I recently acquired a Pentax DSLR of Craig’s List and I’m quite impressed. It’s a K200D and is a serious upgrade from my old Nikon CoolPix 5400. Additionally, I have owned an old Pentax K1000 for the past 19 years that I have additional lenses for that fit on the K200D, with one caveat: If you have Pentax compatible lenses they will need a slight modification. Thanks to SelrahCharleS on dpreview.com for providing the walk through for this adjustment.

In addition to having twice the megapixels of my old camera, there aren’t enough nice words to be said about photographing in RAW format. The JPEG of the image in this post that was shot simultaneously with the RAW was much darker, has more shadows, and is considerably less saturated in color. All of which can be adjusted in Photoshop but not to the same degree as having the RAW file.

I currently have an archive of approximately 2,000 photos of downtown Jacksonville. Unfortunately 98% of that archive is not made up of RAW photos. I’m not interested in reacquiring my entire archive, but from here on out it will be another story.

Finally got my license of LWCAD and it’s definitely going to increase my modeling speed. I just have to spend a bit of time learning its tools and then it’s party on. Additionally, the G5 should allow me to do a good portion of initial planning and modeling on the same computer now, whereas before I would set up my plans in Illustrator on the Mac, then port over to the PC.

New renders soon to come!

The old G4 is officially out the door and replaced with a new (to me) G5. Mass quantities of improvement.

As it turns out my old hard drive isn’t dead, it’s mostly dead. Fortunately I’ve been able to recover all my Jacksonville 3D related files. The old drive will function for a while, allowing me to copy files from it, then it stops copying. Unplugging it for a time, then plugging it back in allows this temporary functionality.

I’ve been itching to get back into the swing of things with some much needed updates. Looking at getting LWCAD from Wtools3D.com to increase production as well.

I recently got a new job so I’ve been focusing a lot of my efforts there. My Mac’s hard drive also decided to take a dive. My Illustrator license is only on Mac so I’ll need to get that back up before I can really proceed.  My Mac is an old dual 400MHz G4 and I actually don’t want to use it anymore. It’s really only good for file storage and playing music. I’m going to wait and see what I can come up with.

Here’s a quick update on where I’m at. Still making progress, it seems slow going, but there’s a lot to do. As always, more to come!

We know where we’re going to make our purchase from so now we have to make our selections.

A Basic Overview of Components
What are the components you need to build a computer? Well first, “building” a computer is a rather loose term, it’s more accurate to say “assemble”, as in a puzzle. You acquire your pieces and put them where they go.

All components go inside of a case. A power supply (PSU) divvies electricity to the components. The motherboard (or mobo) connects to all components and is a sort of traffic coordinator for information. The processor (CPU) is the brain.  The video card (graphics card, GFX) processes video. Memory (RAM) is where the computer looks to process information like loading programs. Hard drives (HD, HDD) are where your data is stored. Optical drives, such as CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, DVD-RW, are typically needed to install programs.

Those are the basic components. It can get more involved if you desire, but those are the basics.

What to Pick First
Usually it’s best to start with the CPU. Choosing a CPU will immediately begin to narrow down the motherboards you can choose from, and the RAM that will fit that motherboard, and how large of a power supply you will need to run it. There’s half of your system right there. With our $400 budget we won’t need to be as concerned with this as if we were building a gaming machine though.

AMD vs. Intel
This is an interesting question that you will most likely get a differing answer from whomever you ask. I say go with what you can afford, which will be my answer to most questions regarding brand, or type. At the time of this writing, Intel offers the fastest CPUs, while AMD will be able to offer you something more mindful of your budget. Either will run your system.

From the Newegg home page go to the Computer Hardware menu and select CPUs / Processors. This will bring up that days Featured CPUs / Processors Deals, and another menu on the left. Select Processors – Desktops. We see another menu on the left. Since we are budget minded for this build we will be highly concerned with the price. On the left menu We see a price list for CPUs. The CPU will potentially be the single most espensive component of your computer, so lets pick $75 – $100. You might be thinking, “$100 is one-quarter of my budget!” Yes, but many of the other components can be had for $20-50 each. The more power you have the more you can do. Plus, the longer your computer will remain relevant.

In our $75-100 range we have a few CPUs. Now the hard part: which one? Let’s take a look at the aspects of a CPU and see if that can answer our question.

Sockets
The socket is the name for the pin configuration of the CPU. If you don’t want to get too involved with that information, do know that you will have to match a CPU socket with a like motherboard socket. For example, if you choose an AM2 socket CPU you will NOT be able to install it into an Intel LGA 775 motherboard.

