btw, this is a very defining moment in human civilization. Our energy consumption is finally being reined in by natural consequences of resource shortage and previous extravagance. I don't remember we've ever had to do this before.
Yeah, we did, temporarily.
In 1971, US oil production peaked. We actually used to supply most of our oil needs, which was one of the reasons we could out-perform so many other countries in manufacturing and industry. Once we couldn't increase production to meet demand, we found ourselves at the mercy of international oil interests. The decline after thepeak was temporarily offset by Prudhoe Bay and the Alaskan pipeline, but by 1984, even Alaskan oil production was in decline.
So, what did we do in the 1980s? Cars got smaller, people were forced to change their habits or pay through the nose to support them.
The rwaon why it was temporary was because the rest of the world (with unexploited oil) salivated over the high oil prices, and brought way more oil onto the market than they needed to. The oil market crashed for about a decade, and the price stayed pretty stable until around 2000.
But yes, this date is very important, because it's not just domestic oil that's down. According to several sources, world oil production has peaked. If they're right, oil will not come down temporarily again, and these high prices are here to stay (until we invent a new way of generating energy).
Take it from people and we can just adjust our metabolism, eat a tiny bit more, no big deal - most of us have plenty of spare energy available that we're not using.
No, you do not. Unless you are gaining weight EVERY SINGLE DAY, you do not have "spare energy."
If you maintain fairly stable body weight, your body is using every calorie you feed it. If you use extra energy, you will have to eat more. Since food isn't free, YOU are paying more for this "free" energy.
Yes, the energy is "free" to the property owner, because he doesn't have to pay the extra food costs directly. However, if people feel at-all inconvenienced by the new energy-absorbent flooring, they may decide to stop using said mass transit. This not only impacts ridership (impacting profits), but it also reduces overall efficiency, since the displaced riders will most likely find a less-efficient way to get around.
It looked promising, until I discovered that there was no way to change the refresh rate in fullscreen mode. 60 Hz sucks on a CRT, and it's bad form to relase a game that doesn't have such controls.
So, I decided to give up and play it in a window, which means lower performance. It also means that as soon as I try to clean the yard (the first task), my mouse cursor disappears, and never re-appears.
I uninstalled the demo and didn't look back. That's a real show-stopper bug for me.
Be aware that the memory that holds the physical GPU frame buffer is not allocated by the Kernel, just used. So on the first call to this, some or all of the memory you request (depending on now much you request) may be actually used as the frame buffer. You will know this, because your writes to memory will mysteriously disappear up to 20ms after you perform them. Note that direct access to video ram is very slow (~10MB/s).
If this link is correct, the maximum throughput into the framebuffer is a paltry 10MB/s, which isn't good enough for video at anywhere near HD resolutions. Or is this link incorrect?
So, what use is having a fast video decoder on the SPEs? You can't really make use of it for playback, because the hypervisor and framebuffer are holding you back. Until you find a PERMANANT hack for the RSX, you're SOL.
The SIMD performance of the PPC processor onboard Cell is very similar to that of Dothan and and Atom.
Atom: one 128-bit SIMD unit. Cell PPC: one 128-bit SIMD unit. Dothan: two 64-bit SIMD units, which can process one 128-bit SIMD instructions in two clocks.
Similar, all-around.
What Dothan will destroy both chips at is integer operations, because it can perform twice as many in a single clock cycle. Also, the fast, large cache of Dothan gives it an advantage in single-threaded code, where cache misses become more of a problem for the other two chips.
Overall, your estimate is good. I thought I's just add some detail.
Before Kazaa (temporarily) filled the shoes left empty by Napster, AudioGalaxy stepped up to the plate.
The web-based search system was great - you could check out songs, and queue them up for downloading. Of course, in a last-ditch effort to avoid being shut-down, they started filtering copyright content, which made finding said content harder. By that time, there were other services, so people left for greener pastures, and AudioGalaxy died.
I work for a Fortune 100 company, and they're finishing up the transition to Windows XP THIS WEEK. In fact, my PC is getting upgraded this evening.
We've been using Windows 2000 for 5 years now, and before that we used NT 4.0 for almost 6. Windows XP will be around in this office until 2012 at least.
The only reason why we upgraded, honestly, is because some newer applications had compatibility problems; Windows 2000 was a fine OS. Will Windows Vista force another upgrade on us? I'm not so certain. The application developers love the upgrade cycle, love to sell us new shit, but at the same time, it's hard to add value on to software that already works quite well.
In the end, it will probably be the memory barrier that forces us to upgrade more than anything else.
The Atom benefits hugely in multithreaded tests, where it can make use of HT to keep the pipeline full.
The single 128-bit SSE unit in the Atom compares favorably with the dual 64-bit SSE units in the Pentium M, which is why the Atom approaches performance parity with the similarly-clocked Dothan in the media tests (video, audio). The only processor to maintain a significant lead is the one with TWO 128-bit SSE units, the Celeron. Media performance is one place the Atom will not falter; it is very impressive for such a simple chip.
