Re:FUD Biased Article with Inaccuracies
on
SLI Primer
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· Score: 3, Informative
#5) No benefit. "From what I heard, more than a few games realize no FPS gains at all from the addition of a second video card". First, this is rumor. Many games realize no benefit at low resolutions (640x480, some at 800x600) because the games are more CPU bound than video card bound. All the games that are SLI compatible definitely realize solid FPS gains. Moreover, those gains can be "converted" into graphics enhancements (i.e. no need to go from 60fps to 95 fps, but now you can turn on 8xAA or up the screen resolution, etc.)
Relative to the cost, the performance gain for SLI is negligable. Take a look at the benchmarks - for the $1100+ you'd spend on a pair of 6800 Ultras, or the $750+ you'd spend on a pair of 6800 GTs, you could obtain nearly identical performance with a $525 X850XT PE, with far less wattage and heat.
#6) Dual GPU cards. The author obviously doesn't know what he's talking about here. The Gigabyte dual GPU card is just an SLI solution on a single graphics card. It's (almost) exactly the same as having 2x6600GT cards. It uses the same technology and produces the same results. So what's this viable new technology on the horizon he is talking about?
Do you understand that this entire article is about gaming performance? That's the whole reason SLI exists, not for your typical office workstation. Your suggestions aren't even relevant.
It looks like one video card is not going to cut it any more, at least for the hardcore gamers out there.
What a stupid comment.
Currently, the best video performance out there is a pair of 6800 Ultras in SLI, it's true, but that's also well over $1000 in video hardware alone.
Meanwhile, single-card solutions like the X850XT PE are capable of chewing through anything you can throw at them with admirable performance.
SLI is a lot like the tablet PC: a solution in search of a problem. Sure, it's a cool idea, but in practice, not terribly useful and very much overpriced.
Compare, for instance, a pair of 6600GTs running SLI:
$175 for each card; $350 total. Another $50 for the premium on a SLI mainboard.
Now you've got additional heat, additional power draw, two seperate cards, and the hassle of dealing with SLI drivers when, for $100 less, you could purchase a single X800XL and enjoy superior performance.
SLI may become worthwhile in the future, but for now, it's the exclusive domain of chumps and the e-penis crowd.
As I understand it, they work almost identically to a SMP setup, meaning they don't offer much of any performance benefit in most apps (particularly games). They draw more power, they run at higher temperatures, etc.
Is there something I'm missing? Or is this whole dual-core mess really just SMP on one CPU? Because from what I've read on the likes of Extremetech, Anandtech, and so on, I'm not finding any reason to be impressed.
Fantastic! Where do I sign up for beta? There's nothing I'd rather do than hang out with the sort of quality people that think beating hookers to death is fun! I can't imagine a game with a more enjoyable crowd of players than the teenage-suburban-white-kids-that-act-like-gangstas demographic this game will surely attract!
I mean, just think of the possibilities! I always found common 13375p34k to be too intelligable, now, I'll be able to revel in wonderful in game conversation like "wtf yo gimme ur g4tz fo rizzle j00 f4gg0t" and "3y3 wiznill takes j00 ryde fizzy you plz!11!elevntyone!11"
*sigh*
I fear for my generation.
Besides, what could this game accomlish that Gizoogle hasn't already.;)
SLI is apparently aimed at the same market as the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, and the Athlon 64 FX - namely, the crowd who views their synthetic benchmark scores as a sort of virtual penis....and the exceedingly small market of people that can build PCs without any budget limitations.
The current crop of video cards is hideously expensive. Where the last generation's flagship models weighed in around $500 at retail (the 9800 XT and 5950 Ultra), this new batch has seen the X850 XT Plantinum Edition retailing for $700 and the 6800 Ultra going for not much less. The "average" performers for this generation are in the high $200-$300 range.
