Microsoft should be worrying more about Sony using Playstation 2's to direct missles towards the Redmond, WA area. After all, PS2 is a Linux-based console!
I'm wondering about those legacy PC bottlenecks on the xbox. It's on a x86 based processor going against a 100% 128-bit PS2 Emotion Engine that's got a main 300 mhz CPU and two vector coprocessors that blow Pentium III floating point ops out of the water.
For example, SquareSoft is trying to make their beat-em-up, The Bouncer, have Dolby Digital 5.1 support in gameplay. They used to think it was impossible, but it might not be so with the VU units. It seems MS just thought "Hey, we can beat 300 mhz easy!" without thinking about the hidden trump card in the PS2. Also, I noticed the 6.4 GB/sec memory bandwidth on the Xbox (shared, so it indludes video memory speed). And the PS2 has dedicated VRAM that flies at 48 GB/sec. So what do you guys think? - Amon CMB
I think MS was planning on making it an Xbox exclusive, but the rabid backlash from the Bungie fanbase was massive.
I hope they don't delay Halo until Xbox... By then, it might be outdated. If you've read any of Carmack's interviews about Doom 3, it seems he's brewing up a monster in graphical prowress. - Amon CMB
I've been a Myth player for a long time now, ever since TFL on my Mac.
IIRC, Bungie was on NT servers at first, but then they were having a lot of trouble with them, so they changed to Linux. I don't see why they'd want to go back. - Amon CMB
Remember how DeCSS started?
It happened when Xing accidentally slipped up and left the code un-encrypted in one of their programs, then those hackers found out and obtained the source from there.
Although I like to see the anarchy of all this, I hate to think that it was all because of a simple mistake. If Xing never had made the mistake, do you think CSS would've been cracked by now? What about future video formats, where the encryption could be higher and the "mistakes" not be made? - Amon CMB
You know, this sounds a lot like an idea in Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". The Earth was meant to be a computer itself, when the Deep Thought supercomputer couldn't calculate the question to the ultimate answer of 42. - Amon CMB
To all -- the USA FUCKER -- I do not become loose the impression that your brain is befackt. What want you in these Slashdot? Creeps you gefaelligst into the political or bekloppten groups! Are probably otherwise what? (which??) Moechlich that I think around the topic the USA exactly the same. Perhaps I would like to hang up the responsible persons Zupfer also everything... Concerns however into these Slashdot nobody nix. How does it come only that me with you the Kosewort " schmeissfliege " comes inn heading? Completely unexplainably... Are nevertheless over keinn interpret better than widderliche Spammer. Seiter such, those their opinion by exactly the same force among the people bring wolln? Militant world-better? Importunately, crazy, by verse and bloede exactly like the Regierers and Militers? Habter nix further druff?? Wollter probably everyone, which does not eat your opinion, abknalln (or abfuckn??) Important door. Beschoschissen - creeps you out of unpolitical Shlashdots! Us damischen Kauze are already bad also without you. Only to the information: With Fuck no political problems solve themselves. Hoechstns increases the number fucked of the Peoples (your provenance) thereby. For Wenner no better printouts druffhabt, rather hold the sweet Maeulchen!
Ya know, I think the original German makes more sense than the Babelfish translation. Hehe. - Amon CMB
I can already imagine Intel's advertisements for such a processor.
"You need the Pentium 10^51 to get the most out of the internet!"
"Click here to play a Shockwave Flash game especially optimized for the Pentium 10^51. Warning: May run unplayably slow on the Pentium 10^50"
(no, we did not rig it to run slow on them! Honest!) - Amon CMB
You really gotta wonder what's going to happen if this thing fails.
They're sinking $500,000 million into marketing... Um, is that in the US alone? What about other countries, like Japan?
If the thing comes loaded up, it's going to cost a fortune for MS to sell them at $300 each. If it's any more than $300, it's dead on arrival. The PS2 will be $250-$200 by that time, or even less if Sony wants to get vicious. Nintendo's GameCube will also be out, which will attract the kids. Dreamcast will be incredibly cheap by then.
They can pump as much money into marketing as they like, but no amount of marketing is going to make an interested customer doubtful when they see the much larger library of Playstation 2 games at the store when they go to check it out. - Amon CMB
What is this, has Slashdot become SCary's Shugashack?
"First post, biaaatches!! blaaah, suck it down!!"
