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Bit-Tech.Net does a hardware guide every month It's from the UK but still good Here is March: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2010/03/09/pc-hardware-buyers-guide-march-2010/1

That actually has been done... http://www.bit-tech.net/custompc/news/605172/asrock-instant-boot-loads-windows-in-four-seconds.html

Somewhat ironically, Google offers information on these patents - number 1 and number 2. Here's a more substantive article.

The bigger question is why not sue MSFT & as well - they're doing everything Yahoo & Google does. Perhaps Microsoft has many other patents they could use to retaliate against Xerox, something Google & Yahoo are a bit lighter on. Given these patents are more than a decade old, could Google & Yahoo make some sort of laches defense?

While technically this correct, in practice you cannot always de-authorize your consoles.

*You must MANUALLY deauthorize your PSN account on EACH PS3 which you have ever logged in.*

That means: If your PS3 crashed and you were unable to get to the deauthorize menu item, you lose that "slot" forever. If you reformat YOUR OWN PS3 without deauthorizing your PSN account, you lose that "slot" forever. If you have shared your PSN account with someone and they don't deauthorize the account, you lose that "slot" forever.

Citation: I've read this on the official Sony FAQ some time in the past but I can't find it right now, so here is another link that explains how things work: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=158147

Once all your slots have been used up, if you log on to your playstation account on the web, there'll be a button available to deauthorize all of them simultaneously. At least that used to be the case, I'm not sure if they changed it.

While technically this correct, in practice you cannot always de-authorize your consoles.

*You must MANUALLY deauthorize your PSN account on EACH PS3 which you have ever logged in.*

That means:
If your PS3 crashed and you were unable to get to the deauthorize menu item, you lose that "slot" forever.
If you reformat YOUR OWN PS3 without deauthorizing your PSN account, you lose that "slot" forever.
If you have shared your PSN account with someone and they don't deauthorize the account, you lose that "slot" forever.

Citation: I've read this on the official Sony FAQ some time in the past but I can't find it right now, so here is another link that explains how things work: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=158147

Dear kind sir

I suspect we may have read different articles. Your assertion of

You mount the fucking 2.5" drive in the caddy and mount your 3.5" HD where you would normally mount it

Does not match the article when it says

The device takes the form of a 2.5in to 3.5in hard disk caddy

So I thank you for your kind concern of

The 2.5in SSD goes into the devece; the 3.5in HDD goes somewhere else.

They even have a fucking picture.

The 2.5 caddy is for your SSD. Mount your 3.5 wherever you like.

Please explain, from your point of view, what is going on in the top-right corner of this picture from the article.

Dear kind sir

I suspect we may have read different articles. Your assertion of

You mount the fucking 2.5" drive in the caddy and mount your 3.5" HD where you would normally mount it

Does not match the article when it says

The device takes the form of a 2.5in to 3.5in hard disk caddy

So I thank you for your kind concern of

un a fucking cable from your HD to the caddy. Is this so fucking hard to get a grasp on? For christs sake

And I hope you have a very nice day kind sir.

Dear kind sir,

You are a fucking idiot and can not read. Please do not continue to use the Internet, as even a short article is apparently beyond your comprehension.

You even go so far as to quote the point that refutes your assertion, trying to use it as an example of why you are correct. This is, perhaps, one of the ultimate forms of demonstration of your rank stupidity. Please destroy your computer now, or at the very least disconnect your computer from the internet so that you do not harm other people with your base ignorance.

You mount the fucking 2.5" drive in the caddy and mount your 3.5" HD where you would normally mount it

Does not match the article when it says

The device takes the form of a 2.5in to 3.5in hard disk caddy

So I thank you for your kind concern of

un a fucking cable from your HD to the caddy. Is this so fucking hard to get a grasp on? For christs sake

And I hope you have a very nice day kind sir.

Derrrr. Nevermind. It helps to also look at the pictures when commenting on TFA.

"Seriously, good for AMD, but I just don't see the point."

Not only that, but it's slower than the 8 month old $99 ATI Radeon HD 4770

so if I bought the $99 ATI Radeon HD 4770 8 months ago, why would I spend $99 on a slower card now?

