I've yet to see a PS2 title that wouldn't have been possible on dreamcast. It does some neat effects, rendering half the resolution (320x480) in two passes rather than the 640x480 the DC did, but nothing that's leaps and bounds beyond.
>> I suppose one day there will be a console which can actually run HDTV
Yes, and that console will be called XBox or GameCube. Both support HDTV 720p and 1080i. Rogue Leader, IIRC, was the first game to be wholly rendered in HDTV resolution, but it of course plays just fine on my ancient TV.
NTSC TV, btw is a pseudo-512x384 resolution - analog, dont ya know. A hi-res image actually looks better than a resolution matching image because it constantly rescans and kind of achieves a 'built-in' antialiasing effect.
Remember the cinematic effects rendering and the 'groundbreaking emotion engine' in the PS2 up till its launch? And then it barely leapfrogged the Dreamcast in terms of performance.
If they really had such advanced technology, would they really waste it on a 200$ video game console, instead of using it to completely dominate every aspect of the computing/tech industry?
The xbox wont even LOOK for a signature unless you put it in the disc format it expects - and you cant. The mods do more than skip the signature check, they also skip the media checks, even letting it boot from a UDF filesystem. That's my point. Signing an xbe is only the first step, now you have to put it on XBOX media.
You could never burn a bootable xDVD, signature or no signature. The best you could do is mod the console, install linux on the HDD, then remove the mod - and whats the point of that? You still void the warranty and have to go through the mess of installation and removal.
The only people who could create a bootable xDVD with the signature would be those with commercial production facilities.
It doesn't seem to me just as simple as 'signing' some code and burning it to a disc. I don't have the full info with me, but I've seen the dev kit and there is a completely custom layout to an xDVD, with big blocks of sectors reserved for security features. It's reminiscent of the PSX's scheme - 'bad' sectors on the disc that cant be replicated with a burner (they all automatically recalculate ECC info).
Short of having your own pressing facility, the key would do virtually no good. So who would benefit? Asian pirates on a commercial level - they could start pressing counterfeit XBOX titles en masse, just like they did with Dreamcast. They arent going to be selling silvers of debian linux for 5$ a pop on the streets of hong kong, believe me.
Modchips enable those who want the ability to backup their software and run homebrew applications, and I'm wholly in favor of that. If this project succeded, it'd just put mass commercial counterfeiting in the hands of bad guys, which I'm absolutely not in favor of.
(Now, in theory, one could use a no-solder type mod (pogo pins on the lPC header), install some sort of dashboard replacement to install the new linux BIOS and run it. That'd be about it, since you cant modify the original xbox' bios in RAM, you'd never be able to run unsigned native code from a CD/DVD-R. Since you'd have to temporarily mod the console to get linux on there anyways, you might as well flash the TSOP while yer at it)
Neither XBOX, PS2 nor GameCube spin backwards. This is a moronic rumor that goes back to the PSX (I remember people telling me that they spun backwards). It resurfaced with dreamcast, and now with the latest gen of consoles. Mostly people say GCN spins backwards because it isn't being pirated yet. The panasonic GameCube-Q reverses directions when you put in a DVD or CD? Bah.
It's believed because know-nothing geek wannabe's think spinning backwards would be some kind of impenetrable protection scheme - believe me, if that's all there was to it, it'd be hacked just as long as it takes to reverse polarity to the motors. GCN isn't hacked (yet) because all of it's custom circuitry is smushed into two ICs and people still havent fully deciphered what does what, like where the GPU ends and CPU begins and where the BIOS/bootblock is, etc..
As if Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft would needlessly spend the billions in building new production facilities for what would be an absolutely idiotic and worthless protection scheme - what piglatin is to the world of ciphers, essentially.
I have all 3, and I can guarantee that they all do, in fact, spin in the same 'normal' direction.
Cutitout with this spins backwards nonsense. Just becuase you read it on the 'net doesn't make it true.
Yeah, they are.. They basically take the vibration of the fan and transfer it to the exterior of the case, turning the whole thing into a sounding box, essentially amplifying the sound of the fan.
I used one on a friends p4 1.8 with no fan and was pleasantly surprised how cool it kept it, like maybe 4 or 5 degrees higher than the stock heatsink/fan. No overclocking, of course.
