They are talking about it more like if you owned a building (say an old one, with crappy wiring) and want to offer a broadband type connection inside it without rewiring then you should use their technology. They really don't say that you will get this at home.
BTW, not everyone deserves a high speed connection to the internet. I think that if you really want to have high speed access then you need to move to an area where other people want the same thing. You can't expect to live in the middle of nowhere and have a high speed connection.
One thing about Blizzards games though is that they are always released with less bugs then the competition. No Blizard game that I've played (WCII, SC, Diablo, D2 ) has ever hosed my system or needed a patch to play.
Most need tweaks to prevent gameplay bugs, but this is not unsual. At least you can play the game for MANY hours without requiring a reboot or having to save every 5 steps.
Actually, D2 had some problems with my friends machine, but he had to reinstall his video drivers anyway....;) (couldn't run in 3d mode)
If you are looking for groundbreaking gameplay, then look elsewhere, Blizzard only releases tried and true gameplay that they know will sell. (One reason they cancled the Worlds of Warcraft game, those adventure style games were tanking at the time) Their games always are at least 1 or 2 years behind the tech curve, SC came out as 3d accelerators got popular, and D2 doesn't even really use any 3d features of a 3d accelerator.
Actually, sometimes I wish that game developers took Blizzards approach to development, then there would be more quality games and less patching.
Actually this is not an outlook problem at all. It doesn't even depend on outlook as it has it's own smtp engine. If you have an exploitable version of IE, then IE can be made to execute the content. Or it tries to trick the user into executing the text file included ( which is really a.pif file )
This isn't a problem if you use netscape or other non-ie code to view your mail. Pine works great, just not point and click.
I shouldn't try to be funny when making a post, it only messes things up. I was trying to make a (bad) joke about the outragous MS claim that their os supports like 50 million languages, while linux supports like 2.
Oh, and I have no experience in embedded dev, I never claimed to. I was just saying that, given that paper, and my current outlook, I would choose linux cause it seems from what they are saying that windows is very constricting.
I don't think that linux is the end all of anything. If I ever got a job in embedded dev, then I don't think that linux is always the right choice. I was just saying if I ever decided to do a hobby type project, then I'd probably use linux. Mostly cause the tools are free to cheap and I could customize it easier. Or at least that is my impression.
I own the SONY ps2 dvd remote and I can say that the remote has its ups and down.
Plus:
it improves playback via new drivers (for those that got a 1st gen ps2)
Minus:
You have to plug in a doohicky into the console for it to work.
Plus:
it also acts as a regular controler, so you can play games with it ( assuming that the game can be played without the analog sticks)
Minus:
You can't turn off the ps2 or eject the disk with the remote. (oh well, you still have to get off your butt to change the disk anyway)
Overall I'd give it a 7/10 rating. It could be a little nicer, but it's only 20 bucks at your local store, and even includes batteries.
My only real complaint with the ps2 dvd playback is that it won't play my copy of evil dead 2 or X-Men.
I've read a review of the XBOX controler and they said that it has many of the drawbacks of the ps2, you can't turn on/eject disk from remote. I don't know if you have to plug anything in though.
I really liked your post until the part about the Dreamcast being a windows Box.
That is not true. There was a version of win ce that ran for the DC. A developer had the option of using it, but it was not mandatory. In fact, most games didn't use it. And all the really great games (SC, Shenmue, etc. ) don't use it. They use their own custom kernel.
If you really read the white paper, it seems to me that the only real point that MS is making is that under linux you have a choice of what to include or use in your embedded device.
The windows solution they provide may be very good, but what if you don't want it? I mean, it sounds to me from the paper like if you use MS, then you are building an wireless internet wma/web browser/email device. They talk about how much better the web is on it and how much better the media playback is on it. Why don't they just release a device with all these features themself?
On the other hand, the linux solution they describe is not very concrete on what it can or cannot do. Seems to me like linux has options, while win XP doesn't. (except in the choice of languages aparently, you aren't contrained to java and C like in linux;) )
If I were desgining an embedded device, I would use linux, cause even though it might be 'more work' according to this report, at least I'd have a choice of what tools and features to include in my device.
The only problem is that it requires you to remember too many commands.
