You already can play offline - there's been an "Offline play" mode in Steam for quite a while now. All you have to do is click the button that says "Exit" instead of "Exit and Logout", and if Steam can't find an internet server the next time you open it, it will allow you to play in Offline mode (which IIRC, still allows for LAN multiplayer).
While in general, people are lazy and haven't learned to care about security (I don't really blame anyone about this, there's never been a need to before), I think it's mainly because Microsoft gives you root rights by default, whereas Apple does not.
Seriously... I believe I'm using the same account on my Windows XP box that the installer set up for me. I don't think I've ever had a single permissions issue with editing the registry, installing/uninstalling software, etc. Never been asked for my username/password, outside of logging in. On my Mac, on the other hand, any time I do anything remotely related to modifying the system, up pops a dialog asking for my username and password, and informing me what application is requesting this information.
Now, this dialog isn't anywhere near secure - I think it'd be trivial to put together a fake dialog that looks like it's some other application, but uses the information typed in to its own nefarious advantage. But it does give you the idea that Apple seems to be more concerned about security out of the box.
One other possible explanation... iTunes has a sound enhancer which is on by default in the preferences - might want to check that out and see how much of a difference it makes. I don't believe the iPod has the sound enhancer feature, and I have no idea how much of a difference it makes, but it could be the last little explanation.
Google it, you'll find quite a bit of info out there. I actually have (or had) a CD image of it somewhere, but not anything that will run it (it has pretty specific hardware requirements which makes all of the Macs I have available unusable - Basilisk won't work either).
While the other two folks here mentioned that Windows can do this too, I thought I would point out that a Mac can use network-based home folders as well. It's even possible to boot a Mac entirely off the network, so it loads the OS image, home folder, etc. all entirely off the network. There was one particularly fun demo I recall where Apple had a rack of 50 iMacs all boot simultaneously off one G3 server, then proceeded to connect and play some QuickTime movie (also off the server). Ah, fun times...
Actually, the PS2 is starting to have patches also. From what I understand SOCOM 2 has required updates that it will store on your memory card, and of course FFXI requires the hard drive and will download content/updates onto the drive. I'm sure more games will come out that will use the HD, and of course what better use is there for a hard drive then changing, constantly updated content? (Obviously game storage, but as the PS2 usually uses memory cards for that purpose I understand the HD isn't typically used for game saves.)
Also, it's not unheard of to update console games once they've been released. 007: Agent Under Fire and MechAssault both had buffer-overrun problems that let hackers ultimately run unsigned code on the Xbox (something I've recently taken advantage of) that were fixed in later versions. The first version of Ocarina of Time for N64 had red blood when you killed Ganondorf, which was changed to green blood in later versions (along with other minor fixes) due to ratings concerns. The first pressings of Gran Turismo 2 had numerous bugs which caused Sony to offer a recall for any disc exhibiting problems. I'm sure there are many other examples of console games being updated after release. It would not surprise me in the least if Ninja Gaiden's Platinum Hits version (for it will be a Platinum Hits game eventually, I'll bet my life on it) had the patch already incorporated, and perhaps they'll even include the patch starting with the next batch of CDs they press.
Another option would be for Microsoft to release discs avaliable for little or no charge with just content updates on them once they decide to discontinue Xbox Live. That way the content and patches are still available, and they still get to collect additional revenue from Xbox Live while the service is up.
So? A lot of people think the same of Quake 3, yet it's spawned countless excellent games (Jedi Knight 2, Star Trek: Elite Force, Heavy Metal FAKK2, Soldier of Fortune 2, American McGee's Alice, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor). Unreal Tournament 2003/4 are generally considered excellent, yet some people think they're lame, and they've spawned countless excellent games (UT2003/4, America's Army, Splinter Cell/SC:PT, Rainbow Six 3, Lineage 2, Unreal 2, DNF (yeah, yeah), XII, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Thief: Deadly Shadows). Some of the games on both lists may not float your boat, but chances are at least one of them is your bag of tea (unless you happen to like coffee/RTS/RPG games).
