I cannot remember a single time where I have upgraded a CPU without needing a motherboard update. I usually feel dirty about keeping my old RAM as well. Generally I upgrade about once every couple of socket revisions, which means future proofing is irrelevant on the core components.
Of course I tend to keep my hard disks kicking around. Gone are the days where I was so poor I would upgrade infrequently enough to just copy an image my tiny old drive onto my new enormous one.
I have also never bought an optical drive. I just seem to aquire those things from friends upgrading.
The only future proofing I would consider is a decent case. I even had to upgrade my damn PSU a while ago...
Apologies for ranting off at the most convenient target but:
EA only seem to release bugfixes when patches are coming out to support paid "booster packs". Battlefield 2 is a prime example of EA's continued disregard for their customers. Every time I see their intro movie I groan, because I know the game is going to have been rushed out the door.
Contrast this with Starcraft - those chaps seem to be still releasing patches (I think the last one was within the last 2 years - not bad for 1998 game!). Valve keeps CS ticking along nicely.
EA is similar to Sony in my eyes. I remember when I paid for BF2, and installed. Patched to 1.3, couldnt join a server due to punkbuster. Updated punkbuster, experienced the horror of the 1.3 patch level (unlikely you could remain in a server an entire round - nasty with the long load times). EA announces a new expansion (oh and BF2142). The cry from the BF2 community was pretty unanimous: "Fix the damn original first!".
It gives you the ability to play DRM'd content! As an example those nice shiny HDDVD / Bluray disks, which appear to come with a ridiculously complicated key system specifically geared to ruin pirates' ("Yarrr!"), linux users' ("Tux LOL!"), and the End-User's ("Six packs?") day. It means that the lucky few that have capable hardware and find the Golden Decryption Key in their packet (combined with the one hidden in their player, TPM, tv, dogs anus and first born) can watch high definition movies!
For the rest there is only technically inferior solutions. Like BitTorrent with its *ahem* inferior experience. You'll be stuck playing non-DRM bit-perfect rips on your cheaper yet equally capable television. Haha! Sucker!
That said, its not like the DRM in Vista is in the way until you go to play DRM content. In that case it will at least do a better job than a non-DRM capable OS, which will probably imitate a brick or something.
Personally I guess I'll stick with the *cough* clearly inferior BitTorrent, because my terribly crap Dell 24" screen doesnt have the HDCP capable port and $200 higher price tag of the model above it. Seems my hardware has been made incapable of playing legit high def DRM content. Whatever shall I do? (*coughbittorrent*)
Agreed. Aero Glass is disabled when running a full screen DirectX application, or a windowed DirectX 9 application. In theory DirectX 10 apps will be able to run, due to the GPU being able to context switch.
The guides that I've seen showing differences between gaming with Aero (dis/en)abled showed statistically insignificant differences (even that one where having it enabled was a touch faster).
Alt-tabbing out of games on vista seems to be a bit quicker for me (though this might be the newly installed system effect).
I have to say though, ReadyBoost does add to the snappyness, and I'm only using a gig on a Lexar high speed stick, so I'm only backing half my 2 gig of ram. MS recommends a 1:1 to 1:2.5 ratio to get the most out of it.
If they think they can force draconian DRM on people who won't accept it, then their sales will just decline further and they will not fix any of their current problems.
I wish you we're right. I just imagine my mum coming up against these artificial restrictions. I bet she will just assume its a technical limitation. (DVD region coding was "probably something to do with the southern hemisphere" for her - maybe they spin it backwards;)
Education of all your mates is important - but you run the risk of sounding like a whiney evangalist. Normally when I get asked about some use thwarted by DRM I just say "yeah, mate, your player could do that, but the movie publisher wont let you". Then if they ask I can drop an explanation.
Not entirely without precedent if you consider British TV licences on "free to air" TV.
Of course it raises the question whether an industry association should be responsible for delivering this "tax" (or likely a small fraction) back to it's members. Kindof assuming they represent all copyright holders.
