Of course, for gaming ATI and nVidia are better but I've always had better experiences with Matrox for business and CAD apps.
For most features on dual head, ATI, nV and Matrox are pretty close although there are two or three features that some people find rediculously handy.
The one thing that Matrox can do that I haven't found in ATI or nVidia is to be able to have two signal outputs that are identical (dual head clone). That way I can have the exact same output for both my video projector and a 21" CRT display. For ATI and nvidia to do the same, one output has to be a TV-out and I don't think that's enough.
I like the DVD view option where any program outputing to overlay acceleration automatically outputs full screen on the second monitor.
If AVS forum is to be believed, nVidia is _still_ doing the poor output filtering with unacceptable halos and echoed edges. It showed very sorely on my projector so I ejected my Quadro2 from it very quickly.
ATI is pretty nice but didn't have DVD Zoom or Dual Head clone.
The rank-and-file may be nice people but I don't remember any Trident or SIS graphics chip living up to the hype so they end up getting relegated to the budget market.
I wish them luck, but I hope that they have something up their sleeves to fix all the defficiencies found in Tom's testing.
Many law enforcement agencies object to cell phones that are not tied to an identifiable individual because it makes it much harder to get an order for tapping the phone.
Is this really a problem for them? Don't they still have the PATRIOT act in which they don't have to get a warrant as long as they make a "terrorist" claim? Shadier law enforment don't even bother, I think sometimes they justify that that such a tap would simply give leads to better evidence, that evidence (recordings) from the tap itself need not be entered.
I would think that ATi is in it for the "long haul", I think they've been around since well before the PCI bus. nVidia did seem to be one of the few dot bomb startup success stories that popped up and managed to beat 3Dfx at their own game for long enough to take them down.
So far, even if nVidia does fail in the graphics market, at least for now they have a good AMD gamer's chipset market to fall back on. It sounds kind of odd to have systems with an nVidia based mainboard with an ATI video card, but then, I really don't believe that much in brand loyalty. I only become "disloyal" to brands of products that screwed me.
With many tests falling to last place, being edged out by ATi 9500 and 9600 products, so I hope they can fix things before going to market.
The fact that they are using SiS's and Trident's technologies doesn't inspire me. Both have had a knack for making a great deal of fuss about how much their graphics product will dominate the industry, and then fall flat on their face with effectively last year's product.
I often try to root for the underdog but too often they simply don't have what it takes to compete well.
Over the last year, I've never really had a problem with driver stability with either my ATi Radeon VE or a Fire GL X1. I never had a crash except for the time I did something weird with the VE's originally supplied DVD player, but I don't use that thing anyway. Of course, I never really played games with either.
nVidia does have an entry supporting 1280x960 out of the box which is commendable because 1280x1024 on a CRT results in non-square pixels and everything gets squashed by about 7% and makes things look weird, IMO. Circles look like ellipses. Some people can't tell, and I sure as heck hope that a lot of the graphic design people can.
They have no choice but to compete in the x86 market since they have no better solution currently, either in performance or cost.
Not best on performance but it is best on price/performance. According to that Sandia paper, an Alpha EV7 at 1.25GHz is about 50% faster than Opteron at 2.5GHz. Obviously, using Alpha likely costs more than 50% more than an equivalent Opteron implementation.
I don't quite get how the presense or lack of an equalizer should be a purchase consideration. Usualy getting better headphones is much better than trying to tweak the equalizer to make bad headphones work well.
A line in might be nifty though, assuming the thing has the processing power to encode on the fly.
I think the screen is just under 2 1/4" high (4.5" diagonal / (sqrt(16^2+9^)/9)), making the device maybe 3" high and maybe as much as six inches long, and under an inch thick, I think.
True, advertising is simply a means to try to profit from a medium. The medium itself has a cost to someone, somewhere and someone must pay that cost, whether it be money, time or some other type of expense.
It is interesting that people will spend several hundred dollars on a computer, as much as fifty dollars a month for an internet account, but not pay a single dime for actual content!
