I hate to burst YOUR bubble, but once these filter into Pricewatch in, oh, about two days, fierce competition between the hundreds of net vendors will drive prices down to near-bulk levels. It happens with virtually every product, unless it's totally scarce. It's possible supply-and-demand factors will keep prices up, but I somehow doubt it. I'll wager dollars to donuts that Intel responds with a 20-30% price slash on PIIs and PIIIs.
I am currently living in France and can think of several things we could learn from the French... There are plenty of people in my own hometown who can teach me to be an asshole, and I'm sure the vagrants on State St. can teach me about how to maintain poor personal hygiene. Aside from that, there is nothing to learn from the French. Like the last poster said, this has nothing to do with video cards, so take a hike, hosebeast.
Yeah, I have to think a nVidia-Creative marriage is in the works too, but you never know. I sure as hell didn't think S3 would've had enough capital reserves to buy ANYONE, let alone Diamond, so what the hell do I know? But I wouldn't count the other makers out yet. #9, while they make their own video controllers, have carried S3 parts in the past. I somehow doubt this arrangement will continue for long, so maybe they'll be looking to pick up some parts. Hercules, as you mentioned, has become viable again somehow, and the Taiwanese manufacturers (ASUS, Leadtek, Shuttle, et al) have some potential, so I think there is room for a couple of independents.
Rendition was bought by Micron, btw, they aren't really dead, they're just in hibernation because they missed a product life cycle. Also, don't forget about NEC/Videologic, they should be ready to move some parts soon, finally.
Yeah, and I suppose such past historical luminaries as Brutus, Cortez, Benedict Arnold, or, I dunno, Hitler, had nothing to do with this? Get real. Could you possibly get any lazier than to take a stab at Nixon (in general) or Gates (on this board)? Christ. For all of his faults, Nixon was a foreign policy genius (S America not withstanding), which is more than can be said for a certain current president, and at least he left office without bestowing upon the populace a massive, crushing national debt. If you think Gates is evil incarnate, great, don't use his stuff. Somehow I don't think anyone is gonna cry. But keep your pathetic, lazy bumper-sticker rants to yourself.
Have you ever even actually laid hands on a portable MD player/recorder? If you had, you'd realize the myriad advantages the format held. As I said earlier in this thread, CD quality audio and access, cassette tape prices for media, virutal DAT quality live recordings, mp3 size and ruggedness, and so on. MD is a really cool idea, and the execution has become infinitely better in the last year or so with ATRAC 4.5/5.0 and the new portables. It really rocks.
You probably have some skewed perception of MD from 5 years ago or something. The format is now viable in the US, Sony finally launched a proper campaign, and with Sharp and Aiwa's help (and new cool JVC and Panasonic portables on the way!), has rescued MD in the US. It's viable. It's cool. It's here for the longrun. It will never challenge CD or anything, but it wasn't meant to. What it does, it does well, and I'm immensely happy with my 722.
Actually, MD seems to be catching fire lately, as opposed to fading away. MP3 might have actually been good for it, because you can compared the two, and MD invariably comes out on top by a wide margin (better sound, live recordings, cheaper media, yet players are tiny and don't skip). I recently bought a Sharp 722 player/recorder, and I love it. Almost everyone who's seen it has been intrigued, and I think the future can only be brighter for MD as even smaller and better sounding (this will be difficult, my 722 sounds awesome) player/recorders come out.
Think about it, CD quality sound and access features, media at cassette tape prices, mp3 size and convenience, DAT-like live audio recording, plus titling, cool little remotes, tons of extra neato gadgets, etc. Best of all worlds, I say. I don't think it'll ever become huge, no, but I think the format has become large enough to be self-sustaining in the US now, and at any rate, we could always import from Japan if we had too.
I feel like the unknown sailor in that famous photograph - the one taken in NYC when the troops came home from WW2, in which he just grabbed a nurse and just gave her a big old kiss because he was so overjoyed. I have no idea why I care so much, but I'm just ecstatic. DIVX has to be one of the most insidious corporate creations ever devised, and it feels so damn good to watch it go down in flames. It's like we just won the war or something.