It's no secret that id and Epic make these engines to license them. They try to make good games out of them too (whether or not you care for the gameplay of Quake 3 or UT2003/4), but the games are also largely showcases for the engine, and an easy source of revenue.
(Just for the record, I played Quake 3 to death, and will be picking up UT2004 shortly now that I have a computer capable of playing it).
Those screenshots look absolutely horrifying, but if you watch the trailer (it's a freecache link, so hopefully it won't be/.ed) it doesn't look quite as bad.
I dunno, I'm still kinda skeptical about it, but if I ever see it in an arcade I'll probably give it a spin. I mean hey - it's a light-gun game, all you have to do is shoot people, maybe I'm wrong, but it can't get that bad, can it?
Re:iTunes sharing / DAAP / TunesBrowser / GetTunes
on
Apple Releases iTunes 4.6
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
A friend of mine is an Apple Sales Consultant - he's downloaded the presentation from Apple's consultant website and provided the two following tidbits of info:
First, the iTunes program is re-encoding everything into Apple Lossless, then sending that wirelessly to the Airport Express station. So if you want to get a head start, start reverse-engineering that.
Even when that's done, there's still one other small problem; apparently Apple is encrypting the music streams sent to said Airport Express stations.
He said the presentation he downloaded wasn't particularly clear on either of these two points so I could be wrong here, but it sounds very plausible to me.
It will probably work with other products - IIRC WDS is a little flaky and not a real standard, so it's very possible that two products from different manufacturers won't work, but they often do. (IIRC it's a feature in the Broadcom chipset, and most other manufacturers use Broadcom chipsets, so as long as both use Broadcom and allow setting up of WDS then you're fine).
Before judging it wait and see - it may work just fine.
Yes, Smilebit is the name for one of the development studios at Sega. Hitmaker (Crazy Taxi), United Game Artists (Rez and Space Channel 5), Sonic Team (Sonic the Hedgehog), SmileBit (JSR/F and I believe the Panzer Dragoon series), Amusement Vision (F-Zero GX and Super Monkey Ball), Sega-AM2 (Shenmue and Virtua Fighter) are all Sega development studios. I believe there are more but I'm not sure of what they are and what they've done, and I think there's been some reorganizing since then.
in the longer term, the X-Box costs more to continue playing games on
Can you clarify this statement? I have a PC that I built for $1800 that I built around three years ago, about six months before the launch of the Xbox. I I haven't upgraded it and I'm now looking at building an entirely new PC for at least $1000 because I haven't upgraded it once since then, and I'm started to get locked out of some games that require higher-end hardware then I have. I can't play Deus Ex: Invisible War, Halo looks like a steaming pile of dog crap, and UT2004 runs at about a max of 15FPS. Meanwhile, the Xbox came out at $300 and still plays every single game coming out for it very well.
Given the fact that the Xbox cost $300 when it came out and is still good for at least another year, and my PC is now completely decrepit and cost six times as much as the Xbox, I'm uncertain what you mean with that statement.
Also, many of the titles are different in some ways from their PC counterparts - the Xbox version of Splinter Cell controls with a gamepad instead of a keyboard/mouse (which I find to be far more satisfying for SC), and has downloadable levels. The console Medal of Honors are completely different from the PC versions (although not necessarily better). Crimson Skies is a completely different game from its PC counterpart. The Xbox version of Rainbow Six 3 is more streamlined (or dumbed-down, depending on your POV), eliminating the planning processes and focusing more on action, and also supports voice commands for your AI squadmates. I own Beyond Good and Evil for Xbox - I played the PC demo and found the controls somewhat clunky, so the Xbox version was a definite plus. The Xbox version of Halo supports co-op multiplayer, and overall, better performance.
