ATI also has Linux drivers, and they release the specs of their cards to open source developers, unlike Nvidia. NVidia drivers have a history of better stability, but I've been using ATI's Linux and Windows drivers for the 9700 PRO for several months now and haven't had any problems.
Also, while the NV30/GeForceFX may beat the R300/Radeon 9700, I'd be surprised if ATI doesn't release a R350 based card (Radeon 9900?) close to the launch of the GeForceFX. ATI's lower end cards (such as the 9500 PRO) will continue to beat the GF4TI series in price and performance.
Second, the bottom has fallen out of 3D gaming on the PC. The sales figures of games that are perceived as Big Hits, like No One Lives Forever 2, are, in reality, abysmal. We're talking under 50,000 copies. There are some 3D games that are doing well, but it's a small, small handful.
Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but I've never heard of No One Lives Forever 2. That means it's probably not a "big hit". I have heard of games like Warcraft 3, The Sims, GTA3, Everquest, UT2003, Mafia, NWN, and Morrowind. Those games have all sold quite well. There is a large market for good PC games, and the people who want them are generally willing to spend $100 on a decent card.
No, you couldn't patent it, because it's been done and there's prior art. If you were the first person ever to pick your nose, then it might be considered novel.
If you think the community could do any better--do you really think that even if they had a system like "Metamoderate", where 10 stories were displayed and the user had to rank them "Troll" or "Good", and if 20 people ranked "good", then the story would be posted, that it would be any better?
Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean that you are required to stay far away from everything they've ever been involved in.
Also, I'd be very interested to know what parts of Windows were written by open-source "zealots". Since zealots have a tendency to license their work under the GPL or similar licenses, to prevent their code from being used in proprietary software, if Microsoft is using the code of true zealots, it's in violation of the GPL. I don't think I've ever seen any evidence that this is the case.
GCJ (GNU Compiler for Java) is a part of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). If you run gcc on a Java file, it will use gcj internally to process the file. Therefore, there is no real difference.
Well, GTK 1.x's default theme does look somewhat Motif-ish, but GTK2's is much better. Both versions, of course, can be themed to look like whatever you want. Try installing a good GTK theme, such as Redhat's Bluecurve.
Personally, I actually prefer the GTK appearence to QT. I think GTK apps have a generally cleaner look than QT apps, and I think the GTK/GNOME2 icon set is vastly superior to QT/KDE3.
News flash: CPUs can improve. A 200Mhz chip is a helluva lot closer to a 2Ghz chip than what China started with (nothing). Besides, Windows 98, Office 97, and Phoenix run just fine on a 200Mhz CPU (I've tried it), and you don't need much more than that for many purposes.
If IMAX was how they were meant to be seen, they would have been filmed in IMAX. An IMAX conversion might be nice, but it's hard to add quality that's not there in the first place.
Summary: Every year brings new mistakes. In 2002, several of the worst mistakes in Web design related to poor email integration. The number one mistake, however, was lack of pricing information, followed by overly literal search engines. As the Web grows, websites continue to come up with ways to annoy users. Following are ten design mistakes that were particularly good at punishing users and costing site owners business in 2002.
No Prices No B2C ecommerce site would make this mistake, but it's rife in B2B, where most "enterprise solutions" are presented so that you can't tell whether they are suited for 100 people or 100,000 people. Price is the most specific piece of info customers use to understand the nature of an offering, and not providing it makes people feel lost and reduces their understanding of a product line. We have miles of videotape of users asking "Where's the price?" while tearing their hair out. Even B2C sites often make the associated mistake of forgetting prices in product lists, such as category pages or search results. Knowing the price is key in both situations; it lets users differentiate among products and click through to the most relevant ones.
Inflexible Search Engines Overly literal search engines reduce usability in that they're unable to handle typos, plurals, hyphens, and other variants of the query terms. Such search engines are particularly difficult for elderly users, but they hurt everybody. A related problem is when search engines prioritize results purely on the basis of how many query terms they contain, rather than on each document's importance. Much better if your search engine calls out "best bets" at the top of the list -- especially for important queries, such as the names of your products.
