I suspect that the improvements to DirectX performance will ultimately put it on par with OpenGL, since both APIs will now be capable of talking directly to the hardware without passing through kernel tomfoolery first... And when OpenGL gains the capabilities exposed in DirectX 10, it will (once again) be a non-issue, particularly after the OpenGL SDK is released.
I'm waiting to see on the rest, but Vista's DRM infestation doesn't exactly make me hungry to try it all out.
If I were in the mood (and financial position) to dash out and purchase a new system right now, I'd consider both offerings carefully but probably still go with AMD. The difference between the performance offered by a new AM2 and an Intel Core Duo would still not make that big a difference given that I'm upgrading from a midrange Athlon XP. More to the point, a certain amount of consumer loyalty isn't fanboyism. AMD's treated me very well since the original Athlons came out, and I have no intention of turning my back on that - particularly since a growing body of evidence suggests that their platform is more forward-thinking and less prone to regurgitation of the same product with minor tweaks, more cores, and mounds of expensive cache being thrown at an inefficient design just to make it performance-competitive.
Time will tell, but Intel hasn't done anything to persuade me yet; after living through the last seven years seeing AMD upstage the Pentium III with the Athlon, the Pentium 4 with the Athlon XP, and the Prescotts with the Athlon64, you'll understand my skepticism if I don't immediately believe that the Core 2 Duo is manifestly superior in every way, and always will be, forever and ever, amen.
My point is that Symantec, McAfee, and various and sundry others can't make the argument that they're being locked out of the MacOS space because they were barely in it to begin with. A specious, shrill argument could be made on their behalf in the Microsoft-owned space because Microsoft has historically been so bad at security that any substantial long-term improvement by the company represents a very real threat to their presently thriving business model. More to the point, such an improvement will make their products seem less like beneficent caretakers and more like resource-hungry, inefficient parasites. To say that this development is overdue is a massive understatement; this niche in the marketplace should have been largely wiped out with the advent of Windows XP, if not Win2000 before it.
They're trying, but most of the mud they try to kick up doesn't stick because Mac OS X was designed as a much more forward-thinking system than Windows. At least as importantly, it also isn't saddled with hideous mounds of backwards compatibility issues, which also contribute tremendously to the chinks in Windows' armor. Security on Mac OS has generally been superior to what's existed on Windows/DOS for at least the last fifteen years; the cottage industry providing security for Microsoft's products didn't take hold on the Mac side in the same way because it generally wasn't needed.
As someone who has worked with vertebrate fossils in the field before, it is generally far better to take a specimen and slice it in two for easier transport than it is to attempt to transport one ungainly specimen at far greater expense. In addition to getting a nice cross-section of the bone for study, you also avoid the very real possibility of pulverizing the bone in an accident. Remember this: cut fossils can always be glued back together, but grinded or crushed fossils are pretty much screwed.
I didn't mod you, and even if I had the points I wouldn't have downgraded your post. It simply didn't have any readily verifiable characteristics I'd normally associate with a joke, so I assumed it was serious and tried to call you on it. No hard feelings.
Slackware's always been designed with maximum stability and reliability in mind. Patrick thinks that 2.4 is still the safer bet, so he's gone with it as a default. The option to install with a new 2.6 kernel is also available, for those who'd prefer something a touch more modern.
Way to go, grandparent. Was it just not possible to read the article, internalize it, and present your own opinions instead of ripping off the printed page?
Hey, you can learn a lot from petrified turds. They're a treasure trove of paleoecological and paleogeographic information, and there's always the chance that you'll find evidence of parasites or microbes inside 'em.
Calling Vista a coprolite might actually be too generous...
I'm a fan of Wordperfect 5.1 myself. You've got a few options.
You can get WP 5.1 to run properly on 98SE, but when the CPU running Wordperfect gets past ~1 GHz the app starts misbehaving in subtle ways that are hard to reproduce. You can underclock your CPU, or use ATSlow or a comparable app to reduce your CPU speed to something the program can handle. Driver support could be tricky, especially when it comes to modern printers.
