Fileplanet, unreal.epicgames.com and Slashdot are being a little misleading.
Perhaps these articles should specify that only Linux/i386 binaries have been released. Remember, when you just say "Linux" you are implying more than just Intel.
T&L is a gamble. High fillrate is a gamble. Bump mapping is a gamble. Any new feature a chip manufacturer puts on thier chip is a gamble.
No one knows what game companies are going to try next.
There is no way of telling whether hardware transformation and lighting is going to make any difference at all in future games. Sure, nvidia is going to tell you that future games will depend on it! There is no way of knowing that 5 gazillion texels/sec is going to really make much of a difference to future games, although 3DFX doubless wants you to think that. No one knows whether game companies are going to stuff their games with bump-mapped polygons, no matter how much Matrox tells you it's the truth.
Point is, each of these hardware developers are hedging their bets, that game companies will favor their technology.
As for us consumers, I would take a "wait and see" approach. I'd never go out and buy the latest and greatest until I see what games run well on them and what games do not run well on them. Specs from pre-released hardware are meaningless, and even released hardware that runs a FEW games spectacularly is nothing to base a purchase on.
Look for the architecture that stands the test of time, and has support for the platform and games you play.
I mean this is Disney World we are talking about, not the NSA! It's not like the guy is giving away secrets of the H-Bomb! Why is this Disney employee so afraid of revealing his identity?
Well IANAL, but I went through something similar when I was in school. It really depends on what agreement they signed when they recieved network access--that thing most college kids will just say "yea yea" and sign. I would think that most schools have a pretty standard cookie-cutter agreement that says they own the network and the students can't use it for x, y, and z purposes.
This will be tremendously usefull for us device driver writers, and all other breeds of kernel-hackers. True, Linux rarely crashes under normal use, but when your code is running with the kernel and you make a mistake... OOPS!
Today's ruling is supposed to be a "findings of fact" ruling, where the judge basically explains what facts that were presented in the case that he believes to be true.
According to CNNfn:
"Later this year, after further arguments following the findings of fact, Jackson is due to issue another ruling in which he is expected to say whether Microsoft violated antitrust law and has liability for doing so."
Non-opensource drivers do nothing to "support the Linux platform". They may be a conveniance to people who's system can run them, but for everyone else who runs linux they do no good.
The ruling recognizes the need for speedy, high-volume registrations of domain names, said Ronald L. Johnston, lawyer for Network Solutions.
Yup, This is all about the money. Of course NSI like cybersquatters. Squatters not only directly pay NSI for all the names they gobble up, but indirectly pay them by getting companies who really want them to gobble up every permutation of their precious trademark.
Point taken. I think we can both agree that the best way to give advice is to not make generalizations, because although generalizations are many times on the mark, they don't work all the time, and if taken as gospel truth can lead to mistakes.
Oh and by the way I always use the term "girls" to avoid the whole girls/women thing...
Congratulations. You've won the political correctness award. I guess you think you deserve a prize.
Truth is, I've goon from the shy nerd who coudln't get any, to a guy who has to pick and choose, all because of a little attitude adjustment called "REALISM".
Myth: As a man, we should forget about our own needs. The way to get respect from a girl is to treat them like a princess.
Fact: Some relationships work great this way. But for those of us who don't buy the whole "give give give" deal, there are plenty of (IMHO) strong girls out there who will repect you more if you are honest about what you want in a relationship. If all you want is sex, say so. The ones who arent into that will slap you in the face and leave (good riddance) and the ones who are into it will respect you more for being honest and upfront about it. There's nothing more pathetic to watch a guy kiss a girl's ass while she cheats on him behind his back.
Myth: Finding a good girl is like playing the lottery.
Fact: Finding a good girl is more like shopping for a computer. You like games? Get the one with the fast 3d features. You more down to business? Get one that suits your needs. There are lots of girls out there. No matter what you look like or how much you make, you can still pick and choose. Just get off your ass and meet as many girls you can.
Myth: Girls have all the power when you are single and looking for a girlfriend.
Fact: Only if you _ask_ rather than _suggest_. This is the best advice I can give to geek guys wondering why girls always walk all over them. Never ASK a girl ANYTHING. The only power she has is the power you give her. Grow a backbone and some balls and they will see the change instantly. "Here's someone who is confident and knows what he wants," they will say, "I like him already."
