This thing sucks. No HW 3D-based PC game (i.e nearly every PC game since Wing Commander) would run well/at all on such low-spec hardware so it has limited appeal. Buying a Pocket PC would be better:
Possible advatages of this over Pocket PC: * Maybe cheaper (but after buying the unlocking sim who knows?) * Controllers may be better
Advatages of Pocket PC: * More portable * Useful for stuff other than games * Anyone over 20 yrs old using a Gameboy-style device in public looks like a retard. Not so with an IPAQ-style devce.
I Especially hate games that instead of actually making the gameplay challenging use the following (encountered) cheap tactics to make the game harder:
* mouse is made unadjustably ultra-sluggish as an eye-candy 'feature' but totally prevents any fast life-saving responses in the game itself.
* AI is so dumb your player/team/enemies keep suiciding unless you mother them along constantly.
* Controls can't be mapped to anything natural or are only coded for non-standard hardware (e.g. PC version of Crazy Taxi *needs* digital gamepads). This makes the game/menu navigation an annoying test of dexterity rather than skillful game-playing.
Its finally time to build myself a new PC. I just want the most powerful Intel-driven box I can get my hands on, for heavy-duty emulation etc. I don't care about power/heat/noise issues as I am building a desktop and will sacrifice all of that for outright performance.
It sounds like the fastest new pentium M will be 2Ghz, will that REALLY compete performance-wise against the forthcoming 3.6Ghz Pentium 4?
(No AMD suggestions please. I've never found them to be as stable as Intel CPUs ).
Everyone seems to be repeating the same justifications over and over (3D graphics, signal processing, whatever), but all these things are relatively niche stuff. Anyway chances are in the real world that even if you write an app doing any of these things you'll use an exisiting library (OpenGL etc) otherwise you're just reinventing the wheel.
OK someone had to write the library but there are massively more library users than writers out there.
In my experience (25+ yrs software developer), higher maths was a complete waste of time and I haven't used any of it once. Only relevant maths I've found is boolean algebra/discrete maths.
I graduated with a BSc. (Honours) degree in CS from University of Reading, England (University started in the 1800's to be the overflow university for Oxford Uni). Reading has a very respected CS department.
I make the distinction between logic (discrete maths) and 'higher' maths being all that esoteric algebraic stuff.
I am good at logic but higher maths was never my strong point, so I took a Psychology option just to avoid the required (unnecessarily intensive) maths courses in the first year. For the rest of the degree and the rest of my (extensive) career as a software developer and consultant I have not once found anything that I missed out on because of that.
In fact rather the opposite, the Psychology has helped me with lots of AI stuff. It seems to me that the maths was thrown-in largely as an academic exercise, and because the CS dept. happened to be (in my opinion, incorrectly) grouped in the same school.
Yeah I can't beleive people actually respond to spam. Still it appears it must still be working....and it probably works out cheaper to the sender per mail than an equivalent snailmail junk mail.
I have exactly the same degree of surprise that junk mail actually works. Our mailman claims delivering junk mail is whats paying his salary.
I have a Geforce 3 (NV3 not even ultra) and it plays UT2004 pretty well at 1024*768 with average (i.e NOT all lowest) settings, although obviously in terms of sheer data to move around ( 2*800*600 ) > ( 1*1024*768 ). Suggestion: try 16 bit instead of 32 bit color. Appearance is hardly much different and it saves 50% of your GPU memory bandwidth or whatever.
There are many reviews on the net about the NV40 and they are all saying this thing is as good as it gets.
Nothing personal, but I have never heard of anyone who spent a significant amount of money on anything admit to the fact that there's a better alternative.
Wait for the new Nvidia 6800 ultra-based cards being released this month. (Nvidia 6800 is currently the fastest and "most features" 3D video chipset around). It supports 2 DVI connectors and has the processing power to make use of both with 3D. Nvidia also officially releases Linux drivers.
Even though the imminent new ATI chipset will probably have better performance than the new Nvidia chipset (as ATI try to regain the performance crown) it is still unannounced and I also wouldn't reccomend ATI as they don't release Linux drivers.
You can't REALLY believe that they need a system that allows them to uniquely identify every car just so they can alert drivers of hazards. it doesn't even add up.
Even if that was true, what is wrong with the current system? A road sign is cheaper to implement, doesn't malfunction, doesn't invade your privacy, and doesn't consume energy.
The problem is that there's no such thing as a non-corrupt government. They all put their own interests ( e.g. staying in power ) over "doing the right thing".
The sort of person that wants to become a politician is exactly the wrong type of person to be one.
How can you say driving is a priveledge not a right? Especially in the USA where the whole of society is based on the assumption that you have a car to the point where you'd be unable to live without one.
All this will do is help promote an incorrect sense of low Linux performance, additional installation complexity and low security to those evaluating Linux for the first time. There's already plenty of CD-bootable 'live' linux ISO's around that provide a much better evaluation platform.
I'm just waiting for all the skewed benchmark results because of the morons who try to do comparative benchmarks of Linux on a PC concurrently running Windows.
It will also give all those power-mad MIS people another way of forcing Windows onto linux users.
..but (idiot yourself) one country's "terrorist act" is anothers "heroic freedom fighter's liberating action". There are no absolutes here, even if people die.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah but would you want to play it at 640x480 on a 4 inch screen with no keyboard/mouse?
This thing sucks. No HW 3D-based PC game (i.e nearly every PC game since Wing Commander) would run well/at all on such low-spec hardware so it has limited appeal. Buying a Pocket PC would be better:
Possible advatages of this over Pocket PC:
* Maybe cheaper (but after buying the unlocking sim who knows?)