Furthermore, SLI is a lot like SMP. First off, the game needs to actually be able to take advantage of it. Next, even if the game does, you're not seeing a linear performance boost; that is to say, if you've got a pair of 6800 Ultras, you're not going to see double performance. The rule of thumb is it'll boost performance by about 65% - sure, it's very substantial, but with the premium price on cards already, it's an even less worthwhile purpose. To top it off, you're going to be looking at an extra $50 or so on a motherboard with SLI, and who knows how much extra in cooling.
So, from a performance standpoint, SLI is obviously the king, but from a cost effectiveness standpoint, it's about as bad as it gets.
As for using SLI to level the performance field with mid-range and low-range cards, buying an SLI board with a pair of 6600GTs is going to run you, say, $600 ($200 for a mainboard, $200 for each card). That may actually be worth it, as you're going to drop the same amount of money on a 6800 GT & similar non-SLI board which will perform slightly worse.
But then, here's the problem with that: not only do games need to support SLI, but nVidia needs to write their drivers to support a specific game. Play a game that flies under nVidia's radar? Too bad, no SLI for you. Additionally, while a pair of 6600GTs perform marginally better than a single 6800GT right now, what's to say there'll be a great price point on this type of card for the next generation when you go to upgrade?
SLI's close to being worthwhile, but at the moment, I'd not bother with it. Maybe once the technology's more mature.
I agree - certainly there aren't many people in Oakland county that can't afford broadband, but at the same time, it's a project that's being put into play by the county government, not the state. I think it'd be fantastic for Macomb and Wayne to follow suit, but knowing how corrupt the government in Wayne is, I doubt it'd be successful, there. Macomb, on the other hand, still has a lot of more rural areas (like Romeo) that could benefit from this greatly.
The article points out that they don't want to use tax money to fund this. It's sort of a tradeoff. The county builds towers and the physical infrastructure to run the program, and, in turn, private companies run the whole show in exchange for access to the towers for other ventures.
I could definitely see someone like Sprint or Verizon getting on board with this.
RTFA - the county will build and maintain the infrastructure, and, in return, private companies will run it all and have access to the infrastructure for other business ventures. This is a [i]good[/i] thing.
...and while I really, really like the sound of this, I'm more interested in seeing what sort of impact this'll have on cable and DSL prices in the area. It seems to me that Comcast, SBC and Wide Open West will have a much more difficult time convincing people to pay $60/month for broadband access when they can get adequate service without wires or hardware for free.
I don't think this sort of WiFi would have the speed to keep me happy, but I definitely think my parents and most of my family would be perfectly happy with it, and I certainly wouldn't mind seeing it drive my cable bill down $10 or $20/month.
Who is Smedley trying to kid - the future of MMOs, at least in the short term, is to keep cloning EverQuest until it's no longer profitable or some independant does something better and gets the ball rolling in a different direction (my fingers are crossed for DDO).
Look at the big-name MMOs for the past 5 years or so: EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, Lineage, Lineage 2, Final Fantasy Online... every single one of them is, fundamentally, the same game. Sure, the Asian-market games tend to have a sadistic streak, but beyond that, they're all about grouping up, camping, pharming, looting, wash, rinse, repeat.
Their combat systems are downright shallow. Their characters are less characters and more like animated spreadsheets. They're about spending hundreds or thousands of hours killing progressively larger bats, rats, and snakes to attain the privelage to spend more time killing even larger bats, rats, and snakes.
There's no thought. Combat and gameplay is so mind-numbingly formulaic that there's nothing to get the adrenaline going, and there certainly isn't enough happening to engage the mind.
Why can't we have a MMO with a combat system like Jedi Academy? Why, when mecha fans are some of the most hardcore gamers on the planet, has there not been a mech sim MMO?
Like I said, I have high hopes for D&D Online, but I don't foresee MMOs radically changing any time soon. It's just going to be EverQuest: Again: And Again: And Yet Again....at least until someone realizes that there's a huge group of people that aren't twitch gamers, but are bored half to death by the current incarnation of MMOs, and makes something that might actually entertain them.
+Awesome selection of music - could be better, but it absolutely blows away anything shy of Amazon, and terrestrial stores can't hold a candle to it.