The processor does tend to fall behind in largely integer operations. As you might expect from the architecture, the Dothan is nearly twice as fast (has two integer pipelines), and the Core-based Celeron is even faster (two integer pipelines, improved cache and a beefed-up decoder). But, as I stated above, this is really amazing: Atom is keeping the pipeline full with nothing more than HyperThreading, or else you'd see a larger than 2x performance gap between it and the Dothan.
All-in-all, a very impressive chip that delivers on what the architecture promised.
Do we also get an increase in R/W speeds as the chip shrinks.
If so how much? Potential speed increase over magnetic disk could accelerate the payback for IO bound database applications.
Sure they do. The performance of flash is constricted by how long it takes to charge the cell.
Q=CV => Charge = Capacitance * Voltage
Translation: a higher voltage charges a given capacitance more quickly. A lower capacitance means you reduce the overall charge needed to get the cell into the "written" state you want. Thus, higher voltages or reduced capacitances for the cell can improve write speeds.
Since the voltage is largely fixed (it has to be high enough to program the cell, but you don't want it too high, or it will break down the gate oxide too quickly), you're left with changes in capacitance driving speed improvements. Luckily, the size of cells decreases with every process revision.
The capacitance of a cell is proportional to the area the cell takes up, much like other capacitors. So for every major process jump (130 -> 90 -> 65 -> 45 -> 32), you get approzimately half the capacitance. This means lower power usage, and faster write times (roughly double the speed).
That's pretty funny, I remember reading FuckedCompany daily during 2000-2001, watching the axe fall as I closed in on my graduation year. With a degree in ECE, I was not looking forward to my prospects, with the incredible dip the economy took in winter 2000.
But, as luck would have it, the defense industry weathered the storm, and gave me a job. I'm still working at the same firm; I've stayed because (surprise), I like the work I'm doing.
Basically: there's more to the world than internet startups, so the occasional really crazy/stupid ones that bleed cash don't really bother me anymore. Probably why FuckedCompany is gone, I know I stopped reading it after the industry crashed.
The Nano and Atom have similar FPU performance, as you would expect from their architecture. But the Nano has the edge on integer performance, with a very efficient out-of-order setup.
Still, the Nano at that clock speed has a TDP of 25w, and the Atom has a TDP of 2.5w. And yes, you can match them up purely on integer performance (1.3 GHz U-series Nano [8W] should equal a 1.8 Ghz Atom [2.5w]), but even then Intel has the TDP edge by a multiple of 3. This does not look good for Via.
Okay, you've got an extremely well thought-out position.
Now, face reality and sell it to the American people: convince them to pay more taxes to rebuild Iraq, because we certainly can't afford the deficits we're racking-up. Mind, do this while the country is slipping into the worst recession we've seen in 20 years. Be sure to make it plain to them that you have no idea how long it will take, and no, you cannot define quantatatively what the goal is, only qualitatively.
Still think they'll buy it? You talk about the people of Iraq having to learn to compromise, and yet you refuse to practice what you preach. "Stay the course" leaves no room for compromise, it simply means we maintain or increase our involvement at every turn.
No, we don't have to leave the country tomorrow, and yes I know, that will never happen; but until we make a move, ANY move, to reduce our involvement, as far as most people are concerned the war isn't over.
Why aren't we slowly pulling out? Why are we still surging in? And please, do tell me how you convince Americans that bleeding 500 billion dollars (with the 1 trillion mark in-sight) is worthwhile, just so we can feel better about the country we invaded once and destroyed twice.
BTW, the real reason Iraq invaded Kuwait, According to Saddam himself, was because a Kuwaiti official described Iraqi women as ten dollar prostitutes or something like that.
I hope you're joking. The claims on Kuwait go back as far as the 1920s, and are mostly about control of the inlet and islands around Umm Qasr, Iraq's sole deep-water port. The Iran territorial disputes are also about shipping rights on the Shatt al-Arab.
My whole point is that Iraq's instability is partially caused by a lack of a stable conduit for commerce - they are completely dependent upon their neighbors to reach the outside world. When you consider how unstable their neighbors are, you begin to get a feel for WHY Iraq would fight wars over something like this.
Since we refuse to fix this problem, I doubt we can introduce stability into the region in any reasonable amount of time.
I think this is your problem: you are to proud to say "uncle."
If you don't have a plan, if you don't have a goal on paper, when exactly do you decide to leave the country? Politicians ask for definable goals because the "peace" costs money, and is increasingly difficult to justify. Minor rumblings have given way to major debate, as in the last year we have seen the "peace" in Iraq give way to full-block civil war, and have seen US troop involvement baloon with the "surge."
Let me lay it out to you why you should grow a pair of balls and learn to accept defeat: this isn't some cakewalk rebuilding plan. We went into a moderately urbanized country, which was really a civil war hotspot only kept in check by a despot. Even though we freed them, we destroyed infarstructure and govenment, and half the people want to slaughter us, which makes "winning the peace" all the more difficult.