Of course the US is self-interested, find me one state that isn't. However, it is nowhere near the benighted, malevolent nation you'd love to believe. Waco was stupid (christ, I could have caught that hick Koresh myself using just a pair of handcuffs and a club by just waiting until he came into town again), but sometimes the government does stupid things. That hardly erases all of the good the US has done for the rest of the world. Oh wait, I suppose you think Axis victory in World War 2 as the resultant aftermath would have made the world a better place? Lol! What a maroon!
Sorry, but despite whatever bizarre notions you may hold dear in that pretty little head of yours, the US has done a lot for the world. Lemme see here, 150 ships filled to the brim with free food and fuel arriving PER DAY to European ports in 1948-49 as the Marshall Plan took effect. Rather than razing Japan and Germany into the ground and making them into agricultural backwaters, we built them up and helped transform them into important democratic states which have contributed to world order. Huge quantities of aid to the state of Israel, which could not have survived in the absence of American largesse. Formidable transfers of medical and agricultural technology to the 3rd world. The latest incidents in the Balkans, wherein US power saved countless lives both Bosnian and Kosovar (sure, we should have gone in earlier, but at least we did something, damnit, when no one else could/would). I could go on for days.
Of course mistakes were made. Various agencies, from the CIA and NSA, to the Dept of Defense and State, have made several bad decisions. That's what happens when agencies and governments are run by PEOPLE, bub. It's happened everywhere. I suggest YOU read a bit of history, and find me JUST ONE hegemon in the course of the entire recorded history of this planet which has acted with greater responsibility and was more fundamentally enlightened than the United States. Jesus, you're taking about a state which is more powerful vis-a-vis any of its peers than any other since Rome almost two thousand years ago. If America wanted to be an empire, it would have been one long ago, and you'd be cleaning my toilet. So pull your head out the sand/your ass and think before you speak.
To make this on-topic: yes, of course China should be considered a potential adversary. This does not mean, however, that we should not seek to engage them, for the US-China relationship will almost certainly be the most important in the world in the 21st century. There will undoubtedly be friction, for these countries obviously want different things in East Asia. But this furor over the spying and technology exports has become a little absurd as of late. The Chinese military is some 30 years behind the Americans, and they are totally unequipped to project power abroad. I'd be willing to wager the PLA still hasn't recovered from the absolute beating it took at the hands of the Vietnamese in 1979, so there is little cause to think the Chinese can muster the huge logistical resources necessary to invade a well-defended off-shore island like Taiwan.
In any event, Sony Playstation 2 will never help them in any such endeavor, unless they plan on sending 20 million PSX2s to Formosa with a bunch of copies of Hentai strip mahjongg games so the Taiwanese become so distracted that Bejing can send in a fishing boat and seize de-facto control of the government. Such a Keystone Cops scenario is every bit as believable as the notion that PSX2 will help Beijing menace the world. Just like when WebTV was classified as weapons-grade technology a few years back and restricted from export. Sigh. Too many technophobes on the Hill these days, I guess, but what do you expect with people Strom Thurmond, who's older than the abacus.
I know I'm gonna get slagged for this, but I think you're more right than you know. It's my belief that if Quebec secedes from the rest of the country, Canada is effectively finished. The remaining provinces would, in all likelihood, petition the US for statehood. Think about it for a minute. The Western/Prairie provinces have been griping for years about underrepresentation in Parliament, and feel slighted (and rightly so) vis-a-vis Quebec and Ontario. The Maritimes are small and economically stagnant, and would have a very rough go of it on their own, or seperated from the rest of the country by Quebec. The only remaining viable state is Ontario, which can hardly be said to possess a level of national indentity equal to Quebec, and thus has little reason to remain independent, especially if Alberta, BC, et. al. leave. They've been a cultural, political, and economic satellite for years; if Quebec leaves I don't they can escape the gravitational pull of the US. Who knows, I could be wrong...
I hope I'm not being naive, but is this true? If so, can you provide a URL or name and date of publication that provided this statement? I'm interested in seeing figures.
Ack, return it. The G200 is a stellar desktop performer, but it's truly craptastic for games and GL stuff. Either exchange it for a TNT2, or wait a little bit longer for the G400; both will run circles around a G200. Myself, I'd probably go with the nVidia. Matrox has yet to write a decent OpenGL ICD, even for Win9x/NT, so I'm somewhat supicious of their intentions/abilities.
I suppose if you don't game it really doesn't matter much, and you could incur a sickeningly high restocking fee for returning the G200, but depending on what you do, it may be worth it.