* Controllers may be better
Advatages of Pocket PC:
* More portable
* Useful for stuff other than games
* Anyone over 20 yrs old using a Gameboy-style device in public looks like a retard. Not so with an IPAQ-style devce.
Sims 2?
just when I thought the most boring/unintelligent game ever was finally dead...
Yeah but isn't this exactly how it starts?
This is scary. VERY scary.
I Especially hate games that instead of actually making the gameplay challenging use the following (encountered) cheap tactics to make the game harder:
* mouse is made unadjustably ultra-sluggish as an eye-candy 'feature' but totally prevents any fast life-saving responses in the game itself.
* AI is so dumb your player/team/enemies keep suiciding unless you mother them along constantly.
* Controls can't be mapped to anything natural or are only coded for non-standard hardware (e.g. PC version of Crazy Taxi *needs* digital gamepads). This makes the game/menu navigation an annoying test of dexterity rather than skillful game-playing.
Dude just use RPMs
Its finally time to build myself a new PC. I just want the most powerful Intel-driven box I can get my hands on, for heavy-duty emulation etc. I don't care about power/heat/noise issues as I am building a desktop and will sacrifice all of that for outright performance.
It sounds like the fastest new pentium M will be 2Ghz, will that REALLY compete performance-wise against the forthcoming 3.6Ghz Pentium 4?
(No AMD suggestions please. I've never found them to be as stable as Intel CPUs ).
Novell... are they still around ? :-)
Everyone seems to be repeating the same justifications over and over (3D graphics, signal processing, whatever), but all these things are relatively niche stuff. Anyway chances are in the real world that even if you write an app doing any of these things you'll use an exisiting library (OpenGL etc) otherwise you're just reinventing the wheel.
OK someone had to write the library but there are massively more library users than writers out there.
In my experience (25+ yrs software developer), higher maths was a complete waste of time and I haven't used any of it once. Only relevant maths I've found is boolean algebra/discrete maths.
I strongly don't agree.
I graduated with a BSc. (Honours) degree in CS from University of Reading, England (University started in the 1800's to be the overflow university for Oxford Uni). Reading has a very respected CS department.
I make the distinction between logic (discrete maths) and 'higher' maths being all that esoteric algebraic stuff.
I am good at logic but higher maths was never my strong point, so I took a Psychology option just to avoid the required (unnecessarily intensive) maths courses in the first year. For the rest of the degree and the rest of my (extensive) career as a software developer and consultant I have not once found anything that I missed out on because of that.
In fact rather the opposite, the Psychology has helped me with lots of AI stuff. It seems to me that the maths was thrown-in largely as an academic exercise, and because the CS dept. happened to be (in my opinion, incorrectly) grouped in the same school.
Yeah I can't beleive people actually respond to spam. Still it appears it must still be working....and it probably works out cheaper to the sender per mail than an equivalent snailmail junk mail. I have exactly the same degree of surprise that junk mail actually works. Our mailman claims delivering junk mail is whats paying his salary.
Dude NV35 is an aberration.
I have a Geforce 3 (NV3 not even ultra) and it plays UT2004 pretty well at 1024*768 with average (i.e NOT all lowest) settings, although obviously in terms of sheer data to move around ( 2*800*600 ) > ( 1*1024*768 ). Suggestion: try 16 bit instead of 32 bit color. Appearance is hardly much different and it saves 50% of your GPU memory bandwidth or whatever.
There are many reviews on the net about the NV40 and they are all saying this thing is as good as it gets.
Woah I just checked the ATI website after writing the above and it turns out that they now DO have linux drivers for download. I think this is new.
Nothing personal, but I have never heard of anyone who spent a significant amount of money on anything admit to the fact that there's a better alternative.
Wait for the new Nvidia 6800 ultra-based cards being released this month. (Nvidia 6800 is currently the fastest and "most features" 3D video chipset around). It supports 2 DVI connectors and has the processing power to make use of both with 3D. Nvidia also officially releases Linux drivers.
Even though the imminent new ATI chipset will probably have better performance than the new Nvidia chipset (as ATI try to regain the performance crown) it is still unannounced and I also wouldn't reccomend ATI as they don't release Linux drivers.
Oh WAKE UP.
You can't REALLY believe that they need a system that allows them to uniquely identify every car just so they can alert drivers of hazards. it doesn't even add up.
Even if that was true, what is wrong with the current system? A road sign is cheaper to implement, doesn't malfunction, doesn't invade your privacy, and doesn't consume energy.
The problem is that there's no such thing as a non-corrupt government. They all put their own interests ( e.g. staying in power ) over "doing the right thing".
The sort of person that wants to become a politician is exactly the wrong type of person to be one.
How can you say driving is a priveledge not a right? Especially in the USA where the whole of society is based on the assumption that you have a car to the point where you'd be unable to live without one.
This is a terrible idea.
All this will do is help promote an incorrect sense of low Linux performance, additional installation complexity and low security to those evaluating Linux for the first time. There's already plenty of CD-bootable 'live' linux ISO's around that provide a much better evaluation platform.
I'm just waiting for all the skewed benchmark results because of the morons who try to do comparative benchmarks of Linux on a PC concurrently running Windows.
It will also give all those power-mad MIS people another way of forcing Windows onto linux users.
...so I can zap those morons that pay no attention to their driving because they're on their cell phone.
dude, Windows IS a spyware app.
..but (idiot yourself) one country's "terrorist act" is anothers "heroic freedom fighter's liberating action". There are no absolutes here, even if people die.
Can anyone explian this comment? whats G&M?
Whats a 2600? isn't that an old Atari console?
You gun-crazy americans ARE the problem.
I was wondering why Bush was so keen to get to Mars.. Now its clear.
He needs a big civil budget he can hide militaty funding under.