Modern hard drives (even 7200RPM models) don't use a terribly large amount of power. Having both drives active at the same time would shorten battery life, yes, but not significantly.
You can set your drives up in software RAID right now without any trouble, if I'm not mistaken.
Laptop drives are available in 5400RPM (Up to 120GB) and 7200RPM (Up to 100GB). They are not low RPM, and have not been since 2002 or 2003 when the first 7200RPM drive was announced and released.
4200RPM drives are still available, but I'd wager are now quite a bit less popular since 5400RPM drives tend to cost the same.
I don't think it is so much a matter of people not wanting movies on such a small display, it's a matter of not wanting to pay so much for them. Here are my reasons why the PSP failed:
1) UMD movies cost way too much. They have no special features and are viewed on a very small screen, and people probably already own them. They should cost $10 or less.
2) Movie playing is crippled, both by overpriced memory cards that cost twice as much as other flash media, and by sony's arbitrary limits on resolutions (User-created videos can't run fullscreen because sony doesn't want them to).
3) The game library sucks. There are barely any games, most existing games are rehashes of existing PS2 games, and all games are overpriced.
Here is how Sony can fix each of the three:
1) Make UMDs cheap, or include them for free with DVDs.
2) Drop prices on memory sticks until they are in line with MMC and SD cards. There is no reason for a 1GB memory stick pro duo to cost twice as much as an SD card of the same capacity. In addition, remove all arbitrary limitations on permitted formats. Users should be able to encode their video at full screen resolution if they so choose.
3) The first step is to drop game prices by $10 to $20 each, accross the board. The second step is to drop the price further for games that are simply rehashes of PS2 games. The third step is to convince third party developers to put out games for the PSP. Sony may need to provide financial incentive to get developers to put out PSP games, such as discounts on licencing fees, or gauruntees that the game will sell X copies or Sony will compensate the developer. Something, anything.
It should also be pointed out that Nintendo's Play Yan brings a lot of the PSP's functionality to the DS, by allowing it to play pretty high quality videos on the DS (albeit at GBA resolution of 240x160), as well as MP3s, at a cost of about $50 US. The future for DS homebrew is also in better shape, because current homebrew solutions rely on hardware (the PassMe or equivalent) and Nintendo isn't doing anything to prevent it like Sony is. Yes, the PSP might have more power for homebrew stuff than the DS, but the point is moot since PSP homebrew specifically requires hardware that is no longer on sale.
Sony has made a string of bad decisions on the PSP, and now they're paying the price. They were too arrogant in thinking that people would put up with higher prices and silly restrictions.
Slow and hard to aim? That is what computers are for. The system knows where the the missile is, it knows it's trajectory, it knows it's own position and speed, it can probably know the wind speed and direction, why can't IT target by itself?
While I have no direct experience with doom 2 on the GBA, it is indeed a totally different engine. It was done by the same team as the one that did Duke Nukem 3D for the GBA, and they use that engine. Judging by screenshots it is indeed higher resolution and looks a lot better, but I have no idea how fast it runs.
Let's not forget consoles. At the very least the GameCube can account for a few million PowerPC chips, and since both the XBOX360 and the Playstation 3 feature PowerPC-based chips, that will put a few hundred million more PowerPC chips into the world.
It depends how you define PowerPC chip though. Both the 360's processor and the PS3's Cell processor use the PowerPC instruction set, but probably don't have "PowerPC" in the model number. I'd say they count, though, just like you would count x86 processors based on chips using the instruction set.
Yup, it needed a SuperFX chip to do it, and it still didn't have floor or ceiling textures, and all monster sprites only featured one angle instead of 8. But it did do it!
The GBA has, IIRC, a 32-bit ARM processor, but for whatever reason (No help like SuperFX? Bad programming) the GBA port of doom ran extremely slowly and pixel-doubled everything in addition to the GBA's low resolution screen. Not to mention the textures were lower resolution to begin with.