+Widely considered the best portable player made
+DRM is fairly transparent and can easily be legally circumvented, and even more easily, well... *cough*
-Let's face it: iTMS is a fantastic idea, but about as much of a cludgy resource whore as a dolled-up media player can be
Napster:
+Has the Napster name, which may mean something to someone that's been living in a cave for the past 4 years, but probably not
-Absolutely craptastic selection of music
-WMA files aren't any more widely supported by the portable market than AAC, who are they trying to kid? Sure, more player models support WMA, but take away the ones that aren't even remotely competetive with the iPod and the iPod mini, and all you're really left with is the iRiver HP-120 and the Creative Zen Micro.
-Their DRM scheme is geared more towards music rental than music purchase.
So... what "advantages" are Napster touting, again?
Detroit has one of the worst job markets in the country right now; especially in IT. So, I decided rather than compete, I'd start my own business repairing home users' PCs - I charged $65/hour, less than those incompetant know-nothings from the Geek Squad, and provided good service. I had happy customers, and made a good living without wasting an entire day rotting away behind a desk.
For about 3 months, it was great, then I started expanding my customer base. For every good, repeat customer I had, I had to deal with 3 other know-nothings that'd break break their systems the moment I walked out the door, then call me back, demanding I "fix it right." Education? It was worthless. Switching browsers? They'd agree to try Firefox, and be back using IE 5 minutes later.
I had some customers who made it their point to visit every shady poker, porn, and warez site on the web, open every attachment on every strange email, and somehow break any anti-virus solution I implimented. Then, they'd call me up and want me to either come back and fix it (for free), or sit there and walk them through it on the phone.
These days, I have a low-level support job part time and go to the university full time. I make about 1/5th what I did a year ago, but there isn't a regret in my mind about leaving that business behind. It was miserable and frustrating. Now, I just do PC work for friends and family, and am trying to get them all converted over to Macs, since they're largely idiot-proof. And when I do tech support? They understand it's not a permanant fix, especially if they don't follow my advice, and I don't charge. Make me dinner, do me a favor, buy me some beer, just... whatever. I won't take money, because the second it reaches that level, they think you owe them
I always stress the importance of getting a good power supply when I give advice for building PCs, but it seems like something people are largely willing to gloss over, and just go for some cheap no-name with high wattage. It's nice to see a review for these, finally...
But, of the companies on here, I've never even [i]heard[/i] of Tagan, and it seems a bit sketchy that Tagan wins best honors in their review... which was conducted in Tagan's lab.
Furthermore, why aren't Sparkle or Antec power supplies tested? Along with Enermax, they're widely regarded as some of the best around.
If I download an MP3, and the company that sold it for me tanks, I can still listen to it (in theory, anyways, DRM tries to prevent that), I can burn it to CD, etc.
With these goods, they exists solely as data on a server owned by another company. You can't take them with you, you can't make any use of said items outside their virtual world. If they pull the plug on the server, you're SoL - no more items.
I agree with you that using the term sweatshop is probably overstating how harsh the conditions are, but these guys aren't just playing the game. They're grinding and farming. It's more like being a QA tester than playing; it's boring, frustrating, repetative work, usually in games that are boring, frustrating, and repetative to begin with.
I wonder - and I'm not being facetious or sarcastic - is there really much of a market left for this sort of a thing?
Intel has, sadly, been having its own ass handed to it in the high-performance/gaming segment for a year or more, now. No gaming enthusiast with the slightest bit of hardware knowledge, which is apparently the PT's target market, owns a P4 system these days.
Unless this PT chipset is designed to cut costs for resellers like Dell and Gateway with their high-end machines (and I use the term loosely), I don't see it having any impact at all.
Uh, the people who paid, still pay, and continue to pay for it? Big-evil-corporations exist because people pay them money. Nobody needs music on CDs/records/tapes, or encoded in mp3s. Nobody has a right to it. The only rights involved are those of the creator and of those to whom he delegates his rights.