I really like my Viper V550 TNT (despite the heat issues), I'm glad I don't have to supplement it with a V2 or exchange it for a V3 after all.
I feel kind of bad though, I wrote nVidia several...creatively worded... emails about this in the past month, tongue-lashing them for their sloth and lack of vision on this issue (Linux OpenGL ICD). *Poof*, all of a sudden, here the drivers are. They were probably cooking these up for a while. Oh well, I'm sure they'll forgive me when I buy an NV10 this Fall.
Ah, therein lies the rub. My own intuition says that AOL just wants to establish a beach head on everyone's computer, if they can, as a way of opening a gateway to a wider audience (i.e. captive market). Maybe they won't do anything manipulative or insidious with the product, or maybe they will, it's tough to say. A good example would be to chart the progress of ICQ since it was purchased by AOL (last year?)... They haven't started charging for it yet, but they have made some rumblings to that effect.
I really don't see how much damage they can do with WinAmp though. Sure, it's the best player around, but there are a ton of other programs only a step behind it, with all of the same functionality built in, so it'll be difficult to create a monopoly. I don't know much about the rest, but I imagine the situation is probably much the same...
I don't believe most people are anywhere near as stupid as you believe. People tend to get whipped up into a frenzy as soon as they believe their privacy or pocketbooks are on the line, and I can't imagine they'll take kindly to RIAA's Orwellian ideals.
Furthemore, this whole hare-brained scheme relies on lockstep acceptance on the part of the entire industry. I don't know about you, but the music I listen to isn't really pop-culture, big-business fare. Perhaps Columbia and Epic will buy in, and I really couldn't care less, they pretty much suck imo, but indies like Touch & Go, Dischord, AmRep, Quarterstick, Kill Rock Stars, Trance Syndicate, etc., will not touch this garbage with a ten-foot pole. I'm sure of it. It is just not part of their mindset. I think of what one of the major indie guys, say Ian MacKaye (Fugazi frontman, owner of Dischord), would do when presented with this, and I just laaaaaaugh. It seems to me that, by and large, the level of disenchantment by recording artists with their labels is at fever pitch of late. If the labels keep through their weight around, they'll soon have no one left to dictate to, as there ARE other options for musicians today.
Perhaps the RIAA initiative will have some measure of success, perhaps not. In the end, though, this farce will be unceremoniously cast onto the ash heap of history like so much other garbage, and that's what really matters.
Oh man, I couldn't agree more. Aside from the immortal Quake (NOT the festering pile that was Quake II, mind you), Myth II has to be the best multiplayer game around, at least for me. Quake, Myth II, and now q3test are really the only PC games I play with great frequency, so this could hardly be better for me. Now I'll have to think long and hard about wiping out my NT 4 drive and going to an all-Linux box.
Oh wait, DAMN nVidia won't help by bestowing an OpenGL ICD on me for my Viper V550, so I guess I'm pretty much looked into keeping Windows around, at least for a while. Sigh.
PS> Anyone know if I'm gonna be expected to shell out for this? I already bought my Win/Mac copy of MII back in January, I don't want to have to buy a second one:-(
Yeah yeah yeah, that's nice. I have a 20" IBM P201 monitor (Trinitron, 19.1" viewable,.25 AG, yadyadayada), a Voodoo2, a P2-450, and Aureal Vortex sound, it's a perfectly great gaming machine.... for Quake 3 or Myth 2.
The fact remains, however, that the essence of console gaming and computer gaming remain miles apart. I would never dream of futzing around for hours trying to get a 4 or 8 player game like Wave Race 64 or NHL 98 working on my computer, then have to find space in my office for my friends to sit. Why bother? I can just go plop down on the NICE BIG COUCH in the living room and play, and they can sit wherever they like. Furthermore, I don't have to go out and buy a bunch of new USB joysticks, that MAY or MAY NOT work properly with the package.
Consoles are consoles, computers are computers, and never the twain shall meet. I like each for what it does, and it's cool you like the idea of playing PSX games on your PC, but count me out. It ruins the whole experience. And yes, I've tried it... R4 and Bushido Blade 2 running on a fast G3 with VGS... it kinda stunk. I also tried Soviet Strike and FF7 on the Bleem demo, and it was pretty sad... SS wouldn't load, FF7 looked like garbage, all wildly pixelated.
