What are you talking about? You don't even HAVE the damned gravity gun for the majority of the game, and it was only useful when it was the "super gravity gun" in a couple short sections of game.
Each area of the game was different from one another, with new enemies and new situations to find your way through. Neither Halo nor Half Life are role playing games, but HL2 was a fun game to the end. I don't know how you could find it boring, unless all you could think of was "Dammit, this isn't Halo!!!!"
I didn't really notice anything quite as absurd as you make it out to be. I found that the lulls in the action gave much needed breaks from the in-your-face action and can be explained by having lost the pursuit behind you by hiding, dodging into a new area, etc.
The game isn't perfect, but it's damned good. Calling it a "gun and run" tells me he's never played it.
I guess you've never played Half Life 2, because there's absolutely nothing "run and gun" about the game. Each area presents a new set of puzzles and challenges that must be played out. You can't kill everything and run, because you'll get owned. But you CAN be creative about it; you can run people over, you can pick up and throw almost ANYTHING... HL2 is an amazing game with really impressive post-war ambiance that must have taken a lot of artists to create. It's too bad you've never played it.
I guess a massive horde of the same two aliens running at you from over the hill is much less run and gun..
Sometimes there's more to life then "the business case." Often times, the business case is far too narrow minded and can't see past tomorrow.
How about: Because it's awesome to have 4 CPU's in a Desktop PC, and the more machines that get these multi-CPU platforms, the more apps will use them?
ps. The Opteron quad-core will be able to throttle down each core independently. Silly you, for not reading the article - or silly you for not understanding electricity.
As an aside, AMD's processors are much better in SMP configurations, especially when the bus is very active (such as busy VM hosts.) You could do twice as much on a Opteron system then you can with a comparable Core 2 Xeon due to AMD's HyperTransport and integrated memory controllers.
Also note the USB ports on the front of the PS3 that you CAN plug USB keyboards and mice into - and most games do support the use of the keyboard (but not the mouse for FPS control.) But until that company releases the keyboard/mouse lap thing, it's not feasible to use a mouse in front of the TV.
The fact will always be that some kids will spend far too much time at anything. It doesn't matter how complicated or not a game is, there will always be people that will absolutely own you, whether it's Halo, Quake, counter strike, or any other game for that matter. You don't have to spend hours to get good at single-player Counter Strike or to play some buddies at home; only if you want to compete online. You're telling me here that you want to compete but you don't want to practice? Sounds kinda lazy, to tell you the truth.
I didn't say "PC Games will Blow Away Console Games" in terms of sales or market share. I mean in a technical sense. Because PC technology can advance every day, better looking games will appear in short order. There is no such thing as "HD Games." That's marketing speak. Games have been "HD" on the PC for many years.
My computer monitor is 23", not square but Widescreen, and I sit two feet from it. It's very large when you put it that way.
And why use a PC when you can use a game console? How about: It's extremely versatile, PC games are usually cheaper then console ones, it's cheap to upgrade them, you have a 101 button controller, and a mouse. There's no monthly fee to play most PC games, with the exception of MMORPG's, and MMORPG's exist for the PC.
FPS games are better with a mouse. Sorry, Halo might be fun but you'll never, ever, be as fast or accurate as you can be with a mouse.
"HD Console" is a joke. My workstation at home - an Opteron 165 with 2GB RAM and a 6800GT AGP - is still seemingly more powerful then current game consoles. You can build this system now for peanuts. Don't give me this "3rd of the price" bullcrap.
Now, not all of this is to say consoles are bad. I own one. But PC gaming is still strong, and this same old tired argument is brought up every time new game consoles are introduced. In another year, PC games will blow away console games, not that they haven't already..
You don't see the fact that not all 360's have hard drives as a limitation? I think everyone saw this coming from a mile away. It's not a big deal for most games but for some, it will be. They'll work around it, and do so while probably introducing more load times and stuff.
I guess the unclear part is that AMD HELD the performance lead for YEARS. You know, from around 2000 until the Core 2 came out. I don't think your argument holds any water.
Fabrication is important but it's not the end-all. The architecture of the CPU is much more important. You can hold the lead in performance and not have the smallest possible size transistor; AMD proved this year after year. It should be noted that AMD is usually pretty close behind on fabricitation, though.
Then my original response was correct! You said AMD will never hold the lead for more then a few months, and I pointed out that they held the performance lead for several YEARS thus debunking your claim, to which you said "no I was talking about fabrication." Then I asked what you meant, then, and you said "performance" and proceeded to insult me. Awesome.
