Sorry to go off topic but does anyone know WHY? I hear things about jumbo frames and stuff but I don't really have a solid answer.
The theoretical maximum is 120mbytes a second. Give or take 10% for overhead, you should be getting 100mbytes, hard drive permitting - best I've seen is 40mb sustained on 1gbit ethernet - less than half what it should do. USB 2.0 is the same, hook up a SATA HDD and adapter, drive can do 100mbytes, you'll see 25mbytes from it, USB 2 is 400mbit or so (iirc?) it should be much faster.
Yep, except 18 to 36 months, the 'average' consumer wants lots of space for little money.
I would class myself in the top 1% of desktop computer users, gamer, enthusiast, tweaker and I have _no_ intention of buying an SSD until it can at least hold/games//system//swap/ and have 30% room to move. I'd put up with a 256gb SSD but it'd also have to be sub 200$, I don't see any point in spending 600$ US on an item destined to be 200$ in 12 months.
I'm 30 and I swear I saw those cartoons drawn nearly 10 years ago, seriously! and I'm in Australia to boot. They were like one of the first images you see on the internet back in the day, it's like in the 'internet starter pack' includes goatse, simpsons porn, AYB and a black cat pouncing on a baby from behind a tree.
The pictures are so old the statute of limitation (is that the term?) should be over. I am becoming more and more ashamed to be an Australian lately - fuck these idiot laws and stupid 'FOR THE CHILDREN' actions. better ban "Miss teacher bangs a boy" episode of Southpark from free to air SBS reruns too! (an excellent one at that) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_teacher_bangs_a_boy
Logitech seem to think flashier, weirder, blingier the better. I hate to be that whiny little dork with small hands......... but..... I'm that whiny little dork with small hands! All their mice nowadays (Microsoft too) are like putting my hand on top of a smooth sliding SMALL FAMILY CAR with buttons on it.
For goodness sakes, can we start to make a mouse which is small and full featured? I love all these gamers with massive, huge mice and 530 buttons on them but the mouse is massive.
I've purchased a razor copperhead (and have a previous post here about it) the thing is slender and small and 214 feet long, I can barely touch the buttons with my fingers. Very few mice are made for finger mousers anymore, they are all made for palm mousers - good luck with your elbows in 20 years fellas.
I've used IE 4 / 5/6 / 7, FFox 1 / 2 / 3, I've use netscape, I've used chrome (which seemed the fastest) and they are still too slow.
I am a nerd who checks the same damn sites all the time, I don't know what the hell is wrong with web browsers but they simply aren't fast enough. I am speculating it's very poor cache code, it seems no matter how many times I hit slashdot a day or theage.com.au or techreport or any other site I frequently hit, the browser still seems to be slow in pulling in the data, they simply can't be using the disk cache routines properly.
I don't care what needs to be done, I do not care in any way about resources, offer me a 'power user' or 'internet addict' freak mode, I don't care if my cache directory for firefox is 12gb and the application uses 900mb of ram (no leaks though please) I just want my pages to open FAST.
I've used an application called 'easy dns' where you tell it a list of 10 dns servers and it uses all 10 and keeps a DNS cache, you then tell the machine to use your own IP as a DNS server, it certainly improved browsing for me.
You know what else I'd like? I'd like a way to have my browser automatically grab a fresh copy of common pages in the background, from a list I determine, so that when I do go to those frequent sites they come up almost instantly.
I realise I'm impatient, make no mistake! Ultimately, I've gone from a 56k modem on Pentium 133 with Windows 95 and 16mb of ram through the years to a quad core 3ghz machine, 4gb of ram, 18mbit adsl with 1/3 the latency and yet browsing honestly doesn't seem any better (seriously!) - sure it's doing more but it's just not enough. I'm not talking about youtube either, with distinct large content, I'm talking about pages like slashdot, digg, etc, pages which are just text and images, I mean surely a PC can throw around some text and images half decently?
I have the money and the resources for a decent PC and half decent internet link, I really don't mind my browser being greedy, just reward me with a fast experience.
I completely agree with you, although ideally I would like to have my OS, my applications, my currently playing games on the SSD. I would estimate I could do that under 60gb now and probably 256gb for the next 3 or 4 years.
I can always keep movies / data on magnetic spinnaz! (you know hard disks) That being said, our 'wishes' are pointless, it's not here right now, however over time, they will come inevitably, I would speculate within 24 months I'll be purchasing my first SSD and within 60 months they'll be quite common in machines.
Also of interest is an article at the techreport today about Intels new "E" series SSD using SLC and not MLC ram, it's significantly faster at writes and lasts longer. I won't buy an SSD unless it's SLC after reading that article.