I dunno, from RTFA, he sounds pretty principled. I hope that's a comfort to him when Mozilla sack his ass for recommending that users cut off 97% of Mozilla's revenue.

That actually has nothing to do with the graphics hardware of either console. Graphics differences are due to the Dev's choice of primary console. Interestingly enough, the graphics chipset of the 360 is more capable than the graphics chipset of the PS3; however, the cell processor of the PS3 is much more efficient for running games than the 360's processor, thus, it actually more than makes up for the difference in certain situations (optimization is really the only way to take advantage of either console's architectural benefits)

The issue with graphics differences between the two platforms comes from the way games are made. Devs try to make as much of the code base as they possibly can generic, including graphics engines, but through the various steps of the process, some code will always be platform specific and some code will not work efficiently on one platform or another. In fact, a huge portion of the development process is devoting time to determining whether to run some code through the GPU or the CPU. Such decisions cause small differences between multi-platform games, especially on the graphics side.

One of the hardest things for Devs to do is make the game look the same between two different platforms, especially since the Development kits for the various platforms are so outrageously expensive - so not every studio can afford more than one. Thus many games are created on one console development kit and ported to other platforms (including PC platforms).

I found a decent article really quick that explains some of the problems and issues with development for those that are inclined to read more: Bit-Tech Article

Also (in reference to the GP), the graphics chipset of the XBox 360 is an R500 series Radeon, so closer to ATI X1800 or GeForce 7900 series graphics. NVIDIA's RSX was roughly of the same caliber, though, unlike the ATI, it did not have the Unified Shader Architecture which wouldn't be implemented in NVIDIA's cards until the 8800 series.

Look at this and tell me that you wouldn't run screaming if someone asked you to repair that.

Ever hear of cans of compressed air? Ever hear of dust rags? I've had air intakes and fans get about as dirty without smoke. Also it looks like there may be pet hairs in some of those photos. Look around my apartment and I bet you'll find a lot of cobwebs yet nobody smokes inside. One tech told me I could tape a coffee filter onto the fan's air intake vent to filter the air.

Look at this and tell me that you wouldn't run screaming if someone asked you to repair that. Also, the way smoke is clogging up that fan, I'm thinking that smoking around a computer is a decent reason to void your warranty. Like using your phone in the rain. The harm came to the unit through your own negligence...

As someone who professionally provided tech support for Macs for more than 15 years, I have to disagree with you. I do think that when Macs have problems, they have BIG problems, but overall they have proven (to me anyway) that they are generally much more reliable than systems made by Windows PC vendors.

As for this SquareTrade article, it wouldn't surprise me if Apple fell a few points behind other manufacturers, though I cannot possibly imagine why someone would buy a new Mac and get a SquareTrade warranty instead of Apple's excellent 3-year warranty. Makes me wonder if the Macs covered by SquareTrade are largely used? You can't buy them at Target.

I also find it very odd that this year's SquareTrade report is almost entirely the reverse of last year's, when HP came out on top. Also, Lenovo is calling shenanigans on this year's data.

"It's useless to care about the pirates who would do it anyway, is a smaller group and usually dont have that much disposable income anyway. But it's the casual people and adults - your idea about piracy will change after you start getting more disposable income, like happened for me and lots of my friends and now happily buy what we enjoy (and another reason was the quality improvement and easiness of Steam and Spotify and other legit services)."

Um... no. "Lots" of my friends and I have a high disposable income. But we are simply not delivered what we want in a format that we are willing to use.

Frankly, the number 1 feature that "my group" looks for in a media player is a USB slot, and the ability to play xvid avi files. You know what? A lot of players now offer this. From the low-end on up. Can I go and buy a movie or tv programme in that format?

I don't really think that the (in the US) RIAA and MPAA are particularly on the ball -- they should have filed suit on Samsung, etc. for producing such devices. THERE IS NO "LEGITIMATE" CONTENT FOR THESE DEVICES. Would I purchase such content? Yes, I would. Ripping CDs and DVDs is a serious pain.

There may well be services like "Steam", but, honestly, I am a 50 year old, and I have never, and (most likely) will never use it. Just tell me where I can buy a copy of the new Batman movie on a USB stick. Meanwhile, if I buy a DVD copy (haven't yet), it may have yet another "anti-copy" measure de-jour implemented to make it inconvenient to rip. Frankly, it's easiest to simply torrent the damn thing (time is money, you know, and I have other things in my life to worry about).

