Agh. I mean, that's really, really bad engineering. You don't engineer things with the assumption that everything will work. You engineer them to fail gracefully when everything that can go wrong does go wrong. And preferably with margin. Very insightful. And if you had read the thread you would know that the engineers are already on top of it.
I'd be more concerned about kernel panics. I've had about one per week for the last few week ever since upgrading to avoid the vmsplice bug. I'm sure my array of somewhat-atypical hardware doesn't help, but neither does the fact that linux no longer has a real development branch... And of course you have posted your panic or oops or whatever to lkml?
Actually - is there really any difference between this and allowing a filesystem to have any amount of delay before syncing the write cache? Yes, there are differences. Ramback is able not only to flush out all dirty cache when the UPS kicks in, but then to continue on in a synchronous write mode where the backing store is always left in a consistent state in case the UPS battery runs out before line power comes back. Also, at startup, Ramback populates the cache as fast as the backing store will transfer, which the Linux VFS cannot do efficiently at the filesystem level.
Yeah, imagine, then, to be able to use such a fast disk as your swap device! That'll make your system swiftz0rs. Bingo. That is one way you can use the Violin 1010 without needing any special backing to disk at all. In fact, this is a nigh-on perfect use of the device, because the 2x8x PCI-e bus connection, while fast, is still not as fast as main memory. But the swap subsystem knows now to manage that latency increase quite nicely. Such a swap arrangement will even tend to bring things back in balance as far as the Linux VM goes, since in the good old days when swap was invented, disk was only two or three orders of magnitude slower than memory instead of 5 orders like today.
Or, hey, wait a minute... In all honesty, though, I don't really get the point of this. Isn't the buffer cache already supposed to be doing kind of the same thing, only with a less strict mapping? Indeed, less strict, and it also does not know how to flush dirty cache to disk and switch to synchronous mode when running on UPS power, or how to fully populate the cache as fast as possible on startup. Indeed, buffer cache can be taught these things, but I have already created a block driver to do it, which has the added benefit of supplying a nice general interface that will no doubt be repurposed in ways I did not think of. Maybe after Ramback is really solid I will create a variation that sits right in the VFS, though actually there are other more important projects in the pipe so anybody who wants to do that, be my guest.
the problem with the computer was it had been infected with a virus...which then spread to (and hosed) most of the corporate network, rather than being restricted to our sandbox. Oops... So you got rid of all those dangerous Windows boxes and installed virus-proof Linux? Just asking.
Microsoft has no obvious counter at this point. Actually Microsoft has one: a price drop. How well did that work for HD DVD? And it will certainly exacerbate one of Microsoft's other issues: losing money in the division. I think Sony knows how to ramp down manufacturing costs but I am highly skeptical about Microsoft's talents in that area. Sure, Microsoft can drop the price but only by losing more money. And a price drop will not be enough if gamers just perceive the unit as sunset technology, a clear and present danger.
Yeah, but the even bigger question is "Are people buying it as a game machine or just as a blu-ray player?" I own both a 360 and PS3, and I use my PS3 almost exclusively for blu-ray movies. I use it mostly for both:-)
Actually, the last couple months I have mostly been playing PS2 games on the machine, because I never had a PS2 and there are a lot of really amazing titles out there. For the first couple months of its life, this PS3 was basically an Oblivion machine. I haven't seen an exclusive title yet to get really excited about, some good ones but no blockbusters. Looking forward to Final Fantasy, though after Oblivion every RPG gets judged by a higher standard.
Just FYI, I've been working as a programmer in the film/video graphics industry for the last 12 years, so I'm very familiar with the difference between 8bit/component and deeper colours. "Washed out black and saturated regions" are actually symptoms of poor colour mapping, usually NTSC (16-235) video being displayed on a non-NTSC (0-255) monitor, and have nothing to do with 8bit's low dynamic range (which can manifest as visible banding in certain colour ranges). It is surprising that in 12 years you did not learn how to verify your facts before posting.
