RPMs are not the only measure of hard drive speed
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Why Vista Won't Suck
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· Score: 1
"Okay, so 10 yrs I had a 7,200rpm drive. And today...I still have a 7,200rpm drive. (Er, actually 5,400rpm laptop drive)."
Drive RPM speed is only one aspect of hard drive speeds. Keep in mind that 10 years ago you had maybe 2-5 gigabytes of data on the hard drive, today you have up to 500GB. The bit density per platter (bits per inch) has risen dramatically. This means for the same inch of hard disk traveled by the read/write head of your 10 year old drive, your modern drive is able to read/write much more data. So even still running at 7200 RPM, the drive is capable of reading way more data per rotation. Bit density is probably the simplest thing that increases drive read/write speed. There has also been a lot of improvement in how the data is written to the disk and how it is retrieved. Things like non-sequential retrieval of data so the drive can pick up the bits nearest to the head as it passes and reassemble them in cache before passing them to the computer, reducing seek times.
"...but the seek times associated with magnetic drives limits this to the point where I get similar performance when comparing my 250GB external drive and my internal 80GB one."
A better test would be an internal 250GB versus an external. The newer 250GB drive has a much higher bit density than the 80GB drive. Also most 250GB drives have larger (8-16MB) caches than an older 80GB drive. You would want to make sure the RPM speed is the same as well.
Elgato makes a number of different models of TV tuner for Macs. They are USB or Firewire and depending on the model support analog, digital cable, HDTV over the air and HDTV cable signals. I've never used them, so I can't comment on how well they work - but there is an option out there for Mac Minis.
100-120 hours a month is probably about right. I know I took a long leisurely 27 days played to 60 with my Druid. But then I also had cooking, fishing at 300 as well as herbs and alchemy. Not that the game ends at 60. I know I ran at least 50 raids after I turned 60. So count that as 2 hour on average a raid - another 100 hours. Not too mention the hours spent farming to get gold for my epic mount. Throw in about 200 hours spent with alts and let's just call it 1000 hours or so over the course of 9 months. The initial purchase of the game cost me $50 including the first month, plus $15/month for 8 months (actually a bit less, as I was on the 3 month plan). So that's $170 for 1000 hours of play. $.17/hour. Seeing as I only ever achived 6/8 pieces of my blue tier 0 item set, I can only imagine how much time truly epic players of the game spend.
OK - so you really think MS is going to bust a home user for running an OEM copy of Windows on two machines? Really???? The worst I could imagine them doing is making it so you can't run windows update or something. I'm not advocating breaking the license. Certainly not for businesses. Honestly though in terms of the case we were dicussing, home user dual booting to play games, I can't possibly imagine MS busting someone for that. But lets say you change out your computer once every five years. That's a whole $28/year for the OS cost. Whooo. What a huge "Microsoft Tax". Let's say you update your computer twice as often, that's a big $56/year for Windows. Now if you want to subscribe to Cedega, it's $60/year. Sorry I just don't see the OS cost as a big deal. Don't run Windows if you don't want do deal with a Windows installation but not running it because of cost is just silly. If you can afford to buy the games in the first place you can afford to buy the OS.
I believer there were 2 different choices for the colors. Something like light blue, white, black and magenta or green, yellow, black and white? While EGA was an improvement, it wasn't until the advent of cheap VGA cards that PC gaming really started to get good.
What I mean is that the CD install is not tied to specific hardware. You can install the OEM version on any system, it isn't checking the key to something in the hardware as to whether it will install or not. As for reinstalling on a new machine, you aren't supposed to, but of course there are ways around that if you don't care about breaking the terms of the license. Otherwise you are looking at buying a copy every time you get a new computer, which may be once a year or once every 10 years depending on how often you replace your computer.
You can get the OEM version of Windows XP Professional for $137 from NewEgg. It is NOT tied to hardware. Now if you use this you can't call Microsoft for technical support - but who ever does that? The best reason to run Cedega is that you don't want to run Microsoft software at all and you consider this important enough that you don't mind messing to get a game working on Linux. And of course realizing that some games won't ever run under Linux. Another similar option would be gaming on a Mac. You reduce the total number of games available to you (including some that work on Cedega) but you don't have to purchase/install/maintain a Windows partition. It's all about trade offs.