Wine isn't an emulator? How amusing then that the FAQ (you can find it anywhere) for it should state in no uncertain terms, "WINdows Emulator"... Furthermore, why is the WINE newsgroup comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine? Please enlighten me.:-P
Hehe, you've got me there. I just don't see the point, myself, other than from a technical geekboy POV. Console games just play so much better lying on your ass on the couch, with a nice big 25" TV and a good stereo:-) Hunched over my monitor on a crappy deskchair? That's ok, but I do it 40hrs/wk at work already, plus all my goofing off at home. I need a reprieve;-)
Running a platform emulator through an OS emulator? Isn't that a whole lot of hassle? Why not just shell out for a real PSX? It's not exactly a big-ticket item...
$200? Try $129 new, WITH a Dual Shock controller. You could find one used for under $70 if you looked. I fail to see any compelling reason to buy this product, and the CD key protection scheme is a total farce.
Umm...ok. It's nice to see you can score cheap crack in your town, but your dealer is probably hooking you up with some substandard cut. Qualify your ridiculous statement that the BH6 "has many problems." I'd love to hear it. Honestly.
I run one at home with an overclocked C300A, I run one at work with the same exact setup. My boss runs one. A small legion of my coworkers and friends do, too. Plus the tens of thousands of geeks the world over who gush over this board. Furthermore, I work as the assistant PC product manager at a large public university (40K students, 18K fac/staff), and we have sold hundreds of these boards to people. Guess who is the primary support contact for them? That's right, me! Guess what? Of all of the BH6s that we've sold, exactly one came back bad, and that was because some llama screwed up a BIOS flash. I hot-swapped it with the BIOS in my own board and reflashed it, and it was off to the races. Thus, I have _never_ truly seen a bad BH6.
Sorry to be rude, but get a clue. ABIT's board is awesome. Anyone who recommends a Soyo over it hasn't a clue.
I hate to sound like an AOLer, but I agree completely. Cyrix is shite. I once had a TI-branded 486 DLC-40 designed by Cyrix, and that wasn't too bad I guess, for the times, but their P5-P6 class is a farce. I suppose Cyrix is fine if all you do is Word and Netscape, but it just doesn't hack it for any serious users.
It's like this: comparing Intel's and Cyrix's FPUs is like comparing McBain to Mr. Burns.
Depends.... are you looking for a single or dual slot mobo? If single, go with the ABIT BX6 Series 2 (the slightly older ABIT BH6 is fine, too, if you're looking to save a few bucks). If dual, get an ASUS P2B-D2. Both are totally stable, very well supported, and equally well made. Moreover, they're cheap, especially for what you're getting.
As always, check www.pricewatch.com for the best deals.
I'm sure others will disagree, but I have worked with several dozen brands of boards over the last couple of years, and the only mobo manufacturers I'd really feel comfortable recommending to anyone would be Abit, Asus, and Chaintech. Abit is my personal favorite, due to a variety of factors (5 PCI slots, frequent BIOS updates, etc.), but the coolest thing about their boards is that you can manually set the clock multiplier, bus speed, and, the most overlooked element of good overclocking: CORE VOLTAGE SETTINGS, in the BIOS setup, meaning you don't have to futz with jumpers. It rocks.
Yeah, and furthermore, the Celeron A cache is on die, meaning it runs at full core speed, whereas the Pentium II cache only runs at half-speed. This is what usually offsets.
I've had Celeries (2 Slot 1 300As, 1 PPGA 300A) clocked at 450/464 running at home and here at work (one has been chugging along since August), and there is absolutely no difference between them and a real PII 450, at least on nothing I've tried (I run a bunch of junk: standard office stuff, audio and photo editing, various server-side stuff, 3D games, you name it).
Well, Beavis, you're obviously uninformed. The machine also has a bank of 32MB of system memory, residing on a ultra-fast bus (2560bit, I believe), which can be used for any purposes the developer sees fit. I'm sure you never bitched about AGP being designed to use system memory to store textures, and this is fundamentally the same idea, only running WAY, WAY faster. I see no reason to believe they can't pull it off.
I'm sure you know way more about system architecture than Sony's elite engineers, though, don't you? Such wankery, sigh.
