My thought exactly!
Who cares? Anyone can use any thirdparty software to do whatever they want.
Unless some M$ "genius" finds that WindowsXP shouldn't run shareware, public domain, freeware etc. if it's not approved by M$ or RealSucks with a key?
But unless that would be the case it's just a lot of bullshit and FUD!
What's important is that a _standard_ API for graphics _as_ _well_ as sound, is created for LiNUX. Until then, forget about developers getting serious with LiNUX game development.
There is simply too much hazzle with different ways of doing the same things. And yes, porting DirectX would be a good thing for LiNUX, since it's a standard, it has API's for sound, gfx (2D & 3D), streaming media, joystick I/O...need I go on?
With DX on LiNUX, game developers wouldn't need to re-write very much code. DX is a very good abstraction layer, actually it's one of best, simply because it has API's for almost everything game-related (and a little beyond).
Of course it is because of bullying that some teenagers crack (by shooting or otherwise). I can't believe that it is not being considered in the United States Government!
Here in Denmark our government is very well aware of the seriousness of bullying in schools.
And in Sweden (our neighbouring country - in case some didn't know:-)) a school can get fines for not dealing with bullying in time!
Ha! Games damaging children... Ok, fine, then I guess my generation (I'm 27) should be running around listening to monotonous music while eating small yellow pills.
"Running around eating yellow pills while listening to monotonous music is fun..."
Well, one thing I can say pretty sure without an explicit test, is that the K6-2 will loose to the Celeron and Athlon in terms of floating-point calcs. It's floating-point performance is simply way too slow.
The most interesting part here, as I see it, is now that dual-Athlon motherboards are becoming available, it is possible to get a pretty angry machine simply by bying two 800 Mhz Athlon's and put them on a dual motherboard. Woohoo!:-)
Maybe you should check the drivers for your hardware. When W2K blue-screens, it's usually because of buggy drivers. Sort of like a kernel-panic under Linux if some privileged code runs wild.
I've had problems with my PentiumIII with a TNT-gfx card running Win2000 and the NVIDIA Detonator 3 driver (v.6.5). The system crashed several times when running 3D accellated apps. But then I installed a slightly older Detonator 3 driver version (6.49) and now the system is rock-solid stable.
True indeed. All big corporations are bound to make some ethical questionable things from time to time. Microsoft is not unique in this regard - not at all.
This sounds very plausible. The cache snooping works quite well for most systems. A major concern always to be taken into account though, is the bus-bandwidth when having multiple-CPU machines, unless the bus architecture supports some sort of switching (like a crossbar or twin-split). When having two or more concurrent running CPU's all accessing RAM at potentially the same time the scaling (increase in speed) is restricted by the bus bandwidth mostly, since the CPU's will have to share the bandwidth. On a Dual machine having e.g. two threads running that each does some sort of algorithm, and the algorithms contain relatively few memory accessing instructions compared to instructions operating on registers only (or small mem. area accesses so that the cache is valid most of the time) the scaling be as good as approx. 90% compared to an equivalent single CPU system. On the other hand if both algorithms are extremely heavy in terms of accessing memory, the scaling can be as bad as 8%. Both I have tested on a Dual Celeron 466Mhz machine with 66 Mhz RAM. The Dual Athlon thing with DDR RAM would propably give some yummy results in that regard:-))) I'm curious as to whether this new motherboard has some kind of switched bus? Since this will definitely be neccessary if 8 CPU's should be able to do their job in practical situations.
"This building houses 50 companies each having 40 employees and only one entrance?"
This sounds very plausible. The cache snooping works quite well for most systems.
A major concern always to be taken into account though, is the bus-bandwidth when having multiple-CPU machines, unless the bus architecture supports some sort of switching (like a crossbar or twin-split). When having two or more concurrent running CPU's all accessing RAM at potentially the same time the scaling (increase in speed) is restricted by the bus bandwidth mostly, since the CPU's will have to share the bandwidth.
On a Dual machine having e.g. two threads running that each does some sort of algorithm, and the algorithms contain relatively few memory accessing instructions compared to instructions operating on registers only (or small mem. area accesses so that the cache is valid most of the time) the scaling be as good as approx. 90% compared to an equivalent single CPU system.
On the other hand if both algorithms are extremely heavy in terms of accessing memory, the scaling can be as bad as 8%.
