Why not pick up a SATA CD/DVD drive? You can probably get an unboxed OEM for about $30.
Because as of right now, they're hard to get hold of. My usual supplier, a well-known UK mail order supplier, has a grand total of 6 SATA models, 4 of which are out of stock, compared to a total of 76 models in PATA. The cheapest in-stock PATA model costs about 1/2 the price of the cheapest SATA one. If you're looking for DVD+-RW, the saving is only about 25% for going SATA, but it is still cheaper.
The question is, why should we have to? There's no real reason for it, other than that the motherboard manufacturers don't want to modify their bioses to be capable of booting from these extra PATA connections. It wouldn't be hard for them to achieve it, if they decided to make the effort.
As most boards are configured, the bios could boot off of an ide based DVD drive, but when the modern OS gets control, it will not see the ide ports since it isn't part of the chipset.
Huh? IDE's IDE. Doesn't matter whether it's part of the chipset or not, the OS will probe the standard range of ports for the controller (0x1F0 - 0x1F7, 0x170 - 0x177) and if it is there, it will find it.
The Eu directives are quite stark and member nations can't easily bypass them
The European Convention on Human Rights is not an EU directive; it is an international treaty governed by the Council of Europe that predates the existence of the EEC by 7 years and the EU by 25 years. There is no requirement that EU members be signatories, AFAIK, although it happens that all of them are (all European countries other than Belarus are).
They are definitely useful in development, but an FPGA used to design a part is orders of magnitude slower than the ASIC that they produce from the design.
ASICs have a habit of costing significant amounts of cash to produce, although you can get virtually unlimited numbers of them for not a lot of extra cash on top of what the first one cost you.
FPGAs have no up-front cost, but the incremental cost is reasonably high.
Current gen FPGAs can be run up to ~400 MHz if your design has a short-enough critical path. This is more than adequate for many applications.
Therefore, for low-run equipment that doesn't have particularly high performance requirements, an FPGA is probably the best way to go.
To get truly amazing video, we'd need to switch to exponential format colour that better matches how we actually see and can represent appropriately high dynamic ranges while still preserving detail.
Good news! Almost all current video compression formats, including H.264 and WM9 used on high def DVDs, quantize chroma and brightness information on just such a scale.
FTA: But as with every other electrically charged topic on the Web, finding common ground will be a serious challenge
Most topics on the web are electrically charged, that's how they're transmitted from computer to computer. Generally speaking, the connections between the computers carry a common ground so it shouldn't be that hard.
To be fair, "published comments [that] could be construed as a threat" is more than a case of just hurt feelings. In many jurisdictions, you'll find that making such comments is a criminal act, therefore notifying the police is an appropriate response.
Ditto for "C" in front of a class. Totally unneeded.
Not if you're using interface/implementation separation. CFoo is a class that implements interface IFoo. Alternatives would include the style used by the "Design Patterns" book, which would have had ConcreteFoo as an implementation of AbstractFoo, but prefix letters seem better to me in this case.
As an aside, I'm not sure why using the Coanada effect is better than just building a ducted fan with internal control surfaces. Putting that big blockage in your airflow just seems like it's going to sap power from your engine.
That's actually the answer to the problem you mention in your previous paragraph. You're now moving air across the surface of your device to generate lift, so all you need to do to generate forward motion is to stop pulling it down so much at the back. By manipulating control surfaces you can change some of your lift to forwards acceleration. And because you don't rely on the mixing of two different air streams for your lift, you don't have problems with turbulent effects when you have substantial forward motion. I think this design is substantially more stable at high speed than the older ones.
If I understand the implication correctly, the fan is not used to provide thrust, but to create a layer of moving air across the surface of the device, which in turn causes thet device's body to behave as a wing. According to the wikipedia article, this has been exploited before by aircraft that mount a jet engine above their wings, but I guess this is the first time it's been exploited with an electric fan...
Not only is it a rich man's world. It is also a rich man's solar system now. Its amazing what money can bring you. He will get to experience something that I most likely never will, and he'll get to do it because he is filthy rich. Does that make him a better man and deserving of this? Most likely the answer to that question is yes. But is it not mildly depressing? Knowing that while you and billions others are scrounging to make ends meet, to buy a home, and in a majority of the cases to put food on the table, there are people who can afford to plunk down $20million + to take a joy ride into space. I don't blame him for it, and I think its his right that he do what he wants with the money he earned. Its just, such an overpowering display of wealth.