Of course, the GBA version wasn't actually a port. It was more of a rewrite, as it doesn't use the normal doom engine, but a new one designed to support the doom file formats. The same is probably true of the SNES version. But the point remains, there was doom on the SNES.
The 486 ran at 66 mHz and had the capability to create 3D texture maps. 16-bit consoles, which ran at 7 mHz, could not replicate a game as impressive-looking, innovative and as huge as Doom.
Except that's not true. Doom was ported to at least one 16-bit console, the SNES. It had its quirks, but it was undeniably Doom, and it was certainly a 16-bit console.
Going based on the totally non-scientific method of "how purdy teh games look", I'm going to guess that we're not going to see Quake 3 on the DS.
From what I understand the DS is somewhere along the lines of N64 caliber. Yes, it is true that Quake 1 ran nicely on the N64. But based on the graphical quality of N64 games, and what I've seen of DS games, I don't think it has the power for the Q3 engine.
That and I seem to recall the DS having rather limited texture memory.
Well, Quake 3 compiles for linux, and the dreamcast runs linux, so... shouldn't it just be a matter of recompiling? Or is dreamcast linux missing hardware acceleration?
EA also is a combination of three things when it comes to game development:
1) They have their own coders making games 2) They have child companies making games 3) They publish games for independant companies
In at least the first situation they are an indie developer in the grandparent's terms.. They are a company, owned by no-one, creating their own games.
I agree that when they act as a publisher they're not acting as an independant developer. Because they're then acting as a publisher. But you have to keep in mind that in addition to publishing games for other companies they DO write their own stuff directly. They even have a development studio a few blocks away from where I am right now in downtown Montreal, where several hundred (Up to a thousand now?) employees toil away.
Certainly, though, I am not making any judgement on if they qualify as an independant developer. I'm just pointing out that they are not ONLY a publisher.
Would it be better? Well, it would certain be more honest. However, Microsoft needs to put a bit more into the core package to make it useful. Perhaps something as simple as bundling a memory unit with it would be enough to make it viable. Without it, the cost of actually playing games on the core package (and saving them) is a lot closer to the $400 package.
Penny-arcade put it well when they claimed that the $300 unit is an illusion, because the cost of bringing it up to a useful state (being able to save) takes it a lot closer to the $400 unit.
But this isn't about comparing the 360 to a PC, it is about comparing the core package to the $400 package, and if the $300 package is actually useful. IIRC the Microsoft memory card is something like $40 or $50 US, which takes the $300 package a lot closer to the $400 package. I doubt we'll see any third party memory cards any time soon.
The question is if the market will bear a $400 console. I don't think it will, and I think Microsoft is going to be forced to backtrack a bit and offer a bit more in their core ($300) offering.
Don't mistake my statements for an anti-microsoft statement, because I'm not against the 360. I just think Microsoft is making some big mistakes that could cost the 360 the market.
IIRC, Microsoft's memory cards cost something like $40 or $50 US. People will buy them, taking them pretty darned close to the $400 package just from a single memory card alone. Even the casual gamers need memory cards.
My point is that if EVERYBODY needs a memory card, and it raises the price by so much (and so much closer to the $400 package), then the $300 package is sort of useless even for the casual late-adopting masses, no?
I'm convinced that Microsoft is going to be forced to revamp their packaged offerings quite quickly. If not right away, then certainly about the time of the PS3's release.
everyone knows that a 250 watt compusa generic brand works for just as good
Please sir, never build a computer yourself.
The sad truth is that the quality of power supplies IS dependant on how much money you spend. First of all, 250w is simply not enough to power a demanding computer. When the processor alone draws up to 130w (Pentium 4) and each of the two videocards draws 80w (GeForce 7800 GTX), just the CPU and videocards alone are already drawing 290w at peak. Don't forget the motherboard, hard drives, sound card, and all other peripherals and cards.
