Too bad you posted AC and I already posted to this thread because I'd mod that up =)
I think the strangest part about the Apple fanboys is that I don't know too many Linux fans, or even Linux freaks, that downright dis Apple PC's or MacOS. I don't hate Macs. I think OSX is pretty neat. I prefer a free and open system, but OSX is definately a step in the right direction.
Why so many Mac fans are insistant on putting everything else down is beyond me. I thought they were supposed to be the (self proclaimed) open and artistic/smart/etc folks?
Don't get me wrong, there's a crap load of Mac users that aren't shitty. It's just too bad that the Mac community generally seems hostile because of a few loudmouths.
Ahh well, it's no use. I like all computer stuff, so I'm probably biased against being biased toward something as silly as an operating system. Shit, I even like my Windows machines. (And no, I don't like Microsoft.)
Ohh, get a fucking life. I was reading slashdot for years before I finally cracked down and created an account. Don't give me some crap about user ID's because yours is 5 digits.
Ohh, although it might be too close to judge, Apple is mentioned so much on Slashdot recently that it's a joke.
I remember the good old days when it was almost always about Linux and related Linux topics. The good stuff! Not just about the next thing from Some Big Company. And Apple IS a big company.
Or, you could have clicked the parents' link and saw that both paid support and security patches will still remain. Which, in the server arena, won't change a thing.
What you WILL have to pay for will be a specific bug fix that doesn't address a security concern. Of course, bug reporting when the product is in "mainstream" support doesn't guarentee bug fixes either.
And Microsoft doesn't differentiate between sub-versions - Windows 2000 means Pro, Server, Adv Server, Datacenter Server. They're all exactly the same operating systems, with a few registry changes.
I don't own a Mac. I've never used MacOS Server. And I can instantly spot bullshit like this when I see it.
What makes an OS a "Server OS?" That it has user management, file serving services, web services, print services? Hey look, OSX Server has all that. And it's a very fast unix-based OS that uses most of the stuff you find on Linux based servers.
What's different? MacOS is almost just another distribution of BSD. It's got a lot of little modifications and a new UI but it's still BSD. Isn't BSD suitable for a server?
What about Windows? Windows servers use the same exact kernel, and share a crap load of stuff - IIS, file/print sharing, etc - that Windows XP uses. So by your token, Windows XP isn't suitable for a server OS? Or, is Windows XP not suitable for a Desktop OS?
So why don't people use it? Well, why don't companies use Linux instead of Windows? Why do companies always pick Intel over AMD? It's hard, if not impossible, to compete head-to-head with these names. AMD makes fantastic chips that run software faster for the same price or less, but people still stick with Intel. Because of the name. Because "nobody gets fired for buying IBM."
A Windows without IE, Outlook Express, and half the other garbage would be a Good Thing.
The unfortunate part is that Microsoft embedded these apps all over the place, which have other companies the same idea.. so now there's a lot of apps that require Internet Explorer just to run.
They spread out useful API's into IE DLL's which don't have to be there, just to keep it installed.
Like the link says, only "Mainstream" support will end. You can still get support on a per-incident basis (which isn't really that much different then before.)
Additionally, Microsoft will continue to release security fixes for Windows 2000 for several more years - they still release patches for Windows 98 now.
It won't change much for most people.
At my company, we've got several hundred servers running Windows 2000 still. IIS6 in IIS5 compatibility mode isn't perfect, and IIS6 in native mode breaks a lot of apps. And there's a ton of other little gotchas with Windows Server 2003 - Can't run Exchange 2000 on it, can't run a lot of 3rd party software, etc etc. It's not an extremely hard upgrade but like any other major upgrade it's a lot of preparation.
It always bugs me when people say that Consumer electronics are so easy, and that computers are so difficult to use - they should be as easy as consumer electronics.
Bull!
First of all, on their own, consumer electronics are single-function devices. Reciever: Get sound, put it out to speakers. DVD Player: Read data from DVD, output it to ports on the back of the box. TV: Display video signals.
Each of these on their own are quite easy. Put them all together and you haven't even scratched the surface of the multi-function abilities of your average computer system these days.
My mom is a pretty smart person, but she doesn't even bother trying to figure out how to get all the TV, Cable, DVD player, VCR, and stereo all working together, or how to automagically record a show from the cable BOX interface on the VCR.