I suppose I would pay a little bit for the ability to occasonally peruse _good_ computer hardware articles. Computer magazines seem to be too simplistic and internet sites tend to do dozens of tests focusing almost solely on games, and with an average of two paragraphs and two charts a page at that.
Linux is so flexible that there are who knows how many widget sets, rather than improve on one, developers seem to rather work on their own and not really refine it.
There is also no direction, and developers working for free often can't be motivated to properly document how to use a program. There's no money in testing, that is left up to others as well. This lack of direction also hurts development efforts as so many projects are repeating each other. They compete rather than having just a few projects that complement each other and put the effort into a truly refined product.
That depends on whether the "from" IP machine hasn't been compromised. Even if compromising over a network can't happen, one can compromise by physically being at such a "trusted" machine and send things.
The DoD _may_ be getting more price concious (and that is likely a dubious statement), but I'm sure that they don't mind paying more for something just to have the superiority.
I really don't think there is a way to stop progress, whether good or bad. There will _always_ be unscrupulous people that have no problem cutting corners or leaving gaping flaws unfixed or even outright design with malicious intent. Then there's the unintended consequences of playing with anything that is not fully understood, or mistakes where not all known variables were accounted.
Our only hope is to mitigate this in part with testing, in part with education, etc. I imagine that there may have to be regulation as well like many countries do with a lot of foods and medicines.
I agree. I wish computers had more sophisticated frequency selection. I know the Intel mobile chips cut the clock in half when not plugged into the wall.
15k drives aren't loud, at least mine aren't. I have two 18GB Seagate drives that were included with the system, the entire system is quieter than a lot of gaming computers I've seen.
For frame rates, a faster drive doesn't do jack.
A faster drive does speed up boot time it does make apps start quicker and the system feels more responsive. I suppose booting is a foreign concept to some people, I shut down just to save power.
For anyone going this route, using one faster drive as the system drive and one slower but much larger drive for data is a good compromise.
Overclocking is definitely NOT for production systems or machines that one does for paying work.
If it is for paying work, it is worth spending the extra $100-$200 for a chip that the manufacturer will guarantee the stability with and will honor the warranty. Plus, the performance should pay for the cost and if there is anything weird with the system, the overclock settings is one less thing to check.
When one says you have to have "good" ram and other parts, I don't think that necessarily means that RAM that doesn't overclock much is bad. One pays more for higher clocking ram anyways...
This is one thing that will gradually push me towards looking for free (both versions) alternatives to commercial products.
I don't like online activations, and now McAfee has an update system that won't just let you download a file, it needs their updater program and it only works with certain options and only works with IE.
Even "repairing" an installation in W2k pro means entering the CD Key. BAD! I have to dig up a key from my docs every time I fix something that goes wrong?
Then there's the Nero OEM CD that only works in systems that have the bundled drive. I have three Nero CDs and I've had to label them to make sure I don't confuse which drive it goes with.
I am an honest customer and do buy licenced products and I am tiring of these hoops.
I don't expect perfect code but I also don't expect that car door locks to be defeatable by toothpicks or that a "master" remote unlocker unlocks every car in a parking lot in a second with one button press.
I think security should be important in _all_ phases of product usage, not just the user. It should be important in design, coding, testing and actual use. Any weakness in those four reaps a weakness in the entire product.
It is important for the user to take proper steps but that doesn't releave any product maker from their end of the responsibility of properly designing and producing secure code. Yes, the user should take steps but then being a user of any particular piece of software shouldn't be a "kick me" sign.
I suppose people assume that media doesn't report heresay and incorrect facts.
I think it is very rare that they don't screw up at least one major piece of information in every story. Every time someone I personally know is interviewed or reported about, they are misrepresented by a significant margin.
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Of course, for gaming ATI and nVidia are better but I've always had better experiences with Matrox for business and CAD apps.
For most features on dual head, ATI, nV and Matrox are pretty close although there are two or three features that some people find rediculously handy.
