You sure you've upgraded to the final Flash Player 9 for Linux? Since the final release I haven't had any problems, though before that it constantly crashed. You might also look into the flashblock extension for Firefox. It blocks the flash but lets you click on it to view if you want. Pretty handy, especially when I have to use the laptop with only 256mb that otherwise gets killed by sites with tons of youtube (or similar) embedded videos.
Is something like that used in low end playsforsure audio players? Would that be why things like the older Sansa (haven't used newer ones) and Zen Nano sound JUST LIKE windows playback?
I was just making the point that different decoders can make for very different sound quality. I'd have used portable audio players but most of the ones I've used are on the lower end and all basically sound like windows playback, which is decent enough but not really good.
Also you've got a 50% chance of GUESSING the right one. Maybe the way to do it would be to play a number of songs with low and high bitrate versions of each several times in semi-random order and ask them to pick which bitrate they think it is. If the same song was picked for different bitrates on successive playings you'd at the least know that they didn't have a clue.
They should have tested with different hardware as well. The playback platform can change the sound a lot. For instance, whenever I've played an MP3 on windows it sounds horrible compared to how it sounds under Linux media players. Not sure why though. But in a test like this you'd think they would want to remove the possibility that the hardware just sounds like crap no matter what you put in it.
Don't give them any ideas! They'll do a game that's so bright all you can see is white! Then they'll decide it has to be a fucking trilogy and release a game that's all gray!
From the videos they released it looks JUST LIKE SC1 at 1600x1200. And despite all the whining to the contrary, I'm pretty sure if it isn't just that people will hate it. Personally I don't see the point since it looks just like the original so I don't care... unless there's a native Linux client. Then it'll at least get +10 for effort.
It serves no deterrent purpose if the people it *might* deter (it wouldn't anyway) don't even know it's there. The "casual copiers" won't know that their name and email address are in the file so it serves no deterrent purpose. The serious "pirates" will either strip it out or go for a direct CD-rip which will give a more widely-usable file format without the loss of quality you'd get from converting it. Seriously, you have to either be an idiot (and probably an apple fanboi too) to claim that there is any legitimate purpose in this.
So what happens when you just replace the name and email address? Or blank it out? Does the file not play? At best this might discourage casual copying or allow them to "punish" those who do it. It pretty obviously won't discourage anything, since they're not making it known and most "casual" copiers won't even know their name and email address are in the file. Serious "pirates" (AAAAAARRRR) will just replace the names anyway. Or rip from a CD like they do now anyway. How is this even news?
Which is really too bad. They should lower the price of DS and start offering a package with both a Wii and DS (maybe in an exclusive colour or something to push more units). Handheld/Console connectivity could be really awesome, but like nearly every other add-on it fails because it requires a separate purchase. Eventually someone will need to look at the few console add-ons that have done well (N64 RAM expansion, Dual Shock) and learn from the reason they did well. Until then it can never be more than a gimmick. Even for the games like Pacman Vs that only require one handheld and completely rock face.
Dude, I won't speak for Oblivion since I didn't like it that much, but Morrowind crushes most Japanese RPGs in terms of story. It just doesn't present the story through long, usually boring cutscenes the way so many post-FF7 jRPGs do. You usually have to do a lot of reading, but that's kind of what's neat about it. It lets you really feel like you're a part of the story and discovering it while you play instead of having it shown to you like a movie. And don't get me wrong, I love jRPGs. But that doesn't mean you can't and shouldn't have both. I'd much rather have another game of the quality (not the bugs, but the gameplay) of Morrowind than another Final Fantasy game, which has really lost it in my opinion by removing the gameplay that made the series fun (and yes, jRPGs are about COMBAT, not story) and leaving us with Meg Ryan-look-a-like emo kids and boring cutscenes.
In my experience Linux simply performs better than windows for games. This could be for several reasons. One is that cross-platform development likely forces better coding practices that increase performance. Another is that the developers with the resources to do multi-platform games are just better. It could also be that Linux is just the superior platform.
Of all the games that I've played with native clients on both Linux and Windows, on the same machine, the only one that did not perform better on Linux was Neverwinter Nights. But the Linux port wasn't really a priority for them and seemed kind of shoddy in general. Most games, particularly Unreal Tournament 2004, got much better framerates. Most maps would run between 10 and 25 frames-per-second faster on Linux, which was anywhere from 30% to 100% faster on the hardware I was using at the time.
I'd assume, at the risk of making an ass out of Benton and Valerie, that if more commercial games were ported to Linux that the tools would increase in quality and this disparity would increase accordingly.
The part where I'd want to play MP3. For the $50 difference with the 30GB model I'd rather have a Cowan A2 that will play formats I'm actually likely to use, as well as have a much larger screen and video out.
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You sure you've upgraded to the final Flash Player 9 for Linux? Since the final release I haven't had any problems, though before that it constantly crashed. You might also look into the flashblock extension for Firefox. It blocks the flash but lets you click on it to view if you want. Pretty handy, especially when I have to use the laptop with only 256mb that otherwise gets killed by sites with tons of youtube (or similar) embedded videos.
Just turn off the taskbar. That's what I did and I don't miss it at all.