I think YOU are the one that needs come reading comprehension, my dear.
Shrinking the fabrication process has few short-term benefits, such as the ability to clock chips a bit higher, and/or generate less heat. Just moving from 90nm to 65nm doesn't give you any benefits if you keep the architecture the same and the clock the same. AMD is already working on 45nm anyways, and it just doesn't make a big difference in the short (1 - 2 years) term.
I agree about the Nuclear power. The fact is, Nuclear power isn't something that anyone LOVES, but it's certainly the far lesser of evils. It's clean power, it can generate a LOT of power, and modern plants are melt-down proof. If we want to be able to continue to advance as a civilization, we need electricity. It's the single most important resource, trumping anything that's ever come before or after it. Nuclear power is the only technology that can provide our unending need for electricity, and FUD prevents it from being wide-spread. It's all very typically human.
It would be wonderful if a new technology appeared that could eliminate our dependence on coal and natural gas power plants, but until then, I firmly believe we should be building a whole bunch of Nuclear plants and stop using fossil fuels as soon as possible.
I think that's a little too Utopian for me. I'm not generally a pessimist, but in this case I caught a glimpse of society without rules, without government. Anarchy. The vandalism on Digg wasn't about freedom or the truth, it was about kids going nuts and having fun doing it. In a civilized world, such things as that wouldn't have happened. It shows me how thin a string society can be, and if you pull too hard, the whole thing can unravel.
So I guess "anyone" isn't good enough of a term for 99%? =P I think it's close enough, as people understand that there's always a few exceptions. For instance, if your processing requirements make heavy use of SMP and RAM - for instance a beefy VMware host - AMD would be the way to go. HyperTransport and integrated memory controllers give the Opterons a heavy edge in these configurations. I wish Dell sold Opterons when we bought our four quad Xeon boxes (they're not even core processors.) We could go on forever like this.
The big excuse has always been "gaming." I'm still using a socket 939 Opteron 165 with an AGP 6800GT and I'm only now starting to feel as though I could upgrade. Most people that play games don't have the money to pay for the big expensive systems (you could easily spend $10,000 on "the best" game machine.) It doesn't matter who ultimately has the fastest processor in their line up - it matters how much bang for the buck the majority can get. Even now, with Intel's ruthless price cutting, AMD isn't irrelevant. ATI isn't either, even though the current nVidia lineup is much faster.
I know people like us won't ever change the bandwagon-type people, but I feel as though I sometimes have to inject some bit of rational thought into these endless conversations. Even if it just makes one person find perspective, I guess it's worth it.
You didn't make that clear. If AMD has never had the lead on fabrication process, what do you mean by this: "that will always make it hard for AMD to take and hold a lead for more than a few months." Take a lead on what?
It's funny how quickly people jump on the bandwagon.
AMD has really socked Intel good in the last few years. They created AMD64, which Intel was forced to adopt. They created HyperTransport, which is a very solid and successful CPU bus platform. The Athlon's have been rocking the high end of the performance spectrum for years. AMD chips have been running faster and cooler then Intel's chips until the Core 2.
So Intel releases the Core 2, which was the product of basically ditching their whole CPU architecture for the last 10 years and going the same direction AMD has been for years. Intel has some smart people working for them, and they made Core 2 a reality very quickly. Then, Intel dumped them on the market for CHEAP. It's the first time Intel has ever sold their CPU's for such little money.
So, suddenly AMD's CPU's suck because Intel dumped their new product line on the market for very low money? No. AMD's tech is IN your Intel CPU (AMD64) and has been pushing forward the state of x86 chips for years. Their CPU's are fast and cheap, and still a good choice for anyone.
Personally I don't care which chip has the fastest version - I won't be buying the top-of-the-line from either company because they're both pretty expensive. If you compare prices, AMD is very competitive. Many of the "blogo-online" reviews of these CPU's are heavily biased towards the Core2 right now because they are good overclockers, and that's completely unfair. Most people won't be overclocking their CPU's.
Digg has always been a web site that contains all user-submit data - links, posts, etc. It would be really hard for someone to build a credible case against them for the content on that site, especially if they show that they did indeed make an effort to stop it - which is WHY it's become a game for those kids over there.
If all you say about Vista is the search field on the start "Orb" then you're not convincing anyone of anything. I think the overwhelming response to it has been "It sucks, it's slow, and Big Fucking Deal Anyways - it's a damned search." Yea, that sounds right.