People point to Japan and say "hey look, we rebuilt that!" Sure we did, but we did ourselves a HUGE favor by backing the emperor and stifling any hints of civil war. People are a lot easier to encourage and employ when they're not shooting/bombing each other (and you).
We'll never be able to do that with Iraq, because the civil unrest is ingrained in the lifeblood of the people. The region hasn't seen a stable government and prosperity for more than a decade in the entire 20th century. The country has always been in dispuite with their powerful neighbors, and has always felt an inferiority complex over the lack of a seaport (the real reason why they want Kuwait). Numerous wars and civil movements have driven out all but the hard-core demographics, which means that only the strong survived, and instead of a mess of different religions/mindsets, you have a few that are highly polarized.
That's why we need to pick up our ball and go home right now (or at least lay out a plan to do so), and leave the fighting to the people who can't stop fighting. Iraq isn't stable, and it never will be: you have to have a foundation for stability to grow, but unfortunately the country is built on sand:)
McCain has one of the most conservative voting records of anyone in the Senate but somehow people think he's a moderate
He got this label back in the 2000 election, simply because that's what he sold himself as. He became an underdog candidate of little importance (overwhelmed by Bush), and was never called out on the issue, and so the image stuck.
With the image he created back in 2000, I was considering voting for him that year; but now that I know what he really stands for, I wouldn't touch him with a 10 foot pole. Watching him toe the party line for the last year has erased any urge I had to vote McCain.
Yeah, the voting record has been there the whole time, but the image was created before the voting record was brought into the limelight. Luckily, they cannot downplay he insistence on staying the course with the war, so at least that gets the coverage it deserves.
I have to agree - you have tradeoffs with the Mac Mini.
First of all, if you load up all four USB ports, it non-longer looks graceful; it looks like a spider spewing web over my desk.
Second, I have to agree on the lack of expandability and low-power USB: I've had to add an external USB hard drive to get the capacity I crave, and I've had to add a USB powered hub in order for the Mini to recognize my USB laser printer. I don't even TRY gaming on it, because I know how that will end up.
Reality: the Mini is a nice machine, and I do not regret my purchase. However, it has several caveats that come with the design, so that it's not the best choice for a lot of people.
See here for more explanation. They are a necessary evil on phone lines, unless you complerely re-engineer the line for higher frequencies.
The other big problem that nobody wants to talk about is this: how can you assume you even have 4 kHz of useful bandwidth to work with, let alone 25 kHz? Modern 56k modems have trouble even connecting at 56k on rural phone lines, simply because the lines suck.
The fact is, if the line cannot support more than 4 kHz, you cannot increase download speeds. The download on 56k modems is already digital without overhead, and is already at the shannon limit.
At that low power production, the motherbboard itself will act as a good enough heatsink. What do you think draws the heat away from all the other low-power passive-cooled components on the motherboard?
And I think people are confused: hell yes they're giving the motherboard an advantage by keeping it out in the open. The air currents inside any normal room will be more than enough to keep that board cool.
The problem comes when you shove the board inside a box with no active cooling. The natural air currents in the room cannot remove the air from the closed case, so the system overheats. YES, you get more efficient cooling when you pair active cooling with a closed case, but this test does not use active cooling, so a closed case would only be a detriment.
I dunno. I've beaten all of the first three DQ games, but I've never finished DQ4.
The thing that always bothered me about DQ4 was, after all the cool storylines and meeting the characters, they essentially become robots. Once they join your party, the development is almost nil, which changes the game flow significantly. Also, once you're dependent on the AI to control your party, the game feels shallow.
I'd like it if they'd made AI combat an OPTION, but unfortunately it's mandatory, and it sucks. Hmmm, somehow I'm not at all excited about this release.
I never said that, i said you can't compare 2 laptops with completely different features.
No, you didn't. You said:
Its then clear that if you start adding stuff to the Macbook the price goes WAY up, but if you compare the standard line to other notebooks they compare favorably.
Which basically translates to this: you personally think the following advantages of the Dell (no upgrades) are not avantageous:
8400GS 3GB memory 320GB hard drive Real DVD writer Lower price by several hundred dollars
Because, ortherwise, you'd have to admit that the standard line DOES NOT cpmpare favorably. What this tells us is you don't like the idea of getting MUCH more memory, a MUCH better video chipset (literally 3-5x faster, depending on the game), a larger hard drive, a real DVD writer, and a lower price.
The only features you focus on:
802.11n DVI single-link (with adapter purchase) Integrated webcam
don't seem to apppeal to that many people here, or can be purchased for very little extra.
Faster wireless is nice, but you're only going to max that connection speed out on your home network, and only if you transfer lots of files. Oh, and only if you buy a brand-new wireless router, which currently has a high price premium (but I guess apple nuts are used to this). This is also a cheap upgrade on the Dell.
