I think you're forgetting the fact that it takes a bachelor's degree or greater to setup/compile the drivers for all of your hardware in loonix. And even that doesn't guarantee it'll work. And even if do get it to work, most of the time it's slower than the Windows version would be (Unreal Tournament 2003 is a great example of this.) Install Windows. Enjoy games. Use linux for workstations/servers.
Ok, maybe a linux user can help me understand this... but why do you want to play games in linux? What makes it so great and advantageous over Windows game/graphics/sound-wise? When new games come out, it seems a lot of linux users say they'll try to run it under Wine, or they complain that there's no native linux port, etc. etc... why not just dual boot Windows/Linux? Make a 5-10 gig Windows partition, and have fun playing your games.
Solution: Hook up to a switch/hub/router not connected to the internet. Alternatively, block the Xbox's IP from accessing the internet. Do I really have to solve these simple problems for you?
You can do whatever you want with it offline. Install linux, whatever. Mod a window on top of it. Watercool it. Who cares.
But by connecting it to XBox Live, you are connecting to Microsoft's network, and they can do whatever they feel like (namely, whatever's allowable under their EULA; those things no one ever reads.)
If you want to run linux on your XBox.. great. Go ahead and do so. But don't bitch and whine when you try to play games online and they won't work or your linux partition gets screwed. There's good reasoning for it. Think about it.
Just an FYI, but there are some DirectX9 games out right now. Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness is one of them.. and it looks really nice on a PS2.0-capable card (GeForceFX/Radeon9600-9800) -- Does wicked fire/water/fog effects, as well as "heat haze" coming off the fire. Water reflections, and depth of field (things farther away are blurry, things up close are crystal clear.)
Really nice to look at. If you only have a GeForce4 (like me) you can still get some of the effects, just no depth of field or advanced stuff.
Uhm, last time I checked, you can return/swap software/games at major stores if the package isn't opened. Little Johnny getting HL2 for Christmas could just exchange the game if he didn't get the right one, and have his parents fork out the extra $10.
No, it still doesn't make much sense. Steam is being developed/planned now, along with the content therein. I imagine it wasn't even a thought in an engineer's head around the time of Half-Life, so speculating that Valve wouldn't have released anything between HL1 and HL2 is just that; speculation.
I don't know what content or mods they're going to be adding after HL2 comes out, but I'm sure they're going to lay out some general roadmap so people have an idea what to expect; otherwise I'd say the subscription method won't do that well.
In Steam, you can right click on a game and choose properties. There's an option to "always keep the game up to date", and this will pretty much cache the entire game, as far as I know. It maxed out my bandwidth for a few minutes downloading around 500 megabytes to it's folder for Half-Life. In previous versions of Steam, you could actually specify a percentage of the cache to use. So if you only wanted 200 megs on your hard drive at one time, Steam could be configured to do that. I don't know what they've done with that option, as I don't see it anymore.
Want to know what's funny? Valve has offered CS+HL for free for almost a year+ now, via their Steam software. You just had to sign up for an account, and you're set. This will all change once the beta period ends, though.
I'm also glad you will still pirate Half-Life when it costs like $15 in stores now. If you can't afford that, then get off the computer and get a job:)
I guess you didn't read the thread/forums/article, because you can do just that (buy the retail game in a box with a manual/disc)
You know, you don't have to buy the collector's/special editions of games/movies/whatever. No one's forcing you. The whole point of a special edition/limited edition is offering things the standard version doesn't have! That is why you're paying more.
Regarding HL2 for XBox having fees on top of the XBox Live fee -- very unlikely.
Regarding the one time cost -- the game's retail price is $50, just like numerous other new games out there.
Regarding the Steam network questions -- I'd imagine Valve will come up with some sort of "grace period", where you will be allowed to play for 24 hours or whatever without a network connection (as long as you already have the game fully cached or whatever.) This would make a lot of sense.
It's already been stated that the subscription gives you access to all Valve games & mods (HL1/OpFor/BlueShift/TFC/CS) as well as future games and mods (TF2/CS2/HL3?)
Whether or not it's worth $9.95 a month or whatever is up to you.
Thanks, I did, and I gave my commentary on it. He's not changing the system or bucking the system or doing anything other than causing trouble for himself. He should have pressed any key and installed his Linux or whatever and been done with it.
