News for nerds, or at least information for nerds.
If there are new TCO stories everyday, then they are more than free to post it here. It's a closed story posting system, with the only available control being the submission system for general users.
If you don't want to read them, then just skip them. It's the only choice you have.
For some reason, nobody asked for a Windows benchmark. That is strange because everybody else I showed this to asked me about this. The reason is the same as for DragonflyBSD: I don't have more space on my hard disk. But please, run the benchmarks yourself and send me the graphs!"
"Q4 Why did he use FreeBSD 5 at all and not FreeBSD 4.8?
Because I read that they did many exciting scalability improvements in FreeBSD 5, and that's what this is about, after all....
For some reason, nobody asked for a Windows benchmark. That is strange because everybody else I showed this to asked me about this. The reason is the same as for DragonflyBSD: I don't have more space on my hard disk. But please, run the benchmarks yourself and send me the graphs!"
They tend to be less dicky about things. Granted, in recent years, the one I use has started to have to charge for things like usinc non-Credit Union ATMs. This is because the other banks will charge the Credit Union per transaction.
It's amazing how much is wrong with the report on a once over. Where's the listing for MegaMan Soccer, MegaMan Extreme series, MegaMan Network Transmission(!)?
How could they get MM1's pause trick wrong? It worked on every single weapon because the collision detection code would rerun every pause/unpause cycle, not just on the elecman gun (it was just really easy to use on elecman due to the larger beam size).
The report seems like a rough draft, not a comprehensive guide.
Tetra's Attackers and Pacman Vs. both work via GCN/GBA link cables, not GBA player. The GBA is the controller because it's linked to the cube; it boots via the link port. Unless you're actually say that you have 5 GameCubes, 4 GBA players, and 4 link cables all setup with 5 Tvs (1 GCN for the Pacman/Tetra + 1 GCN+GBA player for each controller port, etc)..
As for Triton Labs wireless link device, I've yet to see or hear anything on it beyond hot air. Nintendo has working demo hardware, even if they do require games to be aware of them. Considering that you have to compensate for potential lag, interference, and disconnects while trying to keep the GBAs in sync, I doubt the Triton solution (if they produce it) will give as consistent a performance as the Nintendo adapter.
That it's a software GBA emulator + an adapter that lets the emulator read the GBA game via the memory card slot converter. Naturally, all GBA games would work as normal since it's emulating the GBA via the GCN hardware.
Unfortunately, as some others have pointed out, it doesn't have link features, the ability to use GBA player rumble features (on GBA player aware games), or the ability to play GB and GBC games (since they would require an emulator for different hardware).
A neat solution, but for the price difference, I'd rather have the first party solution. It uses real a GBA motherboard inside, plus more:)
Those genuises at CBS will stop broadcasting HDTV, for which there are few recorders, and stay only broadcasting normal TV signals, for which everyone and their dog has recorderss for in a bid to force legislation away of recording boxes.
"I'm going to drive my gas prices lower in order to stop people from filling up their tanks so much."
Maybe if CBS would think about no longer broadcasting non-HDTV, this would mean something.
"There is, however, one thing that Microsoft will not allow Office for the Mac to achieve; and that is performance parity. To add to this, much of the codebase of Office v.X is left over from the good ol' days of MacOS 9 - reflected in the fact that Office is still a Carbon app. So, although Office on the Mac is extremely widely used, it's of dubious use as a means of comparing performance between processors. "
Comparing the performance of Office is a non-dubious means of comparing the end-user experience. As the test shows, if you are using Office on the Mac on your G5, you just won't be getting the same performance you could be on the x86 side. If that's not to your liking, you have to swap to a different office application.
It's not really apples to oranges, it's more how the user will feel about it. As you've pointed out, the user won't feel as happy with the performance of the G5 because MS has been dragging its heels with Office. That's not a fault of the benchmark...
We're not talking about a 5$ porn mag or a 10$ package of cigarrettes. We're talking about $30-$80 of video game. Now, maybe the laws are slightly different in the US, but in Canada, most places don't let people work a wage job legally until 16. So if you're under 16, and you walk into a video game store to buy Grand Theft Auto, where did you get that money from?