All this evolution vs revolution crap - it all sounds too much like a game console thread to me. Why are you using marketing speak on Slashdot? The only times those words are used when referring to something like this are when it's from the Marketing department. XP didn't "evolve." Fucking humans evolved, and trees. Not a Windows UI.
I don't know what I could have said to make you think I am resisting anything? You're talking here about a Desktop search. You've been able to do that for years with Google Desktop and other such tools. Not that it's a bad thing to be included, and I never said new things weren't good. There's just not a big difference between the Vista and XP UI. Vista isn't "Far better" then XP.
I don't see Vista as having a "far better" user interface. In fact, compared to Windows XP and the basic configuration things, Vista requires traveling through a lot more menus and clicks to get where you want to get.
Apart from Vista's new eyecandy UI, it's pretty much the same deal. Sure, there's a neat thing here and there - like the disk space bars and renaming files when you have viewing extensions on. Other then that, I don't see all that much of a difference.
It's not a terrible thing, I mean - Windows XP has a very decent UI.
The kids these days just don't get it I guess. I try to tell people the reason they're more expensive because T1's are guaranteed. I thought they were regulated - FCC and all that. Home cable modems != Business connections.
Now, we all know that the Internet connection for your ISP itself might be oversubscribed (unavoidable, really) but your link to the ISP will always be 1.5Mbit with a T1, no if's and's or but's.
Where I work we generally go with fractional T3's - it's actually cheaper; probably because of different regulations.
That's a load of shit. Turning into a publicly traded corporation can help infuse the company with they money needed to improve their product, and can bring accountability to management for making terrible decisions.
There's no evidence to say that turning public is bad for a company.
You don't even have to look at the grand scheme of things to realize that $100 isn't a big difference in price.
I think the PS3 is a fine console. It's the first Sony console I've owned and I haven't been disappointed one bit. It's really nice; it's too bad some folks can't see beyond their own ignorance. (I guess that's the definition of ignorance..)
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What are you talking about? You don't even HAVE the damned gravity gun for the majority of the game, and it was only useful when it was the "super gravity gun" in a couple short sections of game.
Each area of the game was different from one another, with new enemies and new situations to find your way through. Neither Halo nor Half Life are role playing games, but HL2 was a fun game to the end. I don't know how you could find it boring, unless all you could think of was "Dammit, this isn't Halo!!!!"
I didn't really notice anything quite as absurd as you make it out to be. I found that the lulls in the action gave much needed breaks from the in-your-face action and can be explained by having lost the pursuit behind you by hiding, dodging into a new area, etc.
The game isn't perfect, but it's damned good. Calling it a "gun and run" tells me he's never played it.
I guess you've never played Half Life 2, because there's absolutely nothing "run and gun" about the game. Each area presents a new set of puzzles and challenges that must be played out. You can't kill everything and run, because you'll get owned. But you CAN be creative about it; you can run people over, you can pick up and throw almost ANYTHING... HL2 is an amazing game with really impressive post-war ambiance that must have taken a lot of artists to create. It's too bad you've never played it.
I guess a massive horde of the same two aliens running at you from over the hill is much less run and gun..
Sometimes there's more to life then "the business case." Often times, the business case is far too narrow minded and can't see past tomorrow.
How about: Because it's awesome to have 4 CPU's in a Desktop PC, and the more machines that get these multi-CPU platforms, the more apps will use them?
ps. The Opteron quad-core will be able to throttle down each core independently. Silly you, for not reading the article - or silly you for not understanding electricity.
As an aside, AMD's processors are much better in SMP configurations, especially when the bus is very active (such as busy VM hosts.) You could do twice as much on a Opteron system then you can with a comparable Core 2 Xeon due to AMD's HyperTransport and integrated memory controllers.
There's more you can do with 3D acceleration besides games, just FYI.
Also note the USB ports on the front of the PS3 that you CAN plug USB keyboards and mice into - and most games do support the use of the keyboard (but not the mouse for FPS control.) But until that company releases the keyboard/mouse lap thing, it's not feasible to use a mouse in front of the TV.
The fact will always be that some kids will spend far too much time at anything. It doesn't matter how complicated or not a game is, there will always be people that will absolutely own you, whether it's Halo, Quake, counter strike, or any other game for that matter. You don't have to spend hours to get good at single-player Counter Strike or to play some buddies at home; only if you want to compete online. You're telling me here that you want to compete but you don't want to practice? Sounds kinda lazy, to tell you the truth.