It can be convinced to work on newer incarnations of NT as well (worked fine in NT 4.0, as best I recall), but it's a good deal more work and a good deal of the functionality's unlikely to work properly.
For the best overall experience, either keep a tiny DOS virtual machine around to run the word processor, or consider purchasing one of the newer versions of Wordperfect for Windows. I know that version 12 came with a workalike mode that was fully macro-compatible with WP 5.1 and looked remarkably like it, too. Newer versions almost certainly have the same capabilities.
Whatever you end up doing, I wish you luck.
Speaking realistically, drsmithy's even further off the mark than you pointed out. OS X is pretty obviously an extension of many of the technical principles and innovations first developed for NeXTStep, which started in the late '80s and therefore predates the genesis of Win32 by several years. Factor in that much of the BSD foundation upon which NeXTStep relied had existed for years before that, and he should feel embarassed.
While it may wipe that demographic out, who's to say that other hardware generally considered useable won't take its place? I'm not especially looking forward to the day that a mid-range Athlon XP with 512 MB RAM and a Geforce3 is dissed as being marginal for the purposes of running an operating system.
Catacombs 3D was one of the first First Person Shooters as we currently know them. Its engine was designed by id Software, and the game was published (and mostly developed) by Softdisk. The engine was reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D's, though it ran in EGA mode, featured Adlib and PC speaker sound support, and was quite playable on a 12 MHz 286 with 640k of RAM. For more information, consult the Wikipedia page.
Oh, it's a lovely idea. But XGI's shifty and deceptive hijinks pretty much bork the idea of a complete switchover, and nice as VIA's integrated hardware is, it doesn't hold a candle to any reasonably modern solution by the two main graphics card companies.
Now I fully support VIA's decision here. It's been a sticking point for lots of people, and is very much The Right Thing(tm) to do. XGI, on the other hand, is still pulling the same crap SiS and Trident were so infamous for. Whee.
Dildos aren't entirely banned, but you can't refer to their actual purpose. Hence the horrified and amused expressions on visitors' faces when they walk into sex shops here and find "novelty cake toppers" being sold. There are raids, but they're very uncommon...
That's not a particularly good thing; I like surprises, and can't believe that there aren't films worthy of inclusion which exist closer to the periphery of film. I'm thinking of Videodrome in particular.
In the time that I've perused Slashdot's gaming section, I've never once heard anyone even mention the possibility of paying for an X11 server. Everything I've seen and read leads me to believe that it's a worthwhile investment, especially for ATI cards. The drivers are stable, fast, and perform well both in 2D and 3D. Can someone furnish an answer to this?
Normally I'd agree, but this honestly seems to give hope to people running equipment that's older. That being said, your quip about an upcoming bargain hunter's windfall is right on the mark. *grins*
...that I have with this review is its continued emphasis on 3DMark 2003. I thought it had been established a long time ago that the benchmark was skewed strictly toward the companies which funded its development, and that abundant evidence existed to suggest that it was deliberately designed to perform poorly on competitors' hardware. Being dismissive isn't something I really enjoy, but seeing everyone forget about a well-publicized debacle and go along with the flow is a little sad......but in any case, I'm damned happy to see S3 coming back. If the S4s are inexpensive enough I'll pick one up for my Thunderbird 1.3 to grind a little more life out of it. The multimedia functionality's appealing, the drivers seem to be "with-it," and it's an alternative to ATI and Nvidia's offerings that doesn't trip over its own incompetence. What's not to like?