Slashdot Mirror
I hate to burst YOUR bubble, but once these filter into Pricewatch in, oh, about two days, fierce competition between the hundreds of net vendors will drive prices down to near-bulk levels. It happens with virtually every product, unless it's totally scarce. It's possible supply-and-demand factors will keep prices up, but I somehow doubt it. I'll wager dollars to donuts that Intel responds with a 20-30% price slash on PIIs and PIIIs.
I am currently living in France and can think of several things we could learn from the French ... There are plenty of people in my own hometown who can teach me to be an asshole, and I'm sure the vagrants on State St. can teach me about how to maintain poor personal hygiene. Aside from that, there is nothing to learn from the French. Like the last poster said, this has nothing to do with video cards, so take a hike, hosebeast.
Yeah, I have to think a nVidia-Creative marriage is in the works too, but you never know. I sure as hell didn't think S3 would've had enough capital reserves to buy ANYONE, let alone Diamond, so what the hell do I know? But I wouldn't count the other makers out yet. #9, while they make their own video controllers, have carried S3 parts in the past. I somehow doubt this arrangement will continue for long, so maybe they'll be looking to pick up some parts. Hercules, as you mentioned, has become viable again somehow, and the Taiwanese manufacturers (ASUS, Leadtek, Shuttle, et al) have some potential, so I think there is room for a couple of independents.
Rendition was bought by Micron, btw, they aren't really dead, they're just in hibernation because they missed a product life cycle. Also, don't forget about NEC/Videologic, they should be ready to move some parts soon, finally.
Yeah, and I suppose such past historical luminaries as Brutus, Cortez, Benedict Arnold, or, I dunno, Hitler, had nothing to do with this? Get real. Could you possibly get any lazier than to take a stab at Nixon (in general) or Gates (on this board)? Christ. For all of his faults, Nixon was a foreign policy genius (S America not withstanding), which is more than can be said for a certain current president, and at least he left office without bestowing upon the populace a massive, crushing national debt. If you think Gates is evil incarnate, great, don't use his stuff. Somehow I don't think anyone is gonna cry. But keep your pathetic, lazy bumper-sticker rants to yourself.
Have you ever even actually laid hands on a portable MD player/recorder? If you had, you'd realize the myriad advantages the format held. As I said earlier in this thread, CD quality audio and access, cassette tape prices for media, virutal DAT quality live recordings, mp3 size and ruggedness, and so on. MD is a really cool idea, and the execution has become infinitely better in the last year or so with ATRAC 4.5/5.0 and the new portables. It really rocks.
You probably have some skewed perception of MD from 5 years ago or something. The format is now viable in the US, Sony finally launched a proper campaign, and with Sharp and Aiwa's help (and new cool JVC and Panasonic portables on the way!), has rescued MD in the US. It's viable. It's cool. It's here for the longrun. It will never challenge CD or anything, but it wasn't meant to. What it does, it does well, and I'm immensely happy with my 722.
Actually, MD seems to be catching fire lately, as opposed to fading away. MP3 might have actually been good for it, because you can compared the two, and MD invariably comes out on top by a wide margin (better sound, live recordings, cheaper media, yet players are tiny and don't skip). I recently bought a Sharp 722 player/recorder, and I love it. Almost everyone who's seen it has been intrigued, and I think the future can only be brighter for MD as even smaller and better sounding (this will be difficult, my 722 sounds awesome) player/recorders come out.
Think about it, CD quality sound and access features, media at cassette tape prices, mp3 size and convenience, DAT-like live audio recording, plus titling, cool little remotes, tons of extra neato gadgets, etc. Best of all worlds, I say. I don't think it'll ever become huge, no, but I think the format has become large enough to be self-sustaining in the US now, and at any rate, we could always import from Japan if we had too.
Nick
I feel like the unknown sailor in that famous photograph - the one taken in NYC when the troops came home from WW2, in which he just grabbed a nurse and just gave her a big old kiss because he was so overjoyed. I have no idea why I care so much, but I'm just ecstatic. DIVX has to be one of the most insidious corporate creations ever devised, and it feels so damn good to watch it go down in flames. It's like we just won the war or something.
I'm still not shopping at Circuit City, though.
