's not a standard) specifies what an "independent core" is, let alone that it would be purely the number of ALUs that counts. Fact of the matter is that in many cases an AMD card that is marketed as having four cores will perform like a dual core. That's false marketing right there. The case goes to the US courts though, so they might get away with it anyway.

I personally don't really care about the outcome, but if you've been reading these forums you too must have come across the large number of users that are stunned by the poor performance of their AMD "quad cores". Sure, you should research before buying, but AMD told them those are quad cores, and you should be able to trust that that means the same as when Intel says it. The awareness of customers is most important, I don't think it matters much if AMD gets a fine.

 

Again, what...??

This has nothing to do with a quad core preforming slower than a dual core or vise versa. The reason AMD FX series chips suffer in BeamNG is due to it being fully dependent on single core performance which isnt amazing on those chips (which is still around a 2500k for the FX 8350 I might add). Their multitasking ability is actually very impressive with it being almost on par with a 4790k. So saying that they preform like X is just wrong as number of cores isn't the only deciding features.

Considering their price too (mine was bought new for £90 2 years ago) their price to performance is also pretty unbeatable.

 

AMD cards suffer at running a single car in BeamNG because they're not good at single core performance, that's true. However, their halved FPU count comes into play when multiple vehicles are used, as each vehicle runs in its own thread, fully allowing the chip to work its multitasking magic (which is, indeed, good), but it'll still run out of (relevant) processing units twice as fast as an equal-cored Intel chip.

I'm not saying an Intel is strictly better or anything, just that FPUs have become so important to computing power that you can't fairly call a chip with two FPUs a quad core.

 

#IntelAndNvidiaMasterRace

Don't get me wrong, AMD is great for the price! but by the end of the day, you get what you pay for, intel and nvidia has never failed me and brings me cool features like shadow play

if I was poor and wanted a good pc tho I'd take AMD.

 

They make those? Cool!
I've found apps that'll do it, but they cost money...

 

Possibly. I have no idea.
You can always make one yourself if you have the tablet connector's pin layout and basic soldering skills, and the tablet uses a standard connection rather than a proprietary one. No idea what display connector tablets/laptops usually have.

 

I'm pretty sure most tablets use a part-standard, part-proprietary connection. I just want that little screen for Rainmeter monitoring. I'll figure something out. Probably an app tbh. First have to get the tablet working... Got two of them, one has a bad mobo, the other has a cracked screen and bad touch. Gunna frankenstein it.

EDIT: Time to break out the soldering iron. The battery is glued to the screen. :/

 

I assume you're going to take the good mobo from the bad touch and replace the dead mobo from the good touch?

Also, since the battery is glued to the screen, just hit it with a hammer! it seems to fix Jeremy Clarkson problems

 

That is exactly what I did. And, it turned out I didn't need the soldering iron. The one with the bad mobo had a bad screen too, but a good capacitive touch layer. All I needed to do was switch the touch layer (held on by a couple pieces of tape, half a dozen or so plastic clips, and a ribbon cable). But I didn't know that. So I did a whole lot more than I needed to.

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What I got out of it: A webcam and microphone I don't know how to interface to, a 3.7V battery, and a working tablet with 512MB of RAM and an All Winner 1.2GHz CPU. It runs Android 4.0.0. Also, the micro-USB port is barely functional (charges through that or a 5V round plug charger), the battery is questionable, and the WiFi antenna is terrible. I guess it is a good thing it'll only be used within 5 feet of the router...
I'm going to try a couple apps for using a tablet as a second screen to see how well they work before paying money for anything. I may end up trying what @BlueScreen suggested, probably borrowing parts from a dead monitor.

 

the camera you will struggle to interface with, and the display. It's usually csi for the camera and dsi for display, however timings and parameters are not actually standardised for either connection, a dsi screen from one tablet may not worth on another. The same extends to ldvs although that is a bit more consistent

 

I can't work on any of this right now, but planning is useful. I think I can get the camera working with a RasPi, but the display's ribbon cable is much too big for the RasPi's DSI port. If I can get the camera working, I will attach the mic and battery (if the RasPi is tolerant or the voltage), and make a RasPi camera.

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I will wait till after I try using an app to gut the working tablet.

 

like I said, dsi is not standardised. You will find nobody has had dsi displays working with the pi.
again. Only 1 model camera actually works with the pi.

csi,dsi and ldvs are not standardised plug and play interfaces