Yeah, but Intel are in a bit of a pickle, because unless they're stupid, they need to find some way to explain to their customers that these chips are a LOT faster than 1.6G P4s. Obviously, they chose not to indicate that in the model name, but they better find some way to do it!
This got me thinking: you know, once Intel retires the P4 (which may take a while) they will almost certainly move to a chip that does more instructions per cycle. But since by then we will be so used to AMD's "rating" number, AMD's chips will "look" faster. Anyway, I hadn't thought about that before.
Isn't it interesting how we've forgiven AMD for the PR rating crap we were all so mad about initially? Or maybe I'm just now realizing that I've forgiven them.
Your comment sounds funny because it makes me picture an Intel board meeting where they discuss how they're going to move in on Transmeta's turf. That's funny, because Transmeta has no turf. I haven't followed recent developments, but I suspect there really aren't many. I'm not sure why Transmeta hasn't been bought yet, because they hold some pretty significant patents and IP. But it's funny to consider them "in the game" somehow. I feel sad about it. I was a fan of what they were doing. I hope it's AMD who buys them (but I think the chances are low).
Maybe Transmeta is being stung by the same problems as nVidia, since IIRC they both use TSMC for all their fabbing.
So is this Red Herring guy saying that we need to revive the flagging electronics industry by... deliberately making products that perform worse that what we could make if we were trying?
Yeah, that will surely set off a buying spree. The malls will be one bid stampede. I'm sure.
I think you make an important point. If the real problem behind the FX was just manufacturing, and if the designs really were ready to go a year ago, then it stands to reason that nVidia's next chipset design team should be ready to send away for silicon samples any day now. This assumes, of course, that they really did keep the NV35 team working full bore on the NV35 throughout all these problems with the NV30. But assuming they did, and there is no indication to the contrary, then nVidia are not behind at all. They are just going to miss one release, but that's different from falling one release behind. It's worth remembering that the NV30 was supposed to have been out for a year at this point. If they kept to that schedule, it would have indeed been welcomed like a masiah and not a periah.
If we are to believe nVidia, there has basically been no design work on the NV30 chip for at least a year, and their designers have been busy on newer and better GPUs. If the only problem was TSMC and the manufacturing itself, nVidia might actually be technologically ahead of ATi right now. Maybe they're just waiting for TSMC to ramp up their 130nm process. So if they skip the NV30 generation entirely and go straight to the NV35 (which should be about done by now), they are not making a dumb move. The NV35 is a year ahead of the NV30, while the R350 is only a few months ahead of the 9700pro. The NV35 might kick some serious ass, and it might be closer than you think. If anything, the decision to forego an "ultra" version of the 5800 is a sign that nVidia has confidence that their eggs will be safer in the NV35 basket, and that the NV35 is so close that they might as well just focus all attention on it.
Funny, except Microsoft remind me much more of a black hole. They try to assimilate everything, and once you get near them, they don't let you get away. Oh, and remember: time itself slows down as you approach the event horizon of a black hole. Is it any wonder, then, that your computer slows down once it's got Microsoft?
No, MS is the real black hole. They suck, you know it, but you won't escape.
Just a simple question: What is the refresh rate of your manitor? If you can do 1600X1200 at more than 85Hz and notice the improvement, I'll be impressed. The difference you report between 80 and 90 fps almost certainly has to do with the fact that your monitor refresh was set so that you show exactly five "dead" screens per second. When you set it above 85, each of your screen refreshes shows a different frame, so of course it looks better, but it's not for the reason you think. Try running at constant 75 FPS and set your refresh to 75, and you will see it also looks great.
This is a fair point. However, I think the difference is that the terms of the GPL are reasonable, in the sense that reasonable people ought to acknowledge that they are binding. The terms of the RIAA and MPAA are not reasonable, so they are not binding. Sure, xxAA practices may be legal, but if they are, it is simply a sign that some injustices are legal. There is nothing strange about that; many countries have had many immoral laws, and some still do. The point is that an illegal action that violates an obviously just statute is far worse than an infraction against an unjust law (like civil disobedience). The latter is probably not wrong at all!
You're exactly right about both SP and the Simpsons. Many of the recent South Parks have been amazing. Crative, interesting, funny, provokative... and it makes you feel like there are other sane people in the world.