Now, it is true that studios HAVE released movies in flash drive format:

http://www.bit-tech.net/custompc/news/604788/ghostbusters-is-first-film-to-be-released-on-usb-stick.html

but note that it has "DRM". It won't play on my Samsung player! And, its $53 for Ghostbusters (25 year old movie).

http://www.play.com/Gadgets/Gadgets/4-/11998344/Star-Trek-USB-Stick/Product.html

DivX, can "enable" up to 5 devices. Only $30 (much better than over $50). May work, but I am not sure enough to actually buy it.

And that's it. Meanwhile, what WE (my group) wants is the ability to purchase the programming, put it onto hard disks (good heavens, even my wife has a 1TB USB volume used for media and backing up her netbook, and we have 6TB in the home media server), be able to transfer to USB media for portability to be able to watch where we want. MY group sees nothing wrong with spending north of $1000 for a media pc. As long as it works. And the prices are dropping; we only paid $100 for a 1TB USB drive.

As it is, the content creators get very little from us. We have the money, but there is no product that we are willing to purchase. Which has driven us into torrents. Now, it would be hard to break the habit. Unless the content providers can somehow magically give us 500Kbps+ downloads of an incredibly large catalog. Which is the minimum bar that the "pirates" have set.

What has to happen

To get us back (and we ARE the ones with the money), the content has to be provided in SD or better quality, on-line, and via brick-and-mortar shopping, for the same price (or better for a download version), in DRM-free formats that are playable on the common home kit (aXXo's format would do nicely).

I would pay $5 for Ghostbusters (it's a 2 for $10 movie at WalMart). Billing must be as convenient as the Apple Store (and, yes, we buy from the Apple Store; but not music -- just iPhone games and applications. Why that is is another discussion, but remember, I *am* 50 years old).

And, having done that, it would still take time to convert us (our group). After all, we have been using torrents now for years.

Nvidia also has 67% of the desktop video card market share, compared to about 30% for ATI. It's normal that you see more crashes from Nvidia drivers.

First google search link : http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/04/30/nvidia-increases-market-share/1

Means Apple paid Intel to mangle it so it will not boot OS X.

No. Apple's EFI implementation has enough of their own tricks & tweaks that any other hardware EFI implementation will have a very hard time booting vanilla OS X. So much so that they had to release Boot Camp to get EFI Macs to boot Windows (even for versions of Windows that support EFI natively).

Is it any wonder that no EFI motherboards are on the market?

You mean like this one?

Lots and lots of tests and bechmarks. Looking good.

Intel 'Lynnfield' Core i5 750 and Core i7 870 Performance Testing Introduction :: TweakTown
Intel Core i5 and Core i7: Lynnfield CPUs reviewed - Intel, Core i5, Core i-750, Core i7, Core i7-860, Core i7-870, Lynnfield, Bloomfield, AMD Phenom II X4 - PC Games Hardware
Core i5 750 - Core i7 860 and 870 processor review
HEXUS.net - Review :: Intel Lynnfield Core i5 750, Core i7 860 and Core i7 870 CPU review: bombarding the mid-range : Page - 1/12
Legion Hardware
Intel Core i5 750 & i7 870 Review - Page 1 - The Next Nehalem-based CPU lineup
PC Perspective - Intel Lynnfield Core i7-870 and Core i5-750 Processor Review
Introduction - Intel Lynnfield Core i5 and Core i7 Processors | [H]ard|OCP
In Theory: How Does Lynnfield's On-Die PCI Express Affect Gaming? : Introduction - Review Tom's Hardware
AnandTech: Intel's Core i7 870 & i5 750, Lynnfield: Harder, Better, Faster Stronger[/QUOTE]
Intel Core i5 750 Core i7 870 Review - Overclockers Club
Techgage - Intel Core i7-870 & i5-750 - Nehalem for the Mainstream
Core i5-750 and Core i7-870 Processors Review | Hardware Secrets
Intel Core i5 750 Processor Review - TechSpot News
Intel Core i5 And Core i7: Intel?s Mainstream Magnum Opus : Introduction - Review Tom's Hardware
Intel Lynnfield Core i5-750 & Core i7-870 Processor Review
Intel's Core i5-750 and Core i7-870 processors - The Tech Report - Page 1
bit-tech.net | Review - Intel Core i5 and Core i7 Lynnfield review
bit-tech.net | Feature - Intel Lynnfield: Details and Architecture
Intel Core i5, Core i7 800 Processors and P55 Express - HotHardware
Intel Core i5-750 Processor BX80605I5750 | Intel Core i5-750,BX80605I5750,Lynnfield,LGA1156,CPU,Proocessor, Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield LGA1156 CPU Benchmark Performance Test Processor Review | Benchmark Reviews Performance Tests
Intel Core i7 870/Core i5 750/P55 Express chipset Review :: Introduction :: Motherboards.org