Myth: There's always a way to "work it out".
Fact: If someone doesn't meet your needs, or if you don't meet their needs, the best thing you can do is get out of the relationship as quickly as possible. Staying in a relation that isn't satisfying is the best way for both to become bitter and resentful of each other.
Myth: There is just one special person for you, and you live your life to find that special someone.
Fact: There are lots of people that are compatible with you. Find the one or ones who you get along with best, and dump the rest of them.
Geek girls are incapable of being loving and considerate, and unloving and inconsiderate geek guys have to avoid that.
Doesn't apply to all of them, but many.
The ideal woman is one who selflessly meets your every needs. The proper role for the woman is that of handservant, who considers running your bathwater to be part of a "mutually beneficial" relationship.
Maybe not ideal for _you_, but this is what lots of guys are looking for.
One way to evaluate a woman is to take off her clothes and makeup.
That's one way.. there are others.
In bars, the females that are unattainable are called "women" while the ones that you are supposed to go after are called "girls".
I don't know what this means.
If a woman finds you unattractive, dump her as quickly as possible.
I agree...assuming she doesn't dump you first.
Grown breasts are worth waiting for.
Might be his personal preference.
Be nice to geeky looking girls, just in case they grow up and look good.
Advice to LIVE BY.
In spite of all of the above, imperfections are to be overlooked.
Nobody's perfect.
All women are looking for a man to fill the empty void in their lives.
Many are, and many men are looking for a woman to fill a void, so this statement is only partially true.
If you're not having any success, find someone like Roblimo, considers himself an expert at picking up chix and is ready to dispense a handful of advice because he has a pleasant and apparently subservient wife who meets his needs.
Advice can be taken or ignored. He didn't force you to accept his advice did he? I think some of his points were very realistic and can help out people who are shy or have problems with the opposite sex. You've done nothing but criticize.
Go read some archives of the USENET group alt.seduction.fast. Interesting group of people. You don't need to be a jerk to attract women, you just need to outwardly display the qualities (in jerks) that women go for.
"Shamrock" makes a good point in his letter: How much of what presented as fact in the media is actually totally fabricated? How much of the daily news is fiction? We really have no way of knowing unless we are really at the scene and know everyone involved.
Mass-media is produced for the 90% of the world's consumers: spoon-fed to these room-temperature IQs who have never had an original thought in their entire lives. It is truly freightening how much of an impact modern media has on public opinion.
He's right though. Well-researched journalism and factual reporting doesn't sell soft drinks.
However, games will need to be specially written to take advantage of this geometry acceleration.
This is only true if you were unfortunate enough to write your game using Direct3D. OpenGL games will be able to take advantage of geometry acceleration without even recompiling. You reap what you sow when you use a Microsoft API. Whether or not hardware T&L is of any benefit to current or future games is yet to be seen though. Games lately have been getting more and more fillrate bound and less geometry bound, as game creators take advantage of higher resolutions and larger textures.
The GeForce, on the other hand, supports up to 128MB of local graphics memory. Hardware T&L greatly increases the amount of onboard memory needed. The first boards aimed at consumers should come out at 32MB, with 64 MB and 128MB cards to follow later on.
No facts to back this claim up. How exactly does hardware T&L increase the amount of onboard framebuffer required? With AGP, there really is no need for local video memory at all, except to use for the actual visual screen, and maybe as a texture cache. Sure the geometry system will need somewhere to cache scenes, but to fill up 128MB with just _geometry_ information you'll need something as complicated as that huge landscape scene in the Matrix.
Texture compression allows the use of much more detailed textures without overburdening graphics memory or bus bandwidth.
My jury's still out on texture compression. For games that are poorly written (i.e. that load and release textures on the fly, each frame) compression can help, but for games that use a more intellegent caching scheme for texturing, there really isnt much of a point.
Like the TNT2, GeForce supports the AGP 4X standard.
Definitely "A Good Thing".
The GeForce also introduces a new feature, cube environment mapping, that allows for more realistic, real-time reflections in games.
Similar to the Matrox G400's env mapped bump mapping but not quite the same.