DVI is nice, but you still pay extra for the adapter, and thanks to the pitiful GMA 950, you can't support 30" screens! OH NOES, HOW COULD APPLE DO SUCH A THING! You might use such a feature, but all the people I know with Mac laptops never use them with external screens anyway, so I'm not sure how much utility this offers.
A webcam is nice, if you like webcams. You would be surprised how few people actually use them, now that cellphone video cameras are everywhere. Let me put it this way: Apple was not the first laptop builder to put webcams on their laptops standard; most people used to balk at the feature, and Apple fans used to dismiss them. But now that Apple puts them standard on all laptops, GLORY BEHOLD! All Apple nuts automagically love them and can't live without them, even if they never actually use them. This is also a cheap upgrade on the Dell.
Stop playing favorites. So what if you have to pay a few dollars more to get 802.11n, a webcam and bluetooth; the cost is still much less than the Mac standard. So what if you can't get DVI in any configuration on the Dell? You can't get REAL discrete graphics on the Macbook, even if you buy the shiny overpriced black version.
Would you give up all of the feature AND price advantages on the Dell just to have a single-link DVI port? Really?
Yup, the maximum resolution of the GMA 950 is 2048x1536.
It's pretty sad that the drivers explicitly limit the horizontal resolution to 2048 pixels, rather than limiting resolution based on maximum RAMDAC bandwidth. The bandwidth requirements for 2560x1024, for example, are less than 2048x1536.
The reason it can't support higher resolutions digitally is because the DVI port is single-link.
When the RISC was "invented" the CPU was the bottleneck. Therefore making it simpler could make it faster (MHz, pipeline,...) and that way speed up the computation.
This is no longer true, now the bottleneck is memory.
I'd also make the claim that single-threaded performance is a bottleneck.
Designers wowed us in the 1980s and early 90s with fully-pipelined designs that approached an IPC of 1. This gave you double or more performance over non-pipelined architectures. Even Intel surprised the world with the fully-pipelined 486, proving to the world that you could indeed pipeline a CISC architecture.
Then designers pulled more rabbits out of their hats and added out-of-order execution, which increased IPC to 2-3 instructions per cycle, and deeper pipelines, which decreased cycle time. But the end of the "free lunch" was already foretold by that point: out-of-order execution increased the complexity of the CPU core immensely, increasing exponentially (more register ports, more rename registers, beefier decoders) with every additional dispatch unit. High-speed pipelined designs required fast caches, exotic branch predictors, and SMT to make sure the pipes were kept fed.
Over the last 10 years, if you discount SIMD, the instructions per cycle has increased very little - Core2 is the first processor in years to improve IPC, and it is only a small improvement. Yes, you see a big improvement with SIMD, but that's explicitly-parallelized code, not regular single-threaded x86; large swaths of single-threaded code just won't benefit from SIMD.
Today, the only way to grow is by adding more cores, which means single-threaded processing improvements are at a stand-still. Sure, you'll see improvements, but not the huge increases seen in previous decades.
In the Games Explorer, for many games you can see their minimum required Experience Index, and their recommended Experience Index. At least that's a first step.
What good does that do you? Today, the metric works, but tomorrow, it may be be off by a small or large amount, depending on how the industry moves.
The truth is the performance metric needs to be able to change, because the features and performance balance of games change.
Example: in just the last three years, we've moved from pixel shader 2.0 to 2.0b/3.0 to 4.0. These are non-negotiable features in many games, and a test that only covered pixel shader 2.0 would be a poor judge of modern game performance. There may also be certain features game developers want to highlight, like HDR, levels of anistropic filtering or anti-aliasing; if the benchmark does not grow to meet these requirements, the benchmark loses it's meaning.
Also, in the past three years, the balance of texture and shader operations has shifted, with games moving to using more shader ops than texture ops. An older benchmark that stresses texture operations would not give a realistic picture of how modern games may play on a modern video card.
What we need has already been suggested in this thread: a yearly benchmark that gets updated as performance targets increase and game features improve. I really liked a suggestion above where they partitiion the market into two simple categories: Basic and Performance. So,for 2008, your PC would either have (1) no sticker, (2) a 2008 Basic Gaming sticker, or (3) A 2008 Performance Gaming sticker.
This would make determing system requirements easy; here is an example:
MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Windows XP/Vista with the following hardware stickers
2007 or later Basic Gaming 2005 or later Performance Gaming
RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
2007 or later Performance Gaming
WOW, that was EASY! Unfortunately, getting vendors and OEMs to agree on something that easy to use will be almost impossible. Major OEMs love to confuse their customers, because the uninformed will keep buying PCs from the major OEMs.
Slashdot Mirror
btw, this is a very defining moment in human civilization. Our energy consumption is finally being reined in by natural consequences of resource shortage and previous extravagance. I don't remember we've ever had to do this before.
Yeah, we did, temporarily.
