You are right, but they pay LESS than what they normally would have had to. Independant developers normally have a limited budget to begin with and sometimes have developers working under little or no pay until the game gets published. If development is cancelled then they aren't forced to pay for dev kits for all their developers (which can cost $10,000-$30,000 per unit). If they publish the game then yes it will cost them in licensing fees and royalties to Microsoft but they stand to make some money at the same time.
I had to say it because I honestly don't know their intentions. I agree that they historically have not been interested in consumer rights nor consumer costs. However, their goal in this case, IMO, appears to be to increase sales by reducing piracy as a result of reducing consumer costs. As a result, even though it wasn't their intention, such a move could benefit both the consumer and the music industry.
Finally, there is something I agree with the RIAA on (assuming their intentions are to reduce costs to the consumer). Publishers, and to a certain extent artists (mainstream) tend to over charge for their IP which partially results in higher CD costs and this results in extensive piracy. Not only that, the over inflated royalties are charged to movie companies developing their soundtracks which pass on those extra costs to the consumer resulting in over priced movie tickets/rentals/dvds which further drives piracy.
Piracy can never be fully eliminated but if you charge a price that the public is willing to pay, then they are significantly less likely to resort to piracy. Reducing royalties paid to publishers and artists, I suppose is one way to achieve this.
However, the RIAA acknowledging of this could just be a publicity stunt to show that they are trying to adapt to piracy when in fact they are only interested in screwing over the smaller independent artists to benefit the larger record companies. It could be that reduced royalties do not result in lower CD/digital music costs in which case I don't believe reducing royalties is useful.
The PS3 does not even have all advantages than you mention.
Final fantasy is out for the Xbox360 and there is an HD-DVD player out for the 360 as well. According to this link, HD-DVD has more titles, higher sales, and better titles than Blu-Ray titles but its still too early to tell which of the two formats, if either, will dominate.
Those laws only apply to felony CONVICTIONS. Moron. 3 felonies, you're out.
In many states the definition of felony varies. In California specifically, petty theft is often considered a felony. Check your facts before calling me a moron, moron!
Here is another link which shows how rediculous this law is. From the page you'll see people getting life sentences for stealing a spare tire, stealing some CDs or stealing a slice of pizza.
If you think China is overly harsh, maybe the west should look at itself to see exactly how harsh it is. Ever hear of three strikes legislation? It's all the rage in California, Texas, Washington and many other US states. The gist is you do three crimes then you get put in jail for 25 years to life.
Many people get thrown in jail for 25 years for stealing a slice of pizza or some chocolate chip cookies. The chinese justice system may be overly harsh but so is the criminal justice system in many US states.
This was in California right? The same California where they have a 3 strikes law? The same California where you can get multiple strikes in the same incident?
I sincerly hope the cop gets at least 2 strikes against himself for this incident(one for aggravated assault with a weapon one for abuse of police power). That way, even if he doesn't get dismissed from the force, he'll be a hell of a lot more careful the next time he tries something like that.
Of course this is assuming cops are held accountable for their actions in this society, so its unlikely to pan out that way. (By the way, i don't agree with 3 strikes legislation but if it is applied it should be applied to everyone including cops).
I am an on-site vendor who visits the MS campus quite frequently and interacts with employees on a regular basis (at least with some of the Vista groups). From what I have seen, it's nothing like what you are talking about.
Everybody has their own office(or shares it with one person) but there are NO cubicles and often times it's full of high tech gear (large plasma tvs, gaming consoles, laptops, high end desktops, electronic whiteboards) and nice furniture (leather couches, massage chairs, etc). I acknowledge that some do work overtime during crunch time but many companies put their employees in similar situations and often treat their employees significantly worse (Electronic Arts or just about any gaming company for example).
The psychotic work environment there rots their brain and gives them skills (dodge chair! dodge!) that don't apply at other companies, while ruining any general computer skills they may once have had.
I am sorry, but you must be full of shit to say something like that. Regardless of what you may have heard from the MS haters, there are plenty of talented people who work at Microsoft and love their job. PLENTY of others have left Microsoft and done amazing things with their lives, many of which have later returned. For example, Gabe Newell left Microsoft and created VALVE. Are you trying to say that Microsoft gave him skills that don't apply to other companies? Or that he has no general computer skills?? Give me a fucking break. In case you haven't noticed Microsoft's product line is more diverse than any other software company's and requires skills from EVERY FACET OF COMPUTER SCIENCE.