Quite right! I have a feeling these episodes get overlooked because they are "latecomers" and came after the point where the list's author lost his sense of humor.
But I think the absolute most shamefully bad episode was "Simpsons Safari." It almost ruined the Simpsons for me. I came close to not turning on the TV on the following Sunday.
No, I think they just stopped watching, and for the first three seasons, they were apparently too young.
It's beyond me how they could leave out "Bart's Friend Falls in Love" where Homer gets the subliminal vocabulary builder. Also, probably the tightest episode ever was 802-You Only Move Twice, their brilliant satire of James Bond films from the "nice bad-guy's" point of view. I still can't get over how well written that whole episode is.
Right now, my favorite quote is from only two years ago ("Worst Episode Ever") in which the comic book guy gets thrown into a gutter and says to the empty alley:
"Oh, how does one say 'loneliness' in Klingon"
then he pulls out a small book from his pocket, pages through it and says:
"ah, yes..." [profound pathos, quaking arm extended to the sky] "... GAR-TACH!!!"
Recommended reading on K5
on
Columbia Coverage
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Here is an insightful editorial on K5 which should help put some things into perspective. It's worth reading if you haven't already.
The problem with ST was not that it was communist-utopian. That angle was a real contribution to sci-fi and probably the one single feature that excited people so much about the series.
The problem is that Roddenberry (not Berman!) learned his moral sensibilities from Leave it to Beaver. Inexplicably, he thought that 50's US prudeness is a universal virtue, and in his fantasy, it would remain with us for centuries. Instead of the grungy Rock and Roll, Star Trek characters would love cliche classical music (or: "wild guys" like Riker favored castrated "Jazz"). Instead of Sade or Nabakov, the future would read... oh yes, Shakespeare and Conan Doyle. Like Leave it to Beaver, it seems nobody has ever gone to the toilet on the Enterprise. It's not clear whether they even have any. Maybe they use the transporters for that? We are never told. That would be "dirty."
You know, if there is ever going to be a communist revolution, you can count me out if as a result, we'll all end up in some sort of a prude navy. Life is Roddenberry's world seems so fucking stale because nobody pushes the envelope. That's no accident. That's written into the show by Roddenberry himself, who spent his life trying to show how the hippies will not win. The coolest concert to ever take place on the Enterprise is... what? Data's poetry reading?
As far as the rest of what happens in the future, it's all about the Protestant work ethic. By the time we get to the point where human labor is not necessary for sustaining our species in comfort, you would think that many of us would pursue pleasure, crazy art, group sex, drugs, body modification, etc. But no! In Roddenberry's world, we rush to sign up for the space-navy. If we're "lucky", we get uniforms and duty shifts and we spend our time taking orders from some Wald Cleaver pinhead while praying to be promoted a rank.
Notice that Rick Berman went some ways towards undoing this "50's anti-beatnik" attutude on the shows. Can you imagine Roddenberry agreeing to Enterprise-style coed decontamination scences? Ha! The whole point of Enterprise is to spice up Rodenberry's pristine, prude world with some sex, grime and humanity. Now if they only got better characters and scriptwriters, there might be hope!
To make vivid how totally dull (for example) TNG characters are, imagine what they would say if they took out a personal ad. I'll do one for Troi; you can do the rest on your own.
I am a SWF seeking a special someone with whom to share my feelings. My hobbies are yoga, collecting vases, reading books you were probably assigned in High School, going on long walks in the holodeck, attending staff meetings, eating chocolate and annoying people. Just kidding! Did I mention I have a great sense of humor? Send me a message in Box 4251
I suppose the GNU/HURD house would have the most elaborate foundation, but no walls or roof. However, if there were to be rooms, one could collapse without taking down any of the others.
Serves those gold diggers right
on
Giant Sucking Noise
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Nobody here seems to mention a relevant fact: the people who flocked to the booming US tech industry are really nothing more than dweeby counterparts of 19th century gold diggers, trying to get rich quick. Now that the veins of gold are drying up, they fabricate something to whine about so that they can feel that their turn of fortune has been caused by some great injustice.
IT opportunists knew what the risks were going in. The US tech industry, by all accounts, shouldn't have taken you nearly as far as it did, so be thankful and start looking someone else who might be willing to lease your soul for $$$.
Yes, I think big companies want to drive up sales by making short games, because they release quite often games that are targeted at the same demographic. Smaller shops, though, don't mind that you are taking forever to play their game--because their next release for you won't be ready for another year. By keeping you hooked in the meantime, the chance of buying their next thing when it comes out is close to 100%.
The one I heard was that certain particle collisions might create a tiny black hole. We wouldn't have the technology to contain it so it would immediately fall through the Earth's crust and after a few oscilations, come to rest at its center of mass. All atoms that came near it would be eaten, and it would grow in mass and power until it ate up all of the Earth.
Don't circulate this story too much, lest it catch the ear of some lameass, desperate "disaster movie" screenwriter who converts it into movie that convinces our moronic leaders to cut funding for fundamental physics.
"As we now know, the Soviet Union violated the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 on an extensive scale, continuing to develop new weapons and to accumulate stockpiles until its collapse in 1991."
While Mr. Dyson is quite right in this observation, it seem almost absurd that he didn't see it fit to mention that post-Nixon USA also resumed research and large-scale production of biological weapons. For example, all evidence indicates that the "weapons-grade" anthrax sent through US mail was a strain developed by US weapons labs. What that anthrax scare revealed is just how many US military labs are working on the further weaponization of anthrax and other, more deadly biological agents.
Sorry, you fell for a cheap Pricewatch trick. It turns out that the cheapest Radeon 9700 Pro is $270.75 with shipping. The rest are ordinary 9700 "amateurs" whose vendors put "not pro" into the description so that they show up in a search for 9700 pro.
I'm mad 'cause you got me all excited that I might be buying myself a 9700 Pro. Don't fool around with my emotions like that!
You're exactly right. Tom and Anand both had the same amount of time to do the review, but only Anand took it seriously took the trouble to look into image quality... and to report on it in a way that's clear and objective.
The other good thing that Anand did was to report minimum FPS. Though I thought the same space could have better been used if he had put up a line graph charting FPS vs. time (so we could see how many peaks and valleys there are), I hope this becomes a standard unit of measurement. After all, average FPS means very little if you regularly drop to "slideshow mode" right when the action is most intense. You do not "make it up later" by rendering the boring scenes at 300FPS to raise your average.
I would go farther and say that there should be a "playability levels" rating. Defining this might not be easy and would require some research, but here's roughly how I picture it: for every second, subtract the FPS from 85 (ignoring negative results) and square the difference. Then, add the results of all the seconds of the demo, and you get a badness score. If your badness score is 0 then for the entire demo you stayed above 85FPS(Hz) and your monitor probably won't display more anyway. Call that perfect playability. If your badness score is higher, you may encounter some problems whose severity might greatly differ. For example, if you hover around 60FPS the whole time, that's not great, but much better than oscilating between 20 and 100. Intuitively, the deeper the valley, the more badness points you should get for that second, and they should increase exponentially with depth. (That's why I proposed squaring the difference, though I'm sure there is a more appropriate function than that--for example 85/FPS - 1.)
I don't know how much extra work this would be for the reviewers, but it would certainly help me a lot in understanding what's important about their results, namely the playability of the game. It would also help the consumer decide which card is right for them, depending on which game at which setting they want good playability for. Average FPS really means very little, and we should get off that standard.
I have nothing against ATi making money... not even mine. I just don't like the fact that they are now in a position to keep their prices artificially high because they don't have effective competition. I can't get mad at them if they do that; that's just playing the game.
If we really must put up with all the tribulations of capitalism, I at least want its good parts to work right. That presupposes competition. It's time for NVidia to get off their butts and compete.
I hope you're right about the release drivers improving performance. If the increase is 15-20%, that might make things interesting. Otherwise, this release will do very little to drive down the price of ATI cards.
Slashdot Mirror
Why should Sony work hard on something original and interesting when they can just keep reselling Evercrack?
This got me thinking: you know, once Intel retires the P4 (which may take a while) they will almost certainly move to a chip that does more instructions per cycle. But since by then we will be so used to AMD's "rating" number, AMD's chips will "look" faster. Anyway, I hadn't thought about that before.
Isn't it interesting how we've forgiven AMD for the PR rating crap we were all so mad about initially? Or maybe I'm just now realizing that I've forgiven them.
Maybe Transmeta is being stung by the same problems as nVidia, since IIRC they both use TSMC for all their fabbing.
Yeah, that will surely set off a buying spree. The malls will be one bid stampede. I'm sure.
If we are to believe nVidia, there has basically been no design work on the NV30 chip for at least a year, and their designers have been busy on newer and better GPUs. If the only problem was TSMC and the manufacturing itself, nVidia might actually be technologically ahead of ATi right now. Maybe they're just waiting for TSMC to ramp up their 130nm process. So if they skip the NV30 generation entirely and go straight to the NV35 (which should be about done by now), they are not making a dumb move. The NV35 is a year ahead of the NV30, while the R350 is only a few months ahead of the 9700pro. The NV35 might kick some serious ass, and it might be closer than you think. If anything, the decision to forego an "ultra" version of the 5800 is a sign that nVidia has confidence that their eggs will be safer in the NV35 basket, and that the NV35 is so close that they might as well just focus all attention on it.
No, MS is the real black hole. They suck, you know it, but you won't escape.
Why do former Unix geeks trade in their work computer and get an XP machine? Why, to play games at work, of course!
Just a simple question: What is the refresh rate of your manitor? If you can do 1600X1200 at more than 85Hz and notice the improvement, I'll be impressed. The difference you report between 80 and 90 fps almost certainly has to do with the fact that your monitor refresh was set so that you show exactly five "dead" screens per second. When you set it above 85, each of your screen refreshes shows a different frame, so of course it looks better, but it's not for the reason you think. Try running at constant 75 FPS and set your refresh to 75, and you will see it also looks great.
This is a fair point. However, I think the difference is that the terms of the GPL are reasonable, in the sense that reasonable people ought to acknowledge that they are binding. The terms of the RIAA and MPAA are not reasonable, so they are not binding. Sure, xxAA practices may be legal, but if they are, it is simply a sign that some injustices are legal. There is nothing strange about that; many countries have had many immoral laws, and some still do. The point is that an illegal action that violates an obviously just statute is far worse than an infraction against an unjust law (like civil disobedience). The latter is probably not wrong at all!
http://www.riscos.org/cgi-bin/news?ref=08022003_00 2404_4
You're exactly right about both SP and the Simpsons. Many of the recent South Parks have been amazing. Crative, interesting, funny, provokative... and it makes you feel like there are other sane people in the world.
But I think the absolute most shamefully bad episode was "Simpsons Safari." It almost ruined the Simpsons for me. I came close to not turning on the TV on the following Sunday.
It's beyond me how they could leave out "Bart's Friend Falls in Love" where Homer gets the subliminal vocabulary builder. Also, probably the tightest episode ever was 802-You Only Move Twice, their brilliant satire of James Bond films from the "nice bad-guy's" point of view. I still can't get over how well written that whole episode is.
Right now, my favorite quote is from only two years ago ("Worst Episode Ever") in which the comic book guy gets thrown into a gutter and says to the empty alley:
"Oh, how does one say 'loneliness' in Klingon"
then he pulls out a small book from his pocket, pages through it and says:
"ah, yes..." [profound pathos, quaking arm extended to the sky] "... GAR-TACH!!!"
Here is an insightful editorial on K5 which should help put some things into perspective. It's worth reading if you haven't already.
The problem is that Roddenberry (not Berman!) learned his moral sensibilities from Leave it to Beaver. Inexplicably, he thought that 50's US prudeness is a universal virtue, and in his fantasy, it would remain with us for centuries. Instead of the grungy Rock and Roll, Star Trek characters would love cliche classical music (or: "wild guys" like Riker favored castrated "Jazz"). Instead of Sade or Nabakov, the future would read... oh yes, Shakespeare and Conan Doyle. Like Leave it to Beaver, it seems nobody has ever gone to the toilet on the Enterprise. It's not clear whether they even have any. Maybe they use the transporters for that? We are never told. That would be "dirty."
You know, if there is ever going to be a communist revolution, you can count me out if as a result, we'll all end up in some sort of a prude navy. Life is Roddenberry's world seems so fucking stale because nobody pushes the envelope. That's no accident. That's written into the show by Roddenberry himself, who spent his life trying to show how the hippies will not win. The coolest concert to ever take place on the Enterprise is ... what? Data's poetry reading?