Other things to note: 4 texel pipes (fills at four times the clock rate). Watch for all the other chip makers to do this too, limit of 8 lights in hardware (what happens when a scene requires more than eight? They don't say.. hmmm......)
Basically nVidia is gambling with hardware geometry. The gamble is, that future host cpu's (Pentium-4's or whatever) will not be able to beat them in doing transformation and lighting, and that if they don't, gamers are going to really even benefit from T&L. We'll see if that pans out. Unless they have a very sophisticated ALU on that chip, it will doubtlessly only speed up certain types of scenes. (We've all seen the "tree" demo).
If there were to be "One True Tax" surely the fairest is the sales tax. While income taxes penalize you for being successful, especially graduated income taxes, sales taxes tax those who spend the most... Much fairer if you ask me.
I have the same experience with Mediaone. It was fine when their cable modem service was just starting out, and there were few customers sharing a cable loop, but now, I am lucky to get modem speeds.
Since I play alot of games, I am also concerned with latency. Rarely do I find a Quake server with less than a 200ms ping. Its as bad as a 56k modem!
By that logic, a word processor is a natural extension of an operating system because it is a useful tool, so you'd have no problem if MS bundled MSWord with windows, and pressured OEMs to not ship competing word processors.
An operating system consists of a kernel and hardware drivers and nothing more. Anything else, including GUIs, "system" libraries, editors, compilers, WEB BROWSERS, word processors, or email clients all fall under the category of _bundled apps_.
Whether or not Microsoft's bundling of these apps is an illegal attempt to grow its monopoly, is now up to the judge to decide.
Slashdot Mirror
Fileplanet, unreal.epicgames.com and Slashdot are being a little misleading.
Perhaps these articles should specify that only Linux/i386 binaries have been released. Remember, when you just say "Linux" you are implying more than just Intel.
Will there be language bindings for developers who would rather use other languages when developing KDE apps?
T&L is a gamble. High fillrate is a gamble. Bump mapping is a gamble. Any new feature a chip manufacturer puts on thier chip is a gamble.
No one knows what game companies are going to try next.
There is no way of telling whether hardware transformation and lighting is going to make any difference at all in future games. Sure, nvidia is going to tell you that future games will depend on it! There is no way of knowing that 5 gazillion texels/sec is going to really make much of a difference to future games, although 3DFX doubless wants you to think that. No one knows whether game companies are going to stuff their games with bump-mapped polygons, no matter how much Matrox tells you it's the truth.
Point is, each of these hardware developers are hedging their bets, that game companies will favor their technology.
As for us consumers, I would take a "wait and see" approach. I'd never go out and buy the latest and greatest until I see what games run well on them and what games do not run well on them. Specs from pre-released hardware are meaningless, and even released hardware that runs a FEW games spectacularly is nothing to base a purchase on.
Look for the architecture that stands the test of time, and has support for the platform and games you play.
I mean this is Disney World we are talking about, not the NSA! It's not like the guy is giving away secrets of the H-Bomb! Why is this Disney employee so afraid of revealing his identity?
Well IANAL, but I went through something similar when I was in school. It really depends on what agreement they signed when they recieved network access--that thing most college kids will just say "yea yea" and sign. I would think that most schools have a pretty standard cookie-cutter agreement that says they own the network and the students can't use it for x, y, and z purposes.
While they can't go in and confiscate the students' computers, they are within their rights to deny the students access to the network.
Who in their right mind shares illegal (I am assuming they were copyright infringing) mp3's without at least protecting them with a password???
I think it's a shame Slashdot is sinking to such depths as to interview this character.
Who's next on the interview list? The unibomber?
There's an idiot in every crowd...
This will be tremendously usefull for us device driver writers, and all other breeds of kernel-hackers. True, Linux rarely crashes under normal use, but when your code is running with the kernel and you make a mistake... OOPS!
Today's ruling is supposed to be a "findings of fact" ruling, where the judge basically explains what facts that were presented in the case that he believes to be true.
According to CNNfn:
"Later this year, after further arguments following the findings of fact, Jackson is due to issue another ruling in which he is expected to say whether Microsoft violated antitrust law and has liability for doing so."
Non-opensource drivers do nothing to "support the Linux platform". They may be a conveniance to people who's system can run them, but for everyone else who runs linux they do no good.