So, now that we've established that 250w isn't enough, even if it WAS enough, why wouldn't a generic PSU work? Well, because the cheaper you go, the shiftier the manufacturers get with their wattage claims. Yes, that generic power supply can hit 250w. At room temperature. However, with the heat inside a PSU usually closer to 40c to 50c, the cheap PSU can only provide a fraction of their rating. Not to mention that the power from the generic PSU isn't going to be nearly as clean, or nearly as close to the desired voltages on the rails. And cheapo PSUs are unreliable too; they have a way higher failure rate than higher quality PSUs. I blew out 4 cheap PSUs in a 2 year period due to my houses's less than optimal power quality before I finally got a good quality Antec. It has lasted another 2 years without issue.
The general rule of thumb for the quality of a power supply is the weight. The heavier the power supply, generally, the higher quality. Compare a 300w generic power supply to a 300w "premium" power supply, and the better quality one weighs about twice as much. There is a reason for this, better internal cooling and a heck of a lot more internal components.
Almost plausible that you might nead it, maybe. But this power supply isn't the right way to get it. It outputs 1000w, and draws 1400w. At peak that is. That is an efficiency of 71%, a hell of a lot worse than a good power supply with PFC. Overall a pretty big waste of power; I'd rather wait for another company to put out a 1kw power supply that isn't quite so inefficient.
It may be more than just fun, however. Some of it is actually deserved.
For example, out of the box, the $300 model can't save games. It doesn't have a hard drive, and it doesn't have a memory card. Compared to the xbox 360, this is most definately not BetterThanLastTime. The gist of the interview seems to be that the xbox 360 is, oddly enough, not designed for gamers.
Personally I think that every single person who buys the $300 package is going to realize they can't save, become annoyed, and purchase a memory card. If every single person is going to get annoyed and buy one, why not include one with the unit and save annoying customers?
There are many such things that are wrong with the useless $300 package. It looks to me like Microsoft is ignoring gamers (Or at least giving gamers second-seat) in favour of targeting the (possibly) broader "home entertainment appliance" market. I think this will backfire, especially with the more recent news that the PS3's "high" price might be $299, underpricing Microsoft's only out-of-box-useful package.
Re:This could be a really inconvenient to employee
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This is true, however it is difficult to explain where the other $10,000 dollars in the price comes from. You would expect that to take the parts of 16 access points and put (some) of them onto one large PCB would cost a lot less than 16 seperate devices with all the redundant hardware that entails.
Of course, does BT really need to support 1000 people per phone box?
Re:This could be a really inconvenient to employee
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I don't pretend to know the FCC regulations, especially because I'm not in the US. But I'd suspect that, for one thing, the power limits are per frequency. This device uses 16 different frequencies, 8 on the 2.4ghz section and 8 on 5ghz.
Also keep in mind that home routers like those from Linksys are WAY under the FCC limits. You could probably pump up the juice by several times before you hit the FCC limits.
Re:This could be a really inconvenient to employee
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You misunderstand. My figures were for 16 access points all in one spot. You only need one cable run to get to the cluster, from there you have the 15 cheap 3 foot (or shorter) cables. Don't forget, each of these $100 access points are also 4-port switches.
One thing I might have overlooked is the cost of 16 unidirectional antennas, then you'd have the exact equivalent, hardware wise, to this $12000 solution. Maybe toss in the money for an enclosure of some kind for the 16 access points.
About the only advantage the $12000 solution has is that it is probably less work to configure. It is up to you if that justifies the 6x cost from the do-it-yourself solution that is equivalent virtually all other respects.
Do most people really need 120 GB hard drive? Not really, in my opinion,
Which is why this matters more for smaller drives. Take notebook drives as an example. 5400RPM drives top out at 120GB, and for a small fortune, might I add. If you want to go 7200RPM in a notebook, 100GB is the largest available, and it'll set you back something like $440 USD. Perpendicular recording has the potential to significantly bring down notebook drive cost-per-gig. Not to mention the benefits for 1.8" and 1" drives.
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Modern hard drives (even 7200RPM models) don't use a terribly large amount of power. Having both drives active at the same time would shorten battery life, yes, but not significantly.
