I'm sure you don't agree but it varies from person to person.
How's this, I am incapable of playing Project Firestart without being scared at 29. No, I'm not joking, it's likely you've never heard of it. <URL:http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=370 3>
I can however sit through...most scary movies, if it's too scary I make a point of switching that part of my brain off.
Vista forced my Dell 8600 laptop to run it's fan in stage 2 of 3 instead of 1/3 that XP does, somewhere CPU use was too high, no matter what I turned off (Aero etc) - on battery or powered.
The interface isn't for me, I couldn't possibly care less about a fluffy 3D interface, I've never used XP's Luna theme and I've been using XP since 6 months after release, I need a functional fast operating system with clever powerful features, I don't 'watch' my OS I use it to get stuff done.
Another reason why I don't want Aero is I do a hell of a lot of RDP'ing and you can't get Aero over RDP. I would find switching from Vista classic (or XP classic) to Aero, to classic to Aero when switching in and out of my RDP sessions to be very disorientating.
ALSO Aero seemed to offer no real actual benefits to usability, sadly I have to admit after using Mac OSX that the whole expose thing is surprisingly awesome and convienient, that operating system truely makes a mouse user damn near as powerful as a good keyboarder (wow!) Aero's flip 3D however was ridiculously bad at actually saving you time and effort.
The widget thing / bar on the right was stupid, it should be like Mac OS - it's there, when you need it, hidden and very easily accessable, NOT a bar stuck on the side (auto hide or not, Mac OS wins that)
The search functionality wasn't as good as locate32, I think in file names, not in contents, if I want my CV I search for *resume*.doc on all drives and I'll find it because I memorise the file name (admitedly locate32 isn't native to XP)
Therefore overall Vista didn't offer me anything that honestly helped me. I used a full retail version of Ultimate and manage to re-produce a bug where connecting to a VPN would instantly blue screen it too (fully patched)
I dislike the smaller 'stylish' min / max / close buttons at the top right, I like them square and easy to find.
Did I mention Windows Explorer sucked? I spend 80% of my time in it, managing files, doing 'stuff' and it's hard to explain but there was a lack of 'lines' and dividers and bars, the data was hard to take in quickly because the interface looked,... weird I couldn't do things quicker with that, the line showing left pane / right pane sucked. I think (don't quote me) it forced that silly task pane on as well, which is on in XP but disable-able - I don't think you can in Vista (don't quote)
I disliked the breadcrumb style address bar in folders at the top of explorer, admitedly just today someone found a home made patch to disable it but it's not a stock option in Vista and wasn't available when I tried it.
When all is said and done, I would STILL use the thing if someone just made a shell replacement that made it look absoloutely 100% identical to XP classic mode but with a Vista 'engine'. I don't hate DX10 nor do I detest the search, I can always use my own, I don't have to use flip 3d but I do CONSTANTLY use Windows explorer and I need it looking nice, simple and clean to do shit fast, - I felt hamstrung:/
Sooner or later the HD killer app will come though and people with big TV's will flock and so will the mainstream.
I do not want to join the HD race but goddamnit if I don't want 300 in high def ASAP Also Planet Earth in HD = swoon.
It's going to become as common as DVD, it might take longer but it will get there. I too hope the DRM dies and the damned blu-ray and hd-dvd war ends though.
I can confirm this fellows comment on the no CD cracks for legit PC owners.
I am a messy lazy bastard, I damage stuff all the time. I love Warcraft 3 online, so I have a clone CD image on my drive that I mount and the copy protection is fooled by Daemon tools and the game works.
The stupid thing is I require a GENUINE CD KEY TO PLAY ONLINE I can NOT play online without that key, it's a real, made by blizzard key, keygens won't work! So why do I need my damn CD in the drive? I've already proven I own it. Silly stuff.
So this baby has 200gb platters, it sounds all impressive and all, except we've had 188gb platters for ages now. Seagate has announced (and released, I think?) their 1TB HDD with only 4 platters (cooler, quieter, less power, less weight, less cost to manufacture) that's 250gb a platter
Samsung have announced the F1 using 333GB per platter! 1.6TB if they copy Hitachi and slap 5 of them in a 3.5" unit - or rather 333gb single platter, light, cheap drives, be damned if anyone can find the F1 yet though:/
Yeah I just realised that, it's still very impressive they had photos and successful landings of devices on the surface in the 70's - I'm really impressed.