I didn't say "PC Games will Blow Away Console Games" in terms of sales or market share. I mean in a technical sense. Because PC technology can advance every day, better looking games will appear in short order. There is no such thing as "HD Games." That's marketing speak. Games have been "HD" on the PC for many years.
My computer monitor is 23", not square but Widescreen, and I sit two feet from it. It's very large when you put it that way.
And why use a PC when you can use a game console? How about: It's extremely versatile, PC games are usually cheaper then console ones, it's cheap to upgrade them, you have a 101 button controller, and a mouse. There's no monthly fee to play most PC games, with the exception of MMORPG's, and MMORPG's exist for the PC.
FPS games are better with a mouse. Sorry, Halo might be fun but you'll never, ever, be as fast or accurate as you can be with a mouse.
"HD Console" is a joke. My workstation at home - an Opteron 165 with 2GB RAM and a 6800GT AGP - is still seemingly more powerful then current game consoles. You can build this system now for peanuts. Don't give me this "3rd of the price" bullcrap.
Now, not all of this is to say consoles are bad. I own one. But PC gaming is still strong, and this same old tired argument is brought up every time new game consoles are introduced. In another year, PC games will blow away console games, not that they haven't already..
What in the hell are you talking about?
You don't see the fact that not all 360's have hard drives as a limitation? I think everyone saw this coming from a mile away. It's not a big deal for most games but for some, it will be. They'll work around it, and do so while probably introducing more load times and stuff.
I guess the unclear part is that AMD HELD the performance lead for YEARS. You know, from around 2000 until the Core 2 came out. I don't think your argument holds any water.
Fabrication is important but it's not the end-all. The architecture of the CPU is much more important. You can hold the lead in performance and not have the smallest possible size transistor; AMD proved this year after year. It should be noted that AMD is usually pretty close behind on fabricitation, though.
Then my original response was correct! You said AMD will never hold the lead for more then a few months, and I pointed out that they held the performance lead for several YEARS thus debunking your claim, to which you said "no I was talking about fabrication." Then I asked what you meant, then, and you said "performance" and proceeded to insult me. Awesome.
I think YOU are the one that needs come reading comprehension, my dear.
Shrinking the fabrication process has few short-term benefits, such as the ability to clock chips a bit higher, and/or generate less heat. Just moving from 90nm to 65nm doesn't give you any benefits if you keep the architecture the same and the clock the same. AMD is already working on 45nm anyways, and it just doesn't make a big difference in the short (1 - 2 years) term.
I agree about the Nuclear power. The fact is, Nuclear power isn't something that anyone LOVES, but it's certainly the far lesser of evils. It's clean power, it can generate a LOT of power, and modern plants are melt-down proof. If we want to be able to continue to advance as a civilization, we need electricity. It's the single most important resource, trumping anything that's ever come before or after it. Nuclear power is the only technology that can provide our unending need for electricity, and FUD prevents it from being wide-spread. It's all very typically human.
It would be wonderful if a new technology appeared that could eliminate our dependence on coal and natural gas power plants, but until then, I firmly believe we should be building a whole bunch of Nuclear plants and stop using fossil fuels as soon as possible.
I think that's a little too Utopian for me. I'm not generally a pessimist, but in this case I caught a glimpse of society without rules, without government. Anarchy. The vandalism on Digg wasn't about freedom or the truth, it was about kids going nuts and having fun doing it. In a civilized world, such things as that wouldn't have happened. It shows me how thin a string society can be, and if you pull too hard, the whole thing can unravel.
So I guess "anyone" isn't good enough of a term for 99%? =P I think it's close enough, as people understand that there's always a few exceptions. For instance, if your processing requirements make heavy use of SMP and RAM - for instance a beefy VMware host - AMD would be the way to go. HyperTransport and integrated memory controllers give the Opterons a heavy edge in these configurations. I wish Dell sold Opterons when we bought our four quad Xeon boxes (they're not even core processors.) We could go on forever like this.
The big excuse has always been "gaming." I'm still using a socket 939 Opteron 165 with an AGP 6800GT and I'm only now starting to feel as though I could upgrade. Most people that play games don't have the money to pay for the big expensive systems (you could easily spend $10,000 on "the best" game machine.) It doesn't matter who ultimately has the fastest processor in their line up - it matters how much bang for the buck the majority can get. Even now, with Intel's ruthless price cutting, AMD isn't irrelevant. ATI isn't either, even though the current nVidia lineup is much faster.