Lots and lots of tests and bechmarks. Looking good.

Intel 'Lynnfield' Core i5 750 and Core i7 870 Performance Testing Introduction :: TweakTown
Intel Core i5 and Core i7: Lynnfield CPUs reviewed - Intel, Core i5, Core i-750, Core i7, Core i7-860, Core i7-870, Lynnfield, Bloomfield, AMD Phenom II X4 - PC Games Hardware
Core i5 750 - Core i7 860 and 870 processor review
HEXUS.net - Review :: Intel Lynnfield Core i5 750, Core i7 860 and Core i7 870 CPU review: bombarding the mid-range : Page - 1/12
Legion Hardware
Intel Core i5 750 & i7 870 Review - Page 1 - The Next Nehalem-based CPU lineup
PC Perspective - Intel Lynnfield Core i7-870 and Core i5-750 Processor Review
Introduction - Intel Lynnfield Core i5 and Core i7 Processors | [H]ard|OCP
In Theory: How Does Lynnfield's On-Die PCI Express Affect Gaming? : Introduction - Review Tom's Hardware
AnandTech: Intel's Core i7 870 & i5 750, Lynnfield: Harder, Better, Faster Stronger[/QUOTE]
Intel Core i5 750 Core i7 870 Review - Overclockers Club
Techgage - Intel Core i7-870 & i5-750 - Nehalem for the Mainstream
Core i5-750 and Core i7-870 Processors Review | Hardware Secrets
Intel Core i5 750 Processor Review - TechSpot News
Intel Core i5 And Core i7: Intel?s Mainstream Magnum Opus : Introduction - Review Tom's Hardware
Intel Lynnfield Core i5-750 & Core i7-870 Processor Review
Intel's Core i5-750 and Core i7-870 processors - The Tech Report - Page 1
bit-tech.net | Review - Intel Core i5 and Core i7 Lynnfield review
bit-tech.net | Feature - Intel Lynnfield: Details and Architecture
Intel Core i5, Core i7 800 Processors and P55 Express - HotHardware
Intel Core i5-750 Processor BX80605I5750 | Intel Core i5-750,BX80605I5750,Lynnfield,LGA1156,CPU,Proocessor, Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield LGA1156 CPU Benchmark Performance Test Processor Review | Benchmark Reviews Performance Tests
Intel Core i7 870/Core i5 750/P55 Express chipset Review :: Introduction :: Motherboards.org

Agreed that would be the best solution. Anything else amounts to a rental.

Well, a rental with no return date or late fees.

Also, what could anybody do if you decided to, ah hem, make a "backup" of your rentals in case something happens to the rented copy?

Amazon's DRM is almost as easy to break as DVD's region codes. I am inclined to believe that this was intentional, as a compromise between publishers who wouldn't publish anything but public domain books (a lot of which you can get for $0 on Amazon.com in Kindle format) without a DRM and customers who wouldn't be happy with intrusive systems that gets between them and their books (like Sony's rootkits on their music CDs).

I agree that ideally we wouldn't have any DRM at all on Kindle books, but before that can happen, something else needs to happen that will make book publishers avoid DRM like the plague. I don't know what that is (I don't think this 1984 incident is it; it's too small-scale, and Amazon handled it too well, appeasing everyone except those who were opposed to all forms of DRM regardless of scale and intrusiveness), but until that happens, you wouldn't see a major reseller like Amazon sell books without DRM.

