I don't think Microsoft minds too much. Most new computers come preloaded with Windows XP, but a lot of businesses will format and install Windows 2000 on those systems. Microsoft ends up getting paid twice for each system.
I would recommend learning how to write multi-threaded programs now. The way CPUs are heading, pretty much everyone will have a dual or quad core in 3-5 years, so I think it would a wise decision to learn now rather than later.
I remember reading of all kinds of bugs in games running on dual-core processors in Windows. Something to do with the OS providing different amount of power to the two cores. Has that been sorted out, or will Valve be compensating in the game engine code?
It's mainly been sorted out. Out of all the games I own, the only one with dual core issues is Need for Speed Most Wanted.
List of my games that work fine with dual core: 1) Warcraft 3 2) UT2004 3) Need for Speed Underground 2 4) Call of Duty 2 5) Oblivion 6) Call of Juarez 7) San Andreas 8) Doom 3 9) FarCry 10) Settlers 2 - 10th Anniversary Edition (loved the original!) 11) Sid Meier's Railroads 12) Halflife 2
List of my games that don't work right (fix is to set cpu affinity manually)
ATI had the same problem with the X1800 series, it happens in the manufacturing world, especially with something as complex as a high end video card. I believe the original 7900s had issues with the voltage regulators.
IIRC, eVGA is the only manufacturer that won't void your warranty if you replace their stock cooler with an aftermarket one. Also, eVGA offers a lifetime warranty on their cards.
eVGA Warranty (As of June 22, 2005, all eVGA cards have a lifetime warranty).
Disclaimer: I don't work for eVGA, I prefer Sapphire Radeons myself =)
So if 1 video card requires 1 molex connector, and the other video card requires 4 molex connectors, that doesn't lead to the obvious assumption that the card with 4 molex connectors uses more power? Interesting..
Apparently you haven't noticed the trend lately, Nvidia drivers are getting worse, while ATI drivers are getting better (atleast on Windows). I own 3 Radeons, a 9600XT, X800 GTO2 and an X1900XT and they all work great. I've used every Catalyst version since 5.4 and they've much better. Sure, Catalyst loads slowly, but how often do you actually load the Catalyst Control Center to change driver settings? Also, if you disable the custom catalyst skin and select "system skin" (see preferences tab), it will load atleast twice as fast since it uses the current windows theme instead of loading the custom catalyst skin.
ATI is/was a "canadian" company and you could'nt buy their top end in canada... nice
Where do you live in Canada? I live in Markham, where ATI was founded, and I have no problem finding an X1900GT, X1900XT, X1900XTX or even an X1950XTX at local stores. Do you live out in the boonies?
My thoughts exactly, I have a 22" LCD with a native resolution of 1680x1050. I need a decent card to play all my games at 1680x1050 with max settings and 2xAA/8xAF. I have a X1900XT 256mb and it handles all my games just fine and it only cost me $360 Canadian after tax. If I had a 1900x1200 monitor, I'd probably need an even better video card, or I'd have to reduce the quality settings.
I doubt these will run cooler, the 7900GTX has ~290 million transistors, while the new 8800GTX will have ~700 million transistors. The 8800 will also require two PCI-E connectors or 4 molex connectors, so I think lower power consumption is out of the question. Two of these babies in SLI will require 8 molex connectors!
My 6600gt already uses a power connector, which i found scary when i bought.
I want a video card that: -Powers up from its slot instead from the power supply -Plays current generation games fine at 1024x768.
Is this too much to ask?
Yes.
Actually, the PCI-E version of the 6600GT don't use an extra power connection, only the AGP version of the 6600GTs do. The PCI-E version of the Geforce 6600GT gets all of its power from the PCI-E slot. It's an old card, but it should still be able to handle 1024x768 no problem.
This will only affect the little guy. Major OEMs (Dell and co) get less restricted copies.
I've reinstalled XP probably a dozen times over the last 3 years on my old Dell. This May, I built my own computer and bought an OEM copy of Windows XP Pro from a small retailer. I like to tweak/overclock/change hardware, to make a long story short, after reinstalling Windows XP 5 or 10 times, I now have to phone Microsoft everytime I reinstall XP, in order to activate it. My Dell copy on the other hand I can reinstall as many times as I want without any hassle.
I just use acronis now and just re-image my drive instead of re-installing windows, much faster and less hassle & downtime. Another solution that works (aslong as you don't do any major hardware changes), is to backup the following two files: c:\windows\system32\wpa.dbl and c:\windows\system32\wpa.bak. When you re-install windows, just restore these two files and you won't need to re-activate Windows.
As someone who recently reinstalled Windows I can tell you that there are over 70 critical security updates after installing a fresh copy of Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2. You'd think those 70 patches would be enough to justify a Service Pack 3.
My school uses DeepFreeze on their XP systems, and it's pretty indestructable (unless someone gets naughty with a livecd). It's a pain with antivirus though. I'm going to try to convince my school to switch to Edubuntu still, however, because there's still issues like viruses and stability, not to mention manageability. (emphasis mine)
All school computers should have boot from CD, boot from floppy, etc.. disabled in the bios and the bios should be password protected. It's just common sense.
If a game in which someone can make choices to make the game less violent and has defending other kids as a key game play element actually exists how is this a bad thing. Its Art/storytelling and a slap-dash of decent morality. Free will is important. Choices between good and evil in a game allow people to explore these choices without real world impact.