You're making the logical leap of faith that just because people buy a product they want or need, that it equates to approving of what they do with the money. A good analogy would be Windows; I'm an avid gamer, as I'm sure many other Slashdotters are. I buy Windows not because I want to reward Microsoft for their sleazy business practices, but because it allows me to do something I enjoy.
Nobody forces an artist to sign a contract with a big label. They do it of their own free will, generally because of greed.
Or maybe they do it out of motivation for larger exposure? Maybe that artists has something to say, or wants as many people as possible to enjoy his music? Maybe he wants a chance to afford a better instrument, or access to tools he couldn't normally afford so he can experiement with his sound.
Regarding DRM, finding some clever way to open a vault and remove the gold within makes it no less theft. Finding clever ways around DRM to extract the protected work within makes the act no less theft.
First off, you're completely missing the point in that the people breaking the DRM in this situation A) already bought the product, B) have other, legal (though more cumbersome) means of circumventing the DRM, and C) are excersizing a right explicitly granted them.
Analogy time!
The government grants us the right to use public sidewalks. So, I'm walking to the corner store one day, and find one guy has decided to pile a bunch of junk on the sidewalk in front of his house. Now, technically, to be completely legal, I should turn around, walk to the crosswalk, and take the sidewalk on the other side of the street, but that's a pain in the butt; it's a block back the way I came from. So, I walk on the guy's yard, around the pile of junk, which is technically trespassing, but hey, it only takes a few seconds, and it's his damned fault for putting the junk there in the first place. Either way I wind up at the store. Either way I had to walk. But this way, it takes me the same amount of time it should have in the first place had that guy not tried to interfere with my right.
If you don't like the price being charged, if you don't like the terms of the sale (usage restrictions), don't buy it, and don't steal it. Something that is worth stealing is worth protecting. You know that, they know that.
It's been stated several times already, but you don't seem to be catching on: the people cracking iTunes DRM already purchased the music. Congradulations, you've bought into the RIAA's line of bullshit! You're calling people who just bought music thieves.
It's very simple. If enough people cut restricted/expensive music out of their lives entirely, the market will adapt.
Note that the industry, years running now, has been complaining about declining sales. Have you seen them do anything? They blame a scapegoat (piracy), and continue to do the exact same crap they have been. These idiots are going to keep doing what they're doing until the government slaps them around, or they go out of business.
But your implication is that the RIAA is actually asking what people would want to pay for music. Apparently they aren't.
These are people who make a business running artists into the ground. The cartel has effectively monopolized the music industry, shooting themselves in the foot in the process.
Think about it: what's the RIAA's big justification for the high cost of CDs and the reason they financially destroy so many artists? They claim they have to take a big risk on artists, as it's expensive to produce, tour, promote, etc.
Who said rockstars need to have their every whim catered to? Who drove the cost of music videos through the roof? Who demands artists pay $20,000/hour for some "big name" producer to hit a few buttons in Pro Tools? Who demands artists pay thousands an hour for studio time? Who created this bloated, overinflated, cookie cutter music market where it's ridiculously expensive to get exposure? Who helped create the radio station conglomerates like Clear Channel and Infinity? Who created this situation where it's prohibitively difficult for non-affiliated artists to get more than small, local exposure?
The whole point, is the industry is solely responsible for this situation they're in. They flat-out lie in press releases. They slander their own customers, and treat them like criminals. They charge too much for a lackluster service, and now we're supposed to feel sorry for them? When's the last time the industry showed any good will towards its customers?
No, the RIAA isn't listening; they're oblivious and out of touch. No one wants DRM. Yet they insist on it. We want more reasonably priced music, but they won't give that to us, either. Yet they've created an environment where it's exceedingly difficult to be exposed to music that isn't being actively pimped by them! And now we're supposed to bend over and take it in the ass while they use one law to make an end-run around another and screw us out of our rights?
[b]Fuck them and the horse they rode in on[b/].