I swear I shouldn't admit this but good lord you're right - I _REALLY_ wanted WinFS to come out and I wanted it to be good. A database driven filesystem would be so goddamned useful, it would change the way we work with computers but noooo Microsoft screwed up (furthermore WinFS was a hack, on top of NTFS anyhow I heard it was SQL server or something, sounds messy)
Porn is a fantastic example, I realise it's kind of immature but I mean it would be genuinely useful. Set tags like: threesome oral brunette money shot anal Sad, I know but could genuinely save time.
On to something which might be more applicable in the workplace or something though you could set documents for example like so: Finance Letter Superannuation (401k for the US readers) Invoice
Final example, perhaps for your photo collection: Family Girlfriend Holiday Christmas Drinks Road trip Fishing
Really, tags on files would be lovely, difficult to manage but lovely. I think my real concern with this is the ability for the tags to STAY WITH the file, even when copied to USB key or given to someone. It's a pretty complex little problem and I don't know of a solution to this without having the operating system constantly adding / editing the contents of a file, which could cause all kinds of problems for the file itself (especially triggering virus scanners etc) (You could do a 'thumbs.db' style index per folder but that's not ideal either)
Sorry to go off topic but I find it a fantastic concept for filesystems and computers, a real potential leap forward but likely difficult to impliment properly as well as to backup and transport to new machines when formatting or migrating servers etc, none the less I do wish it was here now, it's a bit of a shame it's taking so long.
Anyhow back to E:\Porn - I'll keep using folders the old fasioned way. *zzzzziiipp*
Ummm I don't know what you're talking about, the days of AMD being significantly cheaper are long gone and even if you do save money, the AMD performance levels are quite distinctively different to Intel now.
This is not the AMD Athlon XP thunderbird vs Pentium 4 days, where Intel was at least 2x more expensive for only 20 to 30% more speed, Intel is marginally more expensive for a lot more speed and a cooler overall system.
Furthermore back in the day, a good PC was 3000$ AUD, then 2000$ AUD then 1500$ etc - it's slowly decreased and decreased. Buying Intel would be 3000$ and AMD 2200$ - now it's more like 150$ difference to get the Intel rig, it's really a no brainer.
I'm all for supporting the underdog (I have an ATI video card) but I mean sorry, AMD's products just aren't compelling and haven't been since the Athlon X2's when intel didn't have the core 2 duo out.
Re:This is going to backfire on MS and Rock*
on
GTA IV DLC Announced
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· Score: 2, Interesting
"That's just silly whining. What, you want to see a fully original city the size and detailedness of Liberty City done from scratch every 9 months? Well don't count on it because they couldn't do as good in little enough time if they had a billion dollar budget."
I don't recall saying that at all. I'd rather they simply didn't bother wasting 9 motnhs with the DLC. I'm happy to wait another 2 / 3 / 4 years for a game as good as GTA4, not these silly little 'pockets' of game.
This is going to backfire on MS and Rock*
on
GTA IV DLC Announced
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Microsoft paid 50$ million for the exclusive rights to two large DLC packs for GTA, which is fine. The thing is, I think a lot of people don't realise that for all the open ended gameplay for GTA the series has evolved over the years to being great single player storyline focused games. Saints Row 1 and 2 are following the old GTA style of crazy gameplay with a loose story, whereas GTA4 was a fairly good story with brilliant presentation and a wonderful world.
I'm a complete and utter GTA fanboy, I loved GTA:SA and GTA4 and I purchased multiple copies (multiple systems) but I have absoloutely no desire for this DLC. I personally find DLC just cheapens most games and makes them feel like a product rather than an experience, like a book or movie. Would you pay for an extra 5 minutes of Star Wars (Lucas tried to offer it to us, again most of us hated it)
DLC has it's place but the only DLC for GTA I'd be interested in would be a full, complete expansion pack - ideally a new island and at least 20 or 30 SP missions plus some characters. Frankyly I'd rather the dev time be spent on a GTA4 - II or a GTA 5 game.
I'm an 'internet geek' - I've been using PC's since I was 12 (30 now) I have certainly enjoyed the internet and BBS's but human to human interaction is also damned important.
I would strongly recommend some kind of activity involving outdoor excercise and genuine socialising, I can assure you my social skills on the internet can be funny and entertaining but my real life social skills are weak at best.
Get them out there, I wish I got out more. (eats another twinkie)
They can't open the engine, they purchased the engine from id software, sure it's heavily modified chunks of Q1 and Q2 code but none the less it's not theirs to sell. Not every business can run the way carmack does, Valve still support developers very well anyhow.
Furthermore there's 2 versions of HL on steam now anyhow, the original with the old id / valve code and the new one with fairly fresh source engine code - again something they wouldn't want to give away.
If I CAN'T re-sell 110$ AUD games which I've purchased with my money, I won't be willing to continue to pay for them, so their market will go down overall.
