It's basically a laptop... a Mini-ITX-based HTPC that mounts to the back of my TV. Laptop Core2Duo CPU, laptop memory, laptop hard drive, laptop wireless card, USB-connected TV and FM Radio tuner...
This is probably veering into "way off-topic" land, but could you share more specific specs, especially what case you used? How much did it cost? I want to do something like this myself.
I was including "several social networks" in "web browsing". Or is there some other type of social network I'm unaware of?
As for watching TV, that too could be put under "web browsing"; I don't know any non-power-user that has a TV tuner card in their computer.
I fail to see how categorizing the majority of use cases under "web browsing" or "word processing" is equivalent to calling people "a bunch of slack jawed yokels".
But even if they've got Hulu in one window and Facebook in another, there's no reason they need more than 4GB of RAM. My wife does this all the time on my "old" laptop (which has an effective 3.3GB of RAM installed) and it's quick and snappy, with very little RAM usage.
As for picture manipulation, yes, a lot of people do that; my wife uses Picasa to organize and touch up photos. But 4GB of RAM is excessive for that sort of thing.
I would argue that video editing doesn't fall under "most users", but even if it did, they'd be using Windows Movie Maker, which is far from high-quality; 4GB is excessive there, too.
Anyway, my point wasn't "people only need 512MB of RAM", my point was that "people don't currently need more than 4GB of RAM", which was Monkeedude1212's assertion.
As far as I know (it has been months since I last looked at the kernel config screens), there are options to change the tick rate (10, 100, or 1000 Hz), and there's a real "tickless" option.
I'll bet that even as I type this, some kid is trying to edit a skateboarding video he just recorded and loaded onto his parents' 512MB XP machine. When it comes to image or video manipulation, there's almost no such thing as "too much RAM", and more is almost always better.
Sure, 512MB isn't enough, but your average teenager trying to edit a skateboarding video with Windows Movie Maker isn't going to need more then 2GB of RAM, even if he's trying to play the latest Flash-based version of some Facebook game at the same time.
I'd agree that many people need more than 4GB of RAM, but let's not confuse "many" with "most". I would assert that right now, most people only need 2GB of RAM, and 4GB wouldn't hurt, but there's no reason most people need more than that.
As a gamer with 12GB of RAM, I can't say any of my games use more than 2GB or so each; as a result I must admit that I have no conceivable reason to have 12GB of RAM installed (other than that it gives me the ability to write a post on slashdot containing the words "I have 12GB of RAM installed"). I'd be fine with 4GB.
On the other hand, having 12GB of RAM lets me set up a 9GB ramdisk in Gentoo, which lets me compile OpenOffice.org (with -j9 on a Core i7) in 45 minutes (versus 4 hours using the hard drive, 2GB of RAM, and -j3 on my old Core 2 Duo laptop).
*Ahem*. I don't think most users can use 10GB of RAM. I don't think most users can even use 4GB of RAM. Photoshoppers and video editors don't make up "most users"; but even those people probably don't need more than 8GB (though they should probably be using a 64-bit OS).
Remember, most users don't do anything more than web browsing and word processing, with the occasional game of solitaire or minesweeper thrown in for kicks. 2GB of RAM is plenty for that sort of thing (ignoring the standard jokes about Vista's memory usage).
And, I'm sorry... but D3 and SC2? Same game as the ones I already own from the series, it looks to me.
... except for the eye candy.
I played D2 for an hour or so last night. 800x600 scaled up on a 1920x1080 LCD monitor? Not very pretty. And the whole "we're not fixing bugs anymore" thing is sort of a damper... I only stopped playing because I got stuck on the environment and couldn't move.
Point is, D2MultiRes aside, if Blizzard were to release a patch for D2 and SC allowing higher resolutions, then you might have a point, but the problem with owning a high-end computer is that ten year old low-end games sometimes don't work right anymore - and if they do, they're ugly.