Perhaps a tie in with the Office of Film and Literature [and Music] Classification to distribute these taxed royalties back on "registered works". Not entirely convinced a government department would be any fairer than an industry association - and would probably be strongly influenced by the industry associations.
While the existence of the Blank Media Taxing is mentioned in the article, it doesn't mention the slightly hilarious side effect of this tax - it makes it extremely difficult to go after copyright infringers because, after paying this tax, it would be covered by Canada's double-dipping laws;)
As an Aussie - I'm considering a contracting stint in Toronto. Those Canadians might have flappy heads and a penchant for saying "eh" a lot, but they do have one of the most liveable cities in the world, and more sensible copyright laws.
Oh an a decent temperature - it was bloody 40 degrees C last weekend:(
I would've thought there is less risk in running auctions for virtual goods. I can see eBay wouldn't want to be embroiled in a "This man didnt pay for his Ferrari" dispute, but a (mostly) laughable "This sword was falsely sold with +1 Attack vs RIAA" dispute would be easy to brush aside, and wouldn't likely affect eBay's mainstream reputation.
Being afraid of the content producers, who don't want their stuff being sold is another issue - I would've though up to the players to comply with the TOS, not eBay.
Sounds like a modem attempting to dial out in your burglar alarm will run into problems unless your Voip gateway is configured to pass calls to the PSTN. The GSM codecs used by voip are going to seriously break any attempt at transmitting data even at horribly low bitrates.
Kindergarten is a fantastic place for kids to learn the basics of technology, like mouse skills. Don't underestimate the value of sitting them down quietly with a good picturebook.
While I agree that a well set up computer will contribute greatly to their development, I suggest that you limit their time on it strongly. Children also need to learn that the world is not the instant-reward predictability of kids PC games. Give them blocks, let them build things, let them cry when it falls down.
I'm sure people will be able to post a bunch of links to some useful free (and Free) software though. Your main technical challenge is sourcing the hardware cheaply. Theres some great "kids" keyboards out there (from qwerty to pig/cow/horse), but they can be expensive;)
Disclaimer: The above post is a complete load of bollocks.
Protected Video Path is not some complex trickery embedded deep in the bowels* of the OS snooping on your every move. Think of it as a wrapper codec, like an encrypted stream. Highly simplified it works like so:
Your HDDVD has an encrypted movie on it, which you want to play. Windows has a quick check to see if all your components support PVP.
If they do support PVP, then it sets up a stream which passes the encrypted movie all the way happily thru the video card and out across to your shiny HDCP supporting screen, which decrypts it and plays it for you.
If they don't support PVP, it sets up an unencrypted low-res stream, and plays it. Or it can't play it.
If you download a damn high definition Xvid (or h264, or whatever) you can play it to your hearts content. PVP does NOT STOP YOU from playing content. It _allows_ you to play protected crap, which you would not be able to play otherwise. Of course we all know its totally futile, because everyone will download nice hidef rips, the movie studios will cry, and we'll have paid extra cash for these stupid HDCP chips et al.
* Well I'm sure some enabling stuff is in the drivers, but its just passing an encrypted stream around.
Rainbow Six: Vegas would be nothing to me if I couldnt play co-op as the black guy. Only the black guy can hold a machine gun in one hand, and a glock in the other, while hiding behind a blackjack table and "capping asses".
The game would be 15% less fun if I had to use the aforementioned arsenal as a white dude.
Ditto GTA: San Andreas. If you weren't playing CJ, you'd be stuck with some lame Eminem-like wigga. That would just plain suck.
I have been running vista on my primary box since the RCs and playing Source engine and Unreal engine games the whole time without issue. The RTM edition came with less-than-perfect drivers for nVidia cards (polygon tearing at high res in Source).
100.whatever detonators work fine.
I put this down to any typical release where a bunch of kids get together on the internet to have a whine about it broke everything.
