They've done DirectX conversions before. However, what they've also done is used the Mac source as a base as it has been easier to port. Some info can be gleaned from their news server at news.lokigames.com.
WRT compatibility, other games have been direct translations, having identical interfaces and look. Saved game compatibility has usually come after patches, but some network stuff is done using MS direct play (eg, Heroes III) which they haven't been able to port. In some cases, they've managed network compatibility with Mac versions.
I'm glad Alpha Centauri's being ported, but I'm not quite so bothered about the others. To each their own, however. --
Bond will never be quite the same
on
Good Bye Q
·
· Score: 2
Not having Q around means that Bond won't ever be the same; the gadgets have been a part of Bond through most, if not all of the films. Desmond Llewellyn was brilliant in that role; the repartee between himself and the various Bond's was brilliant. Lines like "Now pay attention, 007" or "try not to damage it this time" were a major part in Bond films.
I watched "The World is Not Enough" on Monday night, after hearing about his death, and Q's exit was made all the more poignant because of the real world news. --
Ok, the FBI/NSA/whatever want to stop criminals/terrorists having data that they can't get access to, so they're crippling stuff exported from the US. I can see the reasons, but there's a major flaw here.
As it says in the article, there's >800 other crypto products which are freely importable to US, so the terrorists can just use those. If I wanted to hide data from the govt, I'd just download PGP (the war on that one has already been lost) and encrypt my data. I could use ssh with 1024 bit encryption to keep my data secure over the network.
In short, all the US regulations do is:
Put.us firms at a disadvantage in competing against the rest of the world
Piss off the non-us-ians who can't get secure versions of eg Netscape (but check out Fortify) or NT or whatever.
Somebody desperately needs to LART some clues into these people. --
Um, Heroes III doesn't need 3D. However, it is a really cool game, but I've kind of played it do death under Windows. Unless Loki add something new, I probably won't buy it, but I would recommend others to. --
Another type of thing to benefit from this would be games like Baldur's Gate; it came of 5 CD's, prompting a lot of disk changing unless you allocated 3GB of your hard drive to it. I'd been waiting for something to make use of the extra space, and SuSE is definately a prime candidate with their distribution.
However, I'd hope they continue to use CD-ROM for those who don't yet have DVD. --
For pr0n you want bandwidth over TCP; for gaming you want low latency, possibly over UDP (what do game servers use? TCP or UDP?). Higher bandwidth tends to lead to lower latency, but it's not guaranteed. In any case, modem bandwidth is limited to 56k for technical reasons, so you can't increase that; you can, however, put more processing power on a modem to speed it up a little. --
Novell servers can be just as bad as NT for long boot times, especially if they weren't shut down cleanly. For those who haven't had the pleasure of this, disk checking can take a looooong time under Netware; about 20 minutes for a 4GB volume. Some servers elsewhere in our Uni have taken > 1 hour to reboot as they have 10's of GB of disks to be checked after hard boots. Even a clean boot isn't particularly fast.
Just another reason I'll stick to Solaris, thankyouverymuch. UFS logging being a wonderful thing, especially when you have a 60GB RAID-5 volume. --
I just started dating a girl last week. She giggles a fair bit and tends to come out with lines like "I don't know". However, that's not what attracted me to her in the first place. Still, it's kind of worrying to see articles like this.
However, I don't find staying in a "good night". I prefer a good night out socialising with friends a good night, preferably with a little dancing. --
I see they're planning on releasing specs for the TV-tuners; alongside the DVD news (previous article on/.), MM support on linux is looking good!
FWIW, we have ATi cards on our machines at work here, and the XFree drivers are pretty solid under Solaris x86; much better than Solaris's drivers! However, 3D support is going to be needed to get the best from the cards. --
"Redhat Means Source", which coincidentally is the same three letters as a certain free software stalwart. I wonder which came first, the slogan or the initials?:) --
I've played the demo (unfortunately, with no other players around) and it is visually stunning. Playability-wise, the controls were sound and I was able to use my preferred mouse/keyboard combo in the same way as I had QuakeII.
The only downside was that my P233MMX was looking a tad underpowered; the graphics showed a few jerks when running fast, although it was still playable. Once some bad guys are in, though, it might really show some problems.
RPM: handles dependencies fairly well, but difficult to over-ride. Only used in some versions of linux.
Installer: will work on all distributions of linux.
For someone who wants to make money, you want to target the largest install base; only distributing RPM's makes it difficult for Debian/Slackware/whatever users to use your program.
As far as a technical review goes, it would be worthwhile, possibly also reviewing stuff like.deb. --
X-no-archive is used a lot by a certain group of monks in a certain usenet group (if you don't know what I mean, you don't deserve to know). Past posts in that group have been dredged up to haunt their writers. The group is there to rant about the stupidities of management, software vendors and a whole host of other idiots. Some of these idiots don't particularly like to be attacked in this manner. I think sackings have resulted from this as well. --
We had a talk from an MS employee here this week, and he said the standard development box at MS is a dual PIII 500 with 256 MB of RAM. A single PIII 450 doesn't seem so overspecced in relation to that... --
It seems to currently be relating more to a propaganda war at the moment, with web sites being corrupted and redirected. To be honest, this isn't much different from dropping leaflets over towns & cities with anti-x messages.