The truly stupid thing about this is that iTunes already provides a mechanism for doing what JHymn does - burn a CD, re-rip it. Problem solved. All JHymn does is streamline the process a bit.
A while back we mentioned that Missouri pulled violent games from prisons on the basis that hardened criminals shouldn't be practicing their sharpshooting technique.
Yes, because pushing a button on a gamepad trains you to handle a real gun more effectively, right? Especially since games offer such realistic bullet physics, right?
Now, the new governor has removed all video games from the MO prison system. From the AP story: "Blunt, a Republican who took office two weeks ago, called video games 'a luxury that inmates should not be allowed to enjoy.'"
I don't see this as bad at all. They're in prison for a reason. Why should the tax payers be footing the bill for this?
This is a wise move for the school. If something bad happened, they would be held responsible by the public & the media whether parent's signed permission slips or not.
Really? How is it different from taking field trips to the zoo, or funding violent sports?
Parents need to sign wavers for their kids to play football; you don't see the school district being sued every time some kid breaks a bone. You don't see the school being sued over teen pregnancy because they teach anatomy or sex ed.
There's no media frenzy over video games; there's just a select group of idiots like Lieberman and Buchanon that make a big stink over it.
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Relative to the cost, the performance gain for SLI is negligable. Take a look at the benchmarks - for the $1100+ you'd spend on a pair of 6800 Ultras, or the $750+ you'd spend on a pair of 6800 GTs, you could obtain nearly identical performance with a $525 X850XT PE, with far less wattage and heat.
That Gigabyte single-board SLI implimentation? It's a big piece of crap.
Do you understand that this entire article is about gaming performance? That's the whole reason SLI exists, not for your typical office workstation. Your suggestions aren't even relevant.
What a stupid comment.
Currently, the best video performance out there is a pair of 6800 Ultras in SLI, it's true, but that's also well over $1000 in video hardware alone.
Meanwhile, single-card solutions like the X850XT PE are capable of chewing through anything you can throw at them with admirable performance.
SLI is a lot like the tablet PC: a solution in search of a problem. Sure, it's a cool idea, but in practice, not terribly useful and very much overpriced.
Compare, for instance, a pair of 6600GTs running SLI:
$175 for each card; $350 total. Another $50 for the premium on a SLI mainboard.
Now you've got additional heat, additional power draw, two seperate cards, and the hassle of dealing with SLI drivers when, for $100 less, you could purchase a single X800XL and enjoy superior performance.
SLI may become worthwhile in the future, but for now, it's the exclusive domain of chumps and the e-penis crowd.
I don't understand the hype about dual core CPUs.
As I understand it, they work almost identically to a SMP setup, meaning they don't offer much of any performance benefit in most apps (particularly games). They draw more power, they run at higher temperatures, etc.
Is there something I'm missing? Or is this whole dual-core mess really just SMP on one CPU? Because from what I've read on the likes of Extremetech, Anandtech, and so on, I'm not finding any reason to be impressed.
Fantastic! Where do I sign up for beta? There's nothing I'd rather do than hang out with the sort of quality people that think beating hookers to death is fun! I can't imagine a game with a more enjoyable crowd of players than the teenage-suburban-white-kids-that-act-like-gangstas demographic this game will surely attract!
;)
I mean, just think of the possibilities! I always found common 13375p34k to be too intelligable, now, I'll be able to revel in wonderful in game conversation like "wtf yo gimme ur g4tz fo rizzle j00 f4gg0t" and "3y3 wiznill takes j00 ryde fizzy you plz!11!elevntyone!11"
*sigh*
I fear for my generation.
Besides, what could this game accomlish that Gizoogle hasn't already.
SLI is apparently aimed at the same market as the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, and the Athlon 64 FX - namely, the crowd who views their synthetic benchmark scores as a sort of virtual penis. ...and the exceedingly small market of people that can build PCs without any budget limitations.