I bought my Inspiron 8000 as soon as they became available, due to the GeForce2Go GPU. When I first got my laptop there were no problems; Windows ME came pre-installed and it was working fine. However, I discovered a few months into it that whenever I would connect AC power to the laptop (while running off batteries) the system would begin to "skip". That is, it will run smoothly for about 5 seconds, and then pause (mouse/keyboard input/display/everything)
I contacted Dell tech support and they told me to run the diagnostic tools that came with the laptop. So I did, and couldn't finish the diagnostic, but everything else checked out OK (there's a part where it tells you to push every key on the keyboard, and it would not acknowledge my volume/play/pause/etc. buttons, even though they worked fine in Windows) The Dell tech said that it sounds like I need to upgrade my BIOS. So I did just that (I believe A13 was the latest at the time.) Problem seemed to go away.
A few months later, the same exact issue is occurring, this time after upgrading the laptop to Windows XP (fresh install) and to a newer BIOS (I think A15 or something, because the website said it was required/certified for Win2k/XP) I contact tech support again and they inform me that my warranty is up (I only got the one year warranty) but are willing to work with me to try and figure out the problem. This tech assumes it's a problem with the keyboard controller (because I can't input while it's "pausing") I tell them that I don't think that's the problem, and they reply saying I most likely have a damaged motherboard and would have to have it replaced. I explained that there's no way the motherboard could have been damaged by myself, since the laptop has pretty much been in the same physical location ever since I got it (my desk in my home office) and that any damage occured would have been Dell's or UPS's fault. Tech support didn't really have an answer/reply for that, just said it would cost me probably $1k to get it all fixed. I downgraded my BIOS back to A13, and funnily enough the system started to work semi-properly again.
And now I still have the laptop at home. I updated to the latest BIOS (A22) when it came out a month or two ago, and can only use the laptop without any batteries loaded (just AC power) -- The moment I put in batteries while AC is connected, the unit freezes hard and must be restarted. Laptop can no longer run off of just batteries, as it "randomly" will freeze and drop input (just like it was doing when I originally got it.) Strangely enough, if I apply light physical pressure to the right underside of the laptop, that will sometimes "unfreeze" it. So I'm forced to use just AC power for now. I would roll back to BIOS A13, except for the fact that booting the laptop with AC/Floppy/Battery connected causes it to just show a flashing cursor on the screen and nothing else. No BIOS startup, nothing. (And the AC/battery combo is required to update the BIOS.) So I'm kinda screwed.
I've actually torn apart the laptop myself twice (I'm no newbie to dealing with hardware issues) to find any sort of damage or any sort of unset chip/connector to no avail. I even swapped out the memory with crucial sticks in case that was causing the problems (and since the memory is near the bottom right side of the laptop, I though perhaps it wasn't seating properly?) I also experimented with removing the MiniPCI card, thinking it could be that (again, on the right side of the laptop.) I'm at a loss to explain what is causing the problem, and just wish I could get it fixed.
I'm just overall not happy with how the situation was dealt with, I think the instant I had those problems Dell should have offered a replacement. I have friends who have ordered "newer" model Inspirons (like 8100 and 8500) and haven't had a single problem. I'm under the suspicion that Dell made a few booboos on the older models and didn't want to own up to it, or that tech support personnel were not properly educated or told about such problems. Searching the Delltalk forums, I've come across twenty or more cases just like mine with other Inspiron 8000 units. Maybe it's just some wacky conspiracy theory, but it's starting to not look like it more and more.
So basically you're saying he didn't have a valid license/CD to run Win98SE in the first place? How is this Windows' fault, or a PC's fault for that matter?
I still swear to this day that Dell shipped bad/faulty Inspiron 8000 laptops when they first came out, and have never pubically acknowledged it. I have a $3500 paperweight sitting at home.
Yeah, I don't see exactly how he's bucking the system on this one. If he has a problem with EULAs, handling it like this isn't the way to get that problem fixed.
He should have just hit any key, installed his Linux and been done with it. Now he's out of a laptop and has to deal with returning it.
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Or maybe I'll just install the game and not have to deal with compilers, compatability issues or drivers in order to play a game.
God forbid we actually blame the children who commited the crime. It was poor Johnny's upbringing and his environment! It drove him to KILL!
Waah waaah wwaaaaaaah. I hope the judge laughs at this and tosses it out.
I think you're forgetting the fact that it takes a bachelor's degree or greater to setup/compile the drivers for all of your hardware in loonix. And even that doesn't guarantee it'll work. And even if do get it to work, most of the time it's slower than the Windows version would be (Unreal Tournament 2003 is a great example of this.) Install Windows. Enjoy games. Use linux for workstations/servers.