Half the reason I got in to consoles was good re-sale value for games, plus the fact that unlike a PC game, I can buy a used copy of a console game and play online, due to lack of serial numbers etc.
Drop games to 40$ AUD a pop and sure I'll buy them without the ability to sell them but any higher and I expect more for my $
Just to add to your post, rumour has it (I believe) that Windows 7 segments the market even more..... with more versions of Windows.
They had it right with XP, basic and pro - it worked. 500$ AUD or whatever it is for Vista Ultimate is nothing short of an outrage, they are going to shoot themselves in the foot as people slowly move over to linux based systems.
Point taken and correct. I have setup my machine to auto enter my user / pass, then to auto lock from a batch file once it's logged in. Put in azureus, firefox etc in startup.
Sure it's slow as hell but I just re-boot, walk away, come back and things are good to go, not just login prompt.
I don't know why I'm posting my whines here, because it's not going to solve the problem unfortunately no matter how passionate I am about it,.. anyhow on to my post.
I'm a dork / nerd / geek, when I use a computer it is abso-freaking-loutely paramount to me that the machine is responsive, infact the best description I have is that I want the ONLY thing slowing me down when using a computer, to be me, not the machine, period.
I'm a keyboard freak, I'm fast navigating Windows, very fast, I'll have no modesty here, other colleagues refer to me as 'freak'. Now I'm also a gamer, I'm a guy who torrents his TV shows and I do all kinds of use that I figure most of us 'nerds' do on here.
I'm always in Windows explorer, I'm extracting files, I'm moving my porn from one drive to another, I'm sorting my TV shows, I'm downloading something, I'm helping fix a mates machine and backing up his drive to mine, formatting, copying back etc
Ultimately, my point is that I need my machine to help me do my stuff, be it work or pleasure. I always always use Windows classic interface, in the most basic of possible views, it's details view, classic UI, classic start menu and although some of you may hate it, my windows are always always maximised.
The point to all this is that when I do use the mouse or the keyboard, my functions are in identical places, my windows explorer windows are always the same size and shape and all my controls are always where I want them, it's consistency and with consistency comes my ability to rely upon the system.
I adore Windows XP now, it's not flawless but fully patched on a monster machine it's a fairly damned responsive system. Will Windows 7 be as good for people like me? There still is a lot of us geeks out there, in desktop admin, desktop SOE designer, windows server admin positions etc. The majority of my colleagues also use classic UI, a vast majority of people I work with dislike XP's Luna theme, let alone Vista's Aero interface.
So with most of these flashy operating systems, increasing the speed of an animation isn't going to really help us, if it's fluid or not what we need is smart design and consistency.
I tried Mac OSX a while back on my Dell laptop and I was very, very impressed with the 'file | edit | view' menu, or whatever it's called being in a consistent position up the top, for all applications, this is what Windows needs. Also, as for animations, if you want to have an animation, I want it so I can perform the action on the animated item before the animation is even complete. (example fade in / out start menu)
Windows Vista added breadcrumbs, removed the green 'up' arrow and removed the 'folders' button, it also cluttered up the interface. All in classic mode, frankly it's appalling, I couldn't hack it, I tried 3 times but it's just not good enough.
So, what will Windows 7 do which is actually FASTER and easier than XP? I think it's going to be difficult to do almost anything quicker as long as stuff is all animated, to some extent it's hindering you.
I definitely feel they are too forgiving, such policies lead to companies going broke, honestly these people just don't know how to manage themselves, it's lunacy.
Is this post a joke? I can't tell, I really can't tell, if it is bravo, you got me.
If this post is not a joke, good lord, wow! You Americans and your expectations from retailers continue to fascinate me, absoloutely and utterly incredible, it's got to come to an end.
I've been using the internet now for about 12 years and I'll never forget the first time I heard some of the stories you guys would relay. Rebates, incredibly cheap prices compared to the rest of the world, massive huge stores with IT gear in them, like KMart sized IT stores, wow! You can actually purchase a product and then go back a week later if the price drops with your receipt and they give you the difference, what the hell? Over here that's 'tough luck buddy' (and to be honest, so it should be! you bought it when it was higher, tough!)
The deals you can find on the internet still blow me away "buy this router for 11$ get a 9$ rebate" "buy product X for 50$ with a 30$ rebate" yet these same items cost 80 or 100$ US over here!
Now I've just come across your post, and I sit here unable to comprehend it. You're telling me you want a store to give you a cash refund on a purchased product without a receipt and you have the audacity to whine about it? Really? Where's the bloody proof you purchased it? You could have stolen it. You could have purchased it cheaper somewhere else, effectively stealing from these people. You could work for the manufacturer and get them cheaper. It could be broken.