Last time I checked Xi Graphics' 3D Accelerated X had excellent support for most of the Radeons. If you're willing to pony up a little cash, it's well worth looking into.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect that the improvements to DirectX performance will ultimately put it on par with OpenGL, since both APIs will now be capable of talking directly to the hardware without passing through kernel tomfoolery first... And when OpenGL gains the capabilities exposed in DirectX 10, it will (once again) be a non-issue, particularly after the OpenGL SDK is released. I'm waiting to see on the rest, but Vista's DRM infestation doesn't exactly make me hungry to try it all out.
If I were in the mood (and financial position) to dash out and purchase a new system right now, I'd consider both offerings carefully but probably still go with AMD. The difference between the performance offered by a new AM2 and an Intel Core Duo would still not make that big a difference given that I'm upgrading from a midrange Athlon XP. More to the point, a certain amount of consumer loyalty isn't fanboyism. AMD's treated me very well since the original Athlons came out, and I have no intention of turning my back on that - particularly since a growing body of evidence suggests that their platform is more forward-thinking and less prone to regurgitation of the same product with minor tweaks, more cores, and mounds of expensive cache being thrown at an inefficient design just to make it performance-competitive. Time will tell, but Intel hasn't done anything to persuade me yet; after living through the last seven years seeing AMD upstage the Pentium III with the Athlon, the Pentium 4 with the Athlon XP, and the Prescotts with the Athlon64, you'll understand my skepticism if I don't immediately believe that the Core 2 Duo is manifestly superior in every way, and always will be, forever and ever, amen.
My point is that Symantec, McAfee, and various and sundry others can't make the argument that they're being locked out of the MacOS space because they were barely in it to begin with. A specious, shrill argument could be made on their behalf in the Microsoft-owned space because Microsoft has historically been so bad at security that any substantial long-term improvement by the company represents a very real threat to their presently thriving business model. More to the point, such an improvement will make their products seem less like beneficent caretakers and more like resource-hungry, inefficient parasites. To say that this development is overdue is a massive understatement; this niche in the marketplace should have been largely wiped out with the advent of Windows XP, if not Win2000 before it.
They're trying, but most of the mud they try to kick up doesn't stick because Mac OS X was designed as a much more forward-thinking system than Windows. At least as importantly, it also isn't saddled with hideous mounds of backwards compatibility issues, which also contribute tremendously to the chinks in Windows' armor. Security on Mac OS has generally been superior to what's existed on Windows/DOS for at least the last fifteen years; the cottage industry providing security for Microsoft's products didn't take hold on the Mac side in the same way because it generally wasn't needed.
As someone who has worked with vertebrate fossils in the field before, it is generally far better to take a specimen and slice it in two for easier transport than it is to attempt to transport one ungainly specimen at far greater expense. In addition to getting a nice cross-section of the bone for study, you also avoid the very real possibility of pulverizing the bone in an accident. Remember this: cut fossils can always be glued back together, but grinded or crushed fossils are pretty much screwed.
I didn't mod you, and even if I had the points I wouldn't have downgraded your post. It simply didn't have any readily verifiable characteristics I'd normally associate with a joke, so I assumed it was serious and tried to call you on it. No hard feelings.
Oh, don't be a penis. If it doesn't interest you, move on. No need to troll up the thread.
Slackware's always been designed with maximum stability and reliability in mind. Patrick thinks that 2.4 is still the safer bet, so he's gone with it as a default. The option to install with a new 2.6 kernel is also available, for those who'd prefer something a touch more modern.
Way to go, grandparent. Was it just not possible to read the article, internalize it, and present your own opinions instead of ripping off the printed page?
Hey, you can learn a lot from petrified turds. They're a treasure trove of paleoecological and paleogeographic information, and there's always the chance that you'll find evidence of parasites or microbes inside 'em. Calling Vista a coprolite might actually be too generous...