Not that it made a big difference. Chances are, if you didn't buy something like the Vantec Stealth PSU, your PSU has cheap-ass fans in it that more than drown out everything else.
If congress passed a law that says we all must do our shopping for entertainment products at Wal-Mart, I'd agree with you.
But I've never in my life bought a CD/DVD/Game there, and see absolutely no need to. Crappy selection, crappy prices. And I don't like the idea of finding out on the ride home that they bleeped all the 'swears' out of some song.
But, freedom of speech is something the government may not infringe, but it doesn't prevent me from telling someone to 'shut the fuck up', nor does it prevent Wal-Mart from saying 'we don't want anything to do with this'.
Frankly I applaud their effort, even if I do see it as somewhat misguided. There are very few corporations like Wal-Mart willing to sacrifice profits for the sake of morality. Maybe it's more of a marketing gimmick than an ethical stand, but it is commendable in its way.
Most retailers would stock XXX hardcore porn and sell it to 8 year olds if they could.
Wal-Mart choosing not to carry a game/album/movie for whatever reason they choose has nothing to do with free speech.
Nor does a school deciding whats appropriate material for coursework.
Freedom of speech has nothing to do with people listening to you.
Once you graduate you can write whatever game you want, and if retailers dont want to sell it, thats their freedom of choice being excercised. No one persons rights (percieved or real) may infringe on anothers.
>> A three page review of the Zalman VGA Heatpipe Cooler. This thing is pretty nice looking, and with no power, no noise, what else could a guy ask for? Check out the review here. How come more companies don't do the "silent" thing?
Because that VGA cooler weighs 400 grams (almost a pound). The sunflower CPU heatsinks are twice CPU mfg specs as well.
They work great, and are fine if your PC is generally stationary, but I wince thinking of the damage one of those suckers would to my machine if it broke loose while transporting.
Thats why more companies dont do the 'silent' thing.
Besides, I can hardly hear my new P4 rigs stock CPU fan and 4 7-volted 80mm's. Point being that quality fans are virtually silent anyways.
Re:Unbelievably bad idea
on
Computer Room Hot?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Depends which studs you vent between...
In lots of construction around here (my home included) the return vents to the furnace is just the space between the studs (no ductwork). I don't see the problem with venting the warm computer air straight into the return - heck it'd even make my 25 year old oil burner 0.000000001% more efficient.
I had a variation of this idea - building a 'false wall' 6 inches out from the normal wall, with (quiet) bathroom type fans at the top to draw air straight out into the attic. It'd be ok to dump warm, moist air up there because my attic is *extremely well* ventilated, in many many homes this would promote rot, ice dams, etc etc..
For the most part, you're right.. You'd either be doing no good at all (trying to force air where it has nowhere to go), and at worst doing harm - dumping warm moist air into exterior insulation or attic space, or overheating your PCs as the fans spin and spin yet dont move any air.
Without the goodies on, even the Ti4600 can "outperform" the R9700.
Hard to imagine a 'serious review' site would neglect to test these features. I don't give a crap about 400 average FPS in quake, but I do care if it drops to 14 with all the enhancements turned on. But then they were trying to make the GeForceFX look like it's leaps and bounds better.
I'd imagine it's still the case - the 9700 is still the bandwidth king. Personally, I don't care about faster (when its already faster than my monitor can display and brain can process). My next upgrade will be motivated because it will look better.
The GeforceFX isn't something thats going to leave the 9700 in the dust - it's something that should have come out 6 months ago to compete head-to-head with ATI.
At any rate, after putting together a couple of cheap flex-atx pcs with onboard S4s (shared memory - Shuttle FV25 in case anyone cares), I'm surprised at how little GPU horsepower is needed to actually play most games.
Even UT2k3 is playable on these little guys (albeit not 1600x1200 with all the goodies turned on, but playable). I'm pretty sure my "outdated" radeon 64vivo will play Doom 3 when it goes gold.
Anyhow, my point is that cards have been displaying 'fast enough' for awhile - I mean we don't measure a cards performance in polygons anymore. They need to "look better", as in more natural, smoother, more TV-like.