But when it comes to the computer, she can figure out just about everything there is to do without any help from me.
One of the big reasons your normal users are getting hammered these days is because of the malware and viruses that are attacking their machines all the time. It's not because they're hard to use - and if your VCR was getting slammed by spyware all day, it would be pretty damned hard to get a show recorded.
The fact is that you can't really compare these things. A Computer system serves quite a different purpose then a home theater system.
The Windows logo doesn't do much, except maybe give Microsoft as few extra bucks.
I've had Fiber card drivers, professional video card drivers, and all sorts of other "expensive hardware" drivers crash systems on me, and they've all had the Microsoft Certified driver logo.
While I'm sure that potentially the Windows logo certification might help iron out a bug or two, it doesn't end up making much difference in the end.
However, I do agree that many problems with Windows are the drivers and non-OS software that's installed. While I've had trouble with server-type hardware drivers, I've had countless fewer issues then I've had with desktops. Some of it is probably due to lower-quality hardware (although most "server" hardware comes out of the machines right next to the consumer hardware) but a lot more of it is the quality, testing, and QA of the drivers and related software.
Not to mention, the mish-mash of software installed on a desktop PC makes you wonder how it works at all.
I don't believe that Windows (2000, XP, 2003) are unstable operating systems. Security related problems aside, on their own these systems are very stable now a days.
You can cover them up. They don't show when you need to be professional in a professional environment.
That's the same as not having them at all.
I have no issues with Tatoos. Or piercings. Or whatever a branding is. But if you expect to be treated the same way as someone without such things in an interview..
If you watch TV and see who else has lots of tatoos and stuff, you see these rocker types, drug addicts, over-the-top gothers, and every other type of "weirdo." While I wouldn't think anything less of someone with a big tatoo or think you're a drug addict, what will the hardass hiring manager at somecompany think?
We're human. As much as it may be against the law to descriminate against people because of physical appearance, it happens. It happens all the time.
"(Why would I? I'm on a Mac and I like having free space in my ram.)"
Stop the insanity!
I've got Outlook 2003 open to an Exchange 2003 server right now. My mailbox is about 1.3GB. I've got a few add-ons, too, such as the LookOut search tool. It's using 25MB RAM.
It loads very fast, too.
For what the application does (it's not just e-mail) I think 25MB is certainly very resonable. Where's all that bloat you mac users like to spread around about Microsoft and Windows and Office?
Not liking the company is not a reason to lie about the applications they create. I hate Microsoft just as much as the next guy, but I really like Outlook and I look forward to when an OSS replacement app matches it. Evolution is very close, and I think in a few more revisions it'll be there. But it doesn't mean Outlook is crap. It's not.
And why do you need all that free RAM anyways? I have memory in my computers to use it. Sure, every software developer could write software that uses almost NO memory. But then they'd all run like shit, too. No, I'd rather use all my RAM up if that means my apps run faster. Because, you know. THAT'S WHAT IT'S THERE FOR.
Which is the #1 selling Apple product sold today. You did know HP sells HP-Branded iPods right?
Agreed - it's a great starter language
on
A Decade of PHP
·
· Score: 1
I'm no programmer. I never have been.
But I wanted to make a really cool web site for a game group I was in, and I dug into it. I found PHP, as it worked real easy with both apache and IIS.
I ran through some tutorials (there's a ton of them out there, online, free) and I started to get into it.
The PHP manual has a lot of information and detail about nearly everything the language can do. It's a reference but it's easy to read and you can sit down with it and learn a lot about PHP and programming in general.
The truth is, PHP isn't all that much different then Javascript, Perl, etc. The syntax is very similar. Many of the functions are very similar. After creating my web site, complete with mySQL/MS-SQL support, logins, cookies, and everything in between - I can look at all kinds of different language source code and figure out what's going on.
Other languages are documented too, but something about PHP and it's docs just makes it easier to start coding and learn.
Hey man, shit, I'm not looking for someone to explain MacOS to me or tell me I'm wrong. I used it, I don't like it, and I was agreeing with the other guys's post. I've used MacOS a *lot* - I owned a early G4 Mac for over a year until I gave it away.
In case you didn't notice, x86-64 is already available on almost all AMD's offerings and soon to be all Intel's offerings.
