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Microsoft, Sony Clash Over Vista Turbo Memory
Anonymous writes "Sony is claiming that the current release of Vista does not support Intel's Turbo Memory technology, but Microsoft has dismissed the allegation. If Microsoft is telling the truth then all is well. But if Sony is right, Microsoft has opened itself to being sued for deceptive marketing practices."
That wouldn't be the first time Microsoft was sued. What does Sony have that the US-DOJ doesn't?
vs. Microsoft's vague assurances:
Guess who seems more confident in their assertion?
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
...must be one of most redundant statements in the English language.
We used to play a (DOS) joke called "Turbo Copy"
Just press "ALT" then "E" then "A" ... then hit the Deliver key (DEL).
Turbo Copy! 100% data loss, but it sure is fast!
Maybe that's how MS saves their roadmap.txt file.
"Sony is dying because of the way they've been treating their customers lately"
"By attacking one of the few companies more hated than them, they're trying to re-direct some of their bad karma"
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SNE&t=6m
was: Re:Its all marketing...
davecb5620@gmail.com
Sony: Vista doesn't support TurboMemory.
Microsoft: It does too. See? It uses the flash memory for...things. Vroom.
Sony: You call that support? It doesn't do what it's supposed to.
Microsoft: Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not happening. It's integrated and magical.
Sony: Yeah, it'll half-work, as long as you micromanage what files are cached.
Microsoft: See? Integration.
Sony: Um...no. Not quite.
± 29 dB
does not work in the way that it was marketed as giving a nice speed up and M$ just pushed it back to vista sp1.
There was a test recently in the german gamers magazine Gamestar, and they found that ''turbo memory'' did nios speed things up at all in a number of different set-ups they tested.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Microsoft? Using "deceptive marketing practices."
Huh.
Who'd of thunk it?
Must be a day that ends with "y".
(rolls eyes)
"The issue is that the OS needs to learn what to load into the Robson memory in order to increase performance," Sony said."
It sounds to me like Microsoft may have implemented it poorly so it's a feature that doesn't really help.
How many people here are old enough to remember the transistor radio? I remember the big thing was to get a five transistor radio. That was a radio with five (5) transistors. And they had five too but if you looked you might see that one of the three leads on two of the transistors were cut.
Unscrupulous companies were putting five transistors into their radios so that they could advertise that feature but they were using two of them as simple diodes not as transistors. What you paid for was a five transistor radio but what you got was a in effect three transistor radio. You couldn't really sue because the unit had all five transistors, just some of them weren't being used as transistors.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Tests run on customer reference boards and preproduction latest generation Intel® Centrino® processor technology with optional Intel® Turbo Memory enabled against like systems without Intel Turbo Memory. Results may vary based on hardware, software and overall system configuration. All tests and ratings reflect the approximate performance of Intel® products as measured by those tests. All testing was done on Microsoft Windows Vista* Ultimate (build 6000). Application load and runtime acceleration depend on Vista's preference to pre-load those applications into the Microsoft ReadyBoost* cache. See www.intel.com/performance/mobile/intel_turbo_memor y.htm for more information.
Which in turn yields:
Performance measurements collected on pre-production Lenovo ThinkPad* T61 with pre-production BIOS. Detailed Notebook Configurations
PCMark05 Test from FutureMark is an application-based benchmarking tool used to measure overall PC performance. By using portions of real applications, this benchmarking tool can assess PC performance. (+36% improvement)
Google* Earth loading a fly through of a national park followed by Adobe Photoshop* Elements 5.0 creating a slideshow showing pictures from the same park. The input files for Adobe Photoshop Elements are 48 digital photos with a resolution of 10 MPel. (+127%)
Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance. Buyers should consult other sources of information to evaluate the performance of systems or components they are considering purchasing. For more information on performance tests and on the performance of Intel products, visit www.intel.com/performance/ or call (U.S.) 1-800-628-8686 or 1-916-356-3104.
But Sony is trustworthy, they'd never lie.
Is Turbo Memory technology hardware that is designed and built around an OS (Vista)? That seems to be a very peculiar (read:bad) idea. What does it mean for other users who intend to utilize different operating systems? Is there a loss of performance or just an added feature that cannot be used?
Microsoft has opened itself to being sued for deceptive marketing practices
Considering they got away claiming they were selling Operating Systems, I don't think this will be a problem.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Bad karma? What bad karma?
Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates proved even more appealing than cuddly babies in the eighth-annual Harris Interactive/The Wall Street Journal ranking of the world's best and worst corporate reputations.
Top-ranked Microsoft managed to beat Johnson & Johnson, whose emotionally appealing baby-products business had kept it in first place for a remarkable seven consecutive years. In the Reputation Quotient survey conducted by market-research firm Harris Interactive Inc., respondents gave Microsoft very high marks for leadership and financial results. But Mr. Gates's personal philanthropy also boosted the public's opinion of Microsoft. How Boss's Deeds Buff A Firm's Reputation
Apple ranked 22nd in the Harris poll.
Sony, look, if Vista is not using the turbo memory technology you could use the free space there to load your root kits even faster....
(rant)
Does anyone actually remember when "turbo" had a technical definition beyond "really fast?" Does anyone realize that, in the computing world, "turbo" is essentially meaningless? (Go ahead, demonstrate for me how you pressurize the incoming bitstream mix using the processor bitstream exhaust pressure...) Or has the influx of market-roids slapping a "turbo" badge on any slightly-faster-than-last-year's technology made this term utterly useless?