The one thing that Matrox can do that I haven't found in ATI or nVidia is to be able to have two signal outputs that are identical (dual head clone). That way I can have the exact same output for both my video projector and a 21" CRT display. For ATI and nvidia to do the same, one output has to be a TV-out and I don't think that's enough.
I like the DVD view option where any program outputing to overlay acceleration automatically outputs full screen on the second monitor.
If AVS forum is to be believed, nVidia is _still_ doing the poor output filtering with unacceptable halos and echoed edges. It showed very sorely on my projector so I ejected my Quadro2 from it very quickly.
ATI is pretty nice but didn't have DVD Zoom or Dual Head clone.
The rank-and-file may be nice people but I don't remember any Trident or SIS graphics chip living up to the hype so they end up getting relegated to the budget market.
I wish them luck, but I hope that they have something up their sleeves to fix all the defficiencies found in Tom's testing.
Many law enforcement agencies object to cell phones that are not tied to an identifiable individual because it makes it much harder to get an order for tapping the phone.
Is this really a problem for them? Don't they still have the PATRIOT act in which they don't have to get a warrant as long as they make a "terrorist" claim? Shadier law enforment don't even bother, I think sometimes they justify that that such a tap would simply give leads to better evidence, that evidence (recordings) from the tap itself need not be entered.
I would think that ATi is in it for the "long haul", I think they've been around since well before the PCI bus. nVidia did seem to be one of the few dot bomb startup success stories that popped up and managed to beat 3Dfx at their own game for long enough to take them down.
So far, even if nVidia does fail in the graphics market, at least for now they have a good AMD gamer's chipset market to fall back on. It sounds kind of odd to have systems with an nVidia based mainboard with an ATI video card, but then, I really don't believe that much in brand loyalty. I only become "disloyal" to brands of products that screwed me.
With many tests falling to last place, being edged out by ATi 9500 and 9600 products, so I hope they can fix things before going to market.
The fact that they are using SiS's and Trident's technologies doesn't inspire me. Both have had a knack for making a great deal of fuss about how much their graphics product will dominate the industry, and then fall flat on their face with effectively last year's product.
I often try to root for the underdog but too often they simply don't have what it takes to compete well.
Over the last year, I've never really had a problem with driver stability with either my ATi Radeon VE or a Fire GL X1. I never had a crash except for the time I did something weird with the VE's originally supplied DVD player, but I don't use that thing anyway. Of course, I never really played games with either.
nVidia does have an entry supporting 1280x960 out of the box which is commendable because 1280x1024 on a CRT results in non-square pixels and everything gets squashed by about 7% and makes things look weird, IMO. Circles look like ellipses. Some people can't tell, and I sure as heck hope that a lot of the graphic design people can.
They have no choice but to compete in the x86 market since they have no better solution currently, either in performance or cost.
Not best on performance but it is best on price/performance. According to that Sandia paper, an Alpha EV7 at 1.25GHz is about 50% faster than Opteron at 2.5GHz. Obviously, using Alpha likely costs more than 50% more than an equivalent Opteron implementation.
I suggest enunciating it like "bilking".
I don't quite get how the presense or lack of an equalizer should be a purchase consideration. Usualy getting better headphones is much better than trying to tweak the equalizer to make bad headphones work well.
A line in might be nifty though, assuming the thing has the processing power to encode on the fly.
I thought it was established that Lucasfilm is not a member of the MPAA. IIRC, Fox is merely a distributor for Lucasfilm movies.
I think the screen is just under 2 1/4" high (4.5" diagonal / (sqrt(16^2+9^)/9)), making the device maybe 3" high and maybe as much as six inches long, and under an inch thick, I think.
You have a point, but if ALL lights all around go red, then the vehicles ahead of the emergency vehicle might obstruct the way.
True, advertising is simply a means to try to profit from a medium. The medium itself has a cost to someone, somewhere and someone must pay that cost, whether it be money, time or some other type of expense.
It is interesting that people will spend several hundred dollars on a computer, as much as fifty dollars a month for an internet account, but not pay a single dime for actual content!