I'm going to make a dumb dumb post but I thought I'd share it with you all.
I had no idea we had landers on mars before! I knew we had one which failed a couple of years before spirit and oppourtunity arrived.
I thought the current 2 were the ONLY 2, I'm shocked, impressed and actually ever so slightly less impressed at the current models now, I thought they were marvels of engineering (and they are) but the fact it was done in the 70's, wow amazing.
Don't flame, I had no idea, wouldn't be surprised if others thought the current 2 were the only 2 also.
I can understand there's uses for it, most certainly it just doesn't suit me.
Then again it seems my original post could be incorrect (although I'm still not positive, no one has proven it:/ ) I'd use it if I was averaging 150FPS in games, no problems but well I'm not.
If Aladrin is actually correct and 4xAA is only a hardware requirement then it would appear my post was un-necessary, I can always admit mistake and move on but being a smartass helps no one, if you like burning the karma then good for you.
(even if he's right it's still an odd requirement, it'd be suicide for a card not to have it in the past 3 years)
If the guy who posted in response to me is correct, then I was wrong at the time of my post, hence the un-necessary rant.:/
It still seems like a silly requirement, like 'all cars must be able to physically move' - you just expect it nowadays, 4xAA is what 6 or 7 years old and mainstream for the last 5.
I've never owned a card which I was comfortable enabling AA in, I always seem to notice the performance hit, maybe I'm just picky but I want my MINIMUM frames to be 60+ so if I turn on AA and it averages 60 FPS but dips in the 30's or I leave it off and I dip to 45, I'm much happier.
Better texture detail, animation, draw distance all much cooler.
One thing we all thought was a gimmick was the Voodoo 5 6000's effort of motion blur and depth of field. 5 years later in movies of crysis gameplay it looks awesome, even though it doesn't add anything really more detailed it just comes off looking awesome - that is worth the hit, in my opinion.
That's ridiculous. Some people out there (gasp!) actually don't care for AA at all! I'm a CRT user, 22" screen, I use it in 1280x960 or 1600x1200 and I can tell you now that in a good many games the resources wasted on AA could be better spent on lighting, textures etc, I'm very happy with my image quality in that resolution and other resolutions.
LCD's are similar, if you run your game in it's native resolution you're likely using 1280x1024, 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 again where is AA really 'needed' or needed enough to be mandatory?
All this is going to do is force developers to lower their graphical targets as they are wasting frames on something which should CLEARLY be optional.
If for example I did one day find a game looked too blocky, I could up the resolution from 1152 to 1280 or 1280 to 1600 or even 1600 to 2048 and in the case of LCD's well, most LCD's sold nowadays really are running at quite high resolutions for their sizes as it is (in my opinion)
Oh and I do realise some people like AA, infact I'm sure some people are horrified by my choice but well at least currently it is an option for me.
For some reason this makes me think something more sinister is at hand, maybe I'm wrong but I do know the ATI developed Xbox 360 GPU has 'free' 4xAA due to the way the chip was designed, there's some spare EDRAM on the GPU specifically for this, it's fine if you have one of these chips but what if you don't? Is this simply some kind of conspiracy (unlikely but worth mentioning)
I love it, first they release Vista, try to force Shadowrun and Halo 2 to be locked to it, desperate for gamers to use their 'new and improved' (ugly as shit) operating system, now they are trying to force other nonsense on us. I really really hope that Sony at least come at a draw with MS this console round so that gaming isn't totally fucked in the future, if these guys were the sole game operators, I think I'd get a new hobby.*/rant over.
* Sony haters, this does not imply Sony is flawless, this implies competition is good.
This man does not in any way represent the values of the majority of 35 and under people in Australia, I do not know a single person who respects the man and he's running scared right now because his time (much like Bush's) is UP, it's over and it's out, it's only a matter of time before he's gone.
I can not wait, shifty, greedy little prick and this filtering move? More stupidity from government, no surprise here.
Do I re-moderate this guy back to informative or reply?
Seriously - a little conspiracy theoried but on the money no less, Halo is NOT a bad game but it is, without a doubt one of the most over-rated games in history, good lord is it over rated.
I finished the first one it had some kind of half decent story, kind of, fairly fun gameplay I won't deny and not shabby graphics, the second one wasn't worth finishing and I quit about 5 hours into it.