That's hilarious. Someone posts that you should install Linux so you can program in C, C++ and perl - I reply stating that you can program those languages on other operating systems and I get modded troll. Glad to know there are some good old fashioned Slashdot Linux zealots out there moderating.
Yeah my family had a PET 4032 model. 32KB RAM, 40 column green screen, tape drive. Woot! I wrote my first little basic programs on that computer. Later we got a Commodore 64 thankfully with a disk drive. Then a Commodore 128 (80 column!). Later an Amiga 500. The first computer I personally owned was an Amiga 500, which I traded in for an Amiga 2000 and decked out with a 68030 and all the trimmings. I credit the Amiga with helping me learn about command line shells. This helped a lot when I moved to using univeristy Sparcs and later Linux. Even with MSDOS. I remember thinking "that's it?" when I first learned the MSDOS command set. It seemed so primative after AmigaDOS and UNIX. Then well Commodore died and my next computers were PCs running everything from DOS to Linux to Windows.
Risk? What risk? MS would license out the development to a Mac porting company and earn income from the sales. Which is what they've done before. You do know Microsoft makes software for the Macintosh right? The only risk I can think of would be if they were to port there server applications to OS X - that will never happen.
I agree. I'm a PC gamer myself. I'm just saying that by the time they bother to port Halo 2 to the PC, it will be old news and outdated. Halo looked great when it was in development but by the time it was released for the PC games like Battlefield 1942 had changed the face of multiplayer FPS PC games. I also hate crap ports of console games to the PC. I'd rather play a game that was crafted to take advantage of the PC. I don't know any PC FPS gamers that are drooling in anticipation of a Halo 2 port. They are more likely playing stuff like Battlefield 2.
"maybe its just an australian thing, but you buy the same game for pc/xbox/ps2 and its costs you the same amount"
In the US you can typically get the PC version for $10-$20 less than the console version. Now a standard retail shop will probably have the PC version at $50 when it is released. If you look online or are lucky enough to have a non big chain retail store in your area you are more likely to pay $30-$40 for the game.
The PC IS superior to the Xbox. Just barely so when playing a crap port of an Xbox game (i.e. you could run Halo PC at higher res). By the time the Halo port was released, there were tons of much better looking and playing games out on the PC. Halo looked like what it was, an old game. I expect Halo 2 to be the same way. I don't even know why they are bothering to port it at this point.
I admit, I do really like CoH/CoV - BUT keep in mind it's very much a combat oriented game. There isn't a whole lot else to do in the game. Now they have outdoor PVE combat, instanced mission PVE combat, PVP arena combat, PVP and PVP zones (hero vs villain and free for all). I spent about 10 months playing City of Heroes and picked up City of Villains last Christmas. I have to say CoV seems to be a smaller game with less zones and less variety in the zones. The missions have a bit more variety and they are expanding on it with the next update. I like to group in MMOs but I also like to have some solo options. CoH/CoV is SORT of solo-friendly. The different archetypes (classes) can't all solo well. With City of Heroes, I gave up on my Blaster around lvl 35 because soloing was just too tough. I ended up taking a Controller to lvl 50 (the cap). The Controller was EXTREMELY hard to solo with at lower levels but became an excellent soloing class later in the game. For City of Villains I would say Masterminds have excellent soloing capability. Having played other MMOs, I can say that CoH/CoV is much simpler than most and is pretty repetitive. If you enjoy the combat and costumes though, you are likely to have a good time with it for awhile.
Bungie is planning an MMO based in the Halo universe. In order to make the game successful, they will need both PC and Xbox 360 clients. The game will be more action based than most MMOs and will take advantage of integrated voice.
You have cyclop perspective and taught android mentality. Einstein was singularity stupid. "Born coder, thanks coder" you rotate a 4 coder stage life!