Now some games are almost certainly better off on the PC - Deus Ex required quite a bit of patching to make it playable on the PC, and I don't know how well the Xbox version compares in its unpatched form. And Halo for PC, despite the performance problems, is a heckuva lot of fun to play over the Internet. But still, quite often the games are different - whether or not you prefer the Xbox or PC version is a personal opinion.
Which is all this really boils down to - if you really don't want to buy an Xbox, then fine, don't buy one, no skin off my nose - but you do seem to have a few misconceptions about the thing.:-)
OK, so the specs are a cut-down PC from 2 years ago. It's still $150. With $60 for a solderless mod chip, you can run any software you want. What PC are you going to build or buy for $420 that plays games as well as the Xbox can in its unmodded form? MAME and Bejeweled do not apply here, and remember to include the cost of Windows since most games will not come out for Linux. Also, remember that the Xbox has a GeForce-3 based card - onboard video isn't acceptable.
Not to mention other things - with a micro PC, you have to constantly worry about Windows updates, updates to your apps, drivers, crashes, and other various problems related to a computer. With an Xbox, all you do is plug it in and turn it on. No drivers. There are software updates but they are all compatible with each other and happen automatically. While I'm still wrestling with the best settings and config for my PC games, it's nice to be able to just plop in front of the sofa and throw in a disc and be playing in very little time. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a big PC gamer, but the simplicity of the Xbox is a big draw.)
I mean, basically the Xbox has everything any other console has going for it - the fact that it's similar to a PC is irrelevant for 95% of the people out there. Are they going to care that a $200 WalMart PC is going to have better specs in some regards then the Xbox? No - because you can't play Halo 2 on the WalMart PC. If you're looking to buy an Xbox solely to run Linux on it, then maybe that's not a wise decision, but other then that, I ask why *not* an Xbox?
Actually, a friend of mine has one. Overall he loves it - it has a few quirks about it that tick him off, and the build quality of the units isn't spectacular (he's already had to have it replaced under warranty once, sync connector ruined itself, and it's very sensitive to static and pressure in a couple spots) but it does seem to have a very nice interface and be very usable. The battery life sucks if you enable the GPS, but as he drives around town all day and has it plugged into the car he doesn't care in the least. Basically the main advantage of it seems to be that instead of having to manually enter in all the addresses you want to go, the iQue will pick it up from your Palm Desktop/Outlook/iSync address book. Combine that with the fact to mention the fact that it has a gorgeous hi-res (it has virtual graffiti so it's 320x480) display, a fast MIPS processor and a pretty decent Palm device and it's not really a bad device although there's no reason to get one unless you really need the GPS.
BTW, the iQue is Palm OS based. There's one from Magellan that's PocketPC, but Garmin's runs Palm OS 5.
The thing is though, graphics *aren't* standing still in the console market. For an example, look at Halo vs. what Halo 2 will look like - huge leap in grahpics, sound, AI, physics - pretty much every aspect of the game has been improved dramatically. Has the hardware been improved? Nope. Fact of the matter is, when consoles first ship developers don't know jack about the platform. They know how to make some decent looking games, maybe even great looking games compared to all the other platforms, but games that don't take full advantage of the platform. Then the developers get to know the platform, start to optimize, figure out little tricks and tips they can use to squeeze every ounce of performance out of the processors... Can you do that on a PC? Sure, but only to a certain extent - there's so many different CPUs, GPUs, RAM architectures/speeds, sound cards, OS versions and driver versions that you really can't optimize more then is absolutely necessary for any given configuration. You can spend all your time making the game look and run great on a ATI Radeon 9500 Pro, but then the techniques you used will make it suffer on a GeForce FX 5600. You can optimize for the Pentium 4 but damned if that'll make the best use of that shiny new Athlon 64. Instead, often the best thing to do is just to make things run reasonably well on all platforms and just count on the user having a fast enough processor - not necessarily a bad thing, and certainly not something that all developers do. (I'm probably exaggerating slightly here, but then again there are quite a few games that ship patches later on that improve performance on certain hardware.) On a console, everyone is guaranteed to have the exact same hardware configuration - so you can do whatever the hell you want to squeeze every last drop out of the configuration (hell, write your own drivers and OS from scratch if you think you can do better then Sony!) and it'll run the same on every box.
