Naijel

I just feel they are predictions that have a high chance of being correct because they are new parts very suited to the subject matter. I'd say that 1x1 brick with swirl on the side is tailor made for the cornices of old-style buildings.

Beautiful. Great work!

Btw, nice apartment building in the background!

It's probably stating the obvious but I predict that the next modular will feature the new dark red or sand green masonry profile bricks and feature tan accents with these two elements used heavily: - above the windows: http://alpha.brickli...em.page?P=20309 - on top of columns and/or repeated along the cornice: http://alpha.brickli...em.page?P=20310

Huh, I've never seen that set. How did I miss that? It must not have been in Australia? Either that or it's earlier than my first catalog, 1983. I had a 1982 catalog that went missing. :(

Ooh, that's nice.

Nice work. I especially like the color blocking with the stripe through the middle.

Oops. Delete please.

lambda_cla3391, after reading the article I don't know how you could characterize it as being from someone bitter. I thought it was quite balanced in tone. I don't think the writer is necessarily correct at all in their analysis, but that's another question.

I think a garage has great potential to be a great modular building.

Very nice! Good build.

Agreed on the reason for the i3 performance issues. And yes, Intel have been coming along in leaps and bounds with each new generation of their graphics. Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised by Skylake when I get to try one. I agree that a good AMD APU is ok as long as they sort out their drivers. But then I hear people complaining about nVidia drivers too, as you mention. I agree that a very powerful GPU has little advantage. It's more about fast geometry calculations than raw pixel filling power. That's why I recommended a 750 Ti rather than a more expensive 960 or crazy expensive 980 and was glad to hear from you about the new 950. I'd switch my recommendation to 950 now. Yeah, I probably over react about their drivers, and people complain about nVidia's too. I just had so much trouble with my current card. Had to resort to a third party driver removal tool to even be able to remove and update my drivers. I just don't understand how a company can make such bad software that you can't install, can't uninstall, and can't open the control centre that is installed. I'd try to open it, get an hourglass cursor for a few seconds, then nothing. No error message, no window trying to open before dying. Nothing. I really don't think I will go with another Radeon this time around. But I flip flop between the two. Thank you for bringing the 950 to my attention. I last looked at graphics cards a couple of months back as I was trying to decide whether to: (A) get a sub $200 Maxwell card right now for Fallout 4, Dragon Age Inquisition and other recent games my PC can't play, or (B) wait until a 980 or equivalent comes down in price so that I can be ready for Occulus Rift. Occulus recommend being able to run 1080P at 90 fps. My wallet said ouch when I read the recommended specs for Rift. I'm going to look again now at the 950 as an option for right now and probably push back a Rift suitable card until mid 2016. There are not many big games yet that have announced Rift support so it has become less urgent. I don't want to get a Rift, fork our for an expensive upgrade and then play tech demos and small games for 6 months or a year. I want to play big blockbuster games straight away. Maybe I should get back more directly on topic.

Yes, I agree, that's why I suggested a 750 Ti and agree with Calabar's suggestion of a 950. A 950 would be good for gaming for a few years, just not at super high resolution and quality. A 960 is about another $100 more in Australia and a 980 is way more expensive. Both are overkill for LDD.

Thanks for the info. I use an AMD processor myself, though it's time I upgraded. I work for a PC company and have tried LDD on a latest gen i3 notebook and the performance in LDD is OK but it still really chugs once you get a decent amount of pieces in the model. Same with an i3 Mac Mini I have at home, though it is 2 years old now. I would not recommend Intel graphics for LDD at all if you are building anything serious. This is especially the case with 1080P monitors. Even just clicking on a brick palette and having it slowly load all the elements is a real pain in the megablocks. I know getting a new PC with a $150-$200 card is not super cheap but if you go easy on the rest of the components it's hardly gaming enthusiast. But I really recommend anyone serious about Lego CAD get a semi-decent PC. Not for everyone though, I know. But my main PC is rock solid and has no trouble with very large models and lots of different elements. When I recommended the 750 Ti it was for these reasons. 1. The performance is quite a significant jump from previous cards in that price range. 2. Less money might be friendly for your wallet but by just going up a few dollars you get so much more performance and 2 GB of RAM. I feel it's a waste of money to buy a discrete graphics card and not get at least this level. 1 GB of VRAM just doesn't cut it these days. 3. The power consumption is quite low meaning it's less likely people need to fork out for a more beefy PSU. 4. Radeon cards have horrible driver support. It's very common for Radeon drivers to become so corrupted that you can't open the control centre, can't uninstall the drivers and can't install new versions. But if the 950 is out and has a comparable price point then it is likely a great option. In Sydney my supplier does not have 950 yet. How are they priced? The 960 and 980 cards are just too expensive for budget minded people.