I know people like us won't ever change the bandwagon-type people, but I feel as though I sometimes have to inject some bit of rational thought into these endless conversations. Even if it just makes one person find perspective, I guess it's worth it.
You didn't make that clear. If AMD has never had the lead on fabrication process, what do you mean by this: "that will always make it hard for AMD to take and hold a lead for more than a few months." Take a lead on what?
It's funny how quickly people jump on the bandwagon.
AMD has really socked Intel good in the last few years. They created AMD64, which Intel was forced to adopt. They created HyperTransport, which is a very solid and successful CPU bus platform. The Athlon's have been rocking the high end of the performance spectrum for years. AMD chips have been running faster and cooler then Intel's chips until the Core 2.
So Intel releases the Core 2, which was the product of basically ditching their whole CPU architecture for the last 10 years and going the same direction AMD has been for years. Intel has some smart people working for them, and they made Core 2 a reality very quickly. Then, Intel dumped them on the market for CHEAP. It's the first time Intel has ever sold their CPU's for such little money.
So, suddenly AMD's CPU's suck because Intel dumped their new product line on the market for very low money? No. AMD's tech is IN your Intel CPU (AMD64) and has been pushing forward the state of x86 chips for years. Their CPU's are fast and cheap, and still a good choice for anyone.
Personally I don't care which chip has the fastest version - I won't be buying the top-of-the-line from either company because they're both pretty expensive. If you compare prices, AMD is very competitive. Many of the "blogo-online" reviews of these CPU's are heavily biased towards the Core2 right now because they are good overclockers, and that's completely unfair. Most people won't be overclocking their CPU's.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. AMD held the performance crown for quite a few years, before Core 2 hit the shelves.
Why do you need explanation for the obvious?
ps. Binary is 1's and 0's.
Digg has always been a web site that contains all user-submit data - links, posts, etc. It would be really hard for someone to build a credible case against them for the content on that site, especially if they show that they did indeed make an effort to stop it - which is WHY it's become a game for those kids over there.
If all you say about Vista is the search field on the start "Orb" then you're not convincing anyone of anything. I think the overwhelming response to it has been "It sucks, it's slow, and Big Fucking Deal Anyways - it's a damned search." Yea, that sounds right.
All this evolution vs revolution crap - it all sounds too much like a game console thread to me. Why are you using marketing speak on Slashdot? The only times those words are used when referring to something like this are when it's from the Marketing department. XP didn't "evolve." Fucking humans evolved, and trees. Not a Windows UI.
What the hell? Were you talking to me?
I don't know what I could have said to make you think I am resisting anything? You're talking here about a Desktop search. You've been able to do that for years with Google Desktop and other such tools. Not that it's a bad thing to be included, and I never said new things weren't good. There's just not a big difference between the Vista and XP UI. Vista isn't "Far better" then XP.
Windows 95 was "far better" then Windows 3.1.
I don't see Vista as having a "far better" user interface. In fact, compared to Windows XP and the basic configuration things, Vista requires traveling through a lot more menus and clicks to get where you want to get.
Apart from Vista's new eyecandy UI, it's pretty much the same deal. Sure, there's a neat thing here and there - like the disk space bars and renaming files when you have viewing extensions on. Other then that, I don't see all that much of a difference.
It's not a terrible thing, I mean - Windows XP has a very decent UI.
The kids these days just don't get it I guess. I try to tell people the reason they're more expensive because T1's are guaranteed. I thought they were regulated - FCC and all that. Home cable modems != Business connections.
Now, we all know that the Internet connection for your ISP itself might be oversubscribed (unavoidable, really) but your link to the ISP will always be 1.5Mbit with a T1, no if's and's or but's.
Where I work we generally go with fractional T3's - it's actually cheaper; probably because of different regulations.
That's a load of shit. Turning into a publicly traded corporation can help infuse the company with they money needed to improve their product, and can bring accountability to management for making terrible decisions.
There's no evidence to say that turning public is bad for a company.
You don't even have to look at the grand scheme of things to realize that $100 isn't a big difference in price.
I think the PS3 is a fine console. It's the first Sony console I've owned and I haven't been disappointed one bit. It's really nice; it's too bad some folks can't see beyond their own ignorance. (I guess that's the definition of ignorance..)
And when my life is on the line, I'll be glad to buy that shit back from them, you short-sighted twit.