How exactly is coding the "ultimate power"? For some reason I think the ability to make large groups of people do things that you ask, like say "hey go over there and maybe get killed just make sure you kill those other guys" is maybe a bit more ultimate. A coder may be paid to program the launch code and ballistics for a ICBM, but that coder does not have the ability to actually launch it. Here's another example. We have two guys who invented a computer. One built it and programmed it. One marketed it. Almost 30 years later which one of these two guys is richer and posseses more influence? I'll give you a hint, it's not Wozniak.
"And while that's an equal solution, asexual civilisation really is a little hard to take in a conventional fantasy RP contexts. At least unless you give me a little backstory."
Well, in the case of World of Warcraft, where no ones ages and everyone lives "forever" inspite of being killed many times... I'm not sure asexuality is any more out of whack than other mechanics. After all, WoW toons can't mate, either for pleasure or procreation, since there is not mechanism in game to allow for this. Of course I don't play on an RP server, so I'm not sure how you RP immunity to perma-death or the killing the same bosses over and over again (I guess they have the same immunity from perma-death as everyone else). I think from a content perspective the game is pretty sexless with the exception of some visuals (big boobies) and animations (the night elf dance). The Succubus slapping her ass and squealing is about as raunchy as it gets. Of course these few sexual elements are completely oriented to straight male players. I don't have any problems with a GLBT guild, so long as they don't bring real life politics into the game. The same attitude I have towards any other group. I certainly wouldn't want right to lifers parading through Iron Forge declaring that abortion is murder. This doesn't have anything to do with my opinion on any of these matters, solely that they are issues and debates that shouldn't be imposed on players in general chat. I couldn't care less what anyone discusses in non-general chat though.
a lot of school kids DID see the launch live. NASA provided live feeds to many schools. It was also broadcast on CNN. Many schools showed the launch on CNN. Why? Because of the teacher in space program. It was a huge public relations event for NASA and was used to encourage kids to get interested in science. My sciene teacher at the time had tried for the spot on the shuttle. So maybe it wasn't millions of Americans but it was a healthy percentage of American school kids that got to see the launch live.
"So, I suppose that's a good analogy. A movie is also something that's far too expensive for the amount of entertainment gained."
Right, from where you stand. Obviously a lot of people don't feel that way about movies. Personally, I rarely go to the movies because of the cost. I do play MMOs because I feel that the 20+ hours I spend playing them a month are entertaining enough for the cost. Before I moved in with my girlfriend, I didn't have cable TV because I don't consider it worth the cost as I rarely watch any TV shows. Obviously entertainment value is subjective, but for the "normal" player of MMO games, the cost breaks down to less than a dollar an hour, considerably cheaper than a movie.
"The next time I pay $15/month to get just one television SHOW, let alone STATION, I might agree... Otherwise, that's just a bad analogy."
Well, then how about the movie analogy? Where I live I have to pay $9 for a movie ticket and $5 for a soda and popcorn. So that's almost the cost of a month of an MMO for ONE viewing of ONE movie.
Re:Not jump on the "Guild Wars is freeee" bandwago
on
MMOGs Branch Out
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· Score: 1
"I think that part of the addiction people have with these games is they feel like they need to be playing every single chance they get in order rationalize the $15 a month."
I don't. I mean if I go to see a movie it costs me $9 for the ticket and if I want a drink and popcorn another $5. That's the equivalent of the monthly fee for an MMO. And all I get is 1.5-3 hours of entertainment - or a waste of time if the movie isn't very good. So if I spend 6 hours in a month having a good time in an MMO, well then I'm already double the entertainment time from going to the movies. The pressure in an MMO really has more to do with keeping around the same level as your friends or guildmates. If you log on two weeks later and everyone is 10 levels higher and have already completed all of your quests, you may have a lonely play session. That's one area I think City of Heroes got right. The ability to "sidekick" a lower level character so that they can fight with a higher level character. They won't have all the abilities they would have at the higher level, but they can be effective as the powers they do have will operate just under the level of the person who is sidekicking them.
Slashdot Mirror
"Okay, so 10 yrs I had a 7,200rpm drive. And today...I still have a 7,200rpm drive. (Er, actually 5,400rpm laptop drive)."