Sure, but you could rebuild this bit then put it in. No?

I've looked at the file and the angles of the pieces are a mess. Not necessarily your fault but parts are at subtly different angles all over the place. It's only 65 pieces. You should be able to rebuild it in under 10 minutes. Build it all flat, then rotate it after it's finished. But don't just select the pieces and drag them to a new place. Any put side by side will just keep the bad angles. I also strongly recommend restarting the file in Digital Designer Extended mode. You can get that by clicking the black tab on the top right when starting a new file. The advantage is that when you click on the parts palettes you only see one of each part, not one of every colour of every part. It is usually much quicker to find parts in that mode.

Nice. The problem is though that you have the nose tip a whole stud width wider on either side where the equivalent part on the actual Xwing is probably under a plate thickness wider. I think the nose tip needs to be no more than 1/2 a stud wider than the rest of the nose on each side. Otherwise it will look really odd from on top, more like a mushroom.

Very cool. I'm usually more into the Homeworld and Mass Effect style of space futures but I like this sort of retro style with the hoverboard and sword and cape. Very nice.

A shopping arcade does fit the feel of the modular series. They could possibly make it wider, like 32 studs deep but 48 studs wide on the front, so that you could have two rows of shops with a decent width, balcony around the second floor with the middle open.

Intel graphics is generally awful but getting better. It's got to the point where it is fine for most things but not really suitable for serious CAD or gaming. It is built into the main CPU and isn't on the same level as a separate dedicated graphics system, like your nVidia chip. I'm not sure how the PC managed to be using the wrong, crappier graphics system by default. It may have been that someone re-installed Windows manually but forgot to install the all the extra drivers that the PC needs. Drivers are like interpreters that tell Windows how to communicate with hardware components. The component makers write the drivers for their devices. Drivers free Microsoft from having to research and understand the tens of thousands of different hardware components on the market and they protect hardware makers from having to reveal how their proprietary devices work. Some components have been around for so long that simple/standard drivers are built into Windows, e.g. keyboard, DVD drive, mouse, etc. But for more complex, non-standard and new components, the drivers are often not built in to Windows. This includes graphics, WiFi, sound, etc. Those drivers come with the PC or new components when you buy them. If the PC is built for you then they are usually pre-installed by the PC manufacturer. PC makers also usually have a way to factory reset the PC that sets everything up the same as at purchase. However, if you re-install Windows yourself then only half the job is done. All of the drivers need to be manually installed separately after the Windows installation is complete. If they aren't installed then certain parts of the PC may work at a reduced level or not at all. All of the non-Microsoft programs that came on the PC would also need to be re-installed before they could be used. A lot of people don't realise this and think that Windows is everything. But PCs usually come with a lot more software than just Windows. Some need to be installed. Some is just bloatware and can be forgotten. Intel ® Q35 Chipset Intel ® Q35 Chipset is seriously old technology. I don't know the details about the rest of the PC but given the strict requirements that Windows 10 has for certain processor features that started becoming standard only around 2008 you may have only just met their minimum spec requirements. I would strongly recommend getting a new PC if you are using LDD. If possible I'd invest in a desktop PC with a graphics card costing around $150-200 or more. If you are on a tight budget then for good bang for your buck I'd recommend any graphics card based on the nVidia GTX 750 Ti chip. That's their cheapest one with their Maxwell technology. nVidia make the chips, but the cards that actually use them are made by a lot of different companies.

Beautiful!

Very nice. Thanks.

Lovely work.

I don't understand why you refer to children here. Not many adults can even afford to buy UCS sets at MSRP for themselves and they are not designed for children.

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