I'm still trying to think of HOW anyone is so hopelessly depraved that they must withdraw pleasure from getting the first post. What a letdown it must be to these lemurs when they think they have it, and then find out they missed it? - Amon CMB
A hardware based DVD movie player may be harder to crack and less of a hassle, but what is going to happen if someone actually _does_ crack it? They can't fix a hardware bug easily, not without a massive hardware recall. Sony had better be ultra-careful on this. Also, does the unit have true S-Video and/or RGB out? Not an adaptor cable, but one that really uses it. If not, there's no way the PS2 will replace my DVD player. - Amon CMB
Yes, Metallica is a big band with lots of money, but they have rights too. Same rights that any independent, unknown band who have just started have. When a band becomes famous and starts making money, it's not suddenly OK to pirate all of their music you want. If we made exceptions to this, it would not be fair (or universal). It's like the issue with Elian, if we just allowed an illegal immigrant to stay in the country because he's a cute little boy and all, then we should tear down the borders and allow any immigrant to come on over and join the party. What would the point of becoming a popular, successful band be if it meant anyone could steal your music freely? - Amon CMB
I don't see how I got along without chapter selection until DVD. I suppose it wouldn't be too important if you only like to watch movies from beginning to end, but a lot of us like to do some quick movie cuts on those nights. You know, when you pull out the collection of DVDs and look at a few favorite scenes in each. Gunfight scenes in Matrix, Terminator 2. Any Jet Li scene in Lethal Weapon 4. Not possible to do it efficiently with a tape format. - Amon CMB
Slashdot Mirror
Intel should stop investing so much in CPU speed and move on to more important bottleneck elimination, such as bus speed.
- Amon CMB
The fungus should get fried up during reentry.
- Amon CMB
All who say anime sucks need to shut the hell up and watch this:
/ o/qid=979412902/sr=8-1/ref=aps_sr_d_1_1/107-300588 9-1225342
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00003CXBK
Don't you dare tell me you weren't awed by that film.
- Amon CMB
This guy needs to watch some Evangelion. Good wholesome Christian lessons there!
- Amon CMB
Microsoft's involved? In 2004 they'll have something other to blame for voting errors than punchcard ballots!
- Amon CMB
You mean to say that Linux users are going to actually buy a Microsoft version of Linux?
- Amon CMB
Microsoft should be worrying more about Sony using Playstation 2's to direct missles towards the Redmond, WA area. After all, PS2 is a Linux-based console!
- Amon CMB
Linux cannot be contained, Linux breaks free, expands to new territories, painfully perhaps even dangerously, well, and, there it is.
- Amon CMB
"No teacher, I was looking up info for *breast cancer* for my report! Honest!"
- Amon CMB
And they're prone to crashing randomly as computers are.
- Amon CMB
http://www.somethingawful.com/spam/
- Amon CMB
I found this interesting article on the internet recently:
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/x box.html
I'm wondering about those legacy PC bottlenecks on the xbox. It's on a x86 based processor going against a 100% 128-bit PS2 Emotion Engine that's got a main 300 mhz CPU and two vector coprocessors that blow Pentium III floating point ops out of the water.
For example, SquareSoft is trying to make their beat-em-up, The Bouncer, have Dolby Digital 5.1 support in gameplay. They used to think it was impossible, but it might not be so with the VU units. It seems MS just thought "Hey, we can beat 300 mhz easy!" without thinking about the hidden trump card in the PS2. Also, I noticed the 6.4 GB/sec memory bandwidth on the Xbox (shared, so it indludes video memory speed). And the PS2 has dedicated VRAM that flies at 48 GB/sec. So what do you guys think?
- Amon CMB
Halo is coming out on Mac and PC.
I think MS was planning on making it an Xbox exclusive, but the rabid backlash from the Bungie fanbase was massive.
I hope they don't delay Halo until Xbox... By then, it might be outdated. If you've read any of Carmack's interviews about Doom 3, it seems he's brewing up a monster in graphical prowress.
- Amon CMB
I've been a Myth player for a long time now, ever since TFL on my Mac.
IIRC, Bungie was on NT servers at first, but then they were having a lot of trouble with them, so they changed to Linux. I don't see why they'd want to go back.
- Amon CMB
If we have enough nukes to blow up this planet who-knows-how-many times, then why can't we blow up an asteroid barely bigger than a state?
- Amon CMB
Remember how DeCSS started? It happened when Xing accidentally slipped up and left the code un-encrypted in one of their programs, then those hackers found out and obtained the source from there.