There's a plethora of reasons why companies demand a receipt, it's common bloody consumer knowledge, I mean seriously what next will you people expect from retail stores? "Sorry, I don't have the cash on me now but I promise I'll pay next week!"
This way of doing business and being so competitive and catering to the ever pushy consumer (and a large portion of Americans are a very pushy consumer) is what's causing business's to go bust, admitedly circuit city was a dump but really, there needs to be a sharp dose of reality kicked in here.
Disclaimer: Not all Americans are pushy, not all business's in America cater to some of the ridiculous whims of the consumer, none the less as a foreigner the above is the impression I have gathered over the past 10 years of speaking to some of you guys and gals on the internet, really - you had it good, you had it too bloody good in some ways, consider yourselves damned lucky... price protection for goodness sakes.. sheesh
Congratulations on missing the point of my post entirely and being labelled the troll that you, the internet now knows just what level of reading comprehension skills you have.
You're ignoring the point of my post entirely, congratulations.
I didn't say caps aren't stupid, I made that clear. The fact is, I can see very very little need for anyone to whine about 'only' 250gb of data, even pirates for goodness sakes.
We can get plans in the 100 to 150gb range now for only about 100$ US I think, not too bad considering we're on an island.
Some of the claims here are just outright insanity, honestly you Americans really are a spoilt spoilt group of people, sometimes this makes us foreigners feel envy and other times it's a pure and utter facepalm.
250gb might drive people back to DVD and bluray! These caps may stop people getting software patches! etc. What the hell are you people TALKING about, people are not going to take you seriously if you're going to make such crazy statements.
I could format a PC right now and download a copy of XP or Vista. (on a spare machine) Then download firefox, nero, azureus, hardware drivers, anti-virus packages, anti-spyware packages, benchmarking tools, mirc, winamp, skype, itunes AND all of the Windows patches, including service pack 3 for XP then download all the updates / definitions for those packages. Then download a linux iso of my choice, then install that on another partition then install all relevant apps for that AND updates. Then I could download about 5 popular brand new video games and patches AND cracks (should I be so inclined) for them and I still would be very very unlikely to use HALF of that amount of data for all that.
I could youtube it up for an hour a day, stream some radio, constantly check news sites as I do, re-install steam and re-download the 30gb of games I have on steam I'd STILL not be hitting that cap.
Then I could download some popular movies (again, should I be so inclined) let's say 5 new movies in 700mb format, plus all my favourite TV shows (let's say 6 shows, 4 episodes for the month, 24x350mb) etc I STILL WOULD NOT BE HITTING THE CAP.
I could do this every single god damned month with a 250gb cap for goodness sakes, do you people re-install and re-download everything, every month? Let alone the fact that I shouldn't be pirating the movies, shouldn't be pirating the TV shows, shouldn't be pirating the games, even with over the top crazy bandwidth usage, (legitimate) I'd have a hell of a time hitting more than 150gb a month.
Now before you hit the reply button I want to make several things clear. 1, caps suck, I totally and utterly agree, ideally it would be unlimited for everyone 2, putting a cap in place and NOT providing a metering tool is bullshit! if you're going to cap users, damnwell let them see their usage (the Aussie ISP's can do it) 3, if you're going to charge extra per gb, there needs to be a clear notification to the user when they are close (again, Aussie ISP's can do this) furthermore this needs to be made clear to the client before switching their connection to this 'plan'
I don't like caps but some of the claims you people make are bonkers, absoloutely bonkers, I live with a 25gb 'peak' and 40gb 'offpeak' plan in Australia and that's a recent change, I was on 10peak/20offpeak for 2 years before this. 25/40 is restrictive, yes but it's not un-usable, not in the slightest, I'd be very comfortable to be honest with the same 65gb just in a single block rather than peak / offpeak and yes I download pretty much all I want (TV shows especially, TV over here blows)
What does suck is if you're a bunch of guys in a share house, say a nice uperclass pad with well paid guys in there, all geeks, say 4 of you, then 250gb could start to be a problem. What you do need is the ISP's to offer upgrades to the plans, or better notice about switching users on these plans, metering tools, ways to inform the customer the limit is close, you need competition and alternatives.
I can fathom a share house of completely legitimate internet use of complete geeks (not meant as an insult) using maybe 500gb in a month but that's a very very rare instance and in that case surely 4 geeks putting a bit of coin in together could afford some kind of business plan which offers substantially more (we have those here)
Ultimately the point of my post is that some of you pulling a bleeding heart over 250gb are really just making yourselves look ridiculous, seriously people.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry to go off topic but does anyone know WHY?
I hear things about jumbo frames and stuff but I don't really have a solid answer.
The theoretical maximum is 120mbytes a second.
Give or take 10% for overhead, you should be getting 100mbytes, hard drive permitting - best I've seen is 40mb sustained on 1gbit ethernet - less than half what it should do.
