DriverHeaven feedback

dj_stick

I'm sure there's more than a few members here who can wield a soldering iron, I've built a few devices and fixed a few sets of headphones in my time, and I know there's at least 2 or 3 kX users who actively build/mod their own gear, so your idea could have some merit, but it might be a pretty inactive sub-forum for the most part

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Cow_160483

I wish i had something to suggest or even complain about .... but i dont my DH experience has been absolutely excellent keep up all the hard work

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Decode!
Muhahahahah!

charm_quark

well, i guess even i'm one of the brave knights with a soldering iron in the hand!. buhaha, ... how about other tutorials, aside form photoshop!

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Three quarks for Muster Mark!
Sure he has not got much of a bark
And sure any he has it's all beside the mark.
—James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

mkk

Wild idea: When you subscribe to a thread, could MSN messages be used as an alternative notification instead of e-mail? I suspect this would take some work if at all possible.

Old idea: The ability to customise the "Todays Posts" so that not all sections have to be included.

comp_ali

is there a way to search within DH/GH reviews only without forum threads.

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GigaWatt

i'm working on one for about a year... it's about repairing audio devices (CD/DVD players, amps, tape recorders, audio cards-don't have enough info on those yet, DAT recorders/players, cables...), but it's nowhere near ready... it's supposed to be a big one... i was thinking of dividing it into smaller ones, like "DVD/CD player repair tutorial", "amlifiers repair tutorial", etc...

well, at least i made one for DVD ripping... it was the easiest one, sice i didn't need a camera... and i don't own one...

(sorry for the offtopic talk)

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It's not schisophrenia... it's just a voice in my head...

BlueMak

People actually repair dvd players and the like? You learn something new every day lol.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

MIG-31

Using advanced search usually works for me.Just use a specific word for a review etc... Then select GH Reviews or DH Reviews in the sub forum section.

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comp_ali

Thanks MIG , that's very useful.

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krixter

Just thought I would register, seeing as I've been a frequent visitor of your reviews which are really great...

However, almost never I have visited your home page, and when I did as a new visitor, I was struck by horror - it is absolutely horrifyingly unusable. So many details that it takes around 10 seconds to figure out what is going on at the site and it really makes the 'average' user (which i am not, since i am interested in your content too) just hit 'back' and go to another 'google result' of their search for <insert search term like 'radeon 4xxx review' here>.

So, I implore you, look into what are successful webpage design principals, and do something to make your site more easy to read and grasp

Zardon

Thanks for the feedback. When you say its horrifyingly unusable, what aspect do you mean? Everything? Hot news? nav bar? table sections? What exactly where you not finding and what annoyed you? I am guessing you couldn't search our review index because you couldn't find it?

More information would be helpful, thanks.

krixter

Over the last few days visited it more, and I figured out what was the most disturbing - it's the 'motherboard/PCB' layout, that makes the first impression of the site as overly crowded... the layout itself is quite good, but so full of information.
Imho it could use a bit of 'streamlining', so with a first look you can more easily notice the things that you guys feel are important for visitors new and old alike. Also, the black background itself makes things a bit hard to notice... lack of contrast if you will, compared to a light background for example. i'd bring a parallel here with bit-tech, it's one of the easiest to use site and all the relevant information is quite handily and intuitively accessible.

anyway, I feel like i 'over reacted' in my last post, sorry

Zardon

Thanks for the feedback, you certainly aren't overreacting if you hate it. Points are taken onboard and I certainly appreciate you taking time to post about it.

Mousey

I've just had a look and asked a few others to take a look, personally i don't think it's unusable i just think it's busy. Perhaps if the template was wider it would be a bit easier on the eyes? With everything packed in it is quite scary. I don't know what it's like for other skins since i'm just using Sporeheaven (Easy on the eyes for me, the dark skins give me a headache).

What other tutorials are you looking for? I was thinking of doing some for Cinema4D, Illustrator (even though i'm crap at it) and some very basic CSS Stuff.

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Zardon

Yes, it is busy, we have so much on this site in regards to tools and modders as well as the 'usual' tech site material that it is difficult to make it appear 'leisurely'. But we will try.

Wider is not an option, the site is already at the limits with side panels etc. The dark skin was also chosen in regards to a poll a while ago before the site changeover. Default dark was something we changed for the new look intentionally. Feedback so far seems to be in favour for us to remain with a dark look however we can't really please everyone, hence the alternative themes - I think many tech sites are a little 'simple' for my tastes, that being simple black text with white panels - we are a little more focused on design as people can see from the reviews. This is one of our strengths and we get constant email from people finding driverheaven who say our reviews are much more appealing than the usual tech site. That said we are always looking at ways to fine tune and enhance aspects and we already have good feedback from this thread. Seems the Navigation bar at the top is the major issue for most people and we are looking into alternatives.