The current crop of video cards is hideously expensive. Where the last generation's flagship models weighed in around $500 at retail (the 9800 XT and 5950 Ultra), this new batch has seen the X850 XT Plantinum Edition retailing for $700 and the 6800 Ultra going for not much less. The "average" performers for this generation are in the high $200-$300 range.
Furthermore, SLI is a lot like SMP. First off, the game needs to actually be able to take advantage of it. Next, even if the game does, you're not seeing a linear performance boost; that is to say, if you've got a pair of 6800 Ultras, you're not going to see double performance. The rule of thumb is it'll boost performance by about 65% - sure, it's very substantial, but with the premium price on cards already, it's an even less worthwhile purpose. To top it off, you're going to be looking at an extra $50 or so on a motherboard with SLI, and who knows how much extra in cooling.
So, from a performance standpoint, SLI is obviously the king, but from a cost effectiveness standpoint, it's about as bad as it gets.
As for using SLI to level the performance field with mid-range and low-range cards, buying an SLI board with a pair of 6600GTs is going to run you, say, $600 ($200 for a mainboard, $200 for each card). That may actually be worth it, as you're going to drop the same amount of money on a 6800 GT & similar non-SLI board which will perform slightly worse.
But then, here's the problem with that: not only do games need to support SLI, but nVidia needs to write their drivers to support a specific game. Play a game that flies under nVidia's radar? Too bad, no SLI for you. Additionally, while a pair of 6600GTs perform marginally better than a single 6800GT right now, what's to say there'll be a great price point on this type of card for the next generation when you go to upgrade?
SLI's close to being worthwhile, but at the moment, I'd not bother with it. Maybe once the technology's more mature.
Take a look at some of the nominees:
Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude for writing? I've seen more engaging plots in first-graders' short stories.
Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within and World of Warcraft for character design? Sure, maybe if they're talking about visual design only.
My dislike for a lot of the games listed aside, the ones above are just grossly out of place.
I agree - certainly there aren't many people in Oakland county that can't afford broadband, but at the same time, it's a project that's being put into play by the county government, not the state. I think it'd be fantastic for Macomb and Wayne to follow suit, but knowing how corrupt the government in Wayne is, I doubt it'd be successful, there. Macomb, on the other hand, still has a lot of more rural areas (like Romeo) that could benefit from this greatly.
The article points out that they don't want to use tax money to fund this. It's sort of a tradeoff. The county builds towers and the physical infrastructure to run the program, and, in turn, private companies run the whole show in exchange for access to the towers for other ventures.
I could definitely see someone like Sprint or Verizon getting on board with this.
RTFA - the county will build and maintain the infrastructure, and, in return, private companies will run it all and have access to the infrastructure for other business ventures. This is a [i]good[/i] thing.
...and while I really, really like the sound of this, I'm more interested in seeing what sort of impact this'll have on cable and DSL prices in the area. It seems to me that Comcast, SBC and Wide Open West will have a much more difficult time convincing people to pay $60/month for broadband access when they can get adequate service without wires or hardware for free.
I don't think this sort of WiFi would have the speed to keep me happy, but I definitely think my parents and most of my family would be perfectly happy with it, and I certainly wouldn't mind seeing it drive my cable bill down $10 or $20/month.
Who is Smedley trying to kid - the future of MMOs, at least in the short term, is to keep cloning EverQuest until it's no longer profitable or some independant does something better and gets the ball rolling in a different direction (my fingers are crossed for DDO).
...at least until someone realizes that there's a huge group of people that aren't twitch gamers, but are bored half to death by the current incarnation of MMOs, and makes something that might actually entertain them.
Look at the big-name MMOs for the past 5 years or so: EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, Lineage, Lineage 2, Final Fantasy Online... every single one of them is, fundamentally, the same game. Sure, the Asian-market games tend to have a sadistic streak, but beyond that, they're all about grouping up, camping, pharming, looting, wash, rinse, repeat.
Their combat systems are downright shallow. Their characters are less characters and more like animated spreadsheets. They're about spending hundreds or thousands of hours killing progressively larger bats, rats, and snakes to attain the privelage to spend more time killing even larger bats, rats, and snakes.