In 1971, US oil production peaked. We actually used to supply most of our oil needs, which was one of the reasons we could out-perform so many other countries in manufacturing and industry. Once we couldn't increase production to meet demand, we found ourselves at the mercy of international oil interests. The decline after thepeak was temporarily offset by Prudhoe Bay and the Alaskan pipeline, but by 1984, even Alaskan oil production was in decline.
So, what did we do in the 1980s? Cars got smaller, people were forced to change their habits or pay through the nose to support them.
The rwaon why it was temporary was because the rest of the world (with unexploited oil) salivated over the high oil prices, and brought way more oil onto the market than they needed to. The oil market crashed for about a decade, and the price stayed pretty stable until around 2000.
But yes, this date is very important, because it's not just domestic oil that's down. According to several sources, world oil production has peaked. If they're right, oil will not come down temporarily again, and these high prices are here to stay (until we invent a new way of generating energy).
Take it from people and we can just adjust our metabolism, eat a tiny bit more, no big deal - most of us have plenty of spare energy available that we're not using.
No, you do not. Unless you are gaining weight EVERY SINGLE DAY, you do not have "spare energy."
If you maintain fairly stable body weight, your body is using every calorie you feed it. If you use extra energy, you will have to eat more. Since food isn't free, YOU are paying more for this "free" energy.
Yes, the energy is "free" to the property owner, because he doesn't have to pay the extra food costs directly. However, if people feel at-all inconvenienced by the new energy-absorbent flooring, they may decide to stop using said mass transit. This not only impacts ridership (impacting profits), but it also reduces overall efficiency, since the displaced riders will most likely find a less-efficient way to get around.
It looked promising, until I discovered that there was no way to change the refresh rate in fullscreen mode. 60 Hz sucks on a CRT, and it's bad form to relase a game that doesn't have such controls.
So, I decided to give up and play it in a window, which means lower performance. It also means that as soon as I try to clean the yard (the first task), my mouse cursor disappears, and never re-appears.
I uninstalled the demo and didn't look back. That's a real show-stopper bug for me.
I was under the impression that the upper limit of video performance in PS3 linux is not user-accessable, because it depends on the hypervisor (which runs on one SPE):
Be aware that the memory that holds the physical GPU frame buffer is not allocated by the Kernel, just used. So on the first call to this, some or all of the memory you request (depending on now much you request) may be actually used as the frame buffer. You will know this, because your writes to memory will mysteriously disappear up to 20ms after you perform them. Note that direct access to video ram is very slow (~10MB/s).
If this link is correct, the maximum throughput into the framebuffer is a paltry 10MB/s, which isn't good enough for video at anywhere near HD resolutions. Or is this link incorrect?
So, what use is having a fast video decoder on the SPEs? You can't really make use of it for playback, because the hypervisor and framebuffer are holding you back. Until you find a PERMANANT hack for the RSX, you're SOL.
The SIMD performance of the PPC processor onboard Cell is very similar to that of Dothan and and Atom.
Atom: one 128-bit SIMD unit.
Cell PPC: one 128-bit SIMD unit.
Dothan: two 64-bit SIMD units, which can process one 128-bit SIMD instructions in two clocks.
Similar, all-around.
What Dothan will destroy both chips at is integer operations, because it can perform twice as many in a single clock cycle. Also, the fast, large cache of Dothan gives it an advantage in single-threaded code, where cache misses become more of a problem for the other two chips.
Overall, your estimate is good. I thought I's just add some detail.
Before Kazaa (temporarily) filled the shoes left empty by Napster, AudioGalaxy stepped up to the plate.
The web-based search system was great - you could check out songs, and queue them up for downloading. Of course, in a last-ditch effort to avoid being shut-down, they started filtering copyright content, which made finding said content harder. By that time, there were other services, so people left for greener pastures, and AudioGalaxy died.
For giving us this CG depection of theft, because it encorages crimes againt casinos? OR maybe we should arrest him for doing it again, and again, ad-nauseum?
Really, what kind of bullshit justification is this?
I work for a Fortune 100 company, and they're finishing up the transition to Windows XP THIS WEEK. In fact, my PC is getting upgraded this evening.
We've been using Windows 2000 for 5 years now, and before that we used NT 4.0 for almost 6. Windows XP will be around in this office until 2012 at least.
The only reason why we upgraded, honestly, is because some newer applications had compatibility problems; Windows 2000 was a fine OS. Will Windows Vista force another upgrade on us? I'm not so certain. The application developers love the upgrade cycle, love to sell us new shit, but at the same time, it's hard to add value on to software that already works quite well.
In the end, it will probably be the memory barrier that forces us to upgrade more than anything else.
The Atom benefits hugely in multithreaded tests, where it can make use of HT to keep the pipeline full.
The single 128-bit SSE unit in the Atom compares favorably with the dual 64-bit SSE units in the Pentium M, which is why the Atom approaches performance parity with the similarly-clocked Dothan in the media tests (video, audio). The only processor to maintain a significant lead is the one with TWO 128-bit SSE units, the Celeron. Media performance is one place the Atom will not falter; it is very impressive for such a simple chip.