Netbooks have weird resolutions (i.e. 1024x600) that are too small to play games on, and their graphics chips are... inadequate... for gaming purposes; furthermore, their processors generally aren't high-powered enough for new games.
Granted, Blizzard historically supports relatively ancient computers with their games, but they've got to draw the line somewhere, and making a linux client is going to require a lot more motivation than netbook owners.
It all comes down to money. If it costs them $300k in developer time, plus $30k/year in dev time for patches, they're not going to do it unless they're quite sure they're going to sell more than 10,000 copies (initially) and more than 1,000 copies per year after that.
Chicken and egg it may be, and Blizzard can certainly afford to eat the cost if they have to, but really, there isn't much real demand for a Linux client. How many of you would buy it if there were a Linux client, but won't otherwise? My guess is, very very few.
Personally, I'll buy Diablo III either way, even though I would be ecstatic if there were a Linux client; I play enough other games that I basically have to run Windows anyway, so Linux support is just a perk, not a necessity.
then unnecessarily 'raise' the ship again to re-engage him in the same 2D plane!
And that's sort of what I was getting at. They're all working according to some 2D plane of reference, and only rarely do they actually do anything outside of that plane.
That episode you were talking about happens in Enterprise for sure, but they made a 3 dimensional net around a certain point to find a cloaked ship.
Now I'm going to have to go figure out which episode it was and watch it.
For the other battles, you see fly-by's almost every time where they fly over and hit the hull, fly under and hit the bottom or some other random point.
Well yes, but that's not quite what I'm getting at. The ship flying under the other ship is still oriented in the same direction, as if the ships were orienting themselves according to some cosmic plane of reference. Only very rarely do you see a ship come at another ship like the Enterprise E did in TNG's finale.
Then, you, 10.0.0.1, issue a cryptographic challenge (determined and distributed by Blizzard) to 10.0.0.2. If it hits and matches, you get a local game authenticated by Battle.net and get to be all low-latency and LOLz.
You're probably not going to believe me, but this idea occurred to me while I was writing my post earlier (minus the cryptography and "LOLz"). I discarded it because of privacy and network traffic concerns (which, admittedly, encryption can mitigate to a degree).
Specifically, imagine I'm on Corporate Network A, and I'm playing with someone on University Network B. My internal address on A is 10.1.1.1, the other guy's internal address (on B) is 10.2.2.2.
When the game starts, my client probes my network for 10.2.2.2. Let's say that 10.2.2.2 exists - it's the company's Windows Domain Controller or something. Sure, the server is going to reject the connection, since it (hopefully?) isn't running StarCraft II. But will it show up in logs? Network admins might not appreciate their machines being probed on seemingly random ports by employee's machines (even if gaming is allowed on the company network).
Now, I know, that's probably a non-issue, but in my haste to write out the earlier post, the suggestion of probing wrong machines was enough to get the idea rejected from my "what to write next" queue.
So... um... I don't really know where I'm going with this, I'm pretty much just babbling now... My gut tells me to hit "Cancel" and walk away, but I put some vague amount of thought into this post, so I'm going to post it anyway.
It would have helped if Blizzard had bothered to tell people about this feature in a manner that would actually disseminate to the general gaming population.
It doesn't do me any good if nobody ever tells me about it. Not all of us spend all our time refreshing Blizzard's news page.
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It's basically a laptop... a Mini-ITX-based HTPC that mounts to the back of my TV. Laptop Core2Duo CPU, laptop memory, laptop hard drive, laptop wireless card, USB-connected TV and FM Radio tuner...
This is probably veering into "way off-topic" land, but could you share more specific specs, especially what case you used? How much did it cost? I want to do something like this myself.
I was including "several social networks" in "web browsing". Or is there some other type of social network I'm unaware of?
As for watching TV, that too could be put under "web browsing"; I don't know any non-power-user that has a TV tuner card in their computer.
I fail to see how categorizing the majority of use cases under "web browsing" or "word processing" is equivalent to calling people "a bunch of slack jawed yokels".