"And then my computer went BEEP BEEP BEEP and my photos were gone, and they were really good photos. Then I had to make new photos and they werent as good because I was in a rush. It was kind of... a bummer."
The handwriting is on the wall, and Steve Jobs is standing there holding a magic marker.
Nothing says 'this market is saturated' better than when a company turns to nickel and diming its existing customer base.
Apparently the switch campaign isn't convincing all the 'sheep' like me to plunk down 2Gs in droves.
"And then my computer went beep beep beep and lost my movie and it was a really good movie and the upgrade cost me 50 bucks. It was kind of... a bummer"
If they were charging for the next version of the software, I'd agree. No bait and switch if iDVD 2.0 is free, and 3.0 with extra iFeatures isn't. (I have no idea what version what is, for all those to nitpick).
I assumed the price of the iApps was part of the cost of the machine itself and not free at all.
If they're charging for upgrades (read: bugfixes), then I'd call shenanigans on them.
It reminds me of the old joke about the bartender serving free beer. A patron, elated at the deal, sat drinking for a couple of hours, and eventually had to urinate badly. He finds the bathroom door locked, and the bartender tells him "the key'll cost ya 100 bucks"
Re:Great, except the crash rate is high...
on
Droning On
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· Score: 1
Even assuming this would be true in a civilian setting, there are still tons of tasks these things could do.
Taking supplies to remote parts of Alaska, for instance. People won't have to risk their lives driving trucking convoys over frozen lakes.
Or patrolling the countless miles of coastline, searching for lost craft, people, etc, in remote places where there's nothing of import to crash into.
Re:Patrolling the Border
on
Droning On
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· Score: 1
You don't see the difference between spying and patrolling.
These things dont 'blend in'. They stick out like sore thumbs, not exactly Solid Snake stealth.
These things buzzing back and forth along the Mexican border would be an immediately visible warning to those who would try and cross it illegally.
One of these cruising over Manhatten would send every mobster, drug-lord and terrorist into hiding. Espionage doesn't work if you make your subjects insecure and paranoid.
This is why the local cops don't look for outdoor pot growing operations in their shiney new helicopter with POLICE in big letters on the bottom, and instead rent out local cropdusters and private choppers.
A look at the want ads for around here yields hundreds of openings for DBAs, programmers, IT guys, etc. The rub? You must be an American citizen. Must. TS clearance required.
I'm not a US citizen, I'm Canadian and a permanent resident, so all those opportunities are lost to me by default. Yet I found a job programming, in a niche market (public safety) that can never be outsourced to India. In fact, I didn't even have to look very hard. The jobs are there, frankly people arent realistic with their salary expectations.
Most of the people I know around here work for a gov agency or contractor, it pretty much drives the economy. These people are *constantly* looking for employees, American ones. And just being American and eligible for TS clearance gets you on average 10 G's more a year.
And to the American programmer who is ineligible because he has a criminal record, or is a drug user, I have no sympathy. They closed those doors themselves and shouldnt be bitching about who's 'stealing their jobs'.
And perhaps every All-American-Nerd popping out of university with his fresh BA in Comp Sci cant just sit down at a 100,000$ programming job because HE JUST ISNT WORTH IT.
Every time theres bad news about the economy the knee-jerk reaction is to point to immigrants/foreign workers.
After all, foreigners are willing to accept a lower standard of living, right? We have no problem sleeping in a cardboard box in an alley, and have no desire to buy our children nice things.
Know what else? We eat dogs and arrange weddings for our 3 year olds, and whatever other stereotypes people come up with or see on TV.
It's bullshit and thinly veiled racism, IMO. 200,000 H1B visas aren't taking jobs from a half billion americans.
Slashdot Mirror
>> Check out the QuickTime movie where they bookmark Slashdot!
I hear the sequel is even better: you can see Apple's marketing department cutting a cheque with 'slashvertisement' in the memo section.
Hmm.. I did some checking, seems you're right, and they were lyin^H^H 'misquoted' about Rogue Leader being 1080i, and is indeed 480p.
I never doubted the original claim because it's not a particularly polygon intensive game.
720p DVD playback can be enabled, IIRC, in the xbox dashboard at least.
Anyhow, it's all HDTV anyways. I'm usually too busy playing the games to count pixels, myself.