The processor does tend to fall behind in largely integer operations. As you might expect from the architecture, the Dothan is nearly twice as fast (has two integer pipelines), and the Core-based Celeron is even faster (two integer pipelines, improved cache and a beefed-up decoder). But, as I stated above, this is really amazing: Atom is keeping the pipeline full with nothing more than HyperThreading, or else you'd see a larger than 2x performance gap between it and the Dothan.
All-in-all, a very impressive chip that delivers on what the architecture promised.
Do we also get an increase in R/W speeds as the chip shrinks.
If so how much? Potential speed increase over magnetic disk could accelerate the payback for IO bound database applications.
Sure they do. The performance of flash is constricted by how long it takes to charge the cell.
Q=CV => Charge = Capacitance * Voltage
Translation: a higher voltage charges a given capacitance more quickly. A lower capacitance means you reduce the overall charge needed to get the cell into the "written" state you want. Thus, higher voltages or reduced capacitances for the cell can improve write speeds.
Since the voltage is largely fixed (it has to be high enough to program the cell, but you don't want it too high, or it will break down the gate oxide too quickly), you're left with changes in capacitance driving speed improvements. Luckily, the size of cells decreases with every process revision.
The capacitance of a cell is proportional to the area the cell takes up, much like other capacitors. So for every major process jump (130 -> 90 -> 65 -> 45 -> 32), you get approzimately half the capacitance. This means lower power usage, and faster write times (roughly double the speed).
That's pretty funny, I remember reading FuckedCompany daily during 2000-2001, watching the axe fall as I closed in on my graduation year. With a degree in ECE, I was not looking forward to my prospects, with the incredible dip the economy took in winter 2000.
But, as luck would have it, the defense industry weathered the storm, and gave me a job. I'm still working at the same firm; I've stayed because (surprise), I like the work I'm doing.
Basically: there's more to the world than internet startups, so the occasional really crazy/stupid ones that bleed cash don't really bother me anymore. Probably why FuckedCompany is gone, I know I stopped reading it after the industry crashed.
Have a look.
The Nano and Atom have similar FPU performance, as you would expect from their architecture. But the Nano has the edge on integer performance, with a very efficient out-of-order setup.
Still, the Nano at that clock speed has a TDP of 25w, and the Atom has a TDP of 2.5w. And yes, you can match them up purely on integer performance (1.3 GHz U-series Nano [8W] should equal a 1.8 Ghz Atom [2.5w]), but even then Intel has the TDP edge by a multiple of 3. This does not look good for Via.
Okay, you've got an extremely well thought-out position.
Now, face reality and sell it to the American people: convince them to pay more taxes to rebuild Iraq, because we certainly can't afford the deficits we're racking-up. Mind, do this while the country is slipping into the worst recession we've seen in 20 years. Be sure to make it plain to them that you have no idea how long it will take, and no, you cannot define quantatatively what the goal is, only qualitatively.
Still think they'll buy it? You talk about the people of Iraq having to learn to compromise, and yet you refuse to practice what you preach. "Stay the course" leaves no room for compromise, it simply means we maintain or increase our involvement at every turn.
No, we don't have to leave the country tomorrow, and yes I know, that will never happen; but until we make a move, ANY move, to reduce our involvement, as far as most people are concerned the war isn't over.
Why aren't we slowly pulling out? Why are we still surging in? And please, do tell me how you convince Americans that bleeding 500 billion dollars (with the 1 trillion mark in-sight) is worthwhile, just so we can feel better about the country we invaded once and destroyed twice.
BTW, the real reason Iraq invaded Kuwait, According to Saddam himself, was because a Kuwaiti official described Iraqi women as ten dollar prostitutes or something like that.
I hope you're joking. The claims on Kuwait go back as far as the 1920s, and are mostly about control of the inlet and islands around Umm Qasr, Iraq's sole deep-water port. The Iran territorial disputes are also about shipping rights on the Shatt al-Arab.
My whole point is that Iraq's instability is partially caused by a lack of a stable conduit for commerce - they are completely dependent upon their neighbors to reach the outside world. When you consider how unstable their neighbors are, you begin to get a feel for WHY Iraq would fight wars over something like this.
Since we refuse to fix this problem, I doubt we can introduce stability into the region in any reasonable amount of time.
I think this is your problem: you are to proud to say "uncle."
:)
If you don't have a plan, if you don't have a goal on paper, when exactly do you decide to leave the country? Politicians ask for definable goals because the "peace" costs money, and is increasingly difficult to justify. Minor rumblings have given way to major debate, as in the last year we have seen the "peace" in Iraq give way to full-block civil war, and have seen US troop involvement baloon with the "surge."
Let me lay it out to you why you should grow a pair of balls and learn to accept defeat: this isn't some cakewalk rebuilding plan. We went into a moderately urbanized country, which was really a civil war hotspot only kept in check by a despot. Even though we freed them, we destroyed infarstructure and govenment, and half the people want to slaughter us, which makes "winning the peace" all the more difficult.