Of course the US is self-interested, find me one state that isn't. However, it is nowhere near the benighted, malevolent nation you'd love to believe. Waco was stupid (christ, I could have caught that hick Koresh myself using just a pair of handcuffs and a club by just waiting until he came into town again), but sometimes the government does stupid things. That hardly erases all of the good the US has done for the rest of the world. Oh wait, I suppose you think Axis victory in World War 2 as the resultant aftermath would have made the world a better place? Lol! What a maroon!
Sorry, but despite whatever bizarre notions you may hold dear in that pretty little head of yours, the US has done a lot for the world. Lemme see here, 150 ships filled to the brim with free food and fuel arriving PER DAY to European ports in 1948-49 as the Marshall Plan took effect. Rather than razing Japan and Germany into the ground and making them into agricultural backwaters, we built them up and helped transform them into important democratic states which have contributed to world order. Huge quantities of aid to the state of Israel, which could not have survived in the absence of American largesse. Formidable transfers of medical and agricultural technology to the 3rd world. The latest incidents in the Balkans, wherein US power saved countless lives both Bosnian and Kosovar (sure, we should have gone in earlier, but at least we did something, damnit, when no one else could/would). I could go on for days.
Of course mistakes were made. Various agencies, from the CIA and NSA, to the Dept of Defense and State, have made several bad decisions. That's what happens when agencies and governments are run by PEOPLE, bub. It's happened everywhere. I suggest YOU read a bit of history, and find me JUST ONE hegemon in the course of the entire recorded history of this planet which has acted with greater responsibility and was more fundamentally enlightened than the United States. Jesus, you're taking about a state which is more powerful vis-a-vis any of its peers than any other since Rome almost two thousand years ago. If America wanted to be an empire, it would have been one long ago, and you'd be cleaning my toilet. So pull your head out the sand/your ass and think before you speak.
To make this on-topic: yes, of course China should be considered a potential adversary. This does not mean, however, that we should not seek to engage them, for the US-China relationship will almost certainly be the most important in the world in the 21st century. There will undoubtedly be friction, for these countries obviously want different things in East Asia. But this furor over the spying and technology exports has become a little absurd as of late. The Chinese military is some 30 years behind the Americans, and they are totally unequipped to project power abroad. I'd be willing to wager the PLA still hasn't recovered from the absolute beating it took at the hands of the Vietnamese in 1979, so there is little cause to think the Chinese can muster the huge logistical resources necessary to invade a well-defended off-shore island like Taiwan.
In any event, Sony Playstation 2 will never help them in any such endeavor, unless they plan on sending 20 million PSX2s to Formosa with a bunch of copies of Hentai strip mahjongg games so the Taiwanese become so distracted that Bejing can send in a fishing boat and seize de-facto control of the government. Such a Keystone Cops scenario is every bit as believable as the notion that PSX2 will help Beijing menace the world. Just like when WebTV was classified as weapons-grade technology a few years back and restricted from export. Sigh. Too many technophobes on the Hill these days, I guess, but what do you expect with people Strom Thurmond, who's older than the abacus.
I know I'm gonna get slagged for this, but I think you're more right than you know. It's my belief that if Quebec secedes from the rest of the country, Canada is effectively finished. The remaining provinces would, in all likelihood, petition the US for statehood. Think about it for a minute. The Western/Prairie provinces have been griping for years about underrepresentation in Parliament, and feel slighted (and rightly so) vis-a-vis Quebec and Ontario. The Maritimes are small and economically stagnant, and would have a very rough go of it on their own, or seperated from the rest of the country by Quebec. The only remaining viable state is Ontario, which can hardly be said to possess a level of national indentity equal to Quebec, and thus has little reason to remain independent, especially if Alberta, BC, et. al. leave. They've been a cultural, political, and economic satellite for years; if Quebec leaves I don't they can escape the gravitational pull of the US. Who knows, I could be wrong...
I hope I'm not being naive, but is this true? If so, can you provide a URL or name and date of publication that provided this statement? I'm interested in seeing figures.
Ack, return it. The G200 is a stellar desktop performer, but it's truly craptastic for games and GL stuff. Either exchange it for a TNT2, or wait a little bit longer for the G400; both will run circles around a G200. Myself, I'd probably go with the nVidia. Matrox has yet to write a decent OpenGL ICD, even for Win9x/NT, so I'm somewhat supicious of their intentions/abilities.
I suppose if you don't game it really doesn't matter much, and you could incur a sickeningly high restocking fee for returning the G200, but depending on what you do, it may be worth it.