>> Uh, since when does a piece of hardware come with a binding license? I didn't sign anything when I bought it.
It's written pretty clearly on the outside of the retail box. By buying it you accept those terms.
But if I used the UT2k3 client to gain root access to your machine, did I not just use it to do something it couldnt do before?
I may have cracked your machine, I'll cede that, but I *hacked* the software to do so.
You say tomato, I say tomato.
I've yet to see a PS2 title that wouldn't have been possible on dreamcast. It does some neat effects, rendering half the resolution (320x480) in two passes rather than the 640x480 the DC did, but nothing that's leaps and bounds beyond.
>> I suppose one day there will be a console which can actually run HDTV
Yes, and that console will be called XBox or GameCube. Both support HDTV 720p and 1080i. Rogue Leader, IIRC, was the first game to be wholly rendered in HDTV resolution, but it of course plays just fine on my ancient TV.
NTSC TV, btw is a pseudo-512x384 resolution - analog, dont ya know. A hi-res image actually looks better than a resolution matching image because it constantly rescans and kind of achieves a 'built-in' antialiasing effect.
Remember the cinematic effects rendering and the 'groundbreaking emotion engine' in the PS2 up till its launch? And then it barely leapfrogged the Dreamcast in terms of performance.
If they really had such advanced technology, would they really waste it on a 200$ video game console, instead of using it to completely dominate every aspect of the computing/tech industry?
You crack a code/password/encryption, you hack a system.
So if I guess/brute force your password - I cracked your box. If I found something in the code I can exploit for root access, I hacked it.
It's like breaking into a porta-potty.
Nobody wants to steal rancid feces, why the hell do they padlock those things anyways?
The xbox wont even LOOK for a signature unless you put it in the disc format it expects - and you cant. The mods do more than skip the signature check, they also skip the media checks, even letting it boot from a UDF filesystem. That's my point. Signing an xbe is only the first step, now you have to put it on XBOX media.
You could never burn a bootable xDVD, signature or no signature. The best you could do is mod the console, install linux on the HDD, then remove the mod - and whats the point of that? You still void the warranty and have to go through the mess of installation and removal.
The only people who could create a bootable xDVD with the signature would be those with commercial production facilities.
It doesn't seem to me just as simple as 'signing' some code and burning it to a disc. I don't have the full info with me, but I've seen the dev kit and there is a completely custom layout to an xDVD, with big blocks of sectors reserved for security features. It's reminiscent of the PSX's scheme - 'bad' sectors on the disc that cant be replicated with a burner (they all automatically recalculate ECC info).
Short of having your own pressing facility, the key would do virtually no good. So who would benefit? Asian pirates on a commercial level - they could start pressing counterfeit XBOX titles en masse, just like they did with Dreamcast. They arent going to be selling silvers of debian linux for 5$ a pop on the streets of hong kong, believe me.
Modchips enable those who want the ability to backup their software and run homebrew applications, and I'm wholly in favor of that. If this project succeded, it'd just put mass commercial counterfeiting in the hands of bad guys, which I'm absolutely not in favor of.
(Now, in theory, one could use a no-solder type mod (pogo pins on the lPC header), install some sort of dashboard replacement to install the new linux BIOS and run it. That'd be about it, since you cant modify the original xbox' bios in RAM, you'd never be able to run unsigned native code from a CD/DVD-R. Since you'd have to temporarily mod the console to get linux on there anyways, you might as well flash the TSOP while yer at it)
Neither XBOX, PS2 nor GameCube spin backwards. This is a moronic rumor that goes back to the PSX (I remember people telling me that they spun backwards). It resurfaced with dreamcast, and now with the latest gen of consoles. Mostly people say GCN spins backwards because it isn't being pirated yet. The panasonic GameCube-Q reverses directions when you put in a DVD or CD? Bah.
It's believed because know-nothing geek wannabe's think spinning backwards would be some kind of impenetrable protection scheme - believe me, if that's all there was to it, it'd be hacked just as long as it takes to reverse polarity to the motors. GCN isn't hacked (yet) because all of it's custom circuitry is smushed into two ICs and people still havent fully deciphered what does what, like where the GPU ends and CPU begins and where the BIOS/bootblock is, etc..