So SOOOooooo overrated, it boggles my mind every time the topic comes up.
I'm going to burn some karma on the most stupid thing to whinge about EVER, sorry but I just have to, this isn't an attack.
This is slashdot, full of sci-fi nerds, techies, geeks, dorks etc while the quote is cool, signing off who actually said it, kinda ruins it, dunno why but it does!
Several people have done it lately, if you're gonna make a pop culture reference, the whole comedy of it, to a point is recognising it.
I'm absoloutely convinced it's one of those stupid fads that some dipshit buys a screen with it, forces himself to get used to it and then proclaims how good it is, if he / she went back to a 'normal' screen they'd see just how bad the glossy ones are.
It is by far, one of the most stupid thing the industry has moved towards in recent years, the least you can offer is a choice (shakes fist at dell)
Seriously, SO glary, I configured a Sony Vaio for someone a while back and it was horrible, a woman could comfortably do their makeup in the screen.
Yes, please respond with 'but the colours, but the blacks, but the whites!' here's something for you, I don't give a fuck and anyone who uses their PC in a room with any light in it does NOT want to damn well see themselves in the screen
Ugh ugh and ugh! - I honestly don't know what to do when I need to replace my laptop in about 18 months, I'll return the damn thing as faulty if it comes with one of those (some damn places like dell have gone ahead and not actually made it clear on their website the laptop you're ordering is glossy)
Agreed on the RRP thing with Australia but what's interesting is from what I hear, in the US RRP is RRP firm, very few get the consoles for less than 399$ US - there's been one or two deals but not much else.
Whereas we had effectively an 80$+ AUD price drop (depending on your thoughts on PGR3) as much as 6 months ago.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure you don't agree but it varies from person to person.
0 3>
...most scary movies, if it's too scary I make a point of switching that part of my brain off.
How's this, I am incapable of playing Project Firestart without being scared at 29.
No, I'm not joking, it's likely you've never heard of it.
<URL:http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=37
I can however sit through
You mean the bit ripped straight out of Alone in the Dark?
Now that was scary,.... I still to this day don't know how I finished it.
Agreed, I just had to change to +4 only to make this more readable.
moderators, I love you - awesome.
If those tapes are original and not recorded, they could be worth some $ to a collector.
Vista forced my Dell 8600 laptop to run it's fan in stage 2 of 3 instead of 1/3 that XP does, somewhere CPU use was too high, no matter what I turned off (Aero etc) - on battery or powered.
:/
The interface isn't for me, I couldn't possibly care less about a fluffy 3D interface, I've never used XP's Luna theme and I've been using XP since 6 months after release, I need a functional fast operating system with clever powerful features, I don't 'watch' my OS I use it to get stuff done.
Another reason why I don't want Aero is I do a hell of a lot of RDP'ing and you can't get Aero over RDP.
I would find switching from Vista classic (or XP classic) to Aero, to classic to Aero when switching in and out of my RDP sessions to be very disorientating.
ALSO Aero seemed to offer no real actual benefits to usability, sadly I have to admit after using Mac OSX that the whole expose thing is surprisingly awesome and convienient, that operating system truely makes a mouse user damn near as powerful as a good keyboarder (wow!)
Aero's flip 3D however was ridiculously bad at actually saving you time and effort.
The widget thing / bar on the right was stupid, it should be like Mac OS - it's there, when you need it, hidden and very easily accessable, NOT a bar stuck on the side (auto hide or not, Mac OS wins that)
The search functionality wasn't as good as locate32, I think in file names, not in contents, if I want my CV I search for *resume*.doc on all drives and I'll find it because I memorise the file name (admitedly locate32 isn't native to XP)
Therefore overall Vista didn't offer me anything that honestly helped me.
I used a full retail version of Ultimate and manage to re-produce a bug where connecting to a VPN would instantly blue screen it too (fully patched)
I dislike the smaller 'stylish' min / max / close buttons at the top right, I like them square and easy to find.
Did I mention Windows Explorer sucked? I spend 80% of my time in it, managing files, doing 'stuff' and it's hard to explain but there was a lack of 'lines' and dividers and bars, the data was hard to take in quickly because the interface looked,... weird I couldn't do things quicker with that, the line showing left pane / right pane sucked.
I think (don't quote me) it forced that silly task pane on as well, which is on in XP but disable-able - I don't think you can in Vista (don't quote)
I disliked the breadcrumb style address bar in folders at the top of explorer, admitedly just today someone found a home made patch to disable it but it's not a stock option in Vista and wasn't available when I tried it.