Drive RPM speed is only one aspect of hard drive speeds. Keep in mind that 10 years ago you had maybe 2-5 gigabytes of data on the hard drive, today you have up to 500GB. The bit density per platter (bits per inch) has risen dramatically. This means for the same inch of hard disk traveled by the read/write head of your 10 year old drive, your modern drive is able to read/write much more data. So even still running at 7200 RPM, the drive is capable of reading way more data per rotation.
Bit density is probably the simplest thing that increases drive read/write speed. There has also been a lot of improvement in how the data is written to the disk and how it is retrieved. Things like non-sequential retrieval of data so the drive can pick up the bits nearest to the head as it passes and reassemble them in cache before passing them to the computer, reducing seek times.
"...but the seek times associated with magnetic drives limits this to the point where I get similar performance when comparing my 250GB external drive and my internal 80GB one."
A better test would be an internal 250GB versus an external. The newer 250GB drive has a much higher bit density than the 80GB drive. Also most 250GB drives have larger (8-16MB) caches than an older 80GB drive. You would want to make sure the RPM speed is the same as well.
Elgato makes a number of different models of TV tuner for Macs. They are USB or Firewire and depending on the model support analog, digital cable, HDTV over the air and HDTV cable signals.
I've never used them, so I can't comment on how well they work - but there is an option out there for Mac Minis.
100-120 hours a month is probably about right. I know I took a long leisurely 27 days played to 60 with my Druid. But then I also had cooking, fishing at 300 as well as herbs and alchemy.
Not that the game ends at 60. I know I ran at least 50 raids after I turned 60. So count that as 2 hour on average a raid - another 100 hours. Not too mention the hours spent farming to get gold for my epic mount. Throw in about 200 hours spent with alts and let's just call it 1000 hours or so over the course of 9 months. The initial purchase of the game cost me $50 including the first month, plus $15/month for 8 months (actually a bit less, as I was on the 3 month plan). So that's $170 for 1000 hours of play. $.17/hour.
Seeing as I only ever achived 6/8 pieces of my blue tier 0 item set, I can only imagine how much time truly epic players of the game spend.
OK - so you really think MS is going to bust a home user for running an OEM copy of Windows on two machines? Really???? The worst I could imagine them doing is making it so you can't run windows update or something.
I'm not advocating breaking the license. Certainly not for businesses. Honestly though in terms of the case we were dicussing, home user dual booting to play games, I can't possibly imagine MS busting someone for that.
But lets say you change out your computer once every five years. That's a whole $28/year for the OS cost. Whooo. What a huge "Microsoft Tax". Let's say you update your computer twice as often, that's a big
$56/year for Windows. Now if you want to subscribe to Cedega, it's $60/year.
Sorry I just don't see the OS cost as a big deal. Don't run Windows if you don't want do deal with a Windows installation but not running it because of cost is just silly. If you can afford to buy the games in the first place you can afford to buy the OS.
I believer there were 2 different choices for the colors. Something like light blue, white, black and magenta or green, yellow, black and white?
While EGA was an improvement, it wasn't until the advent of cheap VGA cards that PC gaming really started to get good.
What I mean is that the CD install is not tied to specific hardware. You can install the OEM version on any system, it isn't checking the key to something in the hardware as to whether it will install or not.
As for reinstalling on a new machine, you aren't supposed to, but of course there are ways around that if you don't care about breaking the terms of the license. Otherwise you are looking at buying a copy every time you get a new computer, which may be once a year or once every 10 years depending on how often you replace your computer.
You can get the OEM version of Windows XP Professional for $137 from NewEgg. It is NOT tied to hardware. Now if you use this you can't call Microsoft for technical support - but who ever does that?
The best reason to run Cedega is that you don't want to run Microsoft software at all and you consider this important enough that you don't mind messing to get a game working on Linux. And of course realizing that some games won't ever run under Linux.
Another similar option would be gaming on a Mac. You reduce the total number of games available to you (including some that work on Cedega) but you don't have to purchase/install/maintain a Windows partition.