P.S. BTW, I don't think you understand the Kindle at all: it's just a simple Linux box. Amazon almost went out of their way to make the Kindle hardware and software standard Linux devices; it seems unlikely that the storage device is anything but what it appears to be: simple Linux filesystem.

http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2005/10/19/wmd_g-gnome/1/

Actually I would but that's another story.

From Bit Tech It should be noted that the NSS Labs testing was sponsored by Microsoft. In comments posted online, NSS Labs president Rick Moy suggested that Microsoft's security engineering team had originally commissioned the study, whose results were then picked up by Redmond's marketing department for use. However, a number of sources online, including Ars Technica and The Tech Herald, feel that Microsoft's sponsorship could have introduced a biased element into the study. The testing also found that Internet Explorer 8 needed an average of 4.96 hours to add a requested phishing URL to its block list, while Firefox 3 took 5.24 hours and Opera 10 Beta needed 6.19 hours. The mean time for a browser to block a site was 16.43 hours, a number exceeded in testing only by Safari 4, which needed an average of 54.67 hours to put a site on its block list.

The bit-tech.net article links to its other article, which says that there will be no codecs specified for audio and video in the HTML 5 spec, which is old news. Audio and video are going nowhere (in more ways than one).

And fix the goddamned buggy commenting interface already. I had to disallow JavaScript using NoScript just to post this.

I think you might be confusing the internet protection suit with just the AV protection. I don't use the firewall BS and I always disable the link scanner (although it is working smoothly nowadays). Never had real-time-protection turned off either.

Anyways, I don't remember the one update that screwed everything. Actually, I remember the reports of it but none of the 150 instances across 7-8 sites I manage with AVG as the Antivirus had the issue. However, deleting innocent files, system files, email, Programs you have ran for years or screwing other installed programs for no apparent reason doesn't seem to be an isolated or uncommon issue. Then there was the MS root certificate expiration BS where symantec clients froze the system for 10 minutes anytime you opened a signed program like office or adobe or whatever.

I doubt your going to find one piece of software that doesn't give fits at some point in time. This is especially true when you consider the complexity of an AV product. If when it does, it throws you off from it, then by all means, use something else. But be realistic because you might be bouncing around for a while.

high end version? do you understand intel's processor path? It's a mandatory upgrade every new socket. Maybe you might want to look into AMD if you want to not waste cash on an i7 920 which is being discontinued, by the way. Mind you, I use an i7 920, but only because I got it free. Had I not, I'd be running AMD.

bit-tech: Has the launch of Istanbul been brought forward in response to Nehalem EX's updated launch date?

Patler: Istanbul being pulled in by five months is a result of excellent execution by our design and manufacturing teams who were about to take it from first stepping of silicon to production. Also, the fact that Istanbul is based on our existing socket infrastructure, enables our OEMs to save time on validation cycles that are normally associated with a new processor that delivers the performance Istanbul can.

Uuuhhhh...because web browsers also need to work on mobile devices which are more concerned about power usage than having a large epeen CPU? I mean on the desktop, sure, I am building big fat multicore XP boxes as fast as I can get the parts delevered. Most folks want the big and bad even though 99.999% of the time with the tasks they are doing the CPU is sitting there using 1% resources and twiddling its thumbs.

But more and more of our computing is going mobile, and that means low power. Folks who I frankly thought would NEVER go mobile like my 67 year old luddite dad now have laptops. Add to the laptops the netbooks, the ARM based netbooks and phones, etc and I can see how this could turn out to be the wrong direction to take. MSFT doesn't care because they use a completely different IE on WinMo than they do on the desktop. But with Mozilla one of the best things about it IMHO is I can fire up Firefox or Seamonkey and have the same experience be it on desktop, laptop, netbook, ARM, etc.

If it goes to a multithreaded model I can see how we could end up with a fractured market, where things like extensions work on some version of Firefox and not others. I for one would rather have one Firefox that works wherever I want it to be, without having to worry about which versions works with what. Whether they will be able to pull that off and go multithreaded, I guess time will tell. But I like the fact that i can use the Firefox browser perfectly fine on this 1.1GHz Celeron and when I put together my new AMD dual core next week I simply import my bookmarks and everything "just works" the same on both machines.