People point to Japan and say "hey look, we rebuilt that!" Sure we did, but we did ourselves a HUGE favor by backing the emperor and stifling any hints of civil war. People are a lot easier to encourage and employ when they're not shooting/bombing each other (and you).
We'll never be able to do that with Iraq, because the civil unrest is ingrained in the lifeblood of the people. The region hasn't seen a stable government and prosperity for more than a decade in the entire 20th century. The country has always been in dispuite with their powerful neighbors, and has always felt an inferiority complex over the lack of a seaport (the real reason why they want Kuwait). Numerous wars and civil movements have driven out all but the hard-core demographics, which means that only the strong survived, and instead of a mess of different religions/mindsets, you have a few that are highly polarized.
That's why we need to pick up our ball and go home right now (or at least lay out a plan to do so), and leave the fighting to the people who can't stop fighting. Iraq isn't stable, and it never will be: you have to have a foundation for stability to grow, but unfortunately the country is built on sand
Getting from Slashdot to The Center of the Universe is just that easy! Pretty interesting: we use Apple and Islam to get there.
McCain has one of the most conservative voting records of anyone in the Senate but somehow people think he's a moderate
He got this label back in the 2000 election, simply because that's what he sold himself as. He became an underdog candidate of little importance (overwhelmed by Bush), and was never called out on the issue, and so the image stuck.
With the image he created back in 2000, I was considering voting for him that year; but now that I know what he really stands for, I wouldn't touch him with a 10 foot pole. Watching him toe the party line for the last year has erased any urge I had to vote McCain.
Yeah, the voting record has been there the whole time, but the image was created before the voting record was brought into the limelight. Luckily, they cannot downplay he insistence on staying the course with the war, so at least that gets the coverage it deserves.
I have to agree - you have tradeoffs with the Mac Mini.
First of all, if you load up all four USB ports, it non-longer looks graceful; it looks like a spider spewing web over my desk.
Second, I have to agree on the lack of expandability and low-power USB: I've had to add an external USB hard drive to get the capacity I crave, and I've had to add a USB powered hub in order for the Mini to recognize my USB laser printer. I don't even TRY gaming on it, because I know how that will end up.
Reality: the Mini is a nice machine, and I do not regret my purchase. However, it has several caveats that come with the design, so that it's not the best choice for a lot of people.
See here for more explanation. They are a necessary evil on phone lines, unless you complerely re-engineer the line for higher frequencies.
The other big problem that nobody wants to talk about is this: how can you assume you even have 4 kHz of useful bandwidth to work with, let alone 25 kHz? Modern 56k modems have trouble even connecting at 56k on rural phone lines, simply because the lines suck.
The fact is, if the line cannot support more than 4 kHz, you cannot increase download speeds. The download on 56k modems is already digital without overhead, and is already at the shannon limit.
At that low power production, the motherbboard itself will act as a good enough heatsink. What do you think draws the heat away from all the other low-power passive-cooled components on the motherboard?
And I think people are confused: hell yes they're giving the motherboard an advantage by keeping it out in the open. The air currents inside any normal room will be more than enough to keep that board cool.
The problem comes when you shove the board inside a box with no active cooling. The natural air currents in the room cannot remove the air from the closed case, so the system overheats. YES, you get more efficient cooling when you pair active cooling with a closed case, but this test does not use active cooling, so a closed case would only be a detriment.
Really? That's awesome! I might actually buy this, then.
I remember every time I tried to play DQ4, I'd zoom through the first four chapters, but once I got to the clunky party in the fifth...meh.
I dunno. I've beaten all of the first three DQ games, but I've never finished DQ4.
The thing that always bothered me about DQ4 was, after all the cool storylines and meeting the characters, they essentially become robots. Once they join your party, the development is almost nil, which changes the game flow significantly. Also, once you're dependent on the AI to control your party, the game feels shallow.
I'd like it if they'd made AI combat an OPTION, but unfortunately it's mandatory, and it sucks. Hmmm, somehow I'm not at all excited about this release.
I never said that, i said you can't compare 2 laptops with completely different features.
No, you didn't. You said:
Its then clear that if you start adding stuff to the Macbook the price goes WAY up, but if you compare the standard line to other notebooks they compare favorably.
Which basically translates to this: you personally think the following advantages of the Dell (no upgrades) are not avantageous:
8400GS
3GB memory
320GB hard drive
Real DVD writer
Lower price by several hundred dollars
Because, ortherwise, you'd have to admit that the standard line DOES NOT cpmpare favorably. What this tells us is you don't like the idea of getting MUCH more memory, a MUCH better video chipset (literally 3-5x faster, depending on the game), a larger hard drive, a real DVD writer, and a lower price.
The only features you focus on:
802.11n
DVI single-link (with adapter purchase)
Integrated webcam
don't seem to apppeal to that many people here, or can be purchased for very little extra.