Is something like that used in low end playsforsure audio players? Would that be why things like the older Sansa (haven't used newer ones) and Zen Nano sound JUST LIKE windows playback?
I was just making the point that different decoders can make for very different sound quality. I'd have used portable audio players but most of the ones I've used are on the lower end and all basically sound like windows playback, which is decent enough but not really good.
I hope you wrote Belgacom and demanded the source code for all the software.
Also you've got a 50% chance of GUESSING the right one. Maybe the way to do it would be to play a number of songs with low and high bitrate versions of each several times in semi-random order and ask them to pick which bitrate they think it is. If the same song was picked for different bitrates on successive playings you'd at the least know that they didn't have a clue.
They should have tested with different hardware as well. The playback platform can change the sound a lot. For instance, whenever I've played an MP3 on windows it sounds horrible compared to how it sounds under Linux media players. Not sure why though. But in a test like this you'd think they would want to remove the possibility that the hardware just sounds like crap no matter what you put in it.
Don't give them any ideas! They'll do a game that's so bright all you can see is white! Then they'll decide it has to be a fucking trilogy and release a game that's all gray!
From the videos they released it looks JUST LIKE SC1 at 1600x1200. And despite all the whining to the contrary, I'm pretty sure if it isn't just that people will hate it. Personally I don't see the point since it looks just like the original so I don't care... unless there's a native Linux client. Then it'll at least get +10 for effort.
Or it could be that it's so easy to taunt java fanboy trolls with it without becoming a troll myself, because it happens to be true.
Yeah, but then he'll complain when they include the scene where his AIDS test comes back positive.
More importantly, how did it take 30,000 people (isn't that what microsoft claimed?) five years to implement it?
Because it is slow.
MODS: Feel free to mod me troll, I can take it and it will only show that I'm right and you're afraid.
It serves no deterrent purpose if the people it *might* deter (it wouldn't anyway) don't even know it's there. The "casual copiers" won't know that their name and email address are in the file so it serves no deterrent purpose. The serious "pirates" will either strip it out or go for a direct CD-rip which will give a more widely-usable file format without the loss of quality you'd get from converting it. Seriously, you have to either be an idiot (and probably an apple fanboi too) to claim that there is any legitimate purpose in this.
"Casual" copiers won't even know the information is in there so it serves NO purpose as a deterrent.
So what happens when you just replace the name and email address? Or blank it out? Does the file not play? At best this might discourage casual copying or allow them to "punish" those who do it. It pretty obviously won't discourage anything, since they're not making it known and most "casual" copiers won't even know their name and email address are in the file. Serious "pirates" (AAAAAARRRR) will just replace the names anyway. Or rip from a CD like they do now anyway. How is this even news?
Which is really too bad. They should lower the price of DS and start offering a package with both a Wii and DS (maybe in an exclusive colour or something to push more units). Handheld/Console connectivity could be really awesome, but like nearly every other add-on it fails because it requires a separate purchase. Eventually someone will need to look at the few console add-ons that have done well (N64 RAM expansion, Dual Shock) and learn from the reason they did well. Until then it can never be more than a gimmick. Even for the games like Pacman Vs that only require one handheld and completely rock face.
Yes, but sometimes you can't see the road!
Not while I'm drinking coffee in public, dude! JEEZ!
Dude, I won't speak for Oblivion since I didn't like it that much, but Morrowind crushes most Japanese RPGs in terms of story. It just doesn't present the story through long, usually boring cutscenes the way so many post-FF7 jRPGs do. You usually have to do a lot of reading, but that's kind of what's neat about it. It lets you really feel like you're a part of the story and discovering it while you play instead of having it shown to you like a movie. And don't get me wrong, I love jRPGs. But that doesn't mean you can't and shouldn't have both. I'd much rather have another game of the quality (not the bugs, but the gameplay) of Morrowind than another Final Fantasy game, which has really lost it in my opinion by removing the gameplay that made the series fun (and yes, jRPGs are about COMBAT, not story) and leaving us with Meg Ryan-look-a-like emo kids and boring cutscenes.
They'll probably name some lock-in-enabling technology that sooner or later. Maybe their next MS Office format when the current one fails.
In my experience Linux simply performs better than windows for games. This could be for several reasons. One is that cross-platform development likely forces better coding practices that increase performance. Another is that the developers with the resources to do multi-platform games are just better. It could also be that Linux is just the superior platform.
Of all the games that I've played with native clients on both Linux and Windows, on the same machine, the only one that did not perform better on Linux was Neverwinter Nights. But the Linux port wasn't really a priority for them and seemed kind of shoddy in general. Most games, particularly Unreal Tournament 2004, got much better framerates. Most maps would run between 10 and 25 frames-per-second faster on Linux, which was anywhere from 30% to 100% faster on the hardware I was using at the time.
I'd assume, at the risk of making an ass out of Benton and Valerie, that if more commercial games were ported to Linux that the tools would increase in quality and this disparity would increase accordingly.
The part where I'd want to play MP3. For the $50 difference with the 30GB model I'd rather have a Cowan A2 that will play formats I'm actually likely to use, as well as have a much larger screen and video out.
Having not used a Gigabeat I'll have to assume the iPod is the confusing and awkward one to use.
iRaq is so 2003, how about iRan?