Sounds like what you're saying is FUD and straight up bullshit! Most software and hardware companies use Microsoft products as their OS's, their dev tools, their databases, etc. To say they wouldn't benefit from having Microsoft employees on hand is nonsense. FYI, a well known fact that many companies, especially Google, actively seek out Microsoft employees. The chair throwing incident you refer to was in response to Google hiring off a Microsoft employee for a ton of cash. I have talked to others who have received random phone calls from Google soliciting them for interviews. Obviously, they see some value in Microsoft employees.
Thats fine, except that the intel version of OSX only supports a limited amount of PC hardware. OSX does not have drivers for motherboard chipsets on which apple does not currently bundle their OS with. If they released it now, it's likely they'd get a whole lot of pissed off customers, especially ones running AMD systems where it would likely crash during setup. To develop their OS to work on the vast amount of hardware that is out there, or convince IHV's to develop drivers, would cost Apple a hell of a lot of money and force them to make changes to their development cycle.
It's not just motherboard chipsets but also support for things such as sound cards, network cards, IDE controllers, etc that would need to be developed.
Don't get me wrong, OSX is a fantastic OS! But, it has a long ways to go in terms of hardware support and Windows is way ahead on that front. To catch up with Microsoft, would cost Apple a LOT of money and as a matter of fact, the OS would suffer from similar instability issues that have plagued windows for a very long time.
You don't need 8 cores for that. Just a good video card and "maybe" two cores.
My system has an AMD Athlon X2 3800, an ATI X1900XT, and I run Oblivion at 1600x1200 with ALL settings maxed out and it runs fine most of the time. I would set the resolution higher but my monitor doesn't support it.
Now all I need is something to get rid of my addiction to Oblivion.
I think that we're both trying to say the same thing (more or less). I think the way we feel it should be accomplished, we disagree on though.
The fact that those from urban areas contribute more to the economy is a side note and you are going off on a tangent when you say I want an oligarchy (which is not the case). I brought that up because you mentioned that the system was chosen because it would make the US successful which I interpreted economically successful.
Either way, everyone should be equally represented which we both seem to agree on. The way I see that would best be accomplished is to have everyone have an equal say. That means one vote from a new yorker counts as much as someone from wyoming (wyominger?). No more no less. With the current electoral college system this is not what is happening. States which represent more people than others are underrepresented (based on their population and how they assign electoral votes). This is especially evident since many states have a "one side takes all" system in which they throw all their electoral votes to one candidate regardless of how close the election was in that state.
This is exactly how Dubya got elected. Most voting americans didn't want him, but because everyone was NOT represented equally, he got elected. To me, that is an unsuccessful system.
Are you trying to argue that the system should be fair? Why should that be the goal? We want the system most likely to make America successful, not to appease someone's sense of fairness.
So what you're saying is that overrepresenting those who live in rural areas, who contribute the least to the economy and take the most from it (per capita), would make the US successful? Or maybe you're saying that having gun-toting, bible thumping rednecks have more of a vote would make the US successful?
Sorry for the stereotype, but I don't see how misrepresenting the majority will make a country successful. By the same argument, the system most likely to make the US successful would be a dictatorship, but it is certainly NOT what the intention was. As someone else mentioned, "all men are created equal" as stated by the creators of the country.
Ok, first i'd like to point out that I have nothing against open source drivers or linux advocates in general. The "linux fanboys" I am referring to are those who choose believe that JUST because ATI does not develop good linux drivers they suddenly are doomed to have poor marketshare and bad hardware. Clearly this is not how things have panned out.
Anyways, back to the topic at hand. In principle it would work nicely for the open source developers if the hardware manufacturer did release their hardware specs publically.
However, there are some problems with that:
-It costs money (engineering hours) to assemble all the necessary documentation needed to develop the drivers
-A large part of said documentation would have to be stripped anyways because it would likely contain company confidential information and/or documentation licensed from a third party. This results in higher legal and engineering costs.