Ok, maybe a linux user can help me understand this... but why do you want to play games in linux? What makes it so great and advantageous over Windows game/graphics/sound-wise? When new games come out, it seems a lot of linux users say they'll try to run it under Wine, or they complain that there's no native linux port, etc. etc... why not just dual boot Windows/Linux? Make a 5-10 gig Windows partition, and have fun playing your games.
Solution: Hook up to a switch/hub/router not connected to the internet. Alternatively, block the Xbox's IP from accessing the internet. Do I really have to solve these simple problems for you?
Oops, forgot to mention that he did the music for the Zelda64 commercial. Not the one that the guy links to up above..
It helps if you have Basil Poledouris as your commercial's music composer, too.
Let me punch a few holes in your theory:
1) Your Xbox is connecting to them, not the other way around.
2) You are using a Microsoft service, which you signed/agreed to a TOS/EULA to use. This includes updates.
Your analogy is a bit flawed. Your car doesn't connect to Ford's servers in order to drive or get updates. Heck, it doesn't connect to servers at all!
You can do whatever you want with an XBox. Microsoft can do what it wants to manage XBox Live.
You can do whatever you want with it offline. Install linux, whatever. Mod a window on top of it. Watercool it. Who cares.
But by connecting it to XBox Live, you are connecting to Microsoft's network, and they can do whatever they feel like (namely, whatever's allowable under their EULA; those things no one ever reads.)
If you want to run linux on your XBox.. great. Go ahead and do so. But don't bitch and whine when you try to play games online and they won't work or your linux partition gets screwed. There's good reasoning for it. Think about it.
Just an FYI, but there are some DirectX9 games out right now. Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness is one of them.. and it looks really nice on a PS2.0-capable card (GeForceFX/Radeon9600-9800) -- Does wicked fire/water/fog effects, as well as "heat haze" coming off the fire. Water reflections, and depth of field (things farther away are blurry, things up close are crystal clear.)
Really nice to look at. If you only have a GeForce4 (like me) you can still get some of the effects, just no depth of field or advanced stuff.
Part of your NDA agreement is that you cannot reveal you are beta testing the game. Good job!
Uhm, last time I checked, you can return/swap software/games at major stores if the package isn't opened. Little Johnny getting HL2 for Christmas could just exchange the game if he didn't get the right one, and have his parents fork out the extra $10.
Do I have to solve everyone's problems? Sheesh.
No, it still doesn't make much sense. Steam is being developed/planned now, along with the content therein. I imagine it wasn't even a thought in an engineer's head around the time of Half-Life, so speculating that Valve wouldn't have released anything between HL1 and HL2 is just that; speculation.
I don't know what content or mods they're going to be adding after HL2 comes out, but I'm sure they're going to lay out some general roadmap so people have an idea what to expect; otherwise I'd say the subscription method won't do that well.
In Steam, you can right click on a game and choose properties. There's an option to "always keep the game up to date", and this will pretty much cache the entire game, as far as I know. It maxed out my bandwidth for a few minutes downloading around 500 megabytes to it's folder for Half-Life. In previous versions of Steam, you could actually specify a percentage of the cache to use. So if you only wanted 200 megs on your hard drive at one time, Steam could be configured to do that. I don't know what they've done with that option, as I don't see it anymore.
Want to know what's funny? Valve has offered CS+HL for free for almost a year+ now, via their Steam software. You just had to sign up for an account, and you're set. This will all change once the beta period ends, though.
:)
I'm also glad you will still pirate Half-Life when it costs like $15 in stores now. If you can't afford that, then get off the computer and get a job
I guess you didn't read the thread/forums/article, because you can do just that (buy the retail game in a box with a manual/disc)
You know, you don't have to buy the collector's/special editions of games/movies/whatever. No one's forcing you. The whole point of a special edition/limited edition is offering things the standard version doesn't have! That is why you're paying more.
Regarding HL2 for XBox having fees on top of the XBox Live fee -- very unlikely.
Regarding the one time cost -- the game's retail price is $50, just like numerous other new games out there.
Regarding the Steam network questions -- I'd imagine Valve will come up with some sort of "grace period", where you will be allowed to play for 24 hours or whatever without a network connection (as long as you already have the game fully cached or whatever.) This would make a lot of sense.
Why is this "Insightful" ?
It's already been stated that the subscription gives you access to all Valve games & mods (HL1/OpFor/BlueShift/TFC/CS) as well as future games and mods (TF2/CS2/HL3?)