USB 2.0 is the same, hook up a SATA HDD and adapter, drive can do 100mbytes, you'll see 25mbytes from it, USB 2 is 400mbit or so (iirc?) it should be much faster.
Such a shame.
Yep, except 18 to 36 months, the 'average' consumer wants lots of space for little money.
I would class myself in the top 1% of desktop computer users, gamer, enthusiast, tweaker and I have _no_ intention of buying an SSD until it can at least hold /games/ /system/ /swap/ and have 30% room to move.
I'd put up with a 256gb SSD but it'd also have to be sub 200$, I don't see any point in spending 600$ US on an item destined to be 200$ in 12 months.
I'm 30 and I swear I saw those cartoons drawn nearly 10 years ago, seriously! and I'm in Australia to boot.
They were like one of the first images you see on the internet back in the day, it's like in the 'internet starter pack' includes goatse, simpsons porn, AYB and a black cat pouncing on a baby from behind a tree.
The pictures are so old the statute of limitation (is that the term?) should be over.
I am becoming more and more ashamed to be an Australian lately - fuck these idiot laws and stupid 'FOR THE CHILDREN' actions.
better ban "Miss teacher bangs a boy" episode of Southpark from free to air SBS reruns too! (an excellent one at that)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_teacher_bangs_a_boy
Well, it's true.
Logitech seem to think flashier, weirder, blingier the better. ..... I'm that whiny little dork with small hands!
I hate to be that whiny little dork with small hands......... but
All their mice nowadays (Microsoft too) are like putting my hand on top of a smooth sliding SMALL FAMILY CAR with buttons on it.
For goodness sakes, can we start to make a mouse which is small and full featured?
I love all these gamers with massive, huge mice and 530 buttons on them but the mouse is massive.
I've purchased a razor copperhead (and have a previous post here about it) the thing is slender and small and 214 feet long, I can barely touch the buttons with my fingers.
Very few mice are made for finger mousers anymore, they are all made for palm mousers - good luck with your elbows in 20 years fellas.
More information here.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?threshold=-1&mode=nested&commentsort=3&op=Change&sid=188411&cid=15531265&pid=15531265
I just got one, it's as simple as that - 50" is great and I can tell the difference, even with my poor eyes.
I've used IE 4 / 5 /6 / 7, FFox 1 / 2 / 3, I've use netscape, I've used chrome (which seemed the fastest) and they are still too slow.
I am a nerd who checks the same damn sites all the time, I don't know what the hell is wrong with web browsers but they simply aren't fast enough.
I am speculating it's very poor cache code, it seems no matter how many times I hit slashdot a day or theage.com.au or techreport or any other site I frequently hit, the browser still seems to be slow in pulling in the data, they simply can't be using the disk cache routines properly.
I don't care what needs to be done, I do not care in any way about resources, offer me a 'power user' or 'internet addict' freak mode, I don't care if my cache directory for firefox is 12gb and the application uses 900mb of ram (no leaks though please) I just want my pages to open FAST.
I've used an application called 'easy dns' where you tell it a list of 10 dns servers and it uses all 10 and keeps a DNS cache, you then tell the machine to use your own IP as a DNS server, it certainly improved browsing for me.
You know what else I'd like? I'd like a way to have my browser automatically grab a fresh copy of common pages in the background, from a list I determine, so that when I do go to those frequent sites they come up almost instantly.
I realise I'm impatient, make no mistake! Ultimately, I've gone from a 56k modem on Pentium 133 with Windows 95 and 16mb of ram through the years to a quad core 3ghz machine, 4gb of ram, 18mbit adsl with 1/3 the latency and yet browsing honestly doesn't seem any better (seriously!) - sure it's doing more but it's just not enough.
I'm not talking about youtube either, with distinct large content, I'm talking about pages like slashdot, digg, etc, pages which are just text and images, I mean surely a PC can throw around some text and images half decently?
I have the money and the resources for a decent PC and half decent internet link, I really don't mind my browser being greedy, just reward me with a fast experience.
I completely agree with you, although ideally I would like to have my OS, my applications, my currently playing games on the SSD.
I would estimate I could do that under 60gb now and probably 256gb for the next 3 or 4 years.
I can always keep movies / data on magnetic spinnaz! (you know hard disks)
That being said, our 'wishes' are pointless, it's not here right now, however over time, they will come inevitably, I would speculate within 24 months I'll be purchasing my first SSD and within 60 months they'll be quite common in machines.
Also of interest is an article at the techreport today about Intels new "E" series SSD using SLC and not MLC ram, it's significantly faster at writes and lasts longer.
I won't buy an SSD unless it's SLC after reading that article.
I swear I shouldn't admit this but good lord you're right - I _REALLY_ wanted WinFS to come out and I wanted it to be good.