-Releasing such documentation helps the competition by exposing their hardware architecture. This can obviously be very costly to the company.
-Additional costs come from them having to update their documentation regularily as changes are made.
-They'd be getting almost no financial benefit from the extra costs incurred. Open source drivers would certainly not be as fast and stable as the proprietary ones. This I understand is debatable, but remember that ATI/Nvidia have large teams of well trained engineers working full-time to develop and optimize their drivers. Also, they can easily collaborate with their hardware teams (assuming they are not part of them) and have access to ALL the proprietary hardware documentation and hardware resources (graphics cards, oscilliscopes, and other lab equipment) they need.
With these extra issues and costs associated with opening up their hardware specifications, it's no surprise that neither company does it.
I don't think a company should sacrifice their IP just to appease a small, but vocal, linux user base. Especially seeing as most gamers use windows anyways and it would give the competition that extra advantage. People just don't understand how competitive the graphics card industry is. It's probably the most competitive semiconductor industry out there, more so than the CPU business.
Wow.
3 Games for Linux!! Thats incredible!!
Seriously, thats nothing compared to whats available for windows which is in the thousands. There is not even a comparison. All the games you mention are available for windows PLUS 1000+ others. There may be more linux games everyday but there are WAY more windows ones everyday. Why? Most developers use directX or something similar.
It's not windows fanboy shit, its reality.
Nvidia may be popular amongst linux users because of their support, but in terms of the total market, it makes little difference.
Here are some facts the slashdot community vehemently refuses to admit:
-ATI and NVidia have a a pretty equal marketshare as it stands for PC Graphics. It sways back and forth but relatively equal
-In terms of performance, it sways back and forth. Until just a few WEEKS ago, ATI was the performance king with the X1900XTX running in crossfire. So whenever nvidialinux fanboys come out and say nvidia hardware is better, it pisses me off.
-In terms of drivers, I mean the drivers used by 99% of gamers (Windows XP), they both make very stable and decent drivers. WAAAAY back in the day, ATI had bad drivers, but a lot has changed since then. They have a unified driver archicture now(Catalyst) just like nvidia does and it performs very well. ATI evolved a long time ago, but the slashdot community hasn't and still thinks that ATI drivers stink. Oh and btw, because I know someone will bring it up, I don't care if nvidia has better linux drivers and I don't think most real gamers do either. So in terms of what matters most to consumers and to the company, bad linux drivers don't count against ATI's driver record.
Don't believe me? Look it up yourself. Check out tomshardware, arstechnica, or whatever. If you're lazy, check wikipedia.
So ENOUGH with the linux fanboy shit. They don't support linux for good reason, because it doesnt make good economic sense. How many games run natively on linux anyways? So exactly how many sales will that drive? How much will it cost to develop those drivers? It will certainly cost more to develop those drivers than the benefit they'll get from sales.
I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but honestly, so what if ATI's linux drivers aren't the best?
Last time I checked, most of the world does NOT use linux and most of those who do, DONT play 3D accellerated games on linux. I'm sure someone will point out that there are a few open source games available for linux. However, since they are open source, most of them, if not all, have been ported to windows.
ATI's high end PC division caters mostly to the gamer market. So how many games are there for Linux? More importantly, how much does ATI (or Nvidia for that matter) stand to gain in terms of sales by supporting linux? Almost nothing, at least in terms of those buying cards to play video games. Any respectable gamer will install an OS that has the most games AND/OR buy a console. They are unlikely to fork over $500 for a video card just so they can play 3 or 4 games on their linux box which will probably run faster and more stable on windows. Not to mention it's a hell of a lot easier to install a game under windwos than linux, but thats a seperate story.
Sure, those who use CAD software might have some benefit. But again, most of the big CAD software is made for windows (AutoCAD, Matlab, 3DSMax, MAYA, LabView to name a few). Besides, ATI has produced some high quality workstation graphics drivers since there is actually a demand from customers who use those products under linux.
I know everyone on slashdot myself included, loves Linux (or FreeBSD or whatever), but lets get real: Direct3D & OpenGL performance and image quality under windows is what counts!!! I think it's unreasonable to ask a company to invest millions of dollars into their linux drivers just to support less than 1% of the linux gamers when instead of delivering the best drivers to 99% of their customers who drive 99% of their sales in PC graphics cards.