Horizontal Scrolling Users hate scrolling left to right. Vertical scrolling seems to be okay, maybe because it's much more common. Web pages that require horizontal scrolling in standard-sized windows, such as 800x600 pixels, are particularly annoying. For some reason, many websites seem to be optimized for 805-pixel-wide browser windows, even though this resolution is pretty rare and the extra five pixels offer little relative to the annoyance of horizontal scrolling (and the space consumed by the horizontal scrollbar).
Fixed Font Size Style sheets unfortunately give websites the power to disable a Web browser's "change font size" button and specify a fixed font size. About 95% of the time, this fixed size is tiny, reducing readability significantly for most people over the age of 40. Respect the user's preferences and let them resize text as needed. Also, specify font sizes in relative terms -- not as an absolute number of pixels.
Blocks of Text A wall of text is deadly for an interactive experience. Intimidating. Boring. Painful to read. Write for online, not print. To draw users into the text and support scannability, use well-documented tricks: subheads bulleted lists highlighted keywords short paragraphs the inverted pyramid a simple writing style, and de-fluffed language devoid of marketese.
JavaScript in Links Links are the Web's basic building blocks, and users' ability to understand them and to use various browser features correctly is key to enhancing their online skills. Links that don't behave as expected undermine users' understanding of their own system. A link should be a simple hypertext reference that replaces the current page with new content. Users hate unwarranted pop-up windows. When they want the destination to appear in a new page, they can use their browser's "open in new window" command -- assuming, of course, that the link is not a piece of code that interferes with the browser's standard behavior. Users deserve to control their own destiny. Computers that behave consistently empower people by letting them use their own tools and wield them accurately.
Infrequently Asked Questions in FAQ Too many websites have FAQs that list questions the company wished users would ask. No good. FAQs have a simplistic information design that does not scale well. They must be reserved for frequently asked questions, since that's the only thing that makes a FAQ a useful website feature. Infrequently asked questions undermine users' trust in the website and damage their understanding of its navigation.
Collecting Email Addresses Without a Privacy Policy Users are getting very protective of their inboxes. Every time a website asks for an email address, users react negatively in user testing. Don't assume that people will sign up for a newsletter just because it's free. You have to tell them, right there, what they will get and how frequently it will hit their mailboxes. Also, you must provide an explicit privacy statement or an opt-in checkbox right next to the entry field. Otherwise, you have little hope of collecting email addresses other than mickey@mouse.com.
URL > 75 Characters Long URLs break the Web's social navigation because they make it virtually impossible to email a friend a recommendation to visit a Web page. If the URL is too long to show in the browser's address field, many users won't know how to select it. If the URL breaks across multiple lines in the email, most recipients won't know how to glue the pieces back together. The result? No viral marketing, just because your URLs are too long. Bad way to lose business.
Mailto Links in Unexpected Locations When you click a link on the Web, what do you expect? To get a new page that contains information about the anchor you just clicked. What don't you expect? To spawn an email program that demands that you write stuff rather than read it. Mailto links should be used on anchors that explicitly indicate that they're email addresses, either by their format (donald@duck.com) or their wording (send email to customer support). Don't place mailto links on names; clicking on people's names should usually lead to their biography. Again, interaction design must meet users' expectations. The more that things behave consistently, the more users understand what they can do and the greater their sense of system mastery. Violated expectations create a sense of oppression, where technology rules humans and reduces their ability to steer the interaction. Cartoons by Doug Sheppard and Katrin L. Salyers The Growing Importance of Email Integration It's interesting to note that the last three mistakes all relate to email. Despite being the oldest of the main Internet services, email continues to be one of the most important. It's also finally becoming better integrated with the Web, and I expect that this trend will continue (if websites can avoid making those mistakes, that is).
Well, ATI drivers have never been known for their stability. They do work nicely for me, on my Radeon 9700 PRO. They were probably tested more on the higher cards, because that's where the dx9 improvements come in.
