Most sound effects / recordings of gunshots aren't accurate representations of the sound (aka, air pressure waves) produced when a gun actually goes off. They're more of an artists' interpretation of what the human mind thinks that a gun sounds like, based on what we remember them sounding like after we've heard one.
I'm reminded of a saying about how sound engineers describe the methods used for obtaining good gun sounds:
If you want a pistol shot, use a rifle.
If you want a rifle shot, use a shotgun.
If you want a shotgun blast, use a Howitzer.
People getting scared, frightened about the most innocent things.
There is a saying I've heard many a time: HARDEN THE FUCK UP. Seriously, if people keep raising hell about such trivial matters, soon there won't be any imagination, any creativity, any fun in the world. People will be afraid to do ANYTHING due to lawsuits.
I was testing some games in Vista and noticed how I was getting a brief but noticeable freeze every minute. The freeze only lasted a split-second, but it was repeating every minute on the dot. Took some troubleshooting but eventually I tracked it to the RSS feed reader which is one of the default gadgets in the Vista sidebar. Every minute, it would perform a new grab of news data, but for some reason this caused a 100% CPU spike. I had to disable the damn thing. Dodgy programming if a news aggregator loads the CPU while it's getting more news.
Vista can use XP drivers drivers though, but I guess this could work less than optimal.
I haven't tested it myself, but news from the guinea-pig grapevine suggests that you can force the NVIDIA XP drivers to install and run in Vista, and have equal performance to XP, better than the current official Vista drivers. The only downside is that Vista will disable Aero until you go back to using proper Vista drivers. If Aero is not important enough, then go ahead with using XP drivers in Vista.
Take the original Deus Ex. You were suppose to play a bad ass nanotech-enhanced agent with superior skills and superhuman capabilities, and yet from the moment you start your skills with firearms is barely above that of a drunken sailor. Doing various actions and solving objectives would give you the XP points to increase those skills, but it didn't fit common sense. Plus, despite being attached to a supposedly well-funded organization such as UNATCO, you were still dolled out minuscule amounts of ammo or weapons, with the occasional augmentation canister. Now don't get me wrong, I loved Deus Ex, I think it's one of the finest games ever made, but it's true that you did start off as a bit of a loser agent despite the years of training you're supposed to have had.
The sequel DID try to get around this somewhat. You did have improved firearms and combat skills and even with the "realistic" difficult you could absorb a lot more damage. You were strong initially, even before you got any bio-canisters to provide new functionality. The problem with this is it made the game boring, and it made the evolution of your character boring too. It'd certainly be a design challenge to make a game where your character was tough to begin with, and yet still be challenging and interesting.
I suppose it would be funny to see the Moon or Mars get sucked into nothingness after a catastrophic black hole test. Would be even funnier if one made a "sluuuuuup!" noise as one watched it suck up on itself.
Then the Cyberdemons would invade. Doom had black holes on Mars didn't they? My memory is fuzzy.
FWIW, I bought the game when it was re-released on Steam and strongly disagree with your sentiment that it sucks (and a lot of people agree with my view). It was too different to sell well, and because of opinions like yours we're doomed to bland, cloned games, because no-one will have the guts to try something different.
Of course, but spreading FUD doesn't help the cause. I doubt people like having advocacy shouted into their ears every time they read a Windows article either.
There are no comments about the Aero UI being a problem, because it's NOT. You may have noticed that when a fullscreen game is run, the desktop switches to the basic UI (2D) just before entering fullscreen. The reverse happens when quitting or alt-tabbing to the desktop. I don't know what happens when running windowed, but fullscreen definitely does not have issues with the 3D desktop running in the background because it's doesn't.
I think this will be my last comment about Vista for a while. People just don't seem to think MS might have actually done something smart for a change.
People are so desperate to bash Vista that they'll take any ol' piece of information and twirl it around to create something entirely different. It's ridiculous. Why can't they just let people whatever OS they want in peace?
Well then be grateful to us early-adopters then. We'll be the ones who'll weed out the bugs and suffer the initial problems so that you can have a superior experience later.
Plus, we're geeks. Investigating new tech/software is what we're suppose to do.
Funny this is I actually read this as 'rectum scan', and for some reason this didn't seem at all peculiar as a new authentication method from Microsoft. I need more sleep.
What I really want is for games to run on Kubuntu.
That's what I want too (or more specifically, games for all Linux distros).
Problem though, is that what I and others want is different to what we will get. In other words, holding out for more game on Linux will probably result in disappointment, at least in terms of what the PC/consoles have available. I know that X3: Reunion is in the process of being ported to Linux, which is nice, but if you're OK with some smaller/older games, I'd say give it up and move entirely to Linux knowing this fact. It will avoid disappointment and irrational hope.
Vista is actually not that bad though, and the DRM isn't as invading as the FUD would lead you to believe (shit, I use Steam every day so I'm aware of working with DRM). Having said that, forcing someone to use Vista for a game this soon after Vista's release is fucked up.
Eh, for what it's worth, I was actually reading a few TNG scripts I stumbled across and figured I'd try a little Trek joke. This is one of the few sites I could get away with doing such things.:)
Article's pretty good. It's definitely true that performance will be (slightly?) under what you'd experience in XP. It's up to you whether you wish to pay money for an operating system that, for now, actually provides less performance than XP.
BTW, clicking on the "Print" link in the Options under the first page will show all pages as one. Useful if you don't want to click next all the time.
Australins haven't had 3,000 people murdered by terrorists on their own soil yet. Maybe you should go to Bali and see Australian paranoia first hand. I've lived there off and on since 2000 and the fear is there. Trust me.