It's all about trade offs.
That's hilarious. Someone posts that you should install Linux so you can program in C, C++ and perl - I reply stating that you can program those languages on other operating systems and I get modded troll. Glad to know there are some good old fashioned Slashdot Linux zealots out there moderating.
They even have C, C++, Perl and UNIX shells on Windows now. I think you can also use Java, PHP,
Who'd have thunk!
Maybe even on Macs too!
Yeah my family had a PET 4032 model. 32KB RAM, 40 column green screen, tape drive. Woot!
I wrote my first little basic programs on that computer.
Later we got a Commodore 64 thankfully with a disk drive. Then a Commodore 128 (80 column!).
Later an Amiga 500. The first computer I personally owned was an Amiga 500, which I traded in for an Amiga 2000 and decked out with a 68030 and all the trimmings.
I credit the Amiga with helping me learn about command line shells. This helped a lot when I moved to using univeristy Sparcs and later Linux. Even with MSDOS. I remember thinking "that's it?" when I first learned the MSDOS command set. It seemed so primative after AmigaDOS and UNIX.
Then well Commodore died and my next computers were PCs running everything from DOS to Linux to Windows.
Every hour? Where I live the mandatory break time is 15 mins in the morning and 15 in the afternoon.
Risk? What risk? MS would license out the development to a Mac porting company and earn income from the sales. Which is what they've done before.
You do know Microsoft makes software for the Macintosh right?
The only risk I can think of would be if they were to port there server applications to OS X - that will never happen.
I agree. I'm a PC gamer myself. I'm just saying that by the time they bother to port Halo 2 to the PC, it will be old news and outdated. Halo looked great when it was in development but by the time it was released for the PC games like Battlefield 1942 had changed the face of multiplayer FPS PC games.
I also hate crap ports of console games to the PC. I'd rather play a game that was crafted to take advantage of the PC.
I don't know any PC FPS gamers that are drooling in anticipation of a Halo 2 port. They are more likely playing stuff like Battlefield 2.
"maybe its just an australian thing, but you buy the same game for pc/xbox/ps2 and its costs you the same amount"
In the US you can typically get the PC version for $10-$20 less than the console version. Now a standard retail shop will probably have the PC version at $50 when it is released. If you look online or are lucky enough to have a non big chain retail store in your area you are more likely to pay $30-$40 for the game.
The PC IS superior to the Xbox. Just barely so when playing a crap port of an Xbox game (i.e. you could run Halo PC at higher res).
By the time the Halo port was released, there were tons of much better looking and playing games out on the PC. Halo looked like what it was, an old game. I expect Halo 2 to be the same way. I don't even know why they are bothering to port it at this point.
I admit, I do really like CoH/CoV - BUT keep in mind it's very much a combat oriented game. There isn't a whole lot else to do in the game. Now they have outdoor PVE combat, instanced mission PVE combat, PVP arena combat, PVP and PVP zones (hero vs villain and free for all).
I spent about 10 months playing City of Heroes and picked up City of Villains last Christmas. I have to say CoV seems to be a smaller game with less zones and less variety in the zones. The missions have a bit more variety and they are expanding on it with the next update.
I like to group in MMOs but I also like to have some solo options. CoH/CoV is SORT of solo-friendly. The different archetypes (classes) can't all solo well. With City of Heroes, I gave up on my Blaster around lvl 35 because soloing was just too tough. I ended up taking a Controller to lvl 50 (the cap). The Controller was EXTREMELY hard to solo with at lower levels but became an excellent soloing class later in the game. For City of Villains I would say Masterminds have excellent soloing capability.
Having played other MMOs, I can say that CoH/CoV is much simpler than most and is pretty repetitive. If you enjoy the combat and costumes though, you are likely to have a good time with it for awhile.
Bungie is planning an MMO based in the Halo universe. In order to make the game successful, they will need both PC and Xbox 360 clients. The game will be more action based than most MMOs and will take advantage of integrated voice.