The average person can only remember 7 things in their short term memory. Usually less, due to the lack of exercise given to their brains. Regarless, most people cannot remember all that a cli has to offer unless they use it all day long. IMO, a gui is easier to use when you don't know anything and easier to remember.
Most people can't touchtype. They have to look at the keyboard while they are typing to do anything.
I can say that unless you turn off all of the new features, WinXP is not faster. And if you don't have more then the reccommended amount of RAM then it is not faster at all. I'm just comparing it to win2000, not win98. I do like the improved remote assistance, but it's not like you can't get that on win2k. You just can't get it out of the box.
The slowed computer thing didn't work that well for doom multiplayer cause the whole game played as fast as the slowest computer. So you were really shooting the fast computer player in the foot by doing that.
However, quake and later games have no such limitation.......
Sorry, I'm an idiot. I searched at google to prove myself wrong. I can't believe that they can get video on a disc like that. I thought that it would take WAY more room then the ld has.
The reason for the artifacts in VCD is not the type of comression, it's the level of comression. LaserDiscs also used mpeg-1 comression and they looked fine. Better then VHS in almost all cases. They just took 2 sides of a laser disk minimum!;)
I know you are trolling, but in order to use the internet I have to use IE now. I've been to multiple sites that just simply don't work when using mozilla. Thanks to MSes non-standard javascript, popups don't work and nothing is ok with the world. There's not even an error message sometimes. If I used linux all the time I'd be screwed.
How many OEMs have gone out of business because MS charged too much for their software? Now compare that to the number of OEMs that are doing just fine today.
That's what I thought.
The money should goto the schools, it should go into a big pot and schools should then have to write proposals to get at it. With preference going to schools that have less money or are disadvantaged in some way. Hopefully, this will cause schools in areas that have less money to get better teachers and equipment. MS should not be allowed to give 800 million dollars of software that it will not support in 2-4 years from now. Schools should be allowed to use that 800 million dollars (or however much) to build classrooms that will last 50 years or more. Where I went to school, half of the classrooms were the temporary kind that will fall down in the next 5 years if they are not replaced. Schools need more money, I wish that people in the US would be willing to pay more taxes for such things, but as such we are idiots for not doing so.
Why does every x-box fan say that the best feature of the thing is the ability to rip your own music?
Is that saying that
A. X-Box games have crappy music.
or
B. X-Box owners are not able to shut off the music of other games?
I agree that it's a cool feature, but you X-heads say it like it's the reason to buy one! Is PGR a good game or not? That's the question I want answered, not a debate over what boy-band is singing during the race.
All the reviews I've read of X-box games really glow too much. Almost like they were scripted. Sony did the same thing with the PS2, but a lot of negative press got in there too. For now, I think I'll just play some Phantasy Star 2 on my DC and wait too see if some really good RPGs come out. Or if they announce a non MMRPG Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star for the system.
Sega, bring back the story of Phantasy Star. It is too good to die.
You won't see many comparaisons of X-Box games because they are all crap. There is not an original game on the system yet. Halo, and Munch for all their touting as great, revolutionarity games, turned out to be just more of the same. Munch the classic 3-D platformer and Halo just another FPS.
In my opinion, the only companies that have delivered real innovation to the game industry in the last 5 years are Nintendo and Sega. A few PC developers may have thought of an idea first, but Nintendo has taken that idea and fully realized it. Just look at Zelda, it was not an original idea, the 3-d adventure game. However, the execution was flawless, taking the genre to a whole new level.
The super game boy even let you colorize your original game boy games! Something the GBA doesn't do to my knowledge.... but then I don't own any original GB games anymore.
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They are talking about it more like if you owned a building (say an old one, with crappy wiring) and want to offer a broadband type connection inside it without rewiring then you should use their technology. They really don't say that you will get this at home.
BTW, not everyone deserves a high speed connection to the internet. I think that if you really want to have high speed access then you need to move to an area where other people want the same thing. You can't expect to live in the middle of nowhere and have a high speed connection.
One thing about Blizzards games though is that they are always released with less bugs then the competition. No Blizard game that I've played (WCII, SC, Diablo, D2 ) has ever hosed my system or needed a patch to play.
