I've been hearing that the normal version of Win7 works absolutely fine on a netbook. Better than XP does as far as GUI-responsiveness goes, even with 1GB of RAM.
I haven't bothered trying it for myself yet though.
I would expect someone on slashdot at the least to know that you can't just compare clock rates like that, and possibly even understand why the Atom does much less per clock than other architectures.
While we're on the subject, Anandtech made a good article explaining the technical details behind the it.
This dual-PCB monstrosity holds 32 memory chips, and 4 GB of total memory (each GPU accesses 2 GB of it).
In normal SLI setups the video memory has to be 'mirrored' for each GPU. Being a dual-PCB card means it probably works the same way, and so it's effectively a 2GB card.
No, I understand what you mean. But I think you're equivocating by using an overly broad definition of DRM that most people don't share.
Steam as a whole isn't a DRM system. All you need to do to verify ownership in Steam is to login with a username and password. If that qualifies as DRM then even Slashdot uses it to positive effect. Again, that doesn't fit what people think of when you say DRM. It's not brainwashing, just the common definition. I think yours is overly broad...
Digital system that checks your Rights to re-download a product you own, while performing housekeeping for Management purposes.
...and altered such that it fits your point. What is being managed in a DRM system is your 'rights'. The words are not supposed to be taken separately.
As far as I can see, the only DRM in Steam is what's applied to the game executables. Running them causes Steam to start and authenticate. Without the DRM there are no limitations, but there is also no loss of positive functionality. So I can't agree that the useful features you're referring to are tied to the DRM.
Once I buy a game, DRM (positive DRM) allows me to redownload whenever I want, and to play it on any computer whenever and wherever I want. There are some advantages to DRM but of course they're over-shadowed by the many drawbacks and disadvantages from DRM's restrictive aspects.
Eh? The DRM in Steam isn't what is allowing you to download the games anywhere. That's an entirely unrelated feature. The DRM restricts the game to running and authenticating through Steam and nothing else.
Steam without DRM would work exactly the same as it does now, the only exception being that you could run games without authenticating online with the Steam client. That's exactly how it works if you crack a game you bought through Steam.
Yes, I've been exploring the place and wanted some quiet time. How ever did you know?
Still, I'd be more interested in what you have to say about the subject at hand besides that lame retort.
Do you think people aren't credulous? Granted, I put forth my opinion a bit too strongly there. All I'm saying is that it's human nature to believe things easily when they sound interesting, and points of interest get repeated often. That the effect is cumulative and contributes a lot to this kind of phenomenon. How many urban legends are there, how many misconceptions? They don't spread because of their easily verifiable truth. Why would stereotypes be any different?
It's not like everyone on the planet is going to do it. Look at Slashdot, a geek-fest where nearly all of the users are at least aware of ad blocking tools. Yet the site continues to exist.
Ya know, stereotypes exist for a reason; they're a fairly accurate portrayal of peoples' observations.
That definitely isn't the reason.
Stereotypes are bound to be true for some individuals because of sheer numbers, but existing due to accuracy? Hell no, that's got nothing to do with it.
People are credulous. They won't disregard information unless it's positively absurd and they'll pass on anything that's interesting, distinctive, funny or otherwise memorable without a second thought. Like stereotypes.
That's compounded by another human tendency. People who don't fit the stereotype are less likely to be noticed or remembered, while people who do fit it will get disproportionate attention and reinforce the stereotype.
They've got this vital data to back up, they want to do it right so they search the Internet for solutions. They come across this guy, Linus Torvalds, sounds like a stand up old chap. They follow his advice, but they don't know what an FTP server is; it's got "serve" in it so they logically assume it's a pub. They then proceed to mirror the data to every pub available and consider themselves "Real Men". Problem solved!
Their build is stupid. These guys are supposed to be hardware experts but I've never seen one of these articles that didn't have at least two outright stupid choices. They have no concept of value for money, probably because they get everything for free in the form of review samples.
This one's no different. Quad cores offer no benefit at all for gaming, it's a waste of money and energy compared with a dual core. A quad will actually perform WORSE in almost every task, the sole exception being video encoding. A reasonable balance is the Phenom II X3 720 BE, but a Core 2 Duo E8400 is probably better for gaming (depends on the price, if the 720 is a lot cheaper go for it).