Of course you will expect lower frame rates with the WHQL drivers bundled with the OS. Any gamer going from their bleeding edge pre-alpha detonators box to stock drivers is going to notice the difference. When you update, these problems magically disappear.
Hey this is Slashdot and this is what makes news! I guess I better close this post by blaming it on Protected Video Path to close out the non-blaming-ms karma dive for a perfect +5 Interesting!
Personally I have always used my 100% stable (no dodgy taiwanese drivers) XP and now Vista machine as the host OS. I can play all the games I like. Then I run a VM if I want to do anything in *nix.
With *nix in a VM I dont have to worry about driver compatibility. I also have a tendancy to bork my installations regularily (even in Vista, but that has System Restore, just make sure the VM is in your home directory). It helps having snapshots to roll back my VM to.
*nix on windows is where it's at. The only thing (fireproof suit on) that I dont need in *nix is the *nix gaming "experience", and conveniently thats about the only thing that the virtualization doesnt cover. It's win win. It's even nice to pause the VM to free up the RAM for gaming.
Of course some hippies may have trouble swallowing their pride if it seems like this relegates their OS to "secondary" status;)
The standard of proof is 'on the balance of probabilities,' i.e. whatever is most likely (even if only 51% likely as compared to 49% likely), is what happened.
And when they come after you for a $10000 for each of the 5000 songs you downloaded and you are ruled 5% responsible, you are still screwed. (After all you are a slashdot geek so you must've known you should secure that WiFi. Its like not maintaining the brakes on your car!.... yer honour.
It also seems that even if you do buy and install the more expensive version of Vista on your Mac, you're not able to play or access content protected by Microsoft's digital rights management system, for fear that the full volume disk encryption won't work.
Well of course it won't bloody work! If its running under emulation then:
a) The system can be picked up and have bits of memory dumped.
b) Theres no TPM, so theres no secure place to keep the keys.
c) Hands up if you expect the MAFIAA to sign VMWare's emulated Protected Video Path drivers! They use ROT13.... twice!
Slashdot Mirror
Future Proof?
I cannot remember a single time where I have upgraded a CPU without needing a motherboard update. I usually feel dirty about keeping my old RAM as well. Generally I upgrade about once every couple of socket revisions, which means future proofing is irrelevant on the core components.
Of course I tend to keep my hard disks kicking around. Gone are the days where I was so poor I would upgrade infrequently enough to just copy an image my tiny old drive onto my new enormous one.
I have also never bought an optical drive. I just seem to aquire those things from friends upgrading.
The only future proofing I would consider is a decent case. I even had to upgrade my damn PSU a while ago...
Various Telco Industry Association of America + *IAA.
= WiFi leads to copyright infringement and supports terrorism....
Apologies for ranting off at the most convenient target but:
EA only seem to release bugfixes when patches are coming out to support paid "booster packs". Battlefield 2 is a prime example of EA's continued disregard for their customers. Every time I see their intro movie I groan, because I know the game is going to have been rushed out the door.
Contrast this with Starcraft - those chaps seem to be still releasing patches (I think the last one was within the last 2 years - not bad for 1998 game!). Valve keeps CS ticking along nicely.
EA is similar to Sony in my eyes. I remember when I paid for BF2, and installed. Patched to 1.3, couldnt join a server due to punkbuster. Updated punkbuster, experienced the horror of the 1.3 patch level (unlikely you could remain in a server an entire round - nasty with the long load times). EA announces a new expansion (oh and BF2142). The cry from the BF2 community was pretty unanimous: "Fix the damn original first!".
We're sorry Mario, but the Media Key is in another Block...
It gives you the ability to play DRM'd content! As an example those nice shiny HDDVD / Bluray disks, which appear to come with a ridiculously complicated key system specifically geared to ruin pirates' ("Yarrr!"), linux users' ("Tux LOL!"), and the End-User's ("Six packs?") day. It means that the lucky few that have capable hardware and find the Golden Decryption Key in their packet (combined with the one hidden in their player, TPM, tv, dogs anus and first born) can watch high definition movies!