Both I have tested on a Dual Celeron 466Mhz machine with 66 Mhz RAM.
The Dual Athlon thing with DDR RAM would propably give some yummy results in that regard:-)))
I'm curious as to whether this new motherboard has some kind of switched bus? Since this will definitely be neccessary if 8 CPU's should be able to do their job in practical situations.
"This building houses 50 companies each having 40 employees and only one entrance?"
I will have to agree on that assesment. There is no reason to let ill-fated management decisions drag you and your friends down.
"Give a human being too much information and nothing good will come out of it. Give a human being too little information
and everything will work out just fine on the surface."
How the heck is this possible in a western country?
Propably all grounded in stupid religious snorts, all under the impression that human beings can't reflect on the things they encounter. No no, let's forbid everything.
Yes yes, I know I'm biased, but what can I say I'm just a slightly evoluted monkey.
I don't know what exactly is wrong with your soundcard. But in general thanks to DirectX for Windows98/2000, it _is_ actually possible to make games that run on many different hardware configs. And with the PC you have the possibility of e.g. upgrading your graphic card or whatever and still run old _and_ new games mostly without any problems thanks to the DirectX API that abstract away hardware and driver details. Just get a DirectX driver for the gfx-card and soundcard, and everything is fine. It's a bliss as a programmer not to worry about what specific graphic card you're coding for. Of course it doesn't solve all problems, but it simplifies matters a _great_ deal.
You can't upgrade a console. With a console one is stuck with it's specs. Naturally consoles have their advantage, like fixed configurations and dedicated use, making development easier in the long run. But PC's have the flexibility, consoles have not.
Well all big empires are evil I guess. And I don't really care. All I care about is what they can offer me as a user and developer and the XBox looks better in that regard.
What's wrong with a harddisk? I don't see the problem - on the contrary.
And what's wrong with a x86 CPU?
It's cheap and even fast nowadays. And the NVidia chipset is going to kick some major gfx ass anyway, so...
Exactly my thought too. Besides the in my opinion the PS-2 sucks spec. vise!
I'm personally gonna wait for the XBox, lot better specs in all terms. Better & nicer API and cheaper (when it is released). Free dev.tools. under certain conditions of course, but still.
BTW. the fuss about the release of PS-2 here in Denmark (at least here in Aalborg) has been pretty balanced. Non I know are raving across the city to buy one. I think people here in DK are waiting for a price drop or one of the new consoles (Xbox, GameCube or whatever).
Then don't use GPL'ed code, make your own code. I know it's more expensive in terms of resources, but you can copyright your product then.
Using GPL'ed code isn't an argument for patenting, it's moreover an argument for saving money by using existing code written by programmers kind enough not to charge money for it.
I think it would be suicide for MS, if the signature thing for programs becomes mandatory. I could imagine several developers (possibly myself included), would consider alternative OS'es for that very reason. And maybe that will go for ordinary users too, esspecially if Linux and alike, will get mature enough for the desktop/gaming market (which I really hope).
The reason for Win9x being crappy, is not neccessarily due to bad programmers/designers. It's more likely because of the backward compatibily issues (DOS based kernel and stuff). If you run WindowsNT or Windows2000, you'll realize that these OS'es are a lot more stable, but also less compatible with old DOS and Windows 16-bit software. I run Windows2000 and develop app's under it, I think it runs very stable and fast, a LOT better than WindowsNT ever has btw.
Windows 98, ME and alike are crappy, no argument there. They're only useful for gaming:-)
But then again Windows2000 runs almost any new game available, so I don't really understand why MS are still sticking with the Win9x OS brands, technically speaking.
But I guess from a money making point of view it's a different story, so I guess it's always a good thing to have things like Linux:-)
Yeah sure! And since the C++ language was invented and originally implemented by a dane (Bjarne Stroustrup) all applications written in C++ must be an Danish.
(Even if I was under heavy influence from alcoholic beverages, I couldn't believe such a statement.) Arrogance is a dangerous thing....
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My thought exactly! Who cares? Anyone can use any thirdparty software to do whatever they want. Unless some M$ "genius" finds that WindowsXP shouldn't run shareware, public domain, freeware etc. if it's not approved by M$ or RealSucks with a key? But unless that would be the case it's just a lot of bullshit and FUD!