It will allow for 64-bit instructions and much > 4GB memory without PAE.
But hey, if you want something to bitch about, here's one: You'll pay $3000 for some P4 Macintosh, and I'll pay $1000 for the same machine without MacOS. $2000 is starting to sound expensive for an operating system, huh? But then I guess it makes those $150 hits for minor OS updates not feel so bad..
If you're JoeUser and you just spent $3000 on a new Mac, only to have a minor revision of the OS sell for $140 but your buddy has a cracked version for free..
Windows got where it is today because of pirating, among other things. While Microsoft made a killing from pre-installs, Windows 95 was installed on almost every existing computer that could run it and hardly anyone paid to do so. Microsoft got market share because of pirating - if they locked down on copying Windows 95 like they do on Windows XP, it would have taken far longer for people to make the switch.
The same could happen with MacOS. If I get a cracked version of MacOS, none of my money goes to Apple. However, I'm using MacOS now, and Apple increased their market share. Which means more applications, which means more Macs get sold, which means more people DO pay for MacOS.
FX!32 was the translator interface for Windows NT on Alpha, so it could run x86 binaries. It worked exceedingly well.
It was probably the best "real-time" translator I've ever seen. The more you ran an application, the better FX!32 would get at running the application. After enough sessions and background processing of the data, apps ran damned near native speeds. And the compatibility was outstanding - there were no "sandbox" type limits.
This Rosetta sounds like it will be a similar tool to that. It makes sense.
It still runs 10% of the apps I've ever tried to run. But it runs those 10% really fast!!
However, even though WineX is non-gpl crap, I can easily see a Mac port of this - allowing many new games to run on Mac for cheap.
I also see Codemasters putting up a version of Crossover Office for Mac, allowing you to run Windows versions of many applications. Crossover office is really good; it does what it sets out to do and it's fast. And they contribute a lot of code back to Wine, unlike Transgaming.
Wine isn't great but every year it gets better and better. I haven't given up on it yet.
Haha 500,000? That's crazy. I can't imagine the work that would go into producing that many chips, boxing them, and shipping them out.
But it does go to show how these companies jack up the prices by producing the chips much slower then they could. Either AMD or Intel could flood the market with their wares and sell at dirt cheap prices, but it wouldn't benefit either of them so neither of them do it. They just set the prices in direct competition with each other, back and forth, and maintain high prices.
Not sure where that guy is coming from - I've never heard anyone call a mac slow. Not once.
And I can't stand the MacOS UI either. OSX looks pretty, but it's no different then any of the other MacOS's. I don't like the dancing menu bar at the top, I don't like the way the windows work, I don't like the way you launch apps, the file manager...
I respect the system, but I can't use it.
Say what you will about Windows XP, but the interface is not the problem with the OS. It's easy to navigate and use. Microsoft pays people big bucks on UI design. It's certainly not perfect but it works.
"Even AMD is way behind regarding low power chips."
Not entirely. The Athlon64 itself, with no special mobile edition features, is fairly low power and generates a lot less heat then the Pentium 4. It's suitable for notebook PC's off the shelf, with down-clocking when idle built in to every chip.
Of course, mobile versions of the Athlon64 could help reduce heat even more if AMD put a little R&D into power consumption specifically.
The "Centrino" Pentium-M is simply a Pentium 3 with a few enhancements. This is not a new design, it's old, and it's design is more effecient then the P4. It also happens to use less power, so it's well suited for notebooks.
The reason Intel sells a lot more chips then AMD is because of it's name, it's ability to produce a hell of a lot more chips, and it's name. Did I mention it's name?
Actually, both the PS2 and Xbox have an operating system/kernel complete with API's and such. There's no GUI, you're right.
On a Windows or Unix system, the GUI goes into the background when a game is running and doesn't really consume many CPU cycles. All the extra stuff will use memory but PC's generally have a lot more of that then a game console- and it's cheap. A game running on your windows box pretty much uses the hardware to the best of it's ability, give or take a couple percent. Most cards now a days pretty much talk DirectX and OpenGL natively anyways.
If there were no OS, every developer would have to write their own drivers, threading libraries, memory management, etc.. like in the DOS days.