I'm a fan of Wordperfect 5.1 myself. You've got a few options. You can get WP 5.1 to run properly on 98SE, but when the CPU running Wordperfect gets past ~1 GHz the app starts misbehaving in subtle ways that are hard to reproduce. You can underclock your CPU, or use ATSlow or a comparable app to reduce your CPU speed to something the program can handle. Driver support could be tricky, especially when it comes to modern printers. It can be convinced to work on newer incarnations of NT as well (worked fine in NT 4.0, as best I recall), but it's a good deal more work and a good deal of the functionality's unlikely to work properly. For the best overall experience, either keep a tiny DOS virtual machine around to run the word processor, or consider purchasing one of the newer versions of Wordperfect for Windows. I know that version 12 came with a workalike mode that was fully macro-compatible with WP 5.1 and looked remarkably like it, too. Newer versions almost certainly have the same capabilities. Whatever you end up doing, I wish you luck.
Did it hurt?
Speaking realistically, drsmithy's even further off the mark than you pointed out. OS X is pretty obviously an extension of many of the technical principles and innovations first developed for NeXTStep, which started in the late '80s and therefore predates the genesis of Win32 by several years. Factor in that much of the BSD foundation upon which NeXTStep relied had existed for years before that, and he should feel embarassed.
While it may wipe that demographic out, who's to say that other hardware generally considered useable won't take its place? I'm not especially looking forward to the day that a mid-range Athlon XP with 512 MB RAM and a Geforce3 is dissed as being marginal for the purposes of running an operating system.
Catacombs 3D was one of the first First Person Shooters as we currently know them. Its engine was designed by id Software, and the game was published (and mostly developed) by Softdisk. The engine was reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D's, though it ran in EGA mode, featured Adlib and PC speaker sound support, and was quite playable on a 12 MHz 286 with 640k of RAM. For more information, consult the Wikipedia page.
Oh, it's a lovely idea. But XGI's shifty and deceptive hijinks pretty much bork the idea of a complete switchover, and nice as VIA's integrated hardware is, it doesn't hold a candle to any reasonably modern solution by the two main graphics card companies. Now I fully support VIA's decision here. It's been a sticking point for lots of people, and is very much The Right Thing(tm) to do. XGI, on the other hand, is still pulling the same crap SiS and Trident were so infamous for. Whee.
You may want to know that Matrox just released new Linux drivers for the first time in many months. Head over to their page.
Dildos aren't entirely banned, but you can't refer to their actual purpose. Hence the horrified and amused expressions on visitors' faces when they walk into sex shops here and find "novelty cake toppers" being sold. There are raids, but they're very uncommon...
And let the eagle soar!
56 seconds? But I want it now!
That's not a particularly good thing; I like surprises, and can't believe that there aren't films worthy of inclusion which exist closer to the periphery of film. I'm thinking of Videodrome in particular.
In the time that I've perused Slashdot's gaming section, I've never once heard anyone even mention the possibility of paying for an X11 server. Everything I've seen and read leads me to believe that it's a worthwhile investment, especially for ATI cards. The drivers are stable, fast, and perform well both in 2D and 3D. Can someone furnish an answer to this?
Normally I'd agree, but this honestly seems to give hope to people running equipment that's older. That being said, your quip about an upcoming bargain hunter's windfall is right on the mark. *grins*
...that I have with this review is its continued emphasis on 3DMark 2003. I thought it had been established a long time ago that the benchmark was skewed strictly toward the companies which funded its development, and that abundant evidence existed to suggest that it was deliberately designed to perform poorly on competitors' hardware. Being dismissive isn't something I really enjoy, but seeing everyone forget about a well-publicized debacle and go along with the flow is a little sad... ...but in any case, I'm damned happy to see S3 coming back. If the S4s are inexpensive enough I'll pick one up for my Thunderbird 1.3 to grind a little more life out of it. The multimedia functionality's appealing, the drivers seem to be "with-it," and it's an alternative to ATI and Nvidia's offerings that doesn't trip over its own incompetence. What's not to like?
Last time I checked Xi Graphics' 3D Accelerated X had excellent support for most of the Radeons. If you're willing to pony up a little cash, it's well worth looking into.