(/rant)
To keep it simple, it is flash memory (slower then ram (regular memory), cheaper then ram, not as long lasting as ram) that is added as an extra cache.
That is it, nothing more. Just a file cache. The OS controls it and has to tell it what to cache and what not.
Cacheing in itself is pretty simple and its speed increase is pretty damn obvious to all those of us who have lived through the age of the minimal/full setup for games. The game/data comes on the CD, with it being optional to "cache" it to the HD. The more you cache on the HD, the faster the game will load its data.
Now there are problems with cacheing. What to keep, and what to loose.
Take again a game. Say I a racing game. As I drive around the track new scenery comes up and has to be taken into memory. If it is full then old scenery needs to dropped out. Obviously the machine that has enough memory to take the ENTIRE track into memory will perform the best. Next will be the machine that can at least load it from something like an HD, preferrably a special cache file of the track that combines all the needed data in one handy arrangement, slowest will be the machine that is forced to read the track data from the CD as you drive around.
Turbo Memory(cache) is designed to load frequently used data(applications are data as well) into its memory, so that it can be loaded into main memory faster then if it had to be loaded from HD.
And there is its problem. HD's ain't slow, and it still got to be loaded from the cache into memory. The game engine itself barely benefits from this, it just might reduce the loading time IF your OS deems the game engine to be fit to be loaded. The game data itself will be too big to load. In a linear game you wouldn't even have much to cache, either stuff is needed constantly, and needs to be in main memory OR is used once, and there is no point in cacheing it.
This kind of tech ain't knew. Were it excells is in reducing the startup time of many small often run applications. Were it sucks donkey balls is when it comes to big run once, stay loaded type apps.
What is even worse, AI in OS'es generally just isn't very good and often gets it wrong. In trying to guess what you are doing it will often guess wrong and actually hurt performance.
Turbo Memory works with certain workflows were you would be better off with just more memory and or faster HD but can't have/afford that.
I am therefore not suprised at the Sony and MS reaction. Both are absolutly correct. Sony tested it with their set of tests, and found it not worth the cost. Very likely they just have a certain workflow they test for with memory setups that are designed for that. (Might Sony make more money from selling main memory, then turbo memory) MS will have tested for different circumstances, perhaps those that favor their cacheing system and with the knowledge that MS does NOT sell main memory?
So what does this mean to you? Make sure you check that any review of technology like this resembles what YOU do with your computer. Always run the same apps that stay active, handfull of large apps and can afford/have enough main memory, then don't bother. Are you someone who runs countless little apps, constantly closing them and reopening them and just don't have enough or can't enough main memory, then it might work for you. IF Vista properly regonizes what you are doing and can use the cache as it is intended.
So no Sony OR MS bashing needed here. Simply different views of how users us their computer.
According to several articles regarding this subject, the questionable utility of Turbo Memory is not the fault of MS alone:
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/31976/135/TG Daily reports that Intel's showcasing of Turbo Memory included benchmarks that's anything but real-world applicable: "The benchmark appeared to slam several pictures at lightning speed into Photoshop, something that would play to the strengths of flash memory because the pictures would already be stored in flash for fast opening by Photoshop. Realistically though, we think the average user wouldn't capture dozens of pictures and then open them all in Photoshop in one fell swoop."
Which leads to an Anandtech article showing that in many cases, performance suffered as a result of Turbo Memory implementation - particularly with boot and hibernation times. Now these are cases where users are MOST likely to notice performance differences.
Finally, in the cases where Turbo Memory would seem useful, it appears that HP discovered that using far more versatile, ubitquitous flash solutions such as SD and USB drives (not to mention just adding regular system memory (what a concept!)) yielded similar and more economically sensible results: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6188522.html
Maybe if Vista didn't need such obscene amounts of memory, this wouldn't be an issue; but I digress.
It's interesting that Intel themselves calls it an "entirely new system innovation for Windows Vista PCs..." and says that it "Works on Windows Vista only."
Perhaps you can point to the specification which would allow it to be used by other operating systems. If I have a dual-boot system, does the specification allow it to keep info for each? If so, how is it determined which OS gets use of how much of this memory?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The death of "Turbo" was when the Turbo Button stopped appearing on computer cases :X Now wasn't that cool or what, you had TURBO and the speed of your procesor was indicated on a led display.
When presidential candidates are debating about evolution you really must wonder how enlightened the masses really are.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The case of the AT box under my table which I use as a router-cum-fileserver has a "TURBO" button on the front display.
The box usually runs OpenBSD, so I tried starting a Vista installation to see what all the fuss was about.
Unfortunately, it appears 64MB of "tradtional" RAM is not enough for Vista.
...Sony have a fecking clue about software.
The day I trust Sony's views on what makes good software is the day I call up Satan for his advice on which Snow-Plough model gets you to work fastest.
That sounds so, so...eighties.
Or is it memory that can only be used by TurboPascal?
-- Alastair
Probably because everyone stuck with massive PS libraries and not enough money to afford a PS3 are replacing their broken shoddy POS PS2s. Sony seems to be the master at building products that last until about a month out of warranty then suddenly drop dead.
Obviously, those cuddly babies were up to something.
If you gaze into their beautful pale blue eyes, you can just make out the words IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL_TO and a bunch of hex.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The bigger question here is:
When is the Linux kernel going to make use of Turbo Memory? It would be funny if, after MS touting this tech for so long, we can say "but you need Linux before it will work properly".
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife