...is my company still using Windows XP SP2, but we are still using IE6. Feh...and they complained that Audacity was a security risk because it was "open source, so anyone could hack it".
Buying the game gives as signal that you agree with Blizzard-Activision's actions. $1 Billion revenue says that Blizzard-Activision did an excellent job.
The following screenshot is a clear indication a lot of people can't stick to their principles: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/images/mw2_boycott.jpg
To be fair steam sorts players by in-game first then online then offline, so the screen-shot is somewhat misleading. That said there were a fair number of people I know that said they would boycott it (including my son) that ended up buying the game. I have no idea what the percentage is, but probably two orders of magnitude less than the people that did say they would boycott and bought the game just because of the hype.
Streaming to my legacy device which cannot be easily reprogrammed such as my Xbox 360 really relies on XVid. So, for now, I guess Handbrake is the rough beast. Oh well, I use dvd::rip anyway and avidemux when I need to do some transcoding. Computers can be easily upgraded, devices not so much: that is something to keep in mind too.
I stream h.264 encoded M4V files to my Xbox 360 using windows Media Player 11 without any issues.
Now there is a "media update" on the Xbox required to do it, but as long as you have a valid Xbox Live account it should happen automatically.
So in other words you're just twisting the figures to suit your argument?
How do the figures look for 5 years- a reasonable life for a console, possible even an underestimate, by which time you'll have had to pay another $1200 to upgrade your PC again whilst your 360 is still playing it's games just fine and still looking great?
And it's not like people with an apparent ax to grind against PCs don't twist the numbers also. In my not to unusual circumstances Console gaming is not really much cheaper than PC gaming. In 5 years I will probably end up replacing the 360 and/or upgrading the hard drive (at 4-5x normal retail price) and possibly a Natal add-on ($100??). On the PC side I'll probably be spending $700-800 or so for a major upgrade (MB, CPU, RAM, GFX) in a year or so.
It's not as if a $1200 PC will even play the latest and greatest PC games. I bought a high end PC for double that (and yes, I used the cheapest possible source for components, I've been building gaming PCs years, I know what I'm doing) 18 months ago without a monitor as I already had one and it still wouldn't run Crysis in full detail at a reasonable framerate. It ran the likes of Spore, Warhammer Online and Dawn of War II fine of course, but you'd have to spend far more to get all games to run fine.
Never played Crisis, it seemed to be mostly a tech demo than a real game, mostly suitable for benchmarks. I will agree that there are a couple games that *require* the latest and gratest and then still won't play decent when released.
Again, you just don't get this problem with a console, it just works, and still nearly always looks better than the PC, even as the console hardware ages and drops below the spec of your average gaming PC, largely because it's a single gaming dedicated hardware platform and hence easier to optimize for.
It's not always easier, I've had DLC break games on the 360 and the consoles generally seem to take longer to get patches than the PC version of major titles because each patch has to be "certified" and even then the patches add new bugs and exploits like "infinite ammo" exploit in MW2 on the 360 which is funny as it apparently acts like a worm and anybody that joins a game with the hack get the hack also and can pass it on to other matches, or so I've read.
Now gearbox has been a bit better patching Borderlands on the consoles than the PC and the same probably can be said for other games.
There's realistically too many factors to do a sensible price comparison, you'd have to do it long term rather than cherry picking favourable stats like the life of the PC, rather than the life of the console. Mentioning 2 chat pads when most people use a headset and you can only use one chatpad at a time because the onscreen keyboard can only show one at a time doesn't exactly help your cause for providing a balanced comparison either.
I will agree that it varies alot depending on what you play... I frankly only buy 2-3 PC games a year and so far the DLC for them has all been free. On the console side I'm buying 5-6 games (2-3 are new releases) plus another $20-30 for DLC for the games. Some may be fine with using their main TV for a display, myself it does not so that comes into the calculation. Some have stated here that they don't use Live Gold so it's possible for them that $300 + Games is all it costs for them. They apparently are on one end of the spectrum and I'm and some of my friends are on the other side.
We both have friends that use MSN, but don't have Xboxes that we like chatting with and the chatpad is much better than the OSK. My daughter and myself have our own favorite controllers and I got tired of having her unsnap the chatpad from mine and snap it on her controller and worrying about the connections wearing that I bought the 12Mo Live, Chatpad, Headset, PGR4 bundle as that was the best deal on two of those items.
Well I found the text on Resident Evil 5 unreadable and Fable II tended to be half off the top of the screen on my SD TV. On the other hand Eternal Sonata, Tales of Vesperia and probably 80% of the games are OK on a SD TV.
To reply to some others... no you don't need two chatpads, the total is still over $1300 then assuming buying 15 games in 3 years and 3 years of live. The PC and Console game price difference still seems to sick at $10 even for older releases.
As far as used games, that is one minor console advantage, though it's not hard finding games on steam for half regular retail quite often. Used games I normally see for only $5 less than the new version at Gamestop, I've never sold a game at Gamestop, I just usually give them to somebody else or keep them, hmmm I seem to give more games than I get.
As for a second controller for the PC... I can't remember any PC games where you can play co-op on the same system other than a few casual games.
As far as using a computer monitor, it's possible, though if multiple people are playing a 32" is pretty much the minimum unless you like being crammed shoulder to shoulder 4' from the screen. A 32" LCD HD TV will run $300-350 new on the bottom end unless you catch a sale on a no-name brand. The 32" size seems to have dropped in price the most, though a 42" plasma or 40" LCD at full HD is good for 2-3 people sitting about 8' away.
Actually since my Daughter plays on live also on her own account I could have added another $50 a year. My son has live also, but that's out of his pocket book.
The costs are similar, for casual games using steam the PC could be cheaper, for somebody that plays more hardcore games it's about the same or somewhat cheaper on the console.
Consoles generally are easier to use, but I've had to wait longer for patches on the 360 than on the PC. Mass Effect Pinnacle station DLC caused issues with some players and it was patched in a couple days on the PC, but took over two weeks for the 360.
Also DLC in the past has been free on the PC, but that seems to be coming to an end.
I doubt that he meant $400 (amount sited by person he replied to).
But he is right, if your upgrading every year, then you are doing it wrong by buying the cheapest components that will just barely play current games right now. I built my gaming system three years ago and spent about $1200 (system, keyboard, mouse, new LCD) and just now starting to feel some performance issues.
A 360 does not cost $300, it costs $300 + $50/year for Live + $10 extra each game over PC + $600 for HD TV + $50 for an additional controller + $30 x 2 for chatpads or about $1300 in three years.
Don't tell me console gaming is any cheaper as I happen to own both.
Don't say "well you can use your regular HD TV" and I say my wife & kids would like to watch their TV programs, or "you don't need a HD TV" and I tell you it sucks as I've had to suffer playing games that the text is unreadably small on a SD TV.
AMD has the Geode LX and NX lines. Geode LX is very low powered and the highest clock speed (I've seen) is 566Mhz. Geode NX is targeted directly at the Atom. Although I have yet to see any of these out in the wild. I've only ever found a Geode in the wild clocked as high as 500Mhz (see the ALIX boards)
Actually the Geode is a dead end processor, AMD already has stated they are disconinuing it.
AMD recently announced a new processor "Conesus" that is intended for netbooks and UMPC. http://gizmodo.com/5086703/amds-upcoming-conesus-netbook-chip-wont-stoop-to-mid-levels
Maybe they should let people see what's available without signing up.
You can, and even preview songs... just go to http://www.emusic.com/ and you get the main page where you can start browsing.
Yes it used to have just an advert to join up, but you could browse them if clicked on "contact us" at the bottom of the page and then the browse tab at the top.
You realize that HL:Source is Half-life 1 ported to the Source engine, right? Not a new game?;)
Yes I was aware of the fact, I'm playing HL:Source because I never played the original. Yes I consider the original HL a better game than HL2... I like the graphics in the newer one, but the older one is a tougher game and better over-all.
I'm tempted to try to find a copy of HL:Blue Shift and HL:Apposing Forces to see if they are any good.
I love Half Life, Half Life 2, Half Life 2 - Episode One... but I have to take issue with a year and a half delay between one episode and the next. Calling it "episode two" does not make it episodic play in the sense that there is much real-life experiential continuity between the two. It has been so long now that I've somewhat forgotten how EP1 ended. Something about Alex getting killed (or was that from the preview of ep2?) and a train leaving and everything blowing up? I recall Valve saying they were developing the episodes concurrently but at $50/game and a 16 months inbetween, one may as well call them HL3 and HL4. Worse, the games are not "full" games in that they can be reasonably finished in 12-15 hours.
I'm rather miffed at them that it's taking them this long to produce an episode... the original idea was to make shorter versions of the game at semi-regular intervals like 6-9 months. I had gotten the "HL2 Holiday Edition" for christmas and finally last month started playing HL2... good game. I played EP1 and was disappointed at how short it was (~6 hours on normal) and was glad I did not buy it at $20 retail (might be OK at $10 steam).
I was hearing that EP2 was going to be released late this month or early July, but not it's really disappointing, I hope there is alot more game play than EP1 for the wait. I'm playing HL:Source now, an it's a harder game than HL2 and better over-all. From the teasers EP2 looks like it will be better than HL2 & EP1.
BTW in EP1 after you kill the strider in the train station and board the train out of city 17 the citadel blows up and that is where the game ends. The teasers for EP2 indicates that Alex gets killed, but the developers have also indicated that she does not get killed off, but they do introduce characters from the previous HL games.
Actually eMusic would be better since they already have the back end setup and all they sell is unencumbered MP3s. Most of the music is encoded at 192Kbps VBR and sounds good for MP3s and they have Nettwerk and a few other labels selling unrestricted music on there. There are also alot of punk there if your into that.
On thing I'm not a fan of is eMusic's subscription model, yes you can buy booster packs got get more songs than your monthly allotment.
Reminds me of the boot Thrice Upon a Time by James P. Hogan where one of the scenarios is the world is destroyed by a CERN fusion generators that uses inertial confinement and ends up producing mini black holes as a byproduct.
The core2 is pin compatible with the first gen core processor. Chances are that all you need is a bios update and you can use a core2 in any available core compatible motherboard. So I think your "but wait when you include the motherboard price" argument is somewhat irrelevant.
Well unless you bought a brand new socket 775 MB less than three months ago, your odds are not good that you will be able to put a Core 2 in it even with a bios flash. If your like me with an Pre Socket 939/AM2 or Socket 478/early 775 system you will have to purchase a new MB & Memory to go with the CPU. For me a 939/AM2 Athlon 4600 X2 looks better than an Core 2 E6300/E6400 when you throw in the price of the MB. Now I will agree the Core 2 E6600 starts looking better than the 5000 X2 or FX-62 on an over-all price stand point.
The Core2 E6600 seems to be a nice bang for the money as it is right around the middle of the currently available speed grades and is the cheapest iteration with 4MB of L2 cache. It also seems to be competitive with dual core AMD products (my usual choice) that are substantially more expensive. It's definitely a buyer's market these days...let the price war begin!:)
Actually if you include the motherboard price AMD X2 chips are more competetive since my looking around show Intel Core2 compatible MB costing $50-100 more than similar AMD socket AM2 boards with socket 939 being cheaper yet.
That's a crock. What if you were to buy a shiny new car, and the next year, the manufacturer stopped selling replacement parts for it. "Hey, you only had a one year warranty!" Hell, I play the same games for longer than a year. Red Hat really blew it on this one, and that move made me positive that I wasn't going to trust any of my business stuff to Red Hat
Your an espcially dumb car buyer if you get upset at support ending after a year. Because the company had annouced that the model 9 car would only be supported for one year before you bought it and that if you wanted parts for more than a year you should buy Truck model 2.1.
They do reveal that they are running on an Nvidia 6800, which would at least meet (and depending on the model could substantially exceed) Vista's minimum requirements for Aero.
While it does indeed look cool, I can't imagine a single useful purpose that would make me ever want to turn it on in either OS. I mean, the fade affect was bad enough, now new app windows can wobble too? I want my apps to open faster, not slower!
The 6800 was in the desktop running the Vista beta, the laptop running SuSE 10.1 with Xgl enabled was using Intel integrated graphics. Serious difference in horsepower there slanted twards vista.
Not ports to Xbox or Xbox 360; those become more difficult. It doesn't help that I've never seen a really, truly commercial-grade SDL game. (Although I've seen a few in OpenGL, or using some combination of DirectX and OpenGL.)
Hmmmm I believe UT2003/4 and Doom 3 (Quake 4? have not tried that) use SDL for Mac & Linux Clients.
If vendors provided DKMS compatible packages the system will automatically rebuild the module when a newer version of the kernel is installed/booted. Then YUM, APT or YAST could be used to push out updates of the module source.
Slashdot Mirror
...is my company still using Windows XP SP2, but we are still using IE6. Feh...and they complained that Audacity was a security risk because it was "open source, so anyone could hack it".
Insanity.
Well they better upgrade to SP3 really soon as Win XP SP2 stops receiving security updates July 13th http://blogs.technet.com/lifecycle/
Buying the game gives as signal that you agree with Blizzard-Activision's actions. $1 Billion revenue says that Blizzard-Activision did an excellent job. The following screenshot is a clear indication a lot of people can't stick to their principles: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/images/mw2_boycott.jpg
To be fair steam sorts players by in-game first then online then offline, so the screen-shot is somewhat misleading. That said there were a fair number of people I know that said they would boycott it (including my son) that ended up buying the game. I have no idea what the percentage is, but probably two orders of magnitude less than the people that did say they would boycott and bought the game just because of the hype.
Streaming to my legacy device which cannot be easily reprogrammed such as my Xbox 360 really relies on XVid. So, for now, I guess Handbrake is the rough beast. Oh well, I use dvd::rip anyway and avidemux when I need to do some transcoding. Computers can be easily upgraded, devices not so much: that is something to keep in mind too.
I stream h.264 encoded M4V files to my Xbox 360 using windows Media Player 11 without any issues. Now there is a "media update" on the Xbox required to do it, but as long as you have a valid Xbox Live account it should happen automatically.
Sounds like the XPde http://www.xpde.com/index.php
That sounds like what they did in the Movie The Fifth Element ... I guess that is our future and it's coming quicker than ever.
So in other words you're just twisting the figures to suit your argument?
How do the figures look for 5 years- a reasonable life for a console, possible even an underestimate, by which time you'll have had to pay another $1200 to upgrade your PC again whilst your 360 is still playing it's games just fine and still looking great?
And it's not like people with an apparent ax to grind against PCs don't twist the numbers also. In my not to unusual circumstances Console gaming is not really much cheaper than PC gaming. In 5 years I will probably end up replacing the 360 and/or upgrading the hard drive (at 4-5x normal retail price) and possibly a Natal add-on ($100??). On the PC side I'll probably be spending $700-800 or so for a major upgrade (MB, CPU, RAM, GFX) in a year or so.
It's not as if a $1200 PC will even play the latest and greatest PC games. I bought a high end PC for double that (and yes, I used the cheapest possible source for components, I've been building gaming PCs years, I know what I'm doing) 18 months ago without a monitor as I already had one and it still wouldn't run Crysis in full detail at a reasonable framerate. It ran the likes of Spore, Warhammer Online and Dawn of War II fine of course, but you'd have to spend far more to get all games to run fine.
Never played Crisis, it seemed to be mostly a tech demo than a real game, mostly suitable for benchmarks. I will agree that there are a couple games that *require* the latest and gratest and then still won't play decent when released.
Again, you just don't get this problem with a console, it just works, and still nearly always looks better than the PC, even as the console hardware ages and drops below the spec of your average gaming PC, largely because it's a single gaming dedicated hardware platform and hence easier to optimize for.
It's not always easier, I've had DLC break games on the 360 and the consoles generally seem to take longer to get patches than the PC version of major titles because each patch has to be "certified" and even then the patches add new bugs and exploits like "infinite ammo" exploit in MW2 on the 360 which is funny as it apparently acts like a worm and anybody that joins a game with the hack get the hack also and can pass it on to other matches, or so I've read. Now gearbox has been a bit better patching Borderlands on the consoles than the PC and the same probably can be said for other games.
There's realistically too many factors to do a sensible price comparison, you'd have to do it long term rather than cherry picking favourable stats like the life of the PC, rather than the life of the console. Mentioning 2 chat pads when most people use a headset and you can only use one chatpad at a time because the onscreen keyboard can only show one at a time doesn't exactly help your cause for providing a balanced comparison either.
I will agree that it varies alot depending on what you play ... I frankly only buy 2-3 PC games a year and so far the DLC for them has all been free. On the console side I'm buying 5-6 games (2-3 are new releases) plus another $20-30 for DLC for the games. Some may be fine with using their main TV for a display, myself it does not so that comes into the calculation. Some have stated here that they don't use Live Gold so it's possible for them that $300 + Games is all it costs for them. They apparently are on one end of the spectrum and I'm and some of my friends are on the other side.
We both have friends that use MSN, but don't have Xboxes that we like chatting with and the chatpad is much better than the OSK. My daughter and myself have our own favorite controllers and I got tired of having her unsnap the chatpad from mine and snap it on her controller and worrying about the connections wearing that I bought the 12Mo Live, Chatpad, Headset, PGR4 bundle as that was the best deal on two of those items.
You forgot to include the cost of a house to live in and a solid gold gaming hat which you need if you use a console.
Well that's a constant between the two so I did not happen to include them ... I have a solid gold gaming chair for my PC :D
Well I found the text on Resident Evil 5 unreadable and Fable II tended to be half off the top of the screen on my SD TV. On the other hand Eternal Sonata, Tales of Vesperia and probably 80% of the games are OK on a SD TV.
To reply to some others ... no you don't need two chatpads, the total is still over $1300 then assuming buying 15 games in 3 years and 3 years of live. The PC and Console game price difference still seems to sick at $10 even for older releases.
As far as used games, that is one minor console advantage, though it's not hard finding games on steam for half regular retail quite often. Used games I normally see for only $5 less than the new version at Gamestop, I've never sold a game at Gamestop, I just usually give them to somebody else or keep them, hmmm I seem to give more games than I get.
As for a second controller for the PC ... I can't remember any PC games where you can play co-op on the same system other than a few casual games.
As far as using a computer monitor, it's possible, though if multiple people are playing a 32" is pretty much the minimum unless you like being crammed shoulder to shoulder 4' from the screen. A 32" LCD HD TV will run $300-350 new on the bottom end unless you catch a sale on a no-name brand. The 32" size seems to have dropped in price the most, though a 42" plasma or 40" LCD at full HD is good for 2-3 people sitting about 8' away.
Actually since my Daughter plays on live also on her own account I could have added another $50 a year. My son has live also, but that's out of his pocket book.
The costs are similar, for casual games using steam the PC could be cheaper, for somebody that plays more hardcore games it's about the same or somewhat cheaper on the console.
Consoles generally are easier to use, but I've had to wait longer for patches on the 360 than on the PC. Mass Effect Pinnacle station DLC caused issues with some players and it was patched in a couple days on the PC, but took over two weeks for the 360.
Also DLC in the past has been free on the PC, but that seems to be coming to an end.
I doubt that he meant $400 (amount sited by person he replied to).
But he is right, if your upgrading every year, then you are doing it wrong by buying the cheapest components that will just barely play current games right now. I built my gaming system three years ago and spent about $1200 (system, keyboard, mouse, new LCD) and just now starting to feel some performance issues.
A 360 does not cost $300, it costs $300 + $50/year for Live + $10 extra each game over PC + $600 for HD TV + $50 for an additional controller + $30 x 2 for chatpads or about $1300 in three years.
Don't tell me console gaming is any cheaper as I happen to own both.