Lastly, it's not just enthousiasts who buy AMD. Many OEM notebooks/desktops(acer ferrari, compaq/hp, lenovo), gaming machines, office workstations, and servers have AMD processors( most of whom are running Windows XP BTW). After all, they have managed to take a huge portion of Intel's marketshare causing them to have massive layoffs and spin off some of their other divisions. I don't think that most of them were running linux (although arguable a large portion of the server market might be).
I think you're assuming that software requirements will remain the same this point forward as will the tasks performed by most at their computer.
Many people who bought Pentium II, III, and now IV processors, at the time thought that their computer would be able to do everything for them.
But always, over time, software requirements changed and people's demands had changed.
Over time, software needed more RAM, more PROCESSING power, 3D acceleration, increased networking capability, DVD playback, etc. The list continues.
Right now you may be able to surf the web, play a few games, check your mail, etc. But wait until Vista comes out and Microsoft drops support for XP (as will hardware vendors at some point). Suddenly the minimum system requirements skyrocket and even the new requirements are not sufficient to perform simple tasks quickly. Wait until new games will only run under Vista and will require a DX10 video card. Not only that, in order to get a DX10 video card you might need a new mobo and CPU, one with PCIExpress or some other next generation peripheral bus. Want to play hi-def video content on your machine? You'll probably need a faster processor and/or faster video card to decode the DRMed content.
Also, this is just how things are going to effect normal home PC users. Hardcore gamers, engineers, software developers, scientists, server admins, mathemeticians, movie makers, etc, are constantly demanding more in terms of processing power and features.
People may not necessarily want to upgrade immediately after dropping $1000+ for a new computer, but most will eventually feel the need to upgrade as they always have in the past. Even Linux users who won't necessarily need to upgrade to Vista, will probably upgrade their hardware to support new software and technologies.
Good Points!
If they are going to have three strike laws for criminals (not that I neccessarily agree with such laws), why should police not be subject to similarly severe punishments? Being a police officer is not a blank cheque to avoiding punishment.
Slashdot Mirror
You are right, but they pay LESS than what they normally would have had to. Independant developers normally have a limited budget to begin with and sometimes have developers working under little or no pay until the game gets published. If development is cancelled then they aren't forced to pay for dev kits for all their developers (which can cost $10,000-$30,000 per unit). If they publish the game then yes it will cost them in licensing fees and royalties to Microsoft but they stand to make some money at the same time.
I had to say it because I honestly don't know their intentions. I agree that they historically have not been interested in consumer rights nor consumer costs. However, their goal in this case, IMO, appears to be to increase sales by reducing piracy as a result of reducing consumer costs. As a result, even though it wasn't their intention, such a move could benefit both the consumer and the music industry.
Finally, there is something I agree with the RIAA on (assuming their intentions are to reduce costs to the consumer). Publishers, and to a certain extent artists (mainstream) tend to over charge for their IP which partially results in higher CD costs and this results in extensive piracy. Not only that, the over inflated royalties are charged to movie companies developing their soundtracks which pass on those extra costs to the consumer resulting in over priced movie tickets/rentals/dvds which further drives piracy.
Piracy can never be fully eliminated but if you charge a price that the public is willing to pay, then they are significantly less likely to resort to piracy. Reducing royalties paid to publishers and artists, I suppose is one way to achieve this.
However, the RIAA acknowledging of this could just be a publicity stunt to show that they are trying to adapt to piracy when in fact they are only interested in screwing over the smaller independent artists to benefit the larger record companies. It could be that reduced royalties do not result in lower CD/digital music costs in which case I don't believe reducing royalties is useful.
The PS3 does not even have all advantages than you mention.
Final fantasy is out for the Xbox360 and there is an HD-DVD player out for the 360 as well. According to this link, HD-DVD has more titles, higher sales, and better titles than Blu-Ray titles but its still too early to tell which of the two formats, if either, will dominate.
Here is another link which shows how rediculous this law is. From the page you'll see people getting life sentences for stealing a spare tire, stealing some CDs or stealing a slice of pizza.
If you think China is overly harsh, maybe the west should look at itself to see exactly how harsh it is. Ever hear of three strikes legislation? It's all the rage in California, Texas, Washington and many other US states. The gist is you do three crimes then you get put in jail for 25 years to life.