That's right! The same people who should have educated that person (and possibly be supervising that person) on what is appropriate to buy. The manager of a local video game store once said to me that if a 5 year old walks in with 80$ to buy GTA: Vice City, he has no problem selling it to the kid because there's no where else that child would've gotten the money. Video game stores are not baby sitters. If the parent is with the kid, the will remind them that the title's M-rated, but they're not going to brow beat them or take away their right to raise their children any way they want to.
Which is what this really is about. You can raise your child any way you want to, it just so happens that most people expect that they won't have to raise their children because they can use video games as babysitting tools; thus they give them money and send them off to the video game store without supervision. Whose fault is that? Not the video game store!
But C# is Java++ essentially. IT does everything Java does, and improves on a few key components. The GUI libraries that C# can access via.NET are very polished towards OO design, as well. Working with the VS.Net layout and signals connecting in C# is so easy, you'd swear you weren't doing GUI development.
I want that kind of setup for my Linux desktop. I can get close to it via various design environments I can install, but never quite there. I'm hoping Mono + a good shell will let me do great GUI design on Linux. I want to be able to have my apps look seamless with KDE or Gnome, since Java's own Swing doesn't offer this (and nothing else is guaranteed to be on the target).
Have you developed in C#? Then you won't know what you're missing. It's like trying to explain to people who haven't done Eiffel programming the benefits of design by contract, there's no basis for understanding without a whole lot of writing and examples. Just go work through a C# book and do some GUI design with it, then you'll know.
But considering the weight MS is throwing behind.NET, and my own personal experiences developing Java and C# commercially, I would be more inclined to use Mono over anything else.
Plus, Mono will let Gnome move to a better base language support. Have you compared Gnome 2.2 to KDE 3.1 lately? It's obvious which system is more mature, thanks to a better OO base:)
Perhaps you haven't looked at games recently. Let's do a comparison.
What looks better, a game that uses bump mapping, or a game that doesn't? A game that does, of course, because proper use of bump mapping gives the illusion that a model (such as terrain or a character) has many more thousands of polygons of detail with a simple extra bitmap.
Now, what games for the GameCube use bump mapping? Nyo-ho! Now we see that most of the games for the GameCube do not use this feature, thus not taking it to the limit.
Until games targetted at the GameCube (and, by extension, the Xbox) use all the advanced features like surround sound, bump mapping, and higher-resolution video output, you can't say that every develop takes the console to its limits.
Repeat after me, "I own a Nintendo GameCube -- NOT a Playstation 2 -- I desire 4 player support, bump mapping, prologic 2 encoded audio, online broadband and system link features, and GBA connectivity support."
Repeat after me, "I own a Microsoft Xbox -- NOT a Playstation 2 -- I desire relevant content downloads on Xbox Live, 4 player support, really good positional audio for my 5.1 surround sound setup, 720p mode with widescreen support, good system link features and Live online play, real caching of disc access via the HDD, a truly persistent in-game world because of amazing amount of save space available, in game soundtrack support."
Most developers develop for the PS2 -- which means support for memory cards, rumble in the controller, and little else; they do not include in their visual engine things like bump mapping or the interesting pixel shaders that the GeForce in the Xbox, they do not include support for positional audio beyond stereo, they generally do not even bother to extend 2 player support to 4 player support (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, anyone?). In some cases, they can even not bother to totally port the work over, leading to bizarre slowdown (MSG2: Substance on Xbox on tanker level and other areas!). GBA connectivity beyond EA's silly "unlock a level" stuff is rare beyond Nintendo's own titles.
There is so much more to a game than wether or not it slows down, it's not funny.
It's not about the domination of net via.NET, it's about a true, open source virtual machine project with a proper, OO language to go with it. Java is not open source, but Mono is. And Mono happens to be a superset of the Java functionality.
That fact that it lets you take Windows code and run it faster, better, more securely -- that's just icing.
To think that this is supporting Microsoft is to think that Samba supports Microsoft just because it implements protocols that Microsoft uses.
Add up incidence of misconfiguration, cleaning up viruses and trojans (etc), cost of additional security hardware and software, replacement hardware for the broken components (lower quality generally in white-box PCs), and general down time due to the OS. The price difference really does add up.
Windows is only cheaper if your time is a 0 cost item. If your time is valuable, you will use an operating system that will not have you spending time on the phone to tech support, or setting up a whole suite of software to deal with OS shortcomings.
