"EAX still can't come close to A3D's capabilities."
I'm not so sure about that. Sounds like nostalgic delusions to me. Granted, it's been a while since I heard an A3D card, and game technology has come a long way since then as well, but from what I recall, it didn't sound THAT impressive.
I'd like to see an accurate, unbiased comparison of today's EAX capabilities vs the best A3D that was available.
Was that the bug that caused the difficulty to reset to 'normal' after you loaded any saved game, therefore preventing you from finishing it on the intended difficulty unless you did the whole thing without saving?
Or is there another major bug you were referring to?
BTW: Thief 3 is a GREAT game. Check it out, it's bargain bin now.
HD offers no benefit to me. Hell, I was perfectly satisfied with the video quality of a new VHS tape. DVD gave me the following advantages over VHS:
No degredation of audio/video quality over time or number of viewings. It always looks and sounds the same.
Random access. No rewinding.
Smaller size. VHS tapes were kinda large.
What's HD-DVD offer me? Better picture quality that I can't take advantage of unless I have a 70" screen? Nah, I don't have a TV that big, nor do I need one. Better audio? I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference. Oh, and a pantload of DRM.. great.. No thanks.
They can take HD DVD and shove it. It's just a minor upgrade meant to force people to buy the same movies all over again.
Blame the manufacturers for the unreasonable pricing of SCSI. Why would I pay $606 for a 300GB SCSI when I could get the same size SATA drive for $165 (these prices are from pricewatch.com, so take them with a grain of salt. They're meant to be more of a relative comparison)
Sure, the SCSI's a bit faster, but for the majority of folks, SATA does the job just fine and for a fraction of the price.
The mechanics are the same, it's just the interface that's different. The only reason we don't have 15k RPM SATA drives is purely political. It's the same reason Chevy wouldn't ever let the Camaro have a higher horsepower rating than the flagship Corvette.
Well, it's expensive, but maybe you can find a deal on an LTO2 or SAIT tape drive on Ebay. These babies boast 200GB and 500GB of native storage respectively . The transfer rates are nothing to sneeze at either.
And as long as you store the tape properly, it should last a long time.
Go ahead and blame the big bad pirates all you want. When I'm seeing these companies pull in hundreds of billions of dollars a year, I just don't feel like shedding a tear for their "plight", especially when their response to a few lost sales is to cripple my legitimate purchase even more!
The more they punish their customers, the more customers they will lose. People will just stop buying their wares, or they'll turn to piracy.
The industry is to blame for this. Want to see the proof? Take this old example (games here, but applies to music and any other IP):
Pirate: "I pirate games because the price is too high. If the price were lower, I'd buy more."
Industry response: "The price is high because people pirate. If people didn't pirate, we'd lower the price!"
Nintendo comes along with the Gamecube and proves the industry to be a liar. The console had ZERO piracy for years, yet the price of games was just as high as the other consoles.
Sorry, but I'm tired of being the bitch to corporate interests. Being told to eat what's fed to me, like it, and ask for more. And it's NEVER their fault, it's always someone else's. It's either the pirates, or the market, or the rising price of their marketing/materials/cocaine/whatever. But look who got convicted of price fixing!
If they announce that they are, I'm going to buy the fastest non-DRM-infested available chip they have and then I'm done with all this bullshit.
Maybe buy a little cabin and become a fisherman. Fuck the technology industry. The "content moguls" have fucking ruined it for everyone with their whining control-freakery.
"Dedicated hardware RAID devices are much more expensive, up in the hundreds of dollars for the controller."
I've never really understood why this is. Other than the features you mention at the bottom of your post (advanced error dections, etc) the actual RAID processing is extremely simple, no? It's just a quick parity scheme. XOR is a very basic function that is trivial and inexpensive to implement with a few gates. Why is it not used on every "BIOS" RAID implementation?
Even hotswap is becoming more commodity now, with SATA II specs requiring it. It's more of a hardware issue than a software one.
What about games that utilize commercial protection schemes (safedisc, securom, starforce)? These all use 32-bit drivers to do their low-down and dirty work.