;) (couldn't run in 3d mode)
Most need tweaks to prevent gameplay bugs, but this is not unsual. At least you can play the game for MANY hours without requiring a reboot or having to save every 5 steps.
Actually, D2 had some problems with my friends machine, but he had to reinstall his video drivers anyway....
If you are looking for groundbreaking gameplay, then look elsewhere, Blizzard only releases tried and true gameplay that they know will sell. (One reason they cancled the Worlds of Warcraft game, those adventure style games were tanking at the time) Their games always are at least 1 or 2 years behind the tech curve, SC came out as 3d accelerators got popular, and D2 doesn't even really use any 3d features of a 3d accelerator.
Actually, sometimes I wish that game developers took Blizzards approach to development, then there would be more quality games and less patching.
Freecell is too much for most people, which is too bad, it's my favorite game as well.
Actually this is not an outlook problem at all. It doesn't even depend on outlook as it has it's own smtp engine. If you have an exploitable version of IE, then IE can be made to execute the content. Or it tries to trick the user into executing the text file included ( which is really a .pif file )
This isn't a problem if you use netscape or other non-ie code to view your mail. Pine works great, just not point and click.
Does a multi-boot box count twice or more?
What about vmware? I could count my box for like 5 oses with vmware if I wanted to...
But how are they going to mix sex and gaming like MTV did with music?
I shouldn't try to be funny when making a post, it only messes things up. I was trying to make a (bad) joke about the outragous MS claim that their os supports like 50 million languages, while linux supports like 2.
Oh, and I have no experience in embedded dev, I never claimed to. I was just saying that, given that paper, and my current outlook, I would choose linux cause it seems from what they are saying that windows is very constricting.
I don't think that linux is the end all of anything. If I ever got a job in embedded dev, then I don't think that linux is always the right choice. I was just saying if I ever decided to do a hobby type project, then I'd probably use linux. Mostly cause the tools are free to cheap and I could customize it easier. Or at least that is my impression.
It's going to take like 5 years for the Xbox or GC to get as many games as the PS2 has right now.
Why? Because the PS2 is backwards compatable with the PSOne.
The PS2 is the ONLY console you can buy in any store that can play any of a thousand games.
I own the SONY ps2 dvd remote and I can say that the remote has its ups and down.
Plus:
it improves playback via new drivers (for those that got a 1st gen ps2)
Minus:
You have to plug in a doohicky into the console for it to work.
Plus:
it also acts as a regular controler, so you can play games with it ( assuming that the game can be played without the analog sticks)
Minus:
You can't turn off the ps2 or eject the disk with the remote. (oh well, you still have to get off your butt to change the disk anyway)
Overall I'd give it a 7/10 rating. It could be a little nicer, but it's only 20 bucks at your local store, and even includes batteries.
My only real complaint with the ps2 dvd playback is that it won't play my copy of evil dead 2 or X-Men.
I've read a review of the XBOX controler and they said that it has many of the drawbacks of the ps2, you can't turn on/eject disk from remote. I don't know if you have to plug anything in though.
I really liked your post until the part about the Dreamcast being a windows Box.
That is not true. There was a version of win ce that ran for the DC. A developer had the option of using it, but it was not mandatory. In fact, most games didn't use it. And all the really great games (SC, Shenmue, etc. ) don't use it. They use their own custom kernel.
Sorry to be so anal. I just really love consoles.
If you really read the white paper, it seems to me that the only real point that MS is making is that under linux you have a choice of what to include or use in your embedded device.
;) )
The windows solution they provide may be very good, but what if you don't want it? I mean, it sounds to me from the paper like if you use MS, then you are building an wireless internet wma/web browser/email device. They talk about how much better the web is on it and how much better the media playback is on it. Why don't they just release a device with all these features themself?
On the other hand, the linux solution they describe is not very concrete on what it can or cannot do. Seems to me like linux has options, while win XP doesn't. (except in the choice of languages aparently, you aren't contrained to java and C like in linux
If I were desgining an embedded device, I would use linux, cause even though it might be 'more work' according to this report, at least I'd have a choice of what tools and features to include in my device.
If you only care about yourself then why express your opinion? Nobody should listen to you.