Umm the DRM was removed like nearly a YEAR ago now.

Jeez, Ken Levine said it would go away eventually and would only be on the game for the short term. Some of you need to get a grip.
See here: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2008/06/20/bioshock-drm-removed/1
and here: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=296125#post296125

- More likely, Valve got in financial trouble and gets acquired. I know google was thinking about it once.

Both Valve and Google have officially stated that was nothing more than a rumour.

Only when those numbers got lower did people consider them acceptable for gaming, as the ghosting effect has become almost unnoticable with 6ms response time monitors.

Response time they are talking about is how fast the pixel changes, not the time between the computer sending the pixel to the time it is displayed. The monitors usually get small response times by overdriving the pixels so that they change faster... but this causes them to overshoot the target value, so the monitor buffers a few frames worth of pixel values so it can reduce this (by knowing the 'future' value of the pixel). A lot of mainstream monitors actually delay the image by ~50ms just to get your 3ms response time. It's unbelievable, but true.

I believe this page explains input lag pretty well.

I can't see a situation where 64Gb of fast storage is worth that amount of money + time + hassle + 64Gb of RAM + potential firmware problems + interface cabling + ... The bottlenecks in anything serious are going to be elsewhere.

If you think this is pricey, you should see what the guys who run EVE online paid for the RAMSAN units they have backing their databases -- over $150 per gig. CCP claims a 4000% percent performance increase, as a result of the upgrade, however.

There are definitely plenty of IO-bottlenecked servers out there that could benefit dramatically from a good SSD solution. But yeah, if you're just gaming and posting to slashdot, a $600 consumer-grade SSD isn't really going to make much of a difference in your desktop rig.

Why don't the fuckin commie pirates just plunder some where else, like to hell from where they came!!

Unfortunately, the US Congress keeps passing legislation that enables these fuckin commie pirates to continue to plunder out culture and destroy anyone who threatens their outdated business model.

Whoa! I was just kidding dude! Chill out!

LOL, I kind of figured that.

Its just that I have seen too many people defending (making excuses 200Kbps is broadband, yea right, for) ISPs, telcos on issues such as bandwidth CAPs (Comcast, Frontier, 5 GB cap, Time Warner), Traffic shaping (Comcast, Time Warner), censoring TCP/IP traffic(Sprint did years ago); not increasing their bandwidth by building out their networks (every current US telco and ISP) as they have promised; charge per message, per anything rather than just providing us the bandwidth we are paying for.

While I agree they should NOT have offered unlimited bandwidth, they did (not anymore - so they can be taught) AND

If they say that I have access to 10MB down and 4 MB up, than why am I only getting 2 - 4MB down and 700Kpbs up ...supposedly I am paying for more.

It's not the size of the cap, its the fact of a CAP!

Basically the telcos, ISPs, our politicians (both parties) have been playing us for fools for way too long AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT. (We need to hold them accountable with our money and our votes)

I just feel a need to educate enough people, hoping that they will get as fed up with the status quo and hopefully insist on what we all deserve...better service, more bandwidth and honest representation.

I hope that if enough us wake up to the truth of the situation (which requires cutting through the lies people use to defend these entities), one company will act. If one company acts (my hopes are that a new player will take advantage of Googles new trans ocean cables and offer here in the US what they have in Japan. (Japan-envy when it comes to Internet connectivity and respect of other people.)

The first company to offer 100 Mbps / 100 Mbps at what I am paying now for 4 Mpbs / 700Kbps will find me to be a loyal customer for life. And with less than 40% of the high speed interent marketplace, they would be able to generate multiple billions in profits.

That same company would be in a position to offer 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps as they are now in Japan also.

Eventually someone will; that company will put every existing telco and ISP to shame. (These customer no service entities should be ashamed.) My hope is at that time every other telco will be hurt so bad that either they finally invest in their infrastructures, or if they continue to refuse to do the right thing, that they be put out of business via normal market practices.