OS's aren't "stupid" - they make modern development possible. Don't confuse a GUI with an operating system.
As a footnote, I can't see you getting anywhere close to 35FPS in Doom 3 with a GeForce 2, unless you're looking at a wall. My notebook computer has a more powerful chip then a GeForce 2 and it runs like ass. My old Ti4600 runs it "okay" I guess. But the 4600 is probably 12x more powerful.
If you're broke and can't spend the money, then don't. But don't call me a fool because I want everything I run to be very nice and fluid.
Especially because my LCD native is 1920x1200, I want a high end card. I won't pay $1000 on one, but I did pay close to $400 for my BFG 6800GT card when they first came out.
Now, I can skip at least one new major GPU release from both ATI and nVidia, and still have plenty of power to play the games, if I wanted to. Sure, I could buy a $200 card now, and then another $200 in another year.. Might as well pay $400 now and have cutting edge for awhile, right?
Every time a new game console hits the market, there's another story about how it will kill PC gaming. It's not going to happen. It never has, and it never will.
When the first Xbox and the PS2 hit the shelves, they were touted as "PC Game killers" just the same. The hardware was strong and easily could compete with what PC's had going at the time. Then, six months passed, and PC games easily out-gunned consoles in terms of sound, graphics, and speed.
Will anything be different this time around? I don't think so. The XBox 360 has three PowerPC chips in it, or a multi-core CPU, or whatever. It's got a (currently) top of the line ATI chip in it for video. This machine will be very cool, but multi-core CPU's and SLI technologies are already making strong headway on PC's now.
Do you really think the Xbox 360 will be more powerful then a high end PC a year later? I don't.
Don't get me wrong, I like game consoles. I've owned the Xbox for a long time, and I still use it (although this could be because it's modded and a modded xbox is the shit) and there's some games that are only fun if you play them on a gamepad in front of the TV with some friends.
PC Gaming will be around for as long as people keep buying PC's for gaming. Visit any of the big PC gaming forums and you'll find the most active (albiet annoying) forums on the Internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Too bad you posted AC and I already posted to this thread because I'd mod that up =)
I think the strangest part about the Apple fanboys is that I don't know too many Linux fans, or even Linux freaks, that downright dis Apple PC's or MacOS. I don't hate Macs. I think OSX is pretty neat. I prefer a free and open system, but OSX is definately a step in the right direction.
Why so many Mac fans are insistant on putting everything else down is beyond me. I thought they were supposed to be the (self proclaimed) open and artistic/smart/etc folks?
Don't get me wrong, there's a crap load of Mac users that aren't shitty. It's just too bad that the Mac community generally seems hostile because of a few loudmouths.
Ahh well, it's no use. I like all computer stuff, so I'm probably biased against being biased toward something as silly as an operating system. Shit, I even like my Windows machines. (And no, I don't like Microsoft.)
Ohh, get a fucking life. I was reading slashdot for years before I finally cracked down and created an account. Don't give me some crap about user ID's because yours is 5 digits.
Seriously.
Ohh, although it might be too close to judge, Apple is mentioned so much on Slashdot recently that it's a joke.
I remember the good old days when it was almost always about Linux and related Linux topics. The good stuff! Not just about the next thing from Some Big Company. And Apple IS a big company.
Or, you could have clicked the parents' link and saw that both paid support and security patches will still remain. Which, in the server arena, won't change a thing.
What you WILL have to pay for will be a specific bug fix that doesn't address a security concern. Of course, bug reporting when the product is in "mainstream" support doesn't guarentee bug fixes either.
And Microsoft doesn't differentiate between sub-versions - Windows 2000 means Pro, Server, Adv Server, Datacenter Server. They're all exactly the same operating systems, with a few registry changes.
I don't own a Mac. I've never used MacOS Server. And I can instantly spot bullshit like this when I see it.
What makes an OS a "Server OS?" That it has user management, file serving services, web services, print services? Hey look, OSX Server has all that. And it's a very fast unix-based OS that uses most of the stuff you find on Linux based servers.
What's different? MacOS is almost just another distribution of BSD. It's got a lot of little modifications and a new UI but it's still BSD. Isn't BSD suitable for a server?