I dunno, maybe I'm exaggerating the problems on the PC - but I'll be damned if some of the latest console titles don't look much better then the launch titles ever did.
Come one, the first one? With triangular boobs that look like they could cut someone? I dunno, maybe it's some kinda fetish..
Actually, I find it very amusing how in each successive Tomb Raider game the boobs become less angular and more curvy. Kind of an inverse to the kids playing it...
Well that's the point exactly. The PC doesn't have big load times (apart from BF:vietnam and some other really new games). When you consider just how much detail it's loading, however, you can understand. Consoles are very very weak in power, so when you make them do real I/O work of course they're going to pale in comparison.
Yes, of course a PC will be faster - it has a hard drive for chrissakes, that's already about ten times faster then anything most consoles have:-). But that's not the point. The point is that more then a few console games don't have onerous load times despite the limitations inherent - take any first-party Gamecube title, for instance, as well as any number of other games for the other platforms. Now I realize this isn't possible for all games all the time, but it certainly seems like it might be doable for more then the handful of games where people have the time to implement it.
I've managed to cut down the load times with my new SATA RAID0 stripe to seconds, because I had that choice. But if console gamers want the same performance as a real computer, unfortunately they're eventually going to have to start paying for it. And if a proprietary locked down console with DRM costs you the same as an open architecture PC that you can web-browse, install linux on without modding or hacking, and customise to your hearts content, which will you buy?
I dare you to find me a $150 PC that will run games as well as an Xbox can. Heck, I dare you to find me a $99 piece of hardware that will run games as well as a Gamecube can. It can't be done. These "crippled" consoles run rings around PCs costing hundreds of dollars more, because a) the manufacturers are willing to make very little, no, or negative amounts of money on them and b) they've been designed from the ground up to be good at one and only one thing: playing games. Most consoles bear very little resemblance to a computer architecturally, a fact that has stymied emulator writers the world over. A computer has to be good at everything, but a game console just has to play games at lower resolutions really fast. And they do.
As far as which one I'll buy - it depends on what I want. If I want to play games, I'll buy a console. If I want a cheap computer, I'll buy a cheap computer. If I want to play games on my computer, I buy a more expensive computer. Not that there's anything wrong with computer gaming, I'm a big computer gamer and will probably spend a large chunk of cash upgrading my computer this year. But there's no way you can beat the consoles for game-playing buck.
someone, in one of the console owning companies, decided that nothing irreversible should be done without confirmation.
You know, after I wrote that post I kind of thought about it... I was thinking "It's probably somebody in management's fault." I figured it was more the publisher (EA or Eidos or whomever), but Sony/MS/Nintendo makes an equal amount of sense.
Early in the project, we have to decide if it's worth dropping that extra creature or graphical effect to free up the programmer time to make the loading system more transparent. Sometimes we make the wrong choice.
Hey, if I have the choice between a game with long load times that's awesome versus a game with short load times that sucks, I'll take the long-load game, no questions asked. You developers don't always make the wrong decision.:-)
Yeah, but that's only any good if you're playing on a computer. On a console (where increasing amounts of my gaming time are being spent), there never is any quicksave.
But yes, on the PC, the quicksave is the way to go.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
You already can play offline - there's been an "Offline play" mode in Steam for quite a while now. All you have to do is click the button that says "Exit" instead of "Exit and Logout", and if Steam can't find an internet server the next time you open it, it will allow you to play in Offline mode (which IIRC, still allows for LAN multiplayer).
Mmm.. Q3 DM...
:-)
Drop me a line via e-mail. I don't play as often as I used to but I still love it and am pretty good at it whenever I do happen to play it.