The thing to remember is that rich people paying money for stuff like this now actually helps attract the investment that will eventually bring this kind of thing within the reach of ordinary people. It might cost $20 million now, but in ten years that'll probably be more like $2 million; ten years after that $200,000. And that's the tipping point: the point where significant numbers of people start to be able to afford it as a once-in-a-lifetime expense.
Thanks. My browser spent about 10 minutes pissing around trying to download a codec, only to finally display a message saying "this broadcast has finished".:/
Ah, so the complaint isn't that the quality is lower than a DVD on a conventional TV; it's that the quality is lower than a DVD on a high-definition TV, which is actually higher quality than a conventional TV is capable of showing.
That makes more sense now. Tell me... is Apple marketing these devices to the high definition market?
The movies and TV shows have the same nominal resolution as DVDs, but look much blurrier, approaching the look of standard-definition broadcast TV
Err... forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't DVD resolution (i.e. 720 x 480/576) the same resolution as digital broadcast TV, and as near as can be measured the same resolution you typically achieve with analogue broadcasts? I've seen estimates varying between 700 and 768 "pixels", depending on the quality of your equipment and the strength of the signal you're receiving.
3. My monitors are arranged to surround me, rather than forming a flat panel.
You are not driving an indy car simulation. The 30" is big, I'll give you that. It's not so big that you have to crane your neck or do some odd eyeball contortions to see things.
The problem with having a non-straight view on something is not really to do with discomfort: it's to do with faithfulness of reproduction. When you're viewing a display obliquely, parallel lines do not appear parallel. This can be a problem when you're working on something visual. Also, with LCD displays, colour fidelity varies with the angle of view. If I place my monitors flat against the wall behind them, I can see noticeable colour variations across a field that I know is a block of a single colour. This can cause problems when you're working on a project that requires you to spot errors of colour reproduction (e.g. spotting low-colour images on a web site that have lost an important colour during colour-space reduction).
Or will they end up revoking all software player keys and forcing you to buy and use the hardware players? I'm betting on the latter.
They can try it if they want to face a class action from everyone who's bought an HDDVD drive for their PC. I still don't see that intentionally and specifically disabling somebody's property can be legal.
The invidual chips of a chipset are designed to be used together: that's why it's called a chipset. Yes, the two chipsets in question took advantage of an existing interconnection standard, which is why they can be used together, but it's still outside of the design parameters, and is likely a use that nVidia never even considered.
If you can't have two monitors, use virtual desktops, with no more than one application per screen.
Just doesn't cut it. For some reason I don't understand, adjusting to the display of a new application when you switch desktops takes substantially longer than moving your eyes from one app to another.
Speaking as someone currently using two 17" monitors, I think two monitors is better.
1. 30" monitors cost a *lot* more than two 17" monitors. Like, £1000 more. 2. 2560x1600 isn't as good as 3200x1200, IMO. The 30" monitor is too tall, I prefer something wider and flatter. 3. My monitors are arranged to surround me, rather than forming a flat panel. This means I'm looking at them close to straight whether I'm looking in the middle or either edge. With a single big monitor, I'd have to have them flat, and would be viewing them significantly off-straight at the edges. 4. With multiple monitors, software can be manipulated easily to take up exactly half of the display (using the maximize buttons), which is useful when you are using exactly 2 applications -- something I do regularly (e.g. IDE for development and web browser for reference). I don't believe achieving this is easy with a single large display.
PCIe 1x is adequately fast for many purposes. PCIe 1x bandwidth is 250MB/s (that's bytes, not bits), which is roughly the same as AGP 1x, and twice as fast as PCI. Both of these technologies are adequate for providing standard 2D desktop graphics. I wouldn't want to try playing hi-def video over a PCIe 1x link (1920x1080p @ 32-bit, 30 fps would need about 237MB/s, which doesn't leave a lot of headroom), but anything short of that should be possible.
It makes it nice that they have a standard that it seems they will be able to expand on for a few years, but it adds a lot of extra stuff to know for those trying to price a new computer.
Not really. You just need to remember that PCIe-16x slots let you run most graphics cards, other slots can be used for specialist graphics cards or other purposes. No different really to the old AGP/PCI slot distinction.
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Why not pick up a SATA CD/DVD drive? You can probably get an unboxed OEM for about $30.
Because as of right now, they're hard to get hold of. My usual supplier, a well-known UK mail order supplier, has a grand total of 6 SATA models, 4 of which are out of stock, compared to a total of 76 models in PATA. The cheapest in-stock PATA model costs about 1/2 the price of the cheapest SATA one. If you're looking for DVD+-RW, the saving is only about 25% for going SATA, but it is still cheaper.