You obviously didn't rent it to see how it was before it came out. Why'd you skip over the free bonus preorder stuff, and give yourself the additional aggrevation of trying to find a copy of the game?
Preordering is buying the game before it comes out, so you won't not get a copy. Especially after how Gabe couldn't get a bunch of games he wanted (because he didn't preorder), I'm still surprised how people won't preorder games they want.
Why not just recommend Apple computers and be done with it? Microsoft's been so kind as to kill IE on the Macintosh, and Safari rocks your socks just as hard as Mozilla does....
Except it's called an Xbox, and we call the Xbox system link parties. My Xbox, with its cool portable case, lets me have DVDs, music, and video games anywhere I want to plop it down. Granted, it doesn't have a portable LCD screen, but there are always more TVs at the system link parties.
Plus, system link is finally not a joke on the Xbox because MS chose to use ethernet for it instead of some proprietary connector/cable setup.
Considering that the majority of the changes is easytype were monster strengths, and considering that the "original" was merely longer than easytype because it took longer to level up before the boss fights, rather than require actual strategy..
Most of the gameplay in the Final Fantasy series can be summed up as, "if you're enjoying it, you can play more." You can spend more time leveling up, more time playing with items and spells, more time talking to people in towns. Your reward for doing all this is more game time, easier encounters (because you keep leveling up), etc. Essentially it's a matter of you having the time to beat the game and sit through it, rather than you beating it using strategy.
I'd argue that the easytype changes in the FF translation was just trimming off pointless gameplay, not making it easier:)
If you're going to be a nitpicker about names, you might as well get it right and remember things like the secret programmers room where you could get the book of porn which was taken out for the North American and European releases.
Remember, kids -- if you're an obsessive/complusive nerd who corrects people on Slashdot about the name to a game which we were clear on, at least get your facts straight.
Slashdot Mirror
News for nerds, or at least information for nerds.
If there are new TCO stories everyday, then they are more than free to post it here. It's a closed story posting system, with the only available control being the submission system for general users.
If you don't want to read them, then just skip them. It's the only choice you have.
Read the fucking article:
"Q1 Did he disable debugging in FreeBSD 5?
Yes."
For some reason, nobody asked for a Windows benchmark. That is strange because everybody else I showed this to asked me about this. The reason is the same as for DragonflyBSD: I don't have more space on my hard disk. But please, run the benchmarks yourself and send me the graphs!"
Read the fucking article:
...
"Q4 Why did he use FreeBSD 5 at all and not FreeBSD 4.8?
Because I read that they did many exciting scalability improvements in FreeBSD 5, and that's what this is about, after all.
For some reason, nobody asked for a Windows benchmark. That is strange because everybody else I showed this to asked me about this. The reason is the same as for DragonflyBSD: I don't have more space on my hard disk. But please, run the benchmarks yourself and send me the graphs!"
They've laid it out with a max of 3 or 4 games per page, with the big names left out of the main index. This makes it harder to skim :-/
They tend to be less dicky about things. Granted, in recent years, the one I use has started to have to charge for things like usinc non-Credit Union ATMs. This is because the other banks will charge the Credit Union per transaction.
The CIBC Visa site won't let me use Mozilla, even though my BMO Mastercard and Credit Union have no problem with it.
It's amazing how much is wrong with the report on a once over. Where's the listing for MegaMan Soccer, MegaMan Extreme series, MegaMan Network Transmission(!)?
How could they get MM1's pause trick wrong? It worked on every single weapon because the collision detection code would rerun every pause/unpause cycle, not just on the elecman gun (it was just really easy to use on elecman due to the larger beam size).
The report seems like a rough draft, not a comprehensive guide.
Tetra's Attackers and Pacman Vs. both work via GCN/GBA link cables, not GBA player. The GBA is the controller because it's linked to the cube; it boots via the link port. Unless you're actually say that you have 5 GameCubes, 4 GBA players, and 4 link cables all setup with 5 Tvs (1 GCN for the Pacman/Tetra + 1 GCN+GBA player for each controller port, etc)..
As for Triton Labs wireless link device, I've yet to see or hear anything on it beyond hot air. Nintendo has working demo hardware, even if they do require games to be aware of them. Considering that you have to compensate for potential lag, interference, and disconnects while trying to keep the GBAs in sync, I doubt the Triton solution (if they produce it) will give as consistent a performance as the Nintendo adapter.