Or did, at any rate. For a number of years the US Army used Mac OS 9 and Webstar to host www.army.mil. Looking at Netcraft now, they've moved to OS X but are still using Webstar, which has a much lower rate of vulnerabilities then Apache.
While in general, people are lazy and haven't learned to care about security (I don't really blame anyone about this, there's never been a need to before), I think it's mainly because Microsoft gives you root rights by default, whereas Apple does not.
Seriously... I believe I'm using the same account on my Windows XP box that the installer set up for me. I don't think I've ever had a single permissions issue with editing the registry, installing/uninstalling software, etc. Never been asked for my username/password, outside of logging in. On my Mac, on the other hand, any time I do anything remotely related to modifying the system, up pops a dialog asking for my username and password, and informing me what application is requesting this information.
Now, this dialog isn't anywhere near secure - I think it'd be trivial to put together a fake dialog that looks like it's some other application, but uses the information typed in to its own nefarious advantage. But it does give you the idea that Apple seems to be more concerned about security out of the box.
One other possible explanation... iTunes has a sound enhancer which is on by default in the preferences - might want to check that out and see how much of a difference it makes. I don't believe the iPod has the sound enhancer feature, and I have no idea how much of a difference it makes, but it could be the last little explanation.
Google it, you'll find quite a bit of info out there. I actually have (or had) a CD image of it somewhere, but not anything that will run it (it has pretty specific hardware requirements which makes all of the Macs I have available unusable - Basilisk won't work either).
While the other two folks here mentioned that Windows can do this too, I thought I would point out that a Mac can use network-based home folders as well. It's even possible to boot a Mac entirely off the network, so it loads the OS image, home folder, etc. all entirely off the network. There was one particularly fun demo I recall where Apple had a rack of 50 iMacs all boot simultaneously off one G3 server, then proceeded to connect and play some QuickTime movie (also off the server). Ah, fun times...
BattleGirl works fine for me under Classic last time I checked... although the other poster's mention of Basilisk does intrigue me.
Actually, the PS2 is starting to have patches also. From what I understand SOCOM 2 has required updates that it will store on your memory card, and of course FFXI requires the hard drive and will download content/updates onto the drive. I'm sure more games will come out that will use the HD, and of course what better use is there for a hard drive then changing, constantly updated content? (Obviously game storage, but as the PS2 usually uses memory cards for that purpose I understand the HD isn't typically used for game saves.)
Also, it's not unheard of to update console games once they've been released. 007: Agent Under Fire and MechAssault both had buffer-overrun problems that let hackers ultimately run unsigned code on the Xbox (something I've recently taken advantage of) that were fixed in later versions. The first version of Ocarina of Time for N64 had red blood when you killed Ganondorf, which was changed to green blood in later versions (along with other minor fixes) due to ratings concerns. The first pressings of Gran Turismo 2 had numerous bugs which caused Sony to offer a recall for any disc exhibiting problems. I'm sure there are many other examples of console games being updated after release. It would not surprise me in the least if Ninja Gaiden's Platinum Hits version (for it will be a Platinum Hits game eventually, I'll bet my life on it) had the patch already incorporated, and perhaps they'll even include the patch starting with the next batch of CDs they press.
Another option would be for Microsoft to release discs avaliable for little or no charge with just content updates on them once they decide to discontinue Xbox Live. That way the content and patches are still available, and they still get to collect additional revenue from Xbox Live while the service is up.
So? A lot of people think the same of Quake 3, yet it's spawned countless excellent games (Jedi Knight 2, Star Trek: Elite Force, Heavy Metal FAKK2, Soldier of Fortune 2, American McGee's Alice, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor). Unreal Tournament 2003/4 are generally considered excellent, yet some people think they're lame, and they've spawned countless excellent games (UT2003/4, America's Army, Splinter Cell/SC:PT, Rainbow Six 3, Lineage 2, Unreal 2, DNF (yeah, yeah), XII, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Thief: Deadly Shadows). Some of the games on both lists may not float your boat, but chances are at least one of them is your bag of tea (unless you happen to like coffee/RTS/RPG games).