The question is, why should we have to? There's no real reason for it, other than that the motherboard manufacturers don't want to modify their bioses to be capable of booting from these extra PATA connections. It wouldn't be hard for them to achieve it, if they decided to make the effort.
As most boards are configured, the bios could boot off of an ide based DVD drive, but when the modern OS gets control, it will not see the ide ports since it isn't part of the chipset.
Huh? IDE's IDE. Doesn't matter whether it's part of the chipset or not, the OS will probe the standard range of ports for the controller (0x1F0 - 0x1F7, 0x170 - 0x177) and if it is there, it will find it.
If they can view port 80% of the day and be acceptably productive, so be it.
Viewing it isn't the problem. It's if they start drinking it you need to worry about them.
The Eu directives are quite stark and member nations can't easily bypass them
The European Convention on Human Rights is not an EU directive; it is an international treaty governed by the Council of Europe that predates the existence of the EEC by 7 years and the EU by 25 years. There is no requirement that EU members be signatories, AFAIK, although it happens that all of them are (all European countries other than Belarus are).
They are definitely useful in development, but an FPGA used to design a part is orders of magnitude slower than the ASIC that they produce from the design.
ASICs have a habit of costing significant amounts of cash to produce, although you can get virtually unlimited numbers of them for not a lot of extra cash on top of what the first one cost you.
FPGAs have no up-front cost, but the incremental cost is reasonably high.
Current gen FPGAs can be run up to ~400 MHz if your design has a short-enough critical path. This is more than adequate for many applications.
Therefore, for low-run equipment that doesn't have particularly high performance requirements, an FPGA is probably the best way to go.
To get truly amazing video, we'd need to switch to exponential format colour that better matches how we actually see and can represent appropriately high dynamic ranges while still preserving detail.
Good news! Almost all current video compression formats, including H.264 and WM9 used on high def DVDs, quantize chroma and brightness information on just such a scale.
FTA: But as with every other electrically charged topic on the Web, finding common ground will be a serious challenge
Most topics on the web are electrically charged, that's how they're transmitted from computer to computer. Generally speaking, the connections between the computers carry a common ground so it shouldn't be that hard.
To be fair, "published comments [that] could be construed as a threat" is more than a case of just hurt feelings. In many jurisdictions, you'll find that making such comments is a criminal act, therefore notifying the police is an appropriate response.
Ditto for "C" in front of a class. Totally unneeded.
Not if you're using interface/implementation separation. CFoo is a class that implements interface IFoo. Alternatives would include the style used by the "Design Patterns" book, which would have had ConcreteFoo as an implementation of AbstractFoo, but prefix letters seem better to me in this case.
As an aside, I'm not sure why using the Coanada effect is better than just building a ducted fan with internal control surfaces. Putting that big blockage in your airflow just seems like it's going to sap power from your engine.
That's actually the answer to the problem you mention in your previous paragraph. You're now moving air across the surface of your device to generate lift, so all you need to do to generate forward motion is to stop pulling it down so much at the back. By manipulating control surfaces you can change some of your lift to forwards acceleration. And because you don't rely on the mixing of two different air streams for your lift, you don't have problems with turbulent effects when you have substantial forward motion. I think this design is substantially more stable at high speed than the older ones.
If I understand the implication correctly, the fan is not used to provide thrust, but to create a layer of moving air across the surface of the device, which in turn causes thet device's body to behave as a wing. According to the wikipedia article, this has been exploited before by aircraft that mount a jet engine above their wings, but I guess this is the first time it's been exploited with an electric fan...
Not only is it a rich man's world. It is also a rich man's solar system now. Its amazing what money can bring you. He will get to experience something that I most likely never will, and he'll get to do it because he is filthy rich. Does that make him a better man and deserving of this? Most likely the answer to that question is yes. But is it not mildly depressing? Knowing that while you and billions others are scrounging to make ends meet, to buy a home, and in a majority of the cases to put food on the table, there are people who can afford to plunk down $20million + to take a joy ride into space. I don't blame him for it, and I think its his right that he do what he wants with the money he earned. Its just, such an overpowering display of wealth.
The thing to remember is that rich people paying money for stuff like this now actually helps attract the investment that will eventually bring this kind of thing within the reach of ordinary people. It might cost $20 million now, but in ten years that'll probably be more like $2 million; ten years after that $200,000. And that's the tipping point: the point where significant numbers of people start to be able to afford it as a once-in-a-lifetime expense.