The NV30/GeforceFX has a lot of advanced features. OpenGL 2.0 will have a lot of advanced features. To the extent that the advanced features specified by OpenGL 2.0 coincide with those on the NV30, it will support OpenGL 2.0. Since OpenGL 2.0 doesn't exist yet, and neither does the NV30, no one knows if there will be full support or not. Of course, any features not supported by the hardware can be emulated in software, and no game designer is going to design an OpenGL 2.0 game which won't work on current hardware. I think it's a safe bet that no company is gonna make a game in the next few years that won't work on the NV30 or R300, OpenGL 2.0 or not.
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The parent's point was that the article is WRONG.
Also, while the NV30/GeForceFX may beat the R300/Radeon 9700, I'd be surprised if ATI doesn't release a R350 based card (Radeon 9900?) close to the launch of the GeForceFX. ATI's lower end cards (such as the 9500 PRO) will continue to beat the GF4TI series in price and performance.
Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but I've never heard of No One Lives Forever 2. That means it's probably not a "big hit". I have heard of games like Warcraft 3, The Sims, GTA3, Everquest, UT2003, Mafia, NWN, and Morrowind. Those games have all sold quite well. There is a large market for good PC games, and the people who want them are generally willing to spend $100 on a decent card.
Come on, if you're gonna troll, at least give credit where credit is due.
Sure he does. He screws millions of people every day.
(ducks)
Also, don't forget that Mozilla uses the libpr0n image library.
Here you go.
No, you couldn't patent it, because it's been done and there's prior art. If you were the first person ever to pick your nose, then it might be considered novel.
Cygwin.
Read all five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy, you poor deprived soul.
Yes, it would. Go look at kuro5hin sometime.
Also, I'd be very interested to know what parts of Windows were written by open-source "zealots". Since zealots have a tendency to license their work under the GPL or similar licenses, to prevent their code from being used in proprietary software, if Microsoft is using the code of true zealots, it's in violation of the GPL. I don't think I've ever seen any evidence that this is the case.
GCJ (GNU Compiler for Java) is a part of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). If you run gcc on a Java file, it will use gcj internally to process the file. Therefore, there is no real difference.
Personally, I actually prefer the GTK appearence to QT. I think GTK apps have a generally cleaner look than QT apps, and I think the GTK/GNOME2 icon set is vastly superior to QT/KDE3.
They're talking about Carbon. RTFA.
News flash: CPUs can improve. A 200Mhz chip is a helluva lot closer to a 2Ghz chip than what China started with (nothing). Besides, Windows 98, Office 97, and Phoenix run just fine on a 200Mhz CPU (I've tried it), and you don't need much more than that for many purposes.
Now why would you think it refers to Windows, especially when Java is in the fucking subject line?
If I were an "ulumni" I would be more inclined to donate, being reminded of the more interesting parts of my own college experience.
It does not and never did have a castrated version of KDE. Stop trolling.
Hmmm... They say Ximian Gnome 2.0 will be released "later this year." They've only got a week ... think they'll make it?
If IMAX was how they were meant to be seen, they would have been filmed in IMAX. An IMAX conversion might be nice, but it's hard to add quality that's not there in the first place.
Look at the parent of your post. Then look at the grandparent. Which is easier to read?
Summary: Every year brings new mistakes. In 2002, several of the worst mistakes in Web design related to poor email integration. The number one mistake, however, was lack of pricing information, followed by overly literal search engines. As the Web grows, websites continue to come up with ways to annoy users. Following are ten design mistakes that were particularly good at punishing users and costing site owners business in 2002.
Well, ATI drivers have never been known for their stability. They do work nicely for me, on my Radeon 9700 PRO. They were probably tested more on the higher cards, because that's where the dx9 improvements come in.
The NV30/GeforceFX has a lot of advanced features. OpenGL 2.0 will have a lot of advanced features. To the extent that the advanced features specified by OpenGL 2.0 coincide with those on the NV30, it will support OpenGL 2.0. Since OpenGL 2.0 doesn't exist yet, and neither does the NV30, no one knows if there will be full support or not. Of course, any features not supported by the hardware can be emulated in software, and no game designer is going to design an OpenGL 2.0 game which won't work on current hardware. I think it's a safe bet that no company is gonna make a game in the next few years that won't work on the NV30 or R300, OpenGL 2.0 or not.