I really like my Viper V550 TNT (despite the heat issues), I'm glad I don't have to supplement it with a V2 or exchange it for a V3 after all.
I feel kind of bad though, I wrote nVidia several...creatively worded... emails about this in the past month, tongue-lashing them for their sloth and lack of vision on this issue (Linux OpenGL ICD). *Poof*, all of a sudden, here the drivers are. They were probably cooking these up for a while. Oh well, I'm sure they'll forgive me when I buy an NV10 this Fall.
Ah, therein lies the rub. My own intuition says that AOL just wants to establish a beach head on everyone's computer, if they can, as a way of opening a gateway to a wider audience (i.e. captive market). Maybe they won't do anything manipulative or insidious with the product, or maybe they will, it's tough to say. A good example would be to chart the progress of ICQ since it was purchased by AOL (last year?)... They haven't started charging for it yet, but they have made some rumblings to that effect.
I really don't see how much damage they can do with WinAmp though. Sure, it's the best player around, but there are a ton of other programs only a step behind it, with all of the same functionality built in, so it'll be difficult to create a monopoly. I don't know much about the rest, but I imagine the situation is probably much the same...
I don't believe most people are anywhere near as stupid as you believe. People tend to get whipped up into a frenzy as soon as they believe their privacy or pocketbooks are on the line, and I can't imagine they'll take kindly to RIAA's Orwellian ideals.
Furthemore, this whole hare-brained scheme relies on lockstep acceptance on the part of the entire industry. I don't know about you, but the music I listen to isn't really pop-culture, big-business fare. Perhaps Columbia and Epic will buy in, and I really couldn't care less, they pretty much suck imo, but indies like Touch & Go, Dischord, AmRep, Quarterstick, Kill Rock Stars, Trance Syndicate, etc., will not touch this garbage with a ten-foot pole. I'm sure of it. It is just not part of their mindset. I think of what one of the major indie guys, say Ian MacKaye (Fugazi frontman, owner of Dischord), would do when presented with this, and I just laaaaaaugh. It seems to me that, by and large, the level of disenchantment by recording artists with their labels is at fever pitch of late. If the labels keep through their weight around, they'll soon have no one left to dictate to, as there ARE other options for musicians today.
Perhaps the RIAA initiative will have some measure of success, perhaps not. In the end, though, this farce will be unceremoniously cast onto the ash heap of history like so much other garbage, and that's what really matters.
Adeiu.
Oh man, I couldn't agree more. Aside from the immortal Quake (NOT the festering pile that was Quake II, mind you), Myth II has to be the best multiplayer game around, at least for me. Quake, Myth II, and now q3test are really the only PC games I play with great frequency, so this could hardly be better for me. Now I'll have to think long and hard about wiping out my NT 4 drive and going to an all-Linux box.
:-(
Oh wait, DAMN nVidia won't help by bestowing an OpenGL ICD on me for my Viper V550, so I guess I'm pretty much looked into keeping Windows around, at least for a while. Sigh.
PS> Anyone know if I'm gonna be expected to shell out for this? I already bought my Win/Mac copy of MII back in January, I don't want to have to buy a second one
Yeah yeah yeah, that's nice. I have a 20" IBM P201 monitor (Trinitron, 19.1" viewable, .25 AG, yadyadayada), a Voodoo2, a P2-450, and Aureal Vortex sound, it's a perfectly great gaming machine.... for Quake 3 or Myth 2.
:-P
The fact remains, however, that the essence of console gaming and computer gaming remain miles apart. I would never dream of futzing around for hours trying to get a 4 or 8 player game like Wave Race 64 or NHL 98 working on my computer, then have to find space in my office for my friends to sit. Why bother? I can just go plop down on the NICE BIG COUCH in the living room and play, and they can sit wherever they like. Furthermore, I don't have to go out and buy a bunch of new USB joysticks, that MAY or MAY NOT work properly with the package.
Consoles are consoles, computers are computers, and never the twain shall meet. I like each for what it does, and it's cool you like the idea of playing PSX games on your PC, but count me out. It ruins the whole experience. And yes, I've tried it... R4 and Bushido Blade 2 running on a fast G3 with VGS... it kinda stunk. I also tried Soviet Strike and FF7 on the Bleem demo, and it was pretty sad... SS wouldn't load, FF7 looked like garbage, all wildly pixelated.