I bid USD$100 for the daytrading plant!
That lecture kinda brings new meaning to the phrase "Deus Ex Machina"
The ruling recognizes the need for speedy, high-volume registrations of domain
names, said Ronald L. Johnston, lawyer for Network Solutions.
Yup, This is all about the money. Of course NSI like cybersquatters. Squatters not only directly pay NSI for all the names they gobble up, but indirectly pay them by getting companies who really want them to gobble up every permutation of their precious trademark.
It's a double win for our favorite DNS registrar.
There once was a Penguin named Tux,
who made a living driving trucks,
until he got an O/S, that beats out MS,
and decided to call it "Linux".
Your processes, threads and sockets,
run in cars, airplanes, rockets,
on a train on its tracks, on PCs and on Macs,
and on the handheld in my pocket.
From humble beginnings in a school,
to the OS for everyone who is cool,
Your source is free, for all to see,
which means you really rule!
Point taken. I think we can both agree that the best way to give advice is to not make generalizations, because although generalizations are many times on the mark, they don't work all the time, and if taken as gospel truth can lead to mistakes.
Oh and by the way I always use the term "girls" to avoid the whole girls/women thing...
Congratulations. You've won the political correctness award. I guess you think you deserve a prize.
Truth is, I've goon from the shy nerd who coudln't get any, to a guy who has to pick and choose, all because of a little attitude adjustment called "REALISM".
Myth: As a man, we should forget about our own needs. The way to get respect from a girl is to treat them like a princess.
Fact: Some relationships work great this way. But for those of us who don't buy the whole "give give give" deal, there are plenty of (IMHO) strong girls out there who will repect you more if you are honest about what you want in a relationship. If all you want is sex, say so. The ones who arent into that will slap you in the face and leave (good riddance) and the ones who are into it will respect you more for being honest and upfront about it. There's nothing more pathetic to watch a guy kiss a girl's ass while she cheats on him behind his back.
Myth: Finding a good girl is like playing the lottery.
Fact: Finding a good girl is more like shopping for a computer. You like games? Get the one with the fast 3d features. You more down to business? Get one that suits your needs. There are lots of girls out there. No matter what you look like or how much you make, you can still pick and choose. Just get off your ass and meet as many girls you can.
Myth: Girls have all the power when you are single and looking for a girlfriend.
Fact: Only if you _ask_ rather than _suggest_. This is the best advice I can give to geek guys wondering why girls always walk all over them. Never ASK a girl ANYTHING. The only power she has is the power you give her. Grow a backbone and some balls and they will see the change instantly. "Here's someone who is confident and knows what he wants," they will say, "I like him already."
Myth: There's always a way to "work it out".
Fact: If someone doesn't meet your needs, or if you don't meet their needs, the best thing you can do is get out of the relationship as quickly as possible. Staying in a relation that isn't satisfying is the best way for both to become bitter and resentful of each other.
Myth: There is just one special person for you, and you live your life to find that special someone.
Fact: There are lots of people that are compatible with you. Find the one or ones who you get along with best, and dump the rest of them.
I wouldn't call it offensive.
Geek girls are incapable of being loving and considerate, and unloving and inconsiderate geek guys have to avoid that.
Doesn't apply to all of them, but many.
The ideal woman is one who selflessly meets your every needs. The proper role for the woman is that of handservant, who considers running your bathwater to be part of a "mutually beneficial" relationship.
Maybe not ideal for _you_, but this is what lots of guys are looking for.
One way to evaluate a woman is to take off her clothes and makeup.
That's one way.. there are others.
In bars, the females that are unattainable are called "women" while the ones that you are supposed to go after are called "girls".
I don't know what this means.
If a woman finds you unattractive, dump her as quickly as possible.
I agree...assuming she doesn't dump you first.
Grown breasts are worth waiting for.
Might be his personal preference.
Be nice to geeky looking girls, just in case they grow up and look good.
Advice to LIVE BY.
In spite of all of the above, imperfections are to be overlooked.
Nobody's perfect.
All women are looking for a man to fill the empty void in their lives.
Many are, and many men are looking for a woman to fill a void, so this statement is only partially true.