As if Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft would needlessly spend the billions in building new production facilities for what would be an absolutely idiotic and worthless protection scheme - what piglatin is to the world of ciphers, essentially.
I have all 3, and I can guarantee that they all do, in fact, spin in the same 'normal' direction.
Cutitout with this spins backwards nonsense. Just becuase you read it on the 'net doesn't make it true.
Yeah, they are.. They basically take the vibration of the fan and transfer it to the exterior of the case, turning the whole thing into a sounding box, essentially amplifying the sound of the fan.
I used one on a friends p4 1.8 with no fan and was pleasantly surprised how cool it kept it, like maybe 4 or 5 degrees higher than the stock heatsink/fan. No overclocking, of course.
Not that it made a big difference. Chances are, if you didn't buy something like the Vantec Stealth PSU, your PSU has cheap-ass fans in it that more than drown out everything else.
If congress passed a law that says we all must do our shopping for entertainment products at Wal-Mart, I'd agree with you.
But I've never in my life bought a CD/DVD/Game there, and see absolutely no need to. Crappy selection, crappy prices. And I don't like the idea of finding out on the ride home that they bleeped all the 'swears' out of some song.
But, freedom of speech is something the government may not infringe, but it doesn't prevent me from telling someone to 'shut the fuck up', nor does it prevent Wal-Mart from saying 'we don't want anything to do with this'.
Frankly I applaud their effort, even if I do see it as somewhat misguided. There are very few corporations like Wal-Mart willing to sacrifice profits for the sake of morality. Maybe it's more of a marketing gimmick than an ethical stand, but it is commendable in its way.
Most retailers would stock XXX hardcore porn and sell it to 8 year olds if they could.
Wal-Mart choosing not to carry a game/album/movie for whatever reason they choose has nothing to do with free speech.
Nor does a school deciding whats appropriate material for coursework.
Freedom of speech has nothing to do with people listening to you.
Once you graduate you can write whatever game you want, and if retailers dont want to sell it, thats their freedom of choice being excercised. No one persons rights (percieved or real) may infringe on anothers.
>> A three page review of the Zalman VGA Heatpipe Cooler. This thing is pretty nice looking, and with no power, no noise, what else could a guy ask for? Check out the review here. How come more companies don't do the "silent" thing?
Because that VGA cooler weighs 400 grams (almost a pound). The sunflower CPU heatsinks are twice CPU mfg specs as well.
They work great, and are fine if your PC is generally stationary, but I wince thinking of the damage one of those suckers would to my machine if it broke loose while transporting.
Thats why more companies dont do the 'silent' thing.
Besides, I can hardly hear my new P4 rigs stock CPU fan and 4 7-volted 80mm's. Point being that quality fans are virtually silent anyways.
Depends which studs you vent between...
In lots of construction around here (my home included) the return vents to the furnace is just the space between the studs (no ductwork). I don't see the problem with venting the warm computer air straight into the return - heck it'd even make my 25 year old oil burner 0.000000001% more efficient.
I had a variation of this idea - building a 'false wall' 6 inches out from the normal wall, with (quiet) bathroom type fans at the top to draw air straight out into the attic. It'd be ok to dump warm, moist air up there because my attic is *extremely well* ventilated, in many many homes this would promote rot, ice dams, etc etc..
For the most part, you're right.. You'd either be doing no good at all (trying to force air where it has nowhere to go), and at worst doing harm - dumping warm moist air into exterior insulation or attic space, or overheating your PCs as the fans spin and spin yet dont move any air.
Without the goodies on, even the Ti4600 can "outperform" the R9700.
Hard to imagine a 'serious review' site would neglect to test these features. I don't give a crap about 400 average FPS in quake, but I do care if it drops to 14 with all the enhancements turned on. But then they were trying to make the GeForceFX look like it's leaps and bounds better.
I'd imagine it's still the case - the 9700 is still the bandwidth king. Personally, I don't care about faster (when its already faster than my monitor can display and brain can process). My next upgrade will be motivated because it will look better.
The GeforceFX isn't something thats going to leave the 9700 in the dust - it's something that should have come out 6 months ago to compete head-to-head with ATI.