When all is said and done, I would STILL use the thing if someone just made a shell replacement that made it look absoloutely 100% identical to XP classic mode but with a Vista 'engine'. I don't hate DX10 nor do I detest the search, I can always use my own, I don't have to use flip 3d but I do CONSTANTLY use Windows explorer and I need it looking nice, simple and clean to do shit fast, - I felt hamstrung
Sounds to me like she's been sued and trying to save her ass.
Sooner or later the HD killer app will come though and people with big TV's will flock and so will the mainstream.
I do not want to join the HD race but goddamnit if I don't want 300 in high def ASAP
Also Planet Earth in HD = swoon.
It's going to become as common as DVD, it might take longer but it will get there.
I too hope the DRM dies and the damned blu-ray and hd-dvd war ends though.
I can confirm this fellows comment on the no CD cracks for legit PC owners.
I am a messy lazy bastard, I damage stuff all the time.
I love Warcraft 3 online, so I have a clone CD image on my drive that I mount and the copy protection is fooled by Daemon tools and the game works.
The stupid thing is I require a GENUINE CD KEY TO PLAY ONLINE I can NOT play online without that key, it's a real, made by blizzard key, keygens won't work!
So why do I need my damn CD in the drive? I've already proven I own it.
Silly stuff.
So this baby has 200gb platters, it sounds all impressive and all, except we've had 188gb platters for ages now.
:/
Seagate has announced (and released, I think?) their 1TB HDD with only 4 platters (cooler, quieter, less power, less weight, less cost to manufacture) that's 250gb a platter
Samsung have announced the F1 using 333GB per platter! 1.6TB if they copy Hitachi and slap 5 of them in a 3.5" unit - or rather 333gb single platter, light, cheap drives, be damned if anyone can find the F1 yet though
Yeah I just realised that, it's still very impressive they had photos and successful landings of devices on the surface in the 70's - I'm really impressed.
I'm going to make a dumb dumb post but I thought I'd share it with you all.
I had no idea we had landers on mars before!
I knew we had one which failed a couple of years before spirit and oppourtunity arrived.
I thought the current 2 were the ONLY 2, I'm shocked, impressed and actually ever so slightly less impressed at the current models now, I thought they were marvels of engineering (and they are) but the fact it was done in the 70's, wow amazing.
Don't flame, I had no idea, wouldn't be surprised if others thought the current 2 were the only 2 also.
I can understand there's uses for it, most certainly it just doesn't suit me.
:/ )
Then again it seems my original post could be incorrect (although I'm still not positive, no one has proven it
I'd use it if I was averaging 150FPS in games, no problems but well I'm not.
If Aladrin is actually correct and 4xAA is only a hardware requirement then it would appear my post was un-necessary, I can always admit mistake and move on but being a smartass helps no one, if you like burning the karma then good for you.
(even if he's right it's still an odd requirement, it'd be suicide for a card not to have it in the past 3 years)
Thanks for the intelligent contribution and rebutal excellent work, I'll be sure to look out for your clever posts in future.
If the guy who posted in response to me is correct, then I was wrong at the time of my post, hence the un-necessary rant. :/
It still seems like a silly requirement, like 'all cars must be able to physically move' - you just expect it nowadays, 4xAA is what 6 or 7 years old and mainstream for the last 5.
Yep exactly.
I've never owned a card which I was comfortable enabling AA in, I always seem to notice the performance hit, maybe I'm just picky but I want my MINIMUM frames to be 60+ so if I turn on AA and it averages 60 FPS but dips in the 30's or I leave it off and I dip to 45, I'm much happier.
Better texture detail, animation, draw distance all much cooler.
One thing we all thought was a gimmick was the Voodoo 5 6000's effort of motion blur and depth of field.
5 years later in movies of crysis gameplay it looks awesome, even though it doesn't add anything really more detailed it just comes off looking awesome - that is worth the hit, in my opinion.
What current hardware that is DirectX 9 or Direct X 10 compatible, is INCAPABLE of 4xAA?
I'd be surprised if ANY hardware was incapable of it, so what's the point of this change?
Good lord!
/rant over.
That's ridiculous.
Some people out there (gasp!) actually don't care for AA at all!