It's no secret that id and Epic make these engines to license them. They try to make good games out of them too (whether or not you care for the gameplay of Quake 3 or UT2003/4), but the games are also largely showcases for the engine, and an easy source of revenue.
(Just for the record, I played Quake 3 to death, and will be picking up UT2004 shortly now that I have a computer capable of playing it).
I used to give out PDFs because I didn't like the idea of people cut-and-pasting from my work.
You know you can copy and paste out of PDFs, and even export the text of a PDF into a separate document, right?
Those screenshots look absolutely horrifying, but if you watch the trailer (it's a freecache link, so hopefully it won't be /.ed) it doesn't look quite as bad.
I dunno, I'm still kinda skeptical about it, but if I ever see it in an arcade I'll probably give it a spin. I mean hey - it's a light-gun game, all you have to do is shoot people, maybe I'm wrong, but it can't get that bad, can it?
A friend of mine is an Apple Sales Consultant - he's downloaded the presentation from Apple's consultant website and provided the two following tidbits of info:
First, the iTunes program is re-encoding everything into Apple Lossless, then sending that wirelessly to the Airport Express station. So if you want to get a head start, start reverse-engineering that.
Even when that's done, there's still one other small problem; apparently Apple is encrypting the music streams sent to said Airport Express stations.
He said the presentation he downloaded wasn't particularly clear on either of these two points so I could be wrong here, but it sounds very plausible to me.
It will probably work with other products - IIRC WDS is a little flaky and not a real standard, so it's very possible that two products from different manufacturers won't work, but they often do. (IIRC it's a feature in the Broadcom chipset, and most other manufacturers use Broadcom chipsets, so as long as both use Broadcom and allow setting up of WDS then you're fine).
Before judging it wait and see - it may work just fine.
Yes, Smilebit is the name for one of the development studios at Sega. Hitmaker (Crazy Taxi), United Game Artists (Rez and Space Channel 5), Sonic Team (Sonic the Hedgehog), SmileBit (JSR/F and I believe the Panzer Dragoon series), Amusement Vision (F-Zero GX and Super Monkey Ball), Sega-AM2 (Shenmue and Virtua Fighter) are all Sega development studios. I believe there are more but I'm not sure of what they are and what they've done, and I think there's been some reorganizing since then.
You *do* know the prices haven't been raised, and won't be for a number of years due to contracts between Apple and the record companies, right?
in the longer term, the X-Box costs more to continue playing games on
:-)
Can you clarify this statement? I have a PC that I built for $1800 that I built around three years ago, about six months before the launch of the Xbox. I I haven't upgraded it and I'm now looking at building an entirely new PC for at least $1000 because I haven't upgraded it once since then, and I'm started to get locked out of some games that require higher-end hardware then I have. I can't play Deus Ex: Invisible War, Halo looks like a steaming pile of dog crap, and UT2004 runs at about a max of 15FPS. Meanwhile, the Xbox came out at $300 and still plays every single game coming out for it very well.
Given the fact that the Xbox cost $300 when it came out and is still good for at least another year, and my PC is now completely decrepit and cost six times as much as the Xbox, I'm uncertain what you mean with that statement.
Also, many of the titles are different in some ways from their PC counterparts - the Xbox version of Splinter Cell controls with a gamepad instead of a keyboard/mouse (which I find to be far more satisfying for SC), and has downloadable levels. The console Medal of Honors are completely different from the PC versions (although not necessarily better). Crimson Skies is a completely different game from its PC counterpart. The Xbox version of Rainbow Six 3 is more streamlined (or dumbed-down, depending on your POV), eliminating the planning processes and focusing more on action, and also supports voice commands for your AI squadmates. I own Beyond Good and Evil for Xbox - I played the PC demo and found the controls somewhat clunky, so the Xbox version was a definite plus. The Xbox version of Halo supports co-op multiplayer, and overall, better performance.