A database driven filesystem would be so goddamned useful, it would change the way we work with computers but noooo Microsoft screwed up (furthermore WinFS was a hack, on top of NTFS anyhow I heard it was SQL server or something, sounds messy)
Porn is a fantastic example, I realise it's kind of immature but I mean it would be genuinely useful.
Set tags like:
threesome
oral
brunette
money shot
anal
Sad, I know but could genuinely save time.
On to something which might be more applicable in the workplace or something though you could set documents for example like so:
Finance
Letter
Superannuation (401k for the US readers)
Invoice
Final example, perhaps for your photo collection:
Family
Girlfriend
Holiday
Christmas
Drinks
Road trip
Fishing
Really, tags on files would be lovely, difficult to manage but lovely.
I think my real concern with this is the ability for the tags to STAY WITH the file, even when copied to USB key or given to someone.
It's a pretty complex little problem and I don't know of a solution to this without having the operating system constantly adding / editing the contents of a file, which could cause all kinds of problems for the file itself (especially triggering virus scanners etc)
(You could do a 'thumbs.db' style index per folder but that's not ideal either)
Sorry to go off topic but I find it a fantastic concept for filesystems and computers, a real potential leap forward but likely difficult to impliment properly as well as to backup and transport to new machines when formatting or migrating servers etc, none the less I do wish it was here now, it's a bit of a shame it's taking so long.
Anyhow back to E:\Porn - I'll keep using folders the old fasioned way.
*zzzzziiipp*
Ummm I don't know what you're talking about, the days of AMD being significantly cheaper are long gone and even if you do save money, the AMD performance levels are quite distinctively different to Intel now.
This is not the AMD Athlon XP thunderbird vs Pentium 4 days, where Intel was at least 2x more expensive for only 20 to 30% more speed, Intel is marginally more expensive for a lot more speed and a cooler overall system.
Furthermore back in the day, a good PC was 3000$ AUD, then 2000$ AUD then 1500$ etc - it's slowly decreased and decreased.
Buying Intel would be 3000$ and AMD 2200$ - now it's more like 150$ difference to get the Intel rig, it's really a no brainer.
I'm all for supporting the underdog (I have an ATI video card) but I mean sorry, AMD's products just aren't compelling and haven't been since the Athlon X2's when intel didn't have the core 2 duo out.
"That's just silly whining. What, you want to see a fully original city the size and detailedness of Liberty City done from scratch every 9 months? Well don't count on it because they couldn't do as good in little enough time if they had a billion dollar budget."
I don't recall saying that at all.
I'd rather they simply didn't bother wasting 9 motnhs with the DLC.
I'm happy to wait another 2 / 3 / 4 years for a game as good as GTA4, not these silly little 'pockets' of game.
Microsoft paid 50$ million for the exclusive rights to two large DLC packs for GTA, which is fine.
The thing is, I think a lot of people don't realise that for all the open ended gameplay for GTA the series has evolved over the years to being great single player storyline focused games.
Saints Row 1 and 2 are following the old GTA style of crazy gameplay with a loose story, whereas GTA4 was a fairly good story with brilliant presentation and a wonderful world.
I'm a complete and utter GTA fanboy, I loved GTA:SA and GTA4 and I purchased multiple copies (multiple systems) but I have absoloutely no desire for this DLC.
I personally find DLC just cheapens most games and makes them feel like a product rather than an experience, like a book or movie.
Would you pay for an extra 5 minutes of Star Wars (Lucas tried to offer it to us, again most of us hated it)
DLC has it's place but the only DLC for GTA I'd be interested in would be a full, complete expansion pack - ideally a new island and at least 20 or 30 SP missions plus some characters.
Frankyly I'd rather the dev time be spent on a GTA4 - II or a GTA 5 game.
I'm an 'internet geek' - I've been using PC's since I was 12 (30 now)
I have certainly enjoyed the internet and BBS's but human to human interaction is also damned important.
I would strongly recommend some kind of activity involving outdoor excercise and genuine socialising, I can assure you my social skills on the internet can be funny and entertaining but my real life social skills are weak at best.
Get them out there, I wish I got out more.
(eats another twinkie)
They can't open the engine, they purchased the engine from id software, sure it's heavily modified chunks of Q1 and Q2 code but none the less it's not theirs to sell.
Not every business can run the way carmack does, Valve still support developers very well anyhow.
Furthermore there's 2 versions of HL on steam now anyhow, the original with the old id / valve code and the new one with fairly fresh source engine code - again something they wouldn't want to give away.
If I CAN'T re-sell 110$ AUD games which I've purchased with my money, I won't be willing to continue to pay for them, so their market will go down overall.
Half the reason I got in to consoles was good re-sale value for games, plus the fact that unlike a PC game, I can buy a used copy of a console game and play online, due to lack of serial numbers etc.