Will they work on XP64?
I have a feeling it'll be another case where the cracked version is more compatible than the original..
Not entirely true. LTO1 tapes can hold 100/200GB, LTO2: 200/400GB and SAIT holds 500/1300GB. That's pretty decent. LTO1 tapes are cheap now too. $30CDN last time I checked.
Does this even qualify? I thought a patent had to be pretty explicit as to how something works, so that theoretically, somebody could build the device themselves by reading the patent. Vague sections like:
"..transforms the data to a usable form.."
and
"..generates informative reports from the data.."
Seem pretty broad to me. That doesn't describe anything, really.
Someone's really gotta throw junk patents like this out before they even reach the (not yet existent) REAL patent examiners.
You don't have to see it firsthand. The poster is just pointing out that programmer's haven't learned from history's mistakes and successes. They ignore successes of the past, and keep making the same mistakes.
I think a "History of Programming and Systems" should be a requirement for CS classes.
Blizzard know what they're doing? Isn't it a little early to be making a claim like that? Look at blizzard's history. Their entire empire is based on three games which are basically one genre: Warcraft (RTS in a medieval/fantasy setting), Starcraft (RTS in a space setting), and Diablo 1/2 (RPG that plays like an RTS).
This their first MMORPG (I always pronounce that with the 'P' being silent: morgue). I hate MMORPGs as their sole purpose is to suck as much money from the consumer as possible by making most of the game a mere time-sink, but we'll see how this one plays out.
But lemme guess, they still put disc-based copy protection on the media, right?
Re:Welcome to capitalism
on
HIV Vaccine
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
Sure it's fact, but it's also how you look at it.
I look at it this way:
These pharma corps are just another greedy conglomorate whose sole purpose is to extract as much money from the public as they can (appease the shareholders and all). If that means developing drugs that fight symptoms instead of curing the disease, they'll do it. If that means convincing people that there's something wrong with them through a barrage of commercials, and that a drug will help them, they'll do it. If it means letting people who can't afford the drug flat out die, they'll do it.
But hey, it fits within the framework of capitalism, so it's all good and ethical, right?
You and the posts you link to, just "don't get it". Sure the card is a failure if you compare to commercial cards, but the value in this is as a stepping stone.
How many people know how to develop a graphics chipset? How do you think people learn? Most learn by example and being able to see how it was done. This isn't really available right now. Nvidia/Ati/whoever isn't going to let you see their internal designs to learn from, so most people shy away and do something else.
Once you get a group of people interested, interesting things happen. Linux for example.
And hardware these days is mostly programmed through software using VHDL or Verilog. And its affordable as well.
Just because you can't seem to see value in this doesn't mean that someone else can't.
1) Ha! Have you ever tried returning opened software? You have to open the software and try to install it before you get the EULA. Most places will tell you to fuck off if you're wanting a refund on opened software. They will offer you another copy if yours is damaged, but that's it. It's assumed that you've copied it...
2) Coercing a minor? What-fucking-ever... So if someone asks the neighbour to install the software because they doesn't know how to do it, it's coercion? Ya, good luck proving that one in court. The only person who's going to get slapped around is the dipshit attorny doing the prosecuting. Oh, and ever see how a verbal agreement ends up in court? It's almost always tossed out because there's no evidence. It's one person's word against another.
3) Your warranty analogy is no good. I can ask the salesperson at a store "what's the warranty on this VCR?" and they'll respond quickly "2 years parts and labor" or whatever. No employee is going to know the goddamned EULA because it's full of long-winded lawyeresque bullshit. And that's all it is: bullshit. Companies would love for you to believe that they can enforce all of that crap but when it comes down to the final hour, they'll balk in court so that they don't find their EULA struck down and everyone laughing at them.
Just because it's in a contract does not mean it is legally enforcable. Hell, just a few weeks ago I read in the paper about a woman who took her employer to court for overtime pay even though in her employment contract it said she would not be paid for overtime as she's salaried. Some rights just can't be signed away, as much as Company X wants you to think.