Though some companies are starting to wake up to the reality they have created (customer no service) and starting to do things...here is one attempt by Comcast, (7 employees in Philadelphia), its a start, but will they implement this company wide...that combined with whole hearted efforts to build out fiber and actually start providing TRUE customer service and they might stand a chance. Note: If a company is not seriously interested in changing their ways, they should NOT only TRY. This is NOT an area to try, this is an AREA THEY MUST DO! Anything less than 100% commitment will only hurt them!

Personally once I switch to a new provider with that amount of bandwidth, I will NEVER look back. If enough other people do likewise, the existing oligopolies will falter and suffer.

Might be worth putting into my will that any family member that uses any of the other ISPs or telcos will be dis-inherited just to drive the point home.

Sorry, I neglected to include the link for the CCP performance increase article

Top 5 Games benchmarks only

Plus one other title of their choosing

No other benchmarks period

No acoustic measurements

No power measurements

No PhysX testing or benchmarks

This is as stated by one of those sites that got a sneak peek

It also serves to delay and decrease the sales peak. If I see BioShock removing all DRM not even a year after its release, I'm probably going to wait a year to see what happens with GTA IV.

You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.

Last I checked Apple didn't offer any cases in brushed aluminum =(

Wow, subtly trying to imply that I'm a pirate are you?

No, just an apologist.

like saying "poking someone in they eye makes them more likely to kill you" isn't the same as saying "it's ok to kill you".

Or it could be more like "if you're trying to kill someone, you should expect them to defend themselves by poking you in the eye".

Wow! weeks? so worth the massive investment and pissing off legit customers.

Actually, considering how many sales were made in those weeks, yes.

So I guess the company will be releasing a patch to remove the DRM on that game now that it serves no purpose?

Yes.

I have never ever ever seen that written on slashdot.

Then look harder, and do your best to overcome that confirmation bias.

I have on the other hand seen many many examples of "wouldn't work so I donwloaded the crack", "wouldn't work because of the DRM and will never buy from that company again", "The DRM fucked up my system, can I sue them?", "I've seen so many people telling me how the DRM fucked things up that I'm just going to download the cracked version of TPB"

Yes, and I've seen things like "the game is crap, I'm just gonna download it", "$5 is too expensive", not to mention the countless evidence on torrent sites of software without DRM that still gets uploaded. It's almost as if pirates will do or say anything to support their criminal behaviour so their brains don't asplode from cognitive dissonance...

Execs knowing sweet fuck all about computers and being taken advantage of by scammers causes DRM.Piracy is just a bogey man the salesmen pull out to scare the execs.

So you're saying that piracy has absolutely no financial impact on the developers? And what about internally-developed DRM systems? Are companies like Valve and Stardock scamming themselves?

You know you didn't deal with the point raised at all.You seem to have responed to a different post entirely, did you have the wrong window open?

You seem to be incapable of simple human logic. Are you sure you aren't a bot? Because you just failed the turing test.
Making the point that pirates don't see DRM, while true, is invalid because the logic that surrounds it - that if something doesn't work 100% of the time and isn't the most convenient for the end user, we should give up on it (like working, earning money, authenticating software, providing police...) - is completely invalid. Providing hospitals is an inconvenience because it costs money. And people still die anyway. Therefore by your logic we shouldn't have hospitals.

Oh lots of people disagree with piracy, but nobody outside the DRM industry who has a clue about computers could think DRM works.

That's funny, because it only seems to be pirates that think it never works.

A year? This is the second time in 2 months this exact situation has come up:
Moderator: "Vicious bans about for badmouthing (EA Game of choice)!"
Public: *outcry*
Moderator: "I mean.. uh.. never mind!"
EA: "He doesn't actually work for us, he's a community volunteer." (Link)
It happened when Spore was released and the DRM was a hot topic on the forums.

Most of the [gaming] benchmarks show that Vista is just slower than XP.

This was true when Vista was RTMed but is just no longer the case. For any reviews after Vista SP1 (MS always takes 1 SP to get things right), the performance is about equal. Please cite any benchmarks you find to the contrary though -- I'd love to read them.

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2008/03/25/windows_vista_sp1_gaming_performance/10
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302527,00.asp
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6188289/index.html?sid=6188289&cpage=8

If you were expecting a huge drop in performance as your eyes scanned from the XP to the Vista results, well, surprise! As many a tech analyst predicted, Windows Vista's gaming performance conundrum has largely been solved, and it was mainly due to early graphics drivers.