I suppose I would pay a little bit for the ability to occasonally peruse _good_ computer hardware articles. Computer magazines seem to be too simplistic and internet sites tend to do dozens of tests focusing almost solely on games, and with an average of two paragraphs and two charts a page at that.
I think part of the problem is the flexibility.
Linux is so flexible that there are who knows how many widget sets, rather than improve on one, developers seem to rather work on their own and not really refine it.
There is also no direction, and developers working for free often can't be motivated to properly document how to use a program. There's no money in testing, that is left up to others as well. This lack of direction also hurts development efforts as so many projects are repeating each other. They compete rather than having just a few projects that complement each other and put the effort into a truly refined product.
That depends on whether the "from" IP machine hasn't been compromised. Even if compromising over a network can't happen, one can compromise by physically being at such a "trusted" machine and send things.
The DoD _may_ be getting more price concious (and that is likely a dubious statement), but I'm sure that they don't mind paying more for something just to have the superiority.
Unless copyright enforcement features are disabled, the only penalty I see that could stick is that the warranty could be voided.
I really don't think there is a way to stop progress, whether good or bad. There will _always_ be unscrupulous people that have no problem cutting corners or leaving gaping flaws unfixed or even outright design with malicious intent. Then there's the unintended consequences of playing with anything that is not fully understood, or mistakes where not all known variables were accounted.
Our only hope is to mitigate this in part with testing, in part with education, etc. I imagine that there may have to be regulation as well like many countries do with a lot of foods and medicines.
It got modded up to 5, so I am betting that at least three people "got" it.
I actually did see that episode. I forget the stunt they did to get Tealc through. That part seemed to be a cop-out.
I guess I'll have to get the DVDs someday.
I agree. I wish computers had more sophisticated frequency selection. I know the Intel mobile chips cut the clock in half when not plugged into the wall.
15k drives aren't loud, at least mine aren't. I have two 18GB Seagate drives that were included with the system, the entire system is quieter than a lot of gaming computers I've seen.
For frame rates, a faster drive doesn't do jack.
A faster drive does speed up boot time it does make apps start quicker and the system feels more responsive. I suppose booting is a foreign concept to some people, I shut down just to save power.
For anyone going this route, using one faster drive as the system drive and one slower but much larger drive for data is a good compromise.
Overclocking is definitely NOT for production systems or machines that one does for paying work.
If it is for paying work, it is worth spending the extra $100-$200 for a chip that the manufacturer will guarantee the stability with and will honor the warranty. Plus, the performance should pay for the cost and if there is anything weird with the system, the overclock settings is one less thing to check.
When one says you have to have "good" ram and other parts, I don't think that necessarily means that RAM that doesn't overclock much is bad. One pays more for higher clocking ram anyways...
This is one thing that will gradually push me towards looking for free (both versions) alternatives to commercial products.
I don't like online activations, and now McAfee has an update system that won't just let you download a file, it needs their updater program and it only works with certain options and only works with IE.
Even "repairing" an installation in W2k pro means entering the CD Key. BAD! I have to dig up a key from my docs every time I fix something that goes wrong?
Then there's the Nero OEM CD that only works in systems that have the bundled drive. I have three Nero CDs and I've had to label them to make sure I don't confuse which drive it goes with.
I am an honest customer and do buy licenced products and I am tiring of these hoops.
I don't expect perfect code but I also don't expect that car door locks to be defeatable by toothpicks or that a "master" remote unlocker unlocks every car in a parking lot in a second with one button press.
I think security should be important in _all_ phases of product usage, not just the user. It should be important in design, coding, testing and actual use. Any weakness in those four reaps a weakness in the entire product.
It is important for the user to take proper steps but that doesn't releave any product maker from their end of the responsibility of properly designing and producing secure code. Yes, the user should take steps but then being a user of any particular piece of software shouldn't be a "kick me" sign.
I suppose people assume that media doesn't report heresay and incorrect facts.
I think it is very rare that they don't screw up at least one major piece of information in every story. Every time someone I personally know is interviewed or reported about, they are misrepresented by a significant margin.