I was one of the people who had a nightmare of an experience with Vista. I still use it today and it is significantly better than what it was on launch day, but at the time it was the worse thing to ever happen to my computer. The system froze while the O/S was loading (at the "progress bar" animation, before seeing the login screen). It crashed. It blue screened. It required hours stacked on top of hours just to get to the desktop.
This was on the same hardware that I'm running today with the exception of my 3D card.
My problems were directly related with Vista's lack of compatibility with my hardware. Had I done more research I probably could have avoided the huge headache by discovering the incompatibilities and not purchasing the O/S. That's just the way that it goes. I didn't do the research because my hardware is pretty standard and I made the mistake of assuming that it would work.
It was great for some. For others such as myself it was a nightmare. These days Vista runs fine, although it consumes a huge amount of resources to sit around and "do nothing" (preloading of apps and the like, I know, I know).
I have to agree with fred here about selectively displaying ads. There was a time in the somewhat distant past that I publicly denounced Ad Block Plus as "evil" and stated that it was not a big deal to show certain types of advertisements (eg; Google text ads). As I'm sure you already know, I now run ABP and I have for quite some time.
It's like Fred here is saying. The ads simply became worse and worse. This lead to installing ABP, which I know is a primary reason why the ads became worse in the first place. Vicious cycle there. Originally I selectively allowed certain types of ads, but you know, I got sick of baby sitting. I became cynical, "Why should I have to baby sit these websites when all they have to do is stop using the trashy ads?" Now it's just "on" and stays that way.
All of this yammering about the plugin and not ONE place to actually get it from. Concept is concept. Nothing more until I can actually install the damn thing (without compiling source, if that's even available, because like bloody hell I'm going to get some friend on Facebook to compile source code).
I completely agree with Anonymous Coward's comments. I, too, remember the offensive and blatantly ignorant comments from the people at Mozilla, especially in regards to multithreading Firefox. Personally I find it very unfortunate that Slashdot and other technology sites are reporting on this sudden change of heart without bringing up Mozilla's past behavior. It is biased reporting and paints Firefox & Mozilla in a far too positive light.
Also, I was unaware that Chrome now has extension support. I know that it has rudimentary Greasemonkey support but that's far from full extension support, and from what I can find (via Google, of course, heh) about it online is that extension support is still in the testing phase.
While the 3.5 upgrade is a welcomed improvement it is still not Chrome. If / when Chrome actually gets full extension support I will be switching browsers. I said that when Chrome launched, assuming that I can get AdBlock and Foxmarks, I would gladly change browsers and I see nothing here to change my mind.
Granted, I may do so through SRWare Iron rather than Chrome itself.
What they SHOULD learn is that they need to lower their #&@%ing prices. We're not talking rocket science here: People buy used games because they're - gasp! - not $60 or more.
$30 to $40 is a far more realistic price range for games, and thus that's what most people are going to pay.
Basic economics is a little too difficult for these people though. They'll just panic and blame used games for "cannibalizing their sales", or go on blaming piracy, or make some other inane excuse.
A number of you seem to be completely missing the point. Let me help you with that.
First, throw your assumptions out of the window.
You (and "you" being just about all of you here) seem to think that the RAM and raw power of the 3D card is only used in an FPS. That shows that you are terribly uninformed.
The RAM on the card allows more objects and/or higher quality textures, amongst other things. Simply put, the more video memory that is available the more elaborate and beautiful your surroundings can be.
In addition to this, higher display resolutions require more video memory. With higher resolutions comes the requirement to store more objects and process more data. These higher resolutions are becoming quite common these days thanks to the popularity of wide screen monitors.
When you add these two situations together, you suddenly have a case where you NEED a very good 3D card with a whole lot of memory in order to play ANY game in its intended beauty.
This will be true for an RPG just as much as it is for an FPS.
Good graphics are not limited to the FPS genre. RPG titles make use of some beautiful visuals as well. Oblivion was one example, though I personally never really liked the game.
An MMORPG will also gobble up the massive horse power and large amount of RAM available on new cards. More players on screen means more objects, more textures, more particle effects, more animations; more everything. A great deal of video lag (and deaths) can be prevented by having a decent 3D card.
Honestly, this 2 GB of RAM is much needed these days.
If you're still sitting on a 17" 4:3 monitor and you only run games that are 3 or 4 years old then you probably don't need this. Some of you are happy with that, and that's fine.
The majority of people are not. Whatever the reasons why you're comfortable in that situation, they won't matter to everyone else. That includes folks who play RPGs, both online and offline.
That some (*cough*many*cough*) of you automatically insult people who would buy this wreaks of ignorance, jealousy, pomposity, and an attempt to justify your own languid situation.