That's what I'm worried about. The moment we suffer an attack (and it will happen), our laws will go to shit quicker than you can say "Perspective!".
Slashdot Mirror
If you want a pistol shot, use a rifle.
If you want a rifle shot, use a shotgun.
If you want a shotgun blast, use a Howitzer.
People getting scared, frightened about the most innocent things.
There is a saying I've heard many a time: HARDEN THE FUCK UP. Seriously, if people keep raising hell about such trivial matters, soon there won't be any imagination, any creativity, any fun in the world. People will be afraid to do ANYTHING due to lawsuits.
It will be a truly dull place to live in.
"Your aircraft is attempting to crash into the sea, Confirm or Deny?"
Oh shi...
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/sol utions/en/winvista?c=us&cs=&l=en&s=dhs
Heck, even Dell says 512MB is enough for a Vista "Capable" system!
Umm... just ignore that "Great for..." bit in the table. It's still *capable* damnit!
I do agree the sidebar needs an improvement.
I was testing some games in Vista and noticed how I was getting a brief but noticeable freeze every minute. The freeze only lasted a split-second, but it was repeating every minute on the dot. Took some troubleshooting but eventually I tracked it to the RSS feed reader which is one of the default gadgets in the Vista sidebar. Every minute, it would perform a new grab of news data, but for some reason this caused a 100% CPU spike. I had to disable the damn thing. Dodgy programming if a news aggregator loads the CPU while it's getting more news.
... does the WIFE run Linux?
From article post to first comment - Godwin's Law invoked in 3 minutes. Is that a record here?
Take the original Deus Ex. You were suppose to play a bad ass nanotech-enhanced agent with superior skills and superhuman capabilities, and yet from the moment you start your skills with firearms is barely above that of a drunken sailor. Doing various actions and solving objectives would give you the XP points to increase those skills, but it didn't fit common sense. Plus, despite being attached to a supposedly well-funded organization such as UNATCO, you were still dolled out minuscule amounts of ammo or weapons, with the occasional augmentation canister. Now don't get me wrong, I loved Deus Ex, I think it's one of the finest games ever made, but it's true that you did start off as a bit of a loser agent despite the years of training you're supposed to have had.
The sequel DID try to get around this somewhat. You did have improved firearms and combat skills and even with the "realistic" difficult you could absorb a lot more damage. You were strong initially, even before you got any bio-canisters to provide new functionality. The problem with this is it made the game boring, and it made the evolution of your character boring too. It'd certainly be a design challenge to make a game where your character was tough to begin with, and yet still be challenging and interesting.
No matter. You'll just end up with a satellite full of "I Luv Linux!" and ponies on the side.
I suppose it would be funny to see the Moon or Mars get sucked into nothingness after a catastrophic black hole test. Would be even funnier if one made a "sluuuuuup!" noise as one watched it suck up on itself.
Then the Cyberdemons would invade. Doom had black holes on Mars didn't they? My memory is fuzzy.
FWIW, I bought the game when it was re-released on Steam and strongly disagree with your sentiment that it sucks (and a lot of people agree with my view). It was too different to sell well, and because of opinions like yours we're doomed to bland, cloned games, because no-one will have the guts to try something different.
Of course, but spreading FUD doesn't help the cause. I doubt people like having advocacy shouted into their ears every time they read a Windows article either.
There are no comments about the Aero UI being a problem, because it's NOT. You may have noticed that when a fullscreen game is run, the desktop switches to the basic UI (2D) just before entering fullscreen. The reverse happens when quitting or alt-tabbing to the desktop. I don't know what happens when running windowed, but fullscreen definitely does not have issues with the 3D desktop running in the background because it's doesn't.
I think this will be my last comment about Vista for a while. People just don't seem to think MS might have actually done something smart for a change.
Stop using facts damnit! :)
People are so desperate to bash Vista that they'll take any ol' piece of information and twirl it around to create something entirely different. It's ridiculous. Why can't they just let people whatever OS they want in peace?
Well then be grateful to us early-adopters then. We'll be the ones who'll weed out the bugs and suffer the initial problems so that you can have a superior experience later.
Plus, we're geeks. Investigating new tech/software is what we're suppose to do.
...the next probes/rovers are going to require prescription glasses.
Funny this is I actually read this as 'rectum scan', and for some reason this didn't seem at all peculiar as a new authentication method from Microsoft. I need more sleep.
Speed of Light = 299 792 458 metres / second
Speed of Sound = 340.29 metres / second
Speed of Valve = 1-2 games / decade
Problem though, is that what I and others want is different to what we will get. In other words, holding out for more game on Linux will probably result in disappointment, at least in terms of what the PC/consoles have available. I know that X3: Reunion is in the process of being ported to Linux, which is nice, but if you're OK with some smaller/older games, I'd say give it up and move entirely to Linux knowing this fact. It will avoid disappointment and irrational hope.
Vista is actually not that bad though, and the DRM isn't as invading as the FUD would lead you to believe (shit, I use Steam every day so I'm aware of working with DRM). Having said that, forcing someone to use Vista for a game this soon after Vista's release is fucked up.
Ah, true, but I don't think anyone takes that to heart. At least I haven't met anyone who's frightened into paranoia after those ads.
Eh, for what it's worth, I was actually reading a few TNG scripts I stumbled across and figured I'd try a little Trek joke. This is one of the few sites I could get away with doing such things. :)
o n4/tng-403.txt
http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/nextgeneration/seas
Article's pretty good. It's definitely true that performance will be (slightly?) under what you'd experience in XP. It's up to you whether you wish to pay money for an operating system that, for now, actually provides less performance than XP.
BTW, clicking on the "Print" link in the Options under the first page will show all pages as one. Useful if you don't want to click next all the time.