USB flash drives and graphics cards

[JellyBelly]

First of all, a friend of mine has just got a game called The Sims. I've got
no idea what it is but it seems that her existing graphics card isn't up to
the job. According to the Sims info, the *minimum* requirements are:

*** 32MB or greater Transform & Lighting capable video card with one of the
followng supported chipsets: NVIDIR Ge-Force2 GTS or greater, ATI Radeon
8500 or greater ***

I think she currently has some sort of AGP card in her machine but can
anyone suggest a replacement card that won't cost her a fortune but is
better than the minimum required so as to "future-proof" her a bit?

And now something I'd like an answer to - I've got some photos on my
computer and I seem to remember reading somewhere that no-one really knows
just how long a CD or DVD will be able to store these photos (or any other
data, for that matter) and still be readable. I know that a lot of it will
come down to storage and commonsense issues (don't store in direct sunlight,
don't write on them with anything other than a purpose-made marker etc.
etc).

I was wondering about USB flash drives such as this one:

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119415/rb/24175180360

Could they be used for "permanent" storage - or at least as permanent as a
CD or DVD (5 years? 10? 20?) or are they really only good enough for easy
transferring of data between machines and that's about as good as they get?

TIA,

JellyBelly

 

[Paul]

First of all, a friend of mine has just got a game called The Sims. I've got
no idea what it is but it seems that her existing graphics card isn't up to
the job. According to the Sims info, the *minimum* requirements are:

*** 32MB or greater Transform & Lighting capable video card with one of the
followng supported chipsets: NVIDIR Ge-Force2 GTS or greater, ATI Radeon
8500 or greater ***

I think she currently has some sort of AGP card in her machine but can
anyone suggest a replacement card that won't cost her a fortune but is
better than the minimum required so as to "future-proof" her a bit?

And now something I'd like an answer to - I've got some photos on my
computer and I seem to remember reading somewhere that no-one really knows
just how long a CD or DVD will be able to store these photos (or any other
data, for that matter) and still be readable. I know that a lot of it will
come down to storage and commonsense issues (don't store in direct sunlight,
don't write on them with anything other than a purpose-made marker etc.
etc).

I was wondering about USB flash drives such as this one:

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119415/rb/24175180360

Could they be used for "permanent" storage - or at least as permanent as a
CD or DVD (5 years? 10? 20?) or are they really only good enough for easy
transferring of data between machines and that's about as good as they get?

TIA,

JellyBelly

An FX5200 should not cost a lot of money, and I managed to make one work
in my oldest computer (440BX based 3.3V only AGP). But you should do more
checking into the particulars of the machine. Some prebuilt machines use
the graphics function in the Northbridge, and they have no video card slot.
Fortunately, the FX5200 is available in AGP and PCI versions, so if there
is a PCI slot, there is hope. The other tiny detail, is disabling whatever
graphics are in the box - some computers are quite resistant to being
upgraded. (From ATI, their most modern offering, is X1300 in PCI form. The
problem with the AGP version, would be it won't fit in a 3.3V only video
card slot. Bridged PCI Express video cards, a way of converting PCI Express
GPU chips, for use with AGP slots, doesn't typically allow use in 3.3V
only AGP slots.) Knowing what kind of slot the machine has, may open a
whole new set of solutions besides these.

FX5200 AGP - 8X speed, seems to work even in 3.3V only video slot.
FX5200 PCI - uses the much slower PCI bus, but works when no AGP is available.
ATI X1300 PCI - uses the PCI bus like the FX5200 PCI.
Modern bridged AGP - AGP 8X/4X only, edge card slots are set for 1.5V only.
- "PCI Express GPU + bridge chip" to convert PCI Express to AGP
PCI Express cards - wrong slot type

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

*******
This "NOR" flash has a data retention spec of 10 years.
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/NORFlash/512Mbit/K8F1215EBM/K8F1215EBM.htm

This "SLC NAND" flash also is rated at 10 years. Suspicious, like it
is a boiler plate spec.
http://www.samsung.com/products/sem...C_LargeBlock/32Gbit/K9NBG08U5M/K9NBG08U5M.htm