That it's a software GBA emulator + an adapter that lets the emulator read the GBA game via the memory card slot converter. Naturally, all GBA games would work as normal since it's emulating the GBA via the GCN hardware.
:)
Unfortunately, as some others have pointed out, it doesn't have link features, the ability to use GBA player rumble features (on GBA player aware games), or the ability to play GB and GBC games (since they would require an emulator for different hardware).
A neat solution, but for the price difference, I'd rather have the first party solution. It uses real a GBA motherboard inside, plus more
Those genuises at CBS will stop broadcasting HDTV, for which there are few recorders, and stay only broadcasting normal TV signals, for which everyone and their dog has recorderss for in a bid to force legislation away of recording boxes.
"I'm going to drive my gas prices lower in order to stop people from filling up their tanks so much."
Maybe if CBS would think about no longer broadcasting non-HDTV, this would mean something.
"There is, however, one thing that Microsoft will not allow Office for the Mac to achieve; and that is performance parity. To add to this, much of the codebase of Office v.X is left over from the good ol' days of MacOS 9 - reflected in the fact that Office is still a Carbon app. So, although Office on the Mac is extremely widely used, it's of dubious use as a means of comparing performance between processors. "
Comparing the performance of Office is a non-dubious means of comparing the end-user experience. As the test shows, if you are using Office on the Mac on your G5, you just won't be getting the same performance you could be on the x86 side. If that's not to your liking, you have to swap to a different office application.
It's not really apples to oranges, it's more how the user will feel about it. As you've pointed out, the user won't feel as happy with the performance of the G5 because MS has been dragging its heels with Office. That's not a fault of the benchmark...
We're not talking about a 5$ porn mag or a 10$ package of cigarrettes. We're talking about $30-$80 of video game. Now, maybe the laws are slightly different in the US, but in Canada, most places don't let people work a wage job legally until 16. So if you're under 16, and you walk into a video game store to buy Grand Theft Auto, where did you get that money from?
That's right! The same people who should have educated that person (and possibly be supervising that person) on what is appropriate to buy. The manager of a local video game store once said to me that if a 5 year old walks in with 80$ to buy GTA: Vice City, he has no problem selling it to the kid because there's no where else that child would've gotten the money. Video game stores are not baby sitters. If the parent is with the kid, the will remind them that the title's M-rated, but they're not going to brow beat them or take away their right to raise their children any way they want to.
Which is what this really is about. You can raise your child any way you want to, it just so happens that most people expect that they won't have to raise their children because they can use video games as babysitting tools; thus they give them money and send them off to the video game store without supervision. Whose fault is that? Not the video game store!
But C# is Java++ essentially. IT does everything Java does, and improves on a few key components. The GUI libraries that C# can access via .NET are very polished towards OO design, as well. Working with the VS.Net layout and signals connecting in C# is so easy, you'd swear you weren't doing GUI development.
I want that kind of setup for my Linux desktop. I can get close to it via various design environments I can install, but never quite there. I'm hoping Mono + a good shell will let me do great GUI design on Linux. I want to be able to have my apps look seamless with KDE or Gnome, since Java's own Swing doesn't offer this (and nothing else is guaranteed to be on the target).
Have you developed in C#? Then you won't know what you're missing. It's like trying to explain to people who haven't done Eiffel programming the benefits of design by contract, there's no basis for understanding without a whole lot of writing and examples. Just go work through a C# book and do some GUI design with it, then you'll know.
But considering the weight MS is throwing behind .NET, and my own personal experiences developing Java and C# commercially, I would be more inclined to use Mono over anything else.
:)
Plus, Mono will let Gnome move to a better base language support. Have you compared Gnome 2.2 to KDE 3.1 lately? It's obvious which system is more mature, thanks to a better OO base
Perhaps you haven't looked at games recently. Let's do a comparison.
What looks better, a game that uses bump mapping, or a game that doesn't? A game that does, of course, because proper use of bump mapping gives the illusion that a model (such as terrain or a character) has many more thousands of polygons of detail with a simple extra bitmap.
Now, what games for the GameCube use bump mapping? Nyo-ho! Now we see that most of the games for the GameCube do not use this feature, thus not taking it to the limit.