What about Windows? Windows servers use the same exact kernel, and share a crap load of stuff - IIS, file/print sharing, etc - that Windows XP uses. So by your token, Windows XP isn't suitable for a server OS? Or, is Windows XP not suitable for a Desktop OS?
So why don't people use it? Well, why don't companies use Linux instead of Windows? Why do companies always pick Intel over AMD? It's hard, if not impossible, to compete head-to-head with these names. AMD makes fantastic chips that run software faster for the same price or less, but people still stick with Intel. Because of the name. Because "nobody gets fired for buying IBM."
A Windows without IE, Outlook Express, and half the other garbage would be a Good Thing.
The unfortunate part is that Microsoft embedded these apps all over the place, which have other companies the same idea.. so now there's a lot of apps that require Internet Explorer just to run.
They spread out useful API's into IE DLL's which don't have to be there, just to keep it installed.
Like the link says, only "Mainstream" support will end. You can still get support on a per-incident basis (which isn't really that much different then before.)
Additionally, Microsoft will continue to release security fixes for Windows 2000 for several more years - they still release patches for Windows 98 now.
It won't change much for most people.
At my company, we've got several hundred servers running Windows 2000 still. IIS6 in IIS5 compatibility mode isn't perfect, and IIS6 in native mode breaks a lot of apps. And there's a ton of other little gotchas with Windows Server 2003 - Can't run Exchange 2000 on it, can't run a lot of 3rd party software, etc etc. It's not an extremely hard upgrade but like any other major upgrade it's a lot of preparation.
It always bugs me when people say that Consumer electronics are so easy, and that computers are so difficult to use - they should be as easy as consumer electronics.
Bull!
First of all, on their own, consumer electronics are single-function devices. Reciever: Get sound, put it out to speakers. DVD Player: Read data from DVD, output it to ports on the back of the box. TV: Display video signals.
Each of these on their own are quite easy. Put them all together and you haven't even scratched the surface of the multi-function abilities of your average computer system these days.
My mom is a pretty smart person, but she doesn't even bother trying to figure out how to get all the TV, Cable, DVD player, VCR, and stereo all working together, or how to automagically record a show from the cable BOX interface on the VCR.
But when it comes to the computer, she can figure out just about everything there is to do without any help from me.
One of the big reasons your normal users are getting hammered these days is because of the malware and viruses that are attacking their machines all the time. It's not because they're hard to use - and if your VCR was getting slammed by spyware all day, it would be pretty damned hard to get a show recorded.
The fact is that you can't really compare these things. A Computer system serves quite a different purpose then a home theater system.
The Windows logo doesn't do much, except maybe give Microsoft as few extra bucks.
I've had Fiber card drivers, professional video card drivers, and all sorts of other "expensive hardware" drivers crash systems on me, and they've all had the Microsoft Certified driver logo.
While I'm sure that potentially the Windows logo certification might help iron out a bug or two, it doesn't end up making much difference in the end.
However, I do agree that many problems with Windows are the drivers and non-OS software that's installed. While I've had trouble with server-type hardware drivers, I've had countless fewer issues then I've had with desktops. Some of it is probably due to lower-quality hardware (although most "server" hardware comes out of the machines right next to the consumer hardware) but a lot more of it is the quality, testing, and QA of the drivers and related software.
Not to mention, the mish-mash of software installed on a desktop PC makes you wonder how it works at all.
I don't believe that Windows (2000, XP, 2003) are unstable operating systems. Security related problems aside, on their own these systems are very stable now a days.
You can cover them up. They don't show when you need to be professional in a professional environment.
That's the same as not having them at all.
I have no issues with Tatoos. Or piercings. Or whatever a branding is. But if you expect to be treated the same way as someone without such things in an interview..
If you watch TV and see who else has lots of tatoos and stuff, you see these rocker types, drug addicts, over-the-top gothers, and every other type of "weirdo." While I wouldn't think anything less of someone with a big tatoo or think you're a drug addict, what will the hardass hiring manager at somecompany think?
We're human. As much as it may be against the law to descriminate against people because of physical appearance, it happens. It happens all the time.
You know the saying.. when in Rome..
"(Why would I? I'm on a Mac and I like having free space in my ram.)"
Stop the insanity!
I've got Outlook 2003 open to an Exchange 2003 server right now. My mailbox is about 1.3GB. I've got a few add-ons, too, such as the LookOut search tool. It's using 25MB RAM.