Drop games to 40$ AUD a pop and sure I'll buy them without the ability to sell them but any higher and I expect more for my $
Just to add to your post, rumour has it (I believe) that Windows 7 segments the market even more..... with more versions of Windows.
They had it right with XP, basic and pro - it worked.
500$ AUD or whatever it is for Vista Ultimate is nothing short of an outrage, they are going to shoot themselves in the foot as people slowly move over to linux based systems.
Mod this fellow up, morons who assume that a finite resource is something we should just keep tapping at forever, are quite frankly in fairyland.
Point taken and correct.
I have setup my machine to auto enter my user / pass, then to auto lock from a batch file once it's logged in.
Put in azureus, firefox etc in startup.
Sure it's slow as hell but I just re-boot, walk away, come back and things are good to go, not just login prompt.
I agree that is cheating- it is also however, bloody brilliant, just make a new hibernation snapshot once a week, good times, good loads.
I don't know why I'm posting my whines here, because it's not going to solve the problem unfortunately no matter how passionate I am about it,.. anyhow on to my post.
I'm a dork / nerd / geek, when I use a computer it is abso-freaking-loutely paramount to me that the machine is responsive, infact the best description I have is that I want the ONLY thing slowing me down when using a computer, to be me, not the machine, period.
I'm a keyboard freak, I'm fast navigating Windows, very fast, I'll have no modesty here, other colleagues refer to me as 'freak'.
Now I'm also a gamer, I'm a guy who torrents his TV shows and I do all kinds of use that I figure most of us 'nerds' do on here.
I'm always in Windows explorer, I'm extracting files, I'm moving my porn from one drive to another, I'm sorting my TV shows, I'm downloading something, I'm helping fix a mates machine and backing up his drive to mine, formatting, copying back etc
Ultimately, my point is that I need my machine to help me do my stuff, be it work or pleasure.
I always always use Windows classic interface, in the most basic of possible views, it's details view, classic UI, classic start menu and although some of you may hate it, my windows are always always maximised.
The point to all this is that when I do use the mouse or the keyboard, my functions are in identical places, my windows explorer windows are always the same size and shape and all my controls are always where I want them, it's consistency and with consistency comes my ability to rely upon the system.
I adore Windows XP now, it's not flawless but fully patched on a monster machine it's a fairly damned responsive system.
Will Windows 7 be as good for people like me? There still is a lot of us geeks out there, in desktop admin, desktop SOE designer, windows server admin positions etc.
The majority of my colleagues also use classic UI, a vast majority of people I work with dislike XP's Luna theme, let alone Vista's Aero interface.
So with most of these flashy operating systems, increasing the speed of an animation isn't going to really help us, if it's fluid or not what we need is smart design and consistency.
I tried Mac OSX a while back on my Dell laptop and I was very, very impressed with the 'file | edit | view' menu, or whatever it's called being in a consistent position up the top, for all applications, this is what Windows needs.
Also, as for animations, if you want to have an animation, I want it so I can perform the action on the animated item before the animation is even complete. (example fade in / out start menu)
Windows Vista added breadcrumbs, removed the green 'up' arrow and removed the 'folders' button, it also cluttered up the interface.
All in classic mode, frankly it's appalling, I couldn't hack it, I tried 3 times but it's just not good enough.
So, what will Windows 7 do which is actually FASTER and easier than XP? I think it's going to be difficult to do almost anything quicker as long as stuff is all animated, to some extent it's hindering you.
Fair response, wasn't aware of that policy.
I definitely feel they are too forgiving, such policies lead to companies going broke, honestly these people just don't know how to manage themselves, it's lunacy.
Is this post a joke? I can't tell, I really can't tell, if it is bravo, you got me.
If this post is not a joke, good lord, wow! You Americans and your expectations from retailers continue to fascinate me, absoloutely and utterly incredible, it's got to come to an end.
I've been using the internet now for about 12 years and I'll never forget the first time I heard some of the stories you guys would relay.
Rebates, incredibly cheap prices compared to the rest of the world, massive huge stores with IT gear in them, like KMart sized IT stores, wow!
You can actually purchase a product and then go back a week later if the price drops with your receipt and they give you the difference, what the hell? Over here that's 'tough luck buddy' (and to be honest, so it should be! you bought it when it was higher, tough!)
The deals you can find on the internet still blow me away "buy this router for 11$ get a 9$ rebate" "buy product X for 50$ with a 30$ rebate" yet these same items cost 80 or 100$ US over here!
Now I've just come across your post, and I sit here unable to comprehend it.
You're telling me you want a store to give you a cash refund on a purchased product without a receipt and you have the audacity to whine about it?
Really? Where's the bloody proof you purchased it?
You could have stolen it.