There's no thought. Combat and gameplay is so mind-numbingly formulaic that there's nothing to get the adrenaline going, and there certainly isn't enough happening to engage the mind.
Why can't we have a MMO with a combat system like Jedi Academy? Why, when mecha fans are some of the most hardcore gamers on the planet, has there not been a mech sim MMO?
Like I said, I have high hopes for D&D Online, but I don't foresee MMOs radically changing any time soon. It's just going to be EverQuest: Again: And Again: And Yet Again.
Napster:
So... what "advantages" are Napster touting, again?
Mod the parent up.
Detroit has one of the worst job markets in the country right now; especially in IT. So, I decided rather than compete, I'd start my own business repairing home users' PCs - I charged $65/hour, less than those incompetant know-nothings from the Geek Squad, and provided good service. I had happy customers, and made a good living without wasting an entire day rotting away behind a desk.
For about 3 months, it was great, then I started expanding my customer base. For every good, repeat customer I had, I had to deal with 3 other know-nothings that'd break break their systems the moment I walked out the door, then call me back, demanding I "fix it right." Education? It was worthless. Switching browsers? They'd agree to try Firefox, and be back using IE 5 minutes later.
I had some customers who made it their point to visit every shady poker, porn, and warez site on the web, open every attachment on every strange email, and somehow break any anti-virus solution I implimented. Then, they'd call me up and want me to either come back and fix it (for free), or sit there and walk them through it on the phone.
These days, I have a low-level support job part time and go to the university full time. I make about 1/5th what I did a year ago, but there isn't a regret in my mind about leaving that business behind. It was miserable and frustrating. Now, I just do PC work for friends and family, and am trying to get them all converted over to Macs, since they're largely idiot-proof. And when I do tech support? They understand it's not a permanant fix, especially if they don't follow my advice, and I don't charge. Make me dinner, do me a favor, buy me some beer, just... whatever. I won't take money, because the second it reaches that level, they think you owe them
I always stress the importance of getting a good power supply when I give advice for building PCs, but it seems like something people are largely willing to gloss over, and just go for some cheap no-name with high wattage. It's nice to see a review for these, finally...
But, of the companies on here, I've never even [i]heard[/i] of Tagan, and it seems a bit sketchy that Tagan wins best honors in their review... which was conducted in Tagan's lab.
Furthermore, why aren't Sparkle or Antec power supplies tested? Along with Enermax, they're widely regarded as some of the best around.
These goods exist in a virtual world of sorts.
If I download an MP3, and the company that sold it for me tanks, I can still listen to it (in theory, anyways, DRM tries to prevent that), I can burn it to CD, etc.
With these goods, they exists solely as data on a server owned by another company. You can't take them with you, you can't make any use of said items outside their virtual world. If they pull the plug on the server, you're SoL - no more items.
I agree with you that using the term sweatshop is probably overstating how harsh the conditions are, but these guys aren't just playing the game. They're grinding and farming. It's more like being a QA tester than playing; it's boring, frustrating, repetative work, usually in games that are boring, frustrating, and repetative to begin with.
Giggity giggity! Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwright!
Bundled software my ass...
DS sales are going down because there's been all of like 3 games released since the already-weak list of launch titles.
I wonder - and I'm not being facetious or sarcastic - is there really much of a market left for this sort of a thing?
Intel has, sadly, been having its own ass handed to it in the high-performance/gaming segment for a year or more, now. No gaming enthusiast with the slightest bit of hardware knowledge, which is apparently the PT's target market, owns a P4 system these days.
Unless this PT chipset is designed to cut costs for resellers like Dell and Gateway with their high-end machines (and I use the term loosely), I don't see it having any impact at all.
You're making the logical leap of faith that just because people buy a product they want or need, that it equates to approving of what they do with the money. A good analogy would be Windows; I'm an avid gamer, as I'm sure many other Slashdotters are. I buy Windows not because I want to reward Microsoft for their sleazy business practices, but because it allows me to do something I enjoy.