Now some games are almost certainly better off on the PC - Deus Ex required quite a bit of patching to make it playable on the PC, and I don't know how well the Xbox version compares in its unpatched form. And Halo for PC, despite the performance problems, is a heckuva lot of fun to play over the Internet. But still, quite often the games are different - whether or not you prefer the Xbox or PC version is a personal opinion.
Which is all this really boils down to - if you really don't want to buy an Xbox, then fine, don't buy one, no skin off my nose - but you do seem to have a few misconceptions about the thing.
OK, so the specs are a cut-down PC from 2 years ago. It's still $150. With $60 for a solderless mod chip, you can run any software you want. What PC are you going to build or buy for $420 that plays games as well as the Xbox can in its unmodded form? MAME and Bejeweled do not apply here, and remember to include the cost of Windows since most games will not come out for Linux. Also, remember that the Xbox has a GeForce-3 based card - onboard video isn't acceptable.
Not to mention other things - with a micro PC, you have to constantly worry about Windows updates, updates to your apps, drivers, crashes, and other various problems related to a computer. With an Xbox, all you do is plug it in and turn it on. No drivers. There are software updates but they are all compatible with each other and happen automatically. While I'm still wrestling with the best settings and config for my PC games, it's nice to be able to just plop in front of the sofa and throw in a disc and be playing in very little time. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a big PC gamer, but the simplicity of the Xbox is a big draw.)
I mean, basically the Xbox has everything any other console has going for it - the fact that it's similar to a PC is irrelevant for 95% of the people out there. Are they going to care that a $200 WalMart PC is going to have better specs in some regards then the Xbox? No - because you can't play Halo 2 on the WalMart PC. If you're looking to buy an Xbox solely to run Linux on it, then maybe that's not a wise decision, but other then that, I ask why *not* an Xbox?
Actually, a friend of mine has one. Overall he loves it - it has a few quirks about it that tick him off, and the build quality of the units isn't spectacular (he's already had to have it replaced under warranty once, sync connector ruined itself, and it's very sensitive to static and pressure in a couple spots) but it does seem to have a very nice interface and be very usable. The battery life sucks if you enable the GPS, but as he drives around town all day and has it plugged into the car he doesn't care in the least. Basically the main advantage of it seems to be that instead of having to manually enter in all the addresses you want to go, the iQue will pick it up from your Palm Desktop/Outlook/iSync address book. Combine that with the fact to mention the fact that it has a gorgeous hi-res (it has virtual graffiti so it's 320x480) display, a fast MIPS processor and a pretty decent Palm device and it's not really a bad device although there's no reason to get one unless you really need the GPS.
BTW, the iQue is Palm OS based. There's one from Magellan that's PocketPC, but Garmin's runs Palm OS 5.
The thing is though, graphics *aren't* standing still in the console market. For an example, look at Halo vs. what Halo 2 will look like - huge leap in grahpics, sound, AI, physics - pretty much every aspect of the game has been improved dramatically. Has the hardware been improved? Nope. Fact of the matter is, when consoles first ship developers don't know jack about the platform. They know how to make some decent looking games, maybe even great looking games compared to all the other platforms, but games that don't take full advantage of the platform. Then the developers get to know the platform, start to optimize, figure out little tricks and tips they can use to squeeze every ounce of performance out of the processors... Can you do that on a PC? Sure, but only to a certain extent - there's so many different CPUs, GPUs, RAM architectures/speeds, sound cards, OS versions and driver versions that you really can't optimize more then is absolutely necessary for any given configuration. You can spend all your time making the game look and run great on a ATI Radeon 9500 Pro, but then the techniques you used will make it suffer on a GeForce FX 5600. You can optimize for the Pentium 4 but damned if that'll make the best use of that shiny new Athlon 64. Instead, often the best thing to do is just to make things run reasonably well on all platforms and just count on the user having a fast enough processor - not necessarily a bad thing, and certainly not something that all developers do. (I'm probably exaggerating slightly here, but then again there are quite a few games that ship patches later on that improve performance on certain hardware.) On a console, everyone is guaranteed to have the exact same hardware configuration - so you can do whatever the hell you want to squeeze every last drop out of the configuration (hell, write your own drivers and OS from scratch if you think you can do better then Sony!) and it'll run the same on every box.