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I don't think Microsoft minds too much. Most new computers come preloaded with Windows XP, but a lot of businesses will format and install Windows 2000 on those systems. Microsoft ends up getting paid twice for each system.
Office 95? I'm still using Notepad.exe
Doing a quick google search for "RIAA contested case" turns up this link http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061015-799
Defendants 1, RIAA 0.
Maybe in the United States, but this is Singapore we're talking about.
I think it is probably a joke/prank, I mean just look at the name WiiLi.
(For those that still don't get the joke, it's a linux distribution called "Willy", that happens to run on the Wii)
Nvidia CEO in Taiwan to secure TSMC capacity for DirectX 10-compliant GeForce 8800
Looks like Nvidia is using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), atleast for their reference boards anyway.
I would recommend learning how to write multi-threaded programs now. The way CPUs are heading, pretty much everyone will have a dual or quad core in 3-5 years, so I think it would a wise decision to learn now rather than later.
It's mainly been sorted out. Out of all the games I own, the only one with dual core issues is Need for Speed Most Wanted.
List of my games that work fine with dual core:
1) Warcraft 3
2) UT2004
3) Need for Speed Underground 2
4) Call of Duty 2
5) Oblivion
6) Call of Juarez
7) San Andreas
8) Doom 3
9) FarCry
10) Settlers 2 - 10th Anniversary Edition (loved the original!)
11) Sid Meier's Railroads
12) Halflife 2
List of my games that don't work right (fix is to set cpu affinity manually)
1) Need for Speed Most Wanted
ATI had the same problem with the X1800 series, it happens in the manufacturing world, especially with something as complex as a high end video card. I believe the original 7900s had issues with the voltage regulators.
IIRC, eVGA is the only manufacturer that won't void your warranty if you replace their stock cooler with an aftermarket one. Also, eVGA offers a lifetime warranty on their cards.
eVGA Warranty (As of June 22, 2005, all eVGA cards have a lifetime warranty).
Disclaimer: I don't work for eVGA, I prefer Sapphire Radeons myself =)
So if 1 video card requires 1 molex connector, and the other video card requires 4 molex connectors, that doesn't lead to the obvious assumption that the card with 4 molex connectors uses more power? Interesting..
Apparently you haven't noticed the trend lately, Nvidia drivers are getting worse, while ATI drivers are getting better (atleast on Windows). I own 3 Radeons, a 9600XT, X800 GTO2 and an X1900XT and they all work great. I've used every Catalyst version since 5.4 and they've much better. Sure, Catalyst loads slowly, but how often do you actually load the Catalyst Control Center to change driver settings? Also, if you disable the custom catalyst skin and select "system skin" (see preferences tab), it will load atleast twice as fast since it uses the current windows theme instead of loading the custom catalyst skin.
Where do you live in Canada? I live in Markham, where ATI was founded, and I have no problem finding an X1900GT, X1900XT, X1900XTX or even an X1950XTX at local stores. Do you live out in the boonies?
My thoughts exactly, I have a 22" LCD with a native resolution of 1680x1050. I need a decent card to play all my games at 1680x1050 with max settings and 2xAA/8xAF. I have a X1900XT 256mb and it handles all my games just fine and it only cost me $360 Canadian after tax. If I had a 1900x1200 monitor, I'd probably need an even better video card, or I'd have to reduce the quality settings.
I doubt these will run cooler, the 7900GTX has ~290 million transistors, while the new 8800GTX will have ~700 million transistors. The 8800 will also require two PCI-E connectors or 4 molex connectors, so I think lower power consumption is out of the question. Two of these babies in SLI will require 8 molex connectors!
Actually, the PCI-E version of the 6600GT don't use an extra power connection, only the AGP version of the 6600GTs do. The PCI-E version of the Geforce 6600GT gets all of its power from the PCI-E slot. It's an old card, but it should still be able to handle 1024x768 no problem.
It's actually a 512 bit and a 256 bit memory bus for a total of 768.
Too bad his computer didn't actually heat the cooking oil by itself, he said he placed a heating element underneath the tray.
This will only affect the little guy. Major OEMs (Dell and co) get less restricted copies.
I've reinstalled XP probably a dozen times over the last 3 years on my old Dell. This May, I built my own computer and bought an OEM copy of Windows XP Pro from a small retailer. I like to tweak/overclock/change hardware, to make a long story short, after reinstalling Windows XP 5 or 10 times, I now have to phone Microsoft everytime I reinstall XP, in order to activate it. My Dell copy on the other hand I can reinstall as many times as I want without any hassle.
I just use acronis now and just re-image my drive instead of re-installing windows, much faster and less hassle & downtime. Another solution that works (aslong as you don't do any major hardware changes), is to backup the following two files: c:\windows\system32\wpa.dbl and c:\windows\system32\wpa.bak. When you re-install windows, just restore these two files and you won't need to re-activate Windows.
As someone who recently reinstalled Windows I can tell you that there are over 70 critical security updates after installing a fresh copy of Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2. You'd think those 70 patches would be enough to justify a Service Pack 3.
All school computers should have boot from CD, boot from floppy, etc.. disabled in the bios and the bios should be password protected. It's just common sense.
Well, people still believe the 640k Bill Gates quote, give it 20 years, I'm sure the limited flash read/write rumours will cease to exist by then....
Here's an old slashdot story, Jack Thompson Sues Florida Bar and a quick google search.
Sounds like Willy Beamish.