Although I like to see the anarchy of all this, I hate to think that it was all because of a simple mistake. If Xing never had made the mistake, do you think CSS would've been cracked by now? What about future video formats, where the encryption could be higher and the "mistakes" not be made?
- Amon CMB
You know, this sounds a lot like an idea in Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". The Earth was meant to be a computer itself, when the Deep Thought supercomputer couldn't calculate the question to the ultimate answer of 42.
- Amon CMB
Well, took that guy's post through Babelfish
To all -- the USA FUCKER -- I do not become loose the impression that your brain is befackt. What want you in these Slashdot? Creeps you gefaelligst into the political or bekloppten groups! Are probably otherwise what? (which??) Moechlich that I think around the topic the USA exactly the same. Perhaps I would like to hang up the responsible persons Zupfer also everything... Concerns however into these Slashdot nobody nix. How does it come only that me with you the Kosewort " schmeissfliege " comes inn heading? Completely unexplainably... Are nevertheless over keinn interpret better than widderliche Spammer. Seiter such, those their opinion by exactly the same force among the people bring wolln? Militant world-better? Importunately, crazy, by verse and bloede exactly like the Regierers and Militers? Habter nix further druff?? Wollter probably everyone, which does not eat your opinion, abknalln (or abfuckn??) Important door. Beschoschissen - creeps you out of unpolitical Shlashdots! Us damischen Kauze are already bad also without you. Only to the information: With Fuck no political problems solve themselves. Hoechstns increases the number fucked of the Peoples (your provenance) thereby. For Wenner no better printouts druffhabt, rather hold the sweet Maeulchen!
Ya know, I think the original German makes more sense than the Babelfish translation. Hehe.
- Amon CMB
I can already imagine Intel's advertisements for such a processor. "You need the Pentium 10^51 to get the most out of the internet!" "Click here to play a Shockwave Flash game especially optimized for the Pentium 10^51. Warning: May run unplayably slow on the Pentium 10^50" (no, we did not rig it to run slow on them! Honest!)
- Amon CMB
You really gotta wonder what's going to happen if this thing fails. They're sinking $500,000 million into marketing... Um, is that in the US alone? What about other countries, like Japan? If the thing comes loaded up, it's going to cost a fortune for MS to sell them at $300 each. If it's any more than $300, it's dead on arrival. The PS2 will be $250-$200 by that time, or even less if Sony wants to get vicious. Nintendo's GameCube will also be out, which will attract the kids. Dreamcast will be incredibly cheap by then. They can pump as much money into marketing as they like, but no amount of marketing is going to make an interested customer doubtful when they see the much larger library of Playstation 2 games at the store when they go to check it out.
- Amon CMB
Actually no... I've been reading Slashdot for a while, only recently I noticed the "first post" problem on it.
- Amon CMB
What is this, has Slashdot become SCary's Shugashack?
"First post, biaaatches!! blaaah, suck it down!!"
I'm still trying to think of HOW anyone is so hopelessly depraved that they must withdraw pleasure from getting the first post. What a letdown it must be to these lemurs when they think they have it, and then find out they missed it?
- Amon CMB
A hardware based DVD movie player may be harder to crack and less of a hassle, but what is going to happen if someone actually _does_ crack it? They can't fix a hardware bug easily, not without a massive hardware recall. Sony had better be ultra-careful on this. Also, does the unit have true S-Video and/or RGB out? Not an adaptor cable, but one that really uses it. If not, there's no way the PS2 will replace my DVD player.
- Amon CMB
Yes, Metallica is a big band with lots of money, but they have rights too. Same rights that any independent, unknown band who have just started have. When a band becomes famous and starts making money, it's not suddenly OK to pirate all of their music you want. If we made exceptions to this, it would not be fair (or universal). It's like the issue with Elian, if we just allowed an illegal immigrant to stay in the country because he's a cute little boy and all, then we should tear down the borders and allow any immigrant to come on over and join the party. What would the point of becoming a popular, successful band be if it meant anyone could steal your music freely?
- Amon CMB
I don't see how I got along without chapter selection until DVD. I suppose it wouldn't be too important if you only like to watch movies from beginning to end, but a lot of us like to do some quick movie cuts on those nights. You know, when you pull out the collection of DVDs and look at a few favorite scenes in each. Gunfight scenes in Matrix, Terminator 2. Any Jet Li scene in Lethal Weapon 4. Not possible to do it efficiently with a tape format.
- Amon CMB