Incidentally don't make guides for programs you say you are 'crap' at man, thats pointless (even though I appreciate your enthusiasm!).

comp_ali

I don't know how do I see craig online via windows live messenger , can you log on with driverheaven E-mail ?

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craig5320

If you're referring to my msn account, then yes you can register with any email you want, hence I registered my driverheaven.net email for msn use.

To contact me you would have to add me as a friend. I do not accept message from people who aren't on my contact list.

Thanks

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Mousey

Lol i was thinking more in terms of getting to know the program, Illy, like Photoshop is intimidating to new users because you've got a very minimal interface and a big canvas to fill. I still find illy confusing but i know the ins and outs. If i can teach a new user how to add a few things and how it's different to Photoshop it could help.

I'm learning some more Illy atm, might start doing a C4D Guide first though since i've been using C4D for aaaages.

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comp_ali

I have some suggestions for GH reviews :

1. split the review into 2/3 pages , sometimes it becomes boring to continue through a long text page.
2.For the PC reviews , can you include tiny technical part (system specs of system used in the review , resolution ,details and min/max/avg fps) .I know John usually includes a comment about how the game ran but it would be better with more details.

Edit: Like member mentioned a small gameplay videp cap would be nice because the videos included in the reviews are trailers and some official release ones which actually don't represent the real game perfectly.

I hope you haven't fed up with my feedback yet because I am thinking of more

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Zardon

Really? I am a bit confused how can using the scroll wheel be boring? You want us to make people click multiple links to read other pages? We did this intentionally as many sites make you read 5 pages to get a few paragraphs on each page. This is to get their page views higher. We can certainly do that if people ask as it is better for us !

I understand the point, but Gamingheaven and Driverheaven are seperate entities - Gamingheaven does not use any graphs or systems like that - we prefer to use the best engines indepth in hardware reviews then analyse them in that way. We are very picky about analysis like this and John is a great game reviewer but he is not a hardware expert like Stuart. Many game sites give statistics in this way and they are often wrong, due to lack of knowledge from the game reviewers. Other sites like Hardocp do it right and get the hardware guys to analyse the engines, but we have so many products to review that this is not often possible. I do however plan on publishing an article on Batman: Arkham Asylum shortly which should be popular with you guys. It is a balancing act with limited staff.

Again, this is a great idea in theory, but you have to understand that we have a single full time game reviewer and for him to be making videos and doing FPS analysis as you requested means the game count will drop considerably each month. It is a balance of quality and quantity and we have it streamlined well over the year so we can cover as many titles as possible. I think you mentioned you wanted more reviews in another thread so we can't have it both ways unless we employ more game reviewers and right now I haven't found another one good enough to write for us.

Certainly not, but I hope sometimes you can appreciate we can't always consider it

A Desire to Game

Perhaps you can provide links to gameplay videos (preferably HD)? Or maybe make only a few for those games that are rated so high they warrant the making of a video?

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Three is my new favorite number. (SATA III, USB 3.0, and triple channel memory)

comp_ali

Oh guys I am soo bad I forgot to mention the good things I experienced here since I registered .
Reviews: I found that your hardware reviews are done professionally , they are detailed and cover almost everything reader may think of.
Community : there are many helpful geeks here and they were very useful to me.
Forums : the development of the forums is always in progress as I can see and there have been many nice additions recently like ( Rep points , Attachments enabled , many skins to choose )

And about the adds , I have no issues with them . maybe you have the least adds between sites (Try visiting Gamesradar or IGN you will figure out what is meant by "spam bot" )

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Bolletje

Adds are good out here. On other sites you get advertisements that don't relate with the content on the site.

And I really like the design of the reviews! Always a different header. Thumbs up!

RE III - Frankie

September 28th Monday 2009 - No new news today?? 6AMto7PM?? What's up with that?? You know website dysfunction is not why people log on!!

Tyrsonswood

Frankie.... you are a sad, sad, man........

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RE III - Frankie

ah ha, neg rep... nooooo, it won't let meeeeee.

craig5320

Well it's only 10:47am here on the 28th, and in the states most people will still be in bed at 4/5am. So give us chance Frankie

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RE III - Frankie

gotcha..!

A Desire to Game

Killer PhysX review on Batman Arkham Asylum! Adding videos like this to some of your game reviews would really go a long way.

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Three is my new favorite number. (SATA III, USB 3.0, and triple channel memory)

ET3D

Something that I commented on when the site changed to the current look, and still bothers me, is that the news column is showing just a part of the news title, because it's so narrow.

One solution would be to show the full title when the mouse is over the specific news item. Take a look at how mmorpg.com does it for the news on the front page. Don't need something that fancy, but I like the idea.