Or maybe they do it out of motivation for larger exposure? Maybe that artists has something to say, or wants as many people as possible to enjoy his music? Maybe he wants a chance to afford a better instrument, or access to tools he couldn't normally afford so he can experiement with his sound.
First off, you're completely missing the point in that the people breaking the DRM in this situation A) already bought the product, B) have other, legal (though more cumbersome) means of circumventing the DRM, and C) are excersizing a right explicitly granted them.
Analogy time!
The government grants us the right to use public sidewalks. So, I'm walking to the corner store one day, and find one guy has decided to pile a bunch of junk on the sidewalk in front of his house. Now, technically, to be completely legal, I should turn around, walk to the crosswalk, and take the sidewalk on the other side of the street, but that's a pain in the butt; it's a block back the way I came from. So, I walk on the guy's yard, around the pile of junk, which is technically trespassing, but hey, it only takes a few seconds, and it's his damned fault for putting the junk there in the first place. Either way I wind up at the store. Either way I had to walk. But this way, it takes me the same amount of time it should have in the first place had that guy not tried to interfere with my right.
It's been stated several times already, but you don't seem to be catching on: the people cracking iTunes DRM already purchased the music. Congradulations, you've bought into the RIAA's line of bullshit! You're calling people who just bought music thieves.
Note that the industry, years running now, has been complaining about declining sales. Have you seen them do anything? They blame a scapegoat (piracy), and continue to do the exact same crap they have been. These idiots are going to keep doing what they're doing until the government slaps them around, or they go out of business.
Yes, I can.
But your implication is that the RIAA is actually asking what people would want to pay for music. Apparently they aren't.
These are people who make a business running artists into the ground. The cartel has effectively monopolized the music industry, shooting themselves in the foot in the process.
Think about it: what's the RIAA's big justification for the high cost of CDs and the reason they financially destroy so many artists? They claim they have to take a big risk on artists, as it's expensive to produce, tour, promote, etc.
Who said rockstars need to have their every whim catered to? Who drove the cost of music videos through the roof? Who demands artists pay $20,000/hour for some "big name" producer to hit a few buttons in Pro Tools? Who demands artists pay thousands an hour for studio time? Who created this bloated, overinflated, cookie cutter music market where it's ridiculously expensive to get exposure? Who helped create the radio station conglomerates like Clear Channel and Infinity? Who created this situation where it's prohibitively difficult for non-affiliated artists to get more than small, local exposure?
The whole point, is the industry is solely responsible for this situation they're in. They flat-out lie in press releases. They slander their own customers, and treat them like criminals. They charge too much for a lackluster service, and now we're supposed to feel sorry for them? When's the last time the industry showed any good will towards its customers?
No, the RIAA isn't listening; they're oblivious and out of touch. No one wants DRM. Yet they insist on it. We want more reasonably priced music, but they won't give that to us, either. Yet they've created an environment where it's exceedingly difficult to be exposed to music that isn't being actively pimped by them! And now we're supposed to bend over and take it in the ass while they use one law to make an end-run around another and screw us out of our rights?
[b]Fuck them and the horse they rode in on[b/].
The truly stupid thing about this is that iTunes already provides a mechanism for doing what JHymn does - burn a CD, re-rip it. Problem solved. All JHymn does is streamline the process a bit.
Yes, because pushing a button on a gamepad trains you to handle a real gun more effectively, right? Especially since games offer such realistic bullet physics, right?
I don't see this as bad at all. They're in prison for a reason. Why should the tax payers be footing the bill for this?
Really? How is it different from taking field trips to the zoo, or funding violent sports?
Parents need to sign wavers for their kids to play football; you don't see the school district being sued every time some kid breaks a bone. You don't see the school being sued over teen pregnancy because they teach anatomy or sex ed.
There's no media frenzy over video games; there's just a select group of idiots like Lieberman and Buchanon that make a big stink over it.