What's important is that a _standard_ API for graphics _as_ _well_ as sound, is created for LiNUX. Until then, forget about developers getting serious with LiNUX game development. There is simply too much hazzle with different ways of doing the same things. And yes, porting DirectX would be a good thing for LiNUX, since it's a standard, it has API's for sound, gfx (2D & 3D), streaming media, joystick I/O...need I go on?
With DX on LiNUX, game developers wouldn't need to re-write very much code. DX is a very good abstraction layer, actually it's one of best, simply because it has API's for almost everything game-related (and a little beyond).
Yeah! Well, I guess if you like creating small programs only that are impossible to port to other platforms, I guess assembler is the way to go.
Of course it is because of bullying that some teenagers crack (by shooting or otherwise). I can't believe that it is not being considered in the United States Government! Here in Denmark our government is very well aware of the seriousness of bullying in schools. And in Sweden (our neighbouring country - in case some didn't know :-)) a school can get fines for not dealing with bullying in time!
Ha! Games damaging children... Ok, fine, then I guess my generation (I'm 27) should be running around listening to monotonous music while eating small yellow pills.
"Running around eating yellow pills while listening to monotonous music is fun..."
Well, unless you have the time, energy and expertise to write all the drivers you're using yourself, it seems like a problem :-)
Well, one thing I can say pretty sure without an explicit test, is that the K6-2 will loose to the Celeron and Athlon in terms of floating-point calcs. It's floating-point performance is simply way too slow.
Right on! ;-)
The most interesting part here, as I see it, is now that dual-Athlon motherboards are becoming available, it is possible to get a pretty angry machine simply by bying two 800 Mhz Athlon's and put them on a dual motherboard. Woohoo! :-)
Maybe you should check the drivers for your hardware. When W2K blue-screens, it's usually because of buggy drivers. Sort of like a kernel-panic under Linux if some privileged code runs wild.
I've had problems with my PentiumIII with a TNT-gfx card running Win2000 and the NVIDIA Detonator 3 driver (v.6.5). The system crashed several times when running 3D accellated apps. But then I installed a slightly older Detonator 3 driver version (6.49) and now the system is rock-solid stable.
True indeed. All big corporations are bound to make some ethical questionable things from time to time. Microsoft is not unique in this regard - not at all.
Guess I'm getting tired :-)
This sounds very plausible. The cache snooping works quite well for most systems. A major concern always to be taken into account though, is the bus-bandwidth when having multiple-CPU machines, unless the bus architecture supports some sort of switching (like a crossbar or twin-split). When having two or more concurrent running CPU's all accessing RAM at potentially the same time the scaling (increase in speed) is restricted by the bus bandwidth mostly, since the CPU's will have to share the bandwidth. On a Dual machine having e.g. two threads running that each does some sort of algorithm, and the algorithms contain relatively few memory accessing instructions compared to instructions operating on registers only (or small mem. area accesses so that the cache is valid most of the time) the scaling be as good as approx. 90% compared to an equivalent single CPU system. On the other hand if both algorithms are extremely heavy in terms of accessing memory, the scaling can be as bad as 8%. Both I have tested on a Dual Celeron 466Mhz machine with 66 Mhz RAM. The Dual Athlon thing with DDR RAM would propably give some yummy results in that regard :-))) I'm curious as to whether this new motherboard has some kind of switched bus? Since this will definitely be neccessary if 8 CPU's should be able to do their job in practical situations.
"This building houses 50 companies each having 40 employees and only one entrance?"
This sounds very plausible. The cache snooping works quite well for most systems. A major concern always to be taken into account though, is the bus-bandwidth when having multiple-CPU machines, unless the bus architecture supports some sort of switching (like a crossbar or twin-split). When having two or more concurrent running CPU's all accessing RAM at potentially the same time the scaling (increase in speed) is restricted by the bus bandwidth mostly, since the CPU's will have to share the bandwidth. On a Dual machine having e.g. two threads running that each does some sort of algorithm, and the algorithms contain relatively few memory accessing instructions compared to instructions operating on registers only (or small mem. area accesses so that the cache is valid most of the time) the scaling be as good as approx. 90% compared to an equivalent single CPU system. On the other hand if both algorithms are extremely heavy in terms of accessing memory, the scaling can be as bad as 8%. Both I have tested on a Dual Celeron 466Mhz machine with 66 Mhz RAM. The Dual Athlon thing with DDR RAM would propably give some yummy results in that regard :-)))
I'm curious as to whether this new motherboard has some kind of switched bus? Since this will definitely be neccessary if 8 CPU's should be able to do their job in practical situations.