Many people get thrown in jail for 25 years for stealing a slice of pizza or some chocolate chip cookies. The chinese justice system may be overly harsh but so is the criminal justice system in many US states.
This was in California right? The same California where they have a 3 strikes law? The same California where you can get multiple strikes in the same incident?
I sincerly hope the cop gets at least 2 strikes against himself for this incident(one for aggravated assault with a weapon one for abuse of police power). That way, even if he doesn't get dismissed from the force, he'll be a hell of a lot more careful the next time he tries something like that.
Of course this is assuming cops are held accountable for their actions in this society, so its unlikely to pan out that way. (By the way, i don't agree with 3 strikes legislation but if it is applied it should be applied to everyone including cops).
Well said (I assume of course you are being sarcastic).
I am an on-site vendor who visits the MS campus quite frequently and interacts with employees on a regular basis (at least with some of the Vista groups). From what I have seen, it's nothing like what you are talking about.
Everybody has their own office(or shares it with one person) but there are NO cubicles and often times it's full of high tech gear (large plasma tvs, gaming consoles, laptops, high end desktops, electronic whiteboards) and nice furniture (leather couches, massage chairs, etc). I acknowledge that some do work overtime during crunch time but many companies put their employees in similar situations and often treat their employees significantly worse (Electronic Arts or just about any gaming company for example).
I am sorry, but you must be full of shit to say something like that. Regardless of what you may have heard from the MS haters, there are plenty of talented people who work at Microsoft and love their job. PLENTY of others have left Microsoft and done amazing things with their lives, many of which have later returned. For example, Gabe Newell left Microsoft and created VALVE. Are you trying to say that Microsoft gave him skills that don't apply to other companies? Or that he has no general computer skills?? Give me a fucking break. In case you haven't noticed Microsoft's product line is more diverse than any other software company's and requires skills from EVERY FACET OF COMPUTER SCIENCE.
Sounds like what you're saying is FUD and straight up bullshit! Most software and hardware companies use Microsoft products as their OS's, their dev tools, their databases, etc. To say they wouldn't benefit from having Microsoft employees on hand is nonsense. FYI, a well known fact that many companies, especially Google, actively seek out Microsoft employees. The chair throwing incident you refer to was in response to Google hiring off a Microsoft employee for a ton of cash. I have talked to others who have received random phone calls from Google soliciting them for interviews. Obviously, they see some value in Microsoft employees.
Canada hasn't lost a war to the US yet either, thankfully!
In fact, in the war of 1812, not only did we win, but we torched the White house and several other US buildings including the department of treasury.
Go Canada!!
The PS3 needs to be released before an emulator can be made for it :)
2010 maybe?
Hopefully more parents will come to their senses and consider buying a Wii or a Xbox360 (or both) instead of the PS3.
Thats fine, except that the intel version of OSX only supports a limited amount of PC hardware. OSX does not have drivers for motherboard chipsets on which apple does not currently bundle their OS with. If they released it now, it's likely they'd get a whole lot of pissed off customers, especially ones running AMD systems where it would likely crash during setup. To develop their OS to work on the vast amount of hardware that is out there, or convince IHV's to develop drivers, would cost Apple a hell of a lot of money and force them to make changes to their development cycle.
It's not just motherboard chipsets but also support for things such as sound cards, network cards, IDE controllers, etc that would need to be developed.
Don't get me wrong, OSX is a fantastic OS! But, it has a long ways to go in terms of hardware support and Windows is way ahead on that front. To catch up with Microsoft, would cost Apple a LOT of money and as a matter of fact, the OS would suffer from similar instability issues that have plagued windows for a very long time.
Enough said!
And it even encorporates real battles from japanese history such as the giant crab!!
RIIIIDGE RACER!!!
Sony E3 Press Conference
You don't need 8 cores for that. Just a good video card and "maybe" two cores.
My system has an AMD Athlon X2 3800, an ATI X1900XT, and I run Oblivion at 1600x1200 with ALL settings maxed out and it runs fine most of the time. I would set the resolution higher but my monitor doesn't support it.
Now all I need is something to get rid of my addiction to Oblivion.