You've bought into this bullshit, but please look at it from a bigger perspective. These are just companies trying to hock their cheesy wares (no pun intended). They have no more real power to manipulate others than you or I.
It's also a good opportunity for people to learn from other's experiences. Christ, man, I don't see why people have to hoard their knowledge. What kind of example does that set?
That's a pretty sweet setup! It also goes to show all those naysayers that Fedora Core can and IS used in production environments with obvious success.
What? Shared copies can't duplicate the original experience? And that's a bad thing??
Here's my experiences:
Buying a CD from the local shop: $22CDN (it's an older release, and for some reason they always jack the price on stuff that isn't brand new or complete shit) plus travel time, plus tax.
Downloading the same CD in MP3 form: 10-15min of time, no $22 gouge, possibly the cover art if it was scanned, but I don't care about that shit since I never burn it as CD-AUDIO anyways. Also, not tax.
Going to a movie: I saw The Village last night. The movie was mediocre, morons all around me were talking, getting out of their seats 3 or 4 times during the show, the popcorn was overpriced and was the worst I'd had, and the theatre was about 15 degrees Celcius as well. Plus I had to find parking, which was difficult because people seem to have trouble parking between the designated painted lines and they leave no space for you. The only plus side to this experience was that it was only $2.25 to get into the show. Blah.
Downloading a movie: grab it on divx/xvid, even a 700MB rip is good quality if the source was a DVD. I get to watch it when and where I want, pause it when I want, get to relax on my couch and eat whatever I want, and nobody else to ruin it for me.
Slashdot Mirror
"EAX still can't come close to A3D's capabilities."
I'm not so sure about that. Sounds like nostalgic delusions to me. Granted, it's been a while since I heard an A3D card, and game technology has come a long way since then as well, but from what I recall, it didn't sound THAT impressive.
I'd like to see an accurate, unbiased comparison of today's EAX capabilities vs the best A3D that was available.
Was that the bug that caused the difficulty to reset to 'normal' after you loaded any saved game, therefore preventing you from finishing it on the intended difficulty unless you did the whole thing without saving?
Or is there another major bug you were referring to?
BTW: Thief 3 is a GREAT game. Check it out, it's bargain bin now.
For the love of God, this is nothing new. Check out "Friday the 13th" for the Commodore 64 in your favourite emulator.
As the game went on, your hair would start to stand on end and you had a chance of seeing a frightening hallucination once you were over the edge.
This game dates back to the mid/late '80s.
Go away, Nintendo lawyers..
I've used the Captive driver. Works properly, but it is VERY slow when it comes to writing. I was getting around 40KB/sec when I used it on my laptop.
It's not like all the enemies in the game don't see you anyways. You can't hide from them, so you might as well be able to fight back, right?
HD offers no benefit to me. Hell, I was perfectly satisfied with the video quality of a new VHS tape. DVD gave me the following advantages over VHS:
No degredation of audio/video quality over time or number of viewings. It always looks and sounds the same.
Random access. No rewinding.
Smaller size. VHS tapes were kinda large.
What's HD-DVD offer me? Better picture quality that I can't take advantage of unless I have a 70" screen? Nah, I don't have a TV that big, nor do I need one. Better audio? I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference. Oh, and a pantload of DRM.. great.. No thanks.
They can take HD DVD and shove it. It's just a minor upgrade meant to force people to buy the same movies all over again.
Blame the manufacturers for the unreasonable pricing of SCSI. Why would I pay $606 for a 300GB SCSI when I could get the same size SATA drive for $165 (these prices are from pricewatch.com, so take them with a grain of salt. They're meant to be more of a relative comparison)
Sure, the SCSI's a bit faster, but for the majority of folks, SATA does the job just fine and for a fraction of the price.
The mechanics are the same, it's just the interface that's different. The only reason we don't have 15k RPM SATA drives is purely political. It's the same reason Chevy wouldn't ever let the Camaro have a higher horsepower rating than the flagship Corvette.