If this is the way wars are going to be fought in the future, at least there will be less blood lost. --
If MS do get off scot-free, they will view this as a vindication of their position and they will once more push Windows onto PC's using discounts as the incentive. All their old practices (which have been slightly subdued in the last few months due to the case) will return, except worse since no-one will want to waste time on a case which has already been fought. Let's face it, if they win, it will make a lot of potential prosecutors back off, since MS will have precedent on their side.
I don't expect some huge penalty to MS, but a good, solid wrist slap is in order for some of their past practices. --
The difference is the customer base. Most of M$'s customers are PHB's and non-techno people. Registering a domain name requires more than a little bit of a clue, so that people should realise they're being fleeced if the service is poor. --
Slashdot Mirror
WRT compatibility, other games have been direct translations, having identical interfaces and look. Saved game compatibility has usually come after patches, but some network stuff is done using MS direct play (eg, Heroes III) which they haven't been able to port. In some cases, they've managed network compatibility with Mac versions.
I'm glad Alpha Centauri's being ported, but I'm not quite so bothered about the others. To each their own, however.
--
I watched "The World is Not Enough" on Monday night, after hearing about his death, and Q's exit was made all the more poignant because of the real world news.
--
As it says in the article, there's >800 other crypto products which are freely importable to US, so the terrorists can just use those. If I wanted to hide data from the govt, I'd just download PGP (the war on that one has already been lost) and encrypt my data. I could use ssh with 1024 bit encryption to keep my data secure over the network.
In short, all the US regulations do is:
- Put
.us firms at a disadvantage in competing against the rest of the world - Piss off the non-us-ians who can't get secure versions of eg Netscape (but check out Fortify) or NT or whatever.
Somebody desperately needs to LART some clues into these people.--
FWIW, I'm an admin at a university, and I'd do exactly the same if one of our students posted MP3's on the web.
--
Ok, how has he helped the Open source movement, other than by uniting them in a common cause against MS?
--
Um, Heroes III doesn't need 3D. However, it is a really cool game, but I've kind of played it do death under Windows. Unless Loki add something new, I probably won't buy it, but I would recommend others to.
--
However, I'd hope they continue to use CD-ROM for those who don't yet have DVD.
--
Ours are Netware 4.11, but the central computing lot are a mix between 4.11 and 5; not sure which ones they had which were taking ages to boot.
--
For pr0n you want bandwidth over TCP; for gaming you want low latency, possibly over UDP (what do game servers use? TCP or UDP?). Higher bandwidth tends to lead to lower latency, but it's not guaranteed. In any case, modem bandwidth is limited to 56k for technical reasons, so you can't increase that; you can, however, put more processing power on a modem to speed it up a little.
--
--
Just another reason I'll stick to Solaris, thankyouverymuch. UFS logging being a wonderful thing, especially when you have a 60GB RAID-5 volume.
--
However, I don't find staying in a "good night". I prefer a good night out socialising with friends a good night, preferably with a little dancing.
--
FWIW, we have ATi cards on our machines at work here, and the XFree drivers are pretty solid under Solaris x86; much better than Solaris's drivers! However, 3D support is going to be needed to get the best from the cards.
--
"Redhat Means Source", which coincidentally is the same three letters as a certain free software stalwart. I wonder which came first, the slogan or the initials? :)
--
The only downside was that my P233MMX was looking a tad underpowered; the graphics showed a few jerks when running fast, although it was still playable. Once some bad guys are in, though, it might really show some problems.
BTW, that plasma gun looks evil!
--
--
--
Installer: will work on all distributions of linux.
For someone who wants to make money, you want to target the largest install base; only distributing RPM's makes it difficult for Debian/Slackware/whatever users to use your program.
As far as a technical review goes, it would be worthwhile, possibly also reviewing stuff like .deb.
--
--
X-no-archive is used a lot by a certain group of monks in a certain usenet group (if you don't know what I mean, you don't deserve to know). Past posts in that group have been dredged up to haunt their writers. The group is there to rant about the stupidities of management, software vendors and a whole host of other idiots. Some of these idiots don't particularly like to be attacked in this manner. I think sackings have resulted from this as well.
--
We had a talk from an MS employee here this week, and he said the standard development box at MS is a dual PIII 500 with 256 MB of RAM. A single PIII 450 doesn't seem so overspecced in relation to that...
--
If this is the way wars are going to be fought in the future, at least there will be less blood lost.
--
If MS do get off scot-free, they will view this as a vindication of their position and they will once more push Windows onto PC's using discounts as the incentive. All their old practices (which have been slightly subdued in the last few months due to the case) will return, except worse since no-one will want to waste time on a case which has already been fought. Let's face it, if they win, it will make a lot of potential prosecutors back off, since MS will have precedent on their side.
I don't expect some huge penalty to MS, but a good, solid wrist slap is in order for some of their past practices.
--
The difference is the customer base. Most of M$'s customers are PHB's and non-techno people. Registering a domain name requires more than a little bit of a clue, so that people should realise they're being fleeced if the service is poor.
--
...are they the 'Solution' for?
--