This Micron flash also says "data retention" 10 years.
http://download.micron.com/pdf/datasheets/flash/nand/4gb_nand_m40a.pdf

MLC NAND stores two bits per cell and has twice the density.
This would not be my first choice for archival storage.
But I cannot get a datasheet here - unless it is a browser problem of some sort.
http://www.toshiba.com/taec/adinfo/mlcnand/

I would say, based on the claims of the manufacturers, that 10 years is the
guaranteed life. That number seems to be consistent with EEPROMs, the
devices used to store things like BIOS code.

Paul

 

[JellyBelly]

An FX5200 should not cost a lot of money, and I managed to make one work
in my oldest computer (440BX based 3.3V only AGP). But you should do more
checking into the particulars of the machine. Some prebuilt machines use
the graphics function in the Northbridge, and they have no video card
slot.
Fortunately, the FX5200 is available in AGP and PCI versions, so if there
is a PCI slot, there is hope. The other tiny detail, is disabling whatever
graphics are in the box - some computers are quite resistant to being
upgraded. (From ATI, their most modern offering, is X1300 in PCI form. The
problem with the AGP version, would be it won't fit in a 3.3V only video
card slot. Bridged PCI Express video cards, a way of converting PCI
Express
GPU chips, for use with AGP slots, doesn't typically allow use in 3.3V
only AGP slots.) Knowing what kind of slot the machine has, may open a
whole new set of solutions besides these.

FX5200 AGP - 8X speed, seems to work even in 3.3V only video slot.
FX5200 PCI - uses the much slower PCI bus, but works when no AGP is
available.
ATI X1300 PCI - uses the PCI bus like the FX5200 PCI.
Modern bridged AGP - AGP 8X/4X only, edge card slots are set for 1.5V
only.
- "PCI Express GPU + bridge chip" to convert PCI
Express to AGP
PCI Express cards - wrong slot type

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

*******
This "NOR" flash has a data retention spec of 10 years.
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/NORFlash/512Mbit/K8F1215EBM/K8F1215EBM.htm

This "SLC NAND" flash also is rated at 10 years. Suspicious, like it
is a boiler plate spec.
http://www.samsung.com/products/sem...C_LargeBlock/32Gbit/K9NBG08U5M/K9NBG08U5M.htm

This Micron flash also says "data retention" 10 years.
http://download.micron.com/pdf/datasheets/flash/nand/4gb_nand_m40a.pdf

MLC NAND stores two bits per cell and has twice the density.
This would not be my first choice for archival storage.
But I cannot get a datasheet here - unless it is a browser problem of some
sort.
http://www.toshiba.com/taec/adinfo/mlcnand/

I would say, based on the claims of the manufacturers, that 10 years is
the
guaranteed life. That number seems to be consistent with EEPROMs, the
devices used to store things like BIOS code.

Paul

Wow, thanks very much Paul for taking the time and trouble to write such a
comprehensive answer - you've given me a lot to work with there )

Cheers,

JB

 

[JellyBelly]

********************snipped a bit********************

More information - she currently has an ATi Radeon RX9200SE - T128
(http://msicomputer.co.uk/Products.aspx?product_id=703450&cat_id=78)
installed in a KM400 - MV/MLV motherboard so I reckon that that should
handle the SIMS game quite easily, but she said that the problem only seems
to manifest itself when playing the game - other activities such as word
processing or internet surfing don't seem to be affected.

Symptoms - about 5-10 minutes into the game the screen goes blank. The game
is still running on the computer because she can hear the action (dogs
barking, cars, doors being opened etc., etc) but no vision, just a blank
(black) screen.

This has been happening both with her old CRT monitor and the new TFT
flat-screen that she got for christmas so we can't see it being a monitor
problem, which is why she thought of the graphics card.

OS is WinXP Pro with 512Mb RAM

Any ideas Paul - or anyone else looking at this thread?

Cheers,

JellyBelly