You don't need a GTX 260 for gaming either. Unless you have gigantic monitor with a native resolution of 1920x1080 or larger it's another outright waste of money and energy. Most people don't, so they could save a bunch of money by going with a HD4770 or HD4850 and get damn good performance for over a hundred dollars less.
The hard disc is also far too small and represents poor value for money. It's not very fast either. A 640GB model would make a hell of a lot more sense. Games are HUGE now, often 10GB a piece.
The PSU bundled with the case is likely a piece of crap too, which can affect system stability and component lifetime. A decent PSU costs that much just by itself but they're usually quieter, more efficient and more reliable. A Corsair 430W model would be good.
What's wrong with the PS3? Most people would regard the 360 as a successful product, and the PS3 is selling at the same average rate of ~700,000 units per month. The 360 leads it in total sales due to its earlier release date, not by selling more.
The people who write these articles seem to have a tenuous - if any - grasp of the concept of value for money.
Maybe you should write a piece on this and submit it here as you plainly know your ass from your elbow, unlike the article writer. (Budget quad core gaming PC? picard.gif)
There's also a thread full of good advice on the Something Awful forums, here. If anyone is building a PC right now, check out this thread first.
-Quad cores don't go for much more than dual core processors do. The price between one Q6600 and a E8400 is approximately $20, so not exactly a tremendous price gap there.
It's still crap value. That CPU is built on a 65nm process: older, slower, hotter and uses more power. The E8400 is a 45nm part. Unless the computer is a video-encoding machine, it's absolutely senseless to buy the Q6600 (and you should get a Q9300 anyway, it's faster and 45nm).
-Given that, the quad core is a very viable option if you wish to future proof your PC. The clocking speed shows a lower number, but you're essentially given twice as many pipelines for information to go through. Right now, that's a substantial boost if you multitask.
No it isn't. I have a quad core upgraded from a dual core, and there's no perceptible speed difference except in video encoding. Selling it on multitasking is just marketing.
You can't future proof a PC without wasting a ridiculous amount of money. Buy a quad core now and you already sacrifice real-world performance and value for money in exchange for a potential benefit in a few years except in specialised uses. By which time any game that actually needs it is released, your old quad will be obsolete. You can just buy a dual core, save money, and get higher performance right now and for a few years to come. It's obviously the more sensible choice.
-Not good enough? Even for gamers, quad core would be a better option. Sure, right now you're going to see dual cores cranking out the numbers because most games have really been optimized for use with two cores. But you said it yourself, video encoding delivers results due to utilizing all four cores on the quad core. It's only a matter of time until the standard for game developers include optimizing for more than two cores. When that time comes, those people will start wishing they bought that quady.
This is terrible advice. The vast majority of games aren't even CPU limited, and only now, years after their release are dual cores becoming widely used. And of course, 'future proofing' was pointless: early dual cores are obsolete now unless you spent a ridiculous amount of money back in the day.
-By the way, this same argument used to take place when dual core was introduced. Some gamers suggested buying single cores due to their higher clock speeds, but those recommendations were short lived once the software caught up.
Single -> dual isn't the same transition as dual -> quad. The first has other benefits, like a single program being unable to bog down the OS, and even single threaded programs benefit a little because all the background processes can use the other core.
I forgot to mention that, like most of these types of drawing programs, you can watch how the images were drawn. Click a picture and the next page will have a button for it.
The DS has a homebrew drawing program called 'Colours'. Check out the drawings people have made with it. Unlike the iPhone the DS supports pressure sensitivity, although it's not used in official programs (if I remember correctly it's due to per-unit variance and being forbidden by the official guidelines).
A PSP-sized device with that kind of capability would be a pretty great portable drawing device. The DS is a bit too small for me.
Slashdot Mirror
Anecdotal, I have no evidence at all. Note that I said responsiveness though, it could 'feel' faster while actually being slower.
On my netbook, everything worked perfectly aside from bluetooth. Which is a bummer because I use it for my mouse.
I've been hearing that the normal version of Win7 works absolutely fine on a netbook. Better than XP does as far as GUI-responsiveness goes, even with 1GB of RAM.
I haven't bothered trying it for myself yet though.