Until games targetted at the GameCube (and, by extension, the Xbox) use all the advanced features like surround sound, bump mapping, and higher-resolution video output, you can't say that every develop takes the console to its limits.
Repeat after me, "I own a Nintendo GameCube -- NOT a Playstation 2 -- I desire 4 player support, bump mapping, prologic 2 encoded audio, online broadband and system link features, and GBA connectivity support."
Repeat after me, "I own a Microsoft Xbox -- NOT a Playstation 2 -- I desire relevant content downloads on Xbox Live, 4 player support, really good positional audio for my 5.1 surround sound setup, 720p mode with widescreen support, good system link features and Live online play, real caching of disc access via the HDD, a truly persistent in-game world because of amazing amount of save space available, in game soundtrack support."
Most developers develop for the PS2 -- which means support for memory cards, rumble in the controller, and little else; they do not include in their visual engine things like bump mapping or the interesting pixel shaders that the GeForce in the Xbox, they do not include support for positional audio beyond stereo, they generally do not even bother to extend 2 player support to 4 player support (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, anyone?). In some cases, they can even not bother to totally port the work over, leading to bizarre slowdown (MSG2: Substance on Xbox on tanker level and other areas!). GBA connectivity beyond EA's silly "unlock a level" stuff is rare beyond Nintendo's own titles.
There is so much more to a game than wether or not it slows down, it's not funny.
It's not about the domination of net via .NET, it's about a true, open source virtual machine project with a proper, OO language to go with it. Java is not open source, but Mono is. And Mono happens to be a superset of the Java functionality.
That fact that it lets you take Windows code and run it faster, better, more securely -- that's just icing.
To think that this is supporting Microsoft is to think that Samba supports Microsoft just because it implements protocols that Microsoft uses.
No, wait, that's not ture at all!
Add up incidence of misconfiguration, cleaning up viruses and trojans (etc), cost of additional security hardware and software, replacement hardware for the broken components (lower quality generally in white-box PCs), and general down time due to the OS. The price difference really does add up.
Windows is only cheaper if your time is a 0 cost item. If your time is valuable, you will use an operating system that will not have you spending time on the phone to tech support, or setting up a whole suite of software to deal with OS shortcomings.
You obviously didn't rent it to see how it was before it came out. Why'd you skip over the free bonus preorder stuff, and give yourself the additional aggrevation of trying to find a copy of the game?
Preordering is buying the game before it comes out, so you won't not get a copy. Especially after how Gabe couldn't get a bunch of games he wanted (because he didn't preorder), I'm still surprised how people won't preorder games they want.
Why not just recommend Apple computers and be done with it? Microsoft's been so kind as to kill IE on the Macintosh, and Safari rocks your socks just as hard as Mozilla does....
Except it's called an Xbox, and we call the Xbox system link parties. My Xbox, with its cool portable case, lets me have DVDs, music, and video games anywhere I want to plop it down. Granted, it doesn't have a portable LCD screen, but there are always more TVs at the system link parties.
Plus, system link is finally not a joke on the Xbox because MS chose to use ethernet for it instead of some proprietary connector/cable setup.
Some businesses have insurance to cover that stuff, but they tend to fire people who make mistakes like that.
By not walking off with all the extra free stuff, you are giving someone their job back.
I had that job once. Playing GameBoy would've been noticable, but playing the /. game wasn't ;)
Considering that the majority of the changes is easytype were monster strengths, and considering that the "original" was merely longer than easytype because it took longer to level up before the boss fights, rather than require actual strategy..
:)
Most of the gameplay in the Final Fantasy series can be summed up as, "if you're enjoying it, you can play more." You can spend more time leveling up, more time playing with items and spells, more time talking to people in towns. Your reward for doing all this is more game time, easier encounters (because you keep leveling up), etc. Essentially it's a matter of you having the time to beat the game and sit through it, rather than you beating it using strategy.
I'd argue that the easytype changes in the FF translation was just trimming off pointless gameplay, not making it easier
If you're going to be a nitpicker about names, you might as well get it right and remember things like the secret programmers room where you could get the book of porn which was taken out for the North American and European releases.
Remember, kids -- if you're an obsessive/complusive nerd who corrects people on Slashdot about the name to a game which we were clear on, at least get your facts straight.