Faster wireless is nice, but you're only going to max that connection speed out on your home network, and only if you transfer lots of files. Oh, and only if you buy a brand-new wireless router, which currently has a high price premium (but I guess apple nuts are used to this). This is also a cheap upgrade on the Dell.
DVI is nice, but you still pay extra for the adapter, and thanks to the pitiful GMA 950, you can't support 30" screens! OH NOES, HOW COULD APPLE DO SUCH A THING! You might use such a feature, but all the people I know with Mac laptops never use them with external screens anyway, so I'm not sure how much utility this offers.
A webcam is nice, if you like webcams. You would be surprised how few people actually use them, now that cellphone video cameras are everywhere. Let me put it this way: Apple was not the first laptop builder to put webcams on their laptops standard; most people used to balk at the feature, and Apple fans used to dismiss them. But now that Apple puts them standard on all laptops, GLORY BEHOLD! All Apple nuts automagically love them and can't live without them, even if they never actually use them. This is also a cheap upgrade on the Dell.
Stop playing favorites. So what if you have to pay a few dollars more to get 802.11n, a webcam and bluetooth; the cost is still much less than the Mac standard. So what if you can't get DVI in any configuration on the Dell? You can't get REAL discrete graphics on the Macbook, even if you buy the shiny overpriced black version.
Would you give up all of the feature AND price advantages on the Dell just to have a single-link DVI port? Really?
Yup, the maximum resolution of the GMA 950 is 2048x1536.
It's pretty sad that the drivers explicitly limit the horizontal resolution to 2048 pixels, rather than limiting resolution based on maximum RAMDAC bandwidth. The bandwidth requirements for 2560x1024, for example, are less than 2048x1536.
The reason it can't support higher resolutions digitally is because the DVI port is single-link.
When the RISC was "invented" the CPU was the bottleneck. Therefore making it simpler could make it faster (MHz, pipeline, ...) and that way speed up the computation.
This is no longer true, now the bottleneck is memory.
I'd also make the claim that single-threaded performance is a bottleneck.
Designers wowed us in the 1980s and early 90s with fully-pipelined designs that approached an IPC of 1. This gave you double or more performance over non-pipelined architectures. Even Intel surprised the world with the fully-pipelined 486, proving to the world that you could indeed pipeline a CISC architecture.
Then designers pulled more rabbits out of their hats and added out-of-order execution, which increased IPC to 2-3 instructions per cycle, and deeper pipelines, which decreased cycle time. But the end of the "free lunch" was already foretold by that point: out-of-order execution increased the complexity of the CPU core immensely, increasing exponentially (more register ports, more rename registers, beefier decoders) with every additional dispatch unit. High-speed pipelined designs required fast caches, exotic branch predictors, and SMT to make sure the pipes were kept fed.
Over the last 10 years, if you discount SIMD, the instructions per cycle has increased very little - Core2 is the first processor in years to improve IPC, and it is only a small improvement. Yes, you see a big improvement with SIMD, but that's explicitly-parallelized code, not regular single-threaded x86; large swaths of single-threaded code just won't benefit from SIMD.
Today, the only way to grow is by adding more cores, which means single-threaded processing improvements are at a stand-still. Sure, you'll see improvements, but not the huge increases seen in previous decades.
In the Games Explorer, for many games you can see their minimum required Experience Index, and their recommended Experience Index. At least that's a first step.
What good does that do you? Today, the metric works, but tomorrow, it may be be off by a small or large amount, depending on how the industry moves.
The truth is the performance metric needs to be able to change, because the features and performance balance of games change.
Example: in just the last three years, we've moved from pixel shader 2.0 to 2.0b/3.0 to 4.0. These are non-negotiable features in many games, and a test that only covered pixel shader 2.0 would be a poor judge of modern game performance. There may also be certain features game developers want to highlight, like HDR, levels of anistropic filtering or anti-aliasing; if the benchmark does not grow to meet these requirements, the benchmark loses it's meaning.
Also, in the past three years, the balance of texture and shader operations has shifted, with games moving to using more shader ops than texture ops. An older benchmark that stresses texture operations would not give a realistic picture of how modern games may play on a modern video card.
What we need has already been suggested in this thread: a yearly benchmark that gets updated as performance targets increase and game features improve. I really liked a suggestion above where they partitiion the market into two simple categories: Basic and Performance. So,for 2008, your PC would either have (1) no sticker, (2) a 2008 Basic Gaming sticker, or (3) A 2008 Performance Gaming sticker.
This would make determing system requirements easy; here is an example:
MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Windows XP/Vista with the following hardware stickers
2007 or later Basic Gaming
2005 or later Performance Gaming
RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
2007 or later Performance Gaming
WOW, that was EASY! Unfortunately, getting vendors and OEMs to agree on something that easy to use will be almost impossible. Major OEMs love to confuse their customers, because the uninformed will keep buying PCs from the major OEMs.