I would expect someone on slashdot at the least to know that you can't just compare clock rates like that, and possibly even understand why the Atom does much less per clock than other architectures.
While we're on the subject, Anandtech made a good article explaining the technical details behind the it.
There's always IRC.
Don't solely trust your communications to a corporation if you can help it.
This dual-PCB monstrosity holds 32 memory chips, and 4 GB of total memory (each GPU accesses 2 GB of it).
In normal SLI setups the video memory has to be 'mirrored' for each GPU. Being a dual-PCB card means it probably works the same way, and so it's effectively a 2GB card.
How can you compare something that costs $80,000 (plus running costs) to something that costs $800?
He didn't compare them, he used their few similar traits to illustrate a point. A common use of analogies.
Steam as a whole isn't a DRM system. All you need to do to verify ownership in Steam is to login with a username and password. If that qualifies as DRM then even Slashdot uses it to positive effect. Again, that doesn't fit what people think of when you say DRM. It's not brainwashing, just the common definition. I think yours is overly broad...
Digital system that checks your Rights to re-download a product you own, while performing housekeeping for Management purposes.
...and altered such that it fits your point. What is being managed in a DRM system is your 'rights'. The words are not supposed to be taken separately.
As far as I can see, the only DRM in Steam is what's applied to the game executables. Running them causes Steam to start and authenticate. Without the DRM there are no limitations, but there is also no loss of positive functionality. So I can't agree that the useful features you're referring to are tied to the DRM.
You also get bonuses like artwork and soundtracks. And for the OCD people, a virtual shelf to organise. :D
Once I buy a game, DRM (positive DRM) allows me to redownload whenever I want, and to play it on any computer whenever and wherever I want. There are some advantages to DRM but of course they're over-shadowed by the many drawbacks and disadvantages from DRM's restrictive aspects.
Eh? The DRM in Steam isn't what is allowing you to download the games anywhere. That's an entirely unrelated feature. The DRM restricts the game to running and authenticating through Steam and nothing else.
Steam without DRM would work exactly the same as it does now, the only exception being that you could run games without authenticating online with the Steam client. That's exactly how it works if you crack a game you bought through Steam.
Yes, I've been exploring the place and wanted some quiet time. How ever did you know?
Still, I'd be more interested in what you have to say about the subject at hand besides that lame retort.
Do you think people aren't credulous? Granted, I put forth my opinion a bit too strongly there. All I'm saying is that it's human nature to believe things easily when they sound interesting, and points of interest get repeated often. That the effect is cumulative and contributes a lot to this kind of phenomenon. How many urban legends are there, how many misconceptions? They don't spread because of their easily verifiable truth. Why would stereotypes be any different?
It's not like everyone on the planet is going to do it. Look at Slashdot, a geek-fest where nearly all of the users are at least aware of ad blocking tools. Yet the site continues to exist.
Ya know, stereotypes exist for a reason; they're a fairly accurate portrayal of peoples' observations.
That definitely isn't the reason.
Stereotypes are bound to be true for some individuals because of sheer numbers, but existing due to accuracy? Hell no, that's got nothing to do with it.
People are credulous. They won't disregard information unless it's positively absurd and they'll pass on anything that's interesting, distinctive, funny or otherwise memorable without a second thought. Like stereotypes.
That's compounded by another human tendency. People who don't fit the stereotype are less likely to be noticed or remembered, while people who do fit it will get disproportionate attention and reinforce the stereotype.
Don't forget the spinning 'Email' GIF. Preferably with the word coming out of an envelope, or on fire.
You see it went like this:
They've got this vital data to back up, they want to do it right so they search the Internet for solutions. They come across this guy, Linus Torvalds, sounds like a stand up old chap. They follow his advice, but they don't know what an FTP server is; it's got "serve" in it so they logically assume it's a pub. They then proceed to mirror the data to every pub available and consider themselves "Real Men". Problem solved!
Drop the etymological reductionism and acknowledge that the meaning of a phrase is defined by its usage
This principle is retarded when applied to technical terms. Or are all computers 'hard drives'? Or perhaps the computer is the monitor...
Ah... yes.
Does anybody else feel this kind of weird pity when they read posts like this?
Their build is stupid. These guys are supposed to be hardware experts but I've never seen one of these articles that didn't have at least two outright stupid choices. They have no concept of value for money, probably because they get everything for free in the form of review samples.