For the rest there is only technically inferior solutions. Like BitTorrent with its *ahem* inferior experience. You'll be stuck playing non-DRM bit-perfect rips on your cheaper yet equally capable television. Haha! Sucker!
That said, its not like the DRM in Vista is in the way until you go to play DRM content. In that case it will at least do a better job than a non-DRM capable OS, which will probably imitate a brick or something.
Personally I guess I'll stick with the *cough* clearly inferior BitTorrent, because my terribly crap Dell 24" screen doesnt have the HDCP capable port and $200 higher price tag of the model above it. Seems my hardware has been made incapable of playing legit high def DRM content. Whatever shall I do? (*coughbittorrent*)
Agreed. Aero Glass is disabled when running a full screen DirectX application, or a windowed DirectX 9 application. In theory DirectX 10 apps will be able to run, due to the GPU being able to context switch.
The guides that I've seen showing differences between gaming with Aero (dis/en)abled showed statistically insignificant differences (even that one where having it enabled was a touch faster).
Alt-tabbing out of games on vista seems to be a bit quicker for me (though this might be the newly installed system effect).
I have to say though, ReadyBoost does add to the snappyness, and I'm only using a gig on a Lexar high speed stick, so I'm only backing half my 2 gig of ram. MS recommends a 1:1 to 1:2.5 ratio to get the most out of it.
-40C plus (3 * pairs of thermal underwear) equals comfortable temperature.
40C minus all clothes equals still hot and a public indecency charge
If they think they can force draconian DRM on people who won't accept it, then their sales will just decline further and they will not fix any of their current problems.
;)
I wish you we're right. I just imagine my mum coming up against these artificial restrictions. I bet she will just assume its a technical limitation. (DVD region coding was "probably something to do with the southern hemisphere" for her - maybe they spin it backwards
Education of all your mates is important - but you run the risk of sounding like a whiney evangalist. Normally when I get asked about some use thwarted by DRM I just say "yeah, mate, your player could do that, but the movie publisher wont let you". Then if they ask I can drop an explanation.
Not entirely without precedent if you consider British TV licences on "free to air" TV.
Of course it raises the question whether an industry association should be responsible for delivering this "tax" (or likely a small fraction) back to it's members. Kindof assuming they represent all copyright holders.
Perhaps a tie in with the Office of Film and Literature [and Music] Classification to distribute these taxed royalties back on "registered works". Not entirely convinced a government department would be any fairer than an industry association - and would probably be strongly influenced by the industry associations.
While the existence of the Blank Media Taxing is mentioned in the article, it doesn't mention the slightly hilarious side effect of this tax - it makes it extremely difficult to go after copyright infringers because, after paying this tax, it would be covered by Canada's double-dipping laws ;)
:(
As an Aussie - I'm considering a contracting stint in Toronto. Those Canadians might have flappy heads and a penchant for saying "eh" a lot, but they do have one of the most liveable cities in the world, and more sensible copyright laws.
Oh an a decent temperature - it was bloody 40 degrees C last weekend
Don't laugh and read up on the political history of Sealand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand
He's had to worry about various types of armed pirates - it just goes to show that you need some kind of standing army.
I would've thought there is less risk in running auctions for virtual goods. I can see eBay wouldn't want to be embroiled in a "This man didnt pay for his Ferrari" dispute, but a (mostly) laughable "This sword was falsely sold with +1 Attack vs RIAA" dispute would be easy to brush aside, and wouldn't likely affect eBay's mainstream reputation.
Being afraid of the content producers, who don't want their stuff being sold is another issue - I would've though up to the players to comply with the TOS, not eBay.
Ooops, brain-typo. Still, even G711 and 729 are around 8khz and then further compressed. Pretty unlikely to get even 2400 baud over that.
Sounds like a modem attempting to dial out in your burglar alarm will run into problems unless your Voip gateway is configured to pass calls to the PSTN. The GSM codecs used by voip are going to seriously break any attempt at transmitting data even at horribly low bitrates.