You could have purchased it cheaper somewhere else, effectively stealing from these people.
You could work for the manufacturer and get them cheaper.
It could be broken.
There's a plethora of reasons why companies demand a receipt, it's common bloody consumer knowledge, I mean seriously what next will you people expect from retail stores? "Sorry, I don't have the cash on me now but I promise I'll pay next week!"
This way of doing business and being so competitive and catering to the ever pushy consumer (and a large portion of Americans are a very pushy consumer) is what's causing business's to go bust, admitedly circuit city was a dump but really, there needs to be a sharp dose of reality kicked in here.
Disclaimer: Not all Americans are pushy, not all business's in America cater to some of the ridiculous whims of the consumer, none the less as a foreigner the above is the impression I have gathered over the past 10 years of speaking to some of you guys and gals on the internet, really - you had it good, you had it too bloody good in some ways, consider yourselves damned lucky... price protection for goodness sakes.. sheesh
I see you don't know what the word 'least' means.
Congratulations on missing the point of my post entirely and being labelled the troll that you, the internet now knows just what level of reading comprehension skills you have.
My condolences to your friends and family.
You're ignoring the point of my post entirely, congratulations.
I didn't say caps aren't stupid, I made that clear.
The fact is, I can see very very little need for anyone to whine about 'only' 250gb of data, even pirates for goodness sakes.
We can get plans in the 100 to 150gb range now for only about 100$ US I think, not too bad considering we're on an island.
Some of the claims here are just outright insanity, honestly you Americans really are a spoilt spoilt group of people, sometimes this makes us foreigners feel envy and other times it's a pure and utter facepalm.
250gb might drive people back to DVD and bluray!
These caps may stop people getting software patches!
etc.
What the hell are you people TALKING about, people are not going to take you seriously if you're going to make such crazy statements.
I could format a PC right now and download a copy of XP or Vista. (on a spare machine)
Then download firefox, nero, azureus, hardware drivers, anti-virus packages, anti-spyware packages, benchmarking tools, mirc, winamp, skype, itunes AND all of the Windows patches, including service pack 3 for XP then download all the updates / definitions for those packages.
Then download a linux iso of my choice, then install that on another partition then install all relevant apps for that AND updates.
Then I could download about 5 popular brand new video games and patches AND cracks (should I be so inclined) for them and I still would be very very unlikely to use HALF of that amount of data for all that.
I could youtube it up for an hour a day, stream some radio, constantly check news sites as I do, re-install steam and re-download the 30gb of games I have on steam I'd STILL not be hitting that cap.
Then I could download some popular movies (again, should I be so inclined) let's say 5 new movies in 700mb format, plus all my favourite TV shows (let's say 6 shows, 4 episodes for the month, 24x350mb) etc
I STILL WOULD NOT BE HITTING THE CAP.
I could do this every single god damned month with a 250gb cap for goodness sakes, do you people re-install and re-download everything, every month?
Let alone the fact that I shouldn't be pirating the movies, shouldn't be pirating the TV shows, shouldn't be pirating the games, even with over the top crazy bandwidth usage, (legitimate) I'd have a hell of a time hitting more than 150gb a month.
Now before you hit the reply button I want to make several things clear.
1, caps suck, I totally and utterly agree, ideally it would be unlimited for everyone
2, putting a cap in place and NOT providing a metering tool is bullshit! if you're going to cap users, damnwell let them see their usage (the Aussie ISP's can do it)
3, if you're going to charge extra per gb, there needs to be a clear notification to the user when they are close (again, Aussie ISP's can do this) furthermore this needs to be made clear to the client before switching their connection to this 'plan'
I don't like caps but some of the claims you people make are bonkers, absoloutely bonkers, I live with a 25gb 'peak' and 40gb 'offpeak' plan in Australia and that's a recent change, I was on 10peak/20offpeak for 2 years before this.
25/40 is restrictive, yes but it's not un-usable, not in the slightest, I'd be very comfortable to be honest with the same 65gb just in a single block rather than peak / offpeak and yes I download pretty much all I want (TV shows especially, TV over here blows)
What does suck is if you're a bunch of guys in a share house, say a nice uperclass pad with well paid guys in there, all geeks, say 4 of you, then 250gb could start to be a problem.
What you do need is the ISP's to offer upgrades to the plans, or better notice about switching users on these plans, metering tools, ways to inform the customer the limit is close, you need competition and alternatives.
I can fathom a share house of completely legitimate internet use of complete geeks (not meant as an insult) using maybe 500gb in a month but that's a very very rare instance and in that case surely 4 geeks putting a bit of coin in together could afford some kind of business plan which offers substantially more (we have those here)
Ultimately the point of my post is that some of you pulling a bleeding heart over 250gb are really just making yourselves look ridiculous, seriously people.
We've got people over here gett