A lot of gaming houses are moving away from PC as their primary platform for single player games as a direct consequence of piracy on the PC. Yes, there is pirated stuff for consoles as well but apparently not enough to hurt sales as much. And yes, PC versions of games are still going to be available. The thing is that the games are going to be designed first and foremost for consoles and more casual(read braindead) type of gaming.
In case you happen to use Linux, there are a couple of solutions:
If using KDE, the ARTS soundserver comes with a stereo compressor. Just turn it on with artscontrol: use the environment tool to add an effect rack and then add the compressor there.
If KDE is not an option, there's also the jack daemon. jack-rack can be used to plug LADSPA effects into the signal path.
Of course, the playback software you're using needs to be aware of the sound daemons. XMMS has output plugins for both arts and jack, and all the KDE apps should support arts. Others, YMMV.
It's all about the features that the desktop/wm can offer. Every feature needs processing power and memory. If something like ratpoison is all you need, by all means go for it.
Talking about KDE, indeed it is more bloated than the win distros, but it also offers more. Probably much more than any newbie user can or is willing to learn.
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http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html
A lot of gaming houses are moving away from PC as their primary platform for single player games as a direct consequence of piracy on the PC. Yes, there is pirated stuff for consoles as well but apparently not enough to hurt sales as much. And yes, PC versions of games are still going to be available. The thing is that the games are going to be designed first and foremost for consoles and more casual(read braindead) type of gaming.
In case you happen to use Linux, there are a couple of solutions:
If using KDE, the ARTS soundserver comes with a stereo compressor. Just turn it on with artscontrol: use the environment tool to add an effect rack and then add the compressor there.
If KDE is not an option, there's also the jack daemon. jack-rack can be used to plug LADSPA effects into the signal path. Of course, the playback software you're using needs to be aware of the sound daemons. XMMS has output plugins for both arts and jack, and all the KDE apps should support arts. Others, YMMV.
It's all about the features that the desktop/wm can offer. Every feature needs processing power and memory. If something like ratpoison is all you need, by all means go for it. Talking about KDE, indeed it is more bloated than the win distros, but it also offers more. Probably much more than any newbie user can or is willing to learn.