P.S. I'm full of crap
You have cyclop perspective and taught android mentality. Einstein was singularity stupid. "Born coder, thanks coder" you rotate a 4 coder stage life!
How exactly is coding the "ultimate power"? For some reason I think the ability to make large groups of people do things that you ask, like say "hey go over there and maybe get killed just make sure you kill those other guys" is maybe a bit more ultimate.
A coder may be paid to program the launch code and ballistics for a ICBM, but that coder does not have the ability to actually launch it.
Here's another example. We have two guys who invented a computer. One built it and programmed it. One marketed it. Almost 30 years later which one of these two guys is richer and posseses more influence? I'll give you a hint, it's not Wozniak.
"And while that's an equal solution, asexual civilisation really is a little hard to take in a conventional fantasy RP contexts. At least unless you give me a little backstory."
Well, in the case of World of Warcraft, where no ones ages and everyone lives "forever" inspite of being killed many times... I'm not sure asexuality is any more out of whack than other mechanics. After all, WoW toons can't mate, either for pleasure or procreation, since there is not mechanism in game to allow for this.
Of course I don't play on an RP server, so I'm not sure how you RP immunity to perma-death or the killing the same bosses over and over again (I guess they have the same immunity from perma-death as everyone else).
I think from a content perspective the game is pretty sexless with the exception of some visuals (big boobies) and animations (the night elf dance). The Succubus slapping her ass and squealing is about as raunchy as it gets. Of course these few sexual elements are completely oriented to straight male players.
I don't have any problems with a GLBT guild, so long as they don't bring real life politics into the game. The same attitude I have towards any other group. I certainly wouldn't want right to lifers parading through Iron Forge declaring that abortion is murder. This doesn't have anything to do with my opinion on any of these matters, solely that they are issues and debates that shouldn't be imposed on players in general chat. I couldn't care less what anyone discusses in non-general chat though.
Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Transgender (I don't know if transvestites count).
a lot of school kids DID see the launch live. NASA provided live feeds to many schools. It was also broadcast on CNN. Many schools showed the launch on CNN. Why? Because of the teacher in space program. It was a huge public relations event for NASA and was used to encourage kids to get interested in science. My sciene teacher at the time had tried for the spot on the shuttle.
So maybe it wasn't millions of Americans but it was a healthy percentage of American school kids that got to see the launch live.
"So, I suppose that's a good analogy. A movie is also something that's far too expensive for the amount of entertainment gained."
Right, from where you stand. Obviously a lot of people don't feel that way about movies. Personally, I rarely go to the movies because of the cost. I do play MMOs because I feel that the 20+ hours I spend playing them a month are entertaining enough for the cost. Before I moved in with my girlfriend, I didn't have cable TV because I don't consider it worth the cost as I rarely watch any TV shows.
Obviously entertainment value is subjective, but for the "normal" player of MMO games, the cost breaks down to less than a dollar an hour, considerably cheaper than a movie.
"The next time I pay $15/month to get just one television SHOW, let alone STATION, I might agree... Otherwise, that's just a bad analogy."
Well, then how about the movie analogy? Where I live I have to pay $9 for a movie ticket and $5 for a soda and popcorn. So that's almost the cost of a month of an MMO for ONE viewing of ONE movie.
"I think that part of the addiction people have with these games is they feel like they need to be playing every single chance they get in order rationalize the $15 a month."
I don't. I mean if I go to see a movie it costs me $9 for the ticket and if I want a drink and popcorn another $5. That's the equivalent of the monthly fee for an MMO. And all I get is 1.5-3 hours of entertainment - or a waste of time if the movie isn't very good.
So if I spend 6 hours in a month having a good time in an MMO, well then I'm already double the entertainment time from going to the movies.
The pressure in an MMO really has more to do with keeping around the same level as your friends or guildmates. If you log on two weeks later and everyone is 10 levels higher and have already completed all of your quests, you may have a lonely play session.
That's one area I think City of Heroes got right. The ability to "sidekick" a lower level character so that they can fight with a higher level character. They won't have all the abilities they would have at the higher level, but they can be effective as the powers they do have will operate just under the level of the person who is sidekicking them.