"This building houses 50 companies each having 40 employees and only one entrance?"
Old School Assholes[tm] vs. The Prime Assholes :-))
I will have to agree on that assesment. There is no reason to let ill-fated management decisions drag you and your friends down. "Give a human being too much information and nothing good will come out of it. Give a human being too little information and everything will work out just fine on the surface."
Yeah! Or what about those fancy pads they have in StarTrek Voyager that are transparent and only 0.5 cm thick. Transparent Palm Pilot thingy .-))
How the heck is this possible in a western country? Propably all grounded in stupid religious snorts, all under the impression that human beings can't reflect on the things they encounter. No no, let's forbid everything. Yes yes, I know I'm biased, but what can I say I'm just a slightly evoluted monkey.
X'cuse me? Not handling dynamic mem alloc? Troll....
I don't know what exactly is wrong with your soundcard. But in general thanks to DirectX for Windows98/2000, it _is_ actually possible to make games that run on many different hardware configs. And with the PC you have the possibility of e.g. upgrading your graphic card or whatever and still run old _and_ new games mostly without any problems thanks to the DirectX API that abstract away hardware and driver details. Just get a DirectX driver for the gfx-card and soundcard, and everything is fine. It's a bliss as a programmer not to worry about what specific graphic card you're coding for. Of course it doesn't solve all problems, but it simplifies matters a _great_ deal. You can't upgrade a console. With a console one is stuck with it's specs. Naturally consoles have their advantage, like fixed configurations and dedicated use, making development easier in the long run. But PC's have the flexibility, consoles have not.
Well all big empires are evil I guess. And I don't really care. All I care about is what they can offer me as a user and developer and the XBox looks better in that regard. What's wrong with a harddisk? I don't see the problem - on the contrary. And what's wrong with a x86 CPU? It's cheap and even fast nowadays. And the NVidia chipset is going to kick some major gfx ass anyway, so...
Exactly my thought too. Besides the in my opinion the PS-2 sucks spec. vise! I'm personally gonna wait for the XBox, lot better specs in all terms. Better & nicer API and cheaper (when it is released). Free dev.tools. under certain conditions of course, but still. BTW. the fuss about the release of PS-2 here in Denmark (at least here in Aalborg) has been pretty balanced. Non I know are raving across the city to buy one. I think people here in DK are waiting for a price drop or one of the new consoles (Xbox, GameCube or whatever).
Then don't use GPL'ed code, make your own code. I know it's more expensive in terms of resources, but you can copyright your product then. Using GPL'ed code isn't an argument for patenting, it's moreover an argument for saving money by using existing code written by programmers kind enough not to charge money for it.
I think it would be suicide for MS, if the signature thing for programs becomes mandatory. I could imagine several developers (possibly myself included), would consider alternative OS'es for that very reason. And maybe that will go for ordinary users too, esspecially if Linux and alike, will get mature enough for the desktop/gaming market (which I really hope).
The reason for Win9x being crappy, is not neccessarily due to bad programmers/designers. It's more likely because of the backward compatibily issues (DOS based kernel and stuff). If you run WindowsNT or Windows2000, you'll realize that these OS'es are a lot more stable, but also less compatible with old DOS and Windows 16-bit software. I run Windows2000 and develop app's under it, I think it runs very stable and fast, a LOT better than WindowsNT ever has btw. Windows 98, ME and alike are crappy, no argument there. They're only useful for gaming :-)
But then again Windows2000 runs almost any new game available, so I don't really understand why MS are still sticking with the Win9x OS brands, technically speaking.
But I guess from a money making point of view it's a different story, so I guess it's always a good thing to have things like Linux :-)
Yeah sure! And since the C++ language was invented and originally implemented by a dane (Bjarne Stroustrup) all applications written in C++ must be an Danish. (Even if I was under heavy influence from alcoholic beverages, I couldn't believe such a statement.) Arrogance is a dangerous thing....