If you're not having any success, find someone like Roblimo, considers himself an expert at picking up chix and is ready to dispense a handful of advice because he has a pleasant and apparently subservient wife who meets his needs.
Advice can be taken or ignored. He didn't force you to accept his advice did he? I think some of his points were very realistic and can help out people who are shy or have problems with the opposite sex. You've done nothing but criticize.
Go read some archives of the USENET group alt.seduction.fast. Interesting group of people. You don't need to be a jerk to attract women, you just need to outwardly display the qualities (in jerks) that women go for.
"Shamrock" makes a good point in his letter: How much of what presented as fact in the media is actually totally fabricated? How much of the daily news is fiction? We really have no way of knowing unless we are really at the scene and know everyone involved.
Mass-media is produced for the 90% of the world's consumers: spoon-fed to these room-temperature IQs who have never had an original thought in their entire lives. It is truly freightening how much of an impact modern media has on public opinion.
He's right though. Well-researched journalism and factual reporting doesn't sell soft drinks.
However, games will need to be specially written to take advantage of this geometry acceleration.
This is only true if you were unfortunate enough to write your game using Direct3D. OpenGL games will be able to take advantage of geometry acceleration without even recompiling. You reap what you sow when you use a Microsoft API.
Whether or not hardware T&L is of any benefit to current or future games is yet to be seen though. Games lately have been getting more and more fillrate bound and less geometry bound, as game creators take advantage of higher resolutions and larger textures.
The GeForce, on the other hand, supports up to
128MB of local graphics memory. Hardware T&L greatly increases the amount of onboard memory needed. The first boards aimed at consumers should come out at 32MB, with 64 MB and 128MB cards to follow later on.
No facts to back this claim up. How exactly does hardware T&L increase the amount of onboard framebuffer required? With AGP, there really is no need for local video memory at all, except to use for the actual visual screen, and maybe as a texture cache. Sure the geometry system will need somewhere to cache scenes, but to fill up 128MB with just _geometry_ information you'll need something as complicated as that huge landscape scene in the Matrix.
Texture compression allows the use of much more detailed textures without overburdening graphics memory or bus bandwidth.
My jury's still out on texture compression. For games that are poorly written (i.e. that load and release textures on the fly, each frame) compression can help, but for games that use a more intellegent caching scheme for texturing, there really isnt much of a point.
Like the TNT2, GeForce supports the AGP 4X standard.
Definitely "A Good Thing".
The GeForce also introduces a new feature, cube environment mapping, that allows for more realistic, real-time reflections in games.
Similar to the Matrox G400's env mapped bump mapping but not quite the same.
Other things to note: 4 texel pipes (fills at four times the clock rate). Watch for all the other chip makers to do this too, limit of 8 lights in hardware (what happens when a scene requires more than eight? They don't say.. hmmm......)
Basically nVidia is gambling with hardware geometry. The gamble is, that future host cpu's (Pentium-4's or whatever) will not be able to beat them in doing transformation and lighting, and that if they don't, gamers are going to really even benefit from T&L. We'll see if that pans out. Unless they have a very sophisticated ALU on that chip, it will doubtlessly only speed up certain types of scenes. (We've all seen the "tree" demo).
"The paperless office will come soon after the paperless toilet."
Now if only I can remember who said that...
If there were to be "One True Tax" surely the fairest is the sales tax. While income taxes penalize you for being successful, especially graduated income taxes, sales taxes tax those who spend the most... Much fairer if you ask me.
I have the same experience with Mediaone. It was fine when their cable modem service was just starting out, and there were few customers sharing a cable loop, but now, I am lucky to get modem speeds.
Since I play alot of games, I am also concerned with latency. Rarely do I find a Quake server with less than a 200ms ping. Its as bad as a 56k modem!
By that logic, a word processor is a natural extension of an operating system because it is a useful tool, so you'd have no problem if MS bundled MSWord with windows, and pressured OEMs to not ship competing word processors.
An operating system consists of a kernel and hardware drivers and nothing more. Anything else, including GUIs, "system" libraries, editors, compilers, WEB BROWSERS, word processors, or email clients all fall under the category of _bundled apps_.
Whether or not Microsoft's bundling of these apps is an illegal attempt to grow its monopoly, is now up to the judge to decide.