I'm a CRT user, 22" screen, I use it in 1280x960 or 1600x1200 and I can tell you now that in a good many games the resources wasted on AA could be better spent on lighting, textures etc, I'm very happy with my image quality in that resolution and other resolutions.
LCD's are similar, if you run your game in it's native resolution you're likely using 1280x1024, 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 again where is AA really 'needed' or needed enough to be mandatory?
All this is going to do is force developers to lower their graphical targets as they are wasting frames on something which should CLEARLY be optional.
If for example I did one day find a game looked too blocky, I could up the resolution from 1152 to 1280 or 1280 to 1600 or even 1600 to 2048 and in the case of LCD's well, most LCD's sold nowadays really are running at quite high resolutions for their sizes as it is (in my opinion)
Oh and I do realise some people like AA, infact I'm sure some people are horrified by my choice but well at least currently it is an option for me.
For some reason this makes me think something more sinister is at hand, maybe I'm wrong but I do know the ATI developed Xbox 360 GPU has 'free' 4xAA due to the way the chip was designed, there's some spare EDRAM on the GPU specifically for this, it's fine if you have one of these chips but what if you don't? Is this simply some kind of conspiracy (unlikely but worth mentioning)
I love it, first they release Vista, try to force Shadowrun and Halo 2 to be locked to it, desperate for gamers to use their 'new and improved' (ugly as shit) operating system, now they are trying to force other nonsense on us.
I really really hope that Sony at least come at a draw with MS this console round so that gaming isn't totally fucked in the future, if these guys were the sole game operators, I think I'd get a new hobby.*
* Sony haters, this does not imply Sony is flawless, this implies competition is good.
This man does not in any way represent the values of the majority of 35 and under people in Australia, I do not know a single person who respects the man and he's running scared right now because his time (much like Bush's) is UP, it's over and it's out, it's only a matter of time before he's gone.
I can not wait, shifty, greedy little prick and this filtering move? More stupidity from government, no surprise here.
Do I re-moderate this guy back to informative or reply?
Seriously - a little conspiracy theoried but on the money no less, Halo is NOT a bad game but it is, without a doubt one of the most over-rated games in history, good lord is it over rated.
I finished the first one it had some kind of half decent story, kind of, fairly fun gameplay I won't deny and not shabby graphics, the second one wasn't worth finishing and I quit about 5 hours into it.
So SOOOooooo overrated, it boggles my mind every time the topic comes up.
Ok
I'm going to burn some karma on the most stupid thing to whinge about EVER, sorry but I just have to, this isn't an attack.
This is slashdot, full of sci-fi nerds, techies, geeks, dorks etc while the quote is cool, signing off who actually said it, kinda ruins it, dunno why but it does!
Several people have done it lately, if you're gonna make a pop culture reference, the whole comedy of it, to a point is recognising it.
Abso-goddamn-loutely!
I'm absoloutely convinced it's one of those stupid fads that some dipshit buys a screen with it, forces himself to get used to it and then proclaims how good it is, if he / she went back to a 'normal' screen they'd see just how bad the glossy ones are.
It is by far, one of the most stupid thing the industry has moved towards in recent years, the least you can offer is a choice (shakes fist at dell)
Seriously, SO glary, I configured a Sony Vaio for someone a while back and it was horrible, a woman could comfortably do their makeup in the screen.
Yes, please respond with 'but the colours, but the blacks, but the whites!' here's something for you, I don't give a fuck and anyone who uses their PC in a room with any light in it does NOT want to damn well see themselves in the screen
Ugh ugh and ugh! - I honestly don't know what to do when I need to replace my laptop in about 18 months, I'll return the damn thing as faulty if it comes with one of those (some damn places like dell have gone ahead and not actually made it clear on their website the laptop you're ordering is glossy)
in conclusion... die glossy DIE.
Agreed on the RRP thing with Australia but what's interesting is from what I hear, in the US RRP is RRP firm, very few get the consoles for less than 399$ US - there's been one or two deals but not much else.
:)
Whereas we had effectively an 80$+ AUD price drop (depending on your thoughts on PGR3) as much as 6 months ago.
It's still too expensive though
Thanks for the info and link.
Yeah I heard these 530$ rumours, when did this happen? I've never seen better than 599$ AUD with PGR3 about 6 months back.
:)I just refuse to buy a non 65nm model and I must MUST have black.
Then again, I shouldn't even inquire