I think that we're both trying to say the same thing (more or less). I think the way we feel it should be accomplished, we disagree on though.
The fact that those from urban areas contribute more to the economy is a side note and you are going off on a tangent when you say I want an oligarchy (which is not the case). I brought that up because you mentioned that the system was chosen because it would make the US successful which I interpreted economically successful.
Either way, everyone should be equally represented which we both seem to agree on. The way I see that would best be accomplished is to have everyone have an equal say. That means one vote from a new yorker counts as much as someone from wyoming (wyominger?). No more no less. With the current electoral college system this is not what is happening. States which represent more people than others are underrepresented (based on their population and how they assign electoral votes). This is especially evident since many states have a "one side takes all" system in which they throw all their electoral votes to one candidate regardless of how close the election was in that state.
This is exactly how Dubya got elected. Most voting americans didn't want him, but because everyone was NOT represented equally, he got elected. To me, that is an unsuccessful system.
So what you're saying is that overrepresenting those who live in rural areas, who contribute the least to the economy and take the most from it (per capita), would make the US successful? Or maybe you're saying that having gun-toting, bible thumping rednecks have more of a vote would make the US successful?
Sorry for the stereotype, but I don't see how misrepresenting the majority will make a country successful. By the same argument, the system most likely to make the US successful would be a dictatorship, but it is certainly NOT what the intention was. As someone else mentioned, "all men are created equal" as stated by the creators of the country.
Ok, first i'd like to point out that I have nothing against open source drivers or linux advocates in general. The "linux fanboys" I am referring to are those who choose believe that JUST because ATI does not develop good linux drivers they suddenly are doomed to have poor marketshare and bad hardware. Clearly this is not how things have panned out.
Anyways, back to the topic at hand. In principle it would work nicely for the open source developers if the hardware manufacturer did release their hardware specs publically.
However, there are some problems with that:
-It costs money (engineering hours) to assemble all the necessary documentation needed to develop the drivers
-A large part of said documentation would have to be stripped anyways because it would likely contain company confidential information and/or documentation licensed from a third party. This results in higher legal and engineering costs.
-Releasing such documentation helps the competition by exposing their hardware architecture. This can obviously be very costly to the company.
-Additional costs come from them having to update their documentation regularily as changes are made.
-They'd be getting almost no financial benefit from the extra costs incurred. Open source drivers would certainly not be as fast and stable as the proprietary ones. This I understand is debatable, but remember that ATI/Nvidia have large teams of well trained engineers working full-time to develop and optimize their drivers. Also, they can easily collaborate with their hardware teams (assuming they are not part of them) and have access to ALL the proprietary hardware documentation and hardware resources (graphics cards, oscilliscopes, and other lab equipment) they need.
With these extra issues and costs associated with opening up their hardware specifications, it's no surprise that neither company does it.
Well Said!!
I don't think a company should sacrifice their IP just to appease a small, but vocal, linux user base. Especially seeing as most gamers use windows anyways and it would give the competition that extra advantage. People just don't understand how competitive the graphics card industry is. It's probably the most competitive semiconductor industry out there, more so than the CPU business.
Wow. 3 Games for Linux!! Thats incredible!! Seriously, thats nothing compared to whats available for windows which is in the thousands. There is not even a comparison. All the games you mention are available for windows PLUS 1000+ others. There may be more linux games everyday but there are WAY more windows ones everyday. Why? Most developers use directX or something similar. It's not windows fanboy shit, its reality. Nvidia may be popular amongst linux users because of their support, but in terms of the total market, it makes little difference.
Here are some facts the slashdot community vehemently refuses to admit:
-ATI and NVidia have a a pretty equal marketshare as it stands for PC Graphics. It sways back and forth but relatively equal
-In terms of performance, it sways back and forth. Until just a few WEEKS ago, ATI was the performance king with the X1900XTX running in crossfire. So whenever nvidialinux fanboys come out and say nvidia hardware is better, it pisses me off.