You shouldn't say that everyone should use the CLI and then declare that if you can't use the CLI you are a moron.
Do you also think that computers should only be used by an elite class of superhackers?
The only problem is that it requires you to remember too many commands.
The average person can only remember 7 things in their short term memory. Usually less, due to the lack of exercise given to their brains. Regarless, most people cannot remember all that a cli has to offer unless they use it all day long. IMO, a gui is easier to use when you don't know anything and easier to remember.
Most people can't touchtype. They have to look at the keyboard while they are typing to do anything.
I can say that unless you turn off all of the new features, WinXP is not faster. And if you don't have more then the reccommended amount of RAM then it is not faster at all. I'm just comparing it to win2000, not win98. I do like the improved remote assistance, but it's not like you can't get that on win2k. You just can't get it out of the box.
The slowed computer thing didn't work that well for doom multiplayer cause the whole game played as fast as the slowest computer. So you were really shooting the fast computer player in the foot by doing that.
However, quake and later games have no such limitation.......
Sorry, I'm an idiot. I searched at google to prove myself wrong. I can't believe that they can get video on a disc like that. I thought that it would take WAY more room then the ld has.
Can a LD even hold data?
Sorry, I ment on demand pay per play. You know like divx, but without having to even get the disc, just push a button on the remote.
Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it.
Screw limited viewing, if they ever get pay per play movies on cable, that's the only way you could get this sort of limited view on your home box.
The reason for the artifacts in VCD is not the type of comression, it's the level of comression. LaserDiscs also used mpeg-1 comression and they looked fine. Better then VHS in almost all cases. They just took 2 sides of a laser disk minimum! ;)
I know you are trolling, but in order to use the internet I have to use IE now. I've been to multiple sites that just simply don't work when using mozilla. Thanks to MSes non-standard javascript, popups don't work and nothing is ok with the world. There's not even an error message sometimes. If I used linux all the time I'd be screwed.
How many OEMs have gone out of business because MS charged too much for their software? Now compare that to the number of OEMs that are doing just fine today.
That's what I thought.
The money should goto the schools, it should go into a big pot and schools should then have to write proposals to get at it. With preference going to schools that have less money or are disadvantaged in some way. Hopefully, this will cause schools in areas that have less money to get better teachers and equipment. MS should not be allowed to give 800 million dollars of software that it will not support in 2-4 years from now. Schools should be allowed to use that 800 million dollars (or however much) to build classrooms that will last 50 years or more. Where I went to school, half of the classrooms were the temporary kind that will fall down in the next 5 years if they are not replaced. Schools need more money, I wish that people in the US would be willing to pay more taxes for such things, but as such we are idiots for not doing so.
Why does every x-box fan say that the best feature of the thing is the ability to rip your own music?
Is that saying that
A. X-Box games have crappy music.
or
B. X-Box owners are not able to shut off the music of other games?
I agree that it's a cool feature, but you X-heads say it like it's the reason to buy one! Is PGR a good game or not? That's the question I want answered, not a debate over what boy-band is singing during the race.
All the reviews I've read of X-box games really glow too much. Almost like they were scripted. Sony did the same thing with the PS2, but a lot of negative press got in there too. For now, I think I'll just play some Phantasy Star 2 on my DC and wait too see if some really good RPGs come out. Or if they announce a non MMRPG Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star for the system.
Sega, bring back the story of Phantasy Star. It is too good to die.
You won't see many comparaisons of X-Box games because they are all crap. There is not an original game on the system yet. Halo, and Munch for all their touting as great, revolutionarity games, turned out to be just more of the same. Munch the classic 3-D platformer and Halo just another FPS.
In my opinion, the only companies that have delivered real innovation to the game industry in the last 5 years are Nintendo and Sega. A few PC developers may have thought of an idea first, but Nintendo has taken that idea and fully realized it. Just look at Zelda, it was not an original idea, the 3-d adventure game. However, the execution was flawless, taking the genre to a whole new level.
Something like 10m fps?
I heard that they are going to pixmap the cards in sol2.exe
The super game boy even let you colorize your original game boy games! Something the GBA doesn't do to my knowledge.... but then I don't own any original GB games anymore.