It loads very fast, too.
For what the application does (it's not just e-mail) I think 25MB is certainly very resonable. Where's all that bloat you mac users like to spread around about Microsoft and Windows and Office?
Not liking the company is not a reason to lie about the applications they create. I hate Microsoft just as much as the next guy, but I really like Outlook and I look forward to when an OSS replacement app matches it. Evolution is very close, and I think in a few more revisions it'll be there. But it doesn't mean Outlook is crap. It's not.
And why do you need all that free RAM anyways? I have memory in my computers to use it. Sure, every software developer could write software that uses almost NO memory. But then they'd all run like shit, too. No, I'd rather use all my RAM up if that means my apps run faster. Because, you know. THAT'S WHAT IT'S THERE FOR.
Which is the #1 selling Apple product sold today. You did know HP sells HP-Branded iPods right?
I'm no programmer. I never have been.
But I wanted to make a really cool web site for a game group I was in, and I dug into it. I found PHP, as it worked real easy with both apache and IIS.
I ran through some tutorials (there's a ton of them out there, online, free) and I started to get into it.
The PHP manual has a lot of information and detail about nearly everything the language can do. It's a reference but it's easy to read and you can sit down with it and learn a lot about PHP and programming in general.
The truth is, PHP isn't all that much different then Javascript, Perl, etc. The syntax is very similar. Many of the functions are very similar. After creating my web site, complete with mySQL/MS-SQL support, logins, cookies, and everything in between - I can look at all kinds of different language source code and figure out what's going on.
Other languages are documented too, but something about PHP and it's docs just makes it easier to start coding and learn.
Hey man, shit, I'm not looking for someone to explain MacOS to me or tell me I'm wrong. I used it, I don't like it, and I was agreeing with the other guys's post. I've used MacOS a *lot* - I owned a early G4 Mac for over a year until I gave it away.
In case you didn't notice, x86-64 is already available on almost all AMD's offerings and soon to be all Intel's offerings.
It will allow for 64-bit instructions and much > 4GB memory without PAE.
But hey, if you want something to bitch about, here's one: You'll pay $3000 for some P4 Macintosh, and I'll pay $1000 for the same machine without MacOS. $2000 is starting to sound expensive for an operating system, huh? But then I guess it makes those $150 hits for minor OS updates not feel so bad..
If you're JoeUser and you just spent $3000 on a new Mac, only to have a minor revision of the OS sell for $140 but your buddy has a cracked version for free..
Windows got where it is today because of pirating, among other things. While Microsoft made a killing from pre-installs, Windows 95 was installed on almost every existing computer that could run it and hardly anyone paid to do so. Microsoft got market share because of pirating - if they locked down on copying Windows 95 like they do on Windows XP, it would have taken far longer for people to make the switch.
The same could happen with MacOS. If I get a cracked version of MacOS, none of my money goes to Apple. However, I'm using MacOS now, and Apple increased their market share. Which means more applications, which means more Macs get sold, which means more people DO pay for MacOS.
Of course, who knows what lie ahead.
FX!32 was the translator interface for Windows NT on Alpha, so it could run x86 binaries. It worked exceedingly well.
It was probably the best "real-time" translator I've ever seen. The more you ran an application, the better FX!32 would get at running the application. After enough sessions and background processing of the data, apps ran damned near native speeds. And the compatibility was outstanding - there were no "sandbox" type limits.
This Rosetta sounds like it will be a similar tool to that. It makes sense.
It still runs 10% of the apps I've ever tried to run. But it runs those 10% really fast!!
However, even though WineX is non-gpl crap, I can easily see a Mac port of this - allowing many new games to run on Mac for cheap.
I also see Codemasters putting up a version of Crossover Office for Mac, allowing you to run Windows versions of many applications. Crossover office is really good; it does what it sets out to do and it's fast. And they contribute a lot of code back to Wine, unlike Transgaming.
Wine isn't great but every year it gets better and better. I haven't given up on it yet.
Haha 500,000? That's crazy. I can't imagine the work that would go into producing that many chips, boxing them, and shipping them out.