But even if they've got Hulu in one window and Facebook in another, there's no reason they need more than 4GB of RAM. My wife does this all the time on my "old" laptop (which has an effective 3.3GB of RAM installed) and it's quick and snappy, with very little RAM usage.
As for picture manipulation, yes, a lot of people do that; my wife uses Picasa to organize and touch up photos. But 4GB of RAM is excessive for that sort of thing.
I would argue that video editing doesn't fall under "most users", but even if it did, they'd be using Windows Movie Maker, which is far from high-quality; 4GB is excessive there, too.
Anyway, my point wasn't "people only need 512MB of RAM", my point was that "people don't currently need more than 4GB of RAM", which was Monkeedude1212's assertion.
I do all three, and I get three times the battery life!
As far as I know (it has been months since I last looked at the kernel config screens), there are options to change the tick rate (10, 100, or 1000 Hz), and there's a real "tickless" option.
Linus not liking ACPI is no reason for other people to not write patches to make the kernel more efficient under battery power.
I'll bet that even as I type this, some kid is trying to edit a skateboarding video he just recorded and loaded onto his parents' 512MB XP machine. When it comes to image or video manipulation, there's almost no such thing as "too much RAM", and more is almost always better.
Sure, 512MB isn't enough, but your average teenager trying to edit a skateboarding video with Windows Movie Maker isn't going to need more then 2GB of RAM, even if he's trying to play the latest Flash-based version of some Facebook game at the same time.
I'd agree that many people need more than 4GB of RAM, but let's not confuse "many" with "most". I would assert that right now, most people only need 2GB of RAM, and 4GB wouldn't hurt, but there's no reason most people need more than that.
As a gamer with 12GB of RAM, I can't say any of my games use more than 2GB or so each; as a result I must admit that I have no conceivable reason to have 12GB of RAM installed (other than that it gives me the ability to write a post on slashdot containing the words "I have 12GB of RAM installed"). I'd be fine with 4GB.
On the other hand, having 12GB of RAM lets me set up a 9GB ramdisk in Gentoo, which lets me compile OpenOffice.org (with -j9 on a Core i7) in 45 minutes (versus 4 hours using the hard drive, 2GB of RAM, and -j3 on my old Core 2 Duo laptop).
*Ahem*. I don't think most users can use 10GB of RAM. I don't think most users can even use 4GB of RAM. Photoshoppers and video editors don't make up "most users"; but even those people probably don't need more than 8GB (though they should probably be using a 64-bit OS).
Remember, most users don't do anything more than web browsing and word processing, with the occasional game of solitaire or minesweeper thrown in for kicks. 2GB of RAM is plenty for that sort of thing (ignoring the standard jokes about Vista's memory usage).
It's not nearly as bad as 64-bit XP or 64-bit Vista.
Steam has had that nailed down for years.
*sigh* I was referring to PC game companies.
No guesses on a release date. The official word is "when it's done".
And, I'm sorry... but D3 and SC2? Same game as the ones I already own from the series, it looks to me.
... except for the eye candy.
I played D2 for an hour or so last night. 800x600 scaled up on a 1920x1080 LCD monitor? Not very pretty. And the whole "we're not fixing bugs anymore" thing is sort of a damper... I only stopped playing because I got stuck on the environment and couldn't move.
Point is, D2MultiRes aside, if Blizzard were to release a patch for D2 and SC allowing higher resolutions, then you might have a point, but the problem with owning a high-end computer is that ten year old low-end games sometimes don't work right anymore - and if they do, they're ugly.
... or just play on the same account (unless you both want to play in tournaments).
But really, "one copy per household" never was a goal of game companies.
I'm sure they thought of that and don't care.
Netbooks have weird resolutions (i.e. 1024x600) that are too small to play games on, and their graphics chips are... inadequate... for gaming purposes; furthermore, their processors generally aren't high-powered enough for new games.