At any rate, after putting together a couple of cheap flex-atx pcs with onboard S4s (shared memory - Shuttle FV25 in case anyone cares), I'm surprised at how little GPU horsepower is needed to actually play most games.
Even UT2k3 is playable on these little guys (albeit not 1600x1200 with all the goodies turned on, but playable). I'm pretty sure my "outdated" radeon 64vivo will play Doom 3 when it goes gold.
Anyhow, my point is that cards have been displaying 'fast enough' for awhile - I mean we don't measure a cards performance in polygons anymore. They need to "look better", as in more natural, smoother, more TV-like.
Bobs your uncle, mate!
Cheerio then, I'm off.
Microsofts newest switcher: Wonderkid!
"And then my computer went BEEP BEEP BEEP and my photos were gone, and they were really good photos. Then I had to make new photos and they werent as good because I was in a rush. It was kind of... a bummer."
The handwriting is on the wall, and Steve Jobs is standing there holding a magic marker.
Nothing says 'this market is saturated' better than when a company turns to nickel and diming its existing customer base.
Apparently the switch campaign isn't convincing all the 'sheep' like me to plunk down 2Gs in droves.
"And then my computer went beep beep beep and lost my movie and it was a really good movie and the upgrade cost me 50 bucks. It was kind of... a bummer"
If they were charging for the next version of the software, I'd agree. No bait and switch if iDVD 2.0 is free, and 3.0 with extra iFeatures isn't. (I have no idea what version what is, for all those to nitpick).
I assumed the price of the iApps was part of the cost of the machine itself and not free at all.
If they're charging for upgrades (read: bugfixes), then I'd call shenanigans on them.
It reminds me of the old joke about the bartender serving free beer. A patron, elated at the deal, sat drinking for a couple of hours, and eventually had to urinate badly. He finds the bathroom door locked, and the bartender tells him "the key'll cost ya 100 bucks"
Even assuming this would be true in a civilian setting, there are still tons of tasks these things could do.
Taking supplies to remote parts of Alaska, for instance. People won't have to risk their lives driving trucking convoys over frozen lakes.
Or patrolling the countless miles of coastline, searching for lost craft, people, etc, in remote places where there's nothing of import to crash into.
You don't see the difference between spying and patrolling.
These things dont 'blend in'. They stick out like sore thumbs, not exactly Solid Snake stealth.
These things buzzing back and forth along the Mexican border would be an immediately visible warning to those who would try and cross it illegally.
One of these cruising over Manhatten would send every mobster, drug-lord and terrorist into hiding. Espionage doesn't work if you make your subjects insecure and paranoid.
This is why the local cops don't look for outdoor pot growing operations in their shiney new helicopter with POLICE in big letters on the bottom, and instead rent out local cropdusters and private choppers.
Not true, at least not where I am (DC area).
A look at the want ads for around here yields hundreds of openings for DBAs, programmers, IT guys, etc. The rub? You must be an American citizen. Must. TS clearance required.
I'm not a US citizen, I'm Canadian and a permanent resident, so all those opportunities are lost to me by default. Yet I found a job programming, in a niche market (public safety) that can never be outsourced to India. In fact, I didn't even have to look very hard. The jobs are there, frankly people arent realistic with their salary expectations.
Most of the people I know around here work for a gov agency or contractor, it pretty much drives the economy. These people are *constantly* looking for employees, American ones. And just being American and eligible for TS clearance gets you on average 10 G's more a year.
And to the American programmer who is ineligible because he has a criminal record, or is a drug user, I have no sympathy. They closed those doors themselves and shouldnt be bitching about who's 'stealing their jobs'.
And perhaps every All-American-Nerd popping out of university with his fresh BA in Comp Sci cant just sit down at a 100,000$ programming job because HE JUST ISNT WORTH IT.
Every time theres bad news about the economy the knee-jerk reaction is to point to immigrants/foreign workers.
After all, foreigners are willing to accept a lower standard of living, right? We have no problem sleeping in a cardboard box in an alley, and have no desire to buy our children nice things.
Know what else? We eat dogs and arrange weddings for our 3 year olds, and whatever other stereotypes people come up with or see on TV.
It's bullshit and thinly veiled racism, IMO. 200,000 H1B visas aren't taking jobs from a half billion americans.