But it does go to show how these companies jack up the prices by producing the chips much slower then they could. Either AMD or Intel could flood the market with their wares and sell at dirt cheap prices, but it wouldn't benefit either of them so neither of them do it. They just set the prices in direct competition with each other, back and forth, and maintain high prices.
Not sure where that guy is coming from - I've never heard anyone call a mac slow. Not once.
And I can't stand the MacOS UI either. OSX looks pretty, but it's no different then any of the other MacOS's. I don't like the dancing menu bar at the top, I don't like the way the windows work, I don't like the way you launch apps, the file manager...
I respect the system, but I can't use it.
Say what you will about Windows XP, but the interface is not the problem with the OS. It's easy to navigate and use. Microsoft pays people big bucks on UI design. It's certainly not perfect but it works.
"Even AMD is way behind regarding low power chips."
Not entirely. The Athlon64 itself, with no special mobile edition features, is fairly low power and generates a lot less heat then the Pentium 4. It's suitable for notebook PC's off the shelf, with down-clocking when idle built in to every chip.
Of course, mobile versions of the Athlon64 could help reduce heat even more if AMD put a little R&D into power consumption specifically.
The "Centrino" Pentium-M is simply a Pentium 3 with a few enhancements. This is not a new design, it's old, and it's design is more effecient then the P4. It also happens to use less power, so it's well suited for notebooks.
The reason Intel sells a lot more chips then AMD is because of it's name, it's ability to produce a hell of a lot more chips, and it's name. Did I mention it's name?
Actually, both the PS2 and Xbox have an operating system/kernel complete with API's and such. There's no GUI, you're right.
On a Windows or Unix system, the GUI goes into the background when a game is running and doesn't really consume many CPU cycles. All the extra stuff will use memory but PC's generally have a lot more of that then a game console- and it's cheap. A game running on your windows box pretty much uses the hardware to the best of it's ability, give or take a couple percent. Most cards now a days pretty much talk DirectX and OpenGL natively anyways.
If there were no OS, every developer would have to write their own drivers, threading libraries, memory management, etc.. like in the DOS days.
OS's aren't "stupid" - they make modern development possible. Don't confuse a GUI with an operating system.
As a footnote, I can't see you getting anywhere close to 35FPS in Doom 3 with a GeForce 2, unless you're looking at a wall. My notebook computer has a more powerful chip then a GeForce 2 and it runs like ass. My old Ti4600 runs it "okay" I guess. But the 4600 is probably 12x more powerful.
Show me some numbers?
Don't be a tard. Nobody has to spend $4000 to get a really high end PC.
Even $2000 can get you a wicked rig. And you can get a 23" wide screen LCD for $750, or a 20" 4:3 for less then $500 (for good screens.)
If you're broke and can't spend the money, then don't. But don't call me a fool because I want everything I run to be very nice and fluid.
Especially because my LCD native is 1920x1200, I want a high end card. I won't pay $1000 on one, but I did pay close to $400 for my BFG 6800GT card when they first came out.
Now, I can skip at least one new major GPU release from both ATI and nVidia, and still have plenty of power to play the games, if I wanted to. Sure, I could buy a $200 card now, and then another $200 in another year.. Might as well pay $400 now and have cutting edge for awhile, right?
Every time a new game console hits the market, there's another story about how it will kill PC gaming. It's not going to happen. It never has, and it never will.
When the first Xbox and the PS2 hit the shelves, they were touted as "PC Game killers" just the same. The hardware was strong and easily could compete with what PC's had going at the time. Then, six months passed, and PC games easily out-gunned consoles in terms of sound, graphics, and speed.
Will anything be different this time around? I don't think so. The XBox 360 has three PowerPC chips in it, or a multi-core CPU, or whatever. It's got a (currently) top of the line ATI chip in it for video. This machine will be very cool, but multi-core CPU's and SLI technologies are already making strong headway on PC's now.
Do you really think the Xbox 360 will be more powerful then a high end PC a year later? I don't.
Don't get me wrong, I like game consoles. I've owned the Xbox for a long time, and I still use it (although this could be because it's modded and a modded xbox is the shit) and there's some games that are only fun if you play them on a gamepad in front of the TV with some friends.
PC Gaming will be around for as long as people keep buying PC's for gaming. Visit any of the big PC gaming forums and you'll find the most active (albiet annoying) forums on the Internet.
No, the PC games will keep coming.