Granted, Blizzard historically supports relatively ancient computers with their games, but they've got to draw the line somewhere, and making a linux client is going to require a lot more motivation than netbook owners.
It all comes down to money. If it costs them $300k in developer time, plus $30k/year in dev time for patches, they're not going to do it unless they're quite sure they're going to sell more than 10,000 copies (initially) and more than 1,000 copies per year after that.
Chicken and egg it may be, and Blizzard can certainly afford to eat the cost if they have to, but really, there isn't much real demand for a Linux client. How many of you would buy it if there were a Linux client, but won't otherwise? My guess is, very very few.
Personally, I'll buy Diablo III either way, even though I would be ecstatic if there were a Linux client; I play enough other games that I basically have to run Windows anyway, so Linux support is just a perk, not a necessity.
then unnecessarily 'raise' the ship again to re-engage him in the same 2D plane!
And that's sort of what I was getting at. They're all working according to some 2D plane of reference, and only rarely do they actually do anything outside of that plane.
That episode you were talking about happens in Enterprise for sure, but they made a 3 dimensional net around a certain point to find a cloaked ship.
Now I'm going to have to go figure out which episode it was and watch it.
For the other battles, you see fly-by's almost every time where they fly over and hit the hull, fly under and hit the bottom or some other random point.
Well yes, but that's not quite what I'm getting at. The ship flying under the other ship is still oriented in the same direction, as if the ships were orienting themselves according to some cosmic plane of reference. Only very rarely do you see a ship come at another ship like the Enterprise E did in TNG's finale.
Then, you, 10.0.0.1, issue a cryptographic challenge (determined and distributed by Blizzard) to 10.0.0.2. If it hits and matches, you get a local game authenticated by Battle.net and get to be all low-latency and LOLz.
You're probably not going to believe me, but this idea occurred to me while I was writing my post earlier (minus the cryptography and "LOLz"). I discarded it because of privacy and network traffic concerns (which, admittedly, encryption can mitigate to a degree).
Specifically, imagine I'm on Corporate Network A, and I'm playing with someone on University Network B. My internal address on A is 10.1.1.1, the other guy's internal address (on B) is 10.2.2.2.
When the game starts, my client probes my network for 10.2.2.2. Let's say that 10.2.2.2 exists - it's the company's Windows Domain Controller or something. Sure, the server is going to reject the connection, since it (hopefully?) isn't running StarCraft II. But will it show up in logs? Network admins might not appreciate their machines being probed on seemingly random ports by employee's machines (even if gaming is allowed on the company network).
Now, I know, that's probably a non-issue, but in my haste to write out the earlier post, the suggestion of probing wrong machines was enough to get the idea rejected from my "what to write next" queue.
So... um... I don't really know where I'm going with this, I'm pretty much just babbling now... My gut tells me to hit "Cancel" and walk away, but I put some vague amount of thought into this post, so I'm going to post it anyway.
I didn't say it's a good argument. I'm just saying they have, in fact, played the "OMG PIRACY" card.
I agree - their argument is hogwash.
I did mention "unreachable", you know.
Yes, there's a skirmish mode, with a difficulty setting.
http://gaming.do.co.za/articles/news/gamescom_live_starcraft_ii_blog.htm
No word on whether you'll have to be online.
http://www.starcraft2.com/beta-faq.xml
They are not saying the BNet thing is to combat piracy.
Actually they've specifically referred to it as, in part, a safeguard against piracy.
Apart from that, yeah, they're trying make it into a "community", but IMNSHO that's a stupid reason to take out LAN support.
I've been defending Blizzard's no LAN support decision, but this is getting ridiculous.
What do you suggest they do (besides release all three as one game, or release the two expansions for free)?
(Just playing devil's advocate here.)
It would have helped if Blizzard had bothered to tell people about this feature in a manner that would actually disseminate to the general gaming population.
It doesn't do me any good if nobody ever tells me about it. Not all of us spend all our time refreshing Blizzard's news page.