This one's no different. Quad cores offer no benefit at all for gaming, it's a waste of money and energy compared with a dual core. A quad will actually perform WORSE in almost every task, the sole exception being video encoding. A reasonable balance is the Phenom II X3 720 BE, but a Core 2 Duo E8400 is probably better for gaming (depends on the price, if the 720 is a lot cheaper go for it).
You don't need a GTX 260 for gaming either. Unless you have gigantic monitor with a native resolution of 1920x1080 or larger it's another outright waste of money and energy. Most people don't, so they could save a bunch of money by going with a HD4770 or HD4850 and get damn good performance for over a hundred dollars less.
The hard disc is also far too small and represents poor value for money. It's not very fast either. A 640GB model would make a hell of a lot more sense. Games are HUGE now, often 10GB a piece.
The PSU bundled with the case is likely a piece of crap too, which can affect system stability and component lifetime. A decent PSU costs that much just by itself but they're usually quieter, more efficient and more reliable. A Corsair 430W model would be good.
What's wrong with the PS3? Most people would regard the 360 as a successful product, and the PS3 is selling at the same average rate of ~700,000 units per month. The 360 leads it in total sales due to its earlier release date, not by selling more.
+5'd! Consider it loosened; you may want to invest in some baling wire.
Sound advice.
The people who write these articles seem to have a tenuous - if any - grasp of the concept of value for money.
Maybe you should write a piece on this and submit it here as you plainly know your ass from your elbow, unlike the article writer. (Budget quad core gaming PC? picard.gif)
There's also a thread full of good advice on the Something Awful forums, here. If anyone is building a PC right now, check out this thread first.
-Quad cores don't go for much more than dual core processors do. The price between one Q6600 and a E8400 is approximately $20, so not exactly a tremendous price gap there.
It's still crap value. That CPU is built on a 65nm process: older, slower, hotter and uses more power. The E8400 is a 45nm part. Unless the computer is a video-encoding machine, it's absolutely senseless to buy the Q6600 (and you should get a Q9300 anyway, it's faster and 45nm).
-Given that, the quad core is a very viable option if you wish to future proof your PC. The clocking speed shows a lower number, but you're essentially given twice as many pipelines for information to go through. Right now, that's a substantial boost if you multitask.
No it isn't. I have a quad core upgraded from a dual core, and there's no perceptible speed difference except in video encoding. Selling it on multitasking is just marketing.
You can't future proof a PC without wasting a ridiculous amount of money. Buy a quad core now and you already sacrifice real-world performance and value for money in exchange for a potential benefit in a few years except in specialised uses. By which time any game that actually needs it is released, your old quad will be obsolete. You can just buy a dual core, save money, and get higher performance right now and for a few years to come. It's obviously the more sensible choice.
-Not good enough? Even for gamers, quad core would be a better option. Sure, right now you're going to see dual cores cranking out the numbers because most games have really been optimized for use with two cores. But you said it yourself, video encoding delivers results due to utilizing all four cores on the quad core. It's only a matter of time until the standard for game developers include optimizing for more than two cores. When that time comes, those people will start wishing they bought that quady.
This is terrible advice. The vast majority of games aren't even CPU limited, and only now, years after their release are dual cores becoming widely used. And of course, 'future proofing' was pointless: early dual cores are obsolete now unless you spent a ridiculous amount of money back in the day.
-By the way, this same argument used to take place when dual core was introduced. Some gamers suggested buying single cores due to their higher clock speeds, but those recommendations were short lived once the software caught up.
Single -> dual isn't the same transition as dual -> quad. The first has other benefits, like a single program being unable to bog down the OS, and even single threaded programs benefit a little because all the background processes can use the other core.
I forgot to mention that, like most of these types of drawing programs, you can watch how the images were drawn. Click a picture and the next page will have a button for it.
The DS has a homebrew drawing program called 'Colours'. Check out the drawings people have made with it. Unlike the iPhone the DS supports pressure sensitivity, although it's not used in official programs (if I remember correctly it's due to per-unit variance and being forbidden by the official guidelines).
A PSP-sized device with that kind of capability would be a pretty great portable drawing device. The DS is a bit too small for me.