Because they've been having a stupid, annoying catfight for a while now. This precedes Larrabee, to be sure, but it's definitely more pronounced now.

Also, then you'd have a very difficult time finding an Intel motherboard that supports Crossfire. I don't want the PXX line to die ;_; - although the fact that any PCI-E 2.0 lane _can't_ support SLi is nVidia's fault.

What is efficient enough to be feasible real time is.

Yet in the case of Raytracing, "efficient enough to be feasible" means real shadowing, not the shadow-map crud we see in most video games.

Can you honestly tell me you think the shadows in Nvidia's demo look better than the ones in, say, Crysis?

I can and I will. Shadow maps used in games like Crysis beat you over the head with depth perspective. i.e. "Look, there's a shadow! Now you know how far off the ground the helicopter is!" While that's nice and all, only the objects that you map and define to have shadows actually cast a shadow. The subtle interactions of the environment and the actors are usually lost. It's almost like someone took a bunch of stage props, covered a stage with styrofoam sand, then threw all the props on top. Thus the actors stand out from their environment.

With ray tracing, the shadows are correct. Period. If a monster picked up that NVidia car and threw it through the air end over end, you'd see all kinds of shadow interactions happening that simply won't be visible on a shadow-mapped engine like Crysis.

Heck, you don't even have to get that complex. The car casts shadows upon itself. Which already makes it look more realistic on a closeup than anything an existing game engine can do.

In addition, ray tracing can scale a hell of a lot farther when it comes to realistic lighting and shading. With more rays not only comes softer shadows, but multiple shadows, reflective surfaces, and other "realistic" shadowing techniques that can't be touched by today's shadow map engines.

I've really been trying to figure it out, but I can't. If it does have a second LCD in the trackpad as smitty97 speculates, it sure won't be more eco-friendly:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/07/04/lcd-greenhouse-gas-worries/1

Also if it has a 1-piece aluminum chassis, it will be more difficult to repair, therefore more likely to be replaced, therefore more hardware going into landfills, therefore less eco-friendly. The case itself is sturdier but if it's one hard piece of aluminum, the internals will take more damage and the case will take less. Again, less eco-friendly. A good case for preventing damage would be a replaceable one made of thin, soft metal.

Also getting the parts inside such a case would be a nightmare...I guess the screen would have a slit on the bottom where the internals are inserted and then clipped into place, and the body would just have removable bays as usual, but then the mobo and keyboard would be non-replaceable.

Project of mine from a few years ago: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=89645

I think it's somewhat applicable to the discussion :p

I decided to re-purpose a G4 powerbook that I wasn't doing anything with and decided that it was a decent time to give a newer *nix ditro a shot. I had recently used Ubuntu to create a headless fileserver and was pleased with it. On the laptop, not as much. Airport Extreme support - from the OS, _NOT_ the Ubuntu support forums - was really, really painful. I tried YellowDog, SuSE and a few others but no love from any. I went back to Ubuntu (actually Xubuntu) and spent a number of hours working through the Support Forums, which are really well categorized into different topics. I ended up getting wireless to work with _a lot_ of help from the numerous posts responding to Ubuntu beginners like myself. Was it easy? Nope. Was it doable? Yup, thanks to the great community support. I think that's the best answer to "What is it with Ubuntu." But as always, YMMV.

You might be interested in the GeForce 8200 mini-itx board reviewed here http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/05/20/jetway-jnc62k-geforce-8200-mini-itx/.

It's not available yet in the states, but will be on my lottery win wishlist when it is. Combined with a cheap 45watt Athlon x2, a nice case and a fanless 120w dc-dc power supply, it would make a killer mythtv frontend.

As an article earlier this month pointed out they are in fact in the process of porting the CUDA system to CPUs.

The advantages would be (assuming this is the wonderful solution it claims) you run your task in the CUDA environment, if your client only has a pile of 1U racks then he can at least run it, if he replaces a few of them with some Tesla racks, things will speed up a lot.

I did some programming at college, I do not claim to know anything about the workings of Tesla or CUDA, but it sure sounds rosy if this stuff would work.