-In terms of drivers, I mean the drivers used by 99% of gamers (Windows XP), they both make very stable and decent drivers. WAAAAY back in the day, ATI had bad drivers, but a lot has changed since then. They have a unified driver archicture now(Catalyst) just like nvidia does and it performs very well. ATI evolved a long time ago, but the slashdot community hasn't and still thinks that ATI drivers stink. Oh and btw, because I know someone will bring it up, I don't care if nvidia has better linux drivers and I don't think most real gamers do either. So in terms of what matters most to consumers and to the company, bad linux drivers don't count against ATI's driver record.
Don't believe me? Look it up yourself. Check out tomshardware, arstechnica, or whatever. If you're lazy, check wikipedia.
So ENOUGH with the linux fanboy shit. They don't support linux for good reason, because it doesnt make good economic sense. How many games run natively on linux anyways? So exactly how many sales will that drive? How much will it cost to develop those drivers? It will certainly cost more to develop those drivers than the benefit they'll get from sales.
I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but honestly, so what if ATI's linux drivers aren't the best?
Last time I checked, most of the world does NOT use linux and most of those who do, DONT play 3D accellerated games on linux. I'm sure someone will point out that there are a few open source games available for linux. However, since they are open source, most of them, if not all, have been ported to windows.
ATI's high end PC division caters mostly to the gamer market. So how many games are there for Linux? More importantly, how much does ATI (or Nvidia for that matter) stand to gain in terms of sales by supporting linux? Almost nothing, at least in terms of those buying cards to play video games. Any respectable gamer will install an OS that has the most games AND/OR buy a console. They are unlikely to fork over $500 for a video card just so they can play 3 or 4 games on their linux box which will probably run faster and more stable on windows. Not to mention it's a hell of a lot easier to install a game under windwos than linux, but thats a seperate story.
Sure, those who use CAD software might have some benefit. But again, most of the big CAD software is made for windows (AutoCAD, Matlab, 3DSMax, MAYA, LabView to name a few). Besides, ATI has produced some high quality workstation graphics drivers since there is actually a demand from customers who use those products under linux.
I know everyone on slashdot myself included, loves Linux (or FreeBSD or whatever), but lets get real: Direct3D & OpenGL performance and image quality under windows is what counts!!! I think it's unreasonable to ask a company to invest millions of dollars into their linux drivers just to support less than 1% of the linux gamers when instead of delivering the best drivers to 99% of their customers who drive 99% of their sales in PC graphics cards.
Lastly, it's not just enthousiasts who buy AMD. Many OEM notebooks/desktops(acer ferrari, compaq/hp, lenovo), gaming machines, office workstations, and servers have AMD processors( most of whom are running Windows XP BTW). After all, they have managed to take a huge portion of Intel's marketshare causing them to have massive layoffs and spin off some of their other divisions. I don't think that most of them were running linux (although arguable a large portion of the server market might be).
I think you're assuming that software requirements will remain the same this point forward as will the tasks performed by most at their computer.
Many people who bought Pentium II, III, and now IV processors, at the time thought that their computer would be able to do everything for them.
But always, over time, software requirements changed and people's demands had changed.
Over time, software needed more RAM, more PROCESSING power, 3D acceleration, increased networking capability, DVD playback, etc. The list continues.
Right now you may be able to surf the web, play a few games, check your mail, etc. But wait until Vista comes out and Microsoft drops support for XP (as will hardware vendors at some point). Suddenly the minimum system requirements skyrocket and even the new requirements are not sufficient to perform simple tasks quickly. Wait until new games will only run under Vista and will require a DX10 video card. Not only that, in order to get a DX10 video card you might need a new mobo and CPU, one with PCIExpress or some other next generation peripheral bus. Want to play hi-def video content on your machine? You'll probably need a faster processor and/or faster video card to decode the DRMed content.
Also, this is just how things are going to effect normal home PC users. Hardcore gamers, engineers, software developers, scientists, server admins, mathemeticians, movie makers, etc, are constantly demanding more in terms of processing power and features.
People may not necessarily want to upgrade immediately after dropping $1000+ for a new computer, but most will eventually feel the need to upgrade as they always have in the past. Even Linux users who won't necessarily need to upgrade to Vista, will probably upgrade their hardware to support new software and technologies.
Good Points! If they are going to have three strike laws for criminals (not that I neccessarily agree with such laws), why should police not be subject to similarly severe punishments? Being a police officer is not a blank cheque to avoiding punishment.