I dunno, maybe I'm exaggerating the problems on the PC - but I'll be damned if some of the latest console titles don't look much better then the launch titles ever did.
Come one, the first one? With triangular boobs that look like they could cut someone? I dunno, maybe it's some kinda fetish..
Actually, I find it very amusing how in each successive Tomb Raider game the boobs become less angular and more curvy. Kind of an inverse to the kids playing it...
So just out of curiosity, for those people who like the Shawshank Redemption what movie would you recommend in its stead?
:-)
I'm just curious, no hostility meant or anything.
Well that's the point exactly. The PC doesn't have big load times (apart from BF:vietnam and some other really new games). When you consider just how much detail it's loading, however, you can understand. Consoles are very very weak in power, so when you make them do real I/O work of course they're going to pale in comparison.
:-). But that's not the point. The point is that more then a few console games don't have onerous load times despite the limitations inherent - take any first-party Gamecube title, for instance, as well as any number of other games for the other platforms. Now I realize this isn't possible for all games all the time, but it certainly seems like it might be doable for more then the handful of games where people have the time to implement it.
Yes, of course a PC will be faster - it has a hard drive for chrissakes, that's already about ten times faster then anything most consoles have
I've managed to cut down the load times with my new SATA RAID0 stripe to seconds, because I had that choice. But if console gamers want the same performance as a real computer, unfortunately they're eventually going to have to start paying for it. And if a proprietary locked down console with DRM costs you the same as an open architecture PC that you can web-browse, install linux on without modding or hacking, and customise to your hearts content, which will you buy?
I dare you to find me a $150 PC that will run games as well as an Xbox can. Heck, I dare you to find me a $99 piece of hardware that will run games as well as a Gamecube can. It can't be done. These "crippled" consoles run rings around PCs costing hundreds of dollars more, because a) the manufacturers are willing to make very little, no, or negative amounts of money on them and b) they've been designed from the ground up to be good at one and only one thing: playing games. Most consoles bear very little resemblance to a computer architecturally, a fact that has stymied emulator writers the world over. A computer has to be good at everything, but a game console just has to play games at lower resolutions really fast. And they do.
As far as which one I'll buy - it depends on what I want. If I want to play games, I'll buy a console. If I want a cheap computer, I'll buy a cheap computer. If I want to play games on my computer, I buy a more expensive computer. Not that there's anything wrong with computer gaming, I'm a big computer gamer and will probably spend a large chunk of cash upgrading my computer this year. But there's no way you can beat the consoles for game-playing buck.
someone, in one of the console owning companies, decided that nothing irreversible should be done without confirmation.
:-)
You know, after I wrote that post I kind of thought about it... I was thinking "It's probably somebody in management's fault." I figured it was more the publisher (EA or Eidos or whomever), but Sony/MS/Nintendo makes an equal amount of sense.
Early in the project, we have to decide if it's worth dropping that extra creature or graphical effect to free up the programmer time to make the loading system more transparent. Sometimes we make the wrong choice.
Hey, if I have the choice between a game with long load times that's awesome versus a game with short load times that sucks, I'll take the long-load game, no questions asked. You developers don't always make the wrong decision.
Yeah, but that's only any good if you're playing on a computer. On a console (where increasing amounts of my gaming time are being spent), there never is any quicksave.
:-)
But yes, on the PC, the quicksave is the way to go.