Well, it's expensive, but maybe you can find a deal on an LTO2 or SAIT tape drive on Ebay. These babies boast 200GB and 500GB of native storage respectively . The transfer rates are nothing to sneeze at either.
And as long as you store the tape properly, it should last a long time.
Go ahead and blame the big bad pirates all you want. When I'm seeing these companies pull in hundreds of billions of dollars a year, I just don't feel like shedding a tear for their "plight", especially when their response to a few lost sales is to cripple my legitimate purchase even more!
The more they punish their customers, the more customers they will lose. People will just stop buying their wares, or they'll turn to piracy.
The industry is to blame for this. Want to see the proof? Take this old example (games here, but applies to music and any other IP):
Pirate: "I pirate games because the price is too high. If the price were lower, I'd buy more."
Industry response: "The price is high because people pirate. If people didn't pirate, we'd lower the price!"
Nintendo comes along with the Gamecube and proves the industry to be a liar. The console had ZERO piracy for years, yet the price of games was just as high as the other consoles.
Sorry, but I'm tired of being the bitch to corporate interests. Being told to eat what's fed to me, like it, and ask for more. And it's NEVER their fault, it's always someone else's. It's either the pirates, or the market, or the rising price of their marketing/materials/cocaine/whatever. But look who got convicted of price fixing!
If they announce that they are, I'm going to buy the fastest non-DRM-infested available chip they have and then I'm done with all this bullshit.
Maybe buy a little cabin and become a fisherman. Fuck the technology industry. The "content moguls" have fucking ruined it for everyone with their whining control-freakery.
I hope they dig their own graves with this one.
"Dedicated hardware RAID devices are much more expensive, up in the hundreds of dollars for the controller."
I've never really understood why this is. Other than the features you mention at the bottom of your post (advanced error dections, etc) the actual RAID processing is extremely simple, no? It's just a quick parity scheme. XOR is a very basic function that is trivial and inexpensive to implement with a few gates. Why is it not used on every "BIOS" RAID implementation?
Even hotswap is becoming more commodity now, with SATA II specs requiring it. It's more of a hardware issue than a software one.
What about games that utilize commercial protection schemes (safedisc, securom, starforce)? These all use 32-bit drivers to do their low-down and dirty work.
Will they work on XP64?
I have a feeling it'll be another case where the cracked version is more compatible than the original..
Not entirely true. LTO1 tapes can hold 100/200GB, LTO2: 200/400GB and SAIT holds 500/1300GB. That's pretty decent. LTO1 tapes are cheap now too. $30CDN last time I checked.
The price of the drives on the other hand....
Thanks for the advice, herr Schill!!
Does this even qualify? I thought a patent had to be pretty explicit as to how something works, so that theoretically, somebody could build the device themselves by reading the patent. Vague sections like:
"..transforms the data to a usable form.."
and
"..generates informative reports from the data.."
Seem pretty broad to me. That doesn't describe anything, really.
Someone's really gotta throw junk patents like this out before they even reach the (not yet existent) REAL patent examiners.
You don't have to see it firsthand. The poster is just pointing out that programmer's haven't learned from history's mistakes and successes. They ignore successes of the past, and keep making the same mistakes.
I think a "History of Programming and Systems" should be a requirement for CS classes.
Blizzard know what they're doing? Isn't it a little early to be making a claim like that? Look at blizzard's history. Their entire empire is based on three games which are basically one genre: Warcraft (RTS in a medieval/fantasy setting), Starcraft (RTS in a space setting), and Diablo 1/2 (RPG that plays like an RTS).
This their first MMORPG (I always pronounce that with the 'P' being silent: morgue). I hate MMORPGs as their sole purpose is to suck as much money from the consumer as possible by making most of the game a mere time-sink, but we'll see how this one plays out.
But lemme guess, they still put disc-based copy protection on the media, right?
Sure it's fact, but it's also how you look at it.