You can set your drives up in software RAID right now without any trouble, if I'm not mistaken.
Laptop drives are available in 5400RPM (Up to 120GB) and 7200RPM (Up to 100GB). They are not low RPM, and have not been since 2002 or 2003 when the first 7200RPM drive was announced and released.
4200RPM drives are still available, but I'd wager are now quite a bit less popular since 5400RPM drives tend to cost the same.
I don't think it is so much a matter of people not wanting movies on such a small display, it's a matter of not wanting to pay so much for them. Here are my reasons why the PSP failed:
1) UMD movies cost way too much. They have no special features and are viewed on a very small screen, and people probably already own them. They should cost $10 or less.
2) Movie playing is crippled, both by overpriced memory cards that cost twice as much as other flash media, and by sony's arbitrary limits on resolutions (User-created videos can't run fullscreen because sony doesn't want them to).
3) The game library sucks. There are barely any games, most existing games are rehashes of existing PS2 games, and all games are overpriced.
Here is how Sony can fix each of the three:
1) Make UMDs cheap, or include them for free with DVDs.
2) Drop prices on memory sticks until they are in line with MMC and SD cards. There is no reason for a 1GB memory stick pro duo to cost twice as much as an SD card of the same capacity. In addition, remove all arbitrary limitations on permitted formats. Users should be able to encode their video at full screen resolution if they so choose.
3) The first step is to drop game prices by $10 to $20 each, accross the board. The second step is to drop the price further for games that are simply rehashes of PS2 games. The third step is to convince third party developers to put out games for the PSP. Sony may need to provide financial incentive to get developers to put out PSP games, such as discounts on licencing fees, or gauruntees that the game will sell X copies or Sony will compensate the developer. Something, anything.
It should also be pointed out that Nintendo's Play Yan brings a lot of the PSP's functionality to the DS, by allowing it to play pretty high quality videos on the DS (albeit at GBA resolution of 240x160), as well as MP3s, at a cost of about $50 US. The future for DS homebrew is also in better shape, because current homebrew solutions rely on hardware (the PassMe or equivalent) and Nintendo isn't doing anything to prevent it like Sony is. Yes, the PSP might have more power for homebrew stuff than the DS, but the point is moot since PSP homebrew specifically requires hardware that is no longer on sale.
Sony has made a string of bad decisions on the PSP, and now they're paying the price. They were too arrogant in thinking that people would put up with higher prices and silly restrictions.
Slow and hard to aim? That is what computers are for. The system knows where the the missile is, it knows it's trajectory, it knows it's own position and speed, it can probably know the wind speed and direction, why can't IT target by itself?
You know what else works? Bullets. But it seems that frickin' laser beams are preferrable. Oh well.
While I have no direct experience with doom 2 on the GBA, it is indeed a totally different engine. It was done by the same team as the one that did Duke Nukem 3D for the GBA, and they use that engine. Judging by screenshots it is indeed higher resolution and looks a lot better, but I have no idea how fast it runs.
Really? I recall the SNES version running at a decent framerate. Guess it's just the intervening years.
Let's not forget consoles. At the very least the GameCube can account for a few million PowerPC chips, and since both the XBOX360 and the Playstation 3 feature PowerPC-based chips, that will put a few hundred million more PowerPC chips into the world.
It depends how you define PowerPC chip though. Both the 360's processor and the PS3's Cell processor use the PowerPC instruction set, but probably don't have "PowerPC" in the model number. I'd say they count, though, just like you would count x86 processors based on chips using the instruction set.
Yup, it needed a SuperFX chip to do it, and it still didn't have floor or ceiling textures, and all monster sprites only featured one angle instead of 8. But it did do it!
The GBA has, IIRC, a 32-bit ARM processor, but for whatever reason (No help like SuperFX? Bad programming) the GBA port of doom ran extremely slowly and pixel-doubled everything in addition to the GBA's low resolution screen. Not to mention the textures were lower resolution to begin with.