Thanks. My browser spent about 10 minutes pissing around trying to download a codec, only to finally display a message saying "this broadcast has finished". :/
Would we get to autorecover a version of Simonyi at age 8?
Ah, so the complaint isn't that the quality is lower than a DVD on a conventional TV; it's that the quality is lower than a DVD on a high-definition TV, which is actually higher quality than a conventional TV is capable of showing.
That makes more sense now. Tell me... is Apple marketing these devices to the high definition market?
The movies and TV shows have the same nominal resolution as DVDs, but look much blurrier, approaching the look of standard-definition broadcast TV
Err... forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't DVD resolution (i.e. 720 x 480/576) the same resolution as digital broadcast TV, and as near as can be measured the same resolution you typically achieve with analogue broadcasts? I've seen estimates varying between 700 and 768 "pixels", depending on the quality of your equipment and the strength of the signal you're receiving.
3. My monitors are arranged to surround me, rather than forming a flat panel.
You are not driving an indy car simulation. The 30" is big, I'll give you that. It's not so big that you have to crane your neck or do some odd eyeball contortions to see things.
The problem with having a non-straight view on something is not really to do with discomfort: it's to do with faithfulness of reproduction. When you're viewing a display obliquely, parallel lines do not appear parallel. This can be a problem when you're working on something visual. Also, with LCD displays, colour fidelity varies with the angle of view. If I place my monitors flat against the wall behind them, I can see noticeable colour variations across a field that I know is a block of a single colour. This can cause problems when you're working on a project that requires you to spot errors of colour reproduction (e.g. spotting low-colour images on a web site that have lost an important colour during colour-space reduction).
Or will they end up revoking all software player keys and forcing you to buy and use the hardware players? I'm betting on the latter.
They can try it if they want to face a class action from everyone who's bought an HDDVD drive for their PC. I still don't see that intentionally and specifically disabling somebody's property can be legal.
Err -- this article's about a motherboard, not a graphics card.
I've got used to people not reading the summary now, so presumably everyone's going to start not even reading the title...?
The invidual chips of a chipset are designed to be used together: that's why it's called a chipset. Yes, the two chipsets in question took advantage of an existing interconnection standard, which is why they can be used together, but it's still outside of the design parameters, and is likely a use that nVidia never even considered.
Wow. Your desk is even messier than mine. Congratulations! ;)
If you can't have two monitors, use virtual desktops, with no more than one application per screen.
Just doesn't cut it. For some reason I don't understand, adjusting to the display of a new application when you switch desktops takes substantially longer than moving your eyes from one app to another.
Speaking as someone currently using two 17" monitors, I think two monitors is better.
1. 30" monitors cost a *lot* more than two 17" monitors. Like, £1000 more.
2. 2560x1600 isn't as good as 3200x1200, IMO. The 30" monitor is too tall, I prefer something wider and flatter.
3. My monitors are arranged to surround me, rather than forming a flat panel. This means I'm looking at them close to straight whether I'm looking in the middle or either edge. With a single big monitor, I'd have to have them flat, and would be viewing them significantly off-straight at the edges.
4. With multiple monitors, software can be manipulated easily to take up exactly half of the display (using the maximize buttons), which is useful when you are using exactly 2 applications -- something I do regularly (e.g. IDE for development and web browser for reference). I don't believe achieving this is easy with a single large display.
I can just see some idiot trying to wire some video card to fit in a PCI 1x slot
No reason to hack it when you can buy them.
Sure it would work, but how fast would it be?
PCIe 1x is adequately fast for many purposes. PCIe 1x bandwidth is 250MB/s (that's bytes, not bits), which is roughly the same as AGP 1x, and twice as fast as PCI. Both of these technologies are adequate for providing standard 2D desktop graphics. I wouldn't want to try playing hi-def video over a PCIe 1x link (1920x1080p @ 32-bit, 30 fps would need about 237MB/s, which doesn't leave a lot of headroom), but anything short of that should be possible.
It makes it nice that they have a standard that it seems they will be able to expand on for a few years, but it adds a lot of extra stuff to know for those trying to price a new computer.
Not really. You just need to remember that PCIe-16x slots let you run most graphics cards, other slots can be used for specialist graphics cards or other purposes. No different really to the old AGP/PCI slot distinction.
The ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus has been out for ages; and there have already been a number of reviews on it...
Right, but none of them have been posted to slashdot, so why do we care?