Wine isn't an emulator? How amusing then that the FAQ (you can find it anywhere) for it should state in no uncertain terms, "WINdows Emulator"... Furthermore, why is the WINE newsgroup comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine? Please enlighten me.
Hehe, you've got me there. I just don't see the point, myself, other than from a technical geekboy POV. Console games just play so much better lying on your ass on the couch, with a nice big 25" TV and a good stereo :-) Hunched over my monitor on a crappy deskchair? That's ok, but I do it 40hrs/wk at work already, plus all my goofing off at home. I need a reprieve ;-)
Running a platform emulator through an OS emulator? Isn't that a whole lot of hassle? Why not just shell out for a real PSX? It's not exactly a big-ticket item...
$200? Try $129 new, WITH a Dual Shock controller. You could find one used for under $70 if you looked. I fail to see any compelling reason to buy this product, and the CD key protection scheme is a total farce.
Umm...ok. It's nice to see you can score cheap crack in your town, but your dealer is probably hooking you up with some substandard cut. Qualify your ridiculous statement that the BH6 "has many problems." I'd love to hear it. Honestly.
I run one at home with an overclocked C300A, I run one at work with the same exact setup. My boss runs one. A small legion of my coworkers and friends do, too. Plus the tens of thousands of geeks the world over who gush over this board. Furthermore, I work as the assistant PC product manager at a large public university (40K students, 18K fac/staff), and we have sold hundreds of these boards to people. Guess who is the primary support contact for them? That's right, me! Guess what? Of all of the BH6s that we've sold, exactly one came back bad, and that was because some llama screwed up a BIOS flash. I hot-swapped it with the BIOS in my own board and reflashed it, and it was off to the races. Thus, I have _never_ truly seen a bad BH6.
Sorry to be rude, but get a clue. ABIT's board is awesome. Anyone who recommends a Soyo over it hasn't a clue.
I hate to sound like an AOLer, but I agree completely. Cyrix is shite. I once had a TI-branded 486 DLC-40 designed by Cyrix, and that wasn't too bad I guess, for the times, but their P5-P6 class is a farce. I suppose Cyrix is fine if all you do is Word and Netscape, but it just doesn't hack it for any serious users.
It's like this: comparing Intel's and Cyrix's FPUs is like comparing McBain to Mr. Burns.
Is the propeller called?
Depends.... are you looking for a single or dual slot mobo? If single, go with the ABIT BX6 Series 2 (the slightly older ABIT BH6 is fine, too, if you're looking to save a few bucks). If dual, get an ASUS P2B-D2. Both are totally stable, very well supported, and equally well made. Moreover, they're cheap, especially for what you're getting.
As always, check www.pricewatch.com for the best deals.
I'm sure others will disagree, but I have worked with several dozen brands of boards over the last couple of years, and the only mobo manufacturers I'd really feel comfortable recommending to anyone would be Abit, Asus, and Chaintech. Abit is my personal favorite, due to a variety of factors (5 PCI slots, frequent BIOS updates, etc.), but the coolest thing about their boards is that you can manually set the clock multiplier, bus speed, and, the most overlooked element of good overclocking: CORE VOLTAGE SETTINGS, in the BIOS setup, meaning you don't have to futz with jumpers. It rocks.
Hope this helps.
Yeah, and furthermore, the Celeron A cache is on die, meaning it runs at full core speed, whereas the Pentium II cache only runs at half-speed. This is what usually offsets.
I've had Celeries (2 Slot 1 300As, 1 PPGA 300A) clocked at 450/464 running at home and here at work (one has been chugging along since August), and there is absolutely no difference between them and a real PII 450, at least on nothing I've tried (I run a bunch of junk: standard office stuff, audio and photo editing, various server-side stuff, 3D games, you name it).
Well, Beavis, you're obviously uninformed. The machine also has a bank of 32MB of system memory, residing on a ultra-fast bus (2560bit, I believe), which can be used for any purposes the developer sees fit. I'm sure you never bitched about AGP being designed to use system memory to store textures, and this is fundamentally the same idea, only running WAY, WAY faster. I see no reason to believe they can't pull it off.
I'm sure you know way more about system architecture than Sony's elite engineers, though, don't you? Such wankery, sigh.