As far as the rest of what happens in the future, it's all about the Protestant work ethic. By the time we get to the point where human labor is not necessary for sustaining our species in comfort, you would think that many of us would pursue pleasure, crazy art, group sex, drugs, body modification, etc. But no! In Roddenberry's world, we rush to sign up for the space-navy. If we're "lucky", we get uniforms and duty shifts and we spend our time taking orders from some Wald Cleaver pinhead while praying to be promoted a rank.
Notice that Rick Berman went some ways towards undoing this "50's anti-beatnik" attutude on the shows. Can you imagine Roddenberry agreeing to Enterprise-style coed decontamination scences? Ha! The whole point of Enterprise is to spice up Rodenberry's pristine, prude world with some sex, grime and humanity. Now if they only got better characters and scriptwriters, there might be hope!
To make vivid how totally dull (for example) TNG characters are, imagine what they would say if they took out a personal ad. I'll do one for Troi; you can do the rest on your own.
I am a SWF seeking a special someone with whom to share my feelings. My hobbies are yoga, collecting vases, reading books you were probably assigned in High School, going on long walks in the holodeck, attending staff meetings, eating chocolate and annoying people. Just kidding! Did I mention I have a great sense of humor? Send me a message in Box 4251
I suppose the GNU/HURD house would have the most elaborate foundation, but no walls or roof. However, if there were to be rooms, one could collapse without taking down any of the others.
IT opportunists knew what the risks were going in. The US tech industry, by all accounts, shouldn't have taken you nearly as far as it did, so be thankful and start looking someone else who might be willing to lease your soul for $$$.
Yes, I think big companies want to drive up sales by making short games, because they release quite often games that are targeted at the same demographic. Smaller shops, though, don't mind that you are taking forever to play their game--because their next release for you won't be ready for another year. By keeping you hooked in the meantime, the chance of buying their next thing when it comes out is close to 100%.
Don't circulate this story too much, lest it catch the ear of some lameass, desperate "disaster movie" screenwriter who converts it into movie that convinces our moronic leaders to cut funding for fundamental physics.
While Mr. Dyson is quite right in this observation, it seem almost absurd that he didn't see it fit to mention that post-Nixon USA also resumed research and large-scale production of biological weapons. For example, all evidence indicates that the "weapons-grade" anthrax sent through US mail was a strain developed by US weapons labs. What that anthrax scare revealed is just how many US military labs are working on the further weaponization of anthrax and other, more deadly biological agents.
I'm mad 'cause you got me all excited that I might be buying myself a 9700 Pro. Don't fool around with my emotions like that!
The other good thing that Anand did was to report minimum FPS. Though I thought the same space could have better been used if he had put up a line graph charting FPS vs. time (so we could see how many peaks and valleys there are), I hope this becomes a standard unit of measurement. After all, average FPS means very little if you regularly drop to "slideshow mode" right when the action is most intense. You do not "make it up later" by rendering the boring scenes at 300FPS to raise your average.
I would go farther and say that there should be a "playability levels" rating. Defining this might not be easy and would require some research, but here's roughly how I picture it: for every second, subtract the FPS from 85 (ignoring negative results) and square the difference. Then, add the results of all the seconds of the demo, and you get a badness score. If your badness score is 0 then for the entire demo you stayed above 85FPS(Hz) and your monitor probably won't display more anyway. Call that perfect playability. If your badness score is higher, you may encounter some problems whose severity might greatly differ. For example, if you hover around 60FPS the whole time, that's not great, but much better than oscilating between 20 and 100. Intuitively, the deeper the valley, the more badness points you should get for that second, and they should increase exponentially with depth. (That's why I proposed squaring the difference, though I'm sure there is a more appropriate function than that--for example 85/FPS - 1.)
I don't know how much extra work this would be for the reviewers, but it would certainly help me a lot in understanding what's important about their results, namely the playability of the game. It would also help the consumer decide which card is right for them, depending on which game at which setting they want good playability for. Average FPS really means very little, and we should get off that standard.
If we really must put up with all the tribulations of capitalism, I at least want its good parts to work right. That presupposes competition. It's time for NVidia to get off their butts and compete.
You go to some pretty interesting conventions!
I hope you're right about the release drivers improving performance. If the increase is 15-20%, that might make things interesting. Otherwise, this release will do very little to drive down the price of ATI cards.