Don't say "well you can use your regular HD TV" and I say my wife & kids would like to watch their TV programs, or "you don't need a HD TV" and I tell you it sucks as I've had to suffer playing games that the text is unreadably small on a SD TV.
Slight correction ... the shaders are running 30% faster 750 VS 575.
It still is better performing in the benchmarks I've seen than the 4830, and matches the 4850 in many.
First, the 4770 is running GDDR5 at approximatly the same clock rate as the 4830 running GDDR3 so they have the same effective memory bandwidth.
Second, while they both have 640 universal shaders, the shaders on the 4770 are running ~40% faster.
Third, so the 4770 has approximately the same or better performance than a 4850 that costs $130-150.
So I think the 4770 is a deal at $109 ... the price will probably come down after the inital rush and the 4830 will disappear.
AMD has the Geode LX and NX lines.
Geode LX is very low powered and the highest clock speed (I've seen) is 566Mhz.
Geode NX is targeted directly at the Atom. Although I have yet to see any of these out in the wild.
I've only ever found a Geode in the wild clocked as high as 500Mhz (see the ALIX boards)
Actually the Geode is a dead end processor, AMD already has stated they are disconinuing it.
AMD recently announced a new processor "Conesus" that is intended for netbooks and UMPC.
http://gizmodo.com/5086703/amds-upcoming-conesus-netbook-chip-wont-stoop-to-mid-levels
You can, and even preview songs... just go to http://www.emusic.com/ and you get the main page where you can start browsing.
Yes it used to have just an advert to join up, but you could browse them if clicked on "contact us" at the bottom of the page and then the browse tab at the top.
Yes I was aware of the fact, I'm playing HL:Source because I never played the original. Yes I consider the original HL a better game than HL2
I'm tempted to try to find a copy of HL:Blue Shift and HL:Apposing Forces to see if they are any good.
I'm rather miffed at them that it's taking them this long to produce an episode
I was hearing that EP2 was going to be released late this month or early July, but not it's really disappointing, I hope there is alot more game play than EP1 for the wait. I'm playing HL:Source now, an it's a harder game than HL2 and better over-all. From the teasers EP2 looks like it will be better than HL2 & EP1.
BTW in EP1 after you kill the strider in the train station and board the train out of city 17 the citadel blows up and that is where the game ends. The teasers for EP2 indicates that Alex gets killed, but the developers have also indicated that she does not get killed off, but they do introduce characters from the previous HL games.
Why, he's just calling a spade a spade.
Actually eMusic would be better since they already have the back end setup and all they sell is unencumbered MP3s. Most of the music is encoded at 192Kbps VBR and sounds good for MP3s and they have Nettwerk and a few other labels selling unrestricted music on there. There are also alot of punk there if your into that.
On thing I'm not a fan of is eMusic's subscription model, yes you can buy booster packs got get more songs than your monthly allotment.
Reminds me of the boot Thrice Upon a Time by James P. Hogan where one of the scenarios is the world is destroyed by a CERN fusion generators that uses inertial confinement and ends up producing mini black holes as a byproduct.
Well unless you bought a brand new socket 775 MB less than three months ago, your odds are not good that you will be able to put a Core 2 in it even with a bios flash. If your like me with an Pre Socket 939/AM2 or Socket 478/early 775 system you will have to purchase a new MB & Memory to go with the CPU. For me a 939/AM2 Athlon 4600 X2 looks better than an Core 2 E6300/E6400 when you throw in the price of the MB. Now I will agree the Core 2 E6600 starts looking better than the 5000 X2 or FX-62 on an over-all price stand point.
The 6800 was in the desktop running the Vista beta, the laptop running SuSE 10.1 with Xgl enabled was using Intel integrated graphics. Serious difference in horsepower there slanted twards vista.
Hmmmm I believe UT2003/4 and Doom 3 (Quake 4? have not tried that) use SDL for Mac & Linux Clients.
I think they are "industrial strength" bah.
How is this any better than something like Dell's DKMS project http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml?
If vendors provided DKMS compatible packages the system will automatically rebuild the module when a newer version of the kernel is installed/booted. Then YUM, APT or YAST could be used to push out updates of the module source.