I look at it this way:
These pharma corps are just another greedy conglomorate whose sole purpose is to extract as much money from the public as they can (appease the shareholders and all). If that means developing drugs that fight symptoms instead of curing the disease, they'll do it. If that means convincing people that there's something wrong with them through a barrage of commercials, and that a drug will help them, they'll do it. If it means letting people who can't afford the drug flat out die, they'll do it.
But hey, it fits within the framework of capitalism, so it's all good and ethical, right?
You and the posts you link to, just "don't get it". Sure the card is a failure if you compare to commercial cards, but the value in this is as a stepping stone.
How many people know how to develop a graphics chipset? How do you think people learn? Most learn by example and being able to see how it was done. This isn't really available right now. Nvidia/Ati/whoever isn't going to let you see their internal designs to learn from, so most people shy away and do something else.
Once you get a group of people interested, interesting things happen. Linux for example.
And hardware these days is mostly programmed through software using VHDL or Verilog. And its affordable as well.
Just because you can't seem to see value in this doesn't mean that someone else can't.
FUD.. Yet another poster who has no fucking clue as to what that means.
"Not sure what the fuck you're talking about? Just label the parent poster a troll or call them on 'FUD'!"
1) Ha! Have you ever tried returning opened software? You have to open the software and try to install it before you get the EULA. Most places will tell you to fuck off if you're wanting a refund on opened software. They will offer you another copy if yours is damaged, but that's it. It's assumed that you've copied it...
2) Coercing a minor? What-fucking-ever... So if someone asks the neighbour to install the software because they doesn't know how to do it, it's coercion? Ya, good luck proving that one in court. The only person who's going to get slapped around is the dipshit attorny doing the prosecuting. Oh, and ever see how a verbal agreement ends up in court? It's almost always tossed out because there's no evidence. It's one person's word against another.
3) Your warranty analogy is no good. I can ask the salesperson at a store "what's the warranty on this VCR?" and they'll respond quickly "2 years parts and labor" or whatever. No employee is going to know the goddamned EULA because it's full of long-winded lawyeresque bullshit. And that's all it is: bullshit. Companies would love for you to believe that they can enforce all of that crap but when it comes down to the final hour, they'll balk in court so that they don't find their EULA struck down and everyone laughing at them.
Just because it's in a contract does not mean it is legally enforcable. Hell, just a few weeks ago I read in the paper about a woman who took her employer to court for overtime pay even though in her employment contract it said she would not be paid for overtime as she's salaried. Some rights just can't be signed away, as much as Company X wants you to think.
You've bought into this bullshit, but please look at it from a bigger perspective. These are just companies trying to hock their cheesy wares (no pun intended). They have no more real power to manipulate others than you or I.
It's also a good opportunity for people to learn from other's experiences. Christ, man, I don't see why people have to hoard their knowledge. What kind of example does that set?
That's a pretty sweet setup! It also goes to show all those naysayers that Fedora Core can and IS used in production environments with obvious success.
What? Shared copies can't duplicate the original experience? And that's a bad thing??
Here's my experiences:
Buying a CD from the local shop: $22CDN (it's an older release, and for some reason they always jack the price on stuff that isn't brand new or complete shit) plus travel time, plus tax.
Downloading the same CD in MP3 form: 10-15min of time, no $22 gouge, possibly the cover art if it was scanned, but I don't care about that shit since I never burn it as CD-AUDIO anyways. Also, not tax.
Going to a movie: I saw The Village last night. The movie was mediocre, morons all around me were talking, getting out of their seats 3 or 4 times during the show, the popcorn was overpriced and was the worst I'd had, and the theatre was about 15 degrees Celcius as well. Plus I had to find parking, which was difficult because people seem to have trouble parking between the designated painted lines and they leave no space for you. The only plus side to this experience was that it was only $2.25 to get into the show. Blah.
Downloading a movie: grab it on divx/xvid, even a 700MB rip is good quality if the source was a DVD. I get to watch it when and where I want, pause it when I want, get to relax on my couch and eat whatever I want, and nobody else to ruin it for me.
Gee, what seems like the better experience here?