Slashdot Mirror
I was one of the people who had a nightmare of an experience with Vista. I still use it today and it is significantly better than what it was on launch day, but at the time it was the worse thing to ever happen to my computer. The system froze while the O/S was loading (at the "progress bar" animation, before seeing the login screen). It crashed. It blue screened. It required hours stacked on top of hours just to get to the desktop.
This was on the same hardware that I'm running today with the exception of my 3D card.
My problems were directly related with Vista's lack of compatibility with my hardware. Had I done more research I probably could have avoided the huge headache by discovering the incompatibilities and not purchasing the O/S. That's just the way that it goes. I didn't do the research because my hardware is pretty standard and I made the mistake of assuming that it would work.
It was great for some. For others such as myself it was a nightmare. These days Vista runs fine, although it consumes a huge amount of resources to sit around and "do nothing" (preloading of apps and the like, I know, I know).
"and we... have tried them all." - She looks like she's about to cry when she says this. What did they do to these people!?
I have to agree with fred here about selectively displaying ads. There was a time in the somewhat distant past that I publicly denounced Ad Block Plus as "evil" and stated that it was not a big deal to show certain types of advertisements (eg; Google text ads). As I'm sure you already know, I now run ABP and I have for quite some time.
It's like Fred here is saying. The ads simply became worse and worse. This lead to installing ABP, which I know is a primary reason why the ads became worse in the first place. Vicious cycle there. Originally I selectively allowed certain types of ads, but you know, I got sick of baby sitting. I became cynical, "Why should I have to baby sit these websites when all they have to do is stop using the trashy ads?" Now it's just "on" and stays that way.
All of this yammering about the plugin and not ONE place to actually get it from. Concept is concept. Nothing more until I can actually install the damn thing (without compiling source, if that's even available, because like bloody hell I'm going to get some friend on Facebook to compile source code).
I completely agree with Anonymous Coward's comments. I, too, remember the offensive and blatantly ignorant comments from the people at Mozilla, especially in regards to multithreading Firefox. Personally I find it very unfortunate that Slashdot and other technology sites are reporting on this sudden change of heart without bringing up Mozilla's past behavior. It is biased reporting and paints Firefox & Mozilla in a far too positive light.
Also, I was unaware that Chrome now has extension support. I know that it has rudimentary Greasemonkey support but that's far from full extension support, and from what I can find (via Google, of course, heh) about it online is that extension support is still in the testing phase.
While the 3.5 upgrade is a welcomed improvement it is still not Chrome. If / when Chrome actually gets full extension support I will be switching browsers. I said that when Chrome launched, assuming that I can get AdBlock and Foxmarks, I would gladly change browsers and I see nothing here to change my mind.
Granted, I may do so through SRWare Iron rather than Chrome itself.
What they SHOULD learn is that they need to lower their #&@%ing prices. We're not talking rocket science here: People buy used games because they're - gasp! - not $60 or more. $30 to $40 is a far more realistic price range for games, and thus that's what most people are going to pay. Basic economics is a little too difficult for these people though. They'll just panic and blame used games for "cannibalizing their sales", or go on blaming piracy, or make some other inane excuse.
First, throw your assumptions out of the window.
You (and "you" being just about all of you here) seem to think that the RAM and raw power of the 3D card is only used in an FPS. That shows that you are terribly uninformed.
The RAM on the card allows more objects and/or higher quality textures, amongst other things. Simply put, the more video memory that is available the more elaborate and beautiful your surroundings can be.
In addition to this, higher display resolutions require more video memory. With higher resolutions comes the requirement to store more objects and process more data. These higher resolutions are becoming quite common these days thanks to the popularity of wide screen monitors.
When you add these two situations together, you suddenly have a case where you NEED a very good 3D card with a whole lot of memory in order to play ANY game in its intended beauty.
This will be true for an RPG just as much as it is for an FPS.
Good graphics are not limited to the FPS genre. RPG titles make use of some beautiful visuals as well. Oblivion was one example, though I personally never really liked the game.
An MMORPG will also gobble up the massive horse power and large amount of RAM available on new cards. More players on screen means more objects, more textures, more particle effects, more animations; more everything. A great deal of video lag (and deaths) can be prevented by having a decent 3D card.
Honestly, this 2 GB of RAM is much needed these days.
If you're still sitting on a 17" 4:3 monitor and you only run games that are 3 or 4 years old then you probably don't need this. Some of you are happy with that, and that's fine.
The majority of people are not. Whatever the reasons why you're comfortable in that situation, they won't matter to everyone else. That includes folks who play RPGs, both online and offline.
That some (*cough*many*cough*) of you automatically insult people who would buy this wreaks of ignorance, jealousy, pomposity, and an attempt to justify your own languid situation.