Cores
The number of cores a CPU has affects its cost and performance, and they’re both directly proportional. More cores, more cost. But unless you’re rendering video or 3D models having more cores will not necessarily benefit you quite yet.

Operating Frequency
This is the speed at which the CPU runs. For most purposes the main area to be concerned with is what frequency do your applications need to run efficiently? Applications come with system requirements and will note the minimum needed GHz a CPU needs to be in order to run.

Frontside Bus (FSB) / Hypertransport
These are two different technologies. FSB has to do with Intel CPUs only, and Hypertransport deals with AMD only. These relate to the path the information to/from the CPU travels on and how fast it can travel on that path. The higher this number is the faster information can travel across your mobo.

Cache
This is a smaller and faster RAM that is on the CPU, and is used by the CPU to store frequently used bits of data. Again, larger = better = more $.

Thermal Power
Without getting too technical as that’s not the purpose of this series, this has to do with how much power the CPU draws. This is most important in the motherboard selection as you will have to select a motherboard that can supply the CPU with its requested wattage. A 65W CPU will need to go in at least a 65W motherboard.

Cooling Device
This is the heatsink/fan (HSF). They are either Included or Not Included.  Typically the HSF is included in Retail versions of CPUs, and not in Black Edition (BE), or OEM versions.

The other specs are important, but somewhat beyond getting a basic machine. Next time we’ll begin to look at motherboards.

A small update on the Baptist Medical Center.

I’m constantly evaluating how much detail to add and whether said detail needs to be modeled or textured.  Probably the best I can come up with is to have LOD versions of each model. Then, when everything is done I can make downtown Jacksonville into a WiC map. That would be some fun!

To change things up for myself I’m looking at working more on the Northbank soon. It starts to become a bit tedious when you work on the same model for days and days. I have a good portion of what I need for reference photos on the Northbank. I still need to get more references toward the Alltel Stadium.

As always, I hope you’ve enjoyed and more to come.

Finally getting the initial plans ready for importing into Lightwave, the Baptist Medical Center enters Jacksonville 3D. This is the last area of major buildings to prep for the Southbank. I purposely saved this for “last” because it wasn’t something I really looked forward to, but of course, only facing it makes it go away. One good thing about saving it for later has been I’ve more or less perfected my production flow with the tools I have.

One thing I have looked forward to, even before beginning this project, was creating the bridge that run above I-95. More to come!

Getting back into the project after a rest. I’ve begun building the Acosta Bridge. This has been not quite an easy task, as trying to figure out it’s dimensions is pretty much guess work. I’ll have  to use other structures as references to help. It’s also interesting to fit the JTA Skyway down the middle.

We’ve looked at a few pro’s and con’s to building a system and buying off-the-shelf, and we’ve decided to build. Okay, the next step is what do you want the system to do? What programs do you want to run on it? Do you need any specific hardware, like a video capture card that has it’s own requirements, scanner, printer? Make a list and keep it handy. These are some of the questions you need to ask yourself before buying the first component. Once those are answered the rest of the process will unfold itself.

Where do you begin?
Your target budget (unless you have an unlimited budget). Decide on a maximum dollar amount you will spend and that will answer all your questions. Whatever dollar amount you choose—you can spend exactly that. The key will be to do your research. For this example we will use a budget of $400 (excluding shipping). This kind of a budget won’t get you the fastest or best quality system, but it will show you that you can get some decent quality components and have an economic system.

Where Do You Purchase Components From?
I will always suggest Newegg.com. They are a reputable online retailer, I’ve purchased several times from them and so have many others. Newegg also has some of the best prices around. I can usually order from Newegg for cheaper than what I can buy local, including shipping.

Since we’re purchasing our components from Newegg I’ll also give this advice; as a general rule stay away from the Combo Deals. The Combo Deals usually have something that’s decent combined with something that’s not so much.

As we continue this series we’ll walk through the entire process of  choosing and purchasing components on Newegg.

Before you can purchase an item on Newegg you’ll have to make an account. Don’t fret, there are some nice benefits to having a Newegg account like Order History and Saved Wish Lists to refer back to later.

The Wish List feature is how we’re going to build our shopping list. It’s not permanent, nor is it anything we’re committed to. What it does is show the list of parts we’re looking at and show us a total for the list.

In the next part we’ll begin looking at individual components and how to select them to fit your budget.