Kindergarten is a fantastic place for kids to learn the basics of technology, like mouse skills. Don't underestimate the value of sitting them down quietly with a good picturebook.
;)
While I agree that a well set up computer will contribute greatly to their development, I suggest that you limit their time on it strongly. Children also need to learn that the world is not the instant-reward predictability of kids PC games. Give them blocks, let them build things, let them cry when it falls down.
I'm sure people will be able to post a bunch of links to some useful free (and Free) software though. Your main technical challenge is sourcing the hardware cheaply. Theres some great "kids" keyboards out there (from qwerty to pig/cow/horse), but they can be expensive
Thats the quantum wave-function of your sex life actualizing.
I, for one, am glad it's not me observing it to collapse the wave function.
Disclaimer: The above post is a complete load of bollocks.
Protected Video Path is not some complex trickery embedded deep in the bowels* of the OS snooping on your every move. Think of it as a wrapper codec, like an encrypted stream. Highly simplified it works like so:
Your HDDVD has an encrypted movie on it, which you want to play. Windows has a quick check to see if all your components support PVP.
If they do support PVP, then it sets up a stream which passes the encrypted movie all the way happily thru the video card and out across to your shiny HDCP supporting screen, which decrypts it and plays it for you.
If they don't support PVP, it sets up an unencrypted low-res stream, and plays it. Or it can't play it.
If you download a damn high definition Xvid (or h264, or whatever) you can play it to your hearts content. PVP does NOT STOP YOU from playing content. It _allows_ you to play protected crap, which you would not be able to play otherwise. Of course we all know its totally futile, because everyone will download nice hidef rips, the movie studios will cry, and we'll have paid extra cash for these stupid HDCP chips et al.
* Well I'm sure some enabling stuff is in the drivers, but its just passing an encrypted stream around.
Rainbow Six: Vegas would be nothing to me if I couldnt play co-op as the black guy. Only the black guy can hold a machine gun in one hand, and a glock in the other, while hiding behind a blackjack table and "capping asses".
The game would be 15% less fun if I had to use the aforementioned arsenal as a white dude.
Ditto GTA: San Andreas. If you weren't playing CJ, you'd be stuck with some lame Eminem-like wigga. That would just plain suck.
Choo choo.
I have been running vista on my primary box since the RCs and playing Source engine and Unreal engine games the whole time without issue. The RTM edition came with less-than-perfect drivers for nVidia cards (polygon tearing at high res in Source).
100.whatever detonators work fine.
I put this down to any typical release where a bunch of kids get together on the internet to have a whine about it broke everything.
Of course you will expect lower frame rates with the WHQL drivers bundled with the OS. Any gamer going from their bleeding edge pre-alpha detonators box to stock drivers is going to notice the difference. When you update, these problems magically disappear.
Hey this is Slashdot and this is what makes news! I guess I better close this post by blaming it on Protected Video Path to close out the non-blaming-ms karma dive for a perfect +5 Interesting!
Personally I have always used my 100% stable (no dodgy taiwanese drivers) XP and now Vista machine as the host OS. I can play all the games I like. Then I run a VM if I want to do anything in *nix.
;)
With *nix in a VM I dont have to worry about driver compatibility. I also have a tendancy to bork my installations regularily (even in Vista, but that has System Restore, just make sure the VM is in your home directory). It helps having snapshots to roll back my VM to.
*nix on windows is where it's at. The only thing (fireproof suit on) that I dont need in *nix is the *nix gaming "experience", and conveniently thats about the only thing that the virtualization doesnt cover. It's win win. It's even nice to pause the VM to free up the RAM for gaming.
Of course some hippies may have trouble swallowing their pride if it seems like this relegates their OS to "secondary" status
And when they come after you for a $10000 for each of the 5000 songs you downloaded and you are ruled 5% responsible, you are still screwed. (After all you are a slashdot geek so you must've known you should secure that WiFi. Its like not maintaining the brakes on your car!.... yer honour.