Of course, the GBA version wasn't actually a port. It was more of a rewrite, as it doesn't use the normal doom engine, but a new one designed to support the doom file formats. The same is probably true of the SNES version. But the point remains, there was doom on the SNES.
Hard to top "You Don't Know Jack".
The 486 ran at 66 mHz and had the capability to create 3D texture maps. 16-bit consoles, which ran at 7 mHz, could not replicate a game as impressive-looking, innovative and as huge as Doom.
Except that's not true. Doom was ported to at least one 16-bit console, the SNES. It had its quirks, but it was undeniably Doom, and it was certainly a 16-bit console.
Going based on the totally non-scientific method of "how purdy teh games look", I'm going to guess that we're not going to see Quake 3 on the DS.
From what I understand the DS is somewhere along the lines of N64 caliber. Yes, it is true that Quake 1 ran nicely on the N64. But based on the graphical quality of N64 games, and what I've seen of DS games, I don't think it has the power for the Q3 engine.
That and I seem to recall the DS having rather limited texture memory.
Well, Quake 3 compiles for linux, and the dreamcast runs linux, so... shouldn't it just be a matter of recompiling? Or is dreamcast linux missing hardware acceleration?
EA also is a combination of three things when it comes to game development:
1) They have their own coders making games
2) They have child companies making games
3) They publish games for independant companies
In at least the first situation they are an indie developer in the grandparent's terms.. They are a company, owned by no-one, creating their own games.
I agree that when they act as a publisher they're not acting as an independant developer. Because they're then acting as a publisher. But you have to keep in mind that in addition to publishing games for other companies they DO write their own stuff directly. They even have a development studio a few blocks away from where I am right now in downtown Montreal, where several hundred (Up to a thousand now?) employees toil away.
Certainly, though, I am not making any judgement on if they qualify as an independant developer. I'm just pointing out that they are not ONLY a publisher.
Would it be better? Well, it would certain be more honest. However, Microsoft needs to put a bit more into the core package to make it useful. Perhaps something as simple as bundling a memory unit with it would be enough to make it viable. Without it, the cost of actually playing games on the core package (and saving them) is a lot closer to the $400 package.
Penny-arcade put it well when they claimed that the $300 unit is an illusion, because the cost of bringing it up to a useful state (being able to save) takes it a lot closer to the $400 unit.
But this isn't about comparing the 360 to a PC, it is about comparing the core package to the $400 package, and if the $300 package is actually useful. IIRC the Microsoft memory card is something like $40 or $50 US, which takes the $300 package a lot closer to the $400 package. I doubt we'll see any third party memory cards any time soon.
The question is if the market will bear a $400 console. I don't think it will, and I think Microsoft is going to be forced to backtrack a bit and offer a bit more in their core ($300) offering.
Don't mistake my statements for an anti-microsoft statement, because I'm not against the 360. I just think Microsoft is making some big mistakes that could cost the 360 the market.
IIRC, Microsoft's memory cards cost something like $40 or $50 US. People will buy them, taking them pretty darned close to the $400 package just from a single memory card alone. Even the casual gamers need memory cards.
My point is that if EVERYBODY needs a memory card, and it raises the price by so much (and so much closer to the $400 package), then the $300 package is sort of useless even for the casual late-adopting masses, no?
I'm convinced that Microsoft is going to be forced to revamp their packaged offerings quite quickly. If not right away, then certainly about the time of the PS3's release.
everyone knows that a 250 watt compusa generic brand works for just as good
Please sir, never build a computer yourself.
The sad truth is that the quality of power supplies IS dependant on how much money you spend. First of all, 250w is simply not enough to power a demanding computer. When the processor alone draws up to 130w (Pentium 4) and each of the two videocards draws 80w (GeForce 7800 GTX), just the CPU and videocards alone are already drawing 290w at peak. Don't forget the motherboard, hard drives, sound card, and all other peripherals and cards.