Whether or not it's worth $9.95 a month or whatever is up to you.
Thanks, I did, and I gave my commentary on it. He's not changing the system or bucking the system or doing anything other than causing trouble for himself. He should have pressed any key and installed his Linux or whatever and been done with it.
Wow, that was a fast response.
I bought my Inspiron 8000 as soon as they became available, due to the GeForce2Go GPU. When I first got my laptop there were no problems; Windows ME came pre-installed and it was working fine. However, I discovered a few months into it that whenever I would connect AC power to the laptop (while running off batteries) the system would begin to "skip". That is, it will run smoothly for about 5 seconds, and then pause (mouse/keyboard input/display/everything)
I contacted Dell tech support and they told me to run the diagnostic tools that came with the laptop. So I did, and couldn't finish the diagnostic, but everything else checked out OK (there's a part where it tells you to push every key on the keyboard, and it would not acknowledge my volume/play/pause/etc. buttons, even though they worked fine in Windows) The Dell tech said that it sounds like I need to upgrade my BIOS. So I did just that (I believe A13 was the latest at the time.) Problem seemed to go away.
A few months later, the same exact issue is occurring, this time after upgrading the laptop to Windows XP (fresh install) and to a newer BIOS (I think A15 or something, because the website said it was required/certified for Win2k/XP) I contact tech support again and they inform me that my warranty is up (I only got the one year warranty) but are willing to work with me to try and figure out the problem. This tech assumes it's a problem with the keyboard controller (because I can't input while it's "pausing") I tell them that I don't think that's the problem, and they reply saying I most likely have a damaged motherboard and would have to have it replaced. I explained that there's no way the motherboard could have been damaged by myself, since the laptop has pretty much been in the same physical location ever since I got it (my desk in my home office) and that any damage occured would have been Dell's or UPS's fault. Tech support didn't really have an answer/reply for that, just said it would cost me probably $1k to get it all fixed. I downgraded my BIOS back to A13, and funnily enough the system started to work semi-properly again.
And now I still have the laptop at home. I updated to the latest BIOS (A22) when it came out a month or two ago, and can only use the laptop without any batteries loaded (just AC power) -- The moment I put in batteries while AC is connected, the unit freezes hard and must be restarted. Laptop can no longer run off of just batteries, as it "randomly" will freeze and drop input (just like it was doing when I originally got it.) Strangely enough, if I apply light physical pressure to the right underside of the laptop, that will sometimes "unfreeze" it. So I'm forced to use just AC power for now. I would roll back to BIOS A13, except for the fact that booting the laptop with AC/Floppy/Battery connected causes it to just show a flashing cursor on the screen and nothing else. No BIOS startup, nothing. (And the AC/battery combo is required to update the BIOS.) So I'm kinda screwed.
I've actually torn apart the laptop myself twice (I'm no newbie to dealing with hardware issues) to find any sort of damage or any sort of unset chip/connector to no avail. I even swapped out the memory with crucial sticks in case that was causing the problems (and since the memory is near the bottom right side of the laptop, I though perhaps it wasn't seating properly?) I also experimented with removing the MiniPCI card, thinking it could be that (again, on the right side of the laptop.) I'm at a loss to explain what is causing the problem, and just wish I could get it fixed.
I'm just overall not happy with how the situation was dealt with, I think the instant I had those problems Dell should have offered a replacement. I have friends who have ordered "newer" model Inspirons (like 8100 and 8500) and haven't had a single problem. I'm under the suspicion that Dell made a few booboos on the older models and didn't want to own up to it, or that tech support personnel were not properly educated or told about such problems. Searching the Delltalk forums, I've come across twenty or more cases just like mine with other Inspiron 8000 units. Maybe it's just some wacky conspiracy theory, but it's starting to not look like it more and more.
So basically you're saying he didn't have a valid license/CD to run Win98SE in the first place? How is this Windows' fault, or a PC's fault for that matter?
I still swear to this day that Dell shipped bad/faulty Inspiron 8000 laptops when they first came out, and have never pubically acknowledged it. I have a $3500 paperweight sitting at home.
Yeah, I don't see exactly how he's bucking the system on this one. If he has a problem with EULAs, handling it like this isn't the way to get that problem fixed.
He should have just hit any key, installed his Linux and been done with it. Now he's out of a laptop and has to deal with returning it.
What a shmuck.
Yeah, I think they missed the part where Romeo+Juliet is a TRAGEDY.