While it's certainly true that HDMI 1.3 can support >8bits, that is of course no guarantee that all video passed along it is >8bits. The PS3 uses nVidia's RSX chip, which is based on the GeForce 7900, and like all nVidia chips of that era it uses a max 8bit per channel framebuffer (textures may be deeper, but not the framebuffer). Flat wrong. The NV40 and G70 include hardware support for texture filtering and blending of color values in a frame buffer using high-precision floating-point math. This capability is key to achieving really solid performance with those gorgeous high-dynamic-range (HDR) lighting effects that are all the rage with the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 kids these days. The NV40/G70 will do texture filtering and blending using 16 bits of floating-point precision per color channel, or 64 bits per pixel. (In fact, the color format is compatible with Pixar's OpenEXR standard.)
Even potentially deep-colour Blu-Ray movies must be decoded and rendered into this 8bit framebuffer, so the PS3's output is bottlenecked at 8 bits. That's why you've never seen any articles actually confirming real deep-colour, only marketing literature and misleading online screenshots with "washed out blacks". But do not let the fact that I can see it easily with my own eyes get in the way of a good rant.
I always get a chuckle when PS3 fans bring up their beloved "HDMI 1.3" bullet point, because the fact is, it's only good for passing through TrueHD and DTS-HD audio. Oh, whoops... Too bad about your discredited troll link, hmm? "Please, do some research before you post something like this. The PS3 can decode TrueHD into PCM now, and is expected to do so for DTS:MA as well. It's right there in the article you linked to."
Face it, PS3 blows away XBox 360 technologically, and now in sales too. I guess our good old efficient market managed to figure out the difference between good tech and rushed out junk, hmm? Here is some advice for Microsofties: stick to your knitting. You do not understand the consumer electronics market. Just go back to peddling software, ok, and maybe concentrate more on quality control?
Ah, you see there is the fallacy. Xbox 360 is not an HD-DVD player, it's a games player. Indeed, I do see. And who would not want to get a decent hi def player "for free"? Now that HDDVD is no more, Microsoft has no answer, even as an accessory. Then there is the problem that XBox 360's DVD player is seen by many as just too small.
No doubt about it, Microsoft took a serious blow when Blu-ray won the hidef war. By coincidence, or perhaps not, the month that HD-DVD lost the format war was the first month that PS3 outsold XBox 360 in the US.
as for your list of "issues" (color resolution? You're kidding, right?) Not at all. XBox 360 uses hdmi 1.2, which has only 8 bit color. PS3 has hdmi 1.3, giving 10 bit and higher color resolution, which is supported by recent HD displays like the Samsung ln5281. The difference is very obvious, just look at the washed out black and saturated regions on an 8 bit display. Once you notice the difference you will never be ignore it again, sorry:-)
the only significant issue to the games market is the failure rate, which is no longer a problem for new sales. Once burned, twice shy. I expect Microsoft still has high failure rates even with new production. The noise out there about it has certainly not died down.
I'm not surprised the PS3 has surpassed it in monthly sales. I'll be surprised, however, when the PS3 surpasses it in total sales. Why should you be? In January the PS3 just squeaked the 360, in February the PS3 widened its lead by over 20,000. If the gap continues to widen, and with Blu-ray ruling the hi def world there is no reason to doubt it will, then the 360's lead will be a million or three smaller by the end of the year. And 360 only leads by 6 or 7 million right now.
Then there are some significant PS3 exclusives coming out for holiday season. Microsoft has no obvious counter at this point. Then there is the noise issue, the heat issue, the failure rate issue, the lower color resolution issue, the lower processing power issue, the bungee defection issue, the older technology issue, the lack of hd player issue, the entertainment division attrition issue, the continuing losses issue, the morale issue... many issues that together bode ill for XBox 360 prospects from now on.
Going strong since its launch in 2000, Sony's PlayStation 2 continued to outpace its successor. The PS2 sold 351,800 units compared with 280,800 for the PS3.
Somehow, this indicates that the HDTV conversion isn't going according to plan. Not necessarily a correct conclusion. Standard def tends to look great on an HD set, probably much better than standard def on a legacy standard def set.
This is really more about the quality of PS2 games. Lately I have been playing mostly PS2 games on my PS3 in fact. Some of them are simply amazing. For example, Shadow of the Colossus has to be seen to be believed. I only hope that games of that quality start appearing on next-gen consoles, tricked out with next-gen poly counts and physics. Kind of incredible the level of sophistication of the game engines that PS2 developers were able to put together. I rather expect history to repeat itself with the cell chip. I would be surprised if the cell has reached as much as 1/4 capacity in terms of graphics and physics resolution.
The Xbox 360 sold 254,600 units... compared with 280,800 for the PS3.
This is the important statistic from the article. Second month running. Quite unlikely for the XBox to every outsell the PS3 again, unfortunately for Microsoft's designs on the console market.
There are only two advantages spinning disks have over flash drives at the moment:
1) Density (disk about 4 times more capacity in same form factor)
2) Cost (disk more than 10 times cheaper for same capacity)
I expect flash to close the gap on density, but not necessarily on cost. However the cost of flash will ramp down low enough that if capacity is not your main objective then goodbye rotating media. In about 3 years more flash drives than disks will ship in laptops. For bulk storage, expect disk to stay cheaper per gig than flash for the next long time.
Seriously. The best entertainment investment I ever made, and now they are getting cheap with bigger hard disks, running cooler, more games. And, um, a rather nice Blu-Ray player. And hdmi 1.3 (10 bit color and higher).
No Sony did not pay me to say this. Oh, and run Linux on it. The PS3 over here pretty much runs continuously, Youtube is a popular application. Did I mention built-in wifi? Geek chic too, with what amounts to a tabletop supercomputer, and games just starting to come out now that actually drive the chip.
Most of the patents concerned were related to devices with MP3, MP4, and DVB standard functions for digital audio and video, blank CDs, and DVD copiers I thought software patents were illegal in Europe
It's becoming all too common that they remove videos without apparently needing verification though. I realise that under the DMCA a company has to act when notified that they're hosting infringing material, but ever since they were bought by Google they've become the most tread-lightly-offend-none company around. Surely with the huge resources available to Youtube they'd be able to actually double check these DMCA requests to make sure they actually have merit? Speaking as a Googler, I find the tone of TFA unwarranted, though to be sure your own comment is pretty mild. But how about just drawing attention to the problem and see what happens? Speaking for Googlers in general, doing the right thing really is a big deal for us. That don't be evil motto is not just PR spin, it is real.
Then they piggybacked Sun's antitrust complaints against Microsoft and created the classic "Microsoft killed Netscape" meme, when the reality is they committed lack-of-focus-and-feature-creep suicide quite effectively without any outside help. It is not a meme my friend, it was found as fact by a federal court of law, and upheld on appeal.
By the way, I'm using Suse right now; I know it's good. Everybody should remember: Suse is not Novell. Suse is in the clutches of Novell. There is a difference.
Suse engineers are the ones who forced Novell execs (Miguel is a Novell exec) to back down on their repeated attempts to kill KDE and replace it with Gnome, a braindamaged idea if there ever was one, especially in Germany where Suse makes the bulk of its sales.
And Miguel De Icaza hasn't been relevant for __DIETY__ knows how long. The original microsoftie wannabe shill-boy. To whoever modded that as flamebait, you are apparently not aware that it is not flamebait if it is true. (or is that you Miguel)
Let he who has never used proprietary software cast the first stone. How about he who does not use any proprietary software now?/me takes aim at a soft spot
note that your cell phone *will* work in subways in Tokyo, because they paid out the ass to make it possible I doubt that coverage in a subway is significantly more expensive than coverage any other place. The antennae will be a little different, the repeater is the same. This issue is more about people getting their act together I think.
I can tell you that in the pre-Windows days, electricity had outages, television had outages, telephone service had outages, gas service had outages... For the same reason we have them today -- people aren't willing to accept the economic and aesthetic costs of providing those services at the level of reliability you and the author are demanding. It depends who you mean by "people". One thing I noticed after having lived years in both Germany and USA is that the frequency and duration of power outages tends to be considerably lower in Germany, perhaps by a factor of 3 or 4 speaking subjectively. Interestingly, Germany is also the industrialized country with the highest rate of displacement of Microsoft Windows by Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
If you read the thread, you will see that you can have both data integrity and high performance. Get your wallet out.
Hi all,
That would be Daniel Phillips with two ells.
Regards,
Daniel
You have my support, hope it helps.
Regards,
Daniel
Actually, the last couple months I have mostly been playing PS2 games on the machine, because I never had a PS2 and there are a lot of really amazing titles out there. For the first couple months of its life, this PS3 was basically an Oblivion machine. I haven't seen an exclusive title yet to get really excited about, some good ones but no blockbusters. Looking forward to Final Fantasy, though after Oblivion every RPG gets judged by a higher standard.
Face it, PS3 blows away XBox 360 technologically, and now in sales too. I guess our good old efficient market managed to figure out the difference between good tech and rushed out junk, hmm? Here is some advice for Microsofties: stick to your knitting. You do not understand the consumer electronics market. Just go back to peddling software, ok, and maybe concentrate more on quality control?
No doubt about it, Microsoft took a serious blow when Blu-ray won the hidef war. By coincidence, or perhaps not, the month that HD-DVD lost the format war was the first month that PS3 outsold XBox 360 in the US. as for your list of "issues" (color resolution? You're kidding, right?) Not at all. XBox 360 uses hdmi 1.2, which has only 8 bit color. PS3 has hdmi 1.3, giving 10 bit and higher color resolution, which is supported by recent HD displays like the Samsung ln5281. The difference is very obvious, just look at the washed out black and saturated regions on an 8 bit display. Once you notice the difference you will never be ignore it again, sorry
Then there are some significant PS3 exclusives coming out for holiday season. Microsoft has no obvious counter at this point. Then there is the noise issue, the heat issue, the failure rate issue, the lower color resolution issue, the lower processing power issue, the bungee defection issue, the older technology issue, the lack of hd player issue, the entertainment division attrition issue, the continuing losses issue, the morale issue... many issues that together bode ill for XBox 360 prospects from now on.
Going strong since its launch in 2000, Sony's PlayStation 2 continued to outpace its successor. The PS2 sold 351,800 units compared with 280,800 for the PS3.
Somehow, this indicates that the HDTV conversion isn't going according to plan. Not necessarily a correct conclusion. Standard def tends to look great on an HD set, probably much better than standard def on a legacy standard def set.
This is really more about the quality of PS2 games. Lately I have been playing mostly PS2 games on my PS3 in fact. Some of them are simply amazing. For example, Shadow of the Colossus has to be seen to be believed. I only hope that games of that quality start appearing on next-gen consoles, tricked out with next-gen poly counts and physics. Kind of incredible the level of sophistication of the game engines that PS2 developers were able to put together. I rather expect history to repeat itself with the cell chip. I would be surprised if the cell has reached as much as 1/4 capacity in terms of graphics and physics resolution.
The Xbox 360 sold 254,600 units... compared with 280,800 for the PS3.
This is the important statistic from the article. Second month running. Quite unlikely for the XBox to every outsell the PS3 again, unfortunately for Microsoft's designs on the console market.
There are only two advantages spinning disks have over flash drives at the moment:
1) Density (disk about 4 times more capacity in same form factor)
2) Cost (disk more than 10 times cheaper for same capacity)
I expect flash to close the gap on density, but not necessarily on cost. However the cost of flash will ramp down low enough that if capacity is not your main objective then goodbye rotating media. In about 3 years more flash drives than disks will ship in laptops. For bulk storage, expect disk to stay cheaper per gig than flash for the next long time.
Seriously. The best entertainment investment I ever made, and now they are getting cheap with bigger hard disks, running cooler, more games. And, um, a rather nice Blu-Ray player. And hdmi 1.3 (10 bit color and higher).
No Sony did not pay me to say this. Oh, and run Linux on it. The PS3 over here pretty much runs continuously, Youtube is a popular application. Did I mention built-in wifi? Geek chic too, with what amounts to a tabletop supercomputer, and games just starting to come out now that actually drive the chip.
Suse engineers are the ones who forced Novell execs (Miguel is a Novell exec) to back down on their repeated attempts to kill KDE and replace it with Gnome, a braindamaged idea if there ever was one, especially in Germany where Suse makes the bulk of its sales.