So, now that we've established that 250w isn't enough, even if it WAS enough, why wouldn't a generic PSU work? Well, because the cheaper you go, the shiftier the manufacturers get with their wattage claims. Yes, that generic power supply can hit 250w. At room temperature. However, with the heat inside a PSU usually closer to 40c to 50c, the cheap PSU can only provide a fraction of their rating. Not to mention that the power from the generic PSU isn't going to be nearly as clean, or nearly as close to the desired voltages on the rails. And cheapo PSUs are unreliable too; they have a way higher failure rate than higher quality PSUs. I blew out 4 cheap PSUs in a 2 year period due to my houses's less than optimal power quality before I finally got a good quality Antec. It has lasted another 2 years without issue.
The general rule of thumb for the quality of a power supply is the weight. The heavier the power supply, generally, the higher quality. Compare a 300w generic power supply to a 300w "premium" power supply, and the better quality one weighs about twice as much. There is a reason for this, better internal cooling and a heck of a lot more internal components.
Almost plausible that you might nead it, maybe. But this power supply isn't the right way to get it. It outputs 1000w, and draws 1400w. At peak that is. That is an efficiency of 71%, a hell of a lot worse than a good power supply with PFC. Overall a pretty big waste of power; I'd rather wait for another company to put out a 1kw power supply that isn't quite so inefficient.
Assuming that Windows even uses MD5, it probably uses a salt in the hashes.
It may be more than just fun, however. Some of it is actually deserved.
For example, out of the box, the $300 model can't save games. It doesn't have a hard drive, and it doesn't have a memory card. Compared to the xbox 360, this is most definately not BetterThanLastTime. The gist of the interview seems to be that the xbox 360 is, oddly enough, not designed for gamers.
Personally I think that every single person who buys the $300 package is going to realize they can't save, become annoyed, and purchase a memory card. If every single person is going to get annoyed and buy one, why not include one with the unit and save annoying customers?
There are many such things that are wrong with the useless $300 package. It looks to me like Microsoft is ignoring gamers (Or at least giving gamers second-seat) in favour of targeting the (possibly) broader "home entertainment appliance" market. I think this will backfire, especially with the more recent news that the PS3's "high" price might be $299, underpricing Microsoft's only out-of-box-useful package.
This is true, however it is difficult to explain where the other $10,000 dollars in the price comes from. You would expect that to take the parts of 16 access points and put (some) of them onto one large PCB would cost a lot less than 16 seperate devices with all the redundant hardware that entails.
Of course, does BT really need to support 1000 people per phone box?
I don't pretend to know the FCC regulations, especially because I'm not in the US. But I'd suspect that, for one thing, the power limits are per frequency. This device uses 16 different frequencies, 8 on the 2.4ghz section and 8 on 5ghz.
Also keep in mind that home routers like those from Linksys are WAY under the FCC limits. You could probably pump up the juice by several times before you hit the FCC limits.
You misunderstand. My figures were for 16 access points all in one spot. You only need one cable run to get to the cluster, from there you have the 15 cheap 3 foot (or shorter) cables. Don't forget, each of these $100 access points are also 4-port switches.
One thing I might have overlooked is the cost of 16 unidirectional antennas, then you'd have the exact equivalent, hardware wise, to this $12000 solution. Maybe toss in the money for an enclosure of some kind for the 16 access points.
About the only advantage the $12000 solution has is that it is probably less work to configure. It is up to you if that justifies the 6x cost from the do-it-yourself solution that is equivalent virtually all other respects.
Do most people really need 120 GB hard drive? Not really, in my opinion,
Which is why this matters more for smaller drives. Take notebook drives as an example. 5400RPM drives top out at 120GB, and for a small fortune, might I add. If you want to go 7200RPM in a notebook, 100GB is the largest available, and it'll set you back something like $440 USD. Perpendicular recording has the potential to significantly bring